The term usage in the context of language refers to the employment of the proper word or phrase to convey an idea. Writers often produce usage errors in one of several ways. They misuse a word with a meaning similar to that of a more appropriate term, they employ the wrong homophone—a word that sounds … Read more
Writers often have difficulty constructing sentences so that comparisons, contrasts, and lists, as well as parenthetical elements, are logically arranged. The following five sentences demonstrate various syntactical miscalculations; discussions and revisions follow each example. 1. Technology is transforming virtually every industry, changing not only how firms operate internally and engage their customers, but also challenging … Read more
The distinction between subconscious and unconscious is a subtle one. The noun subconscious refers to the mind’s activities just beneath consciousness, and the part of the mind devoted to such activities. The unconscious, by contrast, is the part of the mind that exerts a strong influence on behavior but is not noticed by one’s consciousness. … Read more
A reference to the name of a law called the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act pointed out to me how easily confusion is created in writers’ minds by varying treatment of hyphenated terms. The verb phrase jump-start, which originated in the 1970s as a slang term referring to the action of reenergizing the dead battery … Read more
All but one of the following sentences demonstrate incorrect style for suspensive hyphenation; revise the style of the number as necessary: 1. Read these tips for space and time-efficient gardening. 2. The issue touches on the tension between middle- and upper-class values. 3. You’re either over- or underwhelmed. 4. This ferry is for Norway-and-Sweden-bound passengers. … Read more
What’s the difference between a hurricane, a typhoon, and a tropical storm? The first two types of weather events are cyclones that sustain surface winds of at least 74 miles per hour—faster than virtually any highway speed limit in the United States. The term “tropical storm” refers to a degraded hurricane or typhoon. And why … Read more
This page will be updated regularly with the latest writing contests and competitions from around the web and the world! Make sure to bookmark it. If you are promoting a writing contest, or are aware of one that is not listed here, please send the details to [email protected] and we’ll include it here as soon … Read more
The following questions from readers, and the responses, pertain to how words are formatted to provide emphasis. 1. When writing business documents such as Standard Operating Procedures or Workflow processes, my understanding has always been that you capitalize titles. An example of that would be “The Project Coordinator will send the Systems Architect the following … Read more
Parenthesis is the strategy of setting a word, phrase, or clause off from a sentence to interject additional information into that statement. Despite the name, parenthesis can be accomplished with a two commas or a pair of dashes as well as with a brace of parentheses. However, several problems can occur when writers attempt to … Read more
This generation, like every one before it and every one to follow, has the dubious pleasure of seeing evolution of language in action. The changes are obvious to careful writers, as they notice with distressingly increasing frequency the erosion of a distinction between words with similar but divergent meanings (for example, anxious versus eager) or … Read more
Numerals are often used in numeronyms: in combination with other numerals and with letters to represent a word, phrase, or concept. This post loosens the definition of numeronym to also include a numeral without one or more accompanying letters and with or without other symbols. Ordinal numbers can represent something, as when we speak, for … Read more
A surprising number and array of English words derive from the Latin verb specere, meaning “look at.” Each word, and its meaning and related forms, appears below. 1. aspect: a part or quality of something, the way someone or something appears, or the direction that something faces (adjectival form: aspectual) 2. circumspect: reflective about the … Read more