If you’re presenting two alternatives, you’ll often use an “either … or” or a “neither … nor” construction. Here’s how those work: You can choose either cereal or toast for your breakfast. My friend’s car is neither green nor brown. Either is used in the affirmative sense, when you’re presenting possibilities that are both true … Read more
Why is it important to write correctly, to use standard grammar, spelling, and punctuation? Because you want people to understand you, that’s all. Why are the picky details important? If my headline had said “Write Good,” wouldn’t you understand that I meant “Write Well”? Maybe so, but it’s less distracting and easier to understand if … Read more
Is there any difference between the words “nutritional” and “nutritious”? They’re both adjectives that refer to the nutrients in a food. Nutrients covers both “macronutrients” (normally defined as carbohydrates, fats, and proteins) and “micronutrients” (vitamins and minerals). You’ll quite often see “nutritional” and “nutritious” being used interchangeably, but there is a difference. Nutritional is an … Read more
For some writers, dialogue comes naturally. They find it easy to “hear” their character’s voices and they have the knack of crafting dialogue that sounds natural without trying to replicate all the “ums” and “ers” of actual speech. For many writers, though, dialogue can be a struggle. Maybe they don’t know how to get started, … Read more
Have you got an Amazon Echo? If so, you might well have enabled a bunch of different skills to extend Alexa’s capabilities. (Skills are like apps for Alexa.) Even if you’ve not got an Echo, you can still use Alexa on your smartphone – and you can enable skills there, too – so you might … Read more