Jacquelyn LandisWe writers often have to contend with compound words that begin their life as two words only to eventually morph into one. “Backyard” is a good example. It originally was two words, “back yard,” used to describe the area behind a house. Sometime in the mid-1600s, it successfully made the transition to a single compound
When most of us were in school, our English teachers made a point of forbidding us to begin a sentence with “and” or “but.” It’s one of those lessons that stuck, and writers today go to extreme lengths to avoid it. Is it really forbidden, though? Or is it just a myth? Grammar experts universally
Most writers use may and might interchangeably: I may go to the library to work on my term paper. I might go to the library to work on my term paper. Is there a difference? There is, but it’s slight. May suggests a possibility that an action will occur, while might suggests a slightly smaller
Most of us were taught to place a comma before a sentence-ending “too”: We’re going shopping, out to dinner, and then to a movie, too. But is that comma really necessary? “Too” in this context means “also,” but you’re not likely to see the sentence written like this: We’re going shopping, out to dinner, and
No single part of speech gives writers more grief than the mighty verb. Think about all the elements you must take into consideration when forming verbs. They have tense, number, person, voice, and mood. Where things get especially dicey is with a verb’s mood, in particular, the subjunctive mood. Take a look at this sentence: