Mark Nichol Thanks to widespread confusion about the correct treatment of prefixes and suffixes, syllables and words attached before or after root words, many people persist in inserting hyphens more frequently than necessary. Essentially, however, hyphens seldom belong in prefixed and suffixed words: Prefixes and root words are almost always combined without hyphens (prepaid, nonprofit, posttraumatic). Exceptions … Read more
Sentences can be short. They can also be long. This is a good thing. Lack of variety is wearying. It may drive you to distraction. It’s a good thing that sentences can be short or long, because lack of variety is wearying and may drive you to distraction. Which paragraph was easier to read? If … Read more
For some people, if a topic interests them, they are quite content to immerse themselves in extensive online articles that are otherwise indistinguishable from print content. Most Web site visitors, however, have a different set of expectations when they read on a computer screen. Nearly every medium has its own rules; here are seven tips … Read more
A team of two or more words that band together to provide detail about a person, place, or thing are called phrasal adjectives, or adjectival phrases. The name’s not important, but it is essential that you employ hyphens to link these tag teams to clarify the relationships between adjectives (and, sometimes, conjunctions) and the nouns … Read more
One of the many fascinating features of our language is how often words with pleasant associations are also quite pleasing on the tongue and even to the eye, and how many words, by contrast, acoustically and visually corroborate their disagreeable nature — look no further than the heading for this post. Enrich the poetry of … Read more
There are two types of grammar: Descriptive, which describes what is customary, and prescriptive grammar, which prescribes what should be. A tension between the two systems is inevitable — and healthy; it keeps us thinking about what we’re saying and writing. Allowing mob rule at the expense of some governing of composition is madness, but … Read more
Scrambled sentence structure can lead to humorous or at least head-shaking imagery that readers will stumble on. Be alert in your writing for infelicitous misplacement of meaning: 1. “Kangaroo babies are the size of a lima bean at birth.” But we’re not told how big a lima bean is at birth. Oh — perhaps it … Read more
Attribution is the convention in composition of identifying a speaker or writer when you include direct quotes (which should be enclosed in quotation marks) or paraphrases. An entire system of usage — a choreography, if you will — has developed around how to arrange quotations and paraphrases and their attributions. Here are the dance steps: … Read more
The sentence construction “(noun) (verb phrase) by (noun)” is known as passive voice or passive construction, because the true subject is relegated to the end of the sentence and is thus acted on, rather than acting, which often weakens the statement. The solution is simple: Give the focal point of the sentence its due — … Read more
When brief lists appear within a sentence — technically, these are called in-line lists — they’re often complicated by excessive punctuation. Here are some errors in construction of in-line lists, and their corrections, to illustrate a few simple rules: 1. “Sugarcane has been able to flourish in the Everglades thanks to the flood-control project; tariff … Read more
A would-be teacher was assigned to tutor a boy who was not just reluctant, not just resistant, but actually hostile to reading. The first day, the tutor took the boy aside and asked him to read the first sentence of a book. The boy did so, slowly, haltingly, but he reached the end without much … Read more
I strongly advise against employing billboards to teach you proper English grammar and spelling, but you can certainly use them to learn what not to do. Here are some pain-inducing billboard boo-boos: 1. “Are you in or out?” This tagline from the remake of Ocean’s Eleven won’t strike many people as erroneous, but the omission … Read more