Think back a few years and imagine you are sitting in your high school history classroom one day, just waiting for the bell to ring, and your teacher walks through the doorway and tells everyone in the classroom: “Class, put your books under your desk and take out a clean sheet of paper.”
This is another example of language we can send to the Redundancy Department of Redundancy. Yet, we do hear people say:
“We completely eliminated the problem.” Read more
This has been a crowd favorite, so to speak. So many of you have shared examples of how often you hear people say, “I have to leave for the airport at 4 a.m., in the morning.” Read more
Are you starting something or beginning something? Read more
Blame this one on my Southern accent, but as soon as you scroll down the page, say the first word you see out loud: Read more
Is it “nitch”?
Or is it “neesh”? Read more
Have you ever had the experience of talking with someone and knowing you’re about to use a word and then questioning yourself before it even comes out of your mouth? It happens in a split second, but that’s how I feel about bring and take. Read more
It’s Walmart. Read more
Following virtual training sessions on Write It So They Read It: Technical Writing for Non-Technical Employees or Proof It! How To Be a Better Proofreader, participants send me questions about grammar and writing and punctuation they encounter at work. For the next four weeks, I’m reaching inside the figurative mailbag to answer questions from readers. Please tag me with your pesky punctuation or confusing word choice question, and I’ll be sure to answer. Read more
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