Writers and readers alike have long fixated on word choice. To paraphrase Mark Twain, we recognize that the difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between…
Grammar and style
Hemingway, Faulkner, and the fear of looking silly
People who edit for a living often end up down obscure grammatical rabbit holes, passionately…
Of word-hoards and whale-roads: The power of a well-chosen phrase
The English language is a millennium and a half in the making, with roots to…
We don’t get no respect: The scourge of misspelled names
Call me Allan. Yeah, Allan. That’s A_L_L_A_N. Not Alan. Not Allen. Not Allyn. I’ve spent…
Over the river and through the woods: A practical guide to prepositions
Memorization: the bane of many students. I was no different, and my disdain for all…
A brief history of dashes
If you’ve perused the Leff blog before, you may have picked up on the fact…
The worst jargon of 2020
In the spirit of this blog post from December 2019, I’m taking the opportunity to…
Roundup: Our most-searched grammar posts
If our search results tell us anything, it’s that people want clear guidance on how…
Commas vs semicolons vs em dashes: A magical mystery tour
Ah, punctuation. It breaks up our sentences with visual markers, structures our syntax, sets the…
How to punch up your writing
If you write or edit for a living, it’s likely you’ve been asked to make…