Grammar and style
Unpopular opinion: There’s a time and place for passive voice
I had a professor in college who was notorious for his list of 40-something rules…
The worst jargon of 2022
It’s that time of year when I like to pause and reflect on all the…
The sturdy nail: In celebration of semicolons
Preachy blog posts, smug tweets, and groaning students all share in their disdain for the…
Dangling modifiers and the comedy of grammatical errors
Given the complexity of language, it’s impossible to score one hundred on the test. Wires…
Phrases and clauses: The keys to seamless writing
Writers and readers alike have long fixated on word choice. To paraphrase Mark Twain, we…
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…