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Pam Nelson: The Grammar Guide

 

Archive for August 2010

Number of comments in parentheses

22: A Grammar Guide quiz: Word choice in Sunday's paper

If you are a close and thorough reader of The N&O, you might have an advantage on the new Grammar Guide quiz. I based the quiz on Sunday's newspaper. I found five sentences that included words or terms that are sometimes confused in writing. To the credit of writers and editors, all but one of the five sentences were correct in the paper. This quiz has a code that will send me anonymous results via e-mail. I am interested again in seeing how many times the quiz is taken. Don't worry; the results will not be attached to any[.....]

11: Word choice: It's the opposite of what you mean

A sentence in an Associated Press story about the plane crash that killed former Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska stopped me this morning: Stevens became a protege to the younger O'Keefe and they remained close friends over the years. The writer probably meant that Stevens became a mentor to the younger O'Keefe. Sean O'Keefe, the former NASA administrator injured in the crash, would have been the protege in the pair. This is actually a somewhat common problem for editors to watch for: Writers use an antonym for the word they want. Another example that I have seen more than[.....]

2: Try a new quiz at the Grammar Guide

I have a new quiz for you to try. It comprises 10 sentences, about half of them have to do with word choice, a couple are about grammar and at least one is about idioms. To satisfy the purists, I should not call this a grammar quiz because it is mostly about usage and style, but "grammar" is the shorthand term I use. As always, I look for your comments, questions, criticisms and quibbles. Please leave a comment below. Click here or on the question mark icon to begin. This article was originally posted by the Raleigh News &[.....]