In “A Dictionary of Modern American Usage” Bryan Garner writes that the verb wake and its past and past participial… Read more »
Posts By: Pam Nelson
The verb “grieve”
A colleague asked, “Can the verb ‘grieve’ be transitive?” That is, can it take an object? I thought of the… Read more »
Believe us, it’s its
Some people who write to us at the paper are concerned that our misspellings and incorrect grammar and usage in… Read more »
Whom? Him
If you want a good way to tell whether to use “who” or “whom,” use the “him” trick. Here is… Read more »
A little giggle in the morning
Here I am at my desk, and one of the first wire service stories I call up to work on… Read more »
Cleaning up grammar
I received an e-mailed note from a reader who was very distressed about a blog on another newspaper site that… Read more »
Brush up on grammar
A couple of academic Web sites offer wonderful tools for learning or relearning grammar and punctuation. Professor Charles Darling created… Read more »
Neither world
When you use the conjunctions “neither … nor” in the subject of a sentence or clause, you should make the… Read more »
Get your pronouns right here
One rule of grammar is that pronouns must agree in number with their antecedents. A singular antecedent needs a singular… Read more »
Use or usage?
A reader asks about “use” and “usage,” having noticed both “tobacco use” and “tobacco usage” in writing. She wonders why… Read more »