Front page

Pam Nelson: The Grammar Guide

 

‘Grammar Quiz’ archive

Number of comments in parentheses

May 12: Check out the new Grammar Guide quiz (inspired by good usage)

I often use published mistakes for my Grammar Guide quizzes, but today I was inspired by writers and editors who got things right. All of the sentences in today’s Grammar Guide quiz (It’s No. 71) come from The New York Times. I read the national edition in print on Sunday mornings. This quiz will betray my reading interests; I turn first to the Sunday Review, the Book Review and Sunday Styles (I love the wedding reports). As usual, the quiz is more about usage and copy editing than about the mechanics of grammar. And I am somewhat prescriptivist in[.....]

March 4: A new quiz for National Grammar Day 2013

Today is National Grammar Day. My fellow grammar geeks have been busy. If you check out the Grammar Day page, you’ll see all sorts of activity and postings. I am disappointed that none of my Grammar Day haiku on Twitter achieved honorable mention in the Grammar Day haiku contest, but I enjoyed all the charming and clever entries. Fun was had by all. I am a little late with this post, but I have a new Grammar Guide quiz. This one is all about word choice, and, of course, it’s more about usage and editing than grammar. But “grammar” is large[.....]

Aug. 19, 2012: Sometimes it’s just a spelling error — Quiz No. 68

John McIntyre wrote recently in his You Don’t Say blog about whether an incorrect spelling could be considered a typo rather than a writer’s ignorance of the correct word. The example he used is principle/principal. As Mr. McIntyre wrote, sometimes the writer merely mistypes, but sometimes the mistake is the result of confusion.

June 24, 2012: Verbs and the problems they give us – Quiz No. 67

Copy editors need to keep their eyes on verbs. Readers notice when verbs don’t agree with their subjects. Yet it’s easy sometimes to get lost in a tangle of phrases on our way to the verb. Intervening phrases can lead writers to choose a singular verb when a plural verb is needed or vice versa. I noticed such a problem in a history museum exhibit today. Seeing a problem in a public sign came at just the right time, though, because I was at work on a new Grammar Guide quiz all about verbs. I have posted the quiz[.....]

May 16, 2012: Word choice quiz: More tricky sentences (1)

I’ve run across some interesting examples of confused words lately. Sometimes, even in context, these sentences can be quite challenging. I chose what I think is the better word, but some writers and editors might disagree. Give the quiz a try.  

May 8, 2012: Tricky word usage quiz: Distinctions you might know

My new job requires me to use The Economist Style Guide for some of the copy I edit. Today as I was thumbing through the book, I hit upon an entry that reminded me of the Guide’s rather persnickety usage advice. I decided to gather some examples and create a Grammar Guide quiz (No. 65) based on advice from the Style Guide. I learned many of these word choice distinctions as a newspaper copy editor and still adhere to some of them. They are good to know, if only as self-defense. As you would any usage guide, you can[.....]

Feb. 24, 2012: Grammar Guide word choice quiz – No. 63

I have a new 10-sentence multiple-choice quiz for you to try. I was reminded by something I read recently that these quizzes are actually about usage rather than grammar. In fact, most ordinary English speakers and writers need no guidance on grammar. It’s usage that we stumble on. Of course, English is what we make it, and what is common and preferred usage in one era is outdated in another. Copy editors follow current and common usage principles. With that disclaimer, here is the quiz. I hope it proves fun and useful.

Jan. 31, 2012: At last, a new Grammar Guide quiz (No. 62) (2)

After a struggle with technology, my own ignorance and that old problem time management, I have a new Grammar Guide quiz (No. 62) for you to try. It is a word choice quiz. The explanations for the answers are the same whether you get it right or wrong. The quiz uses Flash; I apologize to the iPad users who won’t be able to use it. Please leave comments here.  

Dec. 16, 2007: Was Hansbrough on the ground or the floor?

A reader takes us to task for this sentence in a sports story: With 5:47 left at Louis Brown Athletic Center, UNC’s leading scorer and rebounder was trying to take a charge when he banged his head on a cameraman’s knee under the basket, and lay flat on the ground for several moments. And farther down in the story: “I would have got up earlier,” said Hansbrough, who was on the ground when Ndiaye dunked a putback to cut UNC’s lead to 77-56, “but they told me to stay down.” The reader points out that Tyler Hansbrough was on[.....]

June 3, 2007: A hodgepodge quiz

Today’s quiz is a mix of verb choices and homonyms. All of the quiz sentences come from news or feature stories in The N&O in the past week. In one quiz question, I included the sentence before the sentence in question to give a clue about the word choice. I hope that helps. Click here or on the question mark icon to begin. UPDATE: A reader and a colleague have pointed out a different reading on the sentence in question 4 on the quiz. See what you think when you take the quiz. Unfortunately, the quiz-writing software won’t allow[.....]

May 10, 2007: The headline problem, part 2

Sunday Star’s Select Six — This headline, which I wrote, in today’s Life, etc. drew an irate phone call to Thad Ogburn, the Features editor, this morning. The reader was sure that we had made a mistake in creating a plural with an apostrophe. In fact, I meant the headline to be a possessive. The contest is called “Sunday Star,” like “American Idol.” We’re going to choose ONE best singer from a Triangle church, so it’s singular. The “Select Six” was a play on the “Elite Eight” or the “Sweet Sixteen” in the NCAA basketball tournament. That’s why I[.....]

May 6, 2007: Word choice quiz

The quiz for today is about word choice again. Some of the sentences involve the confusion of homonyms, a particular problem when you are writing and editing hundreds or thousands of words a day. Computer spellcheckers are great tools, but they don’t catch homonym typos. Click here or on the question mark icon begin the quiz. This article was originally posted by the Raleigh News & Observer, a subsidiary of The McClatchy Co.; is posted here to provide continuity; and is copyright © 2011 The News & Observer Publishing Company, which reserves the right to remove this post.

May 5, 2007: New grammar forum on the Share site

I have posted a forum on share.triangle.com for readers to post Grammar errors that irk you. You do have to register at the share site to post. You can also leave a comment here or send me e-mail. I hope to use the posted comments as fodder for the grammar blog. Click here to go to the forum. This article was originally posted by the Raleigh News & Observer, a subsidiary of The McClatchy Co.; is posted here to provide continuity; and is copyright © 2011 The News & Observer Publishing Company, which reserves the right to remove this[.....]

March 19, 2007: Wait for me

A reader wrote recently to say that he enjoys reading our newspaper, but he added that he hoped the editors “will get around to hiring someone who is sufficiently adept at American English usage to eliminate some horrendous errors.” One of the “horrendous errors” he finds in our pages is “wait on” instead of “wait for.” He and others would keep “wait on” for the sense of standing by to serve, as in a waiter or a clerk waiting on customers. I don’t think that using “wait on” instead of “wait for” qualifies as “horrendous,” but, apparently, “wait on”[.....]

Feb. 18, 2007: Reader comments

I often get e-mail messages from readers with questions or observations that aren’t posted through the comments feature. I asked one reader if I could post her comments. Here they are: Three comments:1. I constantly see “it’s” and “its” used incorrectly ALL the time, in print and on television. That nearly drives me crazy!2. Do schools teach students to diagram sentences any more? My conversations with those much younger than I indicate that diagramming sentences is a dying art that I consider a grammatical necessity.3. The other issue that jumps in my face all the time, again in print[.....]

Jan. 28, 2007: Stereotypes

What stereotypes in the news media annoy or enrage you? I attended a seminar sponsored by the Southeast chapter of the American Copy Editors Society on Sunday in Chapel Hill, and one of the liveliest discussions we had was about stereotypes: generational, racial, ethnic, political, sexual, socioeconomic. For copy editors and other journalists, it’s a matter of accuracy, clarity and fairness. Cliches figure into our choices, too. Is it accurate to label conservatives “right-wing”? Are all liberals “left-leaning”? Is it news when a woman who happens to have grandchildren is arrested on a drug charge? Does the word “elderly”[.....]

Jan. 22, 2007: The great verb shift

We Americans are fond of creating verbs from nouns. We speak of how the war “impacts” the president’s popularity, how the schools “mainstream” children and how a company can “leverage” its high bond rating. Bryan A. Garner calls this functional variation, “the ability of a word to shift from one grammatical function to another.” Garner also writes about phrasal verbs, which are noun phrases turned into verbs. We had one of those in a story (American dream leads many here) Sunday: Eric and Cristina Middleton house-hunted in the Washington area for a year before finally giving up and moving[.....]

Jan. 15, 2007: Brio!

At least one reader asked a colleague about the word brio in this headline Coble brings brio to county. The reader joked that it sounded as if Paul Coble, the Wake County commissioner who was the subject of the story, had brought some tasty soft cheese to the county. Brio (bree-oh) is Italian and means “enthusiastic vigor.” Its synonyms are zest, vivacity and verve. The story was about how enthusiastically Coble is going about his duties on the board of commissioners, so the headline certainly reflects the story. [More:] Is brio then a better word than, say, zest or[.....]

Nov. 26, 2006: Homonym troubles

A reader wrote to point out a mistake in this sentence: Most locals might know the 54-year-old Italian artist as a cake decorator who creates photo-like images with a palate knife and icing. The writer confused “palate,” which can refer to taste, and “palette,” the flat piece that artists use to hold and mix paints. A palette knife is a tool artists use in painting and mixing paints. The story was about a man who was a baker as well as an artist. Maybe that’s why the writer confused the words. The reader correctly notes that editors should have[.....]

Nov. 21, 2006: How to possess the day

A conscientious writer asks about punctuating this expression: Three nights’ accommodations or Three nights accommodations It might seem odd to have nights possess accommodations, but we do use an apostrophe in expressions of time and worth: three weeks’ vacation, my two cents’ worth. You can chalk this one up to idiom. It’s just the way we do it in English. Here are two links to help: The late Professor Charles Darling’s Guide to Grammar and Writing and Diane Sandford’s Wisdom from the Grammar Goddess. If you have grammar geek tendencies (you lovely people!), you can read a Wikipedia article[.....]

Nov. 16, 2006: Fetch me a thesaurus

A reader called today (somehow she ended up with me) to object to our writers’ use of the word fetch. She wondered why we would use such an old-fashioned word. To her, the word smacks of colloquialism. I was not really prepared to defend fetch, so I grabbed my desk dictionary, which mentioned nothing about the word being colloquial. I think the reader thought I was just another Southerner defending our honor, but the truth is that I just didn’t have a good argument for or against fetch. [More:] Here is the passage from today’s paper that apparently prompted[.....]

Nov. 14, 2006: Dis the season

Writers and editors have a love-hate relationship with holiday cliches. We rail against them and rely on them. They come back every year like a Charlie Brown TV special. Like green bean casserole. Like Santa dolls that dance to “Jingle Bell Rock.” Like markdowns at the discount store. A funny flurry of e-mail messages flew among The N&O news staff Tuesday about stories, captions and headlines that allude to “Yes, Virginia,” “’tis the season” or the “Grinch.” [More:] John McIntyre of the Baltimore Sun has written about the cliches that he and his staff excise in copy at this[.....]

Aug. 2, 2006: Watch your keystrokes

On my way to something else, I ran across this posting about 10 flagrant grammar mistakes that make you look stupid. This article was originally posted by the Raleigh News & Observer, a subsidiary of The McClatchy Co.; is posted here to provide continuity; and is copyright © 2011 The News & Observer Publishing Company, which reserves the right to remove this post.

May 25, 2006: Creating new words

“Mutancy” shows up in Craig D. Lindsey’s review today of “X-Men: The Last Stand.” A colleague wondered if we should use a word that isn’t in the dictionary. I argued that it was fine to use a made-up word, as long as it followed a legitimate form: vacant, vacancy; truant, truancy; mutant, mutancy. I even joked that Lindsey would get credit in future dictionaries for coining the word. However, it appears that “mutancy” is in the movie’s script. “Mutancy” is in almost all the reviews of this movie, too. The inciting incident in the plot is a cure that[.....]

May 21, 2006: Are you a native?

In a graphic today comparing Buffalo/Niagara Falls and the Triangle (something about a hockey match, I think), The N&O called Jack Kemp a “native” of Buffalo. I knew that he played professional football in Buffalo and later served in the U.S. House from that district, but I wondered if he had been born in Buffalo. That’s what a native is, someone who was born in a certain place. I looked up Kemp’s bio: He was born and reared in Los Angeles. The Associated Press Stylebook has an entry on “citizen, resident, subject, national and native.” I refer to it[.....]