A colleague told me my last quiz was too easy. He said some of the quizzes I have done for… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Grammar
High school degree? No
Reader Bella Parola points out several problems with a small article (we call it a “factbox” in the newsroom) titled… Read more »
Word choice: adopted and adoptive
A colleague in another department pointed out this word choice to Ted Vaden, the public editor. Under the Dome [print… Read more »
Watch those series
Although this blog has “grammar” in its title, matters of usage and style concern us too. Today’s post is about… Read more »
Book review: “Comma Sense”
“Comma Sense” By Richard Lederer and John Shore (St. Martin’s Griffin) was published in 2005, but a paperback copy of… Read more »
Down the holler
Do you know what a “holler” is? Your first thought might be of a shout, but if your heart and… Read more »
Grammar quiz today!
Today’s grammar-usage-word choice quiz has five sentences that test your knowledge of subject-verb agreement, pronoun case and word choice. Click… Read more »
New words, “ginormous” edition
“Ginormous” (a combination of “giant” and “enormous”) makes it into Merriam-Webster’s, as this story reported. See the list of other… Read more »
Heavy sigh …
As I filled my car with gasoline this morning at the Wal-Mart in Clayton, I spotted this: This article was… Read more »
Going all schoolmarmy on this one
I try not to be one of those cranky pedants who insist on clinging to old rules of schoolroom grammar…. Read more »
New words
A reader objected to this headline in the Life, etc., section Thursday: A spoonful of yogurt helps the probiotics go… Read more »
Nonsense!
A letter to the editor today applies the word “hogwash” to assertions in a Barry Saunders column. “Hogwash” means exactly… Read more »
Odds and ends
Today’s quiz is made up of odds and ends, sentences I have collected in my editing and reading. One challenge… Read more »
A mighty ‘mite’
Is “might” always right? In this case, it wasn’t. As Melanie Sill, our executive editor, wrote on the Editors’ Blog… Read more »
A couple of things to say
On the Grammar errors that irk you forum, we have a small discussion about couple. (It’s on the third page… Read more »
Live for free or die
My headline is meant to be funny. A reader has taken us to task several times for using “for free.”… Read more »
Oh, the things you learn
My family and I went to the USS North Carolina Battleship Memorial this past weekend. I saw this sign. Seeing… Read more »
Lend me your ear and loan me a buck
A reader asked about our policy on using “loan” as a verb, as in this sentence from a recent report:… Read more »
Funny note about spelling
This note from a reader made me giggle this morning: Just to share my most irksome error: it’s become very… Read more »
Quiz yourself
Today’s quiz is about subject-verb agreement. Choose the correct verb form in each of the five sentences. Click here or… Read more »
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… Read more »
The headline problem
A reader wrote our managing editor about this headline in a recent Under the Dome column: Edwards waits on Secret… Read more »
What is a sea change?
At an in-house writers’ circle Thursday, one colleague brought up “sea change,” a phrase that seems overused these days. We… Read more »
Quiz: Let’s be agreeable
Today’s quiz is about subject-verb agreement. I hope the five sentences will give you a little challenge. Please feel free… Read more »
Jerry-built and jury-rigged
I ran into this construction this week: jerry-rigged. The writer meant a structure that had been improvised, but he had… Read more »