You learned in the early grades to use the article “a” before a consonant sound: a ball, a dog. You… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Uncategorized
A punctuation question
My son, a college student, asked a punctuation question that I thought might also be on others’ minds. Here is… Read more »
One criterion, two or more criteria
A reader noted this headline on the op-ed page on June 12: “‘Authentic’ wrong criteria for candidates.” It appears that… Read more »
Does this adjective work for you?
A reader objected recently to a story that used “cliche” as an adjective. Here is the paragraph: But a more… Read more »
Puzzling
The apostrophe error in this Web page is baffling. The creator uses correct plurals for “parks” and “resorts” but makes… Read more »
A couple of agreement issues
Spoiler alert: If you haven’t taken Monday’s quiz yet, you might want to skip this post. I am writing about… Read more »
Quiz!
Today’s quiz has five sentences that illustrate common pronoun problems. Give it a try! This article was originally posted by… Read more »
Today’s quiz
Today’s quiz is about word choices. It’s the usual five-question, multiple-choice format. Give it a try here or click on… Read more »
Say what?
I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out the way “trespassed” is used on this sign at… Read more »
“Fall guy” and other terms
Tuesday night, I heard Chris Matthews of MSNBC correct a lawyer he was interviewing about the Lewis “Scooter” Libby verdict…. Read more »
Take a word choice quiz
Today’s quiz is about word choice. I find myself fixing word choice problems quite often. Sometimes, the mistake is just… Read more »
Shining a light
The verb shine gives some writers trouble because it has two spellings in the past tense: shined and shone. Here… Read more »
Two words, two pasts
What do you call that beautiful domed building in the center of Raleigh? One of our writers called it “the… Read more »
He didn’t get to be ‘former’
A colleague drew my attention to this sentence from a recent story: Unlike former President John F. Kennedy, Edwards did… Read more »
Oh, those foreign phrases
If I were ever a contestant on “Jeopardy!,” you would probably never hear me say, “I’ll take ‘Foreign Words and… Read more »
Wailin’ and whalin’
Words labeled as “informal” or “colloquial” in the dictionary show up in print in our conversational age. Yesterday, I ran… Read more »
Today’s tip: The sound of history
A colleague and her friend asked about whether we should use “a” or “an” with “history” and its derivatives “historic”… Read more »
Watch the modifiers
A phrase at the beginning of a sentence often modifies the subject of the sentence. Sometimes writers confuse us by… Read more »
Questions – direct and indirect
A reader asked about these two sentences: * Analyze three situations to determine what the unacceptable behavior is and what… Read more »
Where “frag” comes from
This headline on newsobserver.com this morning sent me to my dictionary: Defense in ‘fragging’ case asks for expert help Fragging… Read more »
Pursuing my own happiness
Craig D. Lindsey’s review of “The Pursuit of Happyness” didn’t answer the one question I had about the movie: Why… Read more »
Expressive Yiddish
Sometimes we copy editors question writers’ use of foreign or slang words and phrases. That is not because we don’t… Read more »
Talking like Shakespeare
Allusions to Shakespeare abound in newspapers. The quotes are familiar to many readers, and the Bard knew how to turn… Read more »
Say it ain’t so, Jack
James Kilpatrick, in his column published in The N&O on Monday, surrenders on “everyone.” He gives up the fight against… Read more »
National Punctuation Day
Oops, I forgot National Punctuation Day. Celebrate with great apostrophes every day! This article was originally posted by the Raleigh… Read more »