Blogs about: English Syntax
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Incomplete sentences? Sure! Why not?
My latest article for TheWeek.com is up, and it’s on the oft-maligned “sentence fragments”: It’s totally okay to write incomplete sentences A few readers have pointed out, as I rather thought so… more →
Sesquiotica
Incomplete sentences? Sure! Why not?
wrote 2 months ago: My latest article for TheWeek.com is up, and it’s on the oft-maligned “sentence fragments”: It … more →
One of the best poem
— 1 comment
wrote 5 months ago: Here’s another poem from Songs of Love and Grammar, which I present today to fix in mind a pro … more →
Silliness is the spice of life.
wrote 6 months ago: Today I spend five hours going over the inner workings of English syntax with my study group. It was … more →
Don’t tell me no lies
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wrote 9 months ago: For the weekend – and maybe a day or two after – I’ll fill this space with another piece from Songs … more →
preposition, position
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wrote 11 months ago: I’ll start this word tasting note with a poem from Songs of Love and Grammar (71 poems with this sen … more →
A Brief Look at English Syntax
wrote 1 year ago: Linguists judge what sounds right to determine syntactic structure. They don’t prescribe proper gram … more →
Singular or plural?
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wrote 1 year ago: The question that comes up every so often among editors has come up again: what do you do in a case … more →
Going forward, it's an adverb
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wrote 1 year ago: A colleague recently asked what part of speech going forward is when used in the annoyingly common w … more →
Presenting the future
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wrote 1 year ago: In an article in Slate that makes rather much of a little interesting observation in television news … more →
LANGUAGE OLIO 2: than
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wrote 1 year ago: “Professor Hook eventually left us in 1989, and I am a generation younger than him.” Christopher Hit … more →
Why? Because it's a complete sentence.
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wrote 1 year ago: A colleague was wondering whether, in something such as the title of this post, the b in because sho … more →
It is not I, it's me
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wrote 1 year ago: There’s an old joke: St. Peter hears a knock at the Pearly Gates. He says, “Who goes the … more →
Grammar Matters book review
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wrote 1 year ago: Grammar Matters: The social significance of how we use language Jila Ghomeshi Winnipeg: Arbeiter Rin … more →
Such cases as these
wrote 2 years ago: A colleague had been discussing the difference between such as X and such X as with some friends, an … more →
Unpacking the Grey Owl
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wrote 2 years ago: A colleague – Adrienne Montgomerie – was recently reading to her child from a story by Grey Owl when … more →
Grammar Girl is not where it's at
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wrote 2 years ago: One of the problems that I and other linguistically trained, open-minded writers run up against in b … more →
"Whom" is a foreign word
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wrote 2 years ago: Yet again I’ve been discussing with colleagues the question of where to use whom (and, more pa … more →
What would result in you sounding better?
wrote 2 years ago: A fellow editor was wondering aloud (OK, on email) about a sentence with a construction similar to t … more →
Are this sentence's needs being met?
wrote 2 years ago: A colleague just asked about a sentence similar to the following: Provided that each member of the f … more →
