Fathers' Day was this past week, so I was confronted with the challenges of the plural and possessive s all over my facebook feed and the Walgreen's card section. A friend asked, "Is it s apostrophe or apostrophe s?" Well, I supposed, like so many grammar issues, that depends.
Read MoreI'm not sure if I've gotten a reputation as the instructor who likes grammar jokes, but another student kindly sent me more grammar jokes.
Read MoreA student proudly showed me these jokes last week, so excited that he had found something relevant that I might think was entertaining. They're from McSweeney's and the list by Eric Auld is called "Seven Bar Jokes Involving Grammar and Punctuation."
Read MoreWhile teaching a business writing seminar last week, I decided to start our punctuation section with a simple list:
Read MoreThe sign below is posted at a pool at a campground. Can you find at least one error?
Read MoreIt's been a long summer filled with family, friends, and travel, but very little writing. The best writing moment of the whole summer appeared in a facebook post from someone in my newsfeed:
Read MoreRecently, I've started keep track of some of the real world mistakes that I encounter. I thought I would share a few.
Read MoreIt's almost the holidays and I've been too overwhelmed with final grades (and students begging for better grades) to think of something to write. But a few years ago while at a poetry reading that was taking place in an awkward industrial space that forced the reader to stand in a corner lit primarily by the familiar white and red "Fire Escape" sign, I thought of this mini lesson on grammar.
Read MoreMiddle school used to be called grammar school. Did the name change lead to the reduced emphasis on grammar or did we stop teaching grammar and therefore change the name? Chicken? Egg?
Read MoreIntensive pronouns. I was aware that reflexive pronouns are the ones that use "self" (that's the reflexive part), but I had never heard of an intensive pronoun before. Apparently, an intensive pronoun is when a reflexive pronoun is used to emphasize the subject and his/her accomplishment, as demonstrated by the title of this post.
Read MoreToday, maybe it's the overcast sky or the numerous requests I've had recently for proofreading, but I find myself thinking about punctuation. We don't use punctuation when we talk--most of the time--and we still manage to understand each other, so in some ways punctuation may seem extraneous or cumbersome. However, when we use written communication, we don't have access to all the signals we have for spoken conversation.
Read MoreMost of us write everyday. We consider ourselves accurate and fast communicators. We send hundreds of emails to family, friends, and business acquaintances. We send text messages that use specific vocabularies, abbreviations, and emoticons. We are adept at changing our vocabulary and grammar to account for all our different audiences. However, most of us are not as careful as we ought to be, particularly when writing to people we have never met or people with whom we have business relationships.
Read MoreI know we all have spellcheck and we've read those little poems that people write explaining how spellcheck doesn't solve all your spelling mistakes. Now we even have those forwards about text messages gone wrong. People love to revel in the surprising language that emerges from some of the smallest spelling mistakes.
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