Grammar Rules

Falling Toward Experimental Writing…

June 21, 2011

 
Have you ever heard someone take a word, say the adjective “central”, and turn it into a verb?  Centralizing, for example.
How do you feel about that?  Are you OK with it?  Does it bother you?
Do you feel uneasy when you find yourself ending a sentence with a preposition?  Do split infinitives bother you?
Is the Associated [...]

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A Preposition is OK to End A Sentence With

March 31, 2011

This just in. I trust you’ll enjoy it.

 
 
Scroll down.

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OMG! The “-ly” Words!

February 21, 2011

If you’ve been reading about writing for any length of time you know that it is now considered artistic suicide to use many words ending in -ly in your writing.
It isn’t really true, you know.
Oh, well, sure… if you’re righting non-fiction, or essays, or anything formal, you may want to steer clear of such things, but my [...]

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Janis Bell – Guest Speaker at Fremont Area Writers

September 27, 2010

On the monthly meeting of the Fremont Area Writers Club (a member organization of the California Writers Club) we sponsor a guest speaker in the second hour.
This month our speaker was Janis Bell.  Here is the announcement write-up from our website:  Janis will be talking about the grammar and punctuation errors that even good writers [...]

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Daily Writers Challenge: How to Use Jargon and Foreign Words

August 12, 2010

237.8
 
It was hot, and the humidity high as we carefully navigated north on the Chao Phraya river in Thailand.  In an hour or so we would tie up along the bank and disembark.  The villagers would be waiting for us, informed somehow that Nai Pi (Mr. Ghost) was coming to perform magic and to treat [...]

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Remembering Chatspeak – and Dialect

August 9, 2010

238.6

In writing, sometimes voice doesn’t mean style.
Sometimes voice actually means voice.
Today I want to look at two forms of actual voice, Chatspeak and Dialect.
For years I was up in arms about what I call chatspeak, that short, quick, and very abbreviated form of communication used in texting, sexting, and Twitter.  I believed that while the [...]

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Blogosphere: Keeping it Clean

July 28, 2010

Continued from Part Twenty-Six
New to the Series?  Start with Part One             
Blogosphere: A series
Part Twenty-Seven:  Grammar Royalty and Spelling Knighthood

If your Blog Hosting Service supports a Spelling and Grammar check and you’re not making full use of it… why not?
If you believe your work is beyond reproach, well, congratulations on your high level of confidence, I [...]

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The Apostrophe Protection Society

May 3, 2010

While browsing my much-used copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves, I came across mention of a very cool thing.  It’s an organization, really.
It is called the Apostrophe Protection Society, and while the website could use some work, I found it a rather delightful place.
This society opens the door to any number of Public Service… erm, [...]

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Sexism in Writing

March 13, 2010

Here’s an interesting problem, and one that I expect to get some interesting responses to.
It has been suggested, in a number of studies, that despite no longer having a societal need for it, male names and male attributes always proceed the female.
This precedence is clearly historical.  There was indeed a time when women were held [...]

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Request For Comments

February 21, 2010

With a 179 posts so far (including this one) I find myself suddenly in a position to ask rather than tell for a change.
I have lost a concept and I need help getting it back.
I must admit that back in high school (this was in the black and white TV days) I was not a [...]

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