Monthly Archives: March 2005
More Punctuation with Quotation Marks
A visitor asked about the proper punctuation of quotations in a couple examples where it looks as if doubling up the punctuation marks would be in order…
Bring versus Take
Someone just asked about the rule for “bring” versus “take.” The general guideline is…
The Absolute Phrase
Sudhir Khare recently asked the English Master, “What is the ‘absolute construction’ in English grammar. Please explain to me in a clear and lucid manner.” Okay, Sudhir, I’ll do my best…
Which versus That
Two recent visitors have asked what the difference is between “which” and “that” and when to use each…
Inline and Block Quotations
A visitor to the site writes, “How many lines of printed text must be covered before a quotation becomes long enough to be a block quotation. I used to know, but I can’t remember, and I can’t find it anywhere!”
A versus An: The Indefinite Article
A visitor wrote in to ask when to use “a” and when to use “an.” In particular, she wanted to know which of the following is correct…
Double Negatives
Ask a grammar geek about the double negative, and you’ll invariably hear about its long and noble heritage in the English language, from Chaucer to Shakespeare, up to the 18th century, when it all but died at the hands of overly zealous, systematizing Enlightenment linguists.
Whatever its history, however, the current view of most pragmatic writers is that the double negative should be avoided, if for no other reason than that a crotchety old English teacher might discover it and try to publicly humiliate them for using it…
Active and Passive Voice
Manju submitted a request for information on “how to write passive sentences & cosutive [sic] sentences.” I’ll focus here on passive (voice) sentences, and how to distinguish them from sentences using active voice…
Grammar Books for College Students
A visitor recently asked if I could recommend some good grammar books for college writing. Here are a few of my favorites…
dis- versus dys-
Someone wrote in asking what the rule is for changing dis- to dys-…