Clik here to view.
Allow me to dangle the winning haiku in front of you
Judging for the 2012 National Grammar Day Tweeted Haiku Contest was as difficult as any in the history of the event. Nearly 200 entries were submitted. The best way to get the full flavor of the event...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Funny, but it’s still rock ‘n’ roll to me
I’ve been tweeting in lieu of blogging lately, but sometimes a matter deserves more attention than a string of related tweets. Such is the case with “rock ‘n’ roll.” Dictionaries and style guides...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tweeted-haiku contest returns this week
For haiku to work, include grammatical sense as you are counting March 4 approaches, and with it comes National Grammar Day, a day we celebrate with the annual Tweeted Haiku Contest. Last year, we had...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Kory Stamper: Celebrate, don’t denigrate, this National Grammar Day
Smug peevery is not the way to mark National Grammar Day, lexicographer Kory Stamper reminds us: A Plea for Sanity this National (US) Grammar Day.
View ArticleClik here to view.
arika okrent / the judges loudly proclaim / winning haikuist
Arika Okrent tapped into a universal feeling of realization and dread when she wrote her winning entry for the 2013 National Grammar Day Tweeted Haiku Contest: I am an error And I will reveal myself...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Here are the winning winners in the Tweeted Haiku Contest
Arika Okrent’s 17 syllables captured the hearts of the judges, but there were scores of worth entries in the the National Grammar Day Tweeted Haiku Contest. The initial screening of 269 entries down to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Made-up ‘rules’ may offer a path to clarity
Columnist and language expert Ben Yagoda resorted to all caps in a brief Twitter exchange on the difference (if any) between “since” and “because.” “There is NEVER confusion,” he said several weeks ago...
View ArticleClik here to view.
More from me at the Copyediting newsletter blog
More from me at the Copyediting newsletter blog I’ve joined the blog team at Copyediting newsletter, so I’ll be posting there regularly and here maybe not as much. But I’ll try to add a link to those...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Habitat for Humanity house is a fitting tribute to a nice guy
My plan was to drive back to Grand Rapids, Mich., today and spend Saturday pounding nails and raising walls on a Habitat for Humanity home. But I’m not over a stomach bug that has been bothering me for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
If someone says eye-licking is causing infections, check it out
I wrote a blog entry for Copyediting about the failure of a reporter and editors at the Guardian to check the sources on a story about a newly popular eye-licking fetish causing an increase in eye...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A little bit of what I’ve learned on Twitter
The following column originally appeared on Copyediting.com in two parts. As I have no space limitations, here it is in its entirety for your convenience. The first part is here:...
View ArticleClik here to view.
ACES 2014 National Grammar Day Tweeted Haiku Contest entries
Here are the entries in the National Grammar Day Tweeted Haiku contest. If you don’t see your entry here, be assured it was considered if it had the hashtag #grammarday, but cutting and pasting is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bard Day celebration offers much to read about
It’s Shakespeare’s 450th birthday, more or less, and all of Twitter is a stage for stories about the immortal one. There is no time for me to read of Shakespeare morning until night, so I created a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Check out my blog entries at Copyediting.com
I apologize if you’ve come here looking for my latest wisdom. I’ve been blogging for Copyediting.com for more than a year, and whatever wisdom I have tends to end up there. I might update this on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In standard usage, ‘daylight saving time’ wins out
The end of daylight saving time offers an opportunity for people prone to correcting to remind us the middle word is singular—”daylight saving time”—although in casual use, it’s just as often rendered...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Possessive of a title in quotes? Just don’t
English has a lot of conventions—best not to call them rules—that sometimes fall apart when we try to apply them in all possible situations. Sometimes, it’s best to just not go there. If we want to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Great writing informs great copy editing
I wonder how many people stop at the final paragraphs of "The Great Gatsby" and think, “Gosh, this could use a good editor.”
View ArticleIf ‘they’ is singular, does ‘themself’ naturally follow?
Respected reference sources have signaled a modicum of acceptance of the pronoun they in a singular sense. The Associated Press Stylebook and the Chicago Manual of Style relaxed their prescriptions for...
View ArticleStyle guides differ on Word of the Decade
An earlier version of this column was published on the blog of ACES: The Society for Editing. It was the decade of the epicene pronoun, as the usually plural they gained new acceptance with its...
View ArticleIf Black is up, do we capitalize White?
I’ve devoted quite a bit of thinking time over the past several weeks on the question of whether white as a racial designation should be capitalized. My thought process has not been pretty — most...
View Article
