The Punctuation Guide was created by Jordan Penn, a longtime enthusiast of American language, usage, and style. He earned a BA in sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a JD from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law: After searching the web for a comprehensive guide to American punctuation and […]
The Punctuation Guide Read More »
What Is Who? First up, let’s introduce this exceptionally tricky pronoun. It has many forms, and many a brave soul has cowered in the attempt to use it correctly. Who Who is a subject pronoun, like he, she, I, or they, but it’s the interrogative used for animate subjects. In other words, use it to ask a question about which person did something
The root of this “like versus as” controversy is that traditionally like is a preposition and as is a conjunction. Nevertheless, people have been using like as if it were a conjunction (as I did) for at least 100 years, and grammarians have been raging against that use for just as long. In fact, the Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage states that “probably no single question
By Brian Klems Q: In the battle of lay vs. lie, when do you use each and can you provide examples? —Annemarie V. Don’t forget about “lain,” my friend! All these verbs have two things in common: They begin with the letter “L” and confuse the bejeezus out of many people. But here’s a simple breakdown
Lay vs. Lie (vs. Laid) Read More »
by Joshua Mohr, When I was in grad school, a teacher told our workshop that if a published novel is 300 pages, the writer had to generate 1,200 along the way. I didn’t buy it. Maybe it took this teacher 1,200 pages to find the right 300, but I would never have to produce such excess.
Your Imagination, Your Fingerprint Read More »