Tag Archives: humor

Airplane call signs

Posted on April 6, 2012 by

  If you’re flying and your airplane doesn’t fall from the sky and leave you burning to death in a horrible crash, you might be able to thank my friend Joe. He just graduated from air traffic control school. (Congrats!) … Continue reading →

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elicit vs. illicit

Posted on March 30, 2012 by

Lesson: learning the difference between elicit and illicit elicit: to draw forth or bring out —Merriam-Webster illicit: not permitted —Merriam-Webster Here is yet another pair of words that sounds a lot alike but has different meanings. Let’s take a look … Continue reading →

Posted in grammar, semantics | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Say no to exclamation points

Posted on February 8, 2012 by

“Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald “Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.” —Terry Pratchett ALERT: This post contains a rant. I have a … Continue reading →

Posted in copy editing, punctuation | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Like turkeys voting for an early Christmas

Posted on December 14, 2011 by

If you’re like me, you’ve been spending the last two weeks in a feverish race to finish end-of-the-year work projects, purchase Christmas presents, and get everything sorted so you can enjoy the most Martha Stewart-worthy holiday. The result: not enough … Continue reading →

Posted in in the news, semantics | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Office idioms

Posted on December 5, 2011 by

A couple of years ago, back when I tried to live a corporate life, a coworker and I were discussing how works slows down to a trickle in December. Basically, people are only thinking about the holidays, and it seems … Continue reading →

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How to say “turkey” across the globe

Posted on November 23, 2011 by

It’s that time of year again—a sad day for turkeys, but a gut-busting good time for human carnivores. Happy Thanksgiving, Grammar Party readers. To celebrate the holiday, I’ve collected translations of the word turkey from around the world. Wouldn’t it … Continue reading →

Posted in foreign language, in the news | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

“If I were you” and other subjunctive stumpers

Posted on November 21, 2011 by

Lesson: using were in the past subjunctive mood Subjunctive is difficult even for most native English speakers, mainly because it’s not a tense; it’s a mood. Past, present, future—those are tenses. We use them to tell what happened at a … Continue reading →

Posted in copy editing, grammar | Tagged , , , , , | 16 Comments

Dangerous typos spell check misses

Posted on November 2, 2011 by

We’ve all been there. You’re in a rush. The files are piling up on your desk. And you only have ten minutes to tackle your bursting email inbox. Take the extra thirty seconds to reread your message (or your report … Continue reading →

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Parallel Sentence Structure, Or “Getting All Piet Mondrian On Your Writing”

Posted on August 2, 2011 by

Lesson: improving your writing by using parallelism In grammar, a series of related words, phrases, or clauses is considered to be parallel when each item in the series has a similar structure. This could mean, for example, nouns listed with … Continue reading →

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