Tag: grammar

Why headlines are so easy to screw up

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I noticed these headlines while perusing the Boston Globe app this morning. Do they seem a bit off to you? I’m an editor. My internal grammar checker is like an oenophile’s nose. And something here stinks. Does Senate candidate Joe Kennedy actually have a head inside of himself? Weird. Did he swallow it or did … Continued

Ideas on how to confront Professor Writewrong. (Ask Dr. Wobs)

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Today’s question is from an academic who’s being forced to use a colleague’s terrible materials in his course. I’ve got six ideas on how to fix the handiwork of Professor Writewrong. Can you do better? Here’s the note I got: Dear Dr. Wobs I’m a college professor and I like to think a decent writer. … Continued

To break the rules, you have to know the rules

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Yvonne Mason, a former teacher, recently posted a picture of a letter she got from the president, with her corrections. This president prides himself on breaking senseless rules, including many grammar rules. It raises an interesting question: when is breaking rules an act of defiance that creates change, and when is it just laziness? Let’s … Continued

The hidden mental models behind the fight over the Oxford comma

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A nasty, permanent spat burns in the heart of analysts of the English language. It’s the fight over the need for the Oxford or serial comma — for example, do you really need the final comma in the phrase “passive voice, weasel words, and jargon”? Now that a court in Maine has decided a case based on the … Continued

Each must make their own decision on the singular “they”

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In English, there are things you can count on . . . like the fact that “they” is plural. Except it isn’t always. Let me see if I can convince you. As my coauthors and I were writing The Mobile Mind Shift, one of them came up with this central definition: A mobile moment is a point … Continued