Mignon Fogarty is the founder of Quick and Dirty Tips and the author of seven books on language, including the New York Times bestseller "Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing." She is an inductee in the Podcasting Hall of Fame, and the show is a five-time winner of Best Education Podcast in the Podcast Awards. She has appeared as a guest expert on the Oprah Winfrey Show and the Today Show. Her popular LinkedIn Learning courses help people write better to communicate better. Find her on Mastodon.
When you end a sentence with an abbreviation, you don’t need an extra period. Apple Computer, Inc. became Apple, Inc.. (wrong) Apple Computer, Inc. became Apple, Inc. (right) The period that ends the abbreviation also ends the sentence. Think of it as an environmentally friendly rule—one dot of ink serves two purposes. Even though such sentences are correct, they can confuse readers who may not realize you’ve ended the sentence. It’s best to write out the abbreviated word if it falls at the end of a sentence or to rewrite the sentence so the abbreviation doesn’t come at the end. The story…
Today’s topic is sentence fragments. I often imagine that listeners are writing long things such as articles, essays, and books; but I was recently reminded that some people make their living writing shorter things like headlines and ad copy, and that keeping things short is hard work. “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead,” is a famous quotation—attributed to many people including Mark Twain and Blaise Pascal—that resonates with many people who write for a living. Unfortunately, when writers focus too much on brevity, sometimes they leave out important words and…
The Churches, the Foxes, and the Marshes I was deluged with questions after last week’s newsletter about making names plural. As requested, here are more examples: Add “es” to make names that end in “ch,” “sh,” “x,” “s,” and “z” plural: The Churches hope to see you this year. The Ashes have a wonderful tree. The Foxes are bringing a ham. The Joneses invite you to dinner. Season’s greetings from the Alvarezes. I couldn’t find a reference that covered making names that end in “i” plural. The best I could find is that you usually add “s” to make foreign…
“Razorwife” wrote, “I just heard for the first time in my life that you can’t use ‘because’ at the beginning of a sentence. True or false?” False. It’s OK to start a sentence with “because”; you just have to make sure you’re writing complete sentences and not sentence fragments. “Because” heads up subordinate clauses, which means if you have a clause that starts with “because,” you must also have a main clause in your sentence. A main clause is something that could be a complete sentence by itself. The main clause can come first or last; if it comes last,…
Marlene asked whether she should write “one year’s time” or “one-years’ time.” The correct way to give possession to time and money is with an apostrophe: One year’s time Two weeks’ notice Ten dollars’ worth Don’t get confused by the 2002 movie Two Weeks Notice. They got it wrong. Still wondering why? See our article “Possessives: Oddly, they aren’t just for possession.”
Chandra asked, “Is it ‘each other’ or ‘eachother’? I never know whether it’s one word or two.” In standard English, “each other” is always two words. Sometimes people who are learning English find this confusing because the pair can sound like one word in spoken English. Get more tips like this in The Grammar Devotional: Print: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell’s E-book: Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Apple iBook
When I was researching the regionalism “needs washed,” Bill Bevington recommended that I look into “spendy,” which means “expensive” or “extravagant.” The resulting map is above. Key A blue pin represents one person who had heard or used “spendy” in the region. A red pin represents one person who has never heard “spendy” in the region. A purple pin represents someone who has heard “spendy,” but only rarely or only from a transplant from another region. (Go to the interactive map.) Not shown on the map: one person from the UK, one from Dublin, one from the Philippines, and four from…
Last week during the football game between LSU and Mississippi State, we kept hearing an ESPN announcer say the team needed to “bow up” (with “bow” pronounced like “beau” or the “bow” in “bow and arrow.”) I hadn’t heard the phrase before and thought it might mean something like “man up” or “get tough.” However, Jesse Sheidlower, editor-at-large at the Oxford English Dictionary, kindly told me on Twitter that the entry in the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) defines “bow up” as “to assert oneself, stand up to.” DARE also noted that the phrase is “Southern,” which got me wondering how Southern. I asked the…
“You” or “Your” with Gerunds Dottie asked which sentence is correct: We appreciate you contacting the office. We appreciate your contacting the office. Both are correct, but they have slightly different meanings. If you appreciate that someone contacted the office (the act of contacting), use “your.” It’s roughly equivalent to “We appreciate that you contacted the office.” If you appreciate the person who contacted the office, use “you.” Typically, you want the possessive pronoun: We appreciate your contacting the office. Read more about possessives and gerunds: Do I Hate You Singing or Your Singing? Business Smartphone Call Cell Phone Communication from…
So many of you asked whether a historic should have been an historic that I thought I’d better answer the question here, even though it was the topic of last week’s Grammar Girl podcast and there was a link to it in the newsletter. The choice between a and an is governed by the first sound of the next word. If it’s a consonant sound, choose a; if it’s a vowel sound, choose an. Although there are regional variations, the standard American pronunciation of historic starts with a consonant sound (just like the words hit and hipster), so the correct choice…