Category: Grammar
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The F Words: Italics
Italics are a form of typography in which the letters usually slant to the right. In serif fonts such as Palatino, for example, there are slight changes in some of the letters. Notice that the italic lower-case a is different in the italic version. In sans serif fonts such as Helvetica or Arial, the italic […]
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Sentences: Position of Modifiers
To write good sentences, writers must understand what it is that their sentence says. Sentences have a life of their own — they say what the words and word order say, not what the writer might intend them to say, not what the writer might expect everybody to understand as her intent. If a writer […]
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Emily Dickinson
The very first Emily Dickinson poem I encountered was in a book of poetry for children. My mother gave it to me when I was in second or third grade. In among poems by Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, there was this one: I’m Nobody! Who are you?Are you — Nobody — Too?Then there’s a […]
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Punctuation Marks – 3
The first thing that impressed me about the Harry Potter novels was the story; the second thing that impressed me was J.K. Rowling’s use of semicolons. I was happy to see her punctuate closely related independent clauses with a semicolon. And I have found, when reading some mystery fiction, more semicolons than one would normally […]
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Punctuation Marks: 1
At some point in my third-grade year, I realized that I loved punctuation — it helped me make clear the meaning of whatever I was writing. All those little marks (!, ?, -, —, and ,) were like codes that others could read. And only those who understood the code could understand the sentence! I […]
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Goodbye Hyphen, Hello Confusion
I love punctuation marks. Not just the inventiveness behind them (squiggles, slants, dashes, dots), but the way they work. Punctuation marks help the reader know what the writer of a sentence is trying to say. So I’m very sad to see the fading-away of the hyphen as a mark that helps the reader understand the […]
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Sentences and Train Wrecks
It’s true that we can communicate through grunts, gestures, and a mere word here and there — but it’s the sentence that’s the basic unit of communication. Not the word. Not the paragraph. Not the chapter. Occasionally readers will marvel over a writer’s word choices. Rarely will readers think, “What a magnificent paragraph!” They will, […]
Barbara Gregorich 