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| Unique Visitors: 411 |
| Total Unique Visitors: 2747645 |
| Visitors Out: 23301 |
| Total Visitors Out: 43093 |
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| A Letter to Wired Magazine |
| 2012-02-02 19:51:56 |
Dear Editors:
You published in your February, 2012 issue a piece titled “Use Your Own Words”. In fact, you chose to make it the first article in the magazine. It is this article with which I would like to take issue.
The author, Anne Trubek, bemoans the constraints of proper spelling and the constrictions of English grammar. Yet if you re-read the article (as I assume you at least perused it once before it was published) you will see that her argument boils down to “why spell correctly...
Read the full post at One Step Forward.
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| Craptacular Grammar Tip: Quotation Marks Gone Wrong |
| 2012-02-02 17:48:37 |
NOTE: In case you thought I might be unaware, I know that “craptacular” isn’t a word. It seemed to fit the quality of the examples, however. Check back for more posts in this new series!
Out of curiosity, I clicked a reputable organization’s free “Grammar Tip of the Day” link, to see whether I’d like to subscribe. I found this example and immediately thought that the only reason I’d ask for such a tip each day would be to provide fodder for One Step Forward. Why? At best the tip...
Read the full post at One Step Forward.
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| Obligate: Two Words, One Spelling |
| 2011-12-09 12:27:10 |
I read a book in which the big baddy was an organization called Obligate. The author chose not to explain the reason for that name until halfway through the story, which meant that I did not know how to pronounce it for about two hundred pages. It surprised me how distracting that was.
If you are scratching your head, wondering what other pronunciation I’m writing about, this post is for you. Obligate does double duty, as both a verb and an adjective. You pronounce the two forms...
Read the full post at One Step Forward.
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| Grammar.net 2011 Contest and a Thank You |
| 2011-10-01 18:07:51 |
The darling folks at Grammar.net have nominated One Step Forward for the Grammar.net "Best Grammar Blog of 2011"! If you would be so kind, and if you agree, do click over to their contest page and vote for this humble attempt to explore the English language. (Note: They've listed it as "Legbamel's blog on writing" rather than its official name. Further note: They've fixed the listing and now it's under One Step Forward and open for voting now!)
Such kindnesses keep me interested in...
Read the full post at One Step Forward.
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| Word Tidbits: Discreet versus Discrete |
| 2011-10-01 18:06:35 |
I doubt most people realize that discrete and discreet are discretely separate words. Today I thought I’d explain the slight difference between the two adjectives and clear up any confusion.
Discreet refers to cautious or tactful action. The word generally applies to something secret, such as a discreet rendezvous, or that you wish kept quiet, like dropping a discreet word in someone’s ear to let them know they have toilet paper stuck to their shoe after a trip to the facilities.
Off the...
Read the full post at One Step Forward.
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| Hyphens and the Compound Adjective |
| 2011-09-21 17:13:30 |
We’ve never tackled compound adjectives, here on One Step Forward, partly because it’s such a complex subject. Often you can make your sentence clearer by using an adjectival phrase or clause rather than worrying about whether to hyphenate. But today we’re going to ease your fears and explain just when to put that pesky hyphen between words in a compound adjective.
Here’s the short version: hyphenate when you place the compound adjective in the sentence before the noun.
This too-simple...
Read the full post at One Step Forward.
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| Word Tidbits: Reveille vs. Revelry vs. Reverie |
| 2011-07-31 10:43:57 |
A recent incident sparked this post: I heard someone singing Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (of Company B) and, yet again, use the word revelry instead of reveille. I thought perhaps I should point out to folks that the two words have absolutely nothing to do with one another. If you substitute one for the other you'll be blowing nonsense. Then I thought of reverie, a third word that sounds similar but, again, has a very different meaning.
Reveille, as you may guess from the spelling, comes to...
Read the full post at One Step Forward.
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| Too Quick with the Acronym |
| 2011-07-22 17:49:34 |
What is it with me and acronyms? I seem to have become obsessed. But when I read my post about using pronouns clearly I found that I had used one without explaining it. Shame on me!
I referred in that post to Dave from “HR”. While many people likely knew for what words the acronym stood the proper thing to do would have been to write out the phrase and then give the acronym in parentheses if I intended to use it in the rest of the piece. Thus it should have read, “What if I had written...
Read the full post at One Step Forward.
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| For Whom the Pronoun Stands |
| 2011-05-24 14:44:15 |
In my post about may versus might I included the sentences, “Don may be forced to fire Ted if he cannot resist the temptations of YouTube while at work. I’ve heard that he might seek counseling to curb his addiction.” In rereading that example, I wondered if my pronoun use was perhaps unclear. Naturally, that made me wish to post about how I could tell.
In short, the general rule runs thus: unless the sentence otherwise specifies to which person it refers, a pronoun used refers to the...
Read the full post at One Step Forward.
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| If I May, If I Might |
| 2011-03-31 12:22:00 |
If I may, I’d like to explore the infinitesimal difference between may and might. In this case, I don’t see a “wrong” way to use one word in place of the other so much as I harbor a curiosity about why there are two such words. I retrieved my enormous dictionary and found the following definitions. I’ve abbreviated them to the salient points.
May: be allowed to or capable of, be likely to (to some degree), or to be obliged to (in matters of contract or statute). For purposes of brevity,...
Read the full post at One Step Forward.
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