A site to help make English grammar more understandable without dumbing down either its significance or its usage.
A headline in my local rag, the Los Angeles Times, said in reviewing a reprise of a 25-year-old movie that it was the director’s "biggest, and only, hit." Ahem. To be biggest, something has to be in competition with at least two somethings else. If it’s competing just with one other movie, for instance, it can be a [...]
Body language and other nonverbal cues often (usually) communicate more than one’s spoken words. Unfortunately, it’s not so easy to strategize one’s bodily movements; they’re almost involuntary at times, and that’s why they’re so revelatory. Anyway, watch body language guru Tonya Reiman give you some tips:
I was having a hard time replying to the old "Ask Grammar Questions" postings because of some built-in limitations on my blogging software, so I’ve set up a forum instead. If you have a question, please just go to the Grammar Questions Forum and type it in. I’ll check frequently and join in the answer brigade. [...]
I got a good laugh on Monday when [tag]Billy Martin[/tag], the lawyer for now-jailed Atlanta Falcons quarterback [tag]Michael Vick[/tag], issued a statement saying that his client had “self-surrendered” to begin his undetermined-in-length prison term. Martin’s statement went on to further praise Vick for his “self-surrender.” Now, to surrender is something you do voluntarily anyway rather [...]
Recently, I blogged about the difference between me and myself, the latter being unable to stand alone as a pronoun. However, Yankee scion Steinbrenner Lite (prodigal son Hank) managed to screw it up in this quotation about negotiations with Alex Rodriguez: "He [A-Rod] wanted to make sure myself [sic] and my brother knew that he was sincere [...]
My friend Jill, who is Chinese but knows English well and teaches it in Taipei, wrote to ask me about the use of the prepation to (the swift, etc.) in this quote from Ecclesiastes: “I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither [...]
As reported by Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times, here is a conversation between Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith on TNT’s "Inside the NBA": Barkley: "I was reading that heavy drinking is not good for your health, so I have to stop." Smith: "Stop drinking what?" Barkley: "No, I gotta stop reading." I agree with [...]
it’s just ignorantly wrong. Myself is a reflexive pronoun that must appear with the use of me; it cannot be substituted for me. If you don’t want to talk about yourself because you feel it appears arrogant, feel free never to talk about yourself. However, if you’re just trying to paper over the ego thrill [...]
I’m hearing people use the phrase “throw under the bus” so frequently that I began wondering about its origin. Best answer I can find is that the origin is either unknown or unfindable. Here’s one: From Slang: the Authoritative Topic-by-Topic Dictionary of American Lingoes from All Walks of Life by Paul Dickson (Pocket Books, New [...]
One of my pursuits in life is figuring out how Internet search engines do their thing and rank Websites on the search results. This all falls under the category of Search Engine Optimization, or SEO (caps not needed when spelled out, but SEO folk consider themselves rather important). While doing some SEO research today, I came [...]