A site to help make English grammar more understandable without dumbing down either its significance or its usage.
This debate passed me by altogether until I chanced upon a Washington Post story this morning, but it appears that there’s consternation over the widespread use of “Oh, my God!” Some argue that it’s taking God’s name in vain, others that it’s just an everyday expression similar to “Oh, my Gosh” or “Oh, s—!” (People [...]
Sorry, but I’ve been caught up in the holiday bustle of shopping and returning presents and not minding the blog so much. I’ve also been sampling some of the movies mentioned as Oscar favorites. One proved very literary; the other was more lyrical (and gory). Atonement is the literary one. The dialogue and voiceovers (internal thoughts) convey [...]
I’ve already concluded from the scores and hundreds of college classes I’ve taught that at best only one in 100 college students even has a clue that the word their exists. Most students just routinely right there whether they need it as an adverb or possessive pronoun. With this much widespread ignorance and abuse, I’m [...]
I don’t know how many of you live in the United States, and of those who do how many follow baseball, but I spent yesterday watching, first, the George Mitchell news conference on steroid use among athletes, and then, union boss Donald Fehr’s response a few hours later. I thought both men were well spoken [...]
English employs three verb moods–indicative, imperative and subjunctive. Indicative mood is for simple statements, while the imperative is for commands: “Run!” However, it’s the subjunctive, represeting a wish or untrue situation, that befuddles virtually every English speaker. Remember the line from the song in Fiddler on the Roof, “If I was a rich man…”? Completely [...]
Because a lot of immature fools out there can’t handle the responsibility of free speech, I’ve deleted my grammar questions forum and instituted an e-mail form for you to send me your grammar questions. All serious grammar questions will be answered by a posting on my main page. Please send serious grammar questions only. My [...]
Out where I live in California, the saying, "It is what it is," is gaining a lot of use and cachet. However, what exactly does it mean? It seems to be one of those usages that, like awesome, has somehow become the saying du jour. There’s nothing wrong with this particular sentence, but I’ve always [...]
Whenever I teach a grammar/writing class, invariably more than a few students (read: a majority) keep confusing passive voice with past tense. (I covered tenses in a previous Building Blocks post.) English verbs can have just two voices–active and passive. The active voice is what you employ for almost everything you say. Active: "I am sitting at [...]