The following is a reader submission. Wouldn’t you capitalize husband if in fact you were writing and referenced your Husband? Using the word husband in place of his name. Just like when you would reference your Mom or Dad. I thought personal reference should be added as the 4th reason to capitalize husband from your… Continue reading Shouldn’t you capitalize “husband”?
Category: Writing
How to write a proper apology (2 things to remember)
I recently offended a friend of mine through a conversation I was having with another friend on Facebook. I saw how my other friend was being offensive, but I didn’t think I was. I thought I was on the side of my first friend. So, I took it personally. Luckily, I didn’t get defensive, and… Continue reading How to write a proper apology (2 things to remember)
Why your nouns should agree with your adjectives and verbs
Last week, a local media outlet reported on a crime story. In their story, they had the following sentence: A male and female suspect left the home before police arrived but were found at a residence on Stafford Drive North later in the morning. This sentence confuses the reader, making it unclear how many subjects… Continue reading Why your nouns should agree with your adjectives and verbs
What is the plural of scissors?
In short, the plural of scissors is, well, scissors. It’s already in the plural form. The word is descended from the Latin cīsōria, which actually did have a singular form: cīsōrium. This evolved into cisoires in Old French, then sisoures in Middle English. And then about a century after it became sisoures, it further evolved to become scissors, influenced by the Medieval… Continue reading What is the plural of scissors?
5 examples of racist language to avoid in your writing
Racist stereotyping, despite efforts spanning decades to change it, still exists, and it’s pervasive in how we communicate. Racist stereotyping — well, stereotyping in general — is a poor way to communicate because it relies on assumptions and generalizations that often don’t apply to the situation at hand. Here are 5 ways to avoid racism in your own writing, but this is… Continue reading 5 examples of racist language to avoid in your writing
What is faulty parallelism?
One of the most common grammatical errors I see on the web is faulty parallelism. I assume most writers are not even aware of the error. Faulty parallelism exists when two potentially related actions differ in structure. Let me illustrate.
Is “wife” capitalized?
Recently, someone ended up on my website searching for the phrase “is wife capitalized”. Although that’s not a frequent search phrase used by my website visitors, I thought it would make a good topic for this week’s blog post. So, is wife capitalized? Well, in short, no. There are actually (pretty much) only 3 times to capitalize a word: Proper nouns (like… Continue reading Is “wife” capitalized?
What do you call a two-year relationship?
Someone recently came to my blog with the following query: one year relation call anniversary, what do call two years relationship? The search result brought them to my blog post on what to call monthly anniversaries, but I thought I’d take a moment to directly answer the question. As the reader correctly pointed out, one uses… Continue reading What do you call a two-year relationship?
5 alternatives you can use instead of “look at”
This week, I’ve been editing a thesis for a master’s student. One thing I noticed during my editing was that this student seemed to have a preference for the phrase “look at”. I’ve talked before about replacing prepositional phrases with single words. This post is specific about alternatives you can use for “look at”. The handy… Continue reading 5 alternatives you can use instead of “look at”
Difference between famous and infamous
This is part of the difference between series. Recently, I saw someone use infamous when they meant famous. Here’s the difference between the two.