Rules Do Change
Spacing after periods, colons, question marks, and exclamation marks Originally, typewriters had monospaced fonts (skinny letters and fat letters took up the same amount of space), so two spaces after...
View ArticleQuotations Within Quotations
Almost all of us have found ourselves confused with double and single quotation marks. When do we use single quotation marks? Where does the punctuation go with single quotation marks? With just a few...
View ArticleSic for Sick Sentences
[Note that our discussion of sic also has been updated as it applies to use in 2024.] We have noticed a dismal new trend: not capitalizing words that need it. Flouting the rules of capitalization is...
View ArticlePunctuation or Chaos
She said I saved the company No one knows for sure what the above sentence means. It consists of six everyday words, and the first five are monosyllables, yet this simple declarative sentence has at...
View ArticleWriting Dates and Times
Rule: The following examples apply when using dates: The meeting is scheduled for June 30. The meeting is scheduled for the 30th of June. We have had tricks played on us on April 1. The 1st of April...
View ArticleChristmas ‘Log Review
Every year, for six weeks or so, I get a taste of what it’s like to be a superstar. From late October to early December, I am accosted daily by an aggressive mob of stalkers who know where I live....
View ArticleA Study of Style: The U.S. Military
Our exploration of American English strives to venture even further than the principles that guide writing with precision and eloquence. We are also interested in the language variances beyond what we...
View Article
