When it comes to words, I’d like to think I know a lot. I went to college. I read. I write for a living. And yet, there are so many words of which I have never heard. These are English words, words that I could be using. Certainly my listener might look at me perplexed, but perhaps in the right context they would flow easily into the conversation and capture...
Read MoreHomophones. We should all have learned long ago that special list of words that sound the same and yet are spelled differently and have very different meanings. But that was a long time ago, so sometime in the flurry of writing, the wrong word quietly sneaks in and settles down unobtrusively in a sentence. Perhaps you forgot the difference. Maybe you never knew....
Read MoreThere are certain mistakes that are frequently made even by those who know better. We all learned our grammar lessons way back when, and yet we get grooving on the copy and things slip by us. I bring this up not to be preachy but to highlight common errors by way of helping people like me remember to avoid them. Take the simple three letter combination of i-t-s....
Read MoreA challenge for you: try writing three paragraphs without using the word “is.” This tiny word has such a powerful role in our language that nearly nothing can be said without it. It can, however, become a crutch or even worse a blockade to the creative imagery needed to make a piece come alive. Falling back on it over and over precludes the use of more...
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