Was or were… it’s all subjunctive. Let’s talk about moods. No, not my mood, or your mood, but a grammatical mood. Who knew grammar had moods, right? Well, it does. The mood we’re going to look at here affects verbs and is called the subjunctive mood. Subjunctive Mood One of the most common verbs that … [Read more…]
Nauseated or Nauseous? Writers like to use the most effective, colorful word to describe something. For instance, instead of “sick to her stomach” or “upset stomach,” we like to use “nauseated.” Well, actually, many of us like to use “nauseous,” but that misuse makes my stomach hurt! “Nauseated” and “nauseous” are two different, not interchangeable … [Read more…]
One of my biggest grammar pet peeves is the misuse of apostrophes. People seem to think that these little punctuation marks can be added wherever they like, or maybe that they make words look more impressive somehow. (How many times have you seen a sign like this: “Vegetable’s for sale.”) And this misuse is so … [Read more…]
If you’ve ever taken any type of writing class or workshop, or even had someone critique your writing, you may have heard about a thing called passive voice. And if you’ve heard of it, you probably know that most people think it makes writing weak and avoiding passive voice is one of the number one … [Read more…]
Comma rules save your life? Okay, maybe not literally… unless you’re an authoritarian leader whose minions take every word you write that way… So it could happen. There’s a popular meme that shows just how comma rules may save (or cost) lives. Let’s eat Grandma. Let’s eat, Grandma. As the caption says “Punctuation saves lives.” In … [Read more…]