August 2007 Most Popular Posts

August 2007 Most Popular Posts August 2007 Most Popular Posts August 2007 Most Popular Posts By Sharon Write First, Edit Later: Well, it is important to write correctly. It makes your communication clearer, and your reputation brighter. But it’s usually better to say what you mean poorly than to say nothing. Passive vs. Active Voice: English teachers like myself love to warn new writers against the evils of passive voice. Here at Daily Writing Tips, Michael has written about passive writing, and I recently wrote about dummy subjects, but it looks like there’s still some confusion about passive voice and its use. â€Å"Could Care Less† versus â€Å"Couldn’t Care Less†: The Oxford dictionary already recognizes â€Å"could care less† as an American colloquialism. Many people, however, regard it as incorrect since it makes no logical sense (if you â€Å"could care less† it means that you care at least a bit). What do you think about it? Have your say in our Poll! Five Spelling Rules for â€Å"Silent Final E†: In an earlier stage of the language, many of these final e’s were pronounced. Now, however, unless the word is a foreign borrowing, the final e is silent. Needed: New Singular Possessive Adjective Combining â€Å"his† and â€Å"her†: I told him that the answer was c) his, but, to my astonishment, the answer key gave b) his or her as the correct answer. That’s when I discovered that I was behind the times when it came to the concept of oppressive gendered language. Punctuation Errors: Quotation Marks for Emphasis: Last month, Daniel covered some of the basic rules for using quotation marks. I’d like to point out one of the most common misuses of this piece of punctuation: the quotation mark for emphasis. Misspelled Numbers, Months, and Days: Yes, these are elementary spelling words, but cruise the web and you will see them misspelled all over the place. The Truth About â€Å"It’s†: As well as I know the rule, as many times as I have corrected the error in the manuscripts of others, the occasional it’s for its creeps into my own writing and must be caught in the final revision. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the General category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Regarding Re:Email EtiquetteArtist vs. Artisan