You Know It’s Bad

Do You Feel Bad or Badly?

Feeling Bad

Pardon me if you already know the proper usage, but it seems to me that “bad” and “badly” are often used interchangeably. I cannot count the number of times I have heard someone say “I feel badly”, but it’s probably as often as I have heard someone else say “I feel bad”. If I were to base things purely on how often these statements are used, it is understandable that the question as to which is correct would arise. So which is the correct word to use? Let’s take a look at “badly” first. This word is an adverb, and [Read more…]

The Best of FWJ February

Top 10 Posts of the month

February brought most of us in the States snow storm after snow storm, Valentine’s Day and some really informative posts from the FWJ crew. Here are a few of the most popular: Applying for a Freelance Writing Gig Without Looking Desperate by Jodee Redmond In this post Jodee cautions against oversharing when looking for writing gigs. Is Your Blog Dressed For Success? by Gayla Baer-Taylor First impressions are important. Gayla shows you how to make sure your blog turns heads. I’m a Ghostwriter (Get Over It) - by Jeffery Reyes In this terrific guest post, Jeffery hits on the many misconceptions [Read more…]

A Long Time Ago In a Galaxy Far, Far Away

Reduplication in the English Language

repeatedWORDS063

Some of you may recognize the title of this post as the opening line of Star Wars, but have you ever thought about the grammatical accuracy of the “double use” of the word far? To be honest, I never really paid much attention to the practice of repeating adjectives or adverbs as I have always believed it to be correct. While some purists may disagree, I think that there is a reason for this repetition. Last week, the matter was brought to my attention, courtesy of a bunch of guys at Quora. The question posed was: Star Wars opens with [Read more…]

Happy Holidays – I’m Just Sayin’

merrychristmasbeach

No, I’m really wishing you all a great Christmas weekend.  It’s just that I came across an opinion piece over at NPR which deals with that phrase in the title.  I never really paid much attention to it whenever I heard it uttered by friends.  Even though I have somehow earned a reputation for correcting other people’s grammar (or flinching at least), I have been trying to be more tolerant in the past year.  After all, I also believe that language is so dynamic that changes are unavoidable. Scott Simon, however, simply cannot stand it when he hears “I’m just [Read more…]

When Grammar Goes Bad…So Does Romance?

A Quick Look at Grammatically Incorrect Song Lyrics

Bad Romance

I have a Facebook friend who, I think, is the head of the Grammar Police in our neck of the woods. He always has these posts that set me off on grammar review sprees. Today, this is his status: The first thing I did was to google (yes, I used that as a verb) the lyrics of Bad Romance.  So why did my friend write that note to Lady Gaga?  Here are some lines from the song: I want your love, and I want your revenge. You and me could write a bad romance. I suppose I can write a [Read more…]

Are You Ingenuous or Ingenious?

Some Confusing Word Pairs

Confused

When I was teaching ESL, lessons on confusing word pairs were inevitable.  The level of the learner was irrelevant.  My students all needed clarification on certain word pairs.  Interestingly enough, I have discovered than even native speakers of English have similar issues.  The words in question may be of a more advanced level, but the confusion remains.  Just take some time to browse blogs, and you’ll find at least one example! For this week’s grammar post, let us take a look at some of words that are used interchangeably, when they shouldn’t be. Ingenuous and Ingenious I’ll be honest here [Read more…]

More Funny Signs that Could Use Better Grammar/Spelling

Lot's

It’s been more than a month since I posted the first group of funny (or not-so-funny for some) signs on FWJ. When I woke up this morning, I thought that it would be a good idea to post some more signs for the grammar section. After all, it is a Monday, and we can all use some cheering up on this day of the week. First up comes lots of lot’s. Photo courtesy of Steve Dinn We can’t point fingers at Sony here, but the sign sure does take something away from the message, doesn’t it? Just so we’re all [Read more…]

It’s National Punctuation Day!

prod-ellipsis

It’s not yet too late to celebrate one of the most important days of the year: National Punctuation Day!    I am not making this up, although my love for quirky holidays is well known.  You can check the official web site for the holiday to confirm that this is for real. With the tag line “A celebration of the lowly comma, correctly used quotation marks, and other proper uses of periods, semicolons, and the ever-mysterious ellipsis,” National Punctuation Day is a great excuse to party tonight.  If it’s too late for you to organize something, you can always do [Read more…]

I’m Loving It, Are You?

A Quick Look at Prescriptive and Descriptive Grammar

Lovin ItMcDs_Print

Are you loving McDonald’s popular slogan? “I’m lovin’ it!” became even more popular when the fast food chain launched its first global advertising campaign in 2003.  Suddenly, everywhere you go, you hear people say “I’m lovin’ it.”  What used to be considered incorrect is now being used on a daily basis. But isn’t that what language is all about?  I will always remember what a friend (English professor) told me: “Language is dynamic.  It continuously evolves, and that’s the beauty of it.” While I totally agree with that idea, I sometimes cannot help but flinch when I hear something that [Read more…]

When Punctuation and Law Collide

As freelance writers, we are all very much aware of the importance of grammar and punctuation. We know that all sorts of confusion can arise from improper usage. Sometimes it can be quite hilarious. Check out this incident I read about at The Spokesman-Review: A little punctuation can make a lot of difference. When Bob Strick and Vicki Tomsha had business at the Spokane County Courthouse on June 2, they drove around from parking lot to parking lot, looking for some free public parking. Lot after lot required a permit or some cash. They thought they hit pay dirt in [Read more…]

Noemi Twigg: Your New Grammar Accomplice

Hi Freelance Writing Jobs readers!  This month has brought about a lot of changes in this community, and I would like to take this chance to share a little bit about myself before diving into the finer points of grammar. I know that you all have been following Dawn’s posts, and that her departure from the site has brought about a range of emotions.  It is with hope and optimism that I begin this journey with all of you. I’ve always thought that I had a proclivity for being nitpicky when it comes to grammar, but it wasn’t till I [Read more…]

When “Might” IS Right

app_airplane

I recently faced a situation where I had to choose between using “might” or “may” in a sentence. Usually, I intuitively pick the right word (as I do with so much of my writing), so I never considered the rules behind when to use “might” and when to use “may.” It turns out, there’s a very simple rule, which I found with just a glimpse through the recently-reviewed Grammar Done Right by Karen L. Reddick. (Thanks Karen, and thanks for stopping by the blog, as well.) May = Maybe, Probably Use “may” to indicate the probability of something occurring. Since [Read more…]

Funniest Grammar Links of 2009

It’s the end of a long holiday week. If you’re a writer who needed to reach sources for interviews – hope you had lots of fun with that. Some people actually did work this week, but many did not. It’s 20 degrees outside here in the Northeast, and even North Carolina got a smattering of snow early this week. My expressive cousin described it as “that dandruff you see on the ground.” This makes us work-at-home types extremely happy, because we can sit around in our new “Lambie” slippers (the oh-so-cool successor to the passé bunny slippers – get with [Read more…]

Quotations and Punctuation: A Tale of Cultural Differences

Grammar is confusing enough for those of us in English-speaking countries, with multiple style guides, conventions that have fallen out of fashion, and rules people simply forget. If all that’s not enough, Americans also follow different rules than our English-speaking neighbors to the North. I’m not talking about the random letter U Canadians like to throw into words or even how they want to spell words that should end in “ck” with a “que,” instead. I’m talking about their use of quotation marks and punctuation together. Here in the U.S., periods and commas always go inside the quotation marks. In [Read more…]

Grammar Checker: Friend or Foe?

When grammar checkers first came out – I think it was shortly after sliced bread and just before the Ford Pinto – people thought they were the greatest thing. A computer could tell you what was wrong with your writing. Just click “change” and your work would be perfectly publishable. It was the end of proofreading! The end of errors! Um… Then we began looking over the copy after it was so meticulously spell-checked and saw sentences like: “The children put there clothes over their.” Oops. When our word processing programs began to make ridiculous suggestions, like changing the spelling [Read more…]

With Our Compliments…

AshDawnHallow1

“This Halloween, my daughter and I wore complementary fairy costumes. People were complimentary towards us, and many gave us complimentary treats.” I admit squeezing that last “complimentary” in there is pushing it. Certainly there’s a more concise way to word these sentences. But I couldn’t resist the play on words with these fun homophones… or the chance to get a little personal and show off our costumes. Now my secret is out: You are taking grammar instruction from a grown woman in a pink dress with large pastel wings. So let’s get down to business. Using complementary This word is [Read more…]

The Ins and Outs of Lines

lines

“That girl looked like Kate from Lost,” I observed as we left the bank. “Who? The one on line?” my husband asked. I gave him a blank stare. “No, the girl in the bank…  She looked like Kate from Lost.” “Yes. The girl on line… in the bank,” he specified, sounding frustrated. “Oh! Yes! Didn’t she?” And that is how using incorrect grammar can confuse people in spoken conversations. This is also how a teething one-year-old who wakes up every two hours can impact communication in a marriage. Admittedly, I wasn’t too swift on the uptake in the above conversation. [Read more…]

Is the Principal Really Your “Pal?”

Mature businessman looks in amazement.

I’ve addressed some fuzzy, obscure or debatable grammatical issues so far. But some rules just can’t be broken – word usage, for instance. One particular homophone sent me running for to www.dictionary.com the other day, so I decided it was time to address it. To take you back to second grade for a moment, a homophone is (according to www.dictionary.com) “a word pronounced the same as another but differing in meaning, whether spelled the same way or not…” On the other hand, a homonym is a word that sounds the same and is spelled the same, but has a different [Read more…]

The ITS Word

One of my editors sent me an email today with the subject head, “Oy!” This is usually not a good thing, but I hadn’t submitted a story recently and I didn’t owe him anything, so I didn’t panic. When I opened it and read his note, I laughed: “Sorry about my language, Dawn, but “how many times in ONE SENTENCE can someone f- up the “its” word????? (Since you’re writing that new blog….)” The offending press release read as follows (identifying names omitted): “[Company name]’s new [title] unit is targeting strategic partnerships with Fortune 500 companies to specifically align it’s [Read more…]

More than a Wink: How to Use a Semicolon

As a copyeditor, I often correct semicolon usage. If you don’t quite understand how to use a semicolon, you’re not alone; you wouldn’t believe how many professional writers use this little mark incorrectly. And I’m not talking about when you want to indicate a joke or teasing in a chat room. A semicolon should be used instead of a comma or a period to: Delineate items in a list when using commas would make the sentence confusing because there are commas within the items listed Separate two complete, but related, sentences Using semicolons in a list Commas typically separate items [Read more…]

Are You Down With Grammar?

by Dawn Allcot I was dismayed to see #DownWithGrammar trending on Twitter the other day. Some people used the hashtag to bemoan their high school English classes, others to confess to bad spelling, and many to make fun of politicians and political signs. Others – and these are the ones I commend – turned the phrase around in a clever play on words: “I’m #downwithgrammar,” JoannaOC tweeted. “That’s why I want the line to be for people with ‘fewer than 10 items’ instead of those with ‘less than ten items.’” If you’re scratching your head at why the first is [Read more…]

Grammar god or goof?

picture-5

Can you identify the parts of speech beyond nouns and verbs? Do you still remember how to diagram a sentence? Does the phrase dangling participle send you running for the hills? Do sentences that end with a prepositional phrase grate on your nerves like nails on a chalkboard? Then you’re a grammar god. These are the people that can wield “lay, lie, laid and lain” with the skill of a Kung Fu master and they’re great to have around when you need a good editor, but I suspect there are a lot of competent, compelling writers that could be classified [Read more…]

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