Improve and test your knowledge of grammar and style.
Choose the correct word: Cecil’s spiritual adviser urged Cecil to avoid the porn shop by taking an (alternative/alternate) route to work Colbart was not (adverse/averse) to cheating at solitaire. Abigail was (loath/loathe) to try the fried grasshoppers Mort was raving about. Even the whiskey barbecue sauce didn’t (titillate/titivate) her appetite. (Your/You’re) more than welcome. Bert’s … More Meanings of words change, but…
Also look at “Killing Adjectives” https://noharmspilt.com/2015/10/08/killing-adjectives/ Adjectives are words that modify or describe nouns. Nouns are persons, places or things. The adjectives in the following examples are in bold type: an old man, a big deal, beautiful Canada. Sometimes two words are used together to form a single compound adjective. Some compound adjectives such as … More Adjectives
Can you spot the errors in the following sentences? I didn’t bother reading Improve Your Body Image: Make Friends Who Exercise Less Than You Do, which was stupid. Neither the Brown sisters nor Jadwiga have ever considered dating Colbart. Sedgewick almost ran five miles before he remembered that the marathon had been cancelled. To get … More Spotting Errors
Rules for using hyphens are complicated, and anybody who has to do a lot of writing should have a good reference manual handy. Here are some useful guidelines: Compound adjectives are generally hyphenated when they come before a noun: a gas-guzzler car, a four-story building, a five-year-old child. Compound adjectives are generally not hyphenated when … More To Hyphenate or Not To Hyphenate
Deciding whether to use a comma or a semicolon can be very stressful. You can reduce the stress by learning how to punctuate compound sentences and series. Look at these sentences: Colbart hates grammar. He often skips grammar class. Both are independent clauses. They’re called independent clauses because they can stand on their own as … More Commas and Semicolons
Revise these sentences to make them less wordy and compare your revisions with mine. Sylvia very hurriedly scribbled her name, address, and phone number on the back of a greasy napkin. Susan’s stylish jeans, made of leather, were too warm for our climate. She got red at my words, which were spoken in a moment … More Cutting Words
Of the following sentences, only one is correct. Can you spot the errors in the others? Jadwiga rushed in the house to hide the whiskey before Colbart arrived. Aunt Mable is reticent to speak of her years as a con artist. The cat was laying on the floor next to the empty bird cage. The … More Spot the Errors
Parallelism is a very important concept in writing. In compound sentences and lists, each part of the sentence should be in equivalent or parallel form. Parallel sentence structures make the relationships between various ideas in the sentence clear. Sometimes your ear can be a guide because sentence structures that are not parallel sound a bit … More Parallelism
Mark Twain once wrote, “If you catch an adjective, kill it.” It’s good stylistic advice, although Twain was exaggerating, of course. We couldn’t very well kill off all adjectives. “What color was the dog that bit you?” “What?” “The color of the dog?” “Uh…” But using too many adjectives (and adverbs) is a common mistake … More Killing Adjectives
Anyone who has to do much writing needs to understand the difference between active and passive voice. Look at the following sentences: Gloria parked the car under the bridge. The car was parked under the bridge by Gloria. The car was parked under the bridge. The first sentence is in the active voice; the second … More Active and Passive Voice
No Harm Spilt 