We'd like to welcome Jonathon Owen, a copy editor and book designer with a master's degree in linguistics, as our newest regular contributor! Here Jonathon explains how he discovered that an oft-quoted example of George Orwell using singular "they" turned out not to be by Orwell after all.  Continue reading...

"Deer Creek blames fire on science experiment," read one headline. "Arsonist blames fire on living conditions," said another. Some people would take umbrage with both of those sentences, asserting that the finger of blame was pointing in the wrong direction.  Continue reading...

It's April, which means that the major league baseball season is once again under way. Time to celebrate America's favorite pastime with a look at the origins of words from the baseball diamond.  Continue reading...

Of the many small errors that bedevil many writers — and enrage their teachers and editors — there is perhaps none so simple to understand, and explain, than the use of "it's" when "its" is meant.  Continue reading...

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." This enigmatic sentence has been bouncing around the literate world for thirty-plus years. Many attribute it to the cerebral comedian Martin Mull, but its origins, like those of many such catch phrases, remain misty.  Continue reading...

Just as making great music isn't always about being pitch-perfect (think of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen), writing isn't always about, well, writing. In order to write, your mind needs to be both relaxed and fit. Having written a lot helps, of course, but here are 10 other activities you can do to better prepare yourself to write.  Continue reading...

Jonathon Owen is a copy editor and student of linguistics who "holds the paradoxical view that it's possible to be a prescriptivist and descriptivist simultaneously." Here, he looks at how people can get tripped up on words with unusual plural forms like phenomena.  Continue reading...