Know your who from your whom? Try your hand at these online copy editing tests and grammar quizzes to check if you really paid attention during your 8th grade sentence diagramming lesson...

The John Bremner editing test

American Copy Editors Society quiz (scroll down)

Proofreading Test

Triangle Grammar Blog quizzes (scroll and look for question mark symbols)

Like many ex-journalists, I pride myself in being skeptical. But my Lou Grant exterior is sometimes defeated by my inner Pollyanna. When that happens, I enjoy reading a blog by Love Is the Killer App author Tim Sanders.

In an April 3 entry, Tim argues that simply being kind is one of the keys to success. "A 2002 study on customer service found that if you are likeable and competent," he writes, "you have a threefold increase in the likelihood of getting satisfactory service."

I have a nephew called Robert. About three years ago, when Robert was still quite small, I was in his bedroom with my husband Peter, and Robert's dad. As we were talking, my husband picked up Robert's Professor Gangrene doll, which had a particularly revolting, greenish face. And when my husband heard the doll's name, he said, "What I want to know is, where do all these criminal masterminds get their degrees from?" Whereupon Robert's dad immediately replied: "From the university of Evil."

Immediately, my antennae went up. That's how most writers work: we often get our best ideas from conversations like this.

How do you capture the sense of a cuisine in words? To find out we called the acclaimed chef Rick Bayless, the author of six books on Mexican cooking and host of the PBS show "Mexico -- One Plate at a Time." We had a fascinating and wide-ranging conversation with him about food, language, 1940s anthropologists, and his latest cookbook, Mexican Everyday:

The doctors and nurses who put together these blogs write eloquently -- and often humorously -- about their lives, professions, fellow practitioners and you, their patients! Wondering how not to fake an illness? Read on...

Emergiblog, the life and times of an ER nurse

ER Nursey

Dr. Val & The Voice of Reason

Doc Around The Clock