Garbage is such a trashy word. It suggests rubbish, waste, and, well, garbage. So why not put a positive spin on refuse with the term non-core assets? It applies equally well to financial garbage and garbage garbage, not to mention anything else that's not worth a lick.  Continue reading...

Welcome to the latest in our series of quick tips on usage and style shared by Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl. In this tip, Mignon has some advice on confusion over "ban together" versus "band together."  Continue reading...

One of the delightful features of English is what we might call a mashup. That's a good term for this type of word because it exemplifies the phenomenon: a word formed by the fusing of a verb and a particle, nearly always a particle that can operate independently as a preposition or an adverb, sometimes as both.  Continue reading...

"I ought to know better, but I know naught about the difference between aught and nought" is a sentence sure to make more than one head spin.  Continue reading...

The word "even" has been undergoing some interesting changes recently. What's the new thing going on with "even"? It has to do with questions. But posing questions that contain "even," it turns out, can be tricky business.  Continue reading...

In my recent reading I've gone on a major Mark Twain kick, and with every page I read, my admiration for Twain's writing grows. William Dean Howells, a contemporary and friend, called Twain "the Lincoln of our literature," and the title rings true, both for the plainspoken American vernacular that the two mastered, and for the boldness with which they faced our democracy's ugliest stain, the enslaving of African-Americans by European-Americans.  Continue reading...

Did you know today is National Punctuation Day? Celebrate with some of our punctuation-related articles from the past...

· Exclamation Nation

· Learning to Love the Semicolon

· "Punctuation Hero" or Vandal?

· What's Your Favorite Punctuation Mark?

· Throwing Light on Shady Characters

· The Problem with Punctuation: Some Classroom Findings