To open a writing class at a recent conference of New York City high school newspaper kids, I wrote this sentence on the board:

The woman stood on the hillside and looked down at the valley below.

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Have you noticed that curators, once restricted to institutions like museums and art galleries, are now running rampant? Research librarian Stan Friedman investigates curator-mania, and discovers that people are finding comfort in an old, trusted term.  Continue reading...

How do you feel about the phrase due to? Does it just mean "attributable to" to you, or can it also mean "because of"? Your answer may help explain where you fall along the prescriptivism-descriptivism usage continuum.  Continue reading...

People judge you by the words you use. This warning, once the slogan of a vocabulary building course, is now the mantra of the new science of culturomics.  Continue reading...

Subject-verb agreement sounds easy, doesn’t it? A singular subject takes singular verb, and a plural subject takes a plural verb. Yet The Copyeditor's Handbook lists no fewer than 25 cases that aren't so clear-cut, and Garner's Modern American Usage devotes nearly 5 columns to the topic. Even the comparatively diminutive Grammar Smart devotes five pages (including quizzes) to the topic. What makes subject-verb agreement so hard?  Continue reading...

If I'm feeling "down" or overwhelmed, nothing improves my mood faster than cleaning a desk, a drawer or a closet. Call me deranged, but I adore organizing. Perhaps that's why I was so happy a few years ago to stumble across the marvelous website Unclutterer hosted by Erin Doland. I skim through it every day.

Now, after interviewing her for this article I am, frankly, gobsmacked.  Continue reading...

Writing offers many advantages as a medium for thought. Writing can be accurate: true in detail to fact and nuance; versatile: no subject is beyond its grasp; imperishable: first editions return in time to dust, but texts can be reprinted; economical: a slim volume can hold a treasury of ideas.  Continue reading...