The following is the second part of Erin Brenner's response to the recent piece by Simon Glickman and Julia Rubiner, "'Whose' an Animate Object?" In the first part, Erin considered the use of that to refer to people, and here she examines whether whose should be used for inanimate objects.  Continue reading...

In a recent article on the Visual Thesaurus, Simon Glickman and Julia Rubiner state that when referring to a person, the writer should always use who and never that. Often I agree with what Glickman and Rubiner say, but not this time.  Continue reading...

When robot butlers earn their rightful place in Consumer Reports, I'll let that august publication determine whether the product under scrutiny is an "it" or a "him." At this point in the history of humankind, however, there's little cause for speculation as to what is or is not an animate object.  Continue reading...

At the 2011 Detroit Auto Show, Toyota is taking a poll to determine what the plural of "Prius" should be. It's all part of their "Prius goes plural" ad campaign, as they unveil three new Prius models. The Detroit Free Press consulted with some experts, including Visual Thesaurus editor Ben Zimmer, to get their take on how to pluralize the Latin-sounding car name.  Continue reading...

Participle.

It's one of those words your English teacher used once or twice but that didn't really stick with you. Yet improper use of a participle can cause your sentence to blur before your readers' eyes. In this Grammar Bite, we'll define participles and look at how things can go awry with them. Conquer the dangling participle, and your writing will smarten up right away.  Continue reading...

In The Chronicle of Higher Education, Ben Yagoda writes about the errors he's noticed in his students' compositions. Very often, he says, students change their writing to be "longer and more prosaic": "They give a new sound to prose. I call it clunk." Read Yagoda's guided tour to "clunk" here.