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...

In every walk of life, there are things that fail to achieve what we're expecting them to. The love letter you thought was swoon-worthy falls flat. The greatest motivational technique ever is met with blank stares. Just as much as the successes though, we can learn from things that don't work. In fact, some people would say that you learn more from your missteps than from the things with a positive outcome.  Continue reading...

Double negatives are supposed to be a bad thing. Using two negatives in one clause is not only ungrammatical, it's illogical: it creates an unintended positive meaning. According to this thinking, if you say "Studying grammar rules won't do you no good," you're really saying, "Studying grammar rules will do you good."  Continue reading...

It's time for the latest in our series of quick tips on usage and style shared by Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl. Here Mignon tackles the question of whether the past-tense form of shine should be shined or shone.  Continue reading...

Here is the latest in a series of tips on usage and style shared by Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl. One of Mignon's correspondents inquires about when setup should appear as a single, unbroken word, and when there should be a space or a hyphen between set and up.  Continue reading...

I asked fellow editors recently what usage rule they wanted to know more about or what rule they saw broken regularly. I received lots of answers (thanks, all!), including this one: "Why is worth preceded with a possessive noun or pronoun, as in two days' worth?"  Continue reading...