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Ammon Shea's Anti-Peeving Manifesto is Bad News for Bullies
June 27, 2014
By Mark Peters
Topic : GrammarDog EaredBooks we loveAmmon Shea's Anti-Peeving Manifesto is Bad News for Bullies June 27, 2014 By Mark Peters![]() Word CountWriters Talk About WritingWrong Turns: Keeping Readers Off the "Garden Path" June 23, 2014 By Merrill Perlman
Sentences have destinations, the place you want your readers to go to absorb the information you're delivering. Sentences that mislead readers are called "garden path" sentences, because they take readers in unexpected directions, the way someone who has been "led down the garden path" has been misled.
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Behind the DictionaryLexicographers Talk About LanguageDays of Future Past, Past of Future Days June 6, 2014 By Neal Whitman
Days of Future Past: It's not just the subtitle of the new X-Men movie that recently opened; it's an invitation to explore some of the lesser-traveled corridors in the English verb tense system.
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In English, modifiers go next to the thing they modify. Dangling and misplaced modifiers are challenging because they can be difficult to spot. Often the meaning is clear enough that readers pass right over them. That doesn't mean, of course, that we shouldn't fix them.
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Word CountWriters Talk About WritingAdverb Placement, Generally and Specifically April 7, 2014 By Erin Brenner
Recently, I came across a version of this sentence in a client document: "ABC Corp. hired XYZ Co. exclusively for testing multiple simulations in order to find the best solution." Did ABC Corp. hire just XYZ Co. or did it hire XYZ Co. just for testing? Although the sentence is grammatical, the meaning is ambiguous absent further context.
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From the annual meeting of the American Copy Editors Society in Las Vegas comes some earth-shaking news: the folks who edit the Associated Press Stylebook have loosened the distinction between "over" and "more than." The stylebook editors announced that they are now fine with "over" being used with numbers. Many of those in attendance were aghast, while others hailed the change as long overdue.
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Teachers at WorkA column about teachingThe Problem with Punctuation: Some Classroom Findings March 14, 2014 By Michele Dunaway
In a previous column, "The Problem with Punctuation," I told you I'd report back my findings on teaching grammar and punctuation a little differently. Now I have some findings and thoughts I can share.
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