Ernest Hemingway
How to develop your writing style
Usually I write about grammar, but what about style? Grammar, if you know the rules, can with effort and dedication be learnt. Style, however, is unique to the individual. Writing…
No comma sense: Three common uses for this little grammar tool
I once punned in a headline “No comma sense”. This referred to a number quoted by a government department which did not know where to put the comma between noughts…
Theft and larceny: correct usage
With so much exposure to people’s dirty legal laundry and equal amounts of televised fictional dramas – Law and Order my personal favourite – I often heard the charge of…
The incidence of incidents
There’s not much to say about incidence and incident except that temptation (also read auto brain) to misuse the two words is quite common. It’s one of those cases in…
Diving in to the truth about ‘dove’
To me the word ‘dove’ brings to mind the soap brand and the birds referred to in one of Prince’s better known songs, When Doves Cry. So I was a…
Fewer words, but less data: Know the difference between fewer and less
English is a complex language and there is often confusion between words that seemingly have the same meaning but are particular in their usage. Such is the case with the…
Write better English: the difference between license and licence
Writing good English requires a depth of knowledge of the language. English is full of tricks: words that sound the same and are spelled differently and words that are spelled…