It’s summertime, but I’m not feeling like the Good Humor Man. (Do any of you even remember the Good Humor Man? I don’t, though I clearly recall the ice-cold, chocolate-covered disappointment those ice cream bars represented.) For this snack, I’d love to serve up something cool and sweet if cool and sweet meant something nutritiously educational and deliciously funny, but the funny part of the equation has taken an early vacation. So I’m not going to force the funny on this entry; you’ll just have to settle for a grammar refresher and find some good humor elsewhere. ... Read More

Word confusion is a popular menu item here at Café Grammar Snacks. Today we’re offering two such tasty tidbits—fresh-baked and ready for your hungry lobes. First, we’ll sink our teeth into the chewy confusion of Comprise and Compose. And then we’ll dig in to the crunchy mix-up of Aggravate and Irritate. So grab a tall glass of whatever and let’s get snacking. ... Read More

It’s snack time, grammar grubbers. And you know what springs to mind when I see, hear or write the word “snack”? Kindergarten, 1977. I can still taste the pretzel sticks (those salted twigs which I pretended were cigarettes) and apple juice served up for morning snack. If only I could remember things of greater import and use. Like actual lessons learned in school. Or my phone number. ... Read More

How many of you can relate to the following scenario? After a marathon client meeting you hustle into the bathroom to relieve a bladder overstimulated by that half-pot of coffee you gulped down. You give a glance in the mirror before reaching your porcelain destination. Something catches your eye. You stop. A wave of hot terror flushes your cheeks. You rush toward the mirror for a closer look. And there it is, something unsightly, and green, dangling from your nose. You marvel at its size before full-blown panic sets in. Your mind swims: “How long has it been there? Who’s seen it? Why didn’t anyone tell me?” (Don’t kid yourself. Everyone saw it, and they didn’t tell you because they’re not true friends. Remember that for when you see any of them sporting a nostril dangler.)
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In this era of texting, tweeting and Facebooking, we resort to using shorthand to get our point across, typically in the form of abbreviations, acronyms, initialisms (yes, it’s a word even if spell check doesn’t recognize it) or symbols. Communicating in shorthand isn’t necessarily wrong, but it’s not always appropriate. We’ll tackle this subject in a future post. Today, let’s narrow our focus to a puny three-letter conjunction we like to condense to one character: and. So enormous is its presence, so strenuous is it to peck out a-n-d on the typer, that we favor its relative, ampersand, or &. In most cases, choosing ampersand over and is faulty. ... Read More

I assume most of you know what a semicolon (;) is and where it’s located on the keyboard or touch screen. Most of you also know how it functions in modern-day communiqués: as the wink in a happy-faced emoticon, right? Yep, Mr. Semicolon is the Captain to Ms. Close Parenthesis’s Tennille. But here’s a little-known fact: the semicolon is actually a punctuation mark that has practical applications in our myriad writings. ... Read More

Remember “Super Colon Blow”? Perhaps you washed down a bowlful this morning with a tall drink of Metamucil. Indeed, high-fiber foods and the colon go hand-in-hand. The same is true of Grammar Snacks and the colon [:]. If we’re to be regular, well-functioning writers, we must pay special attention to our colon health. And judging by what I’ve seen out there, we could all do a better job of looking after our colons. ... Read More

This week's snack: Ending a Sentence with a Preposition ... Read More

Welcome to Grammar Snacks: bite-size morsels of delicious grammar goodness served up semimonthly for your edification and amusement. Join us every fortnight as we dish up tips for identifying and correcting common errors in grammar, usage, and style—all of which come with a large side of humor (what, you didn’t think studies in English grammar could be funny?). In this era of texts, tweets, emoticons, and bullet points, we must not forsake clear, sound writing for haste and brevity.

This week’s snack: Affect vs. Effect ... Read More