GrammarPhile Blog

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Answers to Last Week's Thursday Challenge

Words in Orbit

Thursday Challenge

When and How to Use [sic]

Ditch These Phrases from Your Business Communications

I Can Help Get Your Copy Perfect

How to Repair Sentence Fragments and Run-On Sentences

QUIZ: Find the Best Option to Repair the Grammatically Incorrect Sentence or Phrase

Master Using the Passive Voice Effectively

How to Cut and Polish Your Writing for Your Editor or Proofreader

Quiz: Can You Identify the Writing Mistake?

10 Things Popular Style Guides Don't Always Agree On

QUIZ: Can You Identify and Name the Grammar Errors?

Exploring the Structure of the Perfect Paragraph

Should Writers and Editors Practice Grammar?

What Makes a Writer "Great"?

10 Things That Are Strange to Non-Native English Speakers

What Kind of Training Should Pro Editors and Proofreaders Have?

10 Best Practices for Writing and Editing Technical Documents

Grammar-Checking Software Doesn't Catch Everything: Here's Proof

Navigating the Different Types of Compounds

Land an Editing or Proofreading Job in 2019: For Beginners and Pros

Holiday Quiz: Can You Spot the Grammar Mistake(s)?

Will Software Replace Human Writers?

Are Grammar Rules Different for Different Professions?

Advanced Syntax and Grammar Quiz

Suffixes and Prefixes: The Basics

Top Six Mistakes Editors and Proofreaders Make

8 Tips for Understanding, Learning, and Teaching Grammar Concepts

Why Is Parallel Structure Important in Writing?

QUIZ: Can You Spot All the Grammar Mistakes?

What You Need to Know About Comma Usage

7 Tips to Write Stimulating Pieces About Trending or Worn-Out Topics

Quiz: Match Each Famous Author to His or Her Advice About Writing

What You Need to Know About AI and Writing in the Digital Age

Marketers and Writers — What’s the Difference?

Your Feedback Wanted - Quick Survey

Is It Possible to Be Unbiased When Writing?

How to Adapt Your Writing for Epic Video Content

Comma Drama, Hyper-Hyphenation, and Smelling Salts

Understanding the Real-World Impact of Poorly Written Web Copy

The Business Value of Hiring a 24/7 Proofreading Service

Do You Know the Etymology of These Common Words, Phrases, and Colloquialisms?

Why You Always Need to Proofread Your Website

Comma Drama, Hyper-Hyphenation, and Dusting Caps

Seven Best Practices for Writing Better Cold Emails

Grammar Drama: The 10 Most Hotly Debated Topics in Grammar

25 Writing Topics that Weren’t Popular a Decade Ago

7 Benefits of Creative Writing Exercises

How and Why You Should Copyright Your Written Work in the Internet Age

What Type of Writer Are You – Quiz Answers

QUIZ: What Type of Writer Are You?

Will Cursive Handwriting Become Obsolete? Does It Matter?

New Words Added to the Dictionary in 2017

8 Ways to Improve Your Writing Using Your Mobile Device

How to Build an Amazing Writing Portfolio

How to Display Confidence in Your Writing

What Word Processing Software Should You Be Using in 2018?

Can You Ace This Basic Proofreading Quiz?

Grammar-Checking Software: A Quick Review

Does Having a Voice Matter in Business Writing?

Best Practices for Maximizing Your Writing Workflow

QUIZ: Match Each Entry to Its Style Guide

6 Types of Writing You Always Want a Proofreader to Review

Popular Style Guides and What You Need to Know About Each - Part 2

Popular Style Guides and What You Need to Know About Each - Part 1

Dos and Don'ts for Using Industry Jargon

How to Make a Boring Topic Interesting

QUIZ: Most Notable Grammar Blunders of All Time

What You Need to Know About Business Writing in 2018

Origins of Holiday Stories from Around the World

QUIZ: Match Famous Quotes to Their Authors

Master Prefixes and Suffixes with Hyphens

Understanding Gerunds and Infinitives

QUIZ: Do You Know How to Use Modifiers Correctly?

Tips and Tricks for Proofreaders

i.e. vs. e.g. and When to Use Which

Uncommon Punctuation Marks and How to Use Them

Do Emojis Belong in Business Writing?

How to Connect with Your Audience Emotionally Using Grammar

Tips for Avoiding Gender Bias in Your Writing

How Good Are You at Conjugating Verbs?

How to Write an Impressive Social Media Profile

Demystifying Common Confusing Idioms and Phrases

How Words Are Added to a Dictionary

Advanced Punctuation Quiz

Ace Your Next Vocabulary Quiz by Knowing These Common Word Roots

Understanding Clauses, the Building Blocks of a Sentence

What Every Proofreader Needs You to Know

Write Web Copy that Gets Results

Famous Authors with Unique Writing Rituals and Why You Need One

Editor or Proofreader:  Who Does What?

Here's the Best Time for You to Write, According to Science

The Oxford Comma: Use It or Ditch It?

10 Commandments of Technical Writing

5 Tips to Beat Writer's Block

10 Online Courses to Improve Your Writing Skills

5 Creative Writing Exercises to Improve Your Business Writing

Improve Your Writing Today with These 10 Apps

Common Writing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them – Part 2

Common Writing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them – Part 1

Formatting Tips to Make Your Writing Stand Out

Are You Damaging Your Professional Reputation?

How to Build a Successful Writing Culture for Your Team or Organization

Part 2: Grammar Rules You Can and Should Break in Your Marketing Copy

Common Myths About Proofreaders, Debunked

5 Ways Reading Fiction Helps Your Business Writing Skills

Did You Pass? Answers to Last Week's High School English Test

Can You Pass This High School English Test?

8 Emails You Should Write Often and Why

How to Turn a Formal Email into an Effective Email

Are Formal Lines Becoming Blurred in Business Writing?

How to Know When to Use a Hyphen

Grammar Rules You Can and Should Break in Your Marketing Copy

How to Write About Yourself for Bios and Profiles

Punctuation in the 21st Century: What You Need to Know

In Celebration of Groundhog Day - Redundant Phrases

A Request: Write Legal Documents in Plain English

Easily Confused Words - Answers to Last Week's Quiz

Quiz: Easily Confused Words

Fun Ways to Improve Your Writing Skills in 2017

Embarrassing Grammar Errors in 2016

Fact Checking the Story of Christmas

Five Ways Technology Can Hurt Your Writing and What to Do About It

16-ACROSS or 27-DOWN: Answers to Last Week's Quiz

Quiz: What's Another Word for ... ?

How Grammar Has Changed Generationally

Implement the Art of Storytelling in Your Business Communications

How to Persuade Your Audience without Being Corny, Pushy, or Inauthentic

Get Help for Your Writing

Secrets to Writing Effective Press Releases

The Great Grammar Debate: Results Are Surprisingly Lopsided

The Great Grammar Debate: Where Do YOU Stand?

5 Ways to Get Your Point Across in Business Emails

What Do Typos Say About You?

Who or Whom? Get It Right Every Time with These 3 Tricks

Why Proofreading Is a Must for Legal Firms

Release Your Inner Grammar Demons

Should You Correct Others’ Grammar?

Why Proofreaders Can't Do Everything

Hot off the Press: The Answers to Last Week’s Cool Quiz

Beat the Heat with a Cool Quiz

Use the Right Words to Attract Your Audience

Lie or Lay? Get It Right Every Time

Why Punctuation Matters More Than You Might Think

Resumes That Get You Noticed

3 Reasons to Do a Proofreading Review of Your Content

Internet: Making the Case for Lowercase

Eight Typos Spellcheck Won't Catch

Putting Only in Its Place

Is It Ever Okay to Use Slang in Your Business Communications?

Trim Prepositional Phrases for Leaner Writing

5 Ways to Get What You Want Out of Proofreading

Break Your Bizspeak Addiction

3 Quick Writing Fixes for Law Firms

No Time Like the Present

10 Words Businesspeople Commonly Mispronounce

Campaign Trail Littered with Typos

Singling Out Collective Nouns

The Votes Are in, and the Winner Is …

Cast Your Votes for the Correct Answers in Our Proofreading Quiz

3 Myths About Proofreading Services

4 Important Areas to Proofread on Your Website

5 Words Even Smart People Misuse

3 Rules for Using Percentages

The End of the English Language?

4 Ways to Eliminate the Bloat in Your Writing

It's Just Another New Year's Eve ... or Is It?

Dashing Through December

5 Tips for Writing the Perfect Thank-You

How to Tame Your Pet (Peeves)

Video:  AM or PM?

The 4 Absolute Best Ways to Steer Clear of Hyperbole

8 Proofreading Tricks (and a Few Treats)

Proofreading Horror Stories

Bring Your "A" Game

4 Grammar Mishaps That Will Make Your Brand Untrustworthy

Drum Roll, Please ... Proofreading Quiz Results Are In

A Quiz to Celebrate National Punctuation Day

The Dark Side of Gerunds

Just the Facts, Ma'am

How To Not Annoy Everyone on Your Email List

The Funny Business of Misplaced Modifiers

Dangling Modifiers Can Mangle Meaning

5 Words or Phrases You May Be Using Incorrectly

What's the Big Deal About Typos?

Into (and out of) the Mystic

Little Words, Big Problems

8 Proofreading Red Flags

We Want YOU ... to Understand Restrictive/Nonrestrictive Clauses

Proofreading Quiz: And the Winner Is …

And You Thought Finals Were Done … A Quiz

As You Like It ... or Not

Pronouns with Comparatives: More than Meets the I

We Have Met the Enemy, and It Is Pronouns

How to Herd Cats Like a Pro (Part 2)

How to Herd Cats Like a Pro (Part 1)

The Return from Neverland

When Homophones Come Calling

North, South, West, East … Capitalizing Can Be a Beast

April Aggravations Tourney Winners

April Aggravations: Antidote for March Madness Letdown

Fullproof, er … Foolproof Advice for Avoiding Malapropisms and Eggcorns

Spring Has Sprung …

Test Your Mettle Proofreading Quiz Results

Test Your Mettle (or Is It Metal?) with This Proofreading Quiz

10 Tips for Better Business Writing (Part 3)

10 Tips for Better Business Writing (Part 2)

10 Tips for Better Business Writing (Part 1)

Be Active Not Passive

Similar but Different: Choosing the Right Word

Rescue Your Writing from Redundancy

Don’t Be Fooled by False Subjects

Eliminating Cliches: Say Hello to Original (Part 2)

Identifying Clichés: Bid Adieu to the Tried and True (Part 1)

Common, Ordinary, Everyday Adjectives

You Want an Apostrophe with that Name?

Number Nine...Number Nine...Number Nine

Names of Government Bodies (Be Nice Now!)

Can You Pick the Correct Verb?

Words Religious

Words and Phrases People Often Mangle

Let's Play!

Omitting Parts of Verbs

A Great Moment in American Literature

Tribute to the Left(-handed World)

More Questions for Our Grammar Experts

Polite Requests

The Subjunctive Mood Adds Elegance

Don't Break the Law with Legal Numbers

Test Yourself Against Our Experts

It's a Great Day, Actually!

"Where do question marks go?" he asked.

Do You Believe in Capital Punishment?

Smart Writers Know These Words

Comma Comma

Don't Confuse Adverbs and Adjectives

Six Words That Confuse Even Smart People

Be an Exemplar of Excellent Elocution

Quotation Marks and Other Punctuation

Often-Confused Words

More About Commas

To Hyphenate or Not.....

Using Commas in Writing

Super Bowl Party Fodder

Mountaineering Terms

Using Brackets in Quotations

Keep This Between You and I?

Capital Advice

Common Spellings - Common Questions

Tips for Better Speeches

Comprise or Include? Compare to or Compare with?

Word Forms from the AP Stylebook

More Commonly Confused Words

Let's Check the Numbers!

If I Were or If I Was: Which is Correct?

Common Confusions

Vocabulary Quiz: Going for the Perfect Ten

That or Which?

Video: Don't Make These Mistakes!

Look Smart Using These Words Properly

Pronoun Paranoia

Bibliographic Citations

Do you over-hyphenate?

Scaling Back on Functional Shift

Video: Adverb and Adjective Combinations

Should You Cap Titles (of people)?

One of the Most Common Errors We See

Video: Common words that people always confuse!

These Words Can Make You Look Smart...or Dumb.

Either is, Neither is: rules are rules

Let's get these straight, please.

Video: "Underway" or "Under Way"

It's me or It's I?

Happy (belated) Earth Day!

Prayers

Comma Comment

Video: Could you care less?

Public Speaking Tips

Clash of Words

Video: Reflexive Pronouns - Yourself? Myself?

Are you all set with question marks?

Hyphenation in Titles

Pondering Possessives

Video: Farther versus Further

Rule Breaker: Never Split an Infinitive(?)

Miscellaneous Items...

Do You Know These Words?

Holiday Wishes...

A Christmas Carol

Antecedent Agreement

Dates

OR: Is It Clear or Do You Need Help?

The Colon: Its Use in Punctuation

Possessives in "of" Phrases

Gerunds - Do You Use Them Correctly?

And...and more

Active or Passive Voice? Take a Side.

Appositives

Use of That

Vocabulary Test: Know Your Psychoses

Are you set on question marks with other marks of punctuation?

In Grammar, Possession is Less than Nine-Tenths of the Law

Using Civil Titles

Going Back to School?

Drink-Driving; Infer and Imply

Hyphens, Fractions, Numbers

More Questions from Our Mailbox

Metaphor, Simile, and Analogy

Vocabulary test -- Spilled Catchphrases

From Our Mailbag

Some Rules on Numbers

A Semicolon Example: When to Use or Not

Some Common Foreign Words and Phrases

Determining Numbers in a Series

Plurals and Punctuation of Numbers

Some Notes on Titles of Works

Does anybody really know what time it is?

Janus Words

Word Breakdown or Politics as Usual

Vertical Lists (or Bullet Lists)

Possessives - Proper Nouns

Possessives - General Rules

Words, Words, Words

Punctuation Gotchas

Split Infinitives

Phrases and Commas and Words, Oh My!

Structures and Public Places

Myth: Don't Repeat Words; Use Synonyms Instead

Lay and Lie -- Which is correct?

Right Words, Wrong Words

Adverbs + Participles

Merriam Webster and OED Are Off the Chain!

Footnotes, Asterisks and Ends of Sentences

Who, Which, and That

Who and Whom; Whoever and Whomever

A, Eek, I, Oh, and You

Why English Is So Hard to Learn

More Compound Adjectives

Compound Adjectives

Some Science of Science Writing

Highlighting for Attention

Prepositional Idioms and Why They're Important

Twisted? Misused? How About Just Plain Wrong?

The Diagonal

Idioms

Myth: Never End a Sentence with a Preposition

Do you write really good? Please say it ain't so!

Vocabulary Test: Political Words

The Semicolon and Independent Clauses

Numbers in Dialogue

Can You See Money in Your Writing?

Latin Abbreviations

Vocabulary Test - Wacky Weather Words

Calendar and Time Designations

Get Points for Proper Use of Points

Poll: Which Writing Mistake Drives You Crazy?

Acronyms, Initialisms, and Abbreviations

Spelling Mistakes Result in Lost Business

Editing -- It's Not Just to Correct Spelling Errors!

Vocabulary Test: ConGRADulations?

Evie eat it my muffin!

Double Negatives

Not sure how to form plurals? Read this!

More Reader Questions!

Grammar Questions

The Internet, Email, and E-Books

Commas - When to Use Them or Omit Them

Better Writing: Proper Use of Possessive Form

Word Choices

What a Difference a Space Makes

Onomato - what?

Vocabulary Quiz: Travel Much?

Grammar Questions Answered

Convince vs. Persuade

NONE - Is it singular or plural?

More Grammar Questions From Our Readers

Vocabulary Test -- Don't Cry!

Subjects Joined by "And"

Try and... or Try to...

Are you afflicted with “there-itis”?

Official Changes in the English Language?

Can Nine Women Do Something Miraculous in One Month?

On a Personal Note

Commas and Christmas Carols!

The Ubiquitous Comma Splice

Give Us Examples of Bad Grammar or Writing in Publications

Where's the Date?

Double Space or Not - That is the Question!

Mother, May I?

Acceptable Number of Document Errors?

Active Proofreading: How to Successfully Proofread Your Own Work

Wrong Words Make Bad First Impression

Word Test - Phobias

Most Confusing Two Letter Word

Often-Confused Words

Proofreading Errors

3 Quick Tips to Improve Business Communications

Question: Straight or Curved Quotes?

Word Test - Oil. It's on the Brain These Days.

Me, Myself, and I

Headline Style -- Read All About It!

Word Test -- What does YOUR last name mean?

While - Don't Overuse It!

Test Your Vocabulary

Horrible Homonyms: What Your Spell Checker Won't Tell You

Avoid Confusing Words When Writing for Business

How to Adapt Your Writing Style to Your Business

Fun with Adverbs

Misused Words

Writing for Business -- Create a Professional Image

What business communication, writing, editing, topics should we cover?

Vocabulary Test - How many of these do you know?

Infinitives: To Split or Not?

Using Infinitives in Corporate Documents

4 Common Mistakes

Vocabulary Test - Rate Your Skills

More Mis-Used Words in Business Writing

Avoiding Word Confusion in Business Communications

Confused by or and nor?

Word Test - Are you up to the challenge?

Misplaced Modifiers

Advertising Agencies Hiring Now!?

More on Possessives

Commas: To use or not to use, that is the question!

Use (or misuse) of Double Negatives

North, East, South or West - Capitalize or Not?

Avoid Redundancy in Your Writing

Formal vs. Informal -- Informal Doesn't Mean Incorrect Grammar

Grammar Usage - Compound Verbs

Forming Possessives of Singular Nouns

New Compounds: When Two Become One

Writing Clearly & Concisely

Fortune, as in Fortune 100 - italicize? or not?

Announcing a New Word: Hanitizer

Sorry -- This is NOT a Judgment-Free Zone!

Words That Mean the Opposite of What You Might Think

Idioms and Word Derivations

Why You Should Never Proofread Your Own Work!

Hyphens, En Dashes, and Em Dashes

Principal or Principle?

Libyan Terrorist Suffers from "Prostrate" Cancer

Grammar Question - Commas & Because

Proofreading for Clichés and Content-free Buzzwords (CFBs)

Don't Worry - Be Sloppy! Is proofreading important?

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