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Fifty Years of Stupid Grammar Advice

April 16 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of a little book that is loved and admired throughout American academe. Celebrations, readings, and toasts are being held, and a commemorative edition has been released. I won't be celebrating. The Elements of Style does not deserve the enormous esteem in which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. Its enormous influence has not improved American students' grasp of English grammar; it has significantly degraded it.

One Space Or Two Spaces?

When I began writing technical documentation and courseware for Guru Labs, I asked a question during training about whether we should be putting two spaces after a period, colon, question mark and exclamation point, or one. The answer shocked me, as I was hoping for the standard answer as a means of teaching the rest of my colleagues. The answer was ONE space, not two. Then, I listened to the argument.

The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation

If you are still struggling to decode the complex jargon and structure of English grammar with a long list of reference books, relax. The long wait for a reader-friendly book on English grammar is over. With her straightforward and perfectly-logical approach, Jane Straus reveals the mysteries of grammar and punctuations in her book The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation. The book is extremely well-organized, allowing readers to quickly locate the required topics. Concepts are described in clear and simple phrases, backed with examples from everyday language usage.

Fear of Punctuation

So maybe you do know how to add memory to your computer or program your cell phone, but do you know where to put a comma in a sentence? If you have a sentence followed by a list, do you use a semicolon or a colon? Does the period go inside or outside of quotation marks? How do you keep up with changing rules of grammar and punctuation when you can't remember where to put the apostrophe? People often fear punctuation because the rules have changed and they continue to do so.

Collecting Books about Editing

Intercom's 'friendly editor' discusses his extensive collection of dictionaries, grammars, and other books of interest.

Reconsidering Some Prescriptive Rules of Grammar and Composition

Technical writers and editors are beset with rules. As authoritative as they are, published style guides such as The Chicago manual of style, MLA, APA, and Gregg do not address reading theory but hang their prescriptions on the flimsy mantle of tradition. This article challenges some putative rules of grammar and mechanics in an effort to improve technical texts for the people who read them.

The Use of Capitals

The question to the list-subscribers was I am looking for studies dealing with the difference between small letters and capitals. Are small letters easier to read? In France, road signs are written in capitals but it is not the case in the US or Canada.

Use of Hyphens

This page collects a series of notes from readers of my newsletter, and my responses to those notes, arising from an article in issue 60, 13 May 2002. I thank those who took the time to write and explain why some hyphen usage is considered to be correct or incorrect.

Style Sheets and Grammar

A collection of online resources about style guides and reference sites about grammar.

Appearing for Sentence

Commas, semi-colons and colons are the sentence tidiers. Used correctly, they'll give your written language the 'punctuation' that pauses, voice modulations and gestures provide when you speak.

Caught in the Active

Have you been told, perhaps by your computerised grammar checker, that too many of your sentences are passive? Have you heard the rule of thumb that at least 80 percent of the sentences in any passage should be active? If you've had the problem or heard the rule, and wonder what the terms active and passive mean, and why one is good and the other frowned on, this article is for you.