Something different or special is in the text you're writing — so important or different that it warrants a little flash. Maybe it's a newspaper name or an article or song title. Should you: A. Underline it? B. Italicize it? Wait, isn't that the same thing as underlining? C. Put quotation marks around it? [...]
It's a one letter difference, but sometimes that's all it takes to make a cringe-worthy grammar mistake. But fear not, we're here to not only give you an active voice, but an accurate one as well. Flesh out: The phrase "flesh out" means to give something substance or make it nearly complete. Example: I think [...]
We're living in a fast-paced world, and we tend to jam a lot of things together. We even make up words like hangry, J-Lo and whatev. Words that begin with prefixes — take, for example, "redo" — are the result of us getting our point across faster. After all, it's faster to say "redo" than [...]
Is media always the plural of medium? If it were only that simple. But you don't need a medium to ask the now-dead person who invented these rules. We just need to remember a few simple definitions: Media (mass communications): newspapers, radio, TV, internet, etc. Often we use media as a mass noun that [...]
So many options. So tempting to type a hyphen, hit the space bar, type another word and see your hyphen magically turn into an en dash. No one will notice ... But an en dash just isn't an em dash, is it? It's shorter. Em dash: — En dash: – Hyphen (for size): - Historically, the [...]
You see it both ways so often that its inconsistency has become consistent, but it still gets under your skin. Should an em dash (—) have spaces before and after it, or should it touch the words it separates? First, what is an em dash? An em dash can be used in pairs to encompass [...]
"Entitled" entails a right to do something. It is not the same thing as "titled." No: I wrote a book entitled "Grammar and You." Yes: I wrote a book titled "Grammar and You." Yes: Mary was entitled to a raise with her promotion.
The words "health" and "care" are used so frequently together in the English language that they are becoming joined at the hip, but according to AP Style, they require separation surgery. Health care as a noun: The national debate about health care has reached a fever pitch. Health care as an adjective: Health care costs [...]
