Word(s) of the Week 7/1/2018

Grammar Help with These Words

By Annette Rey

Do yourself a favor and print a list of these words and tape them at eye level somewhere in your work space. You will thank me later.

Continue reading

Less and Fewer

The Easy Explanation

By Annette Rey

I believe grammar is made too difficult to understand so risking condemnation from the wordy grammar ghouls out there, here is the shortcut to understanding when to use less and when to use fewer.

Continue reading

About Diagramming Sentences

A Lost Practice

By Annette Rey

I believe if you have a familiarity with diagramming sentences, you will create better sentences. And where a sentence just doesn’t seem right, diagramming can be a great tool to lead you in the right direction to correct your sentence.

The tool is:

Continue reading

Stink, Stank, Stunk

Funny Sounding Verbs

By Annette Rey

How often do you hear anyone say stank? It’s one of those words people think sound quirky, like it’s not a real word at all. People usually say, “The place really stunk!” I guess that’s okay among friends, in informal conversation.

But, as a writer, you need to show a higher level of education. You need to sound credible. You need to know the correct tense of a word to use in your sentences.

Continue reading

Wildly vs. Widely

SO Commonly Confused

By Annette Rey

This particular misuse occurs frequently, on all kinds of platforms of television programs, radio, and in daily conversation. Recently I heard it on a commercial. Curious?

Continue reading

What is the Subject of Your Sentence?

Avoid Confusion for Your Listener

By Annette Rey

I think like a writer and I can’t turn it off; so I find writing material wherever life takes me.

While waiting at a cemetery for a funeral director, I overheard an employee attempt to direct a person to a particular grave section. The words she chose left me confused and it took me some moments to make sense of what she said.

This is what I heard.

Continue reading

Literal vs. Figurative

Little Things Mean A Lot

By Annette Rey

Writers do so much to avoid making mistakes in their writing. They dread seeing a mistake in a final piece of work in black and white on the web or on paper. Writers have to juggle rules of grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, spelling, word usage, plot, scene, theme, and more.

With all this on their minds, simple errors can be committed.

Let’s look at the words literal and figurative, both adjectives.

Continue reading