Archives for 2018

Some time ago, I received a very cordial and complimentary message from Brent Davies, one of our British subscribers to The Kellygram, (While we suspended publication in 2016, all 160+ issues of that ezine are archived on our website – www.bobkellywriter.com.) Brent was kind enough to tell us about an organization in … [Read more...] about The Apostrophe Protection Society

Listen to Your Writing One of the goals for our blog is to offer you some practical advice on how to improve your writing. The following are a few simple tips, plus the best writing tip we’ve ever received. • Be genuine in your writing. Converting the spoken word to written form is no reason to change your style. … [Read more...] about Listen to Your Writing

An email I received recently certainly got my attention. A man I hadn’t talked with for a year or more wrote that he’d been trying unsuccessfully to contact me via my wordcrafters.info website, which I’d had for perhaps 20 years. Sadly, my long-time web host died unexpectedly last year, apparently without providing for … [Read more...] about Change of Address

There's perhaps no quicker way to confuse your readers than by the use of dangling or misplaced modifiers. The Random House Dictionary of the English Language defines a dangling modifier as a word or phrase "that appears from its position to modify an element of the sentence other than the one it was intended to … [Read more...] about Leaving Readers Dangling – and Confused

In an issue (2/9/08) of his always entertaining and informative weekly ezine, World Wide Words, Michael Quinion replied to those who ask him about his day job. “Insofar as I have one,” he says, “it is as a freelance field worker for the Oxford English Dictionary, always on the watch for new or interesting words [and … [Read more...] about Strategic Incompetence? There’s a Word for It!

“One of the hardest notions for a human being to shake is that a language is something that is, when it is actually something always becoming.” ~ John McWhorter Among the English-speaking nations of the world, there’s been a long-standing debate about which of these nations uses our not-so-common language … [Read more...] about Watch Your Language!

His name was William Archibald Spooner and he was born in London in 1844. He became an Anglican priest and a noted scholar, affiliated for 60 years with Oxford University, where he held various leadership posts, and taught philosophy and history. Brilliant though he was, he most likely would have been long since … [Read more...] about Getting His Words Mixed!

This language of ours certainly isn’t easy! It’s been known to cause logophobia, defined as “an excessive fear of words.” For example, consider the following statements, each of which uses two words which are spelled the same but have different pronunciations and meanings:   1) The bandage was wound around … [Read more...] about Logophobia – and Other Diseases!

Today, most people probably relate the word scoop to ice cream or sherbet. Given the fact that Americans consume more than one billion gallons of ice cream and other frozen delicacies a year, that’s understandable. However, the scoop we’re referring to is a media term that’s been around for more than a century. Over … [Read more...] about The Straight Scoop!