http://www.gramlee.com/grammarblog Grammar is an obsession. Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:48:31 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en So you think large news organizations always edit their content before publishing it?  Think again. http://www.gramlee.com/grammarblog/2008/08/12/cnns-grammar-goof-on-obama/ There should be no period after the "2008" since it's a heading/title. These banners were plastered all along the waterfront. Clever visitors surely noticed this blunder. http://www.gramlee.com/grammarblog/2008/07/16/avoid-periods-in-heading-and-titles/ People learn by imitating what they see. That's how children learn to speak; it's also how most people learn to write and otherwise express themselves. You might call this "education by contagion". While it is a workable system, it does have some drawbacks. One of these drawbacks is when instead of ... http://www.gramlee.com/grammarblog/2008/04/30/plague-words/ We just went live with our first press release. Here it is: Gramlee Unveils Online Grammar Editing and Proofreading Service Gramlee uses professional editors to check grammar, sentence construction, brevity and overall readability to ensure writing is technically sound and professional. April 29, 2008, Portland, Oregon, – Gramlee, a new online text ... http://www.gramlee.com/grammarblog/2008/04/29/press-release-1/ Not sure when to use "affect" and when to use "effect" in a sentence? Example: The boy's allergies were affected by the wind. Example: The noise from the neighbor's stereo had a big effect on Billy's mood. Here's a good blog post about this topic. http://www.gramlee.com/grammarblog/2008/03/07/affect-versus-effect/ There seems to be great confusion about how to show possessive nouns that end with the letter "s." The confusion is only increased when you find different grammar guides taking differing stances. Which is correct? Charles's book... Charles' book... In reality, both are. Consistency is the name of the game though. ... http://www.gramlee.com/grammarblog/2008/02/06/possessive-nouns-s/ Many of us are frequent offenders of this crime. We fill sentences with long and redundant words. We do this to make it sound like we know what we're talking about (when we really don't) or to fill the page with words. Or, we somehow feel that ... http://www.gramlee.com/grammarblog/2008/01/28/wordiness-is-a-crime/ The media has covered the writers strike in great detail (read as "gone overboard"). However, many well known media outlets continue to misspell the phrase. Using an apostrophe in "writer's strike" implies that the strike belongs to writers (which it technically does). However, the term "writers" in "writers strike" is ... http://www.gramlee.com/grammarblog/2008/01/24/writers-strike/