Archives for Blog

April 3, 2017

Regular readers of my blog will know that I care about grammar mistakes, particularly all-too-common apostrophe abuse. So I applaud this grammar vigilante who tours his hometown of Bristol in the dead of night, armed only with a ladder and stickers, correcting the most offensive errors.

https://www.facebook.com/bbcbreakfast/videos/1661567050524093/

 

 

Read more »

March 29, 2017

It has long been quarrelled over by writers but the ‘Oxford comma’ now has a new champion in the unlikely form of Christopher O’Connor, a lorry driver from Maine, and 50 fellow truckers. The drivers emerged victorious in a court case with their employer over overtime pay. Unusually, it hinged on the absence of the Oxford comma (also known as a ‘serial comma’) in state legislation covering overtime pay.

Quick grammar aside: The Oxford comma is used before the words ‘and’ or ‘or’ in a list of three or more things to clarify sentences in which things are listed.

Read more »

December 20, 2016

Poor spelling has got President-Elect Donald Trump into hot water. After the furore over his protocol-breaking call to the President of Taiwan, Donald Trump took to Twitter to continue his diplomatic attack on China. Unfortunately, the impact of his tweet was somewhat lessened by an embarrassing spelling mistake that turned what could have been an explosive attack on China’s aggression into personal derision for his lack of spelling ability.

Trump opened himself up to ridicule by spelling ‘unprecedented’ as ‘unpresidented’ when he tweeted “China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters –

Read more »