英语语法：161 Begs the Question

Grammar Girl here. Today I'm going to beg the question. Ellen at Swarthmore said she would appreciate it if I talk about the misuse of the phrase begs the question. I keep seeing it as a way to say The question begs to be asked or The question that s

英语语法：162 Better Versus Best

Grammar Girl here. Guest-writer Bonnie Trenga will be your hostess with the mostest today, because were looking at how to make comparisons using adjectives and adverbs. Bonnie writes, When you want to modify a noun, is it OK to stick a more or a most

英语语法：163 Biweekly Versus Semiweekly

Grammar Girl here. In honor of the increased show production schedule, today's topic is biweekly versus semiweekly. How to Remember the Definitions of Bi- and Semi- The prefixes bi- and semi- are different. Bi- means two and semi- means half. You can

英语语法：164 Bring Versus Take

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is bring versus take. Many listeners have asked me to talk about today's topic. Here's a caller: Hi Grammar Girl. It's Clint in Chester, VA. I have two children reaching high school age and they still don't know the d

英语语法：174 Good Versus Well

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is well versus good. It's such a simple little question: How are you? But I've heard from people who feel a twinge of trepidation or even full-blown frustration every time they have to decide whether to say they're go

英语语法：173 Funny Homophones

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is words that can get you into trouble. Guest-writer Bonnie Trenga writes: Once upon a time, some mistaken citizens stood up for American principals, p-r-i-n-c-i-p-a-l-s. Across the Atlantic, a nutty queen sat on her

英语语法：171 Everybody: Singular or Plural

Grammar Girl here. Today well be talking about indefinite pronouns such as everyone and somebody. Now, guest-writer Bonnie Trenga writes, Everyone Versus Everybody Lately, listeners have asked a lot of questions about indefinite pronouns, such as eve

英语语法：170 Dragged Versus Drug

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is dragged versus drug. I've been renovating a condo, and last week I posted a message on Twitter that started out with the sentence I drug myself over to the condo. I was sharing this bit of information to get to the

英语语法：169 Do You Overuse "Of"?

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is nixing the horrid of. Almost everyone has a few bad writing habits. They're often the kind of thing experts or even your friends can point to and say Yup, I know who wrote that. One of my bad habits is that I tend

英语语法：168 Concrete Versus Cement

Grammar Girl here. Todays topic is cement versus concrete. Guest writer Sal Glynn writes: Accuracy is important. You might think concrete and cement are interchangeable, but you'll quickly find that you're mistaken when some guy at Home Depot rolls h

英语语法：167 Comparatives Versus Superlatives

Grammar Girl here. Your hostess with the mostest, guest-writer Bonnie Trenga, is back for more on comparisons. In a previous show, we talked about when to use more and most or the suffixes -er and -est to make comparisons using adjectives and adverbs

英语语法：166 Can You Start a Sentence with “Which”

Grammar Girl here. Today guest-writer Bonnie Trenga will help us talk about which clauses and whether its OK to start a sentence with oneor a new paragraph. Incomplete Sentences Sentences that are missing something, such as a subject or a predicate,

英语语法：175 Hanged Versus Hung

Grammar Girl here. I know I promised that the next episode would be about apostrophes, but Zach wrote in with a grammar emergency tied to the execution of Saddam Hussein. I'm sure we all realize there are more important aspects to this story than rep

英语语法：4 April Fools' Day Episode

I hope you enjoy this April Fools' Day show. It was created by Will Ross, host of The Traveling Avatar's Quick and Dirty Tips for a Better Second Life. [I quick-posted the transcript for the listeners stationed in Iraq. I didn't realize they can't li

英语语法：75 People Versus Entities

Grammar Girl here. Aliza in Alaska recently asked whether she should use who or that to refer to a board of directors. Today we're going to decide whether companies are people or things; in other words, whether you use the relative pronoun who or tha

英语语法：85 Should Writers Keep a Journal?

Today we're going to talk about keeping a journal. If you're an aspiring writer, you've probably heard that writers should keep a writing journal. The first time I kept a real writing journal was in my freshman English class in college, so since it's

英语语法：84 Sentence Length

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is sentence length. This episode was written by guest writer, Bonnie Trenga, author of The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier. I was glad to hear from those of you who enjoyed Bonnie's writing last week. I'll be b

英语语法：83 Sentence Fragments

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is sentence fragments. I often imagine that listeners are writing articles and essays and books, but I was recently reminded that some people make their living writing shorter things like headlines and ad copy, and th

英语语法：82 Semicolons

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is semicolons. I get questions about semicolons a lot, so it's time to clear up some confusion. Semicolons separate things. Most commonly, they separate two main clauses that are closely related to each other but that

英语语法：81 Readers Share Their Funny Errors

by Mignon Fogarty In this week's article, I'm going to share some of the funniest stories people have told me about errors that went out in e-mail messages and published materials. The reason I have so many funny stories to share is that a few days a