英语语法：103 When Are Double Words OK?

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is double words, Guest-writer Bonnie Trenga writes, Todays todays podcast podcast is is about words that are doubled, such as had had and is is. Words grammar checker automatically alerts you when you repeat a word, b

英语语法：102 What Is the Plural of Scissors?

Grammar Girl here. Todays topic is when plurals have no singular. A listener named Brent called in with this question: I have a question: how come pants, trousers, slacks, corduroys are all plurals even though there is only one of them? Guest writer

英语语法：101 What Is the Plural of “Mouse”?

Todays topic is irregular plural nouns, odd nouns such as ox and oxen. Robbie from Keene, New Hampshire, called in with this question: One of my friends knows that I'm kind of geeky and into grammar and was asking me about adding the 's' onto words t

英语语法：109 Which Versus That

If you're confused about that versus which, don't feel bad. It's one of the most common topics people ask me about. I used to work as a technical writer, and I'd often edit documents in which people used the wrong word. More than once, I'd put in the

英语语法：123 Ellipses

by Mignon Fogarty People often ask how to use ellipses, those little dot-dot-dots you often see in e-mail messages. For example, Mitra from Michigan asked, When is it appropriate to use '...' in writing? People use it all the time, and it seems like

英语语法：130 Serial Comma

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is the serial comma. Here's a listener: Hi, Grammar Girl. This is Patti from Houston... Patti and her friends are debating about the serial commathe comma that comes before the final conjunction in a list. Here's a se

英语语法：129 Run-On Sentences

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is how to format questions. You think you already know this, don't you? I wonder if you're right. Everybody knows how write a plain vanilla question: What's new? They're called direct questions. But there are trickier

英语语法：128 How to Use Semicolons

Grammar Girl here. Surprise! You get a bonus show today because Thursday is National Punctuation Day and I'm going to have a slightly different kind of podcast to celebrate. Today's topic is semicolons. I get a lot of questions about semicolons, so i

英语语法：127 How Many Spaces After A Period?

Grammar Girl here. This week I have two topics for you: The number of spaces after a period at the end of a sentence, and whether you should use who or that to refer to people (and pets). Now here's our first listener question. His friends believe it

英语语法：126 Formatting Vertical Lists

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is how to format vertical lists. Most of the grammar books I own only partially address vertical lists. One book discusses capitalization, another partially discusses punctuation, and so on. Only the Chicago Manual of

英语语法：125 Formatting Hyperlinks

Grammar Girl here. Today I'm going to talk about how to format Web addresses for print documents and websites. URLs and Terminal Punctuation A listener named Aileen recently asked how to deal with a Web address at the end of a sentence. Should she pu

英语语法：124 Ellipses Spurned

Today I have a special show for you because it's September 24: National Punctuation Day, a holiday created by an educator named Jeff Rubin. To celebrate the day I had a punctuation contest and today's show highlights two of the winners. Other winners

英语语法：122 Rhetorical Questions

Grammar Girl here. Today guest-writer Bonnie Trenga will help us talk about two kinds of peculiar questions. Isnt that going to be fun! Isn't that going to be fun, is a rhetorical question. Were also going to learn about its cousin. Thats called a ta

英语语法：121 Daylight-Saving Time

by Mignon Fogarty Many parts of the world are moving from standard time to daylight-saving time (also called summer time) this week, so I thought it would be a good time to talk about the phrase daylight-saving time and time in general. The original

英语语法：120 Dashes, Parentheses, and Commas

By Mignon Fogarty Today I'll explain the difference between dashes, commas, and parentheses. Stever Robbins, the host of the Get-It-Done Guy podcast, has been writing a book, and his birthday is today. He told me that his birthday wish would be for m

英语语法：119 Dashes Versus Colons

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is dashes. Last week when I was speaking at the Field's End Writers Conference on Bainbridge Island, someone in the audience asked about dashes. When should she use a dash and how is it different from a colon? Dashes

英语语法：118 Comma Splice

By Mignon Fogarty I decided to write about comma splices because my friend Scott Sigler has a book coming out this week, Ancestor, published by Crown. Over three years ago, when he was publishing an earlier version of the book with a smaller publishe

英语语法：117 Colons

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is how to use colons. Sallie in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, and a listener named Mike wondered when to use a colon and when to capitalize the first word after a colon. One of my favorite grammar books, titled* Punctuate

英语语法：116 The Asterisk

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is the asterisk. Why? Because Barry Bonds just broke the record for number of home runs in one season* and people are talking about putting an asterisk next to his name in the record book because of the steroid contro

英语语法：31 “One” Versus “You”

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is one versus you. Guest-writer Bonnie Trenga is going to help us determine the best way to talk in general terms about the average person. Bonnie says, If you want to talk about people in general, should you say, It