英语语法：193 Modifying Absolutes

Grammar Girl here. I'm so glad to be back. Today's topic is wordiness. I've heard from a lot of you who have pet peeves about different wordy phrases, and it's a lot of fun to hear what gets under people's skin and why. Here's one example from Lara i

英语语法：192 Misusing “So” and “Very”

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is something I am very guilty of doing myself: overusing the words so and very. A listener named Taryn wrote in asking if it is acceptable to write that she is sooooooo happy that she is going to the prom (using so wi

英语语法：191 Loan versus Lend

Grammar Girl here. Todays topic is the difference between the words loan and lend. Guest-writer Bonnie Trenga writes, Traditionally, lend is the verb and loan is the noun. I'll have a memory trick for you at the end. British Rules This rule is still

英语语法：200 When to Use “Nor”

Today were going to get a bit negative by looking at the various times you can use the word nor. Nor with Neither Everybody knows that neither and nor are bosom buddies. They require balance. A nor usually follows a neither when they're used in the s

英语语法：190 Like Versus As

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is like versus as. Now the very attentive listeners will notice a difference between that ad and what I said last week, and that difference is the reason today's topic is like versus as. This week, I said, I just ente

英语语法：189 Less Versus Fewer

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is less versus fewer. Less and fewer are easy to mix up. They mean the same thingthe opposite of morebut you use them in different circumstances (1). The basic rule is that you use less with mass nouns and fewer with

英语语法：188 Lay Versus Lie

图片1 Today's topic is lay versus lie. Lay Versus Lie First, we'll do the easy part, which is the present tense... If you exclude the meaning to tell an untruth and just focus on the setting/reclining meaning of lay and lie, then the important dist

英语语法：187 Is a Troop One Person or a Group?

Today, guest-writer Neal Whitman will help us understand why the word troops can refer to the number of individuals or groups. What Does Troops Mean? Memorial Day is next week, when we in the U.S. honor members of the military who have died in the li

英语语法：186 Is “Ain't” a Word?

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is ain't and a few other troublesome contractions. To quote the famous opening lines of the first-ever talking picture, The Jazz Singer: Wait a minute, wait a minute! You ain't heard nothin' yet! You may have been chi

英语语法：185 Is "Have Got" Acceptable English?

Grammar Girl here. Todays topic is whether the phrase have got is good English or not. And now, guest-writer Bonnie Trenga answers an e-mail from a listener, Lee, who says, A pet peeve of mine is the frequent use of the have got phrase, such as I hav

英语语法：184 Is "Got" Proper English?

Guest-writer Bonnie Trenga is going to help us get along with the word get. Dont let others use of it get your goat. Get is a perfectly normal word. It just happens to have many meanings and is used in many idioms and colloquial expressions, some of

英语语法：183 Is "Funnest" a Word?

Grammar Girl here. Today's show was shoved into our editorial schedule because of a grammar emergency. Steve Jobs said funnest on Tuesday in his keynote address about the new iPods, and people all over the Internet freaked out. It may just be my skew

英语语法：182 I.e. Versus E.g.

图片1 Grammar Girl here. This episode is a new and improved version of i.e. versus e.g. Misusing these two abbreviations is one of the top five mistakes I used to see when editing technical documents. There's so much confusion that in some of the d

英语语法：180 How to Write Numbers

Grammar Girl here. Since this is my 100th episode, it seems like a fitting time to talk about how to use numbers in sentences. [Note: There are many exceptions to the rules about how to write numbers. These tips will point you in the right direction,

英语语法：179 How to Eliminate Adverbs

Today, Bonnie Trenga will help us decide whether adverbs are useful or evil. No one likes feeling useless, but adverbs might justifiably feel that way. Adverbs find themselves much maligned because they're often redundant or awkwardly placed. Master

英语语法：178 How to Avoid Clichés

Grammar Girl here. Todays topic is taking care of clichs. Guest writer Sal Glynn writes, clichs can be a writers worst enemy, and the reader usually doesnt like clichs much either. Writers from Jonathan Swift to George Orwell have ranted against the

英语语法：177 How Do You Pronounce 2010?

by Mignon Fogarty I have been deluged with questions about how to pronounce the name of the year. The two main contenders are twenty-ten and two thousand ten. Before the turn of the century, most people pronounced the years by chunking the first two

英语语法：176 He Said, She Said

Grammar Girl here. Todays topic is How to Use Attributives Guest writer Sal Glynn writes: Dialogue is hard to write and dont let anyone tell you otherwise. Getting characters to have individual voices has caused more sleepless nights than too much co

英语语法：181 How to Write Percents

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is part II of the series on numbers: percentages and decimal points. Percent Versus Percentage First let's get our terminology right. In some cases percent and percentage can be interchangeable (1), but the easiest wa

英语语法：165 Can Versus May

Grammar Girl here. Today's topic is can versus may. A listener named Donna says that after familiarizing herself with the definitions and usages of can and may, she still isn't sure which word to use in this sentence: May we expect you tomorrow? or C