Discover why the hard-working apostrophe deserves some TLC Apostrophes are maligned and misused despite multi-tasking for us. We can’t make them study mindfulness, so a bit of effort is needed to master this code. Why bother? ‘Everyone gets apostrophes wrong,’ I hear you cry. Well, many people still expect you get them right – […]
Punctuation step 3: why the apostrophe is your friend Read More »
Donald Trump will be 45th President of the USA very soon. Whatever happens to the world as a result, it’s been stunned by his use of words on the way. Whether he’s inventing words, such as tweeting ‘unpresidented’ instead of ‘unprecedented’, or mangling their use bigly, he has demonstrated their ‘very ugly’ power in the
Discipline, stories, shop windows … and cats. Why I’ve come to love Twitter Once, I was wary of Twitter; now I know I’m addicted. (I can give it up whenever I want, of course … ) Three attributes make it worthwhile – and have me hooked – as I set myself up as Thomas Editing:
When it comes to apostrophes, this sign has ‘one foot in the frying pan and one on thin ice’, to quote the late, great darts commentator Sid Waddell This pub sign is off target grammatically in its bid to find new players. To hit bullseye, it just needs an s, not an apostrophe. One player required Two
Clarity: Did the king have more than one scholar, and how many owned the passage? Conflicting road names throw up a possessive puzzle My sister pointed out the differing road names as we ambled to a restaurant in Victoria one evening: King’s Scholar‘s Passage and King’s Scholars’ Passage. Always on the look out for grammar, spelling
Little fluffy ones? Massive mushrooms? A mackerel sky? There’s fun to be had describing clouds, but we’ve got Luke Howard to thank for a naming system that the world understands A derelict building in Tottenham bears the English Heritage blue plaque for Luke Howard, the ‘namer of clouds’. Cumulus, stratus, and cirrus were categories devised by