John McIntyre

A last post at this site on my last day at The Sun

The situation when you're so caught up in the effect you're trying to get that you don't notice what you're actually saying

Maybe you shouldn't refer to them as "locals."

Is it compare to or compare with or just call the whole thing off?

The obfuscation of the "police-involved shooting" construction

There are distinctions of usage worth keeping, and distinctions that are likely a waste of your time

Yes, I know they're unimportant, but they still irritate me

In "The Hidden History of Coined Words" Ralph Keyes explains who makes the words we use and how

"Graduate" is a shape-shifting verb

You were taught the "lie/lay" distinction? Good on you. You weren't? Good on you.

The latest Grammar Noir episode

Editing your own writing is possible, advisable, and limited.

"Proper English" can be many things, but proper is not one of them

Unlearning is an important component of learning

It's hard to set standards for use of the hyphen, because practices and preferences vary widely

In their zeal to be precise, copy editors can adopt false precision.

A tasty dish of black-eyed peas for good luck in the year to come.

A little gift of Barbara Pym's prose for the holidays

Who decided that young people had to be called "youth"?

People who earn academic doctorates are also called "doctor."

The ancients had it all figured out

It's not enough to know why bad writing is bad; you have to understand why good writing is good.

Before you write "conclave," make sure you know what it means

Know when your commas are helping you and when you're wasting punctuation.

Here are a few little things to keep in mind before you share your text with the world

"One who" and "one of those who" are different animals

The prejudice against "hopefully" as a sentence adverb survives, but it is fading

A review of Rob Reinalda's 'Why Editors Drink'

You would like editors if you got to know them

The change in "reticent" to mean "reluctant" is a semantic shift that is not going away.