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The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation

Category: Definitions

Each Other vs. One Another

Posted on Tuesday, September 29, 2015, at 9:31 pm

There are still sticklers among us who see a distinct difference between each other and one another. They use each other when discussing two people or things, and one another when discussing more than two people or things. According to this system, the following sentences would both be correct: The twins told each other everything …

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You Can Say That Again

Posted on Tuesday, September 22, 2015, at 7:35 pm

Because English is so unpredictable, it’s often impossible to infer a word’s pronunciation from its spelling. Dictionaries help, to a point. But dictionaries often seem all too willing to penalize time-honored pronunciations after a word gets mispronounced by a sufficient number of people. So here is another in our series of pronunciation columns. The words …

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You Can Look It Up

Posted on Tuesday, September 15, 2015, at 8:59 pm

What happens when you come across a word you don’t know? Do you just keep reading? Most people do. They believe they can figure out a word’s meaning by looking at the sentence and using common sense. Maybe they’re right … but what if they’re wrong? Here is a passage from a profile of a …

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Euphemisms: Lying to Us Gently

Posted on Tuesday, September 8, 2015, at 10:34 am

Let’s talk about euphemisms, those soothing words meant to assure us that something’s not as bad as we know it is. A euphemism is a lullaby, a sedative, a velvet glove enfolding reality’s iron fist. In a way, the word euphemism is itself a euphemism—so much kinder and gentler than cop-out. Euphemisms are employed for …

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Compare To vs. Compare With

Posted on Tuesday, August 18, 2015, at 8:39 pm

Is there a difference between comparing A to B and comparing A with B? The answer is yes, and it is a difference worth maintaining; but these days, compare to and compare with are in danger of becoming interchangeable. This looks like yet another fight that the grammar patrol is about to lose. When we …

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Anachronisms: Time Out!

Posted on Tuesday, August 11, 2015, at 10:15 am

Shakespeare typing Hamlet. JFK on a cellphone. Elvis using Twitter. Each is an anachronism, the technical term for a chronological blunder. Many years ago my family took me to see Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra. As young as I was, I gave up on the movie in utter disgust when Cleopatra winked at Caesar. I didn’t …

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Grammar, Vocabulary Go Hand in Hand

Posted on Tuesday, July 28, 2015, at 7:50 pm

A solid vocabulary gives you a hammer rather than a rock when you need to drive a nail. Today we introduce the first in a periodic series of vocabulary tests. We want to keep the focus on words that would be worthy of inclusion in any serious person’s vocabulary. We feel tests like these are …

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Irregular Verbs Can Be a Regular Pain

Posted on Tuesday, July 7, 2015, at 4:05 pm

English verbs are either regular or irregular. We call a verb regular when we add ed (wanted, looked) or sometimes just d (created, loved) to form what are called the simple past tense and the past participle (see third and fourth paragraphs below). A regular verb’s simple past tense and past participle are always identical. …

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A Twenty-first Century Usage Guide

Posted on Tuesday, May 12, 2015, at 9:57 pm

Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words by best-selling writer-editor Bill Bryson offers serious scholarship with a smooth, light touch. It’s a hard book to stop reading once you’ve opened it. We have a lot of other reference books in our offices, but the most recent of those came out in 1983. That was way back in …

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Evolution or …?

Posted on Tuesday, April 21, 2015, at 10:13 am

Today we'll home in on three examples of the English language's capriciousness. Self-deprecating  Few contemporary writers would hesitate to use self-deprecating to describe someone who is refreshingly humble. But the term's wide acceptance is yet another triumph of the slobs over the snobs. Technically, the correct term is self-depreciating. Although deprecate and depreciate appear almost identical, these words have different roots, and …

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