The impact of language is often just as much about its sound as its meanings and organization of words. When used with skill and well-aimed subtlety, certain devices in American English can add extra voice and harmony to our writing. Read the following aloud to yourself: If we're lucky, the truck's gear shift won't get …

If you care to be honest, you'll admit that Delilah is a ne'er-do-well. Ralph should probably offer to share that ham sandwich, or Billy Ray is gonna snatch it from him anyway. Coulda, shoulda, woulda: This is what happens when we don't change the oil. Many of us who use American English have probably read, …

Language provides more than the means to express and deliver ideas and information. It also bears the power to please us through the tools we use to shape it. Thoughtful, eloquent communication can satisfy the outer and inner ear as much as awaken the mind. One technique that attracts us to writing and speech is …

Writing reflects music in that it offers its own types of accents for a composition's structure and sound. They are not central features but rather grace notes that can add melody, rhythm, and voice to our sentences. One such grace note in writing is alliteration: the repetition of two or more neighboring sounds of words, …

An item that still periodically surfaces among GrammarBook.com readers is the proper use of sic. Sic is a Latin term meaning "so, thus." A complete word that requires no punctuation or abbreviation, it is found only in direct quotations and other directly quoted material to indicate that something was communicated "in this manner." Writers include it …

As we learned together in 2023, we can explore a lot of grammatical ground during twelve months. Between January and December, we reviewed subjects from stative verbs to nominal numbers to anastrophe. We look forward to continuing more linguistic review and discovery with you in 2024. Before we move farther down the trail, we'll first …

The human brain contains 100 billion neurons, 400 miles of capillaries, 100,000 miles of axons, and an estimated 100 trillion synaptic connections. Scientists estimate that if the modern human brain were a computer, its storage would be up to 2,500 terabytes (as of 2023, the world's largest commercial hard drive is 100TB). During an average …

We've touched on the topic of brackets in writing at different times along the way. We also continue to receive occasional questions about their use from our readers. With that in mind, we thought it would be a good time for a current review of brackets by gathering guidelines we've shared both on our website …

The capacity to write, read, speak, and hear expressive language is exclusive to human beings: There is no other ability like it among Earth's living creatures. To use this system of communication, we must have an ordered, understood structure of linguistic elements: a syntax that allows us to deliver and receive patterns of words with …

Many of us have probably written or spoken statements such as: Here's the keys to the car. Here are those toothpicks you asked for. Here's the ten baseball cards I owe you. Here is the article I told you about. They are common forms of expression in American English. When spoken, most of these remarks …