Appearing every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the Grammar & Composition blog at About.com covers a wide variety of topics related to the English language. To keep up with our discussions, sign up for the free weekly Grammar & Composition Newsletter.
November
- Jonathan Swift on Writing and Revising
- Is Spelling Reform a Shovel-Ready Project?
- A Passing Tense
- Is the Double Genitive Overly Possessive?
- From A to Z
- Never Say Never: Five Bogus Rules of Grammar
October
- Grammar Gurus and Muphry's Law
- A Ghost Word for Halloween
- Bunnies, Whelps, and Moonrakers: A Quiz on Demonyms
- Ray Bradbury on the Ambition to Write
- I'm Firm, You're Obstinate . . .
- Two Thousand Pure Fools: Ifferisms
- Old Customs, Future Plans, and Other Common Redundancies
- Verbing
- A Few Words on Words
- Fall 2009 Writing Contests for Students
- Twain on Verbs
- The Best Writing Advice . . .
- The Artful Use of Fragments
September
- Word of the Week: Psittacism
- Autumn Quiz on Commonly Confused Words
- Enter the National Gallery of Writing
- Vinegar on a Sugar Cube: Reviewing Dan Brown
- Marking Punctuation Day: Pause and Reflect
- If You Want to Write . . .
- Language Peeves
- Words Worth Borrowing
- Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Metaphor
- Real Essays for Real Readers
- Keith Waterhouse: England's Superb All-Rounder
- Five Frequently Asked Questions About English Grammar
- Notes on Style
August
- Similes and Clichés
- Snarl-Words, Purr-Words, and Stubborn Imbecility
- Gadzooks! There's a Name for It (Part Four)
- Spelling Matters
- Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
- A Manner of Speaking: Ten (Usually) Empty Phrases
- Exercise Your Syntax by Building and Combining Sentences
- Would You Repeat That, Please?
- Why Freshman Composition Is Not a Time of Waste
- A Place for Writing
- When and How Did You Learn to Write?
- Free MIT Courses in Writing, Rhetoric, and Linguistics
- Terminal Prepositions
July
- All Good Writing Is Rewriting
- Homophones for the Dog Daze of Summer
- The Hyperbolic Style of H.L. Mencken
- Spellbound by English
- Ten Secrets of Good Writing
- Remembering Frank McCourt, "Teacher Man"
- Nota Bene
- A Quick Quiz From the 2009 AP Stylebook
- Time for Slow Reading and Slow Writing
- William H. Gass and the Pleasures of the List
- The Future of Reading!
- Copy Editor Says It Again
- Only One Is a Word: A Spelling Quiz
- Puns, Peeves, Metaphors, and Mondegreens: The Lighter Side of Language
June
- Sin and Slang
- There's a Name for It (Part Three)
- Language Taboos: Never Say "Die"
- Semantic Changes
- An Editor's Gift
- The Right Word
- Facts and Figures About the Definite Article
- Pros on Prose: Ten Writers on Writing
- Another Quick Quiz on Commonly Confused Words
- Nothing Trivial About It
- Humpty Dumpty's Proud Verbs
- E.B. White on English Usage
- How to Argue Like Socrates, Franklin, and Columbo
May
- Word Stories
- Back to the Future of Reading
- Language Facts & Figures #17: More From the Forum
- Profiles in Prose
- Dr. J. on the Bugbear Style
- There's a Name for It (Part Two)
- Give Verbs a Chance
- Personification Gets Tough With Music
- Writing for an International Audience
- James Hilton's Only Trick
- Widows, Orphans, and Running Heads: Key Copyediting Terms
- Hemingway's "Star" Style
- How Serious Are You About Writing?
- Tips for Editing Your Résumé
April
- Tidy Up Your Point of View: Adopt the "You Attitude"
- Ten Editing Tips for Business and Technical Writers
- Help Wanted: People Who Can Write Complete Sentences
- Editors on Editing: Botsford's Five Rules of Thumb
- Fifty Reasons You'll Never Be Told, "You're Fired"
- Language Facts and Figures: Notes on Nouns
- Gobsmacked by Susan Boyle
- Figuring Out the Figures of Speech
- Punctuation Poll: Is the Semicolon Worth Saving?
- Word of the Week: Monologophobia
- Catch a Verb and Tame It
- Metaphors Be With You
- How Winston Churchill Learned English
- Don't Hold Your Breath Waiting for Inspiration
March
- Word Histories
- Overcoming Writer's Block--Brick by Brick
- Language Facts and Figures: English Around the World
- Ten Tips for Almost Perfect Proofreading
- Quick Quiz on Commonly Confused Words
- Eighty Classic Essays and Speeches
- Clean Collars, Rough Diamonds, and Good English
- Why the Principal Is Not Our Pal
- M&M’s and Other Eponyms
- Adverbially Speaking
- Our Favorite Shakespearean Clichés
- Creative Nonfiction: Jack London on the San Francisco Earthquake
- Which Grammar Will You Be Celebrating on National Grammar Day?
February
- Ten Differences Between a Good Writer and a Bad Writer
- Obama Stirs It Up Again . . . and Again . . . and Again
- Squeezing E.B. White
- Name That "-nym"
- A Writer's Motto
- Writing With Style
- Abraham Lincoln on the Great Invention
- The President's Shocking Use of the Active Voice
- Language Facts & Figures: A Few More From the Forum
- The Rage Over Apostrophes (Transatlantic Edition)
- Judge Kilpatrick Adjourns the Writer's Court
- "Candidate for a Pullet Surprise": The Spell Checker Poem
January
- Good Grammar, Better Dates
- Writers on Writing: John Updike
- Edgar Allan Poe--Still Dashing at 200
- Composing Yourself in an Essay
- The Unfaithful Inaugural Adverb
- Barack Obama's Inaugural Address
- Making the Dream Real
- Last Gaffes From the Communicator-in-Chief
- David Crystal's Six Good Reasons to Study the English Language
- The Last New Word of 2008
- There's a Name for It
- New Sentence Structures Discovered!
- Popular Grammar & Composition Posts in 2008
