Stinky sentences, confusables, flapdoodle, sentence variety, make-believe grammar, dressed-down prose, figures of speech in the movies, and much more: a roundup of blog posts from Grammar & Composition in 2011.
December 2011
- Language in the News: Top Stories of 2011
- New Year's Resolutions for Writers Who Want to Be Read
- Popular Grammar & Composition Posts in 2011
- Classic Christmas Essays
- Typos, Orpahs, and the Little Demon Titivillus
- Monty Python, Figuratively Speaking (Part Two)
- Grammar Crackers
- A Dozen Words About Words
- Golden Bull Awards for 2011
- 100 Words and Phrases That Ticked You Off in 2011
- Words of the Day
- Francine Prose on Grammar and Usage
- The Marketing Power of Personification
November 2011
- Words of the Year for 2011 (and More Language in the News)
- Dressed-Down Prose
- Oxymorons Found Missing
- Season's Gratings: How Not to Write a Holiday Newsletter!
- Reading as Writers
- Jonathan Swift on the Writing Process
- All-Purpose Invective
- Oops and Wow Moments: Notes on Interjections
- Filler Words, Diglossia, and Syntactic Persistence: There's a Name for It (#16)
- The Discipline of Writing
- Never Say Never: Six Bogus Rules of Grammar and Usage
- The Lighter Side of Language: Monty Python, Figuratively Speaking
- Don Murray's Revision Checklist
October 2011
- Regional Accents, Bilingual Babies, and the Story of English: Language in the News
- "Quote . . . Misquote"
- Ten Fresh Exercises (Autumn 2011)
- Tense Times
- Ten Timeless Writing Tips
- 2011 World Series Special: The Language of Baseball
- Le Guin on Short Sentences
- Five Unkonvenshunl Kinds of Misspelling
- Euphemistically Speaking, Never Say "Die"
- Your Language Isn't Any Better (or Worse) Than Mine
- Six Questions & Answers About Language
- Quiz on Commonly Confused Words (Autumn 2011)
- Dwight Macdonald's Great Principle of Organization
September 2011
- Chatbots, Twitter Blends, and Crazy English: Language in the News
- A Squishy Quiz on Capitalization
- Say Again and Again and Again
- How to Mark National Punctuation Day
- The Role-Shifting Parts of Speech
- Blurred Words, Hidden Verbs, and Poverty of the Stimulus: There's a Name for It (#15)
- Ten Wonderful Things About Writing
- Conversations About Conversation
- Grammar Q & A: What's the Difference? (Part III)
- Dogmatic Grammar: Don't
- Why Freshman Comp is Good for You
- Grammar Q & A: What's the Difference? (Part II)
- Avoid Clichés Like . . .
August 2011
- Tech Terms, Indian English, and Endangered Words: Language in the News
- Grammar Q & A: What's the Difference? (Part I)
- James Hilton's Writing Trick
- Note to Teachers: Exercising at Grammar & Composition
- Revision Strategies: Hemingway's Iceberg Theory
- Back to School--for Free
- Six Ways to Make New Words
- What Are Writers Like?
- Nine Classic Essays on Education
- A Scrapbook of Styles
- Oh, What's the Difference?
- Paloma Josse on the Point of Grammar
- New Sentence Structures Discovered!
- Online Resources for Writers (Summer 2011)
July 2011
- Typos, Jargon, and Verbal Stumbles: Language in the News
- Department of Misused and Overworked Words and Phrases
- A Quick Quiz on the 2011 AP Stylebook
- New Punctuation Marks: What's the Point?
- Should You Write Every Day?
- Textspeak, Miranyms, and Logical Punctuation: There's a Name for It (Part 14)
- Spellbound
- A Few Words About Finding the Right Word
- Revising Stinky Sentences
- The Secret of a Living Style
- Twenty Quick Tips for Business and Technical Writers
- Figures of Speech in the Movies
- Sentence Length and Variety: "Write Music"
June 2011
- Dictionaries, Bilingualism, and Disney English: Language in the News
- Our Bastard Tongue: Loanwords in English
- If You Want to Write . . .
- Quiz on Commonly Confused Words: Hollywood Comedies Edition
- American Slang and the Servant-Girl Problem
- Join Us for a Rhetorical Squeeze
- Under the Flapdoodle Tree: Doublespeak, Soft Language, and Gobbledygook
- Writers on Writing: Robert Louis Stevenson
- Quick Quiz on the History of the English Language
- How to Pass the ACT or SAT Writing Test
- Literal and Figurative Escapes
- Fine Points of Punctuation
- Freshening Up the Language: Better Than Great
May 2011
- Riverspeak, Plain English, and Logical Punctuation: Language in the News
- Twenty Spelling Mnemonics
- From Ah to ZZZ: Sound Effects in Language
- Writing Project Resources for Teachers
- "An Agreeable Delirium": The Compulsion to Write
- Simon Heffer's Pet Peeves
- Phrops, T-Units, and Politeness Strategies: There's a Name for It (Part 13)
- In Defense of Dehortatio: A Review of Mardy Grothe's Neverisms
- Tips for Writing Exam Essays
- A Visitor's Guide to About.com Grammar & Composition
- Splits, Spaces, and Stranded Prepositions: Ten Frequently Asked Questions About Grammar, Usage, and Style
- Creative Editing
- It's Time to Write
April 2011
- Swearing, Slang, and Cursive: Language in the News
- Five Résumé Editing Tips
- Compound Confusables: One Word or Two?
- Is There a Book in the House?
- Meanings Do Change
- Ten Good Rules for Writers
- Dr. Johnson's Dictionary
- Confusables on Board
- Having Fun With the Figures of Speech
- Four Questions for Expository Writers
- Quick Tips on How to Fix Five Common Errors
- Copyediting Terms: Why We Should Care About Widows and Orphans
- A Mini-Quiz on Punctuation
March 2011
- OMG in the OED: Language in the News
- Focused on Writing
- Keith Waterhouse's Ground Rules for Writers
- More Rhetorical Terms That We Never Learned in School
- What Is Style?
- Spring Fevers: Readings for Writers
- Quiz on Commonly Confused Words (Winter 2011)
- Notes on the Writing Life
- Compose Yourself
- That’s the Way the Cookie Bounces: There's a Name for It (Part 12)
- Pompous Proverbs
- Celebrating National Grammar Day With Eliza Doolittle
- Make-Believe Grammar
February 2011
- OK, Vanishing Languages, and Phoni Latin Plurals: Language in the News
- Editing Exercise: Cut the Deadwood
- Farcical Figures of Speech
- Ten Writers on Writing: Advice From the Pros
- Presidents(') Day Special: The Great Invention of Writing
- This Is for Your Own Good--and Other Phony Phrases
- Growing Up With an Editor
- Metaphorical Love
- A Blood-Sucking Word
- Ten Things You Can Do With Do
- Practically Perfect Proofreading
- Back to the Blackboard
January 2011
- Oh, Dear: Language in the News
- Reading to Write
- How to Become a Better Rewriter
- Australian Words of the Year
- Harold Ross and the Art of Fussiness
- Twenty Proverbs: A Three-Minute Quiz on Commonly Confused Words
- One Great English Teacher
- More Than a Dream
- Texting, Circa 1860
- Updike's Glorious Descriptions
- Uptalk, Verbicide, and Yoda-Speak: There's a Name for It (Part 11)
- Six Essays on the Essay
- Our Favorite Quizzicals
- Verbal Hygiene Report: Banished Words for 2011
