'Founder' and 'Flounder'

September 25, 2023

'Founder' and 'Flounder'

TOPICS: COPY EDITING, FOUNDER VS. FLOUNDER, GRAMMAR

To founder means to sink. To flounder means to struggle or move about clumsily. A ship can do both, technically, but if you're writing about a sea vessel, you probably want "founder."

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September 18, 2023

Existential 'There'

TOPICS: EXISTENTIAL THERE, GRAMMAR

When you say, "There is a man walking down the street," you're flipping around a simpler sentence like "A man is walking down the street." That's the power of existential "there."

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September 11, 2023

Scare Quotes

TOPICS: GRAMMAR, SCARE QUOTES

When you use regular quotation marks to indicate you're using a word in an ironic or questionable way, you're using scare quotes.

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September 5, 2023

Declarative, Interrogative, Imperative, Exclamatory

TOPICS: COPY EDITING, DECLARATIVE, EXCLAMATORY, GRAMMAR, IMPERATIVE, INTERROGATIVE

Really, there are just four basic sentence types: Statements, questions, commands and exclamations. Here's a closer look.

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August 28, 2023

Momma or Mama?

TOPICS: GRAMMAR, MAMA VS MOMMA

Here are the best ways to write kinship names.

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August 21, 2023

From Soup, Comma, to Nuts?

TOPICS: COMMAS, COPY EDITING, GRAMMAR, PUNCTUATION

A lot of writers assume that long from ... to phrases, like "From spending time with family and friends to browsing the local shops," take a comma. Usually, though, they don't.

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August 14, 2023

Periods and Spaces in Initials

TOPICS: COPY EDITING, GRAMMAR, PERIODS IN INITIALS, PUNCTUATION

Do you put periods in "US"? Do you put spaces between the initials in "J. R. R. Tolkien"? Usually, it depends on which editing style you're following. The most important thing is to be consistent.