April 8, 2024

Don't Waste a Main Clause on the Obvious

Think about the sentence: The new healthcare center is a facility where patients can come without an appointment.

What’s wrong with that? Well, technically, nothing. It’s grammatical and logical. But if, like me, you’re in the habit of zeroing in on all the clauses in a sentence, you can see why this could be considered not the best writing.

The core of the main clause, when stripped down to its bones, says little more than “the center is a facility.” And that’s about as sorry a statement as you can squeeze into a main clause.

In the best writing, every word, phrase and clause counts. And if you pay attention to how pros do it, you’ll see they never waste a main clause to state something so painfully obvious. Here's how to write a more engaging main clause instead.

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April 1, 2024

Ensure vs. Insure

Newspaper style says to assign separate meanings to "insure" and "ensure." "Use ensure to mean guarantee: 'steps were taken to ensure accuracy,'” the Associated Press Stylebook says. “Use 'insure' for references to insurance: 'the policy insures his life.'” But dictionaries aren't as strict.

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March 25, 2024

Danglers

Danglers, including dangling participles, are phrases that apply to your main clause in a way that doesn't make logical sense, like "Walking down the beach, my shoulders got sunburned," which seems to say your shoulders were walking. Here's how to avoid them.

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March 18, 2024

Palette, Palate, Pallet

Using "palette" instead of "palate" to mean a sense of taste is a very common error. Here's how to keep all three of these homophones straight.

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March 11, 2024

Participial Phrases in Bad Writing

One common habit I see in bad writing, especially in amateur fiction, is excessive use of participial phrases to squeeze in information. Consider a passage like:

Reaching into her purse, Mary pulled out her phone. She flipped it open, scanning her stored numbers. Realizing she didn’t have John’s cell, she snapped the phone shut. Hurrying home, she decided it was best to postpone the call anyway.

Here’s how to make a passage like this better.

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March 4, 2024

Bring and Take

Some say “bring” can mean only movement toward the speaker and “take” means only movement away from the speaker. The rules aren't quite that rigid, and native speakers shouldn't waste time worrying about this one.

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February 26, 2024

Good Things Come to He Who Waits or Him Who Waits?

The correct form is “good things come to him who waits” because the object of the preposition "to" is "him" and "who waits" is really just an adjective clause modifying "him."

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February 19, 2024

'Try And' vs 'Try To'

Some people say "try and" is always wrong. But it's actually OK.

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February 12, 2024

Apostrophes Wrongly Used in Plurals

One mai tai plus another mai tai does not make two mai tai's. It's two mai tais. Here's how to keep those errant apostrophes out of plurals.

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February 5, 2024

Compose and Comprise

In most editing styles, comprise means to contain. Compose means to make up. So, if you're following these styles, the whole comprises the parts, and the parts compose the whole.

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