I fielded a question recently about “minding your p’s and q’s.” I had used that expression in a column a few weeks ago, and it prompted an email from a reader named Christine who was curious about ...

Every year in this column, I give tips for how to avoid the most common writing mistakes in holiday greetings and invitations. And every year, I’m reminded of just how influential I’m not as people ...

Grammar: it's everywhere. And, as soon as someone identifies himself as an expert, you can almost always safely assume he's going to judge you anytime you end a sentence with a preposition. I'm no ...

After VERIFYING how to spell canceled (with one l or two), a viewer asked us to VERIFY another grammar inquiry you might have been breaking for years. Beth Miller from Guilford County asked, "Why ...

Apostrophes are flooding the market – and mostly in all the wrong places. Old time teachers of English grammar must be turning over in their graves. Even some writers and editors seem unaware of the ...

If you were to send my family a letter, you’d have no problem writing out the envelope. My surname is Andersen, so the etiquette rules for writing a plural last name are pretty simple: Just add s! But ...

Can you spot the grammatical error here? We’ve all committed this common punctuation mistake when making last names plural—and it’s even easier to make now in ...

That’s it. I’m at the end of my rope. Or, more appropriately, “my rope’s end” — because what I’m so worked up about is the growing misuse of that puny piece of punctuation called the apostrophe. The ...

Every year stray apostrophes assault me. Nothing quells my Christmas cheer as quickly as a stray apostrophe. Every year they assault me. Usually, it’s in the middle of an otherwise quaint moment: I am ...

Farmers markets are one of summer’s simplest, sweetest delights. Unless you care about proper apostrophe placement, in which case they’ll wilt your soul like arugula planted in full sun. First off, ...