Vocabulary.com Blog
Articles about Usage
Wendalyn Nichols, editor of the Copyediting newsletter, offers useful tips to copy editors and anyone else who prizes clear and orderly writing. Here she tackles the question, "Why do we say a baseball player 'flied out,' not 'flew out'?"
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In part two of our interview with usage expert Bryan A. Garner, we talk about a new feature in the newly published third edition of his authoritative guide, Garner's Modern American Usage: the Language-Change Index, an innovative approach to evaluating how linguistic innovations spread and become accepted over time — for better or for worse.
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We've been talking to Bryan A. Garner about the new edition of Garner's Modern American Usage. Garner's book is not simply a compendium of do's and don't's: he also offers thoughtful essays advising writers on a wide variety of topics related to usage and style. Here we present Garner's essay on "Plain Language," a useful tonic to muddled and belabored prose.
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Bryan A. Garner wears many hats: he is a lawyer, a prolific lecturer, and an equally prolific author. Since 1995, he has been editor-in-chief of Black's Law Dictionary. He is also the author of Garner's Modern American Usage, a widely respected guide to contemporary usage that has just been published in its third edition. In this, the first of our two-part interview with Garner, we learn what it means to be an "informed prescriptivist," and why you should be wary of anyone who uses prior to instead of before.
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Wendalyn Nichols, editor of the Copyediting newsletter, offers useful tips to copy editors and anyone else who prizes clear and orderly writing. Here she examines what happens to the spelling of words when we follow our ears.
My daughter, who is six, is feeling the power of the written word. She's taken to taping notes all over the house — labels for shelves and rooms and drawers, and messages to us that begin "Dere parints." Continue reading...
What happens when a misspelling gets enshrined in official documentation? Mike Pope, a technical writer and editor at Microsoft, looks at some embarrassing typographical errors that continue to linger in the world of computer programming.
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Today's Mailbag Friday question comes from Bob D., a doctor from Newton, Massachusetts. Bob asks: "What is up with the constant misuse of the word regime? It drives me crazy. It is like regimen never existed."
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