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  How Consistent Are You? – A Refresher on Verb Tense Consistency

  2135 readersRunning is the thing right now.  Everywhere I look, it seems that people are talking about running.  My Twitter timeline is flooded with people’s tweets about 5k, 10k, and LSD! (Apparently, that means long slow distance and not what I initially thought.)  On Facebook, I see wall posts about runs left and right.  It’s the

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  If I Lay Here… – Using Lie and Lay Correctly

  2311 readersThere is a plethora of confusing word pairs in English, and even native English speakers confuse their usage in everyday conversation.  Earlier today, for some reason, I kept hearing Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars in my head.1  I used to listen to this song a lot, so I guess the fact that I felt like lying

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  I Just Can’t Hide My Somerville Pride

  1162 readersIn the two-plus years that I've maintained this blog, I've received submissions from places as far away as Europe and Asia and as close by as my own hometown. I was excited to receive this submission from Georgy, who spotted a badly punctuated trash receptacle at Prima's in the Winter Hill area of Somerville, Mass.While

• Participles and Perfect Verb Tenses

  4445 readersSome comments I received on the post about the forms of the irregular verb "drink" indicate that not everyone is clear as to how participles are used to form verb tenses that use the helping verbs "has, have" and "had." Like this article? Then you'll love our book: 100 Writing Mistakes to Avoid. It lists 100

• 10 Websites and Blogs of Punctuation Protectors

  15948 readersIn honor of National Punctuation Day, commemorated on September 24 (you didn’t forget, did you?), here’s a directory of Web sites documenting, usually with photographs, egregious punctuation errors. First, by the way, note that the founder of National Punctuation Day, a freelance business-newsletter writer named Jeff Rubin, sponsors a Punctuation Paragraph Contest. The only rule is

• The Past Tense of Text

  3810 readersWhat is the correct past tense form of the verb to text?This question has come up quite a bit recently in conversations I have had with friends. Because I generally prefer to view language descriptively rather than prescriptively, I was thrilled to see David Crystal's response to the question on his DC Blog post titled

• 9 Forms of the Past Tense

  4788 readersMultiple variations of past tense that employ regular verbs occur in English. Explanations of the distinctions follow. Note that each section includes examples of positive-declarative, negative-declarative, and interrogative forms. 1. Simple Past A sentence in the simple-past form describes an event that occurred in the past: “They agreed with us.” “They did not agree with us.” “Did they agree with

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  3 Easy Ways to Improve Your Writing Skills

  2343 readersphoto by Patrick Gage on Flickr by Todd Rutherford Even if you have a good grasp of basic writing concepts, you should always strive to be a better writer. While there are many writing clinics, boot camps and daily writing exercises awaiting your ...

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  Is the Freelance Writing Jobs Network Grammatically Correct?

  2767 readersWe look at the header for this blog every day and never think twice about it. It’s the Freelance Writing Jobs Network, a blog network and community for freelance writers. But are we all really “freelance writers?” Or “free lance writers?” Or, to complicate things further, might we be “free-lance writers?” Deb, you’ve got it right. It’s

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  Non-Errors in the English Language (Part 2) – Beginning Sentences with Conjunctions

  2479 readersIf your high school English teach was anything like my teacher, she/he probably always emphasized the “rule” about NOT using conjunctions to begin your sentence.  “You must never begin a sentence with a conjunction” is the mantra of many an English teacher.  Just because “everyone” says it is a rule does not necessarily mean it