I've grumbled before about the faddish use of "reference" as a verb. And I'm prepared to keep grumbling, since we keep doing it.…

Two years ago, After Deadline noted a rash of headlines featuring phrases like "One Spring Break at a Time" and "One Radio Show at a Time" -- 40 of them in a year. Well, we haven't given up this construction…

One of my unhappy tasks is periodically reminding talented professional writers and editors that a verb should agree in number with its subject, and a pronoun with its antecedent. Even allowing for deadline haste, we trip over singular/plural problems far…

Sometimes I quibble over words we overuse. Sometimes I complain about words that are misused. And sometimes I take issue with words that seem pretentious or contrived. Then there's "eponymous," which could fit any of those categories. It's…

Just when I think I've chronicled all the similar-word mix-ups we're likely to encounter, I see new and surprising ones, as well as new instances of past missteps. There's no easy cure for this problem - just more attentive writing…

Here's my latest reminder on the use and misuse of "like." Using "like" as a conjunction, to introduce a full clause, is common in casual conversation. But this colloquial construction grates on the ear of many sophisticated readers, and we…

My colleague Vanessa Gordon and others have noted our frequent use of what critics call "false ranges." These constructions generally are framed with phrases like "everything from ... to ..." or "ranging from ... to ..." and include two or…

We try hard to shed our old image as stodgy and out of it. Perhaps too hard, sometimes. How else to explain our constant invocation of the old/new slang "hipster"? As a colleague pointed out, we've used it more…

This week's roundup of grammar, style and other editing missteps comes in the form of the After Deadline Quiz. The list includes contributions from colleagues and from several sharp-eyed readers.…

Why oh why can't we get this right? Use "who" when it's the subject of the verb in a relative clause, "whom" when it's the object. Don't be fooled by an intervening phrase of attribution.…

More entries for the mix-up file - including a very familiar one.…

Dangling participles are popping up everywhere we turn. Remember, normally the participle or other modifying phrase should be immediately followed by the person or thing being described. My colleague Ken Paul pointed out these two recent missteps:…

I thought the faddish use of "on steroids" to describe anything bigger or splashier had run its course. But three new examples in less than two weeks made me think again. Given its origins, the metaphor seems not only overdone…

After I distributed the in-house version of After Deadline to my colleagues last week, word leaked out that I had supposedly "banned" use of the word "tweet" to refer to messages posted on Twitter. I had suggested that outside of…

Times readers are literate and well educated. But privately, away from the cocktail party, some of them may wonder: what exactly does "jejune" mean, anyway? If someone put a gun to my head, could I give a precise definition of…

Another small sampling of sparkling prose from recent editions. ••• An arresting opening for the front-page oil-spill overview by Campbell Robertson, Clifford Krauss and John M. Broder (National, 5/25): PORT FOURCHON, La. - For weeks, it was a disaster in …

Sure, it's nitpicking to complain about hyphens. But if the goal is perfection - and it is, however elusive - we have to get the little things right. In his Modern American Usage, Garner cites this rather severe judgment by…

The aversion to splitting infinitives is strongly held in some quarters, but weakly supported. Here's what The Times's stylebook says: split infinitives are accepted by grammarians but irritate many readers. When a graceful alternative exists, avoid the construction: to show…

Here's the latest of my increasingly desperate pleas to stem the flood of colloquialisms in news stories. Stodginess is not the goal. But we take the news seriously, and our news report should sound serious - not like teenage slang,…

We try, but we still haven't quite mastered the whole who/whom situation. At the risk of stating the obvious yet again, "who" is used as the subject of a relative clause; "whom" is used for an object.…

A couple of recent entries for the "sound-alike confusion" file.…

We've suffered another outbreak of dangling participles and other misconnected modifiers. Be alert whenever a participle construction or other modifying phrase comes at the start of a sentence. In general, the noun or pronoun being described should follow that phrase…

Many topics come up repeatedly in reader comments and e-mail messages to After Deadline. Unfortunately I'm not able to offer a direct response to each comment (truth be told, After Deadline is a sideline for me). But one thoughtful reader…

A recent appearance led me to check up on a word that has become a favorite of Times writers: "emblematic." Its popularity is understandable, particularly in the "nut graf" -- that key paragraph that sums up a story's main point.…

As I've often noted, we strive for vivid and lively writing in straight news as well as in features. But in most cases, slang or colloquial words aren't the best approach. Those expressions can seem out of place in news…

My colleague Ken Paul notes that we often stumble in deciding whether to use or omit the conjunction "that" after a verb like "said."…

Occasionally I put the carping aside to take note of some of the fine writing that appears in our pages, both print and Web. Here's another small sampling of sparking prose from recent editions.…

This week's roundup of grammar, style and other editing missteps comes in the form of the After Deadline Quiz. The list includes contributions from colleagues and from several sharp-eyed readers.…

This week: redundant or not?…

Last week, a reader noticed a small but annoying usage error in an online article: the misuse of the contraction "it's" for the possessive "its," a staple of fourth-grade English essays. This reader cared enough to alert us via e-mail,…

There's no formula to determine when a sentence is overloaded or threatening to run off the rails. But there are warning signs. Sentences of 40, 50 or 60 words are awfully hard to make readable. When you get up to…