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When an attorney has asked a compound question ...Do you remember whether Ray was there?... and the response he gets is "No," there is another question to be asked. ..."No," you don't remember? ...

An interesting question was asked over on FB this mornng. I am stealing a bit from Jim Barker's forum. ..."Are you dating someone?" asked Scott casually. ..."Ashley was absolutely not involved," s...

A "predicate nominative" is a noun or pronoun that follows a condition verb and renames the subject. ...My mom is an engineer... ...Her name is the same as mine... ...She became a lawyer... Somet...

The punctuation of these words occasioned a rather heated discussion on FB that contained a number of misconceptions about the language in general. First, a note about the "-ly" issue. Adverbs th...

Sometimes attorneys use a clause that starts with if as if it were a complete sentence. ...If you would turn to the second page... ...If you would take a look at this document... This is just "ba...

Whether you want the dash inside or outside quotation marks when there is an interruption is really a matter of personal preference. When the quote is interrupted, you might decide to put the dash...

A participle, the -ing or -ed form of the verb that is being used as an adjective, that comes right after the word it modifies is punctuated based on "essential/nonessential." If the participle is ...

Happy, Happy Mothers' Day to all of you out there who have been blessed to have this role in life -- and I think the apostrophe should be AFTER the s since it is the day to celebrate all mothers. W...

When a combination is recognized as a unit already -- that is, it is a compound noun that is separate words -- there is no need for a hyphen when it is used as an adjective. ...substance abuse... ...