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Here is the explanation right out of my new book on word pairs, which will be out this fall. Email me if you want practice exercises. We don’t need to worry about the word affect, when it is prono...

We said earlier that a short prepositional phrase at the beginning of a sentence that is just a simple modifier does NOT take a comma. Let's look at what prepositional phrases do take a comma. RUL...

Why is it "father's day" and not "fathers' day"? Happy Father's Day??? There is more than one father that we are celebrating.

When there are two parts to the sentence, one that makes a statement (...my question is...) and one that asks a question (...where are you going...), it is the one at the end that determines the te...

These words cause us problems. Let's see whether we can clear some of those up. The words in and on suggest a location. We are "in" the room. It is "on" the table. When followed by the word to, th...

This was over on FB with lots of comments and suggestions. Here is my take: That means that, if a body part is lost -- for example, in an amputation -- or if a body part if not functioning properl...

Good morning, In Fergus Falls, MN, this morning, headed for Bismarck, ND, and then Grand Forks -- two groups of fabulous North Dakota reporters. This question came up on my page on Facebook: "Mo...

These are two questions I have answered this morning: I hate "because" clauses. Does this get a comma? "I am not asking about conversations you had with your attorney because that's privileged. ...

So let’s talk prepositional phrases at the beginning of a sentence. What if this prepositional phrase is just a simple modifier, a simple adverb modifier? ...On Monday we will begin the new progr...