As the name indicates, a thank-you note is a “note”, not a letter. A note is a brief communication. Thankfully, you don’t have to write more than a few words.
What should go into this note?
[1] The salutation: the “Dear so-and-so” or a simple greeting.
[2] Saying “thank you.”
[3] Identifying the gift or the service – more than the receiver of the note, it is you, the sender must be sure you are than
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After a long time, I’ve decided to take up a specific question in writing. It’s about the length of a sentence.
Oh, yes, we know a sentence – not the ones awarded in a courtroom – can be just one word: “Stop!”
It could have two words and so on. But that is not the bug-bite here. It is the other end of the limit.
How long is too long? When do we pause while punching in to say,
I am thrilled to start off the New Year with a quiz, that too on usage. 2011 was a great year for new words, new phrases, new expressions. Remember “We are the 99 percent”? “1 percent”? The 9-9-9 theory? Didn’t “occupy” acquire a whole new meaning?
So here is a usage quiz. Find out that one word in each of these sentences that is way off the mark for the context. The sentences are from the New York Ti
30
Dec
2011
Posted Under - Good Writing, Grammar 101, Quiz Time
My “Blog Fodder” file is getting larger. Why do writers (across the world) make so many errors in grammar and usage? Isn’t error-free writing important any more? Isn’t an eye for accuracy – for content and language – a part of the qualifications for being a writer? Is sloppy writing ok?
Find your own answer. Meanwhile, take this quiz. I copied and pasted these sentences during my
20
Nov
2011
The answer is the same: You can and you may.
My grandpa, who was a writer – he wrote on healthcare – occasionally placed a period after a last-word preposition. No one threw his sentences out.
Yet, teachers of English talk as if it’s an unpardonable sin. No, they say. A preposition is not a word you can end your sentence with.:-)
Check out Bryan Garner’s Modern American Usage, Oxford University Press, 2003.
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Nov
2011
You can and you may.
Some of you asked if it is ok to begin a sentence with “and” or “but” – two connecting words. You told me your teachers insisted that they couldn’t be used at the beginning of the sentence. Did they tell you why?
Let me tell you as politely as I can, this rule is “bogus”.
Enough numbers of scholars and academicians have said so. The American Heritage Dictionary in its fourth edi
16
Nov
2011
Posted Under - Good Writing, Grammar 101, Quiz Time
Malapropism in literature is a type of humor when a character uses a wrong, but similar word. For example, in Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, the nurse says the word “confidence” when she really means conference, and “indite” instead of invite. The question remains, what was this type of humor called in Shakespeare’s time?
The word “malapropism” comes from a charac
8
Nov
2011
Posted Under - Grammar 101, Quiz Time, Which one is right?
Keep aside “Weather” (the thing that keeps changing outside your window every day) and “Whether” (that question mark on your mind when you have options).
Did you know there is a “Wether”?
My MS Windows XP Spellchecker doesn’t even recognize the word. But yes, there is a “Wether” and it means [a] a male sheep or ram (the Oxford Dictionary of Etymology traces its roots to Old English, Old High Germa
31
Oct
2011
Posted Under - Good Writing, Grammar 101, Quiz Time, Which one is right?
A reader asks: Are “awhile” and “a while” the same? When you split it into two words, is it just a typo error?
No. It is not a type error. These two perform different functions. They are used differently, though their meaning could be the same.
“Awhile” is an adverb. Which means it says something more about a verb, as in the horse ran…fast. [“Fast” is the adverb here.]
So, “awhile” modifies a
19
Oct
2011
Modifiers (or descriptors), as I have said again and again, can be slippery. Among single words, these are the most dangerous: only, almost, already, even, just, nearly, merely, always.
Read this example to see how the meaning changes with change in modifier placement.
Only he could have committed the crime. As against
He could have committed only this crime. See what I mean?
Again, They almost worked five years on
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