Words are all we have when it comes to writing and speaking, and that can be a problem when we don’t use them as precisely as we otherwise could. Our job is to take our readers and listeners to a high clearing from which they can have an unobstructed view of our ideas—and we do …
Author Archives: rultimo
And
Could there be a more innocuous word in the English language than and ? Said so often every day, we sometimes barely even pronounce it, but still it remains the force it is to connect and hold parts of our sentences together. Without it, our words would spill out like beads off a string, pieces …
Write It and Write It Again
A lot of students over a lot of years have expressed to me how frustrated they are in trying to get their ideas onto a page. And when we take time to talk about the problem, I’m always surprised to realize how many people harbor the fantastic notion that if you have to rewrite something, …
Upcoming Seminars and a Short Course
Independent and Subordinate Clauses Tuesday, November 10 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. There are really only two ways to present a number of thoughts in one sentence: we can either lay them side by side, showing how one is just as important as another; or we can tag one particular thought to show how it depends …
Am I Good or Well or Both?
So how are you to reply when someone asks you how you are: I’m good? I’m well? We hear them both, but we know that our ears are not to be listened to in matters of grammar; what we hear is only as reliable as the people we listen to. The answer is that both …