Posts Tagged: Grammar
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Jun 01, 2010
No CommentsDon’t write off the hyphen
“If it moves, hyphenate it”. That was one of the not-entirely-tongue-in-cheek pieces of editorial guidance I was given in my first job as Editorial and Production Assistant for an IT education company. Even allowing for the passage of time that has loosened the stays of English’s corseted grammar, the point still has merit. Well, some....
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Jun 01, 2010
No CommentsBettys branding – a cut above
Amazing, isn’t it, how a couple of doses of flu and getting ready to move 200 miles north can render you porcine and take your mind off the blogger’s ball? Or should that be bloggers’ ball? Or does the whiff of 1980s’ sitcom double-entendre make all other issues inconsequential? So here I am in the...
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Jun 01, 2010
No CommentsThe early bird catches the word
Who would have thought that BBC Radio 4′s Farming Today would offer such scant respite from insomnia? But yes, in August 1st’s programme, someone in Worcestershire stirringly put the ox in oxymoron by talking about the effect of the recession on “rural towns”. There was some discussion about how many people it takes for a...
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Jun 01, 2010
No CommentsOn the right track
A Frenchman recently told me that he had been referring to “getting in the train” until someone pointed out to him that we say “getting on the train”. He’d been sent down the wrong track by an old grammar book which clearly gave “in the train” as the correct construction. I wonder if all forms...
