The Grammar Grump: Dialogue Tags

A few years ago, when the kid was smaller and far less lippy, he was obsessed with a series of children’s books. Wonderful books, with interesting story lines and well drawn characters, and there were at least fifty of them at the time. One Christmas, we got a few of them on tape and listened as we Read More

The Grammar Grump: Adverbs

Ah, the adverb. The bane of editors everywhere, but I think they have their place. I love this quote about adverbs: “Overuse at best is needless clutter; at worst, it creates the impression that the characters are overacting, emoting like silent film stars. Still, an adverb can be exactly what a sentence needs. They can Read More

The Grammar Grump: Apostrophes

Ah, the apostrophe. Like the comma, it’s so little and so misunderstood. Again, I have scoured the internet looking for memes, and again, they are everywhere. <–This pic comes from the website of The Independent–the article is entertaining. But I digress.   The rules: 1.  Use the apostrophe to show possession. Ex.: I went to Sara’s house. Read More

The Grammar Grump: Commas

Here we are at my inaugural grumpy post about grammar. By request, and because the misuse of them is my biggest pet peeve, today’s post features commas. Google “comma memes” and you’ll find dozens of them, most happily bashing people who can’t seem to figure out how to use them. For this post I’ve gathered a few that pop Read More