Category: Grammar myths

Have you ever seen a phrase like the following? “The changes will have an impact on the year-end results.” I was in a meeting recently, and we were discussing the wording of a document. A similar phrasing as this one appeared, and I proposed rewording it to what would be something like: “The changes will… Continue reading Using “impact” as a verb

I was editing a few projects for a client recently, and I noticed a tendency to use constructions such as “him or her“, “his or hers”, “he or she”, and so on. Sometimes, the author replaced the or with a slash. The reason for this, I presume, is that they want to be gender inclusive,… Continue reading Why we need to stop using “she/he” and “him/her”

If you hang out on social media long enough, eventually you’ll come across an article about gender that uses they to refer to someone instead of using he or she. You’ll likely also encounter people who cite such a practice as proof of the degradation of society, that the left is trying to force their agenda on… Continue reading We’ve used “they” as a singular pronoun for 700 years; it’s not a leftist conspiracy

If you hang out with anyone who’s a grammar snob, you’ve probably heard them correct someone using “they” as a singular pronoun. I was actually doing some research on this usage recently, and I discovered some interesting tidbits.

If you’ve hung out with grammar snobs for a long enough time, you’ve probably come across a rule that goes something like: you must use “like” when comparing nouns and “as” when comparing clauses. For example: Siobhán looks like her big sister Aisling. It snowed overnight, as I said it would. This rule is based… Continue reading Using “like” to introduce clauses: another myth busted

A few years ago, I was discussing the difference between “that” and “which” with some colleagues. Specifically, we were discussing how to use them in restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses. One of my colleagues commented that he heard a grammarian once say that if you eliminated “that” from your vocabulary, you’d eliminate most poor writing. Someone… Continue reading Should we eliminate “that” from our writing?

As someone who gets paid to correct others’ grammar, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that I’ve heard more than my fair share of people spouting off grammatical rules. Some of those rules are legitimate, while others are made-up and nothing more than myths. In fact, here’s a myth: “Alright” isn’t a real… Continue reading Don’t worry, it’s all right to use “alright”

One grammar rule you may have heard in school is to never start a sentence with a conjunction (such as “and” or “but”). This is actually another one of those made-up, recent inventions that has no basis in fact. Actually, English speakers have started sentences with conjunctions for 1,200 years. 

If you hang out with anyone who’s a grammar snob, you’ve probably heard them correct someone using “they” as a singular pronoun. I was actually doing some research on this usage recently, and I discovered some interesting tidbits.