Category Archives: How-To

‘s Versus ‘ or s’s: Possessive Apostrophes

The general rule for singular nouns is to use an apostrophe and s at the end to show possession. EXAMPLES: the teacher’s, Mom’s, and Sahara’s. The general rule for regular plural nouns is to use an apostrophe only at the end to show possession. EXAMPLES: the teachers’ lounge, the racers’ cars, and the singers’ voices. Purdue Online Writing Lab had

Read more

Said Versus Asked

I had to weight in here because this literally drives me nuts: said is used for a statement while asked is used when posing a question. Pease stop using said with a question mark as it is NOT proper no matter what the new trends are. Question marks are punctuation used to indicated interrogative clauses or phrases. Essentially, these are

Read more

Assume Versus Presume

It is easy to misuse words, and slang doesn’t help. Colloquialisms aside, when you are writing or editing, it is important to understand the rules, even when you intend to break them. So, what’s the proper way to use ASSUME versus PRESUME? Let’s find out… The simplest answer is this: ASSUME (a verb meaning “to suppose“): is when you believe

Read more

Either / Or versus Neither / Nor

Often, people confuse either and neither. Since these are connected to or and nor, I decided to include these with this post, as well. My husband and I had a recent conversation where this came up. The simplest way to put this is that either is always used with or and neither with nor. Either / or is used when

Read more

All Right vs Alright

Essentially, it all comes down to this: ALL RIGHT is the formal version and ALRIGHT is the informal version of the same word. As an editor and writer, I would both advise and use ALL RIGHT in omnipresence narration (when the character isn’t narrating the story) and ALRIGHT in dialogue or instances of colloquialism. With formal editing and publishing written

Read more
« Older Entries