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It’s a common error to use distinct instead of distinctive and vice versa. According to The Pocket Writer’s Handbook by Martin Manser & Stephen Curtis, distinct means “‘clear’, ‘clearly noticeable’ or ‘separate and different’”; however, distinctive means that something has its own “special and unmistakable character”. Consider the following sentences: There is a distinct noise coming from … Continue reading
There are many adjectives with hyphens such as left-handed and well-mannered; however, in some instances you don’t need a hyphen. The Pocket Writer’s Handbook by Martin Manser & Stephen Curtis suggests using a hyphen if the adjective comes before a noun e.g. a left-handed child and a well-kept house. If, however, the adjective follows a … Continue reading
It’s quite common to mistakenly use the word may instead of the word might and vice versa. Collins Improve your Writing Skills by Graham King explains that you should use the word may in present and future tense situations “when an outcome is still unknown”, whereas you would use might “when an if is lurking in the background – when … Continue reading
I heard this word today and had to look it up, so it has become the subject of today’s blog. The Collins English Dictionary & Thesaurus defines eponymous as: “(of a person) being the person after whom a literary work, film, etc., is named: the eponymous hero in the film of Jane Eyre.” “(of a literary … Continue reading
Although I’ve blogged about prepositions and conjunctions before, this blog is to clear up any confusions between the two. Preposition: the Collins English Dictionary & Thesaurus defines preposition as a “word marking relation between noun or pronoun and other words”. Bernard C Lamb in The Queen’s English explains that prepositions “usually occur before the noun or pronoun … Continue reading
Words have two classes: content words and structure words. Content words Content words are the core words which give meaning to the sentence. They are the ones that we stress the most when we speak our sentences out loud. They can be nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, according to the Oxford A-Z of Grammar and Punctuation by John … Continue reading
This blog marks the end of the fourth month of my writing challenge (eight months to go!). Today I wanted to write about something a little different so I visited one of my favourite websites for inspiration… …I knew that there had to be a reason why I kept revisiting the Daily Writing Tips website … Continue reading
Would you say ‘she is bored of her friend’, ‘she is bored with her friend ’ or ‘she is bored by her friend’? I have learnt today that the first option ‘she is bored of her friend’ is not an example of good writing. Out of the prepositions of, with and by, the word of … Continue reading
Do you hesitate when you go to start a sentence with the word ‘and’? Does it bring back memories from school where your teacher told you to think of a better word? You will be pleased to know that it is acceptable to start sentences with the conjunction ‘and’. Although this style of writing is used by authors and … Continue reading
In order to reinforce a point about ‘double negatives’, my junior school teacher (many years ago!) repeated the following sentence over and over, which stayed in my mind “if you haven’t got nothing, then you must have something”. Double negatives cancel each other out to make a positive. The situation occurs when two negative words … Continue reading
My Writing Notebook 