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Hopefully is a misused adverb meaning “with hope”, according to Strunk & White in their book The Elements of Style. Strunk & White explains that this meaning “has been distorted and is now widely used to mean ‘I hope’ or ‘it is to be hoped’”. Here are some examples in sentences: I will get to … Continue reading
This blog is about clauses that are introduced by the word which and the rules around commas when the clause follows a noun. As this can get a little confusing, first you need to decide if the clause that follows which is either “used to introduce crucial identifying pieces of information” or “used in clauses … Continue reading
A cliché is a phrase or expression that someone somewhere has expressed as an original thought which becomes overused. According to Graham King in his book Collins Improve your Writing, some clichés go back centuries, for example, left in the lurch dates back to 1576 and comes from the English poet Gabriel Harvey. It’s common to … Continue reading
Being note 100 of my writing challenge, I thought I’d make this one a bit different – it’s about how I find the time to write and where I feel comfortable writing. I also want to share a link with you from ‘the writer today’ where Ana blogs about ‘five ways to put more hours in … Continue reading
Verbs have three moods. Over the last two days I have covered the indicative and imperative moods; today I am going to blog about the subjunctive mood (the mood being the form that the verb takes and how it is meant to be understood by the reader). The subjunctive mood is used for situations that are … Continue reading
Verbs have three moods. Yesterday I covered the indicative mood and today I am going to blog about the imperative mood (the mood being the form that the verb takes and how it is meant to be understood by the reader). The imperative mood is all about orders, according to Bernard C Lamb in The Queen’s … Continue reading
Verbs have three moods which I will cover in separate blogs. Today I am going to explain the indicative mood (the mood being the form that the verb takes and how it is meant to be understood by the reader). The indicative mood is the most common of all three moods and “used for normal statements and questions” according … Continue reading
The noun circumlocution (or periphrasis) is “roundabout speech or writing, or using a lot of words when a few will do”, writes Graham King in his book Collins Improve your Writing Skills. Circumlocutionists tend to write something in a long winded, roundabout way to sound knowledgeable or when they don’t want to hurt someones feelings. … Continue reading
According to Cambridge Dictionaries Online http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/circa?q=circa, circa is a preposition word meaning approximately and is “used especially with years”. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circa explains that circa is also latin for ‘around’ and used quite a bit for historical writing. The shortened form can be written in any of the following ways (although the last two are only used … Continue reading
Deficient and defective are both adjectives with very different meanings. Their definitions are below: Deficient Cambridge Dictionaries Online http://www.dictionary.cambridge.org defines deficient as: “Not having enough of” “Not good enough” The Pocket Writer’s Handbook by Martin Mander & Stephen Curtis defines deficient as: “Lacking” “Inadequate” When used in a sentence: The doctor said that Sally is deficient in … Continue reading
My Writing Notebook 