Paul Yeager's weather book
Paul Yeager's language book
Author Archives: languageandgrammar
As Easy As A, B, C
We decided to take a short break from language and grammar to talk about hurricane season since hurricanes affect many Americans and often become major news stories at this time of year. Since there have been no named storms yet … Continue reading
Posted in off topic
Tagged atlantic hurricane season, hurricanes, tropical storm anna, tropical storm bill, tropical storm claudette, tropical storms, weather
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Getting Emotional
Humans are, by their nature, emotional beings, and the emotions we exhibit are numerous. Why is it then that we use the word emotional as a synonym for crying in many instances? A person who cries is described as someone … Continue reading
Special Encore Presentation
I love the special encore presentations when I see them on television. Not because I love yet another lame re-run but because I enjoy seeing television executives trying to make their lame re-runs seem like a special event. Inflated language … Continue reading
Posted in language, writing
Tagged inflated language, language, special encore presentations, television re-runs, writing
1 Comment
Conjunctive Adverbs—-or Adverbial Conjunctions
A sign is hanging up at work: Empty the trash, then line the basket with a new bag. I saw the forecast for my local area: Rain will end this morning, then it will be partly sunny this afternoon. Both … Continue reading
Posted in grammar, language, writing
Tagged adverbial conjunctions, conjunctive adverbs, English, grammar errors, punctuation with then, writing
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Keep ’em Coming
This is another installment of your pet peeves, which are pet peeves that you posted on our Pet Peeves page. Some of them might be redundancies, but I doubt they’re as redundant as the previous sentence. Keep ’em coming–we love … Continue reading
Posted in grammar, language, writing
Tagged grammar, grammar errors, language, pet peeves, writing
3 Comments
Comma with Because
I often see writers and editors putting a comma before the word because, for example, This won’t surprise anyone who has known her for a long time, because she has always espoused both liberal and conservative perspectives. The problem with … Continue reading
Posted in grammar, language, writing
Tagged comma use, dependent clause, grammar errors, punctuation, writing
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Are You Killing the Apostrophe?
Years ago, I came across a column on the demise of the apostrophe, called Are You Killing the Apostrophe. It makes no sense to me to discard a perfectly good and useful mark of punctuation simply because some people don’t … Continue reading
Sci-Fi Marketing
While flipping through the television stations recently, I noticed that the Sci Fi Channel is now the SyFy Channel, and not knowing what SyFy was, I did a little research (Sci Fi Becomes SyFy). As it turns out, Sci Fi … Continue reading
Posted in language
Tagged language, marketing, pop culture, Sci Fi channel, SyFy Channel, telvision
2 Comments
Comment on Comments
Behavior We know that there is a tendency for discussions on the Internet to become personal, petty arguments and attacks, but we’ve been lucky. Nearly everyone leaving a comment on our blog has been respectful and polite (thank you), but … Continue reading
Posted in off topic
Tagged comment rules, comments, languageandgrammar.com, paul yeager, sherry cove
1 Comment
Everything Language and Grammar 
Gone Fishin’
We have not taken a blog vacation since we started in December 2007, so don’t you think it’s about time we do? We do–and we’ll resume regular posting in about two weeks (at the start of September). We will continue … Continue reading →