Personality and Style

I took child psychology in my sophomore year of college. The one thing I’ll never forget about that class is taking Myers-Briggs Type Indicator for the first time along with other personality and learning style tests. The result? ISTJ (Introversion, Sensing, Thinking, Judging). And I’ve tested ISTJ every time since then. Even my daughter is … Read more

Using Apostrophes

We’ve discussed apostrophes many times here, and we’re not going to stop anytime soon as long as the abuse continues. WikiHow’s How to Use Apostrophes mentions the frequent use of “photo’s” and it’s true. I know a few PTA parents who add an apostrophe in photos. I don’t understand why. It’s not as if it … Read more

Five Rules for Effective Writing from Orwell

Pick the Brain nicely abstracts George Orwell’s 5 Rules for Effective Writing and provides the link to the original essay. I just came across this tool that helps you eliminate cliches from your writing. This helps with Orwell’s first rule of avoiding the use of metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech that you’ve seen … Read more

Here Are Two Simple Writing Tips

Stop with the Overdone Modifiers On Writing Well taught me to cut the use of modifiers such as “really,” “very,” “so,” and “quite.” I save those for when I *really* mean something 🙂 It’s amazing how many articles I’ve edited that abused these words that they lose meaning. Using Only in Sentences “An Ode to … Read more

Linguistic Scholars and Blogging

Analyzing Eggcorns and Snowclones, and Challenging Strunk and White looks at Language Log, a blog covering linguistic boo boos. My kind of place. The article talks of eggcorns, “a type of slip of the ear in which people mishear a word and mispronounce it, then insist that the malapropism is correct.” Maybe I’m obtuse, but … Read more