I fielded a question recently about “minding your p’s and q’s.” I had used that expression in a column a few weeks ago, and it prompted an email from a reader named Christine who was curious about the ...

Let’s face it, grammar is more important for some people than for others. An ambulance driver probably has more important things to worry about than whether to hyphenate adverbs ending in “ly.” (FYI: ...

An apostrophe is not an accessory. Here are some easy-to-follow rules for using an apostrophe—and when you definitely shouldn't. An apostrophe might be tiny, but used correctly, it adds clarity and ...

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The big story in my hometown of Rockford this week is the teachers strike — or should that be “teachers’ strike.” Should “teachers” take the possessive form or not? First, a word about terminology, ...

If you have a good grasp of apostrophes, you probably notice that a lot of other people don’t. You could be forgiven for rolling your eyes at sentences like “The dog wagged it’s tail,” which ...

One hundred and eighteen miles north of London, in the town of Boston, England, there lives a retired newspaperman named John Richards who is experiencing an unusually rotten spring. Richards is the ...

If you type into Google's search engine the term "two chihuahua's," complete with apostrophe, you'll get plenty of hits that include the apostrophe. The search term "competing agenda's" also brings up ...

A recent editorial cartoon about the death of pop singer Davy Jones of the Monkees contained this pretend newspaper headline: “Monkee’s Davy Jones dies.” It’s another example of the trouble caused by ...

Hi there,<BR><BR>at my company we still use Word 97, so far without too much trouble.<BR>Now, after moving, we see a problem with automatic corrections of straight quotes. Word seems to replace all ...

The closing of the Apostrophe Protection Society because of the ‘ignorance and laziness’ of the general public strikes a body blow against those fighting for correct English. This column was prompted ...