The auxiliaries may and might are often used interchangeably. Most of the time, interchanging them doesn’t seem to matter.
Strictly speaking, might is the past form of may, but may often occurs in past tense constructions, and might is used in sentences...
Verb Mistakes #1: Heard on Television
Quite apart from stylistic errors involving redundancy and inapt word choice, television can be a rich source of grammatical errors. Here are four examples.
INCORRECT: Gin was drunken out of necessity, not choice.—Documentary narrator
CORRECT: Gin was drunk out of necessity, not...
Usage Mistakes #1
The sentences below illustrate various types of mistakes in wording born from (not “borne out of”) ignorance or carelessness.
1. All the progress we have made to educate people about the hazards of smoking may be for not.
The writer, perhaps unfamiliar with the termnaught, assumed that the last word...
3 Cases of Too Many Commas
This post illustrates several types of sentences that incorporate excessive punctuation. Each example is followed by a discussion and a revision.
1. Much of what happened between the moment Jones sat on a bench to enjoy the view and police opened fire and killed him, has been the subject of contentious...
How Long Should a Sentence Be?
A few years ago, I wrote a post titled “How Long Should a Paragraph Be?” which argued that various pronouncements that dictate paragraph length (expounded for the benefit of beginning writers, who presumably are aided by the introduction of a circumscribed formula for success in composition) should...
How to Get Your Writing on the Road to Being Read and Spread
Know your audience. Know your product cold. Research. Nail the headline. Write plainly, in the language of your audience. Research more. Write great bullets. Craft a great offer. Include a strong call to action. Et cetera.
These elements are the standard. They get the job done.
But this little...
31 PRACTICAL TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR WRITING OVERNIGHT
1. IMPROVE YOUR INFORMATION GATHERING
As they say, “garbage in, garbage out.” You can’t write good stories if your information gathering is flawed.
2. READ EVERYTHING
Good writers are avid readers. Making time to read every day will improve your writing, whether what you read is well written or...
