grammar

The rules of grammar can seem impenetrable to some and arbitrary to others. When is strict grammar of the king's english necessaary and when are certain grammatical rules a matter of style?

I must note a difference of opinion [between John Scalzi and the poster] with regard to the word "alright", which John proclaims is not even a word. And he thinks it's ugly. Whether it is ugly is a matter of taste, and I shan't argue that. Whether it is a word, though... well, it's definitely a word, since it has boundaries and is used to convey meaning.

From the page: "The English language is under assault by stupid people who use words they don't understand, and is defended by pompous asses who like to correct those people. We're not sure who to side with. " (btw, if you don't like anything resembling nudity, be aware this page contains some shots of women in bikinis...)

"Learning grammar taught me how to think–to pay attention to the neat and precise relationships between things, to look for subtle differences,.."

About 16,000 words have succumbed to pressures of the Internet age and lost their hyphens in a new edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.Bumble-bee is now bumblebee, ice-cream is ice cream and pot-belly is pot belly. And if you've got a problem, don't be such a crybaby (formerly cry-baby).

A podcast about common writing ills. Not as bitter a pill as you may think and it's actually good for you! A spoonful of linguistic cod liver oil for responsible writing adults.

The best books for writers include books on writing non-fiction, editing, grammar, and on creativity. These books should be read and kept on a shelf within reach of your writing area.

"After all these years you finally have the courage and opportunity to write the email announcing that you and you alone have single handedly saved the company from utter disaster. You're excited, you type it, you spell check it, and you hit send.

Everything is great except that your gold star memo has dangling modifiers, double negatives and run-on sentences colliding with each other."

Suddenly wondering whether "I" or "me" was the proper word to use, I recalled the excellent Dr Grammar site, and its extensive FAQ - a goldmine for all of us whose obsession with correct language usage borders to fascism. :)