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Ugly Disagreements
Singular goes with singular, plural with plural. Sounds easy. Yet agreement problems abound in our prose, between subjects and verbs, between nouns and pronouns. The perils are all familiar: phrases intervening between subject and verb that throw us off track; collective nouns that veer from singular to plural; tricky words like “each”; and, of course, […]
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Struggles With ‘Than’
For some reason, comparative constructions with “than” or “as” give us no end of trouble. Probably the most common lapse is using “than” when “as” is called for — for example, “She raised more than three times as much money in the campaign than Mr. Smith.” But there are more arcane stumbles, as well. Look […]
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When Spell-Check Can’t Help
Our latest roundup of homophone problems includes a number of very familiar entries. Sharp-eyed readers catch them; we should, too. After Deadline http://afterdeadline.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/when-spell-check-cant-help-20/
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Parallel Problems
The Times’s stylebook entry on the either/or construction seems simple. But we stumble often. After Deadline http://afterdeadline.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/parallel-problems-3/