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Legal Writing

Daily Writing Tips

Are you trying to improve your writing skills? If so Daily Writing Tips is the right place for you. Featuring daily tips about grammar, spelling, punctuation, copywriting and more!

Post Frequency: 3.6/day

Last Entry: November 02, 2020 at 06:34:48

No Country for English

Posted on March 18, 2008
In preparing to write a review of No Country for Old Men, I glanced at some online discussions of the film to see what other people were saying. The grammarian in me overcame the movie critic as I found myself paying more attention to the mode of expression than the thoughts being expressed.

Medium, Media

Posted on March 18, 2008
Medium originates from the Latin meaning middle, midst or means and this sense has carried through its various meanings. The 16th century meaning of intervening substance gave rise to the 19th century meaning of enveloping substance, a term often used in scientific experiments.

Daily Writing Tips Spelling Test 1

Posted on March 17, 2008
It took us some time, but we are finally up with another test, the Spelling Test 1.

Word of the Day: Flabbergast

Posted on March 15, 2008
Flabbergast (fl?b'?r-g?st') means to overwhelm with wonder or surprise. If you are flabbergasted, you are astonished with something.

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Robin Hood was Clad in Green

Posted on March 14, 2008
The morning paper for me is always full of surprises that have nothing to do with the news. A recent eye-popper: Bill White, the mayor of Houston, cut a ribbon ahead of the public opening of the Beer Can House, a folk art monument that got its start when the late John Milkovisch began a 20-year task of cladding his house and workshop with thousands of maintenance-free flattened beer cans.

Pros and Cons of Telecommuting

Posted on March 13, 2008
Telecommute (verb): to work from home, communicating with a central workplace using equipment such as telephones, fax machines, and modems. Telecommute; the word sounds as though it opposes the freedom that a freelance writing life should bring, and is therefore in no way desirable...

Onomatopoeia (it is not something to eat)

Posted on March 13, 2008
Onomatopoeia (on-O-mat-O-P-ya) is a word that's hard to spell but easy to understand. Derived from the Greek words for name and making, onomatopoeia refers to the literary device of making words that imitate sounds. It's a way to emphasize the sounds and it's a technique we use often...

Alas, Poor Heroine

Posted on March 12, 2008
Anyone who has ever taught knows The Look. It is the eye-rolling look students throw at one another when the behind-the-times teacher uses what she thinks is a perfectly ordinary word, unaware that the word has taken on a new meaning.

Web Usability Revisited

Posted on March 11, 2008
If you're reading every word of this post, then you're in the minority. More than ten years ago, usability expert Jakob Neilsen published a paper called How Users Read On The Web. He began the paper by saying: 'They don't.'

Found Any Eggcorns Lately?

Posted on March 10, 2008
A friend recently pointed me to a linguistic term that I hadn't seen before: eggcorn (or egg corn). It seems that in certain dialects eggcorn is a homonym for acorn, as Mark Liberman reported on the Language Log in September 2003. It turns out that there are hundreds of these eggcorns in common use...

Word of the Day: Stigma

Posted on March 08, 2008
Stigma (st?g'm?) is a scar or mark. Often times said mark has a negative connotation, as in a mark of disgrace and infamy. In ancient times, for instance, slaves and criminals used to get stigmas marked on their skins with burning iron. The plural of this noun can also be stigmata.

A Writer Can be Anyone or Anything

Posted on March 07, 2008
I attended a writers? workshop session at which a minor, but much-published author warned participants against creating POV (point of view) characters of the opposite sex.

Good Friday and Easter

Posted on March 06, 2008
Reader Elaine Peters wonders if the word ?Good? in ?Good Friday? has anything to do with the word ?God,? pointing out that the English ?good-bye? is a shortened version of the once common expression ?God be with ye.?

5 Tips for Handling Clients

Posted on March 05, 2008
Running a home-based writing business is a great way to make a living. It allows one to be creative, flexible, and above all, it allows for a certain amount of freedom. There remains however, some things that anybody who runs any size of business can get out of; client management...

It?s National Grammar Day

Posted on March 05, 2008
If you're reading this blog, then you'll be happy to know that we have our own day. The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar (SPOGG), has designated March 4th National Grammar Day.

Any vs. Either

Posted on March 04, 2008
I just did a double-take when reading an article about creating passport photos using Photoshop Elements and another application. Here's what threw me: If you have any of these two applications, then you can follow this simple do-it-yourself project...

Most Popular Articles February 2008

Posted on March 03, 2008
Below you will find the most popular articles of the past month. Check them out if you missed any. Laugh About Writing: Writing doesn?t always have to be a serious business. Though it?s wise to make sure that you write correctly, there?s a lot of fun to be had when playing with words.

Word of the Day: Anachronism

Posted on March 01, 2008
Anachronism (?-n?k'r?-n?z'?m) is the placing of a person or thing out of its natural chronological or historical time. Putting a written book in a prehistoric movie, therefore, would be considered an anachronism. Notice that in poetry and other arts anachronisms can appear both deliberately and accidentally.

How To Rediscover The Joy Of Writing

Posted on February 29, 2008
Most people get into the writing business because they love to write. In fact, they can't imagine doing anything else. However, when you write for a living, you may sometimes feel as if you're writing by rote and as if the joy of writing has completely evaporated...

Rhinotillexis on the Decline

Posted on February 28, 2008
You may be pleased to hear that rhinotillexis is on the downturn, at least in public places. This lovely term means "picking one's nose with one's fingers."

A Freelance Writer?s Basic Guide to SEO

Posted on February 27, 2008
Hands up all those freelance writers who, when scanning the job boards recently, have seen writing gigs looking for copywriters with SEO experience? (should be everyone). Keep your hands up if you don?t understand what SEO is, or if you do, were confused the first time you saw it used? (should still be everyone)...

English Grammar 101: Adverbs

Posted on February 26, 2008
Adverbs are used to describe or modify a verb, adjective, clause, or another adverb. Basically, they modify everything except nouns and pronouns (which are modified by adjectives).

Speaking Of Eponyms

Posted on February 25, 2008
My first introduction to the concept of eponyms was in high school. My English teacher talked about the 'eponymous heroine', meaning the protagonist after whom the book was named. Examples include Jane Eyre and Silas Marner. An eponym is a word that is formed from the name of a person...

Wether, Weather, Whether

Posted on February 23, 2008
Wether is a prime example of a word that will slip past the spell check. It is easily confused with two of its homonyms, whether and weather. Flying fingers find it easy to miss the single letter that separates them.

Top 5 Freelance Mistakes To Avoid

Posted on February 22, 2008
The road of freelance writing is fraught with pot-holes, sharp bends, and hidden horizons, so it pays to know a few of the mistakes in advance to help make the journey go that little bit smoother. It?s easy to make mistakes when working as a self-employed person, and even the smallest error may have a mis-proportionally negative affect on your business...

Praises to the Correct Use of The Semicolon

Posted on February 21, 2008
Lana, one of our readers, pointed me to a very interesting article over the NY Times. Titled Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely Location, the article describes how the reporter was pleasantly surprised by finding an erudite and correct use of the semicolon on a subway sign.

A Book on Writing for Novelists

Posted on February 20, 2008
Before launching myself into the historical novel I've been thinking about, I decided to read some books on writing before getting too far along. My luck was to pick up Sol Stein's How to Grow A Novel. Some writing books are good for beginners, but some are not...

Daily Writing Tips Featured on Cool Site of The Day

Posted on February 19, 2008
The guys from Cool Site of the Day have been featuring websites since 1994. I have discovered many interesting and useful websites through their service, so it is flattering to get Daily Writing Tips mentioned there as well. If this is your first time here, we are a basically a blog focused on grammar, punctuation, freelance writing and spelling tips...

The Unfortunate Dys

Posted on February 18, 2008
The prefix dys- derives from the Greek and has a number of unfavourable meanings. In Greek, using this prefix denoted the opposite of anything that was easy, favourable or fortunate, according to the Oxford Dictionary of Etymology.

Bouillon, Bullion or Boolean?

Posted on February 16, 2008
Don't confuse bouillon with bullion--one is a soup ingredient and the other is gold.

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