Legal Writing

Astute readers lay out the rules for lie-lay

Posted on February 19, 2013
Grammarians may have noticed a misused verb in the first sentence of a story Monday about the Captain John S. Pope Farm in northern Orange County: ?Thomas Crisp Jr. stood at the edge of a wire fence Friday morning in northern Orange County, two bales of hay laying at his feet...

Grammar Guide quiz: Just a note before I go

Posted on August 20, 2011
This is my final post on the Triangle Grammar Guide. I was among the copy editors and designers at The News & Observer whose jobs were eliminated in Raleigh. I, like the rest, was given the choice of leaving the company or accepting a job in a new central publishing center at the Charlotte Observer...

Mia Burroughs files for Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board

Posted on July 01, 2011
Mia Burroughs is running for a second term on the city school board. Here is her statement: CHCCS effectively educates many children and has highly dedicated teachers and staff. However, like any other institution, it can and should improve. My campaign slogan the first time I ran was 'Every Student Matters...

Calling all word nerds: Grammar Guide quiz is up

Posted on June 03, 2011
A new Grammar Guide quiz is up. Here is the disclaimer for all you sticklers: No, it's not really about grammar; it's about usage and word choice. The sentences all come from real life this time -- from copy I have read or have edited. Of course, we copy editors don't catch everything -- as readers remind us often...

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Word usage: How "impact" got a bad reputation

Posted on May 14, 2011
I made this edit one night last week: The company adopted new accounting standards after the acquisition that significantly impacted affected its results, so comparisons with year-ago results are skewed. I admit that it was an almost automatic action on my part...

Practice your word usage skills: Grammar Guide quiz

Posted on May 08, 2011
Here is a new Grammar Guide quiz. Almost all of the 10 sentences involve word usage challenges. I have one timely sentence at the end that is more of a copy editing or proofreading  challenge. Click here or on the question mark icon to begin. Click here to find other Grammar Guide quizzes.

Let's learn about pronouns: Grammar Guide quiz No. 55

Posted on February 23, 2011
The latest Grammar Guide quiz involves pronouns. Some explanations in this quiz include grammatical terms such as "nominative case" and "bare infinitive." Those are for the true geeks among us. I hope even those with only casual interest in grammar and usage will find something of interest in the quiz and the explanations...

Don't expect the lexicographers to referee

Posted on February 21, 2011
Columnist Barry Saunders finds fault with the word ginormous and wishes editors would not allow such coinages into the pages of dictionaries. John McIntyre, who writes You Don't Say at baltimoresun.com, explains that lexicographers are not legislators...

Tricky word choices: A Grammar Guide Quiz (No. 54)

Posted on February 20, 2011
The latest Grammar Guide quiz involves commonly confused words -- as you might have guessed, one of my favotite copy editing challenges. Some of the sentences on the quiz lend themselves to varied interpretation, so if you happen to choose the "incorrect" answer, you could argue that you read the writer's meaning differently...

Word nerd reading: Untranslatable expressions

Posted on February 09, 2011
I saw this feature in the March issue of Reader's Digest: Eight expressions that ought to exist in our native tongue but don't. The excerpt comes from a travel site called Matador Network. My favorite is "jayus" from Indonesian: "a joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh...

The disappearing regional dialect: Raleigh

Posted on February 06, 2011
A story in The News & Observer's Sunday edition might be interesting to language buffs and fans of regional accents. Robin Dodsworth, an associate linguistics professor at N.C. State University, says that the Raleigh accent is gradually disappearing...

Kayaker vs. canoeist: agent nouns and suffixes

Posted on February 01, 2011
A reader asks this interesting question: Two items in the news yesterday made me wonder, and I hope you have an answer to my question. The first Item referred to a man in a kayak as a "kayaker," the second item referred to a man in a canoe as a "canoeist...

Confused words: The RAVEN flies again

Posted on January 30, 2011
I've run across two sentences recently that confused affect and effect in a similar way: While the university doesn't yet know what schools, programs and departments might be effected [by budget cuts], leaders there are moving quickly. BSH plans to phase out sales of its 27-inch, front-load washers and dryers by the end of the year, and effected employees will stop working this spring...

Confused words: Two words of disinclination

Posted on January 25, 2011
This sentence from a blog post illustrates a pair of commonly confused words. Read the sentence and see whether you can figure out what I am referring to. Then hit the Read More button. Although Rep. Renee Ellmers campaigned last fall as an ardent opponent of the new health care law passed by Congress, she was not reticent about taking advantage the health plan offered to members of Congress...

Quick grammar lesson: Prepositions and pronouns

Posted on January 19, 2011
This sentence from a TV Squad question-and-answer with the author of a book about "American Idol" made me cringe and stopped me hard: We all watched and saw that there just was not a great chemistry at all between he and Ryan Seacrest, but do you think it's also fair to say that no one was going to get in the way of the mogul-in-the-making that Seacrest has proven himself to be? Now the writer could argue that this is just speech and we can forgive grammatical errors in speech, but I say that if it's published it needs to be edited...

A dog who knows grammar

Posted on January 18, 2011
A wonderful headline ("Sit. Stay. Parse. Good girl!") attracted me to this New York Times story about a border collie who knows more than 1,000 nouns and appears to understand verbs. It mentions a Nova episode about dogs' intelligence.

Please, call me ma'am

Posted on January 02, 2011
A friend's Facebook status update reminded me that I wanted to write about the honorific ma'am. Some women don't like to be called "ma'am." I do. The term got some attention last fall when Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chastised Gen...

Grammar Guide quiz -- Verbs are the subject

Posted on December 23, 2010
I found a quiz that I wrote a while ago but apparently hadn't posted. All five sentences deal with making the correct verb choice. Click here or on the question mark icon to begin. You can also take this holiday-theme quiz from 2008. And click on this link to find links to more past quizzes...

This is an "awesome" post

Posted on December 20, 2010
I have used the word awesome a few times lately to describe something that I found terrific or impressive. This surprised me because my husband and I have a running eyeroll over the word that we consider today's most overused and least understood...

Grammar myths: Yes, you can start sentences with "but"

Posted on December 13, 2010
Two colleagues came to me with a question: Is it incorrect to begin a sentence with and or but? I told them that beginning sentences with and or but is neither a grammatical violation nor a usage breach. One colleague couldn't believe it; he had been taught all through school that a good writer never begins a sentence with and or but...

Try Grammar Guide quiz no. 52 on word usage

Posted on December 06, 2010
The latest Grammar Guide quiz has more parts than usual. I have 11 sentences that offer you a choice of the preferred word. Some are tricky homonyms; a couple of sentences involve words that differ in connotation. Click here or on the question mark icon to begin...

Words we mix up: palate, palette or pallet

Posted on December 05, 2010
A little piece of an advertising circular caught my eye this morning as I made my way through the Sunday edition. I wondered whether the word use was correct. The photo is not clear, but it looks as if the advertised product is a set of makeup powders, perhaps a combination of eye shadows, blush and compact powder, in a case...

How to use the verb "comprise"

Posted on November 16, 2010
This is a sentence I saved from a piece I edited a while ago: Folds, along with Steve Willard and Eddie Walker, comprise the three-piece band who sing songs with titles like, 'Really Gross Kid' and 'King of the Bugs.' The sentence has problems. Can you spot them before you read further or hit the Read More? First, the verb (comprise) is plural and the subject is singular (Folds)...

Try a Grammar Guide quiz (No. 51) on word choice

Posted on November 13, 2010
My week at the copy editing factory was long and busy, but I hit the jackpot on some real-life examples of mixed-up word choices. I recognize that my joy is rather perverse, but I was happy to find material for a Grammar Guide quiz on word choice. I hope you have fun taking the quiz...

Words we mix up: rein or reign

Posted on November 02, 2010
Even though most of us don't use horses or buggies as our main transportation these days, our language still has horse-related idioms, which writers sometimes mix up. One idiom that came up in a story I edited this week was rendered "full reign," to imply that something was unhampered...

Why the AP Stylebook can drive you crazy

Posted on October 03, 2010
The Associated Press Stylebook helps create standards for publication writing. It tells writers and editors how to spell words and how to render numbers, among other things. It also offers rules on grammar and usage. It is the stylebook we rely on at The N&O, supplemented by an internal stylebook...

Grammar Guide quiz: Word choice, fashion and home decor edition

Posted on September 24, 2010
I've written the 50th Grammar Guide quiz. This one is based on words we often see used incorrectly in fashion and home decor stories. They are common words that are easily mistyped and overlooked. As usual, I have written an explanation for each answer so you will get feedback as you check your answers...

A Grammar Guide quiz: Word choice in Sunday's paper

Posted on August 22, 2010
If you are a close and thorough reader of The N&O, you might have an advantage on the new Grammar Guide quiz. I based the quiz on Sunday's newspaper. I found five sentences that included words or terms that are sometimes confused in writing. To the credit of writers and editors, all but one of the five sentences were correct in the paper...

Word choice: It's the opposite of what you mean

Posted on August 11, 2010
A sentence in an Associated Press story about the plane crash that killed former Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska stopped me this morning: Stevens became a protege to the younger O'Keefe and they remained close friends over the years. The writer probably meant that Stevens became a mentor to the younger O'Keefe...

Try a new quiz at the Grammar Guide

Posted on August 02, 2010
I have a new quiz for you to try. It comprises 10 sentences, about half of them have to do with word choice, a couple are about grammar and at least one is about idioms. To satisfy the purists, I should not call this a grammar quiz because it is mostly about usage and style, but "grammar" is the shorthand term I use...

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