How to Write Holiday Greetings and Avoid Common Mistakes

Maybe you don’t love holly or snowmen. Or winter jingles. Or trying to manage the list of gifts you’ll need to buy, wrap, and present to your loved ones. Heck, maybe every year you get stuck holding down the office for weeks on end while half the staff is away. Still, you want to power through this—to scream “come at me December, I can take you on!”

Nothing says “I am undaunted by the demands of the winter holidays and am not merely soldiering through—I am here to dominate” like a greeting card.

Office Etiquette​ You Should Know on Casual Friday

So-called “Casual Friday” can be more stressful than the days when the rules are hard and fast. Are all jeans verboten, or just the ones with rips all the way up your thighs? Is it frowned upon to peace out early? When that last-minute task pops up, can’t you just pretend you didn’t see the note until Monday morning?

Here are some tips on office etiquette to help you be as professionally casual on Fridays as you are professionally professional the rest of the week.

Spelling Plurals with -s or -es

If a word ends in ‑s, ‑sh, ‑ch, ‑x, or ‑z, you add ‑es. For almost all other nouns, add -s to pluralize.

How to Spell Plural Nouns: With -es or -s?

When do you add ‑s and when do you add ‑es to make a plural noun? It’s not quite as arbitrary as it may seem.

If a word ends in ‑s, ‑sh, ‑ch, ‑x, or ‑z, you add ‑es. Consider the examples below:

I had to take only one bus; you had to take two buses.

What is a Gerund Phrase?

A gerund phrase is a phrase consisting of a gerund and any modifiers or objects associated with it. A gerund is a noun made from a verb root plus ing (a present participle). A whole gerund phrase functions in a sentence just like a noun, and can act as a subject, an object, or a predicate nominative.

If you look up the definition of gerund (pronounced JER-und), you will find that it means “an English noun formed from a verb by adding -ing”; that is, a present participle used as a noun.

How to Write Nowhere, Somewhere, and Anywhere?

There’s only one way to write nowhere, somewhere, and anywhere, and that is as one word. If you write them as no where, some where, and any where, you’re making a mistake.

He was no where to be found.

Tony tried to build his own business, but it went nowhere.

More Examples

Some where over the rainbow there’s candy waiting for you.

He lost his key somewhere on his route home.

Know Your Homophones: Feint and Faint

Faint: Lacking strength; inclined to swoon; lacking in courage, spirit, or energy; lacking distinctness; hardly perceptible. For example: Due to the summer heat, she began to feel dizzy and faint. In the early morning hours, the sunlight is faint on the horizon. The music in the background was faint and hardly perceptible.

Feint: A movement made to confuse the opponent, a dummy; that which is feigned; an assumed or false appearance; an offensive movement resembling an attack in all but its continuance.

What Does Imperative Mean?

Imperative can be one of the following:

• An adjective meaning “completely necessary” or “very important,” but also “commanding.”
• A noun meaning “a necessity” or “something that is not avoidable,” but also “a command.”
• In grammar, imperative is also one of the four main verb moods.

Imperative is one of those words that shouldn’t be thrown around unless there’s a very good reason for it.

What Is a Subordinating Conjunction?

A subordinating conjunction is a word or phrase that links a dependent clause to an independent clause. This word or phrase indicates that a clause has informative value to add to the sentence’s main idea, signaling a cause-and-effect relationship or a shift in time and place between the two clauses.

Sound complicated? Let’s break it down.

A dependent clause, also known as a subordinate clause, is a clause with two specific qualities.

How to Avoid Overusing Adverbs

Overuse of adverbs

The boy ran really fast to catch the runaway ball.

The boy sprinted to catch the runaway ball.

Adverbs—those words that often end in -ly—modify verbs. They’re okay once in a while, but in excess they’re an indicator of weak verb choices. In our example, the adverb “really fast” modifies the verb “ran.” But does “really fast” paint a more vivid word-picture for the reader?

What Are Ghost Words?

Do you know what a dord is? No? Well, don’t try looking it up in the dictionary, unless the dictionary is Webster’s Second New International Dictionary of 1934. This strange little word appeared only in that one edition, and it spent a whole five years there, happily, before being discovered as a fake. You see, “dord” isn’t a real word, even though it appeared in a dictionary. It was the result of someone misreading a note written by Austin M.