Guest post from Matthew Quinn
It’s been said that everybody has got a book in them, but in these days of the big publishers consolidating, the small presses overwhelmed with submissions, and truly vast offerings available via self-publishing platforms like Kindle Direct and Smashwords, it’s more important than ever that people’s work stand out.
So here are some tips to make your NaNoWriMo project pop:
Is there a difference between dreamed and dreamt? You might be surprised to find conflicting reports. Some people say that there is no difference. Others say that the two words have different meanings. What’s the real deal?
Dreamt and dreamed are both past tense forms of dream. Dreamt is more common in Britain, while dreamed is more common in other English-speaking countries, including the U.S.
Have you seen check spelled cheque? You might have wondered whether it was a spelling error or a new word that you don’t know. Let’s look into this word and how it differs from check.
Guest post by Rosevita Warda
“The status of English as an international language is long established and, for the foreseeable future, unlikely to be greatly challenged. However, I believe that to make it genuinely international, then one step in that direction could be to consider the influence of non-native speakers in a different light.
“Generally, their non-occurrent uses are labeled errors and they are encouraged to change to conform to the standard English model, even though many native speakers don’t.
Martha Brockenbrough is the founder of National Grammar Day and author of The Game of Love and Death, which comes out April 28 and has received starred reviews from Kirkus Books and Publishers Weekly. Martha recently spoke with the Grammarly team to provide some insight into National Grammar Day and to share her perspective on language.
Grammarly: You established National Grammar Day in 2008.
Want to write a bestselling novel? Or maybe you’re more the screenplay type who wants to go straight to Hollywood. Whatever your writing goals are, sometimes the biggest obstacle between them and you is a nasty case of writer’s block. How can you free up your creative juices and write a story worth telling? Here are some ideas to get you started.
Go Wild for Words
Stephen King holds thesauruses (thesauri for you prescriptive Latin-lovers) in disdain, but don’t be afraid to rebel against his viewpoint.
Case refers to the form a noun or pronoun takes depending on its function in a sentence. English pronouns have three cases: subjective, objective, and possessive.
The subjective (or nominative) pronouns are I, you (singular), he/she/it, we, you (plural), they and who. A subjective pronoun acts as a subject in a sentence. See the sentences below for illustration:
