Monday, December 7, 2015

That Emoji Might Not Be Saying What You Think

This morning, my guy texted me:

And I texted back:

He said, “Good morning! It’s a beautiful day. Love you!”

And I wrote back, “Good morning! I’ve got a song in my heart. Mwah! Love you, too.”

The texter and I are close. We know each other, so our emoji-only conversation made sense to us. The message is unambiguous enough that even an outside observer might have interpreted it similarly.

Friday, December 4, 2015

How Lin-Manuel Miranda Gets Things Done

One look at composer-performer Lin-Manuel Miranda’s list of accomplishments and you’ve got to wonder how he does it all.

His first musical, In the Heights, which he wrote and starred in, won four Tony Awards. He’s acted in TV shows, appeared on SNL, and was recently awarded the prestigious MacArthur “Genius” Grant. He wrote the songs for Disney’s animated “Moana,” whose hit song “How Far I’ll Go” was nominated for the 2017 Oscar for Best Original Song.

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

What makes up a grammar lover? We studied our Grammarly community and here’s what we found.

Recently, the Grammarly community grew to over 7 million language-loving friends — more than 5 million can be found on Facebook. We have enjoyed sharing our love of language and writing with the world. In honor of the growth of such a passionate and fun community, we surveyed our fans to find out more about what makes a grammar nerd!

Here’s what we found:

What kind of grammar lover are you?

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Why Is the Oxford Comma a Heated Debate in 2017?

If you stare awhile at the string of characters that a sentence comprises, the squiggles lose all meaning. That humans somehow manage to agree on the use of these symbols well enough to communicate at all can seem miraculous.

But what about when we don’t quite agree—when it seems a writer has added a superfluous, bafflingly out-of-place comma, perhaps, or inexplicably used the wrong pronoun?

Monday, November 30, 2015

An Introduction to Verb Tenses

When using multiple verbs in a clause, it’s important to keep them in the same tense. For example: I went to the store, buy an apple, and ate it on the way home. ‘Went’ and ‘ate’ are both in past tense, but ‘buy’ is in present tense.

To fix this sentence, use ‘bought,’ which is the past tense of ‘buy.’ I went to the store, bought an apple, and ate it on the way home.

Another example: I went to the store and bought an apple, and now I am eating it.

Thursday, November 26, 2015

Yes, Illiteracy Is Still a Human Rights Issue

Today marks the fifty-first anniversary of International Literacy Day, a holiday that recognizes literacy as “a foundation to build a more sustainable future for all.” Started in 1966 by UNESCO as a day to recognize literacy programs worldwide, this day continues to remind world leaders that universal literacy has not been accomplished. Far from it, in fact: in 2013, the adult (25 or older) literacy rate was 85 percent worldwide, and the population of illiterate adults was 757 million.

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

8 Things You Should Really Delete from Your LinkedIn Profile

There’s a lot you can do to make your LinkedIn profile shine. You list your greatest achievements. You make connections. You take the time to write a great LinkedIn summary.

But for everything you do to make your profile stand out from the crowd, there are a lot of mistakes to avoid on LinkedIn, too. Whether you’re looking for a job or just giving your LinkedIn profile its monthly polish, here are eight problems to avoid.