Are Emojis Language?

Whether you love them or hate them, you have to admit, emojis have taken over. Following the latest update by the Unicode Consortium, the body that dictates language on digital devices, there are now 1,085 officially-recognized emojis in circulation. Five years after their introduction in the United States, emojis have started to dominate messaging and social media apps. Swyft estimates that 6 billion of the emotion pictures are sent in messaging apps every day, and Instagram reports that over half of all Instagram posts include at least one emoji.

How to Write a Cover Letter: Parts, Process, and Pro Tips

It doesn’t matter whether you’re just testing the job market or eagerly searching for your next gig—knowing how to write a great cover letter is an essential skill. We’ll talk about the whys and hows of cover letters, offer some examples of what to say (and what not to), and provide a few etiquette dos and don’ts. Read on to rev up your job-seeking game!

Why You Should Write a Cover Letter

Hunting for a job is hard.

Question Mark

Without question marks, we’d miss out on all kinds of things: invitations, jokes, the Riddler . . .

No doubt, the question mark is a nice little piece of punctuation. And, best of all, it’s easy to use!

What Is a Question Mark For?

The main purpose of a question mark, perhaps unsurprisingly, is to indicate that a sentence is a question. Direct questions often (but not always) begin with a wh- word (who, what, when, where, why).

13 Mistakes to Avoid at Your Next Networking Event

How good are your networking skills, really? Are you gaining awesome connections at every event, or do you leave with a handful of cards for contacts that never pan out?

As you may have guessed, there’s more to the networking hustle than showing up at an event and hitting the bar. Networking has its own skillset, and you could be ruining your chances at making connections (and securing your next job) without even knowing it.

Capitalization

At first glance, the rules of English capitalization seem simple. You probably know you should capitalize proper nouns and the first word of every sentence. But you also (sometimes) capitalize the first word of a quote. Usually you don’t capitalize after a colon, but there are exceptions. And what do you do when you’re not sure whether something is a proper noun?

English Capitalization Rules:

1 Capitalize the First Word of a Sentence

The Origins of the Most Popular Slang Words of 2017

Let’s face it—the English-speaking world would be significantly less exciting without slang. How would we have survived 2017 without subtweeting, dragging, or declaring various things “lit?”

Many English words begin their lives as slang. Dictionaries like Merriam-Webster monitor slang closely in order to understand new trends in English, eventually adopting new slang words into the dictionary. (If you’re interested in the ins and outs of this process, you can learn more here.) This year, eight slang words caught our eye.

NBA Grammar Power Rankings

Since we launched our NFL Grammar Power Rankings (followed by MLB and college football), sports fans and journalists alike have urged us: “Do basketball next!” Basketball season has finally arrived, so we put NBA fans to the grammar test.

Who’s shooting bricks and who’s getting nothin’ but net when it comes to grammar, spelling, and punctuation? We began by collecting the first five comments posted under articles on each official SB Nation NBA team blog until we’d gathered a total of 100 comments (of 50 words or more) for each team.