Tuesday, November 27, 2012

6 Quick Tips for Writing Emails That Actually Get Things Done

How many emails do you send per day? With over 200 billion emails going out every single day, there’s a good chance at least a couple of them are coming from you. But if you’re not structuring your emails properly, you may be making both your and your recipient’s lives more difficult than they need to be.

Whether you’re asking for customer support, planning a party, or sending a work email, the following tips will help you craft efficient and effective emails that actually get things done.

Monday, November 26, 2012

According to our Facebook friends, learning grammar in school is important

It seems that people not only care about using grammar, but also about using it correctly. 

(Photo source: http://www.etsy.com/listing/104421575/notebook-dear-people-of-the-world)

On Monday, we ran an informal poll on our Facebook page. After a recent article in the Huffington post discussing an increased demand for grammar study in education, we asked our followers: “Do you think studying grammar in school is important?” The results were unsurprising, but overwhelmingly one-sided.

Friday, November 23, 2012

Separate vs. Seperate

Along with loose and definitely, separate is one of the most commonly misspelled words in the English language. Separate can be an adjective or a verb. As an adjective, it means set apart, distinct, or not related. As a verb, it means to to set apart, to distinguish, or to divide. Separate is often misspelled as seperate, a word that has no meaning and is simply a misspelling:

They took two separate rooms.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Gist or Jist?

  • Gist means “essence” or “the main point.”
  • In a legal context, gist is the grounds of a legal action.
  • Jist is a common misspelling of gist.

If you’ve only heard the word gist aloud, you might not know how to spell it. Both gist and jist might seem like good choices, but one of them is not.

Definition of Gist

When we say we want to get the gist of something, we’re talking about its essence or main point:

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

5 More Endangered Words

New words come into use, old words slowly fade away. It’s a natural, all-too-familiar cycle. We’ve already covered words that may be headed toward extinction. Here are five more words in various stages of endangerment. But, who knows? Maybe some of them can still be saved—but should we save all of them?

Tag isn’t a word that’ll disappear anytime soon, as long as things still cost money and come with price tags.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Whilst vs. While—Which Is Correct?

Whilst and while are two words with identical meanings—usually. But you can’t always use whilst instead of while.

Typically, Brits use whilst and Americans use while. That’s the main difference. When used as a conjunction or an adverb, while and whilst are interchangeable:

There wasn’t much Stanley could do while he waited.

There wasn’t much Stanley could do whilst he waited.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

What is a Reflexive Pronoun?

Reflexive pronouns are words ending in -self or -selves that are used when the subject and the object of a sentence are the same (e.g., I believe in myself). They can act as either objects or indirect objects. The nine English reflexive pronouns are myself, yourself, himself, herself, oneself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, and themselves.

Grammatical terms might seem complicated and a bit arbitrary when you first hear them, but they really aren’t, once you get to know them.