Adverbs are sometimes overused but are they essential? Some people say that adverbs are redundant and that they weaken the verbs impact. Some say adverbs lead to messy prose and indicate lazy and cluttered writing. Is this true? To a degree, it is, but adverbs still have their place in my opinion. What is an…
Category: Word Choices
Posts discussing word choices
Homonyms and Homophones
Homonyms and Homophones What do I mean by this? Let’s get into it. Homonyms and homophones are words that are similar but have different meanings. Homonyms are a kind of catch all term for homographs, words that are spelled the same, or homophones, words that sounds the same (with different spelling) and have different meanings….
Pass on the Passive Voice
What is the passive voice? It’s something most of us have seen at some point. Especially in the early days of MS Word’s grammar checker, it was something I remember seeing the passive voice a lot when writing essays and school assignments. I didn’t really understand what it meant at the time, although I do…
Why you should still be using a dictionary
Why You Still Need a Dictionary Word choice matters. English is a complex language with a lot of options for word choice. No matter how good you think your English is, it is important to be selective in your word choices. You need to make sure you are saying what you think you are saying….