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The Tongue Untied

A Guide to Grammar, Punctuation and Style

  • Parts of Speech
    • Adjectives
      • Descriptive
      • Limiting
      • Predicate Adjective
      • Participles
    • Adverbs
    • Conjunctions
      • Coordinating Conjunctions
      • Subordinating Conjunctions
      • Correlative Conjunctions
      • Conjunctive Adverbs
      • Conjunctions vs Prepositions
    • Nouns
      • Subjects
      • Objects
        • Direct Object
        • Indirect Object
        • Obj. of the Preposition
        • Obj. of the Verbal
      • Predicate Nominative
      • Gerunds
    • Prepositions
    • Pronouns
      • Personal
      • Relative
      • Indefinite
      • Demonstrative
      • Interrogative
      • Reflexive
    • Verbs
      • Verb Parts
        • Lexical
        • Auxilliary
      • Verb Types
        • Transitive
        • Intransitive
        • Linking
    • Verbals
      • Gerunds
      • Participles
      • Infinitives
  • The Sentence
    • Clauses
      • Clauses, Independent
      • Clauses, Dependent
    • Phrases
      • Prepositional
      • Participial
      • Gerund Phrase
      • Appositives
  • Case
    • Nominative-Subjective
    • Objective
    • Possessive
    • Possessive Nouns
  • Agreement
    • Always Plural
    • Always Singular
    • Singular or Plural — It Depends
    • Antecedents
  • Punctuation
    • Apostrophe
    • Commas
    • Colon
    • Dash
    • Hyphens
    • semicolon
    • Quotation Mark
  • Writing/Editing
    • Accuracy
    • Clarity
    • Conciseness
    • Misplaced Modifiers
    • Small Things That Matter
    • Spelling/Word Choice
  • Practice

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November 30, 2011 by TheTongueUntied Leave a Comment

… [Read more...]

Filed Under: Spelling/Word Choice

Spelling Rules

November 16, 2011 by TheTongueUntied Leave a Comment

1. TIPS "Sound out" a word by breaking it into phonetic patterns and syllables (Pronunciation) Study Homonyms (words that have similar pronunciations but different meanings & spellings) eg., through and threw; cite,sight, site 2. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Small Things That Matter, Spelling/Word Choice

Top Ten Commonly Confused Words

June 25, 2011 by TheTongueUntied Leave a Comment

When writers set out to produce work, they are -- in some sense -- entering a minefield. Each word, phrase and piece of punctuation offers the opportunity for misstep. And while writing errors won't kill you, the real possibility exists that they … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Small Things That Matter, Spelling/Word Choice, Writing/Editing

Commonly Confused Words

March 16, 2011 by TheTongueUntied 2 Comments

Word Choice Week 1: affect: (verb) means to influence. The flood will affect the harvest. effect: (almost always a noun) means "result." The effect of the flood was frightening. effect: (as a verb) means to cause. He will effect many changes … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Spelling/Word Choice

Commonly Misspelled Words

March 16, 2011 by TheTongueUntied 1 Comment

Week #1 1. innocuous 2. shriek 3. yield 4. disappear 5. seizure 6. conceited 7. revise 8. accidental 9. caffeine 10. exercise 11. reign 12. weird 13. equipped 14. suddenness 15. misstate 16. worshiper 17. referred 18. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Spelling/Word Choice

Untangling “which” and “that”

March 3, 2009 by TheTongueUntied 3 Comments

One of the things I learned in my 10 years of teaching grammar to undergraduates is that "it" is torture. For anyone paying attention that "it" is a lovely little nightmare known as an unclear pronoun reference. Am I saying that teaching grammar … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured Posts, Spelling/Word Choice Tagged With: Relative Pronouns, rules, That, Which

Small Things that Matter #4: Hyphen Hassles

February 4, 2009 by TheTongueUntied 3 Comments

Perhaps no piece of punctuation gives us more trouble than the hyphen, in particular when we are trying to decide whether to hyphenate a compound modifier. In that realm, the average writer is as consistent as the stock market these days. So, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured Posts, Hyphens, Punctuation, Small Things That Matter Tagged With: hyphens, Punctuation, rules, style

Small Things that Matter #3: Infinitives

January 8, 2009 by TheTongueUntied 3 Comments

Most of us who learned grammar in the old days — in other words in the days when public schools actually taught grammar — were regularly treated to admonitions NOT to split infinitives. But that was long ago, and let’s be honest, these days, only … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Parts of Speech, Small Things That Matter Tagged With: Editing, Word Choice

Small Things that Matter #2: Redundancy

December 8, 2008 by TheTongueUntied Leave a Comment

I am a big fan of Ace of Cakes, the pseudo-reality drama on the Food Network. The folks who make up Charm City Cakes are my kind of creative geniuses. Each episode, the quirky band of decorators is faced with the cake world’s version of a story to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Clarity, Conciseness, Featured Posts, Small Things That Matter Tagged With: Editing, Redundancy

Top Ten Most Commonly Confused Words

December 7, 2008 by TheTongueUntied 6 Comments

When writers set out to produce work, they are — in some sense — entering a minefield. Each word, phrase and piece of punctuation offers the opportunity for misstep. And while writing errors won’t kill you, the real possibility exists that they will … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Spelling/Word Choice Tagged With: Editing, Writing

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