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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

Agreement: The basics

July 26, 2013 by TheTongueUntied 9 Comments

Subject verb agreement can be one of the more challenging aspects of writing. While short clauses provide for an easily identifiable subject, longer clauses with extensive phrases can make proper subject verb agreement more of a challenge. The … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Agreement, Clarity, Writing/Editing Tagged With: Agreement

It’s not just that I care. I’m right.

December 11, 2011 by TheTongueUntied Leave a Comment

Last night my sister-in-law called me to a share her frustration with an editorial in the local paper. The thing is, she wasn't calling to discuss the content of the piece, but rather to confirm that a distracting word choice in the conclusion was, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Clarity, Conciseness, Writing/Editing

Writing: Misplaced Modifiers

November 16, 2011 by TheTongueUntied Leave a Comment

The key to avoiding (or removing) wayward modifiers is to attend to the meaning and purpose of EVERY word in a sentence. If you cannot explain what the word or phrase is doing, why use it. It's the nutritional equivalent of eating berries off of an … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Clarity, Misplaced Modifiers, Writing/Editing Tagged With: Misplaced Modifiers

Writing: Clarity

November 16, 2011 by TheTongueUntied Leave a Comment

For writers, words are tools. With every word, phrase, clause and sentence we use, we should be asking, "Is this the right tool for the job? Is the way we have written the sentence the clearest, most concise way to express what we are trying to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Clarity, Writing/Editing

Writing: Conciseness

November 16, 2011 by TheTongueUntied 2 Comments

Make your words count. Don't muddy your writing with jargon, unclear construction and repetition. REDUNDANCIES AND WORDINESS Mutual cooperation cooperation needless to say then why say it? Completely … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Conciseness, Writing/Editing

Writing: Accuracy

November 16, 2011 by TheTongueUntied Leave a Comment

As journalists and writers, it is our responsibility to use language with sense and sensitivity. Unintentionally sexist language: Sexist language excludes or demeans one gender or another on the basis of sex. Because of the number of words that we … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Accuracy, Writing/Editing

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

Think Structure BEFORE you write

June 25, 2011 by TheTongueUntied Leave a Comment

Almost every writer, in one way or another, asks the question, What do I want to say? Unfortunately, too many nonfiction writers do so without giving a second thought to how they are going to say it. Instead, when it comes time to create, they … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Clarity, Writing/Editing

Once is more than enough

June 25, 2011 by TheTongueUntied 2 Comments

Almost no one eats the same for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Most of us pick up the remote when we realize we have already seen the episode on the screen. And we can probably all agree that if the local department store only carried socks, we would … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Conciseness, Featured Posts, Writing/Editing

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

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