One of the great things about the Internet is that it can spread information far and wide. But one of the problems is that it can also spread things like misinformation, ungrammatical regionalisms, and hideous made-up slang words (I’m looking at you, “bae” and “fleek”). One weird thing that seems to be popping up more and more online lately is something that’s being called the “needs washed” construction: a present-tense verb (often “needs” or “likes” or “wants”) plus a past participle without the usual accompanying “to be,” such as in “the car needs washed” or “the dog wants petted.” Read more ›

If you want to make a writing instructor’s face purple, mention purple prose, the object of loathing for many professional writers, writing teachers, and readers. Purple is a lovely color, and yet it’s associated with a horrible writing sin. Why?

What Is Purple Prose?

The term goes way back, originally being coined by the poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus (a.k.a. Horace) in Ars Poetica: Read more ›

It’s bad enough when you go back over a piece of writing and cringe at an awful mistake you’ve found. But it’s much worse when you go on making the same grammatical errors or spelling mistakes and don’t even know you’re doing anything wrong. They might say that ignorance is bliss, but it’s not so great when you discover that people who have read your work came away thinking that you’re an idiot. Want to keep this from happening to you? Check out this list of common writing mistakes you might be making and learn how to fix them. Read more ›

It’s amazing how much influence Latin has over the language we speak and write in every day. It’s at the root of many, many languages, and some terms have also survived intact from this centuries-old language and made it into English. But their foreign origins can make them even harder to use correctly, so quite often, people who try to use Latin in an effort to make themselves sound smarter end up doing just the opposite. Read more ›