Every year in this column, I give tips for how to avoid the most common writing mistakes in holiday greetings and invitations. And every year, I’m reminded of just how influential I’m not as people ...

When I saw “men’s’ clothing” with two apostrophes, I figured it must be a typo. I was editing a professional writer who’s been on the job for years, and I know from experience that writers make typos, ...

Mark Twain’s encounter with a particular foreign tongue inspired an essay called “The Awful German Language.” Welcome to a new feature of this column. We won’t call it “The Awful English Language.” ...

Before you start composing your holiday cards and invitations, here’s a cautionary tale for you. Recently, I bought an e-book that I didn’t realize was self-published. But by the time the protagonist ...

Apostrophes are the curly floating commas in sentences that usually indicate possession or a contraction. There are a few set phrases and holidays, however, that also use apostrophes. In fact, ...

Have you ever corrected someone mid-conversation because what he said just didn't sound right? What I'm talking about is words that sound like plurals and possessives but shouldn't be and vice versa.

Let's face it, grammar is more important for some people than for others. An ambulance driver probably has more important things to worry about than whether to hyphenate adverbs ending in "ly." (FYI: ...

Admit it. You've been stumped by apostrophes before. There's no shame in it — even for word-savvy types who know all too well the difference between "lets" and "let's" and who can spot a misplaced ...

This little piece of punctuation has been labelled 'aberrant', 'troublesome' and 'ambivalent' and is regularly embarrassed in ...

After VERIFYING how to spell canceled (with one l or two), a viewer asked us to VERIFY another grammar inquiry you might have been breaking for years. Beth Miller from Guilford County asked, "Why ...