Ooh! A legal minefield! Can you trademark a word? The answer is actually, “Yes!”—but not just any word. If you invented it and use it to identify your goods or services, you can. There are many examples of this, along with cases where challenges to trademarked words have succeeded. One Big Trademark Success To look …
Writing is like trying to juggle flaming knives while riding a unicycle – it requires skill, precision, and a healthy dose of madness. But even the most seasoned writers can get a little lost in the word jungle, and typos and grammatical blunders can sneak up on them like ninjas in the night. So, without …
Writing the English language is just as much an art as it is a science. No doubt, your schoolteachers gave you rules to stick to in class. But out in the real world, there’s more leeway than you may have realized. Not to worry. You don’t need a master’s degree in publishing to be a …
When reading, nothing is more annoying than a pompous text cluttered with redundant expressions. Take a look at this post for a comprehensive list of common cases of wordiness and what you can use instead.
Debates among writers, editors, teachers, and others who use English are common. One of the longest-standing debates is that over the Oxford comma, aka the serial comma. People arguing over a punctuation mark? As silly as it sounds, it’s been going on for decades. If you’re not aware of this debate, we don’t want you …
Who or whom? The question trips up even grammar-lovers. And in many circles, whom is becoming obsolete, which may sadden grammar purists. Although who and whom are similar, each serves a distinct purpose. In order to understand how to use these pronouns correctly, you’ll have to refresh yourself on sentence structure. Once you’ve got this …
Don’t let the difference between affect and effect affect your self-confidence. Learning these two words is a cinch. You might get away with not knowing the difference when speaking, as these two words are usually homophones (soundalikes). But your basic spell-checker won’t always catch a usage error if you type a correctly spelled version of …
Have you ever taken notes during a lecture or meeting, looked at them later, and found them useless? We’ve all done it. Even worse is when somebody asks to borrow your notes and quickly hands them back to you, saying, “Never mind, thanks.” It’s ironic that many schools don’t give lessons on how to study …
If you’re a student or professional writer, you’re likely familiar with English style guides. Although you learned many rights and wrongs in your English classes, not every aspect of the language is black or white. Many style guides exist for English, and each serves a different role. Students may be familiar with APA or MLA …
Aspiring writers often have quite a few questions wondering if they are doing everything correctly. Should they sign up for some sort of class on writing to get experience? Do they need a mentor that will guide them along the way? Is it true they have to starve first by giving up their job so …
