I love this list, which was originally compiled by George L. Trigg et. al. It came to me via The Writing Center, which evidently got this copy from ILS 3, who took it from Optics News Vol. 8: No. 1, which had reprinted it from Phys. Rev. Lett. 42:748 (1979). However it reached us, enjoy. Make sure […]

I often see a single word used when it’s more correct to use two words. Here are some examples. Alot and a lot “Alot” is not a word, which is why Word’s spell checker flags this common error. “A lot” means many. “He made a lot of money.” Anyone and any one Use one word […]

Each year publishers of English dictionaries name their Words of the Year, the words or expressions that have generated the most interest over the last 12 months. Here are the awards for 2018. Single use: The editors at the Collins English Dictionary say the use of the adjective “single-use” increased four-fold since 2013. (I guess […]

  Most writing contests encourage participants to write well. Not so the tongue-in-cheek Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest which has been challenging “man, woman, and (precocious) child to write an atrocious opening sentence to a hypothetical bad novel” since 1982. The English Department at San Jose State University organizes the contest in honor of Bulwer-Lytton. This minor […]