by Pernickety Kate | Jun 2, 2022 | Proofreading, Words
Are you confident in your knowledge of English? Pretty certain about what’s right and what’s wrong? Here’s a cautionary tale about what happens if you don’t take account of language change… A friend was chatting in an online group designed to help language... by Pernickety Kate | May 23, 2022 | Proofreading, Spelling, Words
Continuing my series on confusing English words, here are further explorations of some of the most troublesome… Literally How to annoy half the population without really trying: use the word literally when you’re talking about something that couldn’t actually... by Pernickety Kate | Apr 19, 2022 | Proofreading, Spelling, Words
Continuing my series helping you to avoid some of the most common mistakes in English… Imply / Infer Perhaps you’ve seen a house like the one in the picture. Probably suburban; definitely well-kept. It has a garage and a drive. Across some part of the... by Pernickety Kate | Mar 7, 2022 | Editing, Words, Writing skills
In earlier posts, I covered dialogue punctuation and layout in fiction and memoir. But what about the things the characters actually say? Sounding natural A mistake often made by fiction writers is to think that ‘natural dialogue’ means including everything a speaker... by Pernickety Kate | Feb 28, 2022 | Spelling, Words
Continuing my series unpicking some of the most commonly confused words in the English language… Faze / Phase Faze is a weird word in meaning and usage as well as spelling. To faze means to disturb, worry or confuse. Examples: When asked to give an example, he... by Pernickety Kate | Jan 10, 2022 | Proofreading, Spelling, Words
Beginning a series de-mystifying the most common confusing words in English. The words are covered in alphabetical order – you can find other tricky words in other blog posts, as follows: faze, fewer & flaunt, imply & its, and literally, loose & lot. ...