Your Highness: I’m clued in enough to laugh at those parodies of over-the-top business jargon that periodically make the rounds… but I’m also quite aware of the need to keep my job fit in by embracing the specialized language of my professional peers. What’s an English major turned midlevel marketing manager to do? My dear [...]
"Ask the Grammar Queen" Archive
How shalt thou correctly use the apostrophe? Ask and ye shall know.
Sorry, No, That’s Not What You Mean At All
Your Highness: I’m not much of a writer but, like so many of your loyal subjects, I have a job that often requires me to write. I want to be professional—and avoid embarrassing mistakes. I need an on-call editor. Or at least a cheat sheet. Please help! My dear Subject, Ah, English! Constantly changing, constantly [...]
Quotation Dos and Don’ts
Your Highness: I hold a job that requires I write articles, press releases, and similar pieces in which I quote others. You’d think I’d have such matters down by now, but I’ll come clean: I never really learned the rules for using quotation marks. To complicate matters further, I’m a bit of an Anglophile—only the [...]
Feeding the World With Good Grammar
An ingenious teacher uses a UN-sponsored online game to teach grammar–and philanthropy.
What Does My Hyphenation Say About Me?
In which The Grammar Queen elucidates her subjects on the proper use of the hyphen. She clears up the subject. Clears-up? The cleared-up subject still a bit foggy? Read on.
What’s My E-mail Saying Behind My Back?
Your Highness:
Many of my business contacts and coworkers know me primarily through e-mail; the impression I make is almost entirely via the written word. What can I do to avoid embarrassing myself in writing? The Grammar Queen points the way.
How do I create a corporate style guide?
Your Highness: I work in marketing at a midsized technology firm. My boss tells me we need a style guide. Yesterday. And I’m just the person to produce it. While I do some writing as part of my job, and I can put commas where they belong—OK, most of the time—I’m not a writer or [...]
Is my writing too passive?
Your Highness: This letter is being written because I’ve been told that there is a problem with my writing. Specifically, a problem with the passive voice. But understanding this is difficult. I mean, my job is in marketing. I’m supposed to be good with words. And language has always come easily to me—out-of-the-box thinking is [...]
How do I use the subjunctive?
Your Highness: As part of my job in a large corporation, I must communicate in writing with my colleagues and customers. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this, holding as I do a degree from a fancy business school and all, but here goes: When it comes to grammar, I’ve been faking it for 34 [...]
