#1 grammar mistake made by speakers

This is a gimme: Audience is a singular noun. Yes, I know that audience refers to a group of people, but it is one of many nouns called collective nouns, nouns that refer to more than one person but are considered singular nouns for purposes of pronoun and verb form....

Comma Common Sense, Quiz I

My first speaking gig of the year happened January 2, 2018, when I presented a 90-minute workshop to the Sarasota Fiction Writers, at Selby Library. “Comma Common Sense” featured two quizzes; here’s the first one. There’s no doubt that commas...

Cool sentence! Check this out!

This maybe related to exercises role in positively affecting the immune system. Look how correcting two seemingly minor mistakes—a space and an apostrophe—makes this sentence understandable: This may be related to exercise’s role in positively affecting the...

Worst Sentence of the Month!

Wow! Jaw-droppingly horrible. A drama based on the elite crew of firemen from Prescott, Arizona who battled a wildfire in Yarnell, AZ Iin June 2013 that claimed the lives of 19 of their members. Crew is a singular noun, so you can’t say “their”...

Why this dog won't hunt.

As I’m sure you know by now, I love finding mistakes on sites that belong to “internationally famous” and “global best-selling” authors. Here’s a dandy sentence I just found: This talk goes behind the scenes of some of the most...