I’m a little fussy about past participles. Unjustifiably fussy. It may have to do with the fact that I married someone from small-town Massachusetts, where everything is “I have ate this” and “I ...

Last week, we talked about how to look up past participles in your dictionary. Here’s a condensed lesson: For any irregular verb, the past tense and past participle are listed right after the entry ...

Verbs are the action words in English, and they are the heart of every sentence. Understanding how to use different verb forms correctly is essential for clear, powerful, and accurate communication, ...

I want to follow up on the topic of language evolution that I took up in my previous newsletter about how the word “satisfying” has taken on a new meaning among many of today’s kids. The bigger theme ...

When a student writes "I am frustrating with that class," we recognize it as an error, but the error is not one that makes the writing unintelligible. The message ...

A RECENT ARTICLE in The Economist on Germany’s coalition talks was given the headline “Green-lit”. Elsewhere, though, we have reported that ventures were “greenlighted”. Another new verb is subject to ...