Melissa Maygrove

Today I'm covering the topic of the dangling participle, which is a type of misplaced modifier. This particular grammar error is an easy one to make — especially when writers begin tightening their prose — and it's not only a source of embarrassment to the writer, but can be a source of humor for the reader. We want our readers to laugh at funny parts of our stories, but not because of mistakes like these. First, you need to understand what a participle is. It is a verb ending in -ing (present) or -ed (past) that is acting like an adjective. (Note: past participles can also end in -d, -n, -en, or -t. Ex: swept ) A participle phrase contains one of these and often comes at the beginning of a sentence in the form of an introductory phrase set off by a comma. Let me give you some examples. Sweating bullets, I hurried to finish my algebra test before the bell rang. In this sentence, 'sweating' is the participle and 'sweating bullets' is the participle phrase. Here...

As an extension of our confusable homophones from last week, I've decided to tackle a few in particular. Some of you may find this lesson simple, but enough people get these wrong that I felt it was worth addressing. Let's start off easy... Two, Too and To : Two = the number of something.       Sally has two kittens . Too = also / very.         I have kittens, too . They are too young to give away. Note: When using 'too' to mean 'also,' set it off with a comma(s). [Edited 6-24-13: Apparently, the comma-before-too rule is no longer a rule. See this post for clarification.] To is a preposition.        I took them back to their mother . There, Their and They're : There = location.         The ball is over there . Their = possessive pronoun.         Hurry! Go get their ball!. They're = contraction of 'they a...

Are we identical? Look closely... In the English language, there are many pairs of words that sound alike and are spelled almost alike, yet have entirely different meanings. Consequently, it's easy to write the wrong one and not realize it. To compound this problem, word processors do not recognize it as a misspelling and may not flag an incorrect usage as a mistake. Let me give you some examples: altar (a sacred table in a church) vs. alter ( which means to change) born (to start life) vs. borne (to carry) and... compliment (an admiring remark) vs. complement (an addition that improves something) What a difference a letter makes! Here are a few more: accept / except...affect / effect...coarse / course...discreet / discrete... pour / pore...past / passed...site / sight...and the list goes on. What do you do? Well, making yourself aware of them by reading through lists of these pairs can help. Keeping a dictionary (like Thesarus.com ) open in your browser so you can easily ch...