Thanks to Freddie Daniells for drawing my attention to John Scalzi's tips for good writing.
It's pretty good advice, although it is missing my current bugbear; APOSTROPHES!!
Luckily one of the comments to John's post gives the hyperlink to Bob's Quick Guide to the Apostrophe, You Idiots.
If the rules are still not clear enough, here's a link to the Apostrophe Protection Society, which covers most of them pretty succinctly.
I bet it won't do much good though.
Posted by dompannell at February 20, 2006 7:21 PM | TrackBackShouldn't it be John Scalzi's tips on writing well? My huge problem is when I write 'thank you' to someone who has done a rather thoughtful deed, only to see: Your welcome! in my inbox a couple hours later. Now what does one do?
But I am rather picky. I still won't end a sentence with a personal pronoun.
Posted by: Ann Oying at March 5, 2006 4:29 PMEither 'good writing' or 'writing well' but never the twain shall meet... one uses the adjective (qualifying on the noun 'writing') whereas the other employs the adverb (qualifying the verb 'writing'). I've often had to explain the difference between 'good' and 'well' when teaching English to non-native speakers. Any confusion here is due to the noun and verb forms being identical - in actual fact, the verb has been 'nounified' by the use of the -ing form).
What to do when someone you've just thanked replies using crap grammar? Well, I guess it depends on your viewpoint. I would expect many of my French friends to point out the error, in order to save the culprit from future embarassment. Most Brits I know, however, would sooner die than do such a thing. With a monicker like yours, I'd have thought you'd be likely to follow the French...
As for the personal pronoun stuff, to be honest that's not a rule that rings any bells with me. There is a rather antiquated and stuffy rule that says that sentences should never end with a preposition, to which Winston Churchill supposedly retorted "this is the sort of thing up with which I will not put."
Posted by: Dom Pannell at March 5, 2006 7:42 PMwhat a load of rubbish!
Posted by: James Morrison at July 3, 2007 5:09 PMThanks James. Very constructive.
Posted by: Dom Pannell at July 4, 2007 12:14 PM