News — grammar

Picture these sentences in your mind… Ben enjoyed his burrito relaxing in the park. (Aaaaaahhh… Who is relaxing, Ben or the burrito?) Rolled up in the closet, I need to wash the laundry. (Here’s another funny visual. Is the laundry rolled up on the closet, or are you rolled up in the closet...dreading doing the laundry?) The cheetah surprised its prey running quickly. (Was the cheetah running quickly, or was its prey running quickly?) I bought a sweater sitting on the couch. (Were you doing some online shopping from the comfort of your home, or did you buy the sweater...

Before there were emojis, there were emoticons. While emojis have surged in popularity, some of us still use emoticons. What is an emoticon, you ask? It’s a representation of an expression made using letters, symbols, and numbers from the keyboard. You have your basic smiley face :), a surprised face :0, and even a heart <3. There are numerous combinations. I personally like to use the winking emoticon ;), which is a combination of a semicolon and a bracket or parenthesis. It’s fun for a couple of reasons. It could mean, “I understand you” or “I got it”. It could...

Hopefully, you caught that error. The saying is “think outside the box.” Sometimes, prepositions are used when they are not necessary. This often happens when we speak, but we don’t notice. It’s important to remember that we write differently from how we speak. Writing is more formal and less conversational. We often use prepositions that are unnecessary, but they create wordiness and need to be eliminated. Just stop. Be concise. Why are you doing that for? Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. What is a preposition? A preposition is a word or group of words that show a relationship between a...