The Comma Between Two Adjectives Is a Test, Not a Habit
A cold, damp morning takes a comma. A dirty white shirt does not. There are two tests, they always agree, and neither takes longer than a second.
Topic · 186 guides
Writing with Adjectives
How adjectives actually behave in a sentence — the order they fall into, how they compare, when they carry opinion rather than fact, and how to reach for a vivid word without overreaching. Guides for writing more precisely, rather than lists of words for one subject.
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When Nouns Start Doing Adjectives’ Work
Chicken soup, bus stop, customer service improvement programme delivery framework. English lets nouns modify nouns, and it does not warn you when the stack gets too tall.
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“I Feel Bad” Is Correct. “I Feel Badly” Usually Is Not.
The people correcting this one have it backwards, and the reason why explains a whole category of verbs.
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Bored or Boring: The Two Endings That Change Who You Are Talking About
One ending describes how you feel. The other describes what caused it. Confusing them produces sentences that are grammatical and accidentally insulting.
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When to Hyphenate Two Words Working as One Adjective
A small-business owner and a small business owner are different people. The hyphen is not decoration; it tells the reader which words go together.
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Some Adjectives Cannot Be Graded, and “Very Unique” Is Why People Argue
A few adjectives describe absolutes. Modify them and half your readers will wince, for a reason they can rarely explain.
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The Serial Comma Is Not a Rule, and Both Sides Know It
One comma, two respectable style guides, and decades of people insisting the other side is illiterate. Here is what is actually at stake.
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Splitting Infinitives Has Always Been Fine
The rule against it was invented in the nineteenth century by people who thought English should behave like Latin. It never did, and it never has.
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Why the Thesaurus Keeps Betraying You
Synonyms are not equivalents. The word that means the same thing can still be the wrong word, and a thesaurus will never tell you which.
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The Adjective Order Rule You Follow Without Knowing It
Every native speaker says “a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife” in exactly that order, and almost none of them could tell you why.
