Spacing | The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation

A Study of Style: The U.S. Military

GrammarBook.com — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 05:00:30 +0000

Our exploration of American English strives to venture even further than the principles that guide writing with precision and eloquence. We are also interested in the language variances beyond what we accept as common for information exchange. For example, we know that United States can be abbreviated, often as either US or U.S. One might […]

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Christmas ‘Log Review

GrammarBook.com — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 05:00:08 +0000

Every year, for six weeks or so, I get a taste of what it’s like to be a superstar. From late October to early December, I am accosted daily by an aggressive mob of stalkers who know where I live. Their urgent need for my attention seems to be their only reason for being. No, […]

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Writing Dates and Times

GrammarBook.com — Wed, 19 Apr 2017 14:54:51 +0000

Rule: The following examples apply when using dates: The meeting is scheduled for June 30. The meeting is scheduled for the 30th of June. We have had tricks played on us on April 1. The 1st of April puts some people on edge. (Some prefer to write it out: The first of April) Rule: There […]

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Punctuation or Chaos

GrammarBook.com — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 15:43:43 +0000

She said I saved the company No one knows for sure what the above sentence means. It consists of six everyday words, and the first five are monosyllables, yet this simple declarative sentence has at least three quite different meanings—maybe more, because with no period on the end, the reader can’t even be sure the […]

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Sic for Sick Sentences

GrammarBook.com — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 20:01:43 +0000

We have noticed a dismal new trend: not capitalizing words that need it. Flouting the rules of capitalization is yet another indignity visited upon our beleaguered language by self-appointed visionaries who seem hellbent on transforming standard English, even though many of them can barely read, write, or speak it. From a recent magazine article: “ ‘i […]

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Quotations Within Quotations

GrammarBook.com — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 01:18:47 +0000

Almost all of us have found ourselves confused with double and single quotation marks. When do we use single quotation marks? Where does the punctuation go with single quotation marks? With just a few rules and examples, you will feel surer about your decisions. How to Quote a Quote Rule: Use single quotation marks inside […]

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Rules Do Change

GrammarBook.com — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 20:54:26 +0000

Spacing after periods, colons, question marks, and exclamation marks Originally, typewriters had monospaced fonts (skinny letters and fat letters took up the same amount of space), so two spaces after ending punctuation marks such as the period were used to make the text more legible. However, most computer fonts present no difficulty with proportion or […]

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