She’s hacked through jungles of wordiness with her machete and killed dangling participles with her bare hands. Is she a superhero? Quite possibly. Safe to say no normal person is this interested in grammar.
Cosmic Origins
This blog owes a large debt to the brilliant Karen Elizabeth Gordon, author of The Deluxe Transitive Vampire, The New Well-Tempered Sentence, and other whimsical and funny books on grammar, punctuation, and word usage. It was also inspired by my Grade 9 English teacher, Mr. Recker, whose worksheets included sentences like “The wind gusted strongly, and dandruff soon filled the driveway.”
You and Whose Dictionary? A Note on Sources
Most of the information presented here was lifted from the Canadian Oxford English Dictionary and the Chicago Manual of Style. I live in Canada, so my blog is slanted toward Canadian usage; however, US and British usages are usually included, since Canadian style is an unholy mixture of the two.
My Qualifications, or Why Should You Believe a Word I Say?
- I am the kind of card-carrying grammar nerd who reads usage manuals for fun.
- I currently edit several blogs and Web sites, including The Nature of Movement. Contact me at grammargeek@shaw.ca for rates.
- I’ve completed editing courses from Simon Fraser University’s Writing and Publishing Program, and I have a BA in English literature from Reed College, which I’ve successfully parlayed into a long-term career as an underpaid bookstore clerk.
More, More!
You can find more of my writing, grammar-related and otherwise, at blue cat blog and at Suite101.com.
