Do yourself a favo(u)r and learn about spelling reform

240 words.

When Canadians have to write something by hand, we have to stop and think about how to spell. Living in the shadow of our big southern neighbors, we grow up learning two systems, and so most of us are perennially unsure of ourselves.

In school, they teach us rules about words like favour, centre, programme, and grey. But, when we read books, news, or pretty much anything made in the States, it’s favor, center, program, and gray. Because of the outsized cultural influence of the US, we’re often stuck learning one way, but overwhelmingly being exposed to another.

The reason for the difference is that the US has made a partial, but concerted effort at spelling reform. I recently learned about this subject thanks to my favourite podcast, Lexicon Valley.

https://player.megaphone.fm/SM4748283185

Having fun in Toronto, for cheap

121 words.

To return the favour of Catherine’s great interview, I interviewed her about her blog, TorontoFrugal.

Catherine started her blog a few months ago, hoping to inform people about all of the great activities and amenities that are available in Toronto. It’s TorontoFrugal, so you can be sure that any of these things are going to set you back a few bucks at most.

In this 5-minute interview, Catherine tells me about the first event she went to for the blog, Doors Open Toronto at the Don Jail.

Enjoy, and please leave a comment letting me know how ridiculous it was that I asked her if she visited 170 locations in one weekend.

A quick refresher on subject-verb agreement

245 words.

In the last little while, as I’ve been writing and editing, I’ve run into a similar problem a few times. By becoming aware of it, I had the uncanny experience of having it pop up everywhere, so I decided to write a short post clearing up the issue.

It’s technically an error of subject and verb agreement, but it’s a little more complicated because of the circumstances is shows up in.

Here are two examples:

“The university, with its professors, students, and staff members, are making an effort to choose active commuting this month.”

“The RCMP use a different Use of Force model.”

In both of these cases, we have two subjects that suggest a collective, a group of people, but are in fact singulars. They’re speaking of a monolithic corporate entity, one that treats itself as an individual body.

The first example is especially tricky because you have three plurals following the subject, so it’s easy to get confused and make this error.

By correctly identifying the subject, these sentences should read:

“The university, with its professors, students, and staff members, is making an effort to choose active commuting this month.”

– and-

“The RCMP uses a different Use of Force model.”

So, remember that verbs need to modify and act in accordance with their subjects. A difficult sentence construction can make the subject harder to see, but if you pause and ask “who or what is actually doing this thing?”, you should be able to figure it out.

Happy writing!

To boldly go where schoolteachers told you not to go

511 words

When I was in grad school, before we fell to marking student essays, my department’s teaching assistants were corralled together for a quick review. A faculty member swiftly ran through the things we should look for and mark out in the papers: clarity of argument, use of proper terminology, and adherence to rules of grammar.

Don’t let modifiers dangle. Make sure subjects agree with their verbs. And for God’s sake, whatever you do, you should never let an infinitive be split. Like our friend the atom, if an infinitive is split, it could spell disaster for all of us.