Guide to Grammar and Style — What's New

• 10–17 December 2006:
  • I'm beginning a big series of revisions to the whole guide, working my way toward publication with Focus Press this spring. I'm not going to identify every little change here, since many of them are small, and I'm going to treat them all as happening on the same date, even though they're spread out over a few weeks. I will, however, note some new entries as they happen.
  • I've removed the entry on Thesis Statements since it's better discussed in my guide, "Getting an A on an English Paper."
  • New entry: Affixes.
  • New entry: Comma Splice.
  • New entry: Quotations.
• 1 December 2006:
  • A slight revision to Also.
• 18 November 2006:
  • New entry: Issue.
• 15 November 2006:
  • New entry: Therefore versus Therefor.
• 31 October 2006:
  • New entry: Behalf.
  • New entry: Loath versus Loathe.
• 11 September 2006:
  • An addition to First Person.
• 19 August 2006:
  • A tiny change to Parts of Speech.
• 30 June 2006:
  • Small change in E-Prime.
• 14 May 2006:
  • New entry: Peruse.
• 8 May 2006:
  • New entry: Flammable versus Inflammable.
• 24 April 2006:
  • New entry: Factor.
  • New entry: Flaunt versus Flout.
  • Small revisions to Fonts.
  • New entry: Frequently.
  • New entry: Heavily.
  • New entry: Lend versus Loan.
  • New entry: Orient versus Orientate.
  • New entry: Toward versus Towards.
• 21 April 2006:
  • A small revision to A or An.
  • Another small revision to Absolutely.
  • Yet another small revision to Denotation versus Connotation.
• 6 Feb. 2006:
  • New entry: Language Change.
  • New entry: Quotations inside Quotations.
• 12 July 2005:
  • New entry: Ain't.
  • New entry: Can't Help But.
  • New entry: Cases.
  • New entry: Demagogue.
  • New entry: Dialogue.
  • New entry: Double Negatives.
  • New entry: Idiom.
  • New entry: Possessive.
  • New entry: Transition.
  • New entry: Who versus That or Which.
  • Revised entry: But at the Beginning.
  • Revised entry: Ellipses.
  • Revised entry: Punctuation and Quotation Marks.
• 10 July 2005:
  • A little revision on Affect versus Effect.
• 5 July 2005:
  • A little revision on Single Quotation Marks.
• 8 March 2005:
  • New entry: Between You and I.
• 3 March 2005:
  • New entry: Bimonthly.
  • Teensie-weensie little revision to Gender.
• 26 Jan. 2005:
  • New entry: Exclamation Points.
  • New entry: Loose versus Lose.
  • New entry: Periods.
  • New entry: Presently.
• 21 Jan. 2005:
  • New entry: Begging the Question.
  • New entry: Normalcy.
• 20 Jan. 2005:
  • New entry: Diagramming Sentences.
  • New entry: Hoi Polloi.
  • New entry: However.
  • New entry: Principal versus Principle.
  • New entry: Tragedy.
• 18 Jan. 2005:
  • New entry: Predicate.
• 12 Jan. 2005:
  • New entry: Absent.
  • New entry: Advise.
  • New entry: Anxious versus Eager.
  • New entry: Cannot.
  • New entry: Clearly, Obviously, Undoubtedly.
  • New entry: Disinterested versus Uninterested.
  • New entry: Dive, Dived, Dove.
  • New entry: Skunked Terms (with appropriate cross-references throughout).
  • New entry: Sneak, Sneaked, Snuck.
  • New entry: Solution.
  • New entry: Superscript.
  • New entry: Task.
  • Minor change to Apostrophe.
  • Minor change to Microsoft Word.
  • Revisions to Subjunctives.
  • Minor change to Titles.
• 5 Jan. 2005:
  • New Entry: Ironic.
  • New Entry: Whose versus Who's.
• 3 Jan. 2005:
  • New Entry: Back-Formation.
  • New entry: Enormity.
  • New entry: Infinitive.
  • New entry: Inflection.
  • New entry: Liaise.
  • New entry: Phenomena.
  • New entry: Single Quotation Marks.
  • New entry: Than I versus Than Me.
  • New entry: Than versus Then.
  • Revised entry: Punctuation and Quotation Marks.
  • Revised entry: Slashes.
• 21 Dec. 2004 (actually 21 Dec. 2004 through 2 Jan. 2005, but who's counting?):
  • New entry: Academies.
  • New entry: Aggravate.
  • New entry: Alot.
  • New entry: Alright.
  • New entry: Aspect.
  • New entry: Due to the Fact That.
  • New entry: Lead versus Led.
  • New entry: Neologisms.
  • New entry: Number.
  • New entry: Parts of Speech.
  • New entry: Pronunciation.
  • New entry: Tense.
  • New entry: Verbs.
  • Revised entry: Mixed Metaphor.
  • Revised entry: Rules.
• 14 Sept. 2004:
  • Many little changes throughout the guide, but it's not worth listing them all.
  • A low-grade fever has me home from work. Rather than do anything productive, I've written whole raft of new entries:
    • Absolutely.
    • Acronyms.
    • -Century.
    • Comparatives.
    • Dates.
    • Feel.
    • Gender.
    • It Can Be Argued.
    • Lay versus Lie.
    • Massive.
    • Momentarily.
    • More So.
    • Myself.
    • Plurals.
    • Rhetorical Questions.
    • Shibboleths.
    • Substantive.
• 1 May 2004:
  • The first update in a scrillion years. I've changed the physical appearance, in the hopes of making the guide easier to read, and tinkered with a few entries. One of these days I'll make some big additions.
• 3 August 2001:
  • Minor revisions to Dangling Participles and Latinate versus Germanic Diction.
• 5 July 2001:
  • New entry: Particular.
• 20 June 2001:
  • A little snatch of genuine Old English added to Latinate versus Germanic Diction.
• 11 June 2001:
  • Revisions on Clichés.
  • Minor revisions on Dash.
  • Minor revisions on Economy.
  • Minor revisions on Emphasis.
  • Revisions on Mixed Metaphor.
  • Revisions on Noun.
• 8 June 2001:
  • A minor change to It's versus Its.
• 28 May 2001:
  • Some general tidying up in the whole guide. I've revised the navigational links at the top of each page to make them easier to use, added some simple navigation at the bottom of each page, and provided an updated list of mirror sites. Nothing substantive, though.
• 9 April 2001:
  • New entry: Voice, with appropriate cross-references.
• 8 April 2001:
  • New entry: As Far As.
• 5 April 2001:
  • New entry: Microsoft Word, with appropriate cross-references throughout.
  • Minor revisions to Apostrophe.
• 16 March 2001:
  • New entry: Taste, with appropriate cross-references throughout.
• 30 January 2001:
  • Revisions on the Introduction.
  • New entry: Prescriptive versus Descriptive Grammars, with appropriate links throughout the guide.
• 26 January 2001:
  • Revisions on Conjunctions.
  • Revisions on Grammar.
• 3 November 2000:
  • New Entry: Any Way, Shape, or Form.
  • New Entry: Colon.
  • New Entry: Generalizations.
  • New Entry: Interpolation.
  • New Entry: Rules, with appropriate links throughout the guide.
  • New Entry: Sic.
  • New Entry: Try And.
  • Minor revisions to Latinate versus Germanic Diction.
  • Minor revision to Less versus Fewer.
  • More examples in Grammar Checkers.
  • Revisions to Revision.
  • Revisions to Sexist Language and the Indefinite Third Person.
  • Revisions to Shall versus Will.
• 3 September 2000:
  • I'm beginning to add cross-references to my new guide, "Getting an A on an English Paper." Since they'll appear throughout this guide and will be evolving for at least the next few months, I won't note each change.
• 24 August 2000:
  • A revision of the entry on Mixed metaphor.
  • Some minor reformatting to make navigation easier.
  • Minor twiddling with the comments page.
• 14 July 2000:
  • Minor revisions on the entries for Paragraphs, Fonts, Titles, and Grammar.
  • New entry: Mechanics, with appropriate cross-references throughout.
  • New entry: Style, with appropriate ditto.
  • Revisions on Usage, with &c. &c. &c.
• 8 June 2000:
  • A slight revision on the Dash entry.
• 12 May 2000:
  • A few new entries in the links page.
• 12 April 2000:
  • Corrected a booboo in the entry on Comma usage.
• 10 September 1999:
  • Added Susan Sively's "Writing Better" to the links page.
  • Began to revise the links page to make it more useful. Gimme time.
• 6 September 1999:
  • Tags indicating revision or addition dates added to the end of recently updated entries.
  • Assure, Ensure, Insure — New cross-reference.
  • Different — New cross-reference.
• 5 September 1999:
  • Cosmetic changes throughout; a new page specifically for comments.
• 14 August 1999:
  • Capitalization — Added a note on capitalizing independent clauses after a colon.
  • Fortuitous — New entry.
  • Nauseous — New entry.
  • Necessitate — Minor stylistic revisions.
  • Parameter — New entry.
  • Proofreading — Introduced smartass errors. Ain't I the living end?
  • Quote — New entry.
• 11 July 1999:
  • Antecedent — New entry.
  • Apposition — New entry.
  • So — New entry.
  • Grammar — New cross-references.