For those who boldly violate the Prime Directive by trying to enrich the general public’s understanding of English grammar and thus change the planetary culture, each tiny triumph is something to ...

I have on occasion split the infinitive and one should never do that. Yet it’s hard to remember what is so bad about splitting infinitives, except that it offends those people who had their grammar ...

I didn't know what a split infinitive was until my editor pointed it out to me deep into the last century when I was still wearing skinny ties and covering the Streamwood village board. Dolores ...

Today we're gonna talk about split infinitives. First of all, what is an infinitive? It's a form of the verb that has to in front of it. And it doesn't indicate anything about tense or about person or ...

First you learn to crawl, then you learn to walk, then you learn to run (then you learn to drive five miles to the place where you like to walk or run). The same process applies to learning about ...

“O dear Miss Mutch, leave down your crutch.” He cried in thoughtless terror. Short shrift she gave. Above his grave: HERE LIES A PRINTER’S ERROR.

SOME advice is worse than useless. A short list of bullet points from eHow, a website, that is passing around social networks purports to show “how to write good.” (Each rule was jokingly broken in ...

Never end a sentence with a preposition. And never split an infinitive. We received a reprieve most of the time in colloquial English, but never in written English ...

“ho doesn’t love some free Panchero’s?” is what we read recently on the UI Main Calendar of Events. Obviously, a job for Dr. Life Grammar. Dear Dr. Life Grammar: Try as I might, I can’t seem to get ...

Editor’s Note: This article previously appeared in a different format as part of The Atlantic’s Notes section, retired in 2021. That’s the charge leveled by one reader, J., who responds to my grammar ...