Category Archives: 5 Minute Grammar Lesson

Inspiration for this week’s 5 Minute Grammar Lesson comes from none other than…ME! I made this mistake on my blog a couple of weeks ago and a friend was kind enough to point it out. Thanks, Chantal! In a post … Continue reading →

News flash! ALRIGHT is not now, and never has been, a proper word! Inspiration for this week’s 5 Minute Grammar Lesson came from my college students, but alright is a VERY common mistake a lot of people make. Here’s one … Continue reading →

You’d think I’d stop being surprised by the many, many mistakes I come across on blogs, in emails, from my students. But I’m not. I’m continually surprised, dumbfounded, horrored. Sometimes it makes laugh. Sometimes it makes me bang my head. … Continue reading →

It’s time for my weekly 5 Minute Grammar Rant. Bias/biased is an error I come across a lot in my college composition classes and in blogs I read. It drives me nuts, honestly. Here’s the deal. BIAS is a noun. … Continue reading →

This 5 Minute Grammar lesson is dedicated to my friend, Jessica, who asked me to add it to the list. Honestly, I had to look up these two words, because I didn’t know how to explain the difference. So here … Continue reading →

Tell me you guys all know that HISSELF is another one of those words that’s not really a word, right? I get HISSELF a lot from my college comp I students and I’m always floored. I didn’t know it even … Continue reading →

This 5 Minute Grammar Lesson is another example of speech interfering with writing. It sounds like we say suppose to when we speak because we don’t enunciate every letter in all our words. But…in writing… it’s not ok to leave … Continue reading →

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but IRREGARDLESS is not a word. I hear a lot of people using it, however. The grammatically correct term is REGARDLESS. Regardless means “without regard.” It is a negative word. The … Continue reading →

Back by popular demand – my 5 Minute Grammar Lesson! I’m thoroughly convinced a good 85% of the US population does not understand when to use IT’S and when to use ITS. And here’s my confession: until I started teaching … Continue reading →

Until a few weeks ago, I didn’t even know there was such a word as Creditable. Oy! But a few weeks ago my college Composition I students starting using CREDITABLE with gleeful abandon and totally confused me. If only one … Continue reading →