GrammarTips.net - Weekly Tips on English Grammar

Writing Better Emails

01 Nov 08
Whether your emails are for your family, friends, work or business, it is always possible to improve your writing and make your emails more interesting to read and of a better quality. Emails are often written very quickly and time isn’t taken to reflect on what you are trying to say or how you are saying it. Certainly, you can get away with not having perfect grammar or spelling, but if you take the time and trouble to make your emails free from errors, then they are much easier to read: so ensure that you pass them through an online grammar and spell checker.

What is hyperbole?

25 Oct 08
Hyperbole is a figure of speech that is a complete exaggeration and which denotes extremes. So to say, ‘I laughed so much I nearly died’ is an example of hyperbole. It denotes that something was very funny and that someone laughed a lot, but it is extremely unlikely that someone laughed so much that they almost died. However, the phrase gives us a sense of just how funny something was.

Is Written English the Same as Spoken English?

17 Oct 08
In theory, the answer to this question should be a resounding ‘Yes’. However, the reality is that there may well be differences between written and spoken English. As a language, spoken English is quite relaxed. This means that there may well be occasions where someone speaks and their English grammar is not quite correct. Often people say things like, ‘If I was a millionaire’ which does not sound too grammatically incorrect, but in written form it looks slightly odd. This is because ‘if’ is a ‘wishing word’ and, as such, needs the subjunctive tense to be used. So the correct written form of this sentence is, ‘If I were a millionaire….’.

What is a Split Infinitive?

10 Oct 08
An infinitive is split when the verb, which in English will have a ‘to’ accompanying it, is not placed next to the actual doing word. So we could say ‘I am going to wash my hair with a different shampoo.’ Here the infinitive is ‘to wash.’ However, if we split the infinitive then the sentence would read, ‘I am going to always wash my hair with a different shampoo.’ Here the word ‘to’ and the word ‘wash’ have been separated by the word ‘always’, which has effectively split the infinitive.

How to Proofread Your Work

08 Oct 08
Proofreading your work sounds terribly easy. All you have to do is to read through your work, identify any spelling mistakes and any grammatical errors or errors in punctuation, then correct the mistakes and change any words that do not seem to fit in and your written work is complete and correct.