A quick word … averse to adverse

Look at this from a recent story in Retail Week: “We aren’t adverse to a change in the leasing model." And this, from Nottinghamshire Live: "I'm not adverse to slowing down the road ..." This is a mistake you will see EVERYWHERE. People use 'adverse' when they mean 'averse'. But it rarely happens the other…

A quick word … all right or alright?

Is it all right to write 'alright'? 'Alright' is perfectly OK in informal writing, unless you're emailing someone with grammar-related blood pressure issues. Oxford Dictionaries says: There is no logical reason for insisting on 'all right' as two words, when other single-word forms such as 'altogether' have long been accepted. Nevertheless, it is still considered…

This is just to say…

Ensorcelled? Really? Why send your readers away (probably never to return) to consult a dictionary when 'enchanted' or 'fascinated' would work just as well (probably better) in this case?

Is it a verb? Is it a noun? An introduction to the gerund

Some words are ugly and some grammatical concepts are very tricky indeed. And sometimes ugly combines with tricky. But I know you like a challenge. Exhibit A: the gerund. Don’t go – the butler’s serving drinks afterwards.

Some things are worth repeating (and others aren’t)

A quick piece of advice today from an old hack: repetition is not necessarily a Bad Thing. Some writers think that repeating the same word is to be avoided at all costs, but this simply isn't the case. Very often, the distracting and intrusive linguistic gymnastics involved render a piece of writing inelegant and amateurish.

None more use than a grammar book

Grammar books sometimes bother me; you somehow feel as if you should believe everything you read in them. But while that might make you more of a selective human, it won’t in all cases arm you with the facts.

I spy a wrongly used word

I don’t usually mind when a word is used in a new way to mean something completely different: the result often seems so right that you wonder why it wasn’t co-opted sooner. However, some words just sound plain wrong when used outside of their normal context. On a recent TV programme about British writers, the narrator referred to Fleming’s series of novels about James Bond as his ‘franchise’.