Ideas on how to confront Professor Writewrong. (Ask Dr. Wobs)
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Ideas on how to confront Professor Writewrong. (Ask Dr. Wobs)

Today’s question is from an academic who’s being forced to use a colleague’s terrible materials in his course. I’ve got six ideas on how to fix the handiwork of Professor Writewrong. Can you do better? Here’s the note I got: Dear Dr. Wobs I’m a college professor and I like to think a decent writer….

To break the rules, you have to know the rules

To break the rules, you have to know the rules

Yvonne Mason, a former teacher, recently posted a picture of a letter she got from the president, with her corrections. This president prides himself on breaking senseless rules, including many grammar rules. It raises an interesting question: when is breaking rules an act of defiance that creates change, and when is it just laziness? Let’s…

The hidden mental models behind the fight over the Oxford comma

The hidden mental models behind the fight over the Oxford comma

A nasty, permanent spat burns in the heart of analysts of the English language. It’s the fight over the need for the Oxford or serial comma — for example, do you really need the final comma in the phrase “passive voice, weasel words, and jargon”? Now that a court in Maine has decided a case based on the…