Frequently Asked
Questions

Of the thousands of questions submitted to ASK GRAMMAR, these are the issues raised most often. Clicking on the phrases and questions below will take you to a section of the GUIDE TO GRAMMAR AND WRITING that should answer that question. You might also try the INDEX or go through the listing of questions for each of the GRAMMARLOGS. There is also a search engine.

I'm confused by these words . . .
affect versus effect accept versus except bad versus badly bring versus take compare to versus compare with different from versus different than do versus make due to versus because if versus whether into versus in to its versus it's i.e. versus e.g. less versus fewer lie versus lay people versus persons shall versus will that versus which toward versus towards well versus good	For the complete list of more than 500 "Notorious Confusables," click on Tweedledee and Tweedledum, above.

• When do I CAPITALIZE people's job titles?



• Family names, their plural and possessive forms.



• Does every "whether" have to be followed by an "or"?



• I'm perplexed by the cases of pronouns (Is it "Jayden and I" or "Jayden and me"?)



• I'm perplexed by the subjunctive (Is it "If I were/was a rich man"?)



• I'm perplexed by the difference between like and as.



• Are attitudes changing about . . .
1. Preposition at the end of a sentence?


2. "This is he" (answering the phone)?


3. "Taller than I/me"?


4. Beginning a sentence with and or but?


5. Split Infinitives?
• Can you diagram a sentence for me?
  Probably not — for two reasons:
  1. It's very difficult to show on the WWW without getting into graphical representations.
  2. I'm not good at it.
  There is, however, an entire section devoted to Diagramming Sentences, and you might very well find a sentence there that is similar to the one that's giving you trouble. For further help with diagramming, see Understanding English Grammar by Martha Kolln. 4rth Edition. MacMillan Publishing Company: New York. 1994.
  
  
• I'm bamboozled by periods and spacing
  1. One or two spaces after periods?
  2. Where does the period go with quotation marks?
  3. Where does the period go with parentheses?
  
  
  
• How do I format numbered or vertical lists?



• When do I use "Fred and I" and when do I use "Fred and me"?
  
  
• Is it "girls basketball" or "girls' basketball"?
  
  
• How do I figure out which verb to use in a sentence like "This is one of those situations that drive/drives me crazy"?
  
  
• Why is the first-person-singular personal pronoun, I, always capitalized in English?



• When something happens for the first time, but we plan on its happening every year thereafter, can we call it the "first annual" event?



• What do you call the little dot above the letter "i"?



• I need help with who and whom!



• Which article do I use with words beginning with "h"? — a history, an historical?



• I'm puzzled by acronyms
  1. How do I form the plural or possessive of an acronym?
  2. Which article (a or an) do I use with an acronym?
  
  
  
• How do I punctuate reported or silent speech?



• What is the real name of the symbol @? See Michael Quinion's World Wide Words. (The answer is "at" or "commercial at," but I prefer the German Klammeraffe, "spider monkey.")



• How do you punctuate the following sentence(s) so it/they make(s) sense? HINT: quotation marks might be required and you might have to start a second sentence somewhere in the middle (Click on the question for the answer.)

Chris, where Ted had had had had had had had had had had had the teacher's approval.



• What is the third English word (other than angry and hungry) that ends in "-gry"?



• What do you call a word that is spelled the same, forward or backward?



• How do I write a research paper? (How do I cite such-and-such a resource?)



• Is there a downloadable version of the Guide to Grammar and Writing, or can I buy a copy of it in hard-copy or CD-ROM format?

    No. For a variety of technical and legalistic and rather boring reasons, no. The most important reason is that we have secured permission to cite and otherwise use several published (and highly regarded) resources as we create the various digital handouts of the Guide and for support as we write responses posted in the Grammarlogs. We have assured those authorities that we will use their material only in an online, free-to-the-public format. We must continue to honor that agreement. But thank you for asking.