The play Fiddler on the Roof recently came through my city, and my friend kept singing her dad’s favorite song from that hit: “If I Were a Rich Man.”
My comment? “I’m glad the lyricist got the grammar right!”
Why is the use of “were” (not “was”) correct in this song title and similar phrases? Consider the conditional meaning associated with using an “if” clause. In this case, the lyrics “if I were a rich man” reflect a wishful condition, not a true statement.
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You want to be successful in your job as an administrative professional, but you feel your writing may not be as good as it should. Take to heart the following five steps and I guarantee a steady improvement!
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A subscriber to my ezine Add Power to Your Pen asked, “Should I put spaces before/after a dash?” Getting on a roll, I answered a different question: when to use a dash vs. commas vs. parentheses to offset phrases in your sentences? The answer will be useful to professional administrators or anyone who writes.
Of these punctuation choices—dashes, commas, or parentheses—how do you select the one to use?
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Dictionary.com’s 2018 Word of the Year—misinformation—is more than a word; it’s a call to action.
Dictionary.com defines “misinformation” as “false information that is spread.” And today’s rampant dissemination of “misinformation” poses special challenges for navigating communications in every field. [Read more…]
Using figures of speech in our business writing makes it fun for us and entertaining for our readers. Truly my favorite figure of speech is the chiasmus (ky-AZ-mus). That’s when words in a sentence mirror each other.
Politicians have made them famous (e.g., Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country. – John F. Kennedy). Experts have made them accessible and even popular (e.g., Dr. Mardy Grothe’s book: Never Let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You: Chiasmus and a World of Quotations That Say What They Mean and Mean What They Say). [Read more…]
Teaching a weekly fitness class—like writing weekly business messages—can get repetitious. A good instructor motivates action while guiding people in their exercises. My instructor likes to interject colorful similes to keep us going. I suspect it’s also her way of staying sharp and engaged, too. [Read more…]