In her Oct. 17, 2007, letter to the editor about my online Commentary “No Wiz at Grammar” (Sept. 24, 2007), Lorraine S. Caplan states that the British “consider the comma to be an appropriate ...

Braveheart did it, Adele does it. While I did it then, splicing two sentences into one, snubbing the semicolon to mash two time-zones, my heresy enacted by that intermediary comma. Grammarians know ...

Sex. Now that I have your attention I’d like to discuss the fact that this sentence you’re reading is not necessarily a run-on sentence because run-on sentences are not simply sentences that run on ...

You would think that one way to learn about the technical aspects of language is to read masterful writers, especially contemporary authors whose work is honored by critics and prize juries. So you ...

Despite claims to the contrary Peter Carey did not get rid of all the commas in his 2001 Booker prize-winning novel True History of the Kelly Gang (there are 13 on the first page alone) and attempting ...

Simply sign up to the Work & Careers myFT Digest -- delivered directly to your inbox. A leaflet from the Liberal Democrats drops through my letter box. “Elections in Hornsey and Wood Green are between ...

A favourite joke among grammarians concerns the fate of an unnamed grandmother if, in the phrase “Let’s eat, grandma”, the comma should be carelessly omitted. But we don’t have to resort to the ...