Punctuation

Before I arrived at Pasco Airport, I receive an email from National Car Rental, the company I always use for my car rentals. The message said, “No counter bypass: Proceed to the rental counter to pick up your vehicle keys.” Because I so often read… continue reading

In a recent business writing course, a participant insisted that single quotation marks be used around quoted content and titles of works. He was certain that I was wrong when I told him that double quotation marks are the standard. Was I wrong? It depends where… continue reading

People planning Thanksgiving menus may be wondering which gluten-free recipes to prepare for their guests on restricted diets. But others are simply wondering about the correctness of the hyphen: Is the compound word gluten-free or gluten free?  A client wrote to me today, saying, “Now my… continue reading

In business writing courses, people always take sides on the use of commas with series. Known as the serial comma or the Oxford comma, this comma keeps us from running together items in a series. Examples: He leads the symphonic band, the jazz band, and the… continue reading

My father just celebrated his 90th birthday, but the banner announcing his special day was missing something. Can you recognize what was missing from the title of this post? Yes, the banner lacked a comma. It should have read: Happy 90th Birthday, Ed! The reason is direct address. That… continue reading