I fielded a question recently about “minding your p’s and q’s.” I had used that expression in a column a few weeks ago, and it prompted an email from a reader named Christine who was curious about ...

Let’s face it, grammar is more important for some people than for others. An ambulance driver probably has more important things to worry about than whether to hyphenate adverbs ending in “ly.” (FYI: ...

Apostrophes are the curly floating commas in sentences that usually indicate possession or a contraction. There are a few set phrases and holidays, however, that also use apostrophes. In fact, ...

Until recently, apostrophes were used to form the plurals of abbreviations (MA’s), dates (1980’s) and words or characters serving as words (if’s and but’s). Today we ...

Admit it. You've been stumped by apostrophes before. There's no shame in it — even for word-savvy types who know all too well the difference between "lets" and "let's" and who can spot a misplaced ...

After VERIFYING how to spell canceled (with one l or two), a viewer asked us to VERIFY another grammar inquiry you might have been breaking for years. Beth Miller from Guilford County asked, "Why ...

Farmers markets are one of summer’s simplest, sweetest delights. Unless you care about proper apostrophe placement, in which case they’ll wilt your soul like arugula planted in full sun. First off, ...

As a longtime University of Minnesota editor and writer (and an alumna who earned two English degrees), I was drawn to the Feb. 3 front-page article regarding whether to add an apostrophe to “the ...

I have lost count of the number of people who have asked me to write something about the apostrophe again - it would appear that either the rules for its correct use are still unclear to many people, ...