The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation

Vowels: Definition, Types, Examples

GrammarBook.com — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 11:00:17 +0000

English includes two primary groups of letters and sounds. One group is the consonants. We make the consonant sounds by changing and restricting airflow in our mouth or nose as we speak, such as with our teeth, tongue, or lips. The other group is the vowels. We produce vowel sounds with unrestricted airflow shaped mainly […]

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Syllables: Definition, Meaning, Examples

GrammarBook.com — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 11:00:28 +0000

Our English language—or any language, for that matter—incorporates arrangements of sounds that shape our thoughts into spoken expressions we understand. Our two main sounds are vowels and consonants. Vowels are the sounds we make with an open vocal tract (no major blockage of airflow). Consonants are those we make by partially or completely blocking our […]

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Consonants: Definition, Meaning, Examples

GrammarBook.com — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 11:00:59 +0000

Language gives us the system to fashion our thoughts into understood expressions. To achieve that, it arranges single-unit characters (letters) into larger units (words) with meanings we assign. We depend on language sounds for our understanding of it just as well. Whether heard by our outer ears or the inner ones in our mind, language […]

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Formal or Informal? Choosing the Right Tone for Digital Communications

GrammarBook.com — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 11:00:02 +0000

Today’s social media began taking shape in the early 2000s with platforms such as MySpace and LinkedIn. It has since expanded into influential applications such as Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, YouTube, and Snapchat. Text messaging likewise gained popularity in the early 2000s and peaked in usage between 2006 and 2010. It then broadened […]

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Nominalization: When Verbs Become Nouns

GrammarBook.com — Wed, 21 May 2025 11:00:58 +0000

We recently discussed how nouns can be made into verbs, a practice referred to as verbing: e.g., Why don’t you friend me on Facebook? Within its dynamic fluidity, English also often uses verbs as nouns or turns verbs into them, a process known as nominalization. Examples Let’s go for a walk. What an epic fail. […]

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Verbing: When Nouns Become Verbs

GrammarBook.com — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 11:00:15 +0000

A fixed grammar lets us communicate with a clear, ordered structure we can all understand. Functioning as a GPS for directing our thoughts and ideas, it provides accurate markers and routes for moving our mind’s content into intelligible expressions. While language is organized to unify understanding, it also can bend and flex to expand intentions […]

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America and Australia: What’s the English?

GrammarBook.com — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 11:00:51 +0000

The English we speak in the U.S. today represents centuries of influence, change, and inheritance. We can see this, for example, in how American English has been used in the 2020s as compared with during the 1820s. We can also readily recognize differentiating factors such as how our word choices differ from those in other […]

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Generation Alpha Slang: An Introduction

GrammarBook.com — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 12:00:19 +0000

We all have something new to learn from Generation Alpha, or those born after 2010. Among those of us born before 2000, we might wonder what that could be, because normally it would be we passing along our experience-based wisdom and knowledge to the younger generation. But like all others before them, Generation A is […]

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Year-End Quiz: 2024

GrammarBook.com — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 12:00:15 +0000

With joy and inspiration we celebrate another year of grammatical discovery and discussion with you. In 2024, our ATGV (All-Terrain Grammar Vehicle) crossed far and wide into more diverse territory ranging from assonance and alliteration to diphthongs and sibilance. The vehicle we share in pursuit of written precision and eloquence will travel farther in 2025 […]

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Should We Emphasize Words With Bold or Italic?

GrammarBook.com — Wed, 20 Nov 2024 12:00:17 +0000

Written words afford us the means to express ourselves with precision of thought and intent. When we are writing, we can dedicate greater attention to the words we are choosing, as well as the structure and flow in which we arrange them. At the same time, written words do not always give us what spoken […]

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