Apostrophes cause all sorts of confusion. They get thrown into places they don’t belong and left out where they most definitely do. There are three places where apostrophes seem to cause the most confusion — omissions and contractions, possessives and plurals. Omissions and contractions Apostrophes fill in the gap for a missing letter(s), or where…
In mid-summer, new neighbours moved in. Before I met them I noticed they had attached a bird feeder to their deck. It swung out to sit in the branches of the willow tree that had spread across the fence from my yard. “A bird feeder, that’s a good sign,” I thought.
Spot was a stray: part sheepdog, part terrier. I don’t know how he got the name Spot — he was black with no markings — or how he came to live with us. Well, he didn’t actually live with us. He lived in a kennel outside. “Please Dad,” I would plead. “Can he just stay…
I stood in front of the dusty chalkboard shoulders back, arms at my sides, stiff like a soldier. I stared out at my six and seven-year-old classmates and took a deep breath. It was my turn to do morning talk (show and tell in Canada). I don’t know what drove me that particular day to…
It was early spring, the end of the August school holidays. The sky was blue. No clouds anywhere. I was staring out the window wondering what I would do for the day. I knew I would clean my room, do dishes and peel the potatoes for tea. These things I did every day. But what…
Two little girls, one wearing pink, the other wearing blue, sit together on a velvet chair staring straight ahead with no sign of a smile. They watch from behind a large wooden frame. On the back of the frame, there is a label that reads: Parker, portrait painter and general artist, Imperial Art Studio, Grey…
The instructor of a writing course I took a few years ago introduced it by noting that 60 per cent of writing was thinking. Sometimes I forget this advice and start a project without thinking. I plunge into the writing, bang out a paragraph or two and come to a halt — lost. It’s as if I…
The world was waiting for Y2K. Depending on who you listened to, we were either facing a massive computer failure or the catastrophic end to the world. But I wasn’t too concerned. Because my world, as I knew it, had already ended.
There are many words in the English language that sound alike but by changing one letter they take on a different meaning. That’s usually not a problem when you’re speaking, but it can really trip you up in written language — and spell check won’t help you. Here are 20 commonly misused/misspelled words.
It was the cusp of the Sixties. New Zealand teenagers were joining the rock and roll craze that had taken over the world. Parents who had survived the Second World War were faced with fighting another war – the war against the youth culture with its loud and inappropriate music and outrageous clothing. Teenage dance…