Author Archives: Don Cram

A Which Hunt

The tree, which had no leaves, was a birch. Which is used in nonrestrictive clauses, always set off by commas. The tree was a birch. The fact that it was leafless is incidental. The tree that had no leaves was … Continue reading

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Pleonasm, Tautology, and Solecism

I understand these three words as I am reading; I just refuse to ever use them. The first two refer to stating something with additional, unnecessary words. The last means to violate idiom, as in pleonasms and tautologies. Strunk & … Continue reading

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I Temptations

There are amble temptations to use I, but these are spiritual temptations. Here, I refer to the temptation to incorrectly spell words by replacing an e with an i. It’s liquefy and liquefaction, rarefy and rarefaction, and stupefy and stupefaction, … Continue reading

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