Red Pen Diaries: An Editor's-Eye View of Writing and the English Language

Friends are frequently annoyed or impressed, depending on the friend, when I instinctively blurt out spelling or grammatical corrections to menus, signs, even TV broadcasts. I can't help it; it's in the blood.

So naturally I'm motivated to share advice and observations on writing and the English language here on my blog. Said advice and observations I've lumped under the label "Red Pen Diaries."

Yes, that's a rather lame pun on the title of a rather lame cable show from the 1990s. But it suits what I'm doing for two reasons. One, the red pen is the universal symbol of the editor. It gets your attention and, in the hands of one who uses the power for good and not evil, it gently nudges the user of language toward more effective communication. Second, a blog is essentially an online journal, or diary, and so voila!: This is my diary on the uses and abuses of words.

From time to time I'll post entries in this diary in an effort to uplift, educate, enlighten, inform, or otherwise harangue anyone curious about word meanings, grammar goofs, spelling mistakes, and more. Keep watching this space!