Not long ago, I used as an example in this column “Having already missed two mortgage payments, Jane asked her mother if she could loan her some money.” I was making the point that editors usually ...

Russ in New Jersey had a question about hyphens: In “northwestern California landmark” should “northwestern California” be hyphenated? “I’m not sure if it’s simply a matter of preference or if the ...

MODIFIERS give us information about a noun or pronoun in a sentence. They are important because they help to paint the true picture of the information we seek to convey to our reader or listener. The ...

This paper presents a lexical choice component for complex noun phrases. We first explain why lexical choice for NPs deserves special attention within the standard pipeline architecture for a ...

Sign up for the daily CJR newsletter. The “rules” under which hyphens are used to connect multiple modifiers, like “well(-)known man,” are varied and ...

When we speak our native language we unconsciously follow certain rules. These rules are different in different languages. For example, if I want to talk about a particular collection of oranges, in ...