Some grammar advice travels badly. Rules that are firm in American English are optional here, and a few habits that pass unnoticed in a blog post will have an editor reaching for a red pen. Most of the slips below aren't signs of carelessness; they're what happens when you draft quickly and read your own work as you meant it rather than as it appears on the page. Fix them and your copy reads more confidently, whatever the publication.
Comma splices and the sentence that never ends
The invoice was late, I chased it twice. Two complete sentences, one comma. Nothing joins them, so the sentence runs on. It is the most common slip in business writing, and it shows up whenever someone is drafting at speed.
You have four ways to fix it:
- Full stop: The invoice was late. I chased it twice.
- Semicolon, when the two ideas are closely related: The invoice was late; I chased it twice.
- Conjunction: The invoice was late, so I chased it twice.
- Dash or colon for deliberate effect, used sparingly.
Watch for the same problem with however, therefore and nevertheless. They are adverbs, not conjunctions. It was cheap, however it broke within a week is still a comma splice. Write It was cheap; however, it broke within a week.
Apostrophes: do they belong here at all?
The apostrophe does two jobs: it marks possession and it marks missing letters. It never marks a plural.
- Singular possession: the writer's draft, the company's policy.
- Plural possession: the writers' drafts, two weeks' notice.
- Plain plural: CDs, sofas, MP3s, the 1990s. No apostrophe anywhere. The 1990's is wrong.
- it's means it is or it has. its means belonging to it. So: The company lost its licence and It's been a long week.
- Names ending in s: James's book is standard in most British styles; James' is also seen. Pick one and keep to it.
When you are unsure, ask what the word is doing. Showing possession? Standing in for a missing letter? If neither, leave the apostrophe out.
Quotation marks, and where the full stop goes
British practice gives single quotation marks the first job, with double marks inside: She described the meeting as 'a complete waste of an afternoon'. American usage reverses that, which is why so many UK websites end up inconsistent.
Punctuation sits outside the closing quote unless it belongs to the quoted words. In British style, He said the plan was 'unworkable'. The full stop ends your sentence, not his phrase. If the quotation is a full sentence in its own right, the stop moves inside: He said, 'The plan is unworkable.'
One more: don't use quotation marks for emphasis. They don't do that job, and readers may take them as irony.
Collective nouns: the team is, or the team are?
In British English a group can take either, depending on whether you mean the body or the people in it.
- The team is top of the league. One unit.
- The team are arguing about the kit. Individuals disagreeing.
Companies are trickier. Many British newspapers write Whitbread are; most books and academic styles write Whitbread is. Neither is wrong. Mixing both in one document is. Choose, note it on your style sheet, and stick to it. The same applies to none, either and neither, where the plural often sounds natural and the singular is formally defensible.
Hyphens, dashes and compound adjectives
A hyphen joins words into a single idea: a well-argued case, a two-year contract, a state-of-the-art printer. Drop the hyphen when the phrase comes after the noun: the case was well argued, the contract lasts two years.
Two patterns catch people out. First, never hyphenate an adverb ending in -ly: a highly regarded editor, not a highly-regarded editor. Second, use an en dash for ranges (2019–2021, pages 40–55) and for a parenthetical aside — like this — rather than a hyphen. Save hyphens for joining words; save dashes for interruption.
Words that look interchangeable but aren't
- practise / practice: I practise every morning (verb); the practice is thriving (noun).
- licence / license: a driving licence (noun); licensed to sell (verb).
- advice / advise: the noun has a c, the verb has an s, and the same pattern runs through device and devise.
- affect / effect: to affect is to influence; an effect is a result.
- fewer / less: fewer for things you count (fewer emails), less for quantities (less noise).
- may / might: may for what is possible now, might for what is hypothetical or was possible in the past.
A five-minute proofread that catches most of these
- Read the piece aloud. Your ear catches comma splices faster than your eye does.
- Search for it's and check every instance. If you can't replace it with it is or it has, it should be its.
- Search for commas followed by however, therefore, which or a fresh subject. Most of those want a full stop or a semicolon.
- Look for sentences longer than about thirty words. Split the worst offenders.
- Run a consistency check: -ise or -ize, single or double quotes, while or whilst, singular or plural companies. Choose once, then apply throughout.
- Read the final paragraph first, then the first. Beginnings and endings are where errors hide, because that's where you stopped paying attention.
None of this takes long, and it catches the great majority of slips before an editor sees them. Grammar isn't decoration; it's how a reader knows who did what to whom, and where one thought ends and the next begins. Get that right and the rest of your writing has room to breathe.
Photo: Matvei / Pexels
