Posts

Grammar Tip – Verbs: Past Tense Versus the Present Perfect and Past Perfect Tenses

With today’s North American business readers, less is usually better. In other words, in Canada and the U.S. — in a business setting — readers prefer writers to use fewer words to convey information. A prime example is the past tense of verbs. Example (past tense) I edited the report. However, people who were educated […]

Writing Style – Why the Rules for Letters Don’t Apply to Emails

We are all familiar with letters. They are a traditional form of communications. However, emails are recently new to the business scene and require their own email-centric form of writing and organizing. Why? Emails were never designed to be a formal method of communication. When emails came into being in the early 90s, they were […]

Grammar Tip – Staff Is or Staff Are

The word staff is a collective noun. It represents a group. Some other examples of collective nouns are board, committee, company, organization, department, and faculty. The trick with these words is that when the group is acting in harmony, you must use the singular form of the verb. Correct The customer service staff is not available after […]

Word Choice – Off or Off of

Andy’s question: “Is it proper grammar to use ‘Billy jumped off of the ladder’? I don’t think so. I think it should be ‘Billy jumped off the ladder.’” BizWritingTip response: “Off” and “of” are both prepositions. A preposition is a word mainly used before a noun or pronoun to show its relationship with other words. […]