When you talk about romantic language — flirting and paying compliments, for example — you’re talking about the language of romance (lowercase r).
When you talk about Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian, you’re talking about the Romance languages (uppercase R).
They are not called Romance languages because populations of these countries are known for or are more adept at courting and love; they are languages that were heavily influenced by Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. They show how Latin’s influence spread as the empire expanded.
Romanice, an adjective that suggested “in the Roman manner,” over time was shortened to Romance. Capitalizing it as Romance language clarifies its connotation of Roman influence.
Here are four common abbreviations with Latin roots. Continue
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We all know what a hyphen is: that tiny horizontal line that shows a break in a word that starts on one line and jumps to the next:
When do you use an ellipsis, and how do you create one?
Modifiers are words that provide additional information about or limit the meaning of a word or phrase.
Confused about where to place the apostrophe when you’re creating possessives?
Comma use seems to confuse almost everyone at some point.
If you visit online grammar forums, you know that the comma is the most asked-about punctuation mark.
Frigid winter temperatures have punished much of the United States this winter. For grammar enthusiasts, weather reports have drawn attention to when to use an apostrophe with numbers.
A Ruthless Editor blog follower noted that babysitting, which first appeared in the U.S. lexicon in 1937, is generally expressed as one word.
