Here is a new Grammar Guide quiz. Almost all of the 10 sentences involve word usage challenges. I have one timely sentence at the end that is more of a copy editing or proofreading  challenge.

Click here or on the question mark icon to begin.

Click here to find other Grammar Guide quizzes.

A wonderful headline ("Sit. Stay. Parse. Good girl!") attracted me to this New York Times story about a border collie who knows more than 1,000 nouns and appears to understand verbs. It mentions a Nova episode about dogs' intelligence.

A little piece of an advertising circular caught my eye this morning. I wondered whether the word use was correct.

Commentators are having a field day with Sarah Palin's use of "refudiate" in television appearance and in a Twitter post that has been deleted.

Joel Schnoor, who lives in Apex, sent me a copy of his book, "I Laid an Egg on Aunt Ruth's Head." (Author House, 2009)

The words and phrases of an economic downturn fill our newspaper and Web site these days. One such phrase prompted a reader to write that we were "butchering" the language.

Take a look at some of the top words for 2008.

As President-elect Barack Obama and his staff prepare for the new administration, the word "vet" has come up often in news reports.

I ran across the word "doorstepped" in a story about a British
journalist today. I didn't understand what it meant even in context. So I looked it up.

Oxford University researchers have released a top 10 list of irritating phrases. The link is to a British newspaper story that uses "comprises" correctly, by the way.

One word that makes me cringe lately is "enormity." Television journalists speak of the "enormity" of President-elect Barack Obama's tasks once he is inaugurated. I suppose usage is changing, but I still think "enormity" refers to great wickedness, not to great size or importance.