A new Grammar Guide quiz is up. Here is the disclaimer for all you sticklers: No, it's not really about grammar; it's about usage and word choice. The sentences all come from real life this time -- from copy I have read or have edited. Of course, we copy editors don't catch everything -- as readers remind us often. We try, though, even in these trying times.

Click here or on the question mark icon to begin the 10-sentence quiz. Be sure to click through to read the explanations (which, by the way, are the same whether you answered correctly or incorrectly). Leave a comment here if you would like or send me a message.

I am on Twitter, too -- #grammarguide.

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.

The latest Grammar Guide quiz involves commonly confused words -- as you might have guessed, one of my favorite copy editing challenges. Some of the sentences on the quiz lend themselves to varied interpretation, so if you happen to choose the "incorrect" answer, you could argue that you read the writer's meaning differently. This quiz has 10 sentences, rather than the standard five. I've been saving up examples. As an enticement, I promise a little humor in some explanations.

Click here to begin the quiz. As always, I welcome comments and e-mail messages. Tell your friends and spread the word. I could use some hits.

I saw this feature in the March issue of Reader's Digest: Eight expressions that ought to exist in our native tongue but don't. The excerpt comes from a travel site called Matador Network.

My favorite is "jayus" from Indonesian: "a joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh." Check out the list of "20 Awesomely Untranslatable Words from Around the World" by Jason Wire.

A reader asks this interesting question:

Two items in the news yesterday made me wonder, and I hope you have an answer to my question. The first Item referred to a man in a kayak as a "kayaker," the second item referred to a man in a canoe as a "canoeist." Both are paddling a watercraft, so why is one an "er" and the other an "ist"?

This is a sentence I saved from a piece I edited a while ago:

 Folds, along with Steve Willard and Eddie Walker, comprise the three-piece band who sing songs with titles like, “Really Gross Kid” and “King of the Bugs.”

The sentence has problems. Can you spot them before you read further or hit the More button?

My week at the copy editing factory was long and busy, but I hit the jackpot on some real-life examples of mixed-up word choices. I recognize that my joy is rather perverse, but I was happy to find material for a Grammar Guide quiz on word choice.

I hope you have fun taking the quiz. Click here or on the question mark icon to begin. Leave a comment below if you would like.

Even though most of us don't use horses or buggies as our main transportation these days, our language still has horse-related idioms, which writers sometimes mix up.

If you are a close and thorough reader of The N&O, you might have an advantage on the new Grammar Guide quiz. I based the quiz on Sunday's newspaper. I found five sentences that included words or terms that are sometimes confused in writing. To the credit of writers and editors, all but one of the five sentences were correct in the paper.

A sentence in an Associated Press story about the plane crash that killed former Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska stopped me this morning:

Stevens became a protege to the younger O'Keefe and they remained close friends over the years.