A headline in the Sunday (March 28, 2010) Parade stopped me this morning.

A reader found fault with this sentence from a front-page story Sunday: 

The number of households in the state that depend on food stamps has increased 45 percent over the last two years. 

She thought the writer and editors had made an error in subject-verb agreement.

An editor asked about "soup to nuts," which appeared in this story. It means from beginning to end or the whole shebang, of course, but then we wondered where the phrase comes from. 

An online reader comment on a headline prompts this post in defense of a word.

Today's quiz is about word choice. Choose the better word in these five sentences. You might find a couple of sentences tricky. I hope you find the quiz enjoyable and educational. After all, that's the point.

Click here or on the question mark icon to begin. 

March 4 is National Grammar Day.

I ran across a story that used "an historic." This post is about why the article should be "a," not "an."

A new 10-question Grammar Guide Quiz is up.

I  am a fan of word of the year lists. They give us insight into our times. They also give us grist for the blog mill. 

A colleague pointed out some loose usage in this passage:

Your house may soon be overrun by holiday weekend houseguests. As the host, you'll have a dilemma: what to feed them.