The New York Times report of a well-known British conductor's assisted suicide alongside his wife has a passage that illustrates a rare and tricky challenge.

The editors of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary have added about 100 words for the 2009 edition and to the dictionary online.

The latest installment in The N&O's Old North State series, Warrenton fights to regain lost glory, allows us a chance to use the lovely sounding word, antebellum.

Misplaced and dangling modifiers can sneak in when writers and editors aren't paying attention. A couple of readers found such constructions in recent N&O pieces, and I found a couple in one article I was reading on another Web site. Those examples provide the makings for this post.

Staff writer Martha Quillin's story about the pronunciation of Lejeune reminds me of the peculiarities of place name pronunciation. Even if the name of the family was pronounced one way, the name of the Marine base has come to be pronounced another way.

A slogan I've seen from time to time comes to mind today: Christians aren't perfect -- just forgiven. Sometimes I'd like to post this slogan: Grammar advisers aren't perfect -- just trying very hard.

When we speak of a group or a team coming together to form a cohesive whole or when we write about an idea becoming a concrete plan of action, we usually use the spelling jell for the verb. However, gel can also mean something has taken definite form.

I like to reserve gel, though, for congeled, as when a gelatin sets. The dessert gelled; the plans jelled.

Follow this link to a longer treatment of gel vs. jell.

Sometimes, an error in a public sign surprises me because of the context.

Reform has been in the news, both foreign and domestic.

The Associated Press has updated its widely used stylebook for 2009. It has at least a couple of entries that will irritate those who don't care for turning nouns into verbs.