The Associated Press Stylebook helps create standards for publication writing. It tells writers and editors how to spell words and how to render numbers, among other things. It also offers rules on grammar and usage. It is the stylebook we rely on at The N&O, supplemented by an internal stylebook. The AP stylebook can be a valuable tool; it can also be a path to confusion.

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.

I have a new quiz for you to try. It comprises 10 sentences, about half of them have to do with word choice, a couple are about grammar and at least one is about idioms. To satisfy the purists, I should not call this a grammar quiz because it is mostly about usage and style, but "grammar" is the shorthand term I use.

As always, I look for your comments, questions, criticisms and quibbles. Please leave a comment below. Click here or on the question mark icon to begin.

Try this Grammar Guide quiz (it's Quiz No. 47) on word usage. Click on the question mark to begin. I've set up this quiz so I can receive the results as readers complete it. Rest assured that I merely get a report with no identifying information. I want to see how many people take it, though.

A reader left a message for an editor last week, saying that we had made a grammar error in the first sentence of the lead story of the Weekend section. Here is the sentence:

Last weekend, I, with the help of several friends, went on an eating tour of Durham.

People who have worked hard at perfecting their writing and language use sometimes cringe when they read or hear what they consider lax usage. What stands out like a weed in the flower patch to them doesn't even register with other people. For example, some readers are keenly attuned to the difference between "different from" and "different than."

Copy editors learn early in their training to distinguish commonly confused words. Stylebooks and writing manuals have entries and lists of such words.

The New York Times has an interesting article about efforts in Shanghai to make public signs and menus more intelligible to English speakers.

I have mentioned that I have a bad habit of buying and collecting books on grammar and usage. For me, a new or updated usage book is like the newest iGadget to many tech fans: I must have it.

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