Insights archive
Red Pony is a team of writers, editors, Microsoft Office template developers and communications trainers. We have been writing about our areas of expertise for over a decade in our Red Pony Express newsletter.
This collection features the best articles from the last 10 years.
What have the French ever done for us?
What we can say with a fair measure of certainty is that French brought with it a dose of class consciousness that’s never really left the English language. This is unsurprising when you consider that the invaders simply made French the official language of Church, Law and State. Any social advancement would therefore have to be done in French.
Using the comma
There’s an almost limitless range of conditional prescriptions to dictate comma usage, but I’ve boiled them down to a few of the most useful.
Capital letters
Determining when to use a capital letter would seem to be one of the more straightforward grammatical choices. And so it is when you are dealing with proper names or words at the beginning of sentences. It’s pretty obvious to most of us that names of countries, cities, days of the week and specific individuals take a capital letter. But did you know that a reference to the current Australian prime minister should be capitalised, but that references to previous incumbents should not?
Minding your hises and herses
Many organisations and government departments have strict policies governing gender-neutral language. If you have them to hand, shut up and follow them. If you are left to your own devices, here are a few strategies you might employ to keep on the right side of the authorities …
Using the dash
Use dashes sparingly; instead, consider an alternative construction for the sentence, perhaps involving a semicolon. Still, there is a place for dashes, and you can employ them successfully by remembering a few simple guidelines.
Using the semicolon
You don’t see a lot of the semicolon these days, which is a pity; but it’s remarkable how much greater clarity can be brought to a complex sentence with the judicious application of a semicolon.
Wielding the apostrophe
No single element of English usage produces such passionate outbursts as the correct use of the apostrophe. The commonest targets of grammarian wrath in this respect are greengrocers and signwriters—probably because their work is always on public display.
Ending a sentence on a preposition
It's called a PREposition after all. And if it's 'pre' (or 'before') then it should have something after it, shouldn't it? Well, shouldn't it?