The Turner Ink blog contains rants, bloopers, observations and opinions. It also has handy tips on grammar and punctuation such as colons: semicolons; and full stops. As well as some very useful ‘how tos’. Feel free to leave comments. Be nice though.

Turner Ink

Copywriting Services London

Archive for the 'Grammar tips' category

Please stand back from the edge of the platform while we confuse our words

8th
Apr
by Sarah Turner

This exit is tempoarily…tempararily….tempary…tempoary. Ummmm…this exit is shut for a bit.

London Underground: This exit is temporary closed


Tags: adjectives, adverbs
Posted in Bloopers, Grammar tips | comments icon No comments yet »

Licensed to kill but apparently not licensed to spell

7th
Apr
by Sarah Turner

It’s not like James Bond to get it wrong. But take a look at Daniel Craig’s laptop in the closing sequence of Casino Royale and you may notice an email with the subject matter ‘Stationary Order’.

Now, either M has given instructions for Bond to be still; in which case it is the correct use of the word stationary. Or more likely someone has a made a boo boo with the spelling of stationery.

Which begs the question: what stationery would 007 order?

‘I’ll have a pad of pink post-it notes, a box of paperclips, and a packet of blu tack. That always comes in handy’.

Any suggestions?


Tags: stationery
Posted in Bloopers, Grammar tips | comments icon No comments yet »

Look out. It’s a flying noun

27th
Feb
by Sarah Turner

What’s the difference between a concrete noun and an abstract noun? What’s that I hear you cry? Who cares? Stay with me. I’m attempting to perform a public service.
 
A concrete noun is a noun that can be seen, smelt, tasted, touched, heard. So,

I wore a nice watch to the party. Watch is a concrete noun.

Trickier to recognise, an abstract noun is an idea or feeling such as love, happiness, confidence, grief, boredom, frustration. So,

The crowd was amazed at his bravery in front of goal. Bravery is an abstract noun.

 
 Now, aren’t you glad you know that?


Tags: nouns
Posted in Grammar tips | comments icon No comments yet »

Starting a sentence with And or But. Can we? Yes we can!

26th
Feb
by Sarah Turner

Do you remember being told at school that you can’t start a sentence with a conjunction i.e. a joining word like And, But, Yet? Well here’s a shocker: you can.

If you want to be really formal you might want to use In addition or Nevertheless.

But for the rest of us mere mortals starting a sentence with And or But is perfectly acceptable. In fact copywriters do it all the time as it makes copy informal, snappy and really gets a point across.

Just try not to use a conjunction at the end of a sentence. Yeah..but..no..but..and yeah…but


Tags: conjunctions
Posted in Grammar tips | comments icon 1 Comment »

Get with the program

27th
Jan
by Sarah Turner

Website or Web site? Tricky one this as technically they are both right. However, the Oxford English Dictionary is going for website, all one word, and so am I. But the Web on its own is capitalised. As is World Wide Web and the Internet.

Online should be one word not on-line. And email and enewsletter are now grown up enough to go without their hyphens. Can someone let The Times know as they still insist on using e-mail. So last century.


Tags: website or web site
Posted in Grammar tips | comments icon No comments yet »

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