Restaurants, Hyphens, and Word Location

Few business writers know a simple technique to decide whether to add a hyphen to a two-word descriptive phrase. The following sentences feature an incorrect hyphen in red and a correct hyphen in green: You’d be hard-pressed to find any other restaurant cooks afforded such luxury. Cooks rarely eat restaurant-quality food at work

Colons, Capital Letters, and the Perfect Gelato

One benefit of learning grammar rules is knowing when you can make your own style decisions and still sound credible and professional. An example is whether you capitalize the word after a colon, as in this sentence about “The Perfect Gelato.” Mr

20s, 20′s, or ’20s?

Numbers and apostrophes confuse many business writers. Here’s a sentence that correctly omits an apostrophe: The study, led by Northwestern University researchers, followed a large group of men in their 20s. It’s incorrect to add an apostrophe + -s to make a number plural (e

Saving Time and Taking Your Time with Spell-Checkers

Complete trust in your spell-checker can land you in trouble. Here’s a New York Times article with two words that should be a single word: A comprehensive survey released last month … revealed that while the publishing industry had expanded over all, publishers’ mass-market paperback sales had fallen 14 percent since 2008. An overall success is far more modest than triumphing overall competitors

Plums, Anonymity, and the Passive Voice

It’s usually best to use the active voice in business writing, but the passive voice can be appropriate when it doesn’t matter who performs an action. Here are two sentences from an article about how everyone can ripen and store plums: Plums can be ripened easily if left in an open paper bag at room temperature. When ripe, plums can be eaten immediately or stored in the refrigerator