“John quickly pulled out his gun, shakily aimed it at Joe, and angrily shot him dead.” There’s one way you might write a line of fiction (or, if you’re a member of my immediate family, memoir). Here’s ...

Adverbs are great, right? They let you describe how an action went down — whether it was walking quickly or sleeping soundly or yelling loudly. But if adverbs are so great, why do editors like me ...

“Many older adults said they feel positively about their lives,” the New York Times reported recently. That sentence probably sounds as acceptable to you as it did to the Times editors. But what if ...

Adjectives should be rationed and adverbs questioned. When the Covid-19 was raging through the world, there was a poster: Is your journey really necessary? Let’s replace the word “journey” with ...