Possessives come up a lot in this column. That’s no surprise. They’re some of the most perplexing issues in English, as we saw in our recent column on Jess’s vs. Jess’ (P.S. both are acceptable). But ...

Think you know your plurals? From everyday words like “tomato” to tricky Latin and Greek forms like “nucleus” and “appendix,” ...

It’s spring cleaning time — an opportunity to sweep out dust bunnies lurking in recesses of recent reading. Let’s start with various forms of disagreement between singular and plural elements in a ...

Have you ever corrected someone mid-conversation because what he said just didn't sound right? What I'm talking about is words that sound like plurals and possessives but shouldn't be and vice versa.

A natural follow-up to my last column about words that live in the plural seemed to be one about words that don't get the regular "s" at the end. Certain words shun the final "s" to become plural.

Q: I drive a school bus, and this morning one of my seventh graders said to me, “Monte, did you see those deers on the side of the road?” I explained to him that certain words, like “deer,” are both ...