In the kind of writing most of us do every day—the kind of writing I’ve mainly been concerned with in these columns—the only criteria that matter are clarity and precision. The kind of writing that ...

We demand precision in devices we buy, contracts we sign, rules of games we play. Yet some people resist rules of grammar. Those rules help us to be precise — to write exactly what we mean, so that no ...

Why do you have to be so corrective? I think the word you’re looking for is “pedantic.” For most of my career at the Free Press, I’ve been a copy editor or production editor. Which means worrying ...

Precisely why do we need to strive for preciseness? The answer is simple: If we fail to be precise, we may cause misunderstanding, with costly consequences. A recent New York Times article created ...