This is the Grammar Guy column, a weekly feature written by Curtis Honeycutt. I can think of a few things off the top of my head that I hope never to use: math, a fire extinguisher, Pepto Bismol and ...

The punctuation mark that annoys people the most is, without a doubt, the apostrophe. Whole books have been written lamenting atrocities like “five carrot’s and three kiwi’s” (for the record, that ...

I’ve gotten a lot of emails recently about where to put periods and commas relative to quotation marks. The notes were prompted by a recent column in which I mentioned that, in American English, a ...

I love finding examples of random quotation marks in sentences. I've written about this amusing practice before, but I was determined to find fresh examples after a reader asked about them recently.

Much has been said about misused quotation marks. Photos of signs boasting about "fresh" seafood and "free" refills abound on the Internet, offering a good laugh at the expense of business owners who ...

We all know someone who uses air quotes in conversation, and we often mock this person. Comedian Chris Farley did a classic skit on “Saturday Night Live” about a goofy guy who uses air quotes for ...

What is the proper style for inserting a person’s nickname into his or her written full name? Most stylebooks specify placing the nickname after the forename and enclosing it in quotation marks. Some ...

If you ever see a typography lover, smeared with blood, bellowing while holding a steaming human heart above his head, the point of contention was very probably the use of smart quotes versus dumb ...

I can think of a few things off the top of my head that I hope never to use: math, a fire extinguisher, Pepto Bismol, and the flotation device on the bottom of my seat cushion on an airplane. In ...

When you think of double quotation marks, you probably remember your English lessons in school. However, in Microsoft Excel, they serve a different purpose altogether. In fact, they can help you ...