After taking up the perfect gerund in last week’s column, we’ll now take up the perfect infinitive. As with the perfect gerund, we must make clear in our mind that the qualifying word “perfect” in the ...

Not long ago while editing a series of articles, I noticed that the writer had strange ideas about where to put adverbs. Many were placed before the verbs and some before the subjects, too. “He ...

DEAR RICHARD: Now retired from 50 years of college teaching and having no more student papers to grade and critique, I address your recent U-T column. I so enjoy, appreciate, and support your language ...

Three weeks ago we discussed the perfect infinitive as the form “to have + the past participle (‘-ed’ form)” that works with a main verb to denote the following: ...

Reader Don in Los Angeles County wrote recently with a question about a well-known grammar issue called a “split infinitive.” “I learned about them 50 years ago and I am somewhat sensitive about them ...