3 Books to Read with Your BFF

Reading is often a solitary experience. But good books can bring people together in surprising and meaningful ways. Here are three books we think would be great to read with a close friend, or someone with whom you might want to become close friends:

The Anne of Green Gables series by Lucy Maud Montgomery

The friendship between Diana Barry and Anne Shirley in the Anne of Green Gables series is famous for providing us with the term “bosom friend.” Anne and Diana are friends through thick and thin, stirring up mischief and helping each other through life’s struggles in equal measure.

How to Use “Former” vs. “Latter”

The terms former and latter are words used to distinguish between two things. Former directs us to the first of these two things, and latter directs us to the second (or last) of them. Do not use former or latter when you are writing about more than two things.

Former and latter are words that sound old-fashioned to some people, and indeed they are very old words.

According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, former derives from the Old English word forma, meaning “first.” By the 12th century, former was used to mean “first, earliest in time or order,” and by the 1580s, it arrived at its present meaning, “the first of two.”Latter has a similar history.

7 Reasons to Love the English Language

Isn’t English grand?

Even if English has been called “a bastard tongue” by many, I still love it. Complex, creole, and occasionally confusing, English is a language that has borrowed and stolen some of the best elements of other languages to make something all its own. Who couldn’t love the language that gave us hilarious-sounding words like “wabbit” and “nagware”?

And with 1.5 billion active speakers, it’s also one of the most widely adopted languages in history.

Commas in Dates

When writing a date, a comma is used to separate the day from the month, and the date from the year.

July 4, 1776, was an important day in American history.

I was born on Sunday, May 12, 1968.

But if you’re writing the date in day-month-year format, you don’t need a comma.

The project will commence on 1 June 2018.

Do use a comma if you’re including a day of the week with the date.

Beat Writer’s Block: 5 Tips for Writing Your Best

You’re sitting at your desk, staring at a flashing cursor and waiting for the words to flow. Every now and then, you write something, then mercilessly edit it or delete it all together.

Backspace . . . backspace . . . backspace . . .

You roll your head back and forth to work the kinks out of your neck and sigh. The words just won’t flow. You’re convinced you’ve got a serious case of writer’s block.

Will You Join Us for March MADness?

Yesterday, Selection Sunday marked the start of the frenetic sports season many like to call March Madness. Today, we’re launching a bracket like the one you may have filled out yesterday, but our March MADness tournament contains only the most infuriating, enraging work communication pet peeves. These annoying office habits keep you from understanding—or, sometimes, liking—your coworkers, and we’re trying to find the worst habit you can form at work.