Saturday, May 24, 2008

How Did You Get Here?

For my 250th post, I thought I'd share some of my favorite search phrases that led people to this blog.

Some of the terms left me bemused. What, for instance, do you suppose the person who typed in “rant 'people starting sentences with this,'” was seeking? The esoteric quest of the one asking “why do we need to be good” caused a bit of concern for me, but I hope that he or she found some inspiration here, if only for better grammar.

In much the same way, “how to hyphen director” leaves me puzzled. Was this searcher looking for hyphenation advice or instruction on directing hyphens? Alas, I shall never know. Another visitor “need[ed] to grammar”, and I hope that I helped at least a little.

After all of my preaching about the passive voice, the conspiracy theorists may finally have found me, at least one of them. He or she searched for an explanation of “the passive voice as a political tool”. Beware! Politicians could manipulate you with their passive language.

I suspect, however, that the person seeking the “thesaurus of insulting words” was disappointed. Could the same person have visited in search of “sophisticated insult vocabulary” words? Perhaps they were mortal enemies looking for just the right words for bantering during their duel.

Browsing through the list brought home to me that many, many people would like advice about using commas. Tomorrow, I'll pull together some of my previous posts about them and try to cover areas that I missed or over which I passed too lightly. Just remember, the Oxford comma is your friend. Have a lovely May day and thanks for reading.


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