On being a word nerd. A word nerd, I be.

I’ve just finished reading ‘The story of be: A verb’s-eye view of the English language’ by David Crystal (2017, Oxford University Press) Until I discovered this book, I hadn’t given a great deal of thought to the humble word ‘be’ In writing training, I advise writers to avoid over-using ‘be’ My concern is that ‘be’ in its various forms weakens their writing Instead, I suggest they look for ways to introduce action into their work For example, I might...

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