Writing the “Great American Novel?” Here Are the Top Three Mistakes You’ll Make

According to an oft-quoted 2002 article from The New York Times, 81 percent of Americans believe they have a book in them – and that they should write it.

In November, 41,940 participants in National Novel Writing Month did just that when they successfully wrote 50,000 words in 30 days. At the same time, because not all novelists-to-be have the time to write a solo-book, the Grammarly team organized a group of authors to collaborate on one novel. Clocking in at a total of 130,927 unedited words, around 300 writers from 27 countries (and 44 U.S. states) participated in the group writing project.

And now, we’re editing.

As part of the editing process, Grammarly ran the text of the group novel through our automated grammar checker to analyze spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes. Here are the top three mistakes that our GrammoWriMo writers made, and that you’re probably making in your own writing.

Missing comma

While unnecessary commas can turn straightforward sentences into twisting labyrinths of syntactical confusion, missing a critical comma can change the entire meaning of your sentence. Missing commas often mean the difference between politely requesting that your friends continue to have a good time (“party on, friends”) and actually throwing a soiree on your friends (“party on friends”).

Run-on sentences

Many writers neglect to use a comma before a coordinating conjunction (“and,” “but,” “or,” etc.) – making their sentences long and confusing. However, run-on sentences are often a stylistic choice for novelists. Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner both won The Nobel Prize in Literature, yet they are both known for their long, run-on sentences – as is James Joyce. Contemporary writers like Cormac McCarthy and Tim O’Brien also have literary love affairs with the run-on sentence. Would their writing be so beautiful if they didn’t?

Comma splice

If you try to use a comma to do the work of a semicolon, you’ve created a comma splice. Comma splices may sound vaguely dangerous, but all they are is the misuse of a comma to hold two independent clauses together. Independent clauses are complete thoughts consisting of a subject (at its simplest, a noun) and a predicate (at minimum, a verb). If you want to string two independent clauses together you need either a semicolon or a comma plus a coordinating conjunction.

Now that the holiday season is winding down, you’ll probably have more time to edit that “Great American Novel” you’ve been working on. Pay attention special attention to the comma and run-on sentences!

Are you writing a novel? Tell us about it in the comments below.

Monday Motivation Hack: Treat Yourself

Mondays are hard.

But they don’t have to be.

In our Monday Motivation series, we’re set on helping you make the start of your week—and maybe the entire week—something you look forward to. This week we’re diving into something that might seem pretty obvious, but is often overlooked:

Give yourself something to look forward to, something that will make you feel successful.

Rather than wallow in the misery of Monday, why not make Monday a special day? Not only does this strategy make good common sense, but it’s also scientifically shown to help you be more caring, more productive, and happier. Here’s how.

How Taking Care of Yourself Makes You a Better Person

No. Taking time for yourself is not selfish.

If your personal needs are not met often or consistently enough, bad things start happening—you feel tired, stressed, annoyed, abused, or something else—eek! In this state, you just can’t perform at the top of your game. Your reserve of awesomeness gets drained and willpower suffers.

If you’re feeling low, how are you going to find the patience, joy, and passion to invest in other people, problems, and projects?

With difficulty.

Self-care means you fill your own cup. Your needs are met and you become less dependent on external satisfaction and more able to invest in others.

Cheryl Richardson, author of The Art of Extreme Self Care, explains it this way:

“. . .when we care for ourselves deeply and deliberately, we naturally begin to care for others—our families, our friends, and the world—in a healthier and more effective way.”

Sounds good, right?

How Taking Care of Yourself Makes You More Productive

It can be easy to think of self-care as an incentive for good behavior—if I get up early, I can have a fancy latte. Unfortunately, if you want to really make progress on your goals, incentives don’t work. They work well for short-term changes, but for consistent behavioral improvement, they don’t cut it.

In order for self-care to help boost your productivity, it has to be part of the goal itself. You want to tap into the progress principle—this idea that you have made meaningful progress toward a goal. For example, if you aim to be alert and active in your afternoon meetings, and you understand that you feel better and more energized after a walk, the walk shouldn’t serve as a reward but rather part of your strategy for success. (Incidentally, this helps to take away some of the feelings of guilt associated with self-care.)

Here’s a tip: Don’t think about self-care as an incentive. Thinking of it as progress on changing attitudes and behaviors that will bring you closer to your goals.

So how does this shift in thinking work? Here are some examples:

• “I’ll get the latte because I woke up early” becomes “I’ll get a latte because it makes me happy and starts my day off positively.”
• “I got that project done so I can go out with friends after work” becomes “Going out with friends is important for me to clear my mind and complete my work with fresh eyes.”
• “I didn’t eat sweets all week so I can have this cake now” becomes “Having some cake once in a while makes me happy and reminds me how much better I have become at balancing food choices.”

In each case, you shift the focus from treating yourself because of your good behavior toward how the behavior marks progress toward your objectives. This shift not only frames self-care itself as a kind of productivity, but it also actually helps restore motivation and determination, which have direct effects on your success. Just be careful that this doesn’t become a form of veiled procrastination.

How Taking Care of Yourself Makes You Happier

In the Harvard Business Review, Teresa Amabile and Steven J. Kramer discuss how happiness at work (and generally) is at the heart of productivity and success.

. . .[I]n the realm of knowledge work, people are more creative and productive when their inner work lives are positive—when they feel happy, are intrinsically motivated by the work itself, and have positive perceptions of their colleagues and the organization.

In her research, Amabile has found that happy moods are most highly correlated with “steps forward.” In fact, on 73 percent of good days, people reported making progress.

But why is progress so important to happiness?

Amabile’s “small wins” are basically a kind of positive feedback on a given goal. Regular useful feedback toward a goal can inspire states of flow, which, through the research of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, have been linked to greater levels of happiness.

Although self-care itself may not induce flow—unless it’s a particular kind of activity that gives continuous feedback, like writing or sport—it does improve your outlook and emotional bandwidth, which can contribute to these states in other areas of life, such as work.

Building self-care into your definition of progress immediately gives you the kind of positive feedback that improves your level of happiness.

Simple Tips for Self-Care and How to Treat Yourself

The key to getting the “treat yourself” mentality to work for you is to understand a few key guidelines.

Self-care is highly personal. Taking a generic out-of-the-box activity and trying to adopt it as your own doesn’t often work well. If you pick something that doesn’t work well for your needs and preferences, treating yourself starts to feel like a chore.

1. Self-care is the fun stuff.There is a lot of playfulness surrounding taking care of yourself (#treatyoself). This is largely because self-care should be fun. Effective activities are going to be those things that are a delight to you and recharge you. If it’s not fun, look for something else.
2. Don’t over analyze it.This is particularly true for you control-lovers out there. Don’t over-organize it or over-plan, otherwise you’ll kill it. For example, self-care doesn’t work as well if you commit to practicing it once every two hours for sixty to ninety seconds and once every four hours for ten minutes and again once a week for three hours. . . the schedule itself becomes burdensome.

Here’s a tip: Listen to your needs, take a timeout when you need it, and do something genuinely enjoyable.

If you are not sure what kinds of activities you might want to try, Greatist put together a helpful list that accommodates various time investments.

It’s time to make Monday a day of progress and happiness, and it starts with you.

What are you going to do to “treat yourself” today?

Canceled or Cancelled?

This word is a student’s best friend and a concert-goer’s most dreaded nightmare. Take these two signs:

Snow day: school canceled.

Drummer has food poisoning: performance cancelled.

So, which spelling is correct? The answer depends on where you call home.

Canceled or cancelled is the past tense of the verb to cancel. Both spellings are correct; Americans favor canceled (one L), while cancelled (two Ls) is preferred in British English and other dialects. However, there is only one correct spelling of the word cancellation, no matter where you are. For a more in-depth explanation of spelling and the exceptions, keep reading.

Here’s a tip: American English is all about one L, and British English goes for two.

Why Cancelled and Canceled are Different

Let’s get into the nitty-gritty. Way back when, a man named Noah Webster (of Webster’s Dictionary fame) decided that some words could get along just fine without as many letters as our friends the Brits put in them. That’s why many American spellings look different from their British counterparts: think color/colour, honor/honour, rumor/rumour.

For similar word-shortening reasons, Mr. Webster decided to chop the past tense of “cancel” down to one L. This variation first showed up in the Webster’s 1898 Dictionary, though it didn’t fully beat out the double-L spelling until about the 1980s. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule, but it’s the accepted form in American English to this day.

Cancelled vs. Canceled: American Examples

The route with the highest percentage of canceled flights last year was New York LaGuardia to Washington’s Dulles International.

The Wall Street Journal

Is your favorite TV show canceled? A guide to what’s renewed and what’s in trouble.

The Washington Post

And some extra American examples:

Mom and Pop couldn’t muster enough apples to bake a nice warm apple pie, so they went ahead and canceled the county barbecue.

The dudes running the show in Hollywood would never think of canceling the next blockbuster superhero film.

Since the automatic canceler stopped all electronic signals as soon as the tornado started up, it looks like we’ll have to go surfing instead.

However, for any British chap, cancelled has two Ls and always will.

Cancelled vs. Canceled: British Examples

The Beatles never cancelled a gig, even when they didn’t get a nice cup of tea beforehand.

The blokes at the theatre will be cancelling the programme today due to the Queen’s visit.

Since the neighbour’s pyjama party was cancelled, let’s queue for some fish and chips at the pub, mate.

At the end of one of its most difficult weeks of the year, British Airways cancelled 50 flights to and from London on Saturday, the vast majority at Heathrow Terminal 5.

The Independent

Downton Abbey will not be cancelled after fifth season, producer confirms.

The Independent

Brilliant, eh?

Spelling Exception: “Cancellation”

Now that we’ve traveled (and not travelled, thanks to the same rule) through the spelling rules of British vs. American English, let’s look at the exception. Yes, there’s always an exception.

Here’s a tip: The word cancellation is solidly spelled with two Ls, no matter where you are.

So:

Because sugar makes students too hyper, the principal has called for the cancellation of cotton candy sales before classes.

As sugar makes students a wee bit barmy, the headmaster has demanded the cancellation of candy floss purchases prior to modules.

Flight cancellations have piled up deeper than snow drifts this winter.

The Wall Street Journal

Think of it like this. When you turn the verb “cancel” into past tense, the word stays the same number of syllables (two), so it’s a matter of location whether you use two L’s or one. The -ation that turns the word into a noun, on the other hand, puts a whole new syllable (in fact, two) after the L. The double-L is a like a bridge to those new syllables. At least, that’s one way to keep your Ls in line.

Now you can consider your confusion about those words canceled. Cheers!

Ax vs. Axe–What’s the Difference?

Ax and axe are different spellings of the same word. There is no difference in meaning or pronunciation. However, you might be surprised by all the possible meanings these two spellings share. The Merriam-Webster lists three primary definitions besides the cutting tool. Axe also refers to a hammer with a sharp edge for dressing or spalling stone. Musical instruments, such as guitars and saxophones, are also axes. As a verb, axe means the abrupt removal of something. You’ll recognize that meaning in the phrase, “get the axe” which sometimes refers to a dismissal, such as someone being fired from their job.

Here’s a tip: Outside of the United States, you are most likely to encounter the longer spelling—axe. But you will see axe in American English fairly frequently.

Many dictionaries say that “ax” is the most common spelling in the U.S. You will find the shortened form in compound names such as pickax and poleax. However, according to Garner’s Modern English Usage, axe is actually about twice as common as ax.

Expressions with Axe or Ax

Do you know any other phrases that contain axe? How about “an axe to grind?” People often use the expression when they have a complaint: I have an axe to grind with you! In his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin relates a story about a man who asked a smith to sharpen his axe. He eventually ends up turning the grindstone himself, thus sharpening his own tool. Whether the story connects directly to the idiom is uncertain, but later, another author published a similar story with the expression “an axe to grind.” In this story, axe refers to a selfish ulterior motive.

When I see a merchant, overpolite to his customers–begging them to taste a little brandy, and throwing half his goods on the counter–thinks I–That man has an axe to grind.

Who’ll Turn Grindstones? published anonymously

Another common expression is “to get the axe.” Though axes are useful tools, getting the axe means to be fired or expelled! If a project or service gets the axe, that means that it’s discontinued. The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms relates the origins this term to the axe of an executioner.

I could see my mother going in Spaulding’s and asking the salesman a million dopey questions—and here I was getting the ax again. It made me feel pretty sad.

J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye

Here’s a tip:

• “To have an axe to grind” is often used when someone has a complaint.
• “To get the axe” means to be fired or expelled.
• Battle axe is often used metaphorically, but it can be offensive—so, take care!

Historically, battle axes were weapons for hand-to-hand combat. Warriors also launched them at their enemies from a distance. However, the term is also used figuratively. Do you remember the cruel character Miss Agatha Trunchbull from the book (or film) Matilda? This ferocious school administrator punished one girl by swinging her around in a circle by her pigtails. Was she a battle-axe? This term is sometimes applied to women who are seen as angry or controlling, but many consider it to be offensive.

He emerges as a genuinely likeable guy—the opposite of his battle-ax of a mother—who always cast a wry eye on the world’s follies.

David Anfam, Concrete Expressionism; David Anfam on De Kooning: An American Master

Do you write ax or axe? Cast your vote for the correct spelling in our poll.

Wont vs. Won’t—What’s the Difference?

• Won’t is the correct way to contract will not.
• Wont is a type of behavior that is specific to a person. It’s also the wrong way to spell won’t.

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Sometimes, when you forget to use an apostrophe, you get a word that’s just a misspelling of the original. But with won’t and wont, you get a word with its own completely unrelated meaning.

What Does Won’t Mean?

When we say won’t, we are actually saying will not. The form with the apostrophe is a contraction, like “don’t” and “can’t.” We owe the “o” in won’t to a sixteenth-century form of the word: wonnot.

You won’t find a better farmers market in the city.

It looked like it was going to rain for a second, but now it looks like it won’t.

What Does Wont Mean?

Wont is usually used as a noun meaning “a type of behavior specific to a person,” or “a habit.” It can also be used as an adjective synonymous with “accustomed.”

He went for a morning jog, as was his wont.

He was wont to jog every morning.

Examples

There may be more Andromeda games on the way, too—though there won’t necessarily be a trilogy.

Gamespot

Although a new agreement between the RCMP and China aims to stop the flow of fentanyl into Canada, an expert says it won’t be easy.

CBC

The dialogue-free Past Forward, which runs almost 13 minutes, gives Russell a chance to do what is his wont: swing the camera wildly, work with as many actors as possible, and direct dance sequences.

A. V. Club

As is his wont these days, the 38-year-old kept producing witty one-liners the same way in which fours and sixes flew off his bat.

The Times of India

Is It Honor or Honour?

The notion of honor varies greatly from one culture to another. Ideas about what it means to have it, how to obtain it, and how to preserve are studied by sociologists and anthropologists. But here we’ll be studying how to spell it. Here’s the deal: you can write honor in your college paper, or honour in your university test, and in both cases you’d be correct. But some might frown if you do it the other way around, because there is a slight difference between the two spellings that has nothing to do with the meaning of the word itself: Honor is the preferred spelling in American English and is pronounced ˈä-nər; Honour is the preferred spelling in British English and is pronounced /ˈɒnə/.

The -our / -or Dilemma

There is a group of words in the English language that have the same dual spelling option as honor. They all have in common the same ending: -or in American English and -our in British English. Not every word with an -or ending in American English is spelled -our in British English—words like governor and meteor are spelled the same in both variants of English. It goes the other way around as well—tour and troubadour are spelled with -our on both sides of the Atlantic ocean.

But words like color, favor, and honor—spelled as such in American English—are colour, favour, and honour in British English. The person who receives the most credit for this dropping of u is Noah Webster, the American lexicographer, whose dictionaries were very influential on American English. He wasn’t the first person to favor the shorter spelling—Benjamin Franklin advocated spelling reform years before the lexicographer became interested. But when he did, he made history. Years before that, Webster’s British counterpart, the equally influential lexicographer Samuel Johnson, came out in support of the longer spelling. And that’s how it has stayed to this day . . . sort of.

Exceptions:When Even British English Speakers Prefer -or

There are certain cases when British writers drop that u. Words like honorary and honorous are spelled the same way in American English and British English. That’s not the end of it, though—honorific, honorial, and honoration are also always spelled the same.

Examples of Honor and Honour

I am eternally grateful for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on. —Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake

They gathered together at the site of the Battle of the Somme, 100 years after the bloodiest day in British military history, to honor the dead. —NPR

Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. —Winston Churchill, Never Give In!: The Best of Winston Churchill’s Speeches

The ‘Grand Vermeil’ is regarded as Paris’s most prestigious honour and has been awarded to Nobel Prize in literature winner Toni Morrison, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and jazz pianist Herbie Hancock. —BBC

Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Smile Award. —J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

David Spearing, Wimbledon’s senior honorary steward, believes he has Sir Terry Wogan to thank for turning him into a cult figure. —The Telegraph

Why Is Groundhog Day a Holiday? An Investigation

According to tradition and lore, Groundhog Day is when you find out whether spring is on its way or whether you’ve got six more weeks before winter runs its course. Observed on February 2, the holiday involves watching a rodent pop its head out of the ground and predicting the weather based on that.

Here’s how it works: if you’ve got cloudy skies when the groundhog shows up, then you can expect an early spring. If it’s sunny, then the groundhog sees its shadow and heads back into its burrow to keep up the hibernation, and winter sticks around for another six weeks.

At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. According to the National Centers for Climatic Information, the groundhogs get it right about 40% of the time. Still, this is a holiday about traditions, not accuracy. So to learn the full origin of Groundhog Day—linguistically and historically—read on.

Origin of the word

“Groundhog” is a compound word, and the two words that make it up give a pretty clear explanation of what it is. “Ground” means the solid surface of the Earth. Makes sense: that’s where groundhogs hang out. A “hog” is a hoofed animal, and the word is most often associated with pigs. The hefty oinkers we now think of as hogs may not be exactly twins of the rodent we call the “groundhog,” but the latter’s turned-up snout, tendency to burrow, and usually pudgy shape might have led to the use of “hog” to describe it.

If you’re not convinced by the “hog” connection, you’re not alone. Before the word “groundhog” became widely accepted, other names for the animal were also used. The most common were “whistlepig,” because of the sound they make when frightened, and “land beaver,” because of their resemblance to those flat-tailed dam builders who live in the water.

There’s also “woodchuck,” which is still used by the Brits. Even though a woodchuck can, in theory, “chuck wood,” the word actually comes from otchok or wejak, words for the animal in Algonquian (a group of North American Indian languages).

But back to groundhogs. The first known appearance of the word “groundhog” was in 1784. Less than a decade after American Independence, settlers in the United States were getting to know the lay of the land around them—including the wildlife. Over the next decades, they developed traditions and celebrations involving those critters.

Origin of the holiday

Differing accounts trace Groundhog Day to the 1840s, 1870s, or (more officially) 1887. Before any of those dates, the Christian holiday Candlemas was celebrated on February 2. Over time, and specifically in German immigrant settlements in Pennsylvania, this day came to be associated with the groundhog, too.

Burrowing through the dirt to find the earliest records of the celebration, here’s what we find:

In 1841, a storekeeper’s diary in Morgantown, Pennsylvania included the following:

Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was Candlemas day, the day on which, according to the Germans, the Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back for another six weeks nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate.

Thirty years later, Maximillian Schele de Vere wrote a book called Americanisms: The English of the New World. In it, he explained:

Candlemas is known as Ground-hog Day, for on that day the ground-hog comes annually out of his hole, after a long winter nap, to look for his shadow.

Even before our friends the groundhogs got involved, Candlemas was associated with predicting when spring would come. An old English song contained the lyrics:

If Candlemas be fair and bright,

Come, Winter, have another flight.

Isn’t history-hunting fun? Now we’re getting somewhere.

Things got official in 1887, when the town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania started referring to a local groundhog as their official meteorologist. The tradition has only grown from there. Officially, the historical hog is named “Punxsutawney Phil,” though groundhogs of other names have also made predictions over the years.

How to celebrate today

Punxsutawney is the official home of the groundhog who has made February 2 famous, and Gobbler’s Knob is the hill where the annual shadow-observing ceremony takes place. Punxsutawney Phil is famous in his own right, but he skyrocketed to greater fame with the 1993 movie Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray.

After the movie’s success, Gobbler’s Knob has seen an annual influx of tourists numbering up to 30,000. Not bad for an old tradition—thanks a bunch, Hollywood.

In addition to inspiring a film and spawning a hot tourist trap, Groundhog Day has kept up with the times in other ways. If you’re curious about what Punxsutawney Phil will say about the springtime this year but can’t make it to the Gobbler’s Knob festivities, you can text “Groundhog” to 247365 to find out whether you can pack away the layers.

Whether you make the trek to Gobbler’s Knob, send Phil a friendly text, or just stick your hand out the window to feel the temperature until it finally feels like spring, now you know the history of the groundhog and his weather wisdom.