Sentences are either well written or, well, written.
We all have a stab at writing, but nobody is perfect. After decades of syntactic swinging, it’s now time for the Anglophone world to start practising safe text.
Just Like Grammar Used To Make is a light-hearted tour of English language shortcuts to help people crank up their writing game without the need to burden themselves with exacting study.
Michael Emery read Modern Languages at the University of Bristol and is a qualified English teacher (TEFL).
And a language goon.
While he’s not going to be the life and soul of a full-on shindig at the local hostelry, he does know that ‘full on’ when preceding and modifying a noun is always hyphenated.
Wordissimo 
Your a smug twat!
It’s ‘you’re’. Pages 50–51 apply.
Hi, in the book you explain the common mistake of using the word “infer” when people should use “insinuate”. I get the point but I would have thought that “imply” is the best opposite term?
Why did you not refer to “imply”?
It’s an interesting question; however, the correct word to employ will always depend on the precise context.
I’m order to imply something, a speaker needs to have gone somewhat further than the mere hint of an insinuation. Implications generally involve a stated outcome from which a clear meaning can be inferred by somebody else.
Had the example been ‘I’ve booked you into that slimming class’, the speaker would absolutely be implying that the other person were overweight. As it stands, the example is simply probing for awareness of the new diet, so there is insufficient evidence to infer any implication. It’s therefore nothing more than a snide hint at worst or perhaps even innocuous as a conversation opener – the diet could be bizarre in nature or harmful to health, for example.