They knew what mercy is. They knew what mercy was. Mercy is something that always exists so can I say is as in the above example?

I know the past tense carries the past tense in every dependent clause, but referring specifically to places or to things that are eternal, like the Earth, seems a bit weird and therefore we sometimes (I believe incorrectly) say He didn't know that New Jersey is actually in the East Coast. Beca...

I'm describing a situation that happened in the past. To explain it, I want to use a description that is both true now and true when the situation happened. Specifically, I want something like: She touched me where my neck met my collarbone. Since my neck is still attached to my collarbone...

In this sentence, should is be was"? On April 13, 2009, Lugo admitted he is the father of a child conceived with Viviana Carrillo.

Following Martha's advise I am splitting up a question Compound sentences, the punctuation and mooore. Let's put what I said / wrote something in the past. And now I want to elaborate some key points of spoken / written. So I start: What I wanted to say [is/was/are/were] ... What form of ...

What do you call a person who despite being very clever in one field, e.g. math or physics, behaves very unwisely or impractical in real life? I know some people who are very well educated and can solve difficult scientific problems, but they seem to belong to some different society. They can eas...

I wrote my opinion essay using a lot of different complex grammatical structures, linking words and so on, and some of the sentences were even over 4 lines long. However, I was afterwards told by my English teacher that this is a bad habit, and any sentence one has to read twice to grasp is simp...

Most of what I write is non-fiction -- technical books, blog posts on open source topics, political stuff, etc. Lately, I find that some of the topics I am trying to present are much more technical than the intended audience is used to. I already plan to: Explain terms the first time they are...

There are a lot of axioms that get tossed around in creative writing courses, books on writing, and of course, the internet. Often, these little gems are explained to new writers as though they were fact, to be taken for granted. Just as often, experienced writers will respond by saying "there ...

My problem is that I basically suck at writing. Especially prose. Part of it is basically because I don't practice as much as I could. Part of it is because I'm just not talented in that way. However (seemingly) brilliant ideas for stories keep invading my head bugging me to write them and de...

I find it hard to name my characters. Every normal name sounds funny if applied to a product of my fantasy. If I take a common name, I may get the image of someone I know into my head. And that may influence my vision of the character in a way I didn't intended. If I choose an uncommon name or in...

I tend to write bits of stories out of order. If I have a great idea for a scene, I want to get it down it while I have it, even if it doesn't come until three chapters later than the part I'm on right now. I also have smaller bits lying around -- a line of snappy dialog I haven't figured out w...

I try to watch out for bland, overused adjectives and I keep adverbs to a minimum but -- I hear this phrase a lot and I'm not even sure what it means?

From my own reading of older books (eg. 18th, 19th century) in various styles (novels, philosophical treatises, scientific publications), it seems that sentences were longer back then. Is there good hard data on this? Have sentences in fiction shrunk faster than sentences in, say philosophy jour...

I believe the answer is definitely yes. A quick google search turned up this book result, "The History of the English paragraph," by Edwin Herbert Lewis, where it says: In view of the now well known fact(1) that the English sentence has decreased in average length at least one half in three ...

Because, you see, the fruit actually comes from the Kiwi bird from New Zealand:

What do you call a person who despite being very clever in one field, e.g. math or physics, behaves very unwisely or impractical in real life? I know some people who are very well educated and can solve difficult scientific problems, but they seem to belong to some different society. They can eas...

I've seen people indent their poems like below: Writing on wall It was just plane writing on wall I must have taken it a serious call She was on and off repeating same thing There was hidden message through something There may be long wait All dependants on fate How can on...

The Stack Exchange Data Explorer page claims that the “English Language & Usage” data was last updated on March 21, but the data is much older than that. One example of query where this is highlighted: http://data.stackexchange.com/english/qe/208/keystrokes-per-rep-point returns reputation f...

All Things Is/Are Ephemeral I know that are is meant to be the verb connecting the two fragments together, but why...? (Gut instinct)

The stack exchange question "Is there any concrete-solid proofs of this space odyssey?" made me want to edit it to remove the s in proofs (someone with enough flair did), however it made me wonder about the plurality of any and proofs. So please enlighten me about which one is correct. Is t...

Etymonline tends to back up MrHen's guess: variant of burst, 1764, Amer.Eng. The verb sense of [...] "arrest" is from 1953 (earlier "to raid" from Prohibition). Unfortunately this doesn't give us a lot of insight into how that meaning involved, but "bu[r]sting in" to places where criminal a...