Here is a different approach. Good grammar has one job: to make sure the reader gets your meaning on the first try. Every rule below earns its place by doing that job. Then, at the end, you'll meet the zombie rules you can safely stop worrying about.
The 10 that matter
1. Make the verb agree with its real subject
Long phrases sneak between the subject and the verb and fool the ear.
- ❌ The list of approved suppliers are on the shared drive.
- ✅ The list of approved suppliers is on the shared drive. (The list is.)
Quick test: strip out the "of..." phrase and read what's left. "The list is."
2. Don't glue two sentences together with a comma
A comma alone can't join two complete sentences. That's a comma splice, and it makes readers stumble.
- ❌ The train was late, I missed the meeting.
- ✅ The train was late. I missed the meeting.
- ✅ The train was late, so I missed the meeting.
- ✅ The train was late; I missed the meeting.
3. Learn the apostrophe's two jobs
An apostrophe does exactly two things: it marks missing letters (don't, it's, you're) or possession for nouns (Sam's car, the company's policy). It never makes an ordinary plural.
- ❌ Fresh tomato's. The 1990's. Two CEO's.
- ✅ Fresh tomatoes. The 1990s. Two CEOs.
- ✅ The Smiths' house (the house belonging to more than one Smith).
4. Possessive pronouns never take an apostrophe
This is the source of the most common mix-ups, and one idea fixes all of them. His, hers, its, ours, yours, theirs, whose already show possession, so they need no apostrophe. Any version with an apostrophe is a contraction.
| With apostrophe = short form | Without = belongs to |
|---|---|
| it's = it is / it has | its = belonging to it |
| you're = you are | your = belonging to you |
| they're = they are | their = belonging to them |
| who's = who is / who has | whose = belonging to whom |
Quick test: expand it. "The dog wagged it is tail" sounds wrong, so it's its.
5. Keep describing words next to what they describe
When an opening phrase doesn't describe the subject that follows it, you get a dangling modifier, often by accident and often funny.
- ❌ Walking to the station, the rain soaked my coat. (The rain was walking?)
- ✅ Walking to the station, I got soaked.
The same goes for small words like only. "I only ate the cake" and "I ate only the cake" can mean different things. Put only right before the thing it limits.
6. Make every pronoun point to one thing
- ❌ When Maria met Ana, she was nervous. (Who was?)
- ✅ Maria was nervous when she met Ana.
If a reader could pick two possible people or things, repeat the noun or rebuild the sentence.
7. Keep lists parallel
Items in a list should take the same grammatical shape.
- ❌ She likes hiking, swimming, and to ride her bike.
- ✅ She likes hiking, swimming, and riding her bike.
Parallel structure isn't just tidy. Readers use the pattern to predict what's coming, and a broken pattern makes them reread.
8. Don't switch tenses without a reason
- ❌ She walks into the room and saw the cake.
- ✅ She walked into the room and saw the cake.
Pick past or present for telling a story and stay there, unless the time itself changes ("I lived there for years, and I still miss it").
9. I or me? Take the other person out
People often reach for "I" because it sounds more formal, even where "me" is correct.
- ❌ Please send the files to Sarah and I.
- Test: "Please send the files to I"? No. "To me." So: to Sarah and me.
- ✅ Sarah and I sent the files. ("I sent the files.")
Fair warning: "between you and I" is old. Shakespeare used it in The Merchant of Venice. It's still marked as an error in formal writing, so the safe choice is "between you and me."
10. Watch the classic sound-alikes
These aren't grammar so much as spelling traps, but readers judge them hard:
| Pair | Quick fix |
|---|---|
| then / than | then = time ("and then"); than = comparing ("taller than") |
| affect / effect | usually affect is the verb, effect the noun ("the effect it had") |
| lose / loose | lose your keys; a loose screw |
| could of | it's could've = could have |
Grammar isn't etiquette. It's a set of signals that tell readers how the pieces of a sentence fit together.
The zombie rules: you can let these go
These "rules" keep walking around long after the experts declared them dead.
"Never split an infinitive." To boldly go is fine. The objection only took off in the 1800s (Henry Alford complained about it in 1864) and the term "split infinitive" isn't recorded before 1890. Recent usage guides have largely dropped it. Split if it reads better, and don't if it doesn't.
"Never end a sentence with a preposition." This one is traced to the poet John Dryden, who in 1672 objected to a line by Ben Jonson, without ever explaining why. "What are you looking at?" is perfect English. The famous mocking reply, "This is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put," is usually credited to Winston Churchill, but that attribution is apocryphal.
"Never start a sentence with And or But." Good writers always have. In the King James Bible, 29 of the 31 verses in the first chapter of Genesis begin with "And."
"Never use they for one person." Singular they ("someone left their umbrella") goes back to the 1300s, and between 2017 and 2019 major style guides, including AP, Chicago and APA, came to accept it, at least in some uses (see How Language Changes in this category).
"Less is only for things you can't count." The rule that you must say "fewer items" first appears as one writer's personal preference, in Robert Baker's 1770 Remarks on the English Language, and later hardened into law. English had used less with countable nouns for centuries before that, back to King Alfred around 888. Honest caveat: many editors and teachers still enforce fewer, so in formal writing, using it is the safe move.
"Never use the passive voice." The passive is the right choice when the actor is unknown or unimportant ("The museum was built in 1902"). It's a problem only when it hides who did something ("Mistakes were made"). See Plain Writing in this category.
The takeaway
Real grammar rules exist to stop readers stumbling: make verbs agree with their real subject, don't splice sentences with a comma, use apostrophes only for missing letters and noun possession, keep modifiers next to what they modify, make pronouns point clearly, keep lists parallel and tenses steady, test I versus me by removing the other person, and watch the sound-alikes. The famous bans on split infinitives, final prepositions, starting with And and singular they are zombie rules with no real basis. Know which is which, and you can write with confidence instead of fear.
Try this: take one email you wrote today and check it against rules 1, 2 and 4 only. Those three cause most real-world errors, and fixing them takes a minute.
Sources & Further Reading
Sources
- Split infinitive history (prescriptivist objections from the 19th century; Alford 1864; first recorded use of the term 1890; recent guides dropping the objection): Wikipedia, "Split infinitive," citing Merriam-Webster's usage notes.
- Preposition stranding (Dryden's 1672 objection to Jonson; the apocryphal Churchill quip): Wikipedia, "Preposition stranding," citing Huddleston & Pullum's Cambridge Grammar of the English Language and Language Log.
- Fewer versus less (Robert Baker, 1770; the OED's 888 citation from King Alfred): Wikipedia, "Fewer versus less."
- Singular they and the style guides: Wikipedia, "Singular they" (APA 7th edition 2019, AP Stylebook 2017, Chicago).
- Genesis 1 verse count: King James Bible, Project Gutenberg text (29 of 31 verses begin "And"). "Between you and I": The Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 2, Project Gutenberg text.
Go deeper
- 📘 The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker: a cognitive scientist's guide to clear writing, with a sane chapter on which rules matter
- 📘 Dreyer's English by Benjamin Dreyer: Random House's copy chief on the rules he actually enforces, and the ones he doesn't
- 🌐 Language Log: linguists debunking grammar myths, sometimes with great glee
- 🌐 Related pieces in this library: Punctuation That Changes Meaning and Plain Writing, this category