Modal verbs are like candles on a birthday cake. While the cake is the star of the show, it doesn’t shine quite as bright without the candles. In the same way, modal verbs enhance the meaning of main verbs when they are used together. Modals express ideas of permission, ability, prediction, possibility, or necessity — and we use them every day. The principal modal verbs are: can, could, may, might, must, ought, shall, should, will, and would.

Modals change the tone of the main verb. For example, “should” offers a suggestion, as in, “You should try the chocolate cake.” “Must,” on the other hand, expresses a demand, as in, “You must try the chocolate cake.” Here are a few additional examples:

• You may go to the concert. (permission)
• She can sing. (ability)
• The show will sell out fast. (prediction)
• It might rain today. (possibility)
• Cyclists must wear a helmet. (necessity)

Modal verbs also form questions and make requests. Consider the example: “May I borrow your phone?” In this sentence, “may” modifies the main verb, “ask,” to express permission. Similarly, in “Could you help me?” the modal “could” politely requests assistance. The modal “can” — as in, “Can I come with you?” — also forms questions, but it’s less formal than “may” and “could.”

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Using modal verbs adds nuance, either softening or strengthening your statements. Misusing them may lead to “hedging,” which creates a degree of uncertainty. For instance, saying, “This could be the right solution,” makes your claim less definitive. If you want to convey certainty, consider a different modal, such as “will,” or drop it entirely. Ultimately, the choice of modals depends on the tone you intend to communicate.

Even as a professional writer, I’m prone to making grammatical blunders from time to time. Thankfully, I have a talented team of editors working alongside me, each of whom is well equipped to catch those issues when they arise. Many syntax errors come across their desks, but some grind their gears more than others.

We asked our team of editors one simple question: What’s your top grammar pet peeve? The answers came in fast and furious, much like how their red pens quickly mark up a rough first draft. Here are some of the editorial staff’s responses.

Roses come in many colors, including red, yellow, and pink. If you’re trying to make this point, it’d be appropriate to say, “Not all roses are red.” But many people are prone to saying something to the effect of, “All roses are not red,” which is a major no-no for Meghan Neal, deputy managing editor. Mistakes along these lines make Meghan’s “brain hurt,” in her own words, because mixing up this word order “technically means that no roses are red!”

Hyphens are a fantastic tool when used correctly. But whenever a hyphen is included when it shouldn’t be, or omitted when needed, it’s a major nuisance. Just ask Brooke Robinson, associate editor of Interesting Facts. She finds it particularly annoying when hyphens are left out of compound modifiers — two words combined to modify a noun (e.g., “well-known” and “brown-eyed”). But Robinson herself says that proper hyphen use isn’t always easy to understand, stating, “I’ve only gotten it into my head relatively recently that you don’t hyphenate compound modifiers when the first word ends in ‘-ly.’” To clarify this rule, that “-ly” means it’s an adverb, and you don’t hyphenate when one of the modifiers is an adverb. 

Word Smarts senior editor Jennifer Freeman has a self-professed “eagle eye” when it comes to unnecessary quotation marks. This issue is particularly prevalent in the world of restaurant menus, making it clear that many eateries could use an in-house editor. Just imagine perusing a menu when you come across a “famous” prime rib or “Aunt Sally’s” classic cheesecake recipe. Odds are that nobody ever said these words as a notable quote, thus making the quotation marks unnecessary.

Have you ever seen one of those giant storage facilities on the side of the road as you’re driving down the highway? The next time you do, take a look at the sign, and you’ll notice that the words “Self Storage” aren’t hyphenated, even though they should be. This pet peeve comes to us from Michael Nordine, senior writer and editor of Movie Brief. He laments the lack of a hyphen and wishes the industry as a whole would update its signage.

Without question, dangling modifiers are the single most bothersome grammar mistake for senior managing editor Allie Takeda. A dangling modifier is any word or phrase that modifies another word that’s not clearly stated in the same sentence. For example, you might see the sentence, “After eating dinner, the car wouldn’t start.” But the proper subject is missing, so it reads like the car was the one eating dinner. “After eating dinner” is dangling because the thing it’s modifying, a person, is nowhere to be found. It’d be correct to write, “After eating dinner, he couldn’t get the car to start.”

Kelsey Morrison, editor of House Outlook, describes tautologies as her “biggest grammar ick.” These are redundant phrases that use different words to convey the same information twice — think “added bonus” or “close proximity,” as well as acronyms such as “ATM machine” and “PIN number.” You’ll find them often in the culinary world, where borrowed words from other languages created tautologies such as “chai tea” and “queso cheese.”  Morrison says “eliminating tautologies from your writing will make it clearer and more concise,” so listen to these wise words.

Have you ever said something to the effect of, “I collect everything from stamps to water bottles”? If so, you’re guilty of creating a false range, a concept brought to our attention by chief brand officer Mike Newman. He says a college professor taught him that in order to have a range, there needs to be an understandable spectrum. “Stamps to water bottles” is a nonexistent, unmeasurable range. That being said, Newman concedes that many publications are OK with false ranges, as much as it bothers him personally.

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Our final grammar pet peeve comes from Peter Vanden Bos, senior editor of Daily Passport. He touches upon a common mistake — “less” vs. “fewer.” According to Merriam-Webster, use “fewer” when a number of things can be counted, such as “fewer choices” or “fewer problems.” “Less” is used when it’s a general amount, or it can be measured, as in “less time” or “less effort.” However, this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, and there are occasions where “less” breaks from the norm, such as when you’re counting words in an essay that needs to be “250 words or less.”

Do you have a top grammar pet peeve of your own? Reach out to us and let us know, and your response may even be included in a future article.

Dig out your old grammar workbooks. Got them? OK, now throw them away. That’s right — we’re giving you permission to break some of those old-school rules. The English language is constantly evolving, meaning rules that were once drilled into your head by schoolteachers are now more like guidelines, and sometimes it’s OK to ignore them. Here are four grammar rules you no longer need to stress about. (We’re breaking one of the rules right away.)

1. Don’t end sentences with prepositions

“You don’t know with whom you’re messing!” is probably not something you’d hear during a heated argument — it doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. Chopping and restructuring prepositional phrases was probably one of those lessons touted by your seventh grade English teacher, but the need for such a rule is questionable at best. Avoiding a preposition at the end makes things wordy, doesn’t do anything to further clarify the meaning, and can make the speaker sound awkwardly pretentious.

Merriam-Webster argues in favor of ditching this rule, too, claiming that it was made up by grammarians trying to force English to fit Latin rules. Seventeenth-century linguists argued that because a preposition can’t be stranded in Latin, the same should be true for English. But Latin departs from English in myriad ways, the least of which is the idea of stranded prepositions. By the 20th century, almost all style and usage guides had given up any argument against the terminal preposition, so there’s no reason to twist your wording into awkward constructions. 

The one exception to this rule abandonment concerns unnecessary tag-ons of prepositions. This means adding prepositions at the end of a sentence when you don’t need to. For example, “Where is this bus going to?” can easily be streamlined to “Where is this bus going?” Fewer words make a more concise sentence.

2. Don’t split infinitives

“To go boldly where no one has gone before” just doesn’t have the same ring as Captain Picard’s tagline “To boldly go where no one has gone before.” While it is true that the adverb “boldly” is modifying the infinitive “to go,” placing the adverb before the verb gives emphasis to the special intent of the verb before the listener hears it. Trekkies know that something bold is about to happen.

The rule of not splitting infinitives is yet another carryover from Latin. Latin infinitives are a single word, indicating to some linguists that English infinitives should be treated as a single unit. But again, English is not Latin. Split infinitives have been used by some of English’s best writers, including Benjamin Franklin, William Wordsworth, Samuel Johnson, and George Bernard Shaw, so why not you? 

We’ll add a caveat here that we’re not recommending all infinitives should be split; we’re simply saying that it’s not a grammatical crime. Leaving the infinitive intact is preferable in most cases, especially in formal or academic writing. But in cases of creative writing, or when you’re looking for a certain style or emphasis, don’t let the rule hold you back.  

3. Never begin a sentence with a conjunction

“But since writing is communication, clarity can only be a virtue. And although there is no substitute for merit in writing, clarity comes closest to being one,” William Strunk Jr. & E. B. White wrote in The Elements of Style.

Beginning a sentence with a conjunction has long been considered a grave grammatical sin. But doing so helps to keep thoughts separated and will save you from a confusing cacophony of commas, not to mention allow your reader to breathe between thoughts. Conjunctions, sometimes recognized by using the mnemonic FANBOYS (“for,” “and,” “nor,” “but,” “or,” “yet,” and “so”) but more accurately by Merriam-Webster’s mnemonic WWWFLASHYBONNBAN (“whether,” “well,” “why,” “for,” “likewise,” “and,” “so,” “however,” “yet,” “but,” “or,” “nor,” “now,” “because,” “also,” and “nevertheless”), have been used to start sentences for over a millennium.

The Bible, for example, uses conjunction-led sentences generously:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.

As further evidence, the AP Stylebook and the Chicago Manual of Style both permit the use of conjunctions to start sentences.

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4. Never start a sentence with “hopefully”

“Hopefully, the taxi will arrive soon.” “Hopefully” has been unfairly singled out by grammarians as the adverb you should never use to start a sentence. According to the rule, the aforementioned example sentence means that the taxi is acting in a hopeful manner, something that is impossible for an inanimate object. Instead, placing the speaker as the hopeful one would turn it into “It is hoped that the taxi will arrive soon” or “I am hopeful that the taxi will arrive soon.” 

But those wordings are unnecessarily awkward and formal, and English can bend for the sake of conversation. Besides, rarely do grammarians take issue with other adverbs such as “clearly,” “unbelievably,” or “fortunately” modifying the following sentence.

Hopefully, you’re able to concisely write to someone without worrying about unnecessary grammar rules. But if they can’t appreciate your interpretation of the English language, find new friends to share your writing with.

You’ve probably heard the phrase “innocent until proven guilty” — it’s a staple in legal dramas and courtroom jargon. But you won’t hear anyone say “proved guilty” instead. Why is that? While both “proved” and “proven” are valid past participles of the verb “prove,” only “proven” is commonly used as an adjective. In fact, some guides dictate that “proven” should be used only as an adjective and “proved” as the past participle. But as Merriam-Webster and other dictionaries report, both “proven” and “proved” developed as the past tense of “prove,” and they’re mostly interchangeable in that usage. 

In casual conversation, you can use whichever word feels more natural: “I have proved/proven my point.” Merriam-Webster notes that the past participle “proven” is now just as common as “proved,” though this wasn’t always the case. During the 19th century, grammarians often dismissed it as incorrect. Most writers of the time adhered to “proved” — except for famed poet Lord Alfred Tennyson, who favored “proven” for its two-syllable rhythm: “For nothing worthy proving can be proven, / Nor yet disproven.” 

However, if you’re using the word as an attributive adjective, “proven” is the better choice, as in, “She has a proven ability to meet her goals.” Some style guides reflect this distinction. For example, the Associated Press Stylebook recommends using “proven” only as an adjective (“The cough syrup was a proven remedy”), while using “proved” as the past participle (“He was proved innocent”).

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If you’re not required to adhere to AP Stylebook rules (as we do on Word Smarts), you have more leniency with “proven.” Since the 19th century, “proven” has continued to gain ground in American usage, with a steady foothold in legal contexts and everyday conversation. In the end, the “right” choice may depend on your style guide or, like Tennyson, your ear for rhythm.