ESCHEW OBFUSCATION. When I was a college freshman, my adviser had these words on a plaque above his desk. I had to look up both words, but I haven’t forgotten their meaning: SHUN CONFUSION.
“Eschew Obfuscation” is also the name of a grammar column I wrote for First Draft, the newsletter of Sisters in Crime’s Guppy Chapter. Here are some random—but useful—grammar suggestions for those who want to eschew obfuscation in their writing.
- Punctuation
- Look Who’s Talking: Dialog Tags and Action Beats
- Quotation Marks
- Do I Need a Comma Here?
- Sentence Fragments and Run-Ons
- Parallel Structure
- Don’t Leave Me Hanging! Dealing with Danglers
- Things Are Getting Tense: Past, Present and Future
- He, She . . . and They
- Prepositions: It’s All about Relationships