What are your pet peeves?

Appendix B: Commonly Misused Scientific Words and Expressions of Eloquent Science was inspired by a list of incorrect science expressions and annoyances maintained by Chuck Doswell. Many of Chuck’s pet peeves are included in Appendix B. I also surveyed my friends and colleagues about their pet peeves and included many of them in Appendix B. … read more

Proper spellings of atmospheric science words

Did you know that shortwave radiation is not hyphenated, but short-wave trough is? Did you know that air mass is two words when used as a noun, but one word when used as an adjective (e.g., airmass modification)? If you are ever wondering how scientific words are spelled or used, the American Meteorological Society has … read more

Bob The Angry Flower: It’s vs Its

Bob the Angry Flower speaks out against improper apostrophe use

Or, in color: Buy the poster here!

Did you know?

That “Web” as in “Web page” is capitalized? That “chapter 5″ and “section 3.2″ are generally not capitalized, but “Figure 9″ and “Table 1″ are? That Microsoft Word flags “a climatology” and “a cloud” as grammatically incorrect? [I don't know why. Does anyone out there?] That “native English–speaking colleague” uses an en dash, but “English-speaking … read more

American versus British English

[DMS: This was a sidebar that I cut from the book.  Even before I met and married my British–Australian wife, I had this sidebar in mind very early in the planning of the book.] Over 300 years of separation has led to discernible differences between English as practiced in the United States and English as … read more