Happy St. Patrick’s Day and top o’ the morning to you!You may know that St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland and St. Patrick’s Day is a religious holiday. St. Patrick was raised a Christian in Britain. For a quick history lesson, one story goes that he was captured by Irish raiders, taken to Ireland where he was held captive for six years and became… 0

The Grammarnatrix takes her column to the front page of the Feb. 16 Concord Monitor where the irony was not lost in the headline, “Witnesses: We didn’t see anything.” The Grammarnatrix chuckled, as the very definition of witness is anyone who has seen or heard anything! Did other Insider readers chuckle, titter or nod at the amusement of the word choice? 0

Super Bowl XLVII was a couple of Sundays ago, and the Grammarmatrix watched it with millions of other Americans. What a close game! What a rousing half time! What a year of commercials! The biggest play of the night for the Grammarmatrix was the use of an anaphora in the commercial for Budweiser Black Crown Beer. You know, when they said, “Here’s to taste. Here’s to our kind… 0

What else could a Grammarmatrix do but be lured in by the promising phrase, “A wacky way with words,” on the front page of the Feb. 3 Sunday Monitor. Music to the Grammarmatrix’s ears! And she wasn’t disappointed! 0

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This week the Grammarmatrix answers the never-ending question, “How do you know whether you should use the word affect or effect in a sentence?” If you look up the words affect and effect in the dictionary, the Oxford American Dictionary says those two words “have totally different meanings and should not be confused.” The American Heritage Dictionary states “the tendency… 0

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Well isn’t that Grammarnator a little smartie pants! I’m glad the Grammarnatrix was able to bring him out of hibernation, even if it was at the Grammarnatrix’s expense! I would agree with him, however, that the Insider doesn’t offer a lot of fodder for the column, but we persevere… The fodder for today is the use (or lack of use) of semicolons. Kurt Vonnegut dismisses… 0

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