I’ve been doing lots of editing today and I’m amazed at how many ‘thats’ I deleted without affecting the meaning.

Here are some examples where getting rid of ‘that’ improves the flow.

E.g. means ‘for example’ (from the Latin ‘exempli gratia’) while i.e. means ‘in other words’ or ‘that is’ (from the Latin ‘id est’).

We have several relative pronouns, which can be confusing.

Use ‘who’ and ‘that’ for people and use ‘which’ and ‘that’ for things.

Why is ‘anywhere’ okay but ‘anyplace’ wrong? And in the US, ‘anytime’ is okay.

Don’t assume that all ‘any’ words can be joined.

The words ‘bimonthly’, ‘biweekly’ and ‘biannually’ confuse most people.

Does ‘bi’ mean that something happens once every two weeks/months/years or twice every one week/month/year?