Quick And Dirty Tips

So in a hypothetical scenario in which you could get either a $2,000 tax credit or a $2,000 tax deduction, you want the tax credit. For example, the Child Tax Credit is refundable so even if you owed very little in taxes, and the credit put your tax liability in the “negative,” where the IRS owes you money, you would get all of the credit. Let’s say you qualify for a $2,000 Child Tax Credit and you owed $1,000, then the IRS would send you $1,000. So if you qualified for the full $2,000 of credit but you only owed $200 in taxes, you wouldn’t get $1,800 – you would only get $1,400 back.

You both agree that, in group conversations, if either of you gets interrupted by the boss, the other person will interrupt the boss and say, "I'm sorry Joe (boss's name). You can imagine the worst case of this gesture looking like the "stop" or ever worse, the "talk to the hand," gesture with averted eyes. If the interrupter is a boss and the previous suggestions aren't improving the situation, the best approach may be to have a trusted advisor have a direct conversation about this communication behavior with your boss. However, in the end, a direct conversation that is aimed at helping the person to be a better communicator would be the likely result and the best outcome for all involved, though it does take the most effort, preparation, and skilled delivery.

That Will Surprise You Prolific author Ralph Keyes shares some of his favorite stories about surprising word origins and what makes a coined word likely to stick. Some of the most prolific coiners often made use of prefixes and suffixes to create new words. Ralph Keyes is a prolific author who has published 17 books, including "The Courage to Write. Mignon Fogarty is the founder of Quick and Dirty Tips and the author of seven books on language, including the New York Times bestseller "Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.

Software” was originally just a joke of a word, you know, like an antonym of hardware, you know, poke in the ribs, chuckle “software,” get it? Mignon: I noticed that, too, as I was reading through it, I think today we think of people who want to coin words and are serious when they propose a new word. He was a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, and he had coined the term “beatnik” and, you know, those he called beatniks just didn't like that term at all. You know, it's almost impossible to tell because that happens all the time, that someone will hear a word on the street and then plunk it into a piece of writing or use it in their own conversation and then get credit for it.