Welcome Copyediting visitors! Get Your FREE "Fiddly Rules" podcast here.

Perhaps you listened to our “Stupid Rules” podcast. Perhaps you’ve been reading language bloggers or reading recently written usage books that tell you about all the rules you thought were rules but really aren’t. And perhaps you’re wondering, “Well, are any rules still important?”

Well, yes, argues the editor of Copyediting, Wendalyn Nichols, in this "Fiddly Rules" podcast, a compilation of 12 short podcasts on rules of style and grammar that she assures you are still worth following, even if they are fiddly.

Here's what you'll find in the podcast:

• FIDDLY RULES 1: "With regard to"—Save your regards for Broadway. (4 min.)

• FIDDLY RULES 2: "Historic and classic”—A classic win of historic importance (3 min.)

• FIDDLY RULES 3: Parallel construction—Keep the correlated parts of a sentence parallel. (4 min.)

• FIDDLY RULES 4: “Irregardless”—Correct “irregardless,” regardless! (2 min.)

• FIDDLY RULES 5: Compound objects with “me”—Make sure to use “me,” not “I,” in a compound object. (2 min.)

• FIDDLY RULES 6: “Due to”—Use “Due to” with caution. (2 min.)

• FIDDLY RULES 7: Use “a” and “an” correctly with “h”-words. (4 min.)

• FIDDLY RULES 8: Keep “ensure,” “assure,” and “insure” straight (4 min.)

• FIDDLY RULES 9: "Disabuse," "disavow," and more on confusables in general. (4 min.)

• FIDDLY RULES 10: Save “as opposed to” for true opposition. (2 min.)

• FIDDLY RULES 11: Observe the distinction between “compare with” and “compare to. (3 min.)

• FIDDLY RULES 12: Avoid the comma splice. (3 min.)

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