This week I have a quick and dirty tip about certain types of names in British and American

English, and a meaty middle about combining quotation marks with other punctuation marks,

such as periods and commas.

But first I have a quick correction to last week's podcast.

I said emphatically and repeatedly that adverbs can't modify linking verbs, but of course

it turns out that there are exceptions.

I've written episodes in the past about not using words like always and never because

there are almost always exceptions and I'm kicking myself for essentially using that

kind of language last week.

The main point still stands when you're talking about your mood you say you feel bad,

not that you feel badly.

But please don't absorb the idea or tell people that adverbs can never modify linking

verbs.

Most of the time they don't, but occasionally they can.

Now, last week a lot of you seemed to enjoy my small observations about British English,

and you wrote in with your own stories, which I planned to share in the future.

But lots of you Americans mentioned that you've noticed British English uses plural verbs

in cases where you'd use singular verbs, especially with things like team names and

band names, and you asked me to talk about it, so we're going to start with that this

week.

It's true, you aren't imagining the difference.

These aren't hard and fast rules, but British English tends to treat team names, band

...