Gift books for word lovers

For certain nerdy types (you know the ones), language books make great gifts. Unlike mysteries and memoirs that are quickly devoured in e-book form — then forgotten — informative, fun grammar and writing guides double as reference books. You can wrap one up and put it under the tree knowing your recipient will reach for it again and again for years to come.

Here’s my 2023 language book gift guide for every type of word nerd.

For the rule follower: Most people, even grammar savvy types, don’t know about usage guides. These reference books look like dictionaries, with alphabetized entries for words and language concepts. But instead of listing definitions, they offer expert insights on usage matters. Look under E to find a discussion of when “everyone” takes a singular or plural verb. Look under D to learn that a “double genitive” like “a friend of Joe’s” is not an error even though it doubles up on the possessives. Look under C to learn about “compose” and “comprise.” Two great usage guides for the grammar buff on your list: Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage and Garner’s Modern English Usage.

For the Grammar Girl fan: The most beloved grammar podcaster of all time, Mignon Fogarty has a new book out just in time for Secret Santas. In The Grammar Daily: 365 Quick Tips for Successful Writing from Grammar Girl, Fogarty delivers one easy, practical writing tip per day, every day for a year. On Day One, you’ll learn that the possessive of McDonald’s is McDonald’s. A few weeks later, you’ll learn that even though “anxious” usually carries a negative connotation, you can use it to mean “eager.”

Read about my other picks — Dreyer's English, Rebel With a Clause, the Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier and Nine Nasty Words — here in my recent column.

'Said' vs. 'says' in quotation attributions

Readers probably don’t care much whether an article or story attributes quotations with “says” or “said.” Nor do many care whether it comes before or after the name: said Jones, Jones said — it just doesn’t have a big effect on the reader.

Yet, to me, it’s becoming a bigger issue every day.

When I was first learning to edit, it was at a publication where very specific views on both matters reigned: The first was that newspaper writing should aim to be conversational — real-world language that doesn’t draw attention to itself but that downplays itself in order to emphasize the message.

That was the reason we put “said” after the name, unless there was a reason not to. In everyday conversation people don’t say things like, “Said my friend, mall parking is free.”

Regardless of the verb, English shows a strong preference for placing a verb after the subject in declarative sentences. So even though you could sometimes say, “Drove Gerald,” chances are you’ll always opt for “Gerald drove.”

As for “said” versus “says,” the former is usually more precise. “Says” is present tense and describes an ongoing action. So when you’re reporting something someone said in the past and just once, “said” is more logical.

So I edit according to these principles. And, the more I do, the more invested in them I become. It’s especially annoying to me that, when writing feature articles, many writers never, ever, ever put the “said” after the name. Every attribution is “said Wilson.”

Obviously, when a modifying noun or phrase follows the quotation attribution, "said" works best when it comes first:

… said Wilson, author of three math textbooks.

… said Wilson, the company’s president and CEO.

… said Wilson, who saw the accident from his balcony.

In those cases, you need to place the modifying phrase next to the thing it modifies, "Wilson."

One more point about “said” and “says”: Consistency is important, but it shouldn’t trump logic. If you’re writing something using the “Wilson says” form, make "says" your default choice throughout, except when you want to emphasize that it was said in the past and just once. Likewise, if you’re writing in the “Wilson said” style, stick with “saids” everywhere unless you’re quoting something he says repeatedly.

Whatever you do, don’t get irked if an editor changes it. We can be a little rigid on this matter. Ahem.

Phrasal verbs: You can look them up, but you can't look up them

Can you back your hard drive up? Or must you back up your hard drive? Can you calm yourself down? Or must you calm down yourself? Can you blow balloons up? Or must you blow up balloons? Can you hang the phone up? Or must you hang up the phone? Can you keep the shenanigans up? Or do you keep up the shenanigans? Can you look the contract over? Or must you look over the contract?

And what if we replace all those nouns with pronouns? Like, for your hard drive: back it up or back up it? For balloons: blow them up or blow up them? For the phone: hang it up or hang up it? For the contract: look it over or look over it?

Like so many other aspects of English, phrasal verbs are easy to use but hard to understand. To use them, a native speaker can just follow their gut. You already know that if you’re helping a friend cope with a divorce, you’d say, “You’ll get over him” and not “You’ll get him over.” Yet, remarkably, you’d probably pick a different spot for the pronoun when suggesting she “think it over.”

A phrasal verb isn’t just a verb that teams up with a preposition. Instead, a phrasal verb is a two- or three-word combo that has at its head a verb and has a different meaning from the verb alone. For example, when you run out of a building, you’re not using a phrasal verb. You’re using “run” to mean “to move on your feet faster than walking.” So it has the same meaning with “out” as it does standing alone.

But “run out” is a phrasal verb when it means to exhaust a supply of something. When you say you run out of milk, you’re no longer talking about breaking into a jog. The meaning is different.
Learn more in my recent column.

'Awhile' or 'a while'?

To understand when “a while” is preferable to “awhile,” you need a firm grasp on grammar concepts most of us are never taught: the true nature of adverbs, how adverbs differ from adverbials and how prepositions work with objects. Yet people who never learned those concepts often get “a while” and “awhile” right anyway.

For example, when I do a Google search for “Let’s just wait for a while,” which is correct, I get about 470,000 hits. But when I search for “Let’s just wait for awhile,” which is wrong, I get fewer than 16,000 hits.

Here’s what most English speakers don’t know they know about “a while” and “awhile.”
For starters, we’re talking about different parts of speech. “A while” is a noun. Well, technically it’s a noun phrase because it has more than one word. But that’s splitting hairs. A noun phrase works just like a noun.

“Awhile” is an adverb. Contrary to what your third-grade teacher may have led you to believe, adverbs aren’t just those ly words that describe actions. Instead, an adverb answers the question “when?” “where?” or “in what manner?” Plus, sentence adverbs like “therefore” and “however” modify whole clauses or sentences. So if you look up “tomorrow” in a dictionary, you’ll see that it’s both a noun and an adverb. That makes sense because it answers the question “when?” Another example: “There” is also an adverb because it answers the question “where?” Sometimes, these rules for adverbs are a less intuitive, which is why it’s not completely clear that “awhile” answers the question “when?” But it deals with time the same way, so it’s an adverb.

“For” is a preposition. Prepositions take objects, which are always either nouns, pronouns or whole phrases or clauses working as nouns. So when you buy a gift “for Walter,” the noun “Walter” is the object of the preposition. If you’d rather say you’re buying a gift “for him,” the pronoun “him” is the object of the preposition.

Adverbs can’t be objects of prepositions. You can’t say “for quickly” or “at happily” or “with slowly.” And because “awhile” is an adverb, you can’t say “for awhile.” Only the noun form can go there: for a while.
You might guess that, if “awhile” can’t be used as a noun, then “a while” can’t be used as an adverb. So you’d surmise that “stay awhile” is correct and “stay a while” is wrong. Not so. The reason: adverbials. Here’s the full story in my recent column.