September 9, 2019

6 Tips for Using Hyphens Like a Professional Editor

Have you noticed that, lately, you’re less inclined to stick a hyphen between words? That is, you’re looking at a term like “a time honored tradition,” realizing you could put a hyphen in “time-honored,” then thinking, “Nah. It’s clear enough as it is.”

You’re not alone. Hyphens, it seems, are becoming a little passe. Even the Associated Press Stylebook is going lighter on the hyphens these days. And if you’re wondering how that’s possible, it’s because hyphenation has always been as much an art as a science.

“Use of the hyphen is far from standardized. It is optional in most cases, a matter of taste, judgment and style sense,” is how a tweet from the AP Stylebook puts it.

That’s great news for people who don’t want to fuss over hyphens. But it can be bad news for folks who do — writers who want their punctuation to look as professional as possible.

So, with those eager-to-please hyphenaters in mind, here's my recent column offering are six tips to let you hyphenate like a professional editor.

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September 2, 2019

Grammar Experts Weigh In on the Tweeter in Chief

On May 25 of this year, Donald Trump took to Twitter to attempt a swipe at Senator Mark Warner of TK: "Their is nothing bipartisan about him," Trump tweeted. It wasn't the first time the man tasked with representing the American people so thoroughly exposed his poor language skills. And heaven knows it won't be the last. But it marked the first time grammar and legal writing expert Bryan Garner, author of Garner's Modern American Usage, could no longer hold his tongue.

"You mean 'There is nothing bipartisan about him.' Not 'their,' which is the possessive form of 'they.' Wouldn’t it be worth $75,000 a year to pay for a Presidential Proofreader so that you’ll have the semblance of literacy?" Garner replied.

Lexicographers, copy editors and grammar experts face an unprecedented dilemma in the tweeter in chief. Do you make an issue of Trump's egregious language gaffes that degrade the office and swipe at the dignity of the United States of America? Or do you let it slide? For most language experts, the latter is often the best course simply because pointing out Trump's shameful gaffes would eat up hours every week. But with just a little prompting, you can get Twitter's greatest language experts—including Mary Norris, Peter Sokolowski, Kory Stamper, Jonathon Owen and Garner—to let loose. The New York Times did just that, and the results are glorious.  Pour yourself a hot cup of covfefe and check it out.

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August 26, 2019

Uncommonly Fussy Writing Rules Now Rule House of Commons

If you wanted to put together a list of writing rules for an organization you run, there would be nothing wrong with that.

“OK , team. Let’s make it a policy to always include ‘Inc.’ with our company name. Let’s use serial commas. Let’s make ‘healthcare’ one word, and let’s follow the American punctuation style of always putting a period or comma before a closing quotation mark.” No problem here.

Note that none of these are universal rules. You could pick the opposite in every instance and be just as correct. Either way, it’s perfectly reasonable to lay out guidelines for how your subordinates should write official correspondence. No one will be offended. The odds you’ll make national news headlines are slim to none.

No, if you want your style guide to draw international media attention and tons of scornful commentary, you need to be a real jerk about it.

Pick some just-for-control-freak’s-sake style imperatives, toss in a few throwbacks to another century, then add just a pinch of narrow-minded isolationism and you have the style rules just imposed on the subordinates of Jacob Rees-Mogg, the newly appointed leader of Britain’s House of Commons.

“The Conservative Party politician, who is an Old Etonian and stickler for tradition, has outlined an extensive list of words that his staff are banned from using in correspondences with his constituents and fellow MPs,” writes CNN.

Here are some writing rules the U.K. politician seems to have pulled out of his ear.

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August 19, 2019

We all have our peeves (even when we know we shouldn't)

Early on I got it in my head that you should never use "there's" before a plural. "There's," is a contraction of "there is," which has a singular verb. There is milk in the fridge.

For something plural you'd use "there are": There are strawberries in the fridge.

But does that mean it's wrong to say "there's strawberries"? How about if we put a singular-sounding modifier in there like "a lot": There's a lot of strawberries?

"There's" before a plural isn't wrong. Yet it's one of those peeves that I still can't shake, even though I know it's not an error. Others include "chaise lounge," "chomping at the bit," "beg the question" and "hone in on" — all of which I discuss more fully in this recent column.

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August 12, 2019

Some subject-verb agreement errors are trickier than others

Many of the grammar mistakes people warn you about are sheer fiction.

The old “Don’t split an infinitive” is the quintessential example. Putting an adverb like “boldly” after the particle “to” but before the base verb “go” is not an error, contrary to what anyone will tell you. That means you’re able to boldly go there anytime you see fit.

But some grammar mistakes are all too real and, in some cases, easy to make — even for people who know their stuff. Topping the list of easy-to-make grammar mistakes are verb-agreement errors. And topping the list of easy-to-make verb-agreement errors are what are called relative-pronoun-antecedent-agreement errors.

Take, for example, this sentence that came up in my editing this week. “She’s one of the nurse practitioners who oversees the clinic. “That’s a mistake. Contrary to every instinct that might tell you that “who” goes with “oversees,” in this sentence it should be “oversee.” Here, in my recent column, I show you how to handle these.

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August 5, 2019

So you want to sound proper ...?

Proper English isn’t correct English. At least, it’s not the only correct English in town. It’s more like a flavor. Or a style.

It’s the type of English used in academic and literary as well as professional and diplomatic circles. An ambassador hosting a foreign emissary would never say, “Tell me you ain’t leaving so soon.”

Sticklers spend a lot of time telling people that informal English is incorrect English. That’s why people like me spend a lot of time pointing out that terms like “ain’t” aren’t wrong.

You can use them if you want to. But we seldom get around to asking the next logical question: Do you want to? Even people who understand that less-formal English is as correct as the proper kind still might like to master the proper kind. It’s nice to know how, even if you know it’s not necessary.

Here's how proper types say to handle a range of terms, including "whom," "lay" and "lie," "between" and "among," and "anxious" and "eager."

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July 29, 2019

Should you put a period after the exclamation point in Yahoo!?

I was editing a business proposal for a company that has an exclamation point at the end of its name, like Yahoo! but it’s not Yahoo! The company name came up multiple times in the document, sometimes at the end of a sentence.

In those instances, the writer followed the name with a period: Yahoo!.

Should the period be there? I asked some editors on social media. The answers I got were surprising and, at the same time, not at all surprising. Here's what I found out.

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July 22, 2019

Rules for hyphens, commas change with new style guides

You may not have noticed, but your world just got less hyphenated. There are fewer commas, too.

That’s because changes to the country’s two most influential style books lean lighter on those punctuation marks, but only in certain, very specific circumstances.

Take, for example, the following AP style rule change: Hyphen not needed for “pre” or “re” before an e. Hyphenation rules break down into different categories. For nouns, like “passer-by” and verbs like “mass-produce,” you can just go with whatever your dictionary says. For compound adjectives you make up yourself, like a “hyphen-obsessed editor,” the longstanding rule has been to add your own hyphen if it helps.

Here in my recent column are some more of the new punctuation rules influencing what you read and, if you like, what you write too.

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July 15, 2019

'Email' Sans Hyphen Takes Another Leap Forward

The hyphen has been steadily fading from “e-mail” for years. The Associated Press Stylebook, which since the technology’s earliest days explicitly called for “e-mail,” abandoned the hyphen about a decade ago.

Everyday users, in my anecdotal experience, ditched the hyphen even earlier.

AP’s counterpart in the book-publishing world, the Chicago Manual of Style, has been the holdout.

As the rest of the world slid toward “email,” this influential guide stood firm. It’s e-mail, Chicago insisted. Hyphen included.

Those days are over. In its most recent edition, Chicago finally changed its position. “Email” is now its official recommendation.

You don’t have to follow their rule or AP’s. Many dictionaries, including Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate and Webster’s New World, allow “e-mail” as an alternative to “email.” So you can write “e-mail” if you want to. But you won’t. Together, AP and Chicago govern the vast majority of your reading material, with AP style observed by most news media and Chicago style by most book and magazine publishers.

But anyone who holds firm on “e-mail” will be swimming against the tide. Here’s my recent column explaining why.

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July 8, 2019

Serial commas can cause confusion, too

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