September 10, 2018

And I, And Me: How to Always Get Them Right

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In a tweet reposted by someone I don’t know, someone else I don’t know broadcast the following message: “Sending warm wishes to you and your family from Boomer and I.” (Who said technology isn’t bringing us closer together?)

Boomer, apparently, is the cute dog whose picture appears beneath the text. “I,” apparently, is a human who either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that he should have used “Boomer and me.”

But I have a problem with this usage. I’m convinced that, almost without exception, when someone chooses “from Boomer and I” over “from Boomer and me” it’s not by choice but because they believe “me” would be a mistake. They’re wrong. Here’s my recent column offering a simple trick for how to always get this right.

 

 

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September 3, 2018

Helter Skelter Apostrophes

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I don’t remember where, I don’t remember when, but at one point in my childhood I found myself holding a copy of “Helter Skelter,” Vincent Bugliosi’s bone-chilling account of the Charles Manson murders. I didn’t read it.

I was probably 9 or 10 at the time and not really one to devour 680-page, true-crime procedurals. But there were pictures that, I feel, authorized me to dispense the following unsolicited piece of parenting advice. Hey parents: Don’t leave copies of “Helter Skelter” lying around the house.

Mumble-mumble decades and countless desensitizing movies later, I found the courage to actually read it. I’m about halfway through. (Don’t tell me what happens! I have a good feeling about this Squeaky gal.)

Funny how time changes a person. Back in elementary school, I was shocked by, you know, home-invasion stabbing murders by Beatles-obsessed racist sex cults.

 Today, I find myself shocked by passages like this one: “In this instance, it led to Aaron Stovitz’ being yanked off the Tate-LaBianca case.” And this one: “Manson borrowed Swartz’ ’59 Ford.” And this one: “Ruth Ann answered Gutierrez’ questions.”

And it gets freakier when you consider the context. Those bits were sprinkled among others like “Tex’s orders” and “Susan Atkins’ attorney.”

Thus, halfway through the book, I’m left with just one possible conclusion: The title “Helter Skelter” refers to the method used for forming possessives. Here's my recent column examining when to put an apostrophe and S after Z, X and S

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August 27, 2018

Crooks Don't Need Good Grammar

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People often ask me whether good grammar is important. There’s usually a subtext to their question. It’s, “Validate all the sweat and effort I’ve put into learning how to speak and write properly.”

My pat answer tends to disappoint: Proper grammar is like a nice suit. It might be crucial when applying for that dream job, but you can ditch the starched-shirt formality if you’re going to a backyard barbecue.

Today, I stand corrected. Turns out good grammar and even 10th-grade writing skills are immaterial to one of the most important jobs in the country provided that, along with your resume, you send a mountain of cash.

Behold the language skills of a man accused in federal court of slipping $16 million of other people’s money to one Paul Manafort, while simultaneously seeking a job as Secretary of the U.S. Army.

Stephen M. Calk, trusted custodian of depositors’ savings at Chicago’s Federal Savings Bank — an institution focused on serving veterans with home loans and the like — submitted his application materials to Manafort well after the latter was officially removed from the presidential team. This was around the same time he approved $16 million in loans to Manafort.

And it gets worse, as I explain in my recent column.

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August 20, 2018

Words That Show Off Your Grammar Savvy

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Before the age of social media, I had a theory that certain words used certain ways were hallmarks of the grammar-savvy.
I would hear “I have drunk” or “I couldn’t care less” or “there are a lot” and assume I was listening to a highly educated user of the English language.

With the explosion of social media, a lot of my presumptions have been confirmed. Social media posts provide a trove of data showing patterns among editors and other grammar-savvy types.

Some terms that separate the great users of language from all the rest: lay, drunk, swum, sneak peek, and couldn't care less, when used just right, are hallmarks of English language mastery. Here's what you need to know.

 

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August 13, 2018

If He Was or If He Were? Subjunctive Can Reveal Meaning

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One of the most fascinating things about language is that we can use it so well, so expertly, without understanding how we do it.

The following two sentences are perfect examples.

If the burglar was smart, he left the country.

If the burglar were smart, he would have left the country.

Specifically, I’m talking about the difference between “was” and “were” in sentences like these. “Was” suggests it’s possible the burglar had a good head on his shoulders. “Were” suggests he did not.

Any native speaker can pick up on that. But if you asked 100 of them to explain what’s going on with those two verbs, somewhere between 99 and 100 would have no idea.

And if they spent all day reading dictionary definitions they would be no closer to understanding the basis of these different meanings of “was” and “were.”

To understand them from an academic perspective, you need to start with a single word: subjunctive. That’s the grammar term that describes what’s going on here. And I explain it in full in my recent column.

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August 5, 2018

Great Literature Defies Grammar Rules — Beautifully

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It is a truth universally acknowledged that great writers make fools out of great editors.

Great editors say, “Avoid passive voice.” Then a writer like Ian McEwan starts Atonement with a whopper of a passive in the very first sentence: “The play—for which Briony had designed the posters, programs, and tickets, constructed the sales booth out of a folding screen tipped on its side, and lined the collection box in red crepe paper—was written by her in a two-day tempest of composition, causing her to miss a breakfast and a lunch.”

Editors say you should use correct punctuation. Yet Cormac McCarthy dispenses with apostrophes at will.

An editor who noticed a writer switching from the third-person to the second-person would fix it immediately. Yet in Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut switches from his third-person narration to directly command the reader in the second-person imperative: “Listen.”

Here's my Read It Forward piece looking at the grammar of some great lines from literature.

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July 29, 2018

Grammar Purity Is One Big Ponzi Scheme

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To hear some sticklers talk, you’d think that somewhere, in a classified location, there’s a top-secret grammar law library that houses the voluminous Grammar Penal Code: an official list of all the things you’d be “wrong” to do.

It’s wrong to split an infinitive, some say. It’s wrong to end a sentence with a preposition. It’s wrong to begin a sentence with and. It’s wrong to use take to mean bring. Hang around these people long enough, and you see the list of no-nos is endless.

Their source, conveniently, is never revealed. They know what’s wrong and they’re not telling you how they know—as if they have a copy of the Grammar Penal Code and you don’t, so you’re forever at their mercy. With every word you speak or write, you’re in danger of getting busted for breaking a rule you never knew existed.

Here’s where these nitpickers get their information: someone—a teacher, a parent, a know-it-all friend—told them there’s a rule against saying a certain thing, and they believed it. It’s as if they, too, were fooled into believing there exists some list of grammar crimes that only their teacher, parent, or friend was privy to.

My recent piece on LitHub, an excerpt from my new book "The Joy of Syntax," looks at the real source of grammar rules.

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July 23, 2018

Double Possessives and the Power of 'Of'

Bill in Williamsport, Pa., has a question about an odd possessive construction: “Joe is a friend of John’s.

To Bill, this structure seems redundant and awkward because it uses both “of” and an apostrophe to show possession. He prefers the more direct variation “Joe is John’s friend.”

Is he right? Is “a friend of John’s” redundant? In a word, yes. So if this were math or logic, “a friend of John’s” would be nonsense. But language isn’t always mathematical or logical, and when it’s not, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

 “A friend of John’s” is something called a double possessive or a double genitive. The word “double” captures the problem Bill laid out: it uses two methods to show possession where only one is needed. “Of” creates possessives. So does an apostrophe plus an S. Here's my recent column that takes a thorough look at what's wrong — and what's right — with double possessives.

 

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July 16, 2018

6 Tricky Possessives That Can Trip You Up

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Possessives shouldn’t be difficult. In many languages, they’re not. In French, for example, to talk about the car belonging to Robert, you just say “the car of Robert”: la voiture de Robert. Spanish works the same way, with “de,” meaning “of”: el auto de Robert.

English isn’t as fond of simple formulas. We rarely use “of” to show possession. Far more often we use an apostrophe plus an S. It sounds simple, but in practice it’s anything but.

For example, when you’re talking about two phones on the table, one belonging to Beth and one belonging to Sam, are they Beth and Sam’s phones, or Beth’s and Sam’s phones?

Why do expressions like “three years’ experience” take an apostrophe?

If two attorneys general are on the same case, whose case is it?

Why is “whose” possessive while “who’s” is not?

And how do you show it when two passersby share ownership of something?

Here's how.

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July 9, 2018

Underway/Under Way, Never Mind/Nevermind, One-Time/Onetime

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No matter how many years I work as an editor, no matter how much advice I dole out in this column, some words will always scare me.

Perhaps it’s because they came to my attention early in my editing career, when I cowered at the base of a steep learning curve wondering how I’d ever scale it. Or perhaps it’s because these words are just hard.

Behold: “underway.” Is it one word? Is it two? Do you hyphenate it as an adjective? Or do you just need an advanced understanding of adverbs to master it?

The answer (and this is why it still unnerves me) is: all of the above. Here's my recent column on "underway/under way," "one-time/onetime" and some other terms that still befuddle.

 

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