April 16, 2018

Hard-learned Grammar Lessons

TOPICS: , ,

You learn something new every day.

In most professions, that's a good thing. But for copy editors, it's a kick in the pants. It means there's something you should have learned years ago but didn't. It means that, even as you were getting paid to catch errors, you were blind to some. It hurts.

For editors — or anyone who wants to use the language well — humility is key. You have to know when to look up stuff, even if it's stuff you've already looked up a hundred times. And you have to accept that after years or even decades on the job, you can still get sucker-punched by your own ignorance.

Yes, I'm talking about myself.

Here's a column I wrote recently about the discoveries that still sting, including bouillon vs. bullion, compose vs. comprise, and how to spell embarrass.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

« Older Entries

April 9, 2018

Spat, Slayed, Lain: Tricky Past Tense Forms

TOPICS: , ,

Regular verbs form their past tenses and past participles according to simple formula: just add “ed.” Today I walk. Yesterday I walked. In the past I have walked.  Irregular verbs follow no pattern at all. Today I eat. Yesterday I ate. In the past I have eaten. They’re easy to find in the dictionary. The past tense and past participle are listed right after the entry word, in that order.

But knowing where to look for answers is just half the battle. You also have to know when to look for answers.

Certain words require extra vigilance. You need to be on the lookout for them because they can trip you up when you're not paying attention.

With that in mind, here’s a column a wrote highlighting seven verbs  whose past participles require extra care.

 

Click player above to listen to the podcast

« Older Entries

April 2, 2018

TOPICS: , , ,

Last night, Joe dreamt of Mary. Or would it be better to say that he dreamed of her? More important: How can you know for sure?

Past participles confuse a lot of people. Take it from someone whose Boston-area in-laws opt for forms like "I should have ate" and "I could have went." When we need a verb form to go after "have," we reach for the one that sounds best. And what sounds best is whatever we're most accustomed to hearing.

Most of the time, that works out great. In any aspect of language, the most natural-sounding, most popular form is correct about 99% of the time. But the other 1% of the time, things can get ugly.

Even more important than getting past participles "right" is knowing how to make good choices. Here's a quick overview of past participles and how to look them up.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

« Older Entries

March 26, 2018

So Many Spelling Errors, So Little Time

TOPICS: , ,

"As manager of the restaurant, Milton likes to keep the staff appraised."

"The cocktail will be rimmed with a blend of exclusive Mexican-salts, and garnished with a fresh-cut lime and spiral-cut jalapeno, skewered by a mini beach umbrella, and complimented by rose pedals."

"A uniformed chauffer who will serve you champagne in crystal flukes from a silver tray."

These are just a few of the error-riddled sentences that made it into my most recent column. Here's how to never make these errors yourself.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

« Older Entries

March 19, 2018

Is 'Whom' Dead?

TOPICS: , , , ,

"Who Cyril Ramaphosa should fire."

That was a recent headline for an Economist magazine article about the new South African president. But one of the biggest questions it raised had nothing to do with global politics. Why not "whom"?

The magazine's editors didn't wait for others to ask it.

"Some readers might have wondered whether someone should fire our proofreaders," they wrote in a follow-up. "Shouldn't that be 'Whom Cyril Ramaphosa should fire'?"

I look at their answer in this recent column.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

« Older Entries

March 12, 2018

Even More Word Choice Errors

Keeping the staff "appraised." A cocktail "complimented" by a garnish. That garnish? Rose "pedals."

I seem to be stumbling into a lot of errors in my reading lately, both in the stuff I'm paid to edit and in stuff I'm reading that, presumably, someone has already edited. As always, these commonly confused terms are all great opportunities for the rest of us who want to avoid errors. Here's my recent column covering some of these.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

« Older Entries

March 4, 2018

National Grammar Day!

TOPICS:

 

Sunday, March 4, is National Grammar Day.

The holiday was started 10 years ago by author, super-mom, and all-around cool person Martha Brockenbrough, Founder of Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar, Brockenbrough started the holiday ten years ago as a way to help people focus on grammar learning. Organizations like ACES, the American Copy Editors Society, come up with creative ways to celebrate every year, like these fun punctuation cookies ACES aces showed off last year.

My personal recommendation on how to spend the holiday: Spend a little time thumbing through the front matter of a dictionary — especially the "How to Use This Dictionary" stuff. It helps you unlock mysteries like, for example, whether you can use "graduate" as a transitive verb or whether it needs a preposition "from" to connect it to an object.

Or, if that's not fun enough, go back to the cookies idea.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

« Older Entries

February 26, 2018

TOPICS: , ,

"One of our pet peeves is the evolving usage of 'said' instead of 'asked' immediately preceding the utterance of a question," noted readers Bill and Julie, who gave this example: "He said, 'Where are you going?'"

"We are hearing this more and more often in everyday conversations involving questions, in TV advertisements and on social media. ... "Do you have any idea why? Is it because 'said' is easier to pronounce than the tongue twister 'asked'? We were taught one shouldn't say a question. A question should always be asked," they added.

I haven't noticed the same trend. But I do have some guidelines to follow for using speech tags well. Here's the column I wrote in response to Bill and Julie's question.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

« Older Entries

February 20, 2018

Taking Literally Too Literally

TOPICS:

The city was brought literally to its knees.

When he heard the news, he literally flew off the handle.

She literally went ballistic.

If you like unambiguous communication, if you like logic, if you like having a word that means "take these words at face value and don't mistake them for mere metaphor," then you hate how the word "literally" is used in these sentences.

But what if you don't stop there? What if you hate, "It knocked him literally unconscious" when referring to someone who walked into a pole and fell to the ground, where he lay nonresponsive? What if you hate, "The business literally shuttered its doors" to describe a store where slats of wood were hammered over the entrance? What if you hate, "I'm literally freezing to death" spoken by a character in a novel right before he dies of exposure?

Then you just might be Trigger Smith, proprietor of a bar called the Continental in New York City's East Village, where a few months ago Smith posted this sign in the window in all capital letters: "Sorry, but if you say the word 'literally' inside the Continental, you have five minutes to finish your drink and then you must leave."

Here's the rest of my column on Smith's anti-literally crusade.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

« Older Entries

February 12, 2018

And another thing about commas ...

TOPICS: , , ,

 

 

A missing comma after "Inc." or a year is a dead giveaway that a document wasn't professionally copy edited. I call this mistake commas without partners. And if you don't want to fall into this trap, here are a few additional points to keep in mind.

* You don't need to put commas around Inc., but if you put one before it, you should put one after it as well. RIGHT: The job at Widgets, Inc., didn't offer good benefits. RIGHT: The job at Widgets Inc. didn't offer good benefits. WRONG: The job at Widgets, Inc. didn't offer good benefits.

* Complete dates use commas around the year — meaning a comma before and after. RIGHT: May 8, 1996, was the day she arrived in town.

* When you're talking about just a month and a year without a specific date, no comma. RIGHT: August 2004 was an unusual time for me.

* Same applies to seasons. No comma when combing it with a year. And by the way, seasons are lowercase. RIGHT: In spring 2021 the town will host its centennial celebration.

* Jr. and Sr. work the same way as Inc. No commas needed, but if you use one before you have to use one after. RIGHT: Morton Downey Jr. had a talk show. RIGHT: Morton Downey, Jr., had a talk show. WRONG: Morton Downey, Jr. had a talk show.

In every case, it should go without saying that if the comma would come at the end of the sentence, you omit it and let the period mark the end. We worked at Widgets, Inc. We watched Morton Downey, Jr. He was born April 3, 1998.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

« Older Entries