June 4, 2018

It's not you, semicolon. It's me.

The semicolon and I got off to a bad start. I was an insecure teenager sitting in typing class wondering why this obnoxious little punctuation mark deserved one of just eight coveted spots under my fingertips. In true insecure-teenager style, I figured I was the problem. The only punctuation mark on which I was told to rest a finger must deserve the honor. If I didn’t understand why, surely my own ignorance was to blame. It’s not you, semicolon. It’s me.

Many years later, when I finally hunkered down to learn proper semicolon use, something miraculous happened: I discovered I had been right to hate the semicolon all along.

Here's what I learned.

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May 28, 2018

Actually, sometimes spell-checker can save you

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We editors love to criticize spell-check. We know too well how this tool designed to save you from embarrassing errors can let you down. If you type "Please remain clam," which as I reported in this space a few months ago one unfortunate writer did, spell-check won't know that you wanted to type "calm."

 f you write something about chickens attempting to escape their coup, your software will let you, utterly failing in its responsibility to tell you that you meant "coop." If you're talking about a street vendor pedaling his wares, spell-check won't realize you meant "peddling."

But in our more candid moments, many of us will admit that spell-checker isn't so much an enemy as a frenemy.

Yes, we love to hate it. But we could hardly do our jobs without it. The ugly truth is that it's already better than humans at a number of tasks. Here's my recent column  laying out some of the ways in which spell-check can save you.

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May 21, 2018

Stay for Awhile or A While?

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"Stay for awhile" is, technically, a grammar mistake. A preposition like "for" takes as its object a noun phrase — a noun or pronoun with or without modifiers. "For" is a preposition, but "awhile" isn't a noun. It's an adverb. So it can't be the object of "for."

"A while," on the other hand, is a noun phrase. It can be the object of the preposition "for." So "Stay for a while" is correct.

But if you take out the preposition, the dynamic changes, which is why both "Stay awhile" and "Stay a while" are correct. Here's a column I wrote a while back explaining why noun phrases like "a while" can function adverbially even though adverbs like "awhile" can't function as nouns.

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May 14, 2018

10 Grammar Issues You Shouldn't Worry About

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If you're trying to use good grammar, you have enough to worry about already. You don't have time to sweat over can't-go-wrong choices like whether to use "a" or "an" before "historic," "healthy" vs. "healthful," whether to use the serial comma, or whether to put periods in abbreviations like "U.S." Here's my recent column highlighting 10 otherwise-stressful grammar issues you can scratch off your list of things to worry about.

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May 7, 2018

Asked or Said?

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Readers Bill and Julie noticed a language trend that's rubbing them the wrong way.

"One of our pet peeves is the evolving usage of 'said' instead of 'asked' immediately preceding the utterance of a question." Here's an example they offered: "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," Bill and Julie wrote.

"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.

 It's an interesting observation, and it touches on an important subject for writers: speech tags. Here are some tips from my recent column.

 

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April 30, 2018

What's with 'Woah'?

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Like a lot of little girls, I was obsessed with horses. I found a trove of horse stories in my school library and dived head first into Old Bones the Wonder Horse by Mildred Mastin Pace and The Golden Mare  by William Corbin.

By the time I was 9, I'd seen the word "whoa" in print so many times, it was unfathomable that anyone might spell this horse command differently. Then, about a year ago, I noticed a stranger on social media responding to a news story with "woah."

"Woah"? Really?

Not long after, I saw this spelling again. Then, just a few days before this writing, I saw a tweet from Atlantic magazine editor David Frum responding to a news item with (get this): "whoah."

I assumed that the inability to spell "whoa" was a new phenomenon. It was definitely new to me. Had I come across "woah" or "whoah" in the past, I would have noticed. I'm sure of it.

But a little grown-up research shows that these spellings are not new. Far from it.

Here's my column on all these spellings and which you should choose.

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April 23, 2018

Whoa, There. What's with 'Woah' and 'Whoah'?

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Like a lot of little girls, I was obsessed with horses. I found a trove of horse stories in my school library and dived head first into "Old Bones the Wonder Horse" by Mildred Mastin Pace and "The Golden Mare" by William Corbin.

By the time I was 9, I'd seen the word "whoa" in print so many times, it was unfathomable that anyone might spell this horse command differently. Then, about a year ago, I noticed a stranger on social media responding to a news story with "woah."

"Woah"? Really?

Not long after, I saw this spelling again. Then, just a few days before this writing, I saw a tweet from Atlantic magazine editor David Frum responding to a news item with (get this): "whoah.

Here's my recent column on how to spell it correctly. 

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April 16, 2018

Hard-learned Grammar Lessons

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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.

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April 9, 2018

Spat, Slayed, Lain: Tricky Past Tense Forms

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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.

 

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April 2, 2018

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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.

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