December 26, 2017

8 Ways to Overcome Fear of Being Wrong About Grammar

“Teachers are often scared of grammar.”

That’s the unhappy verdict of an article posted on the UK-based teacher support website Tes.com.

“The fear of being wrong with grammar is huge — the fear of being exposed,” University of Exeter professor Debra Myhill told the site. “You don’t get that as a literature teacher, because everything is about opinion — there’s no right or wrong. You can’t wing it as a grammar teacher.”

I stay out of education debates. I don’t have kids in school. I’m not a teacher. And I’ve heard enough uninformed criticisms of hard-working teachers to know that I don’t want to add another uninformed voice to the discussion.  But there's one thing I can offer: hope.

Here's my recent column offering 8 ways to overcome fear of being wrong about grammar.

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December 18, 2017

Capital or Lowercase Letter After a Colon?

There's something you need to know: This is correct.

There's something else you need to know: this is also correct.

There's another thing you might find interesting: this is not correct. In fact, it's wrong. 

One more thing that's incorrect: This.

If you're reading this, you probably know that two major editing styles dominate publishing. The Associated Press Stylebook is followed by a lot of news media, and the Chicago Manual of Style governs much of the book and magazine publishing worlds.

When they disagree, readers get conflicting messages about how to write things. Capital letters after colons are a classic example.

The two styles agree that whenever the stuff that follows a colon is less than a complete sentence, start with a lowercase letter.

I saw what he was wearing: jeans and a hoodie.

But they disagree on what to do when the colon introduces a complete sentence.

AP says to start with a capital letter.

I saw him: He was wearing jeans and a hoodie.

Chicago says to start with a lowercase letter if just one sentence is introduced by the colon, but use a capital if it's two sentences or more.

I saw him: he was wearing jeans and a hoodie.

I saw him: He was wearing jeans and a hoodie. His sneakers were Nikes.

Unless you're bound to one of these styles, you can choose whichever method you prefer. Personally, I find AP's rule easier to remember and apply: If it's a full sentence, start with a cap. If not, don't.

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December 11, 2017

Pleaded vs. Pled

Recently, there was some speculation about the authorship of a Donald Trump tweet that hinged on the use of the past tense "pled." Trump's account had tweeted the former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn had "pled" guilty of lying to the FBI. Fearing the tweet amounted to an admission of obstruction of justice, Trump's lawyer John Dowd claimed responsibility for the tweet.

Some observers weren't buying it. The word "pleaded" seemed more lawyerly, they argued, and therefore "pled" could not have been written by an attorney.

"Pled" is actually a longtime peeve of mine. Years ago, I looked it up to prove that its users were wrong. Of course, I was the one who was wrong. "Pled" and "pleaded" are both acceptable past-tense forms of the verb "to plead."

But that's general usage. It's quite possible that, within their own close-knit profession, lawyers have their own standards and official or unofficial preferences for forming the past tense of "plead."

So what's their verdict? As linguist Ben Zimmer showed in a recent piece for the Atlantic, you can't spot a lawyer by his use of "pled."

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December 4, 2017

Merry Christmas from 'The Wilson's'?

Don’t touch that holiday greeting card. Don’t send out those event invitations. And whatever you do, don’t have a gift engraved, embossed or embroidered until you read this.

It’s time, once again, for our holiday tradition: warning hosts, hostesses and gift-givers of the most common mistakes of the season: incorrectly formed plurals, possessives and plural possessives.

Here's my column on how to avoid errors like "the Wilson's," "the Williams's" and "the Chavez's."

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November 27, 2017

Meet the Object Complement

Look at this sentence: The news made Charles angry.

What’s the subject? It’s the news. What’s the verb? It’s “made.” The object, of course, is Charles. He’s the one being made. So what’s that “angry” doing in there? It’s modifying the object. Welcome to the wonderful world of object complements — sometimes crucial sentence elements that (spoiler alert) can also be nouns. Here's my recent column on these little-known but hardworking grammatical units.

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November 20, 2017

Envelope and Envelop

Last week, I almost missed a pretty big mistake in an article I was editing. A travel piece said that the luxury of some hotel would "envelope visitors in luxury." I didn't catch it on the first pass. Only on the second read did I notice that the article needed the verb, envelop, and not the noun meaning something you put a letter into.

So keep an eye out for this one. And if you're prone to blow right past this error, you're not alone.

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November 13, 2017

It's OK to Hate 'Irregardless,' but ...

A friend recently sent me a transcript of a delightful Garrison Keillor sketch in which he tries to promote good grammar to a folksy local. Among the gems in this sketch, he says "It's imperative that you learn about the subjunctive." This is especially clever because the subjunctive, for example the "be" in "It's crucial that you be on time," is used in imperatives (commands).

But in the same sketch, Keillor says that "irregardless" is not a word. Actually, it is. It's even sanctioned by dictionaries.

I don't know a single word-savvy person who advocates using "irregardless." All agree that "regardless" is always better. But that doesn't mean "irregardless" isn't a word.

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November 6, 2017

Importantly, Bored Of, the Possessive of Jess and Other Reader Questions

I have a secret inquirer. It’s like a secret admirer, but with less admiration and more grammar questions.

A newsprint-shy reader in Burbank had a couple of questions for my eyes only. Not for publication. But he hit on some good topics — ones that perplex lots of people. How to use "importantly," which preposition to use with "bored," and how to form the possessive of Jess are questions readers asked, and I answered, in this recent column.

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October 30, 2017

Should Editors Fuss Over 'Like' and 'Such As'?

Here’s a weird quirk a lot of copy editors have: They change “like” to “such as” anytime it’s used to mean “for instance.” Here’s a for-instance: “Joe loves watching old movies like ‘Vertigo’ and ‘The Birds.’”

Most editors I know would reflexively change that “like” to “such as” before sending the article to the copy editor, me. Then I stare at the sentence for 10 minutes wondering whether I can get away with changing it back.

Here’s my recent column on the subject.

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October 23, 2017

When Commas Work in Pairs

A reminder: sometimes commas work in pairs. When you drop the second one, you end up with bad punctuation logic:

The city of Pasadena, California has a playhouse and many museums.

Here we're separating Pasadena from California, but we're not separating California from the verb "has." The result is a sentence that says California has these things while that bit about the Pasadena has no logical attachment to the sentence. The idea is that commas can set off what's called parenthetical information. When you're talking about a city, the state it's in is parenthetical to the city name.

You can see the same logic at work with terms like "Inc." as well as years after dates.

Widgets, Inc., is based in Toronto.

On April 4, 2017, we attended a concert.

Without the second comma, you'd be giving the wrong impression about the relationship between Inc. and the words that follow or between 2017 and the words that follow. So keep an eye out for this one. It's a very common mistake.

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