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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October 16, 2017

Parts of Speech Stepping Out

This week's podcast talks about how the "ing" form of a verb can be other things, like a noun, known as a gerund. But verbs aren't the only parts of speech that can function as other parts of speech.

Nouns can work as adjectives. Adjectives can work as adverbs. Prepositions can sometimes work as conjunctions. And nouns can work as verbs. Sometimes, they're listed in the dictionary as such: the preposition "like" is also listed as a conjunction. Sometimes they're not: the modifier "paint" in "paint store" is not in the dictionary as an adjective. Here's column I wrote recently covering all of these.

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October 9, 2017

No News Here on Split Infinitives

Recent news stories loudly proclaimed that, at long last, it's okay to split infinitives.

Huh?

There's never been a ban on putting an adverb or other word between the "to" and the infinitive, as in "to boldly go." And even people who don't realize that tend to see the whole matter as a thing of the past: a lost-long-ago grammar crusade.

But apparently, a lot of people have been clinging to the idea much longer than I realized. Here's my recent column on this "news." 

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October 2, 2017

Once Again: Periods and Commas Go Inside the Quote Marks

Consider this a semiannual reminder: In American English, periods and commas always go inside the quotation marks. Colons and semicolons always go outside. And exclamation points and questions can go inside or outside, depending on whether they apply to the whole sentence or just the quoted portion.

When Joe says the word "roof," it sounds like "rough."

Here's how Joe says the word "roof": "rough."

Have you heard how Joe pronounces the word "roof"?

It's a hilarious way to say "roof"!

The American rule on periods and commas is now widely disregarded, with casual posters on the web almost always guessing wrong. Wikipedia's official style does not follow this rule, hastening its death.

But it's not dead yet. For now, remember: A period or comma always comes before the closing quote mark.

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