December 12, 2016

Hyphens in Longer Compounds

Where would you put hyphens in his new fur coat wearing boss? a reader asked me recently.

Like this: his new fur-coat wearing boss?

Or this: his new fur coat-wearing boss?

Or maybe like this: his new fur-coat-wearing boss?

Or maybe three hyphens: his new-fur-coat-wearing boss.

Longer compounds, or "compounds of uncertain scope," leave much up to the writer. The most important thing is to keep an eye on the meaning. Is this boss new? Or just the boss's coat?

Here's how I answered her question.

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December 5, 2016

Got a Problem With 'No Problem'?

Lately I've been hearing from people who don't like to hear "no problem" after they say "thank you." The problem with "no problem," they say, is that it introduces a problem into a situation where there hadn't really been one before -- as if the thanker had imposed some huge burden on the thankee, which that person endured heroically. But when you put alternatives like "you're welcome" under the same scrutiny, they don't hold up well, either. Here's my recent column on the problem alternatives to "no problem."

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November 28, 2016

How to Choose the Right Past Tense

A reader wrote to me recently to say his wife claims to have heard TV newscasters use "drugged" as the past tense of "drag." He wanted to know whether I consider this a correct usage. To which I reply: It doesn't matter what I think. The answers are already at your fingertips.

Here's the column I wrote in reply explaining how to find past tense and past participle forms in your dictionary.

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November 21, 2016

Fake News? The Clues Are in the Copy Editing

Fake news is becoming a real problem. Websites pushing bad information, sometimes outright lies, as fact may have influenced many voters. How can readers know a news item isn't credible? Often, the clues are in the copy editing. Here's my recent column on editing red flags in bogus news sites.

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November 14, 2016

Singular 'They': It's Still Fine

A few weeks back, a National Review contributor went on a tear about how awful it is that we use they as a singular pronoun and about how we should all use he when we don't know an individual's sex, as in, "Everyone with a locker should make sure he locks it."

The writer wasn't very nice about it, "Trying to depluralize they is an asinine effort, stemming from a stupid misunderstanding made by stupid people."

A number of us language types pointed out how very, very wrong the piece was. (Here's my two cents). But a particularly delightful contribution came from linguist and Arrant Pedantry blogger Jonathan Owen. Here's what Jonathan had to say.

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November 7, 2016

Don't Literally Explode When You Hear This

"Literally" is the gift that keeps on giving. There's no end in sight to the fighting over whether you can use it to say stuff like "The town was brought literally to its knees." I get why that bothers people. I avoid loose usages of "literally" myself. But saying this is wrong when every respectable dictionary has been saying for years that it's acceptable is, well, wrong.

Here's the one and only John McIntyre setting the record straight.

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October 31, 2016

More on Singular 'They'

Over the years I've written a number of columns about singular "they." The most recent was just this week. But it hasn't published yet, so here's an oldie but goody that includes insights from some real-life bona fide linguists.

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October 24, 2016

Time for a Punctuation-with-quotation-marks Refresher

American English speakers: Do you know where to put a quotation mark relative to another punctuation mark? If you're taking your cues from the Internet, British English users or especially Wikipedia, you're doing it wrong. In American English we have slightly different rules. Here they are.

A period or comma always goes inside the quotation marks. It doesn't matter if they pertain to the quoted matter or not.

Ben likes the word "emoticon," but he hates the word "emoji."

A question mark or an exclamation point can go inside or outside the quote marks, depending on whether it applies to the quoted part or the whole sentence.

Alfred E. Neuman's catchphrase is "What, me worry?" But do you remember who said, "Don't have a cow, man"?

A colon or semicolon always goes outside the quote marks.

Here's what you need to know about the word "emoji": It's more popular than "emoticon"; young people use it regularly.

Yes, this is more confusing than British English rules, which will put a comma or period after a quote mark when logic dictates. And, yes, it appears that the Internet is forcing American English in this direction. But for now, at least, a comma or period after a closing quote mark is still an error in American English.

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October 18, 2016

I or Me After 'Than'?

In the premiere of the HBO series "Westworld," two programmers at a high-tech amusement park are talking about a colleague.

"No one respects him more than me," one says, "but —"

He doesn't get to finish the thought.

"I," his superior corrects him. "No one respects him more than I. Your pronoun is the subject of the second clause."

Was she right? My latest column has the answer.

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October 10, 2016

Six More Punctuation Mistakes You're Probably Making

The comma or period after a closing quote mark is probably the most common punctuation mistake I see. But my most recent column highlights six more common mistakes, including putting the apostrophe before the S in the '90s (instead of before the 9) and letting your computer turn your apostrophe into an open single quotation mark.

Here's the column.

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