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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October 3, 2016

Language Changes Happening Right Now

Are you more likely to say "They started to walk" or "They started walking"?

According to an interest piece on Mental Floss, the infinitive in a case like this is losing ground to the "ing" form. And that's just one of the interesting language changes researchers say are happening as we speak (pun intended). Here's the article.

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September 26, 2016

Good Things Come to ...

Do good things come to he who waits? Or do good things come to him who waits? Ask a thousand people and you'll get somewhere between 999 and 1,000 bewildered looks.

It's a tough question. You need not one but two grammar concepts under your belt to figure out the answer. You need to know about prepositions. You also need a solid understanding of relative pronouns.

Here's a recent column explaining everything you need to know.

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September 19, 2016

An Easy Fix for a Faulty Parallel

Sometimes, fixing a faulty parallel is as easy as adding the word "and." The hard part is spotting the error in the first place. Here's a recent column about one I caught and how I fixed it.

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September 12, 2016

Writing Is Hard. Editing Is Harder.

"You will be charged with taking what is defective and rendering it merely mediocre," Baltimore Sun copy editor John McIntyre warns his editing students, "That is pretty much the most that editing can ever accomplish."

Just one of the nuggets  of wisdom the “Old Editor” shares in this charming video.

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September 6, 2016

Adjective Order Goes Viral

If you're down with a lot of wordy types on the web, there's a good chance that in the last few days you've seen an excerpt from a book called "The Elements of Eloquence" by Mark Forsyth. It says, "Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac.”

There's one word in this passage that makes the whole thing dead wrong. That word is "absolutely." The proof is in this assessment of Forsyth's assertion: That's one big, beautiful overstatement.

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August 29, 2016

Email Greetings

Hi June,

That’s a greeting I see almost every day in my in-box. The punctuation catches my eye every time.
According to a careful reading of the Chicago Manual of Style, that’s wrong. Yet pretty much every email ever sent, including ones sent to me by editors, does it this way.

Chicago says that a “direct address” should be set off by commas. A direct address occurs when you call someone by a name or other term used like a name.

Goodbye, Norma Jean
Hey, dude
Listen, punk
Excuse me, ma’am
I swear it, officer
Chief, you gotta believe me
Oh, Steve

Dude, punk, chief, officer, Steve -- those are all direct addresses because they’re all things people are being called directly.

When we say they’re supposed to be “set off” with commas, that means that when one appears in the middle of a sentence it should have a comma on either side. Goodbye, Norma Jean, and good luck. Hey, dude, that’s awesome. If they're at the end or beginning of a sentence, of course, the period at the end of the sentence precludes the need for a second comma. Goodbye, Norma Jean. Dude, that’s awesome.

But almost every time I see a direct address in my e-mail in-box, it has no comma before the name. Hi June,

It does, however, have a comma after the name. But that doesn’t make sense, either, because it’s not in the middle of a sentence.

I think I know why this is so common. A lot of correspondence starts with greetings like: Dear John,

Unlike Hi, June, that is fine. “Dear” isn’t the same as “hi.” Dear is a modifier, and you don’t use a comma to separate modifiers from the things they modify “lazy, cat.” They work as a unit: “lazy cat.”

A comma after Dear John makes more sense than a comma after Hi, June. Dear John, begins a thought, while Hi, June. is a complete thought. (By the way, when addressing a letter, it’s okay to use a colon, too. Dear John: )

I think people have the Dear John, greeting seared into their minds, so Hi John, looks right to them, even though it would be better as Hi, John.

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