May 16, 2016

A Test for Your Semicolons

Here's a test to see whether that semicolon in your sentence should stay: Try recasting the passage without it. If the result is clearer, shorter, less cumbersome sentences, then you have your answer. More than 90% of the time, I find that semicolons result in worse sentences, not better ones. Turns out, the writer included the semicolon not for the reader's benefit -- that is, not to organize the information in best way possible -- but for his own benefit -- that is, to show off his own semicolon prowess.

That's why I'm anti-semicolon: They lead to clunky, inelegant, long, poorly organized sentences that don't take into account that it's the writer's job to serve the reader.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

May 9, 2016

Of Drunken Members of Parliament and Modifying Phrases

In 2014, to promote a new exhibit on Vikings, the British Museum set sail with a clever public relations spectacle: an authentic-looking vessel manned by a motley crew that sailed down the Thames and past government buildings where members of Parliament had a front-row seat for the show.

 
As one insightful observer reported: "A longboat full of Vikings, promoting the new British Museum exhibition, was seen sailing past the Palace of Westminster yesterday. Famously uncivilized, destructive and rapacious, with an almost insatiable appetite for rough sex and heavy drinking, the MPs nonetheless looked up for a bit to admire the vessel."

This joke was brought to you by a grammar concept called modifying phrases. If you want to know more, here's a recent column.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

May 2, 2016

John McIntyre's Peeve Peeves

For about 14 years, I've been engaged in the less-than-endearing  task of telling readers of my newspaper column that their grammar peeves are, in fact, superstitions. So I figured I'd let someone else bear the bad news -- Baltimore Sun copy editor and columnist John McIntyre. And if you still think it's wrong to split an infinitive, start a sentence with "and," end a sentence with a preposition, use "hopefully" to mean "I hope" or use "they" to refer to a single person, McIntyre would like a word.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

April 25, 2016

Bad News for Good Editing

The Bay Area News Group, which operates more than two dozen small newspapers, has announced it will lay off all 11 of its copy editors, sending stories to press without any copy editing at all. For those of us who've spent years refining the craft this isn't welcome news.

I've been hoping that the decline or absence of editing standards at many online outlets would, instead of bringing down standards across the board, separate the top-quality stuff from the pack. I mean, I know that most readers don't consciously notice subtle style and grammar infelicities, but as Malcolm Gladwell so effectively argued in "Blink," the can't-put-my-finger-on-what's-wrong subconscious can still discern between good and bad. I was hoping that, in light of all the typos you see on line, this all added up to good news for us advocates of good editing. I'm getting more pessimistic.

Here's a link reporting the Bay Area News Group announcement.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

April 18, 2016

Of Modifying Phrases and Marauding Members of Parliament

In 2014, to promote a new exhibit on Vikings, the British Museum set sail with a clever public relations spectacle: an authentic-looking vessel manned by a motley crew that sailed down the Thames and past government buildings where members of Parliament had a front-row seat for the show.

As one insightful observer reported: "A longboat full of Vikings, promoting the new British Museum exhibition, was seen sailing past the Palace of Westminster yesterday. Famously uncivilized, destructive and rapacious, with an almost insatiable appetite for rough sex and heavy drinking, the MPs nonetheless looked up for a bit to admire the vessel."

And to really understand how the writer pulled off that joke, you need to know a thing or two about modifying phrases. Here’s a recent column of mine that lays it out for you.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

April 11, 2016

Tips for Writing Better Sentences

There’s no formula for writing a good sentence. There’s not even a formula for knowing what a good sentence is. The very idea is subjective. Yet I’ve spent a lot of time analyzing some truly bad sentences and considering what could make them better. Based on those harrowing experiences, here are some tips. They won’t apply in every situation. But they’re worth considering when you find your sentence is in trouble.

TIPS FOR IMPROVING SENTENCES

1. Identify all the clauses in the sentence.
The mayor went to Washington because he had a meeting with the senator.

2. For each clause ask: Could the subject or verb be more vivid or substantive?
Bob’s desire was that he would come to occupy the Lou Larson’s job.  --->
Bob wanted Lou Larson’s job.
Ask: Does the main clause convey the most important information?
Paris is a place that gets a lot of tourists.  --->
Paris gets a lot of tourists.

3. Look for “upside-down subordination,” where the most notable information is trapped in a subordinate clause by until, after, before, if, when, because, etc.

When Officer Miller shot the robber, he knew it was a mistake.  --->
Officer Miller shot the robber. He knew it was a mistake.

4. Consider whether each clause/action should be made into its own sentence.

Karen knew that removing her coat would send bill the wrong signal and didn’t want to give him any ideas because that could lead to trouble.  --->
Karen knew that removing her coat would send Bill the wrong signal. She didn’t want to give him any ideas. That could lead to trouble.

5. Look for other sentence elements, like participial phrases, that could be made into separates sentences.

Having been in a lupus survivor for 15 years, John knew what to do.  --->
John had survived lupus for 15 years. He knew what to do.

6. Look for passive voice and try converting to active voice. Compare:
The coffee was served.  --->
The waiter served the coffee.

7. Look for actions and descriptions converted into abstract objects (nominalizations) and consider changing.
It’s clear she has happiness. --->
It’s clear she is happy.

8. Look for modifiers that can be deleted without loss of meaning, especially adjectives and manner adverbs.

9. Root out verbose expressions and linking terms: therefore, furthermore, thus, for his part, due to the fact that, it is his opinion that and some instances of in addition to and from blank to blank.

10. Look for poorly placed modifying phrases and look for ways to rework the sentence.
Steve photographed an elephant in his pajamas.
The elephant appeared just after Steve had leapt out of bed wearing his pajamas.
Wearing his pajamas, Steve leapt out of bed and photographed the elephant.
Steve was still in his pajamas when he photographed the elephant.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

April 4, 2016

For the seven-millionth time: You can end a sentence with a preposition

"Content" providers strike again: Any writer interested in providing good grammar advice wouldn't tell you it's wrong to end a sentence with a preposition unless he checked his facts first. But more and more, the stuff we read isn't penned by writers interested in providing good information. It's just a mishmash of words assembled by people trying to fill up web pages as quickly and cheaply as possible.

My most recent column tackles a pile of online hooey about how you supposedly can't end a sentence with a preposition. You can. And if the writer of this bit of content had bothered to check his own link, he could have saved a lot of people some bad information.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

March 28, 2016

'As If!'

Ever wonder how "as if" became a popular catch phrase? So did linguist Ben Zimmer, who wrote about the word's origins recently in his Wall Street Journal column.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

March 21, 2016

Apostrophe vs. Single Quotation Mark

A quick refresher:

Jane said, "I like the word 'awesome.'"

Bubba said, "Stop your cussin'."

Note how both those sentences are punctuated. They end differently, yet they're both correct. Why? Because the first one has a single quotation mark before the regular double quotation mark, but the second one has an apostrophe.

A single quotation mark works just like a regular quotation mark. In American English, they both come after a period or comma. But an apostrophe represents a dropped letter. It's part of the word. So it wouldn't make sense to separate it from the rest of the word by putting a period before it.

And if you can master that, it'll put you ahead of about half the professional editors I know!

Click player above to listen to the podcast

March 14, 2016

Another Grammar Chicken Little Bites the Dust

Fun quiz:

1. I got an email from a man who reads my column in his community news insert to the Los Angeles Times -- the physical newspaper that lands on his doorstep every morning. Was his name:

a. Jayden

b. Josh

c. Fred

2. This reader wrote to me because:

a. He thinks it's awesome how young people keep reinventing the language and making it their own.

b. He wanted to pitch me SEO services.

c. He's alarmed that the very, very important rules of grammar he was taught in his glory days are going straight to hell as young ignoramuses who don't know the rules of language continue to do it permanent harm.

You guessed right. Fred's pissed about young people's bad grammar. Here's an excerpt from his email:

I see bad writing everywhere: Awkward sentences, minimal punctuation, misspellings, misuse of words, references to things not previously mentioned, use of acronyms not previously noted, etc. The reason those in my age group fuss about this so much is because we have seen our culture spiral down, which the younger generation can’t see (yet!).

Here's how I responded.

Click player above to listen to the podcast