November 2, 2015

More on the subjunctive

Fascinatingly, the subjunctive mood is much easier to use (you probably use it well all the time) than it is to understand. So here's a bit more on the subject, my newspaper column on the subjunctive from last year.

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October 26, 2015

Peeve As I Say, Don't Peeve As I Do

I spend a lot of time telling people to try to put their grammar peeves aside. In language, peevishness is always a recipe for frustration and often leads to humiliation. Language evolves. It keeps changing. When people use the language “wrong” often enough, it becomes right. (And no, that’s not a bad thing. It’s how we got all our words in the first place.)

Peevishness is at its worst when it causes us to criticize someone else’s usage. If we do that enough, eventually we end up being wrong. So it’s never a good idea to get peeved.

That said, I'll confess I have some peeves that I just can’t shake -- silly ones in that the "errors" that bother me aren't really outright errors. But I still cringe when I hear them. Here are a few supposed language abuses I just can’t let go of.

There’s before a plural modified by some or many or a lot

I’ve long followed the advice that “there’s” should not precede a plural. “There’s” means “there is,” which naturally should be followed by a singular. There is a man I want you to meet. There is a reason we were chosen. Before a plural, “there are” makes more sense. There are some men I want you to meet. There are reasons we were chosen. But lots of people use “there’s” before plurals, especially when the plural is preceded by “some” or “many” or "a lot" or a similar word. There's a lot of people here. There's some sandwiches in the cooler. There's just so many choices. This use is considered idiomatic, and therefore it’s okay. But it still grates me.

Between you and I

This one is just sad to me because the people who use it are usually striving to be as proper as possible. They’re choosing “between you and I” because they believe “between you and me” is wrong. But they have it backwards. “Between” is a preposition. Prepositions take objects, which come in object form (that is, they take an object like “me” instead of a subject like “I”). Some experts defend “between you and I” as idiomatic. But using it because you think “between you and me” is wrong is a shame.

Acronym for initials or abbreviation

A lot of people say CIA and FBI are acronyms. But according to Webster’s New World College Dictionary, an acronym is really “a word formed from the first (or first few) letters of a series of words, as radar, from radio detecting and ranging.” So according to this definition, NASCAR is an acronym because it’s pronounced as a word, but NCAA is not an acronym because it’s pronounced as individual letters. This distinction seems to be fading. And other dictionaries allow some crossover. But I haven't let this one go yet.

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October 19, 2015

A Shining Example of Great Writing

The last 20 years has seen an explosion of bad writing. And I'm not just talking about amateur bloggers. I'm talking about "content" produced on companies' behalf for publication on the web. These pieces are written and edited by people who are getting paid to do so. That makes them professionals. Yet the quality of what's being turned out is anything but.

The sheer volume of text being cranked out by profit-seeking entities (entities that, by the way, are steering revenue away from traditional news gatherers and storytellers) is making quality writing an ever-smaller percentage of the available reading material.

Plus, there's so much of it. We're bombarded by text clamoring for our attention. Anything that can hold our eyeballs for more than a minute or two is a rare thing indeed.

That's why I feel compelled today to give a shout out to this New York Times Sunday cover story, "The Lonely Death of George Bell." Beautifully written and well reported, it held me riveted for over 8,000 words! Kudos to N.R. Kleinfield for an extraordinary read.

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October 12, 2015

'Log In' vs. 'Login' and Other One-word-or-two Dilemmas

Some people struggle with words like login/login. Should it be one word or two, they wonder.

According to the Associated Press Stylebook, “login” is a noun and “log in” is a verb. So, if you're following AP style, you use your login to log in. Piece of cake.

The Chicago Manual of Style doesn’t have an entry for "login." And neither Webster’s New World College Dictionary nor Merriam-Webster’s includes a listing for the word. So documents edited in Chicago style should use the two-word "log in" for both the noun and the verb.

The “login” situation is a good guide for other one-word-vs.-two-word conundrums. Often, the noun form is one word and the verb is two words. Take “lineup”/ “line up”: You tell all the players in the lineup to line up on the field. All three of the above sources agree on this one.

Here are some other stumpers that are easily solved simply by applying the noun-is-one-word formula:

makeup / make up – One word as a noun meaning composition or construction: the patient’s psychological makeup. Also one word as a noun meaning cosmetics (though American Heritage also allows “make up.”) Two words when a verb.

backup / back up – One word as a noun or adjective referring to an accumulation (The sink overflowed because of all the backup) or a form of support (Chief, call for backup). Two words as a verb.

workout / work out – One word as a noun, two as a verb.

pickup / pick up – Whether you're talking about a truck, a UPS man fetching a package you want delivered, or succeeding with a romantic prospect, the noun is one word and the verb two.

giveaway / give away – One word as a noun, two words as a verb.

signoff / sign off – Ditto above. One word as a noun, two as a verb.

leftover / left over - Ditto that ditto. One word as a noun, two as a verb.

And, by the way, nouns can function as adjectives. So if you have a makeup case, a pickup time, a backup plan, a workout routine, or lineup changes, those are all one word.

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October 5, 2015

Telling Friends How to Punctuate E-mail Greetings

I made the mistake of telling some friends a while back that it’s better to address an e-mail

Hey, June.

than

Hey June,

Bad idea. But before I get to how this backfired, let me explain the punctuation issue.

Most casual correspondence you see these days begins with something like “hey” or “hi” or “hello” followed by the recipient’s name. Nothing wrong with that. But perhaps 99% of the time, there's a comma after the name but not before it.

Hey June, 

I suspect that’s because people are so conditioned to seeing the traditional greeting:

Dear June,

But just because “Dear June,” is punctuated this way doesn’t mean that’s how you’d punctuate greetings that being with “hey,” “hi” or similar words. Grammatically, they’re different. In “Dear June,” the word “dear” is an adjective. It’s modifying the noun “June.” So “Dear June” is just a noun phrase, not a complete sentence.

But “hey,” “hi” and “hello” aren’t adjectives. They’re basically interjections, which can stand alone as sentences. So they don’t combine with a name to form a single noun phrase.

There's another aspect to this, too. In editing, when you call someone by a name, it’s called a direct address. A direct address is set off with commas.

As I’ve been saying, June, this is the plan.

In "Hey, June" you have a complete thought, "Hey," followed by a direct address. So theoretically a comma should go between them. What about afterward? Well, as I said, interjections can function as complete sentences, which is why I punctuate these greetings with a period.

Hey, June.

If you prefer you can make this part of the sentence that follows by ending it with a colon.

Hey, June:

And, technically, you could also end it with a comma.

Hey, June,

That looks terrible. So I don’t recommend it. Unfortunately, ever since I mentioned this issue to friends, that’s how a couple of them now address their e-mails to me and, I presume, to their business associates.

Hey, June, 

I tried to explain that the first comma's good but a period at the end would be better. But the second lesson isn’t sticking as well as the first. So my help wasn't very helpful. And from now I’ll keep silent on this matter.

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September 28, 2015

'Is When'

It’s been 13 years since I started writing a weekly grammar column. And just when I think I’ve heard every weird grammar myth that ever existed, another one comes at me out of nowhere. Here’s an e-mail I got from a reader in Upstate New York.

“You can’t be talking about grammar and say ‘is when.’”

Apparently, somewhere in my column, I had used this this term. I was so gobsmacked by the “rule” that I didn’t bother to check. Instead, I immediately wrote back saying that was a new one on me and asking my correspondent where she heard it and if she knew of any rule books that mentioned it.

She was cool enough to answer me: She had no source. A teacher had told her that once and it stuck in her mind. She had never heard it anywhere else and didn’t know of any book that discussed it.

In other words: We can add yet another silly superstition to the mountain of nonsense that people have been told and believed.

Like all grammar nonsense, the idea that you can't use “is when” may be rooted in some solid logic. There’s a common problem in writing called faulty predication that deals with sentences like “A death is when bereaved people come together to mourn.” That’s illogical because a death is a thing, not a when. Another example, “Good dental hygiene is when you brush three times a day.” Again, it’s just too weird to call hygiene a when.

But does that mean you can never say “is when”? Of course not.

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September 21, 2015

Using Quotations to Report Facts

Here's a tip far too many writers need to hear: Don't use quotations to report facts.

Let me demonstrate.

“The school was founded in 1897 by settlers from Pennsylvania,” Mary Schoolspokesperson said.

Here’s another:

“Just over 38% of registered voters turned out for the election,” Shelly Soandso said. “That’s a 2% decrease from last year.”

One more:

“The parade begins at 8 a.m. and ends at around 11 a.m., or whenever the last float reaches Sierra Madre Boulevard,” said Joe Repstheclub.

I see stuff like this all the time in my editing and it tells me in an instant something the writer would prefer I didn’t know: He has no real news experience.

Journalism has some good ideas about what kind of information belongs in quotations or, more importantly, what does not. In its simplest form, the best principle is this: Facts are the reporter’s job. They should be verified by him and reported in his own words, rather than attributed to someone else. Look at a hypothetical example so you can see why.

“My neighbor Dan is a child molester,” Joe Soandso said.

That’s not OK. It doesn’t absolve the reporter of responsibility for the facts. It doesn’t even protect him from legal liability. The reporter and publication can be sued. And the “We didn’t say it, Joe Soandso did” argument won’t hold water.  (If you’d like to know more, read the section on libel law in the back of the Associated Press Stylebook.)

But that’s an extreme case. Most abuses of this principle don’t involve shocking assertions. They just say stuff like “The park opens at 10 a.m.,” which comes off as amateurish because, in professional publications, the facts come straight from the reporter – the person who takes responsibility for them. And quotes are left for opinions, observations, and other bits exclusive to the person saying them.

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September 14, 2015

Semicolons in One-sentence Paragraphs

Here’s an argument I’ve gotten into a few times. I'm of the mind that there’s never a good reason to use a semicolon in a one-sentence paragraph. For example:

There are many reasons to visit the Valley this summer; it’s a fun place with lots to do.

To me, that should be two sentences:

There are many reasons to visit the Valley this summer. It’s a fun place with lots to do.

(A colon would be okay, too. But because the colon is more specialized, adding a deliberate emphasis to the second clause, we’ll set that option aside for now and just focus on the semicolon option and the two-sentence option.)

The semicolon has two jobs. It can indicate that two clauses are closely related. Or it can be used as a sort of uber comma to manage unwieldy lists, especially lists in which the individual items have their own commas: I visited Springfield, Illinois; Washington, D.C.; and Sacramento, California.

In our one-sentence paragraph, it’s doing that first job: showing that the clauses are closely related. But here’s the thing: The paragraph structure beat the semicolon to the punch. There are only two clauses in the whole paragraph, so it’s already clear that they’re closely related. The semicolon is redundant.

What’s worse – what’s always worse about semicolons – is they make sentences longer. What’s gained by making a simple, clear 10 word sentence and a simple, clear eight-word sentence into an 18-word sentence?

Even within a longer paragraph, this use of semicolons is usually a bad idea. In a three-sentence paragraph, two of the sentences are likely to be closer to each other than they are to the third. Any four-sentence paragraph you could divide into two simply by pairing the sentences up based on similarity. And so it goes. So regardless of paragraph length, all a semicolon really does is make neat, tight sentences into longer beasts, bringing no reader benefit in the process.

Repeat: no benefit to the reader.

That’s why I’m down on semicolons in general. But in a one-sentence paragraph, they’re even worse.

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September 7, 2015

1976 or Nineteen Seventy-Six?

I got a question recently about writing a number at the beginning of a sentence:

Is it OK to begin a sentence with a number written numerically or should the number be written out? In a recent email exchange I was asked how much a piece of equipment might cost and I found myself writing, "800 comes to mind." and it just didn't look right to me. Should I have written, "Eight hundred comes to mind?"

Short answer: probably.

Long answer: Starting sentences with numbers is not a grammar issue. It's a style issue. Editing styles have complicated systems for when to use numerals and when to spell out numbers. But most agree that at the beginning of a sentence, a number usually should be spelled out -- even if it would be expressed as a numeral elsewhere in the same sentence. "We have 80 recordings in our DVR." "Eighty is the number of recordings in our DVR." Some styles, especially news styles, make an exception for years. For those, AP says to go ahead and use numerals at the beginning of a sentence. "1987 was a good year for patent-leather manufacturers."

If you need your writing to be publisher perfect, check a copy of the AP Stylebook. If you just want your writing to appear polished, follow your instincts. My correspondent knew that his sentence would look bad with a numeral at the beginning. So his instincts are obviously good.

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August 31, 2015

Question Marks and Exclamations with Quotation Marks

A longtime reader of my column, a man named Steve in Moreau, New York, has mentioned multiple times in his e-mails that he doesn’t want to follow the American rule for putting periods and commas inside quotation marks. Like many people, he prefers to put the period or comma after a closing quotation mark in situations like:

I use the word “fabulous”.

In American English, that’s wrong. The period or comma comes before the closing quote mark regardless of the content of the quotation. Of course, almost no one knows that. So almost no one writing online does it right. So it’s just a matter of time before we’re doing it this way (which, by the way, is how it’s done in British English).

Steve was firmly committed to this method until, recently, when asking me a question about numbers, he wrote:

Should I have written, "Eight hundred comes to mind?"

Steve continued.

Please note my acquiescence to your rule that I challenged, that quotation marks must always go on the outside of a sentence.

Steve went on to say that he would have rather put the question mark after the closing quotation mark because the quoted part was not a question. Instead, it came within a larger question. So logic would put the question mark after the quote mark.

Would it kill the grammar police to let me clarify that by putting the question mark outside the quotation mark?

I blame myself. Here’s how I replied:

All that stuff I say about periods and commas next to quotation marks? It doesn't apply to question marks and exclamation points. Those follow a different system -- the basic logic that you prefer. If the quoted matter is a question, the question mark goes inside. If the quoted matter is a statement within a question, the question mark goes outside.

Correct: Alfred E. Neuman's catch phrase is "What, me worry?"
Correct: Should I have said, "800 comes to mind"?
Correct: Bart Simpson's catch phrase is "Ay, Caramba!"
Correct: I hate, hate, hate the word "prolly"!

So aesthetics rule with periods and commas. Logic rules with question marks and exclamation points. And because question marks and exclamation points add information to the words, which periods and commas don't, this system makes sense. Welcome to the hell between my ears.

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