February 10, 2014

A Tricky Thing About Commas: Appositives

Here’s something I see a lot of in my copy editing work:  He’ll interview author Rob Peters and an accountant Jane Farrell.  

Or sometimes it will look like this: He’ll interview author, Rob Peters, and an accountant, Jane Farrell.

But almost never will it look like this: He’ll interview author Rob Peters and an accountant, Jane Farrell.

As you may have guessed, that’s unfortunate because the last one is actually correct.

Knowing when to use commas in these situations lies in understanding appositives. And the easiest way to think of an appositive is as a renaming of something just said:

… my husband, Ted …

… the teacher, a great person ...

... your car, a 2009 Acura …

An appositive is a noun phrase that stands in apposition to another, where “apposition” means “a grammatical construction in which two usually adjacent nouns having the same referent stand in the same syntactical relation to the rest of a sentence.” (You can see why I led with the CliffsNotes version.)
Simply put, if you’re just throwing in a name or another noun that repeats another noun, that's an appositive. An aside. An extra parenthetical bit thrown in. And once we undertsand that, the “Chicago Manual of Style’s” advice is clear:

“A word, abbreviation, phrase, or clause that is in apposition to a noun is set off by commas if it is nonrestrictive -- that is, omittable, containing supplementary rather than essential information. If it is restrictive -- essential to the noun it belongs to -- no comma should appear.

“The committee chair, Gloria Ruffolo, called for a resolution.

“Stanley Groat, president of the cporporation, spoke first. …

“My older sister, Betty, taught me the alphabet.

“but

“My sister Enid lets me hold her doll. (I have two sisters.)”

See how in the first sister example the lack of commas tells us that the speaker only has one older sister? And see how in the second sister example the lack of commas tells us that Enid is just one of two or more sisters?

Now think about “the baker Rob Peters” vs. “the baker, Rob Peters.”In the first, you’re using the name to make clear which baker you’re talking about. In the second, you’re implying that the reader already knows that you’re talking about one specific baker and that, by the way, his name is Rob Peters.

Ditto that for:

“I read the book, ‘Blue Skies” vs. “I read the book “Blue Skies.’”

In the first one, it’s clear you’ve already established with the reader that you’re talking about a single, specific book, even if you haven’t named it yet: “I went to the store. I thumbed through a book I couldn’t put down. I bought it, along with a music CD. When I read the book, “Blue Skies,” it changed my life.”

But in the second one, you’re probably referencing the book for the first time.

Again, it all boils down to whether the second noun phrase is a mere repeat of the first or whether they’re working together in a way that makes them inseparable.

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February 3, 2014

The 'I Love Grammar' Lady

“I love grammar!” a woman who works in my building announced.

She had opened her newspaper the day before and, to her surprise, saw a picture of me  -- someone she’s seen milling about on the fifth floor of her office building regularly for years. The community news division of the Los Angeles Times had just launched a Pasadena local news insert in the main paper. In it was my grammar column accompanied by my headshot.

The Pasadena resident and L.A. Times subscriber was thrilled. She and her friends frequently talk about grammar and all the awful mistakes people make, she told me. So she was excited to see a grammar column in her paper.

My stomach sank.

I get a lot of e-mails from “grammar fans” that say pretty much the same thing: They’re delighted to see that someone – finally – is fighting the good fight against sloppy usage and eroding grammar standards.

And I always wonder: Are these people who have only recently discovered the column? Or are they longtime readers who are just really good at selective interpretation?

The latter seems common. For example, here’s some “praise” I got recently from a reader: “Hallelujah! Someone (besides my dorky self) is pointing out that ‘is comprised of’ is always wrong.”

That’s not what I said, even though that's what he read.

But some people – a lot, in fact – think that anyone who takes an interest in grammar is crusading for the readers’ own personal peeves.

So it’s quite possible that the people who cheer my "crusade" are not new readers but long-term readers who just hear what they want to hear. Eventually I disappoint them all. I’m not the enforcer they want me to be. In time they see that I’m not lecturing about the evils of split infinitives or sentence-ending prepositions or sentences begun with “and” or whatever other peeves they harbor.

I’m used to that – in my e-mail in-box. But now, for the first time, I was facing one of these prescriptivist grammar fans in person. And I knew it wasn’t going to end well.

A few weeks later, she asked me to write a column about how it’s wrong to say “I graduated college” instead of “I graduated from college.” It’s not. Both are acceptable. I told her so. Soon after, she mentioned the terrible mistake people make when they used “robbed” in place of “burglarized.” I told her, with a “Don’t shoot the messenger shrug,” that too is okay. I cited dictionaries. I cited usage guides. I talked about how style guide rules are not universal rules. But she was having none of it.

There’s been a distinct chill in the air on the fifth floor ever since.

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January 27, 2014

Excessive Use of 'They' as a Singular

I’ve spent a lot of time arguing that it’s okay to use “they” and “their” to refer to a singular person of unknown sex.

For example, “Every visitor should be sure they pick up their keys from the valet.” A lot of people say that’s wrong because “visitor” is singular but “they” and “their” are plural. But in fact, this isn’t quite wrong. And it’s getting less wrong every day. Dictionaries now indicate that “they” and its cousins have plural as well as singular definitions. Even if dictionaries didn’t allow this, common sense (aka idiom) would: You just can’t expect people to speak like: “Every visitor should be sure he or she picks up his or her keys from the valet nearest his or her parking space to assure he or she is not charged for overnight parking of his or her vehicle.”

That’s just not gonna happen.

Yes, you could assign a sex to the hypothetical person. But that can be distracting. Choose male and it seems a little sexist. Choose female and it seems a little odd. Obviously, if you’re talking about people in situations predominated by one sex or the other -- say, nail salon customers -- this is less weird. But collectively, English speakers have given some singular meaning to “they” and “their,” and there’s nothing wrong with that.

So on a recent day at work I must have sounded like I was possessed by the ghost of William Safire.

An article I was editing contained long, repeated, excessive uses of the singular “they.”

“When you buy a fine timepiece for that special someone, you want it to be something they will treasure forever: Every time they look at it, you want them to think of you. You want them to know that you kept them in mind as you shopped, that you remained keenly aware of their taste, their style, their preferences.

What’s wrong with that? Grammatically: nothing. Realistically: everything. It comes off as completely unprofessional if for no reason other than the fact that pros don’t write like that. Or at least their editors don’t let them get away with writing like that. The passage above is completely inconsistent with anything you’d read in a quality publication.

What do professional writers do instead? Anything and everything to avoid such excessive and unsightly use of singular “they” and “their.” The writers swap out the pronouns for nouns. They recast sentences to eliminate the need for a pronoun. They employ some passive voice. They slip in the occasional “he or she” or “him or her.” And occasionally they might even let a “they” stand. But they never just let a barrage of “theys” and “theirs” fly as they might in casual conversation.

“When you give (REWORDED TO ELIMINATE NEED FOR A PRONOUN) a fine watch, you want to choose a piece that your special someone (REPLACES PRONOUN WITH NOUN PHRASE “YOUR SPECIAL SOMEONE”) will treasure forever. Every time he or she (COORDINATE SUBJECT REPLACES “THEY”) looks at it, the timepiece should evoke (CLAUSE RECAST SO THAT “TIMEPIECE” BECOMES THE SUBJECT) fond memories of you, the giver. A carefully chosen watch says that your recipient’s (NOUN PHRASE “YOUR RECIPIENT” REPLACES PRONOUN) taste, (DELETED UNNECESSARY "THEIR") style, and uniqueness were forefront in your mind."

So, except in dialogue and other extremely colloquial forms of writing, there’s never an excuse to use “they,” “their” and “them” to the extent that the writer of the above passage did.

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January 20, 2014

Advice for Bloggers on Headline Capitalization

Attention bloggers: I know you want your headlines to look professional. I can tell by how you capitalize them. You know that, in many publishing styles, most words in a headline are capitalized, but not all of them. So you sort of go with your gut and end up writing blog post headlines like this:

Is it Safe for Women to Travel Alone in India?

So close. But that's not quite what you were aiming for.

As most people know, very small words in a title case headline start with lowercase letters. But not all small words. Just some of them.

Let me back up and say that headline capitalization isTravel  not a right-or-wrong thing. There are no grammar or writing rules at work here. Just conventions -- standards followed by publishers to ensure that the work they produce is polished according to some simple, consistent logic.

That logic varies a bit from publisher to publisher, but some points are nearly universal. For example, every headline style I know of says to lowercase many prepositions, articles, and conjunctions but to uppercase verbs, nouns, and pronouns.

are not. "Is" is a verb and "it" is a pronoun. So while "in" would usually start with a lowercase I in a title case headline, "it" and "is" would start with a capital I. In other words, the part of speech is more important than how long the word is.

But prepositions have another twist: If a preposition is integral to the verb -- as in what's called a phrasal verb -- keep it uppercase.

Human Rights Advocates to Look In on Prisoners

Here, the word "in" is part of a phrasal verb. When you take "in" from "look in," it changes the meaning. Throw up, count down, call out, ask out,  run over -- these are all examples of phrasal verbs in which the second word can't be removed without changing the meaning. For headline capitalization purposes, prepositions that are part of a phrasal verb get higher billing that regular old prepositions.

If you want a simple set of guidelines for capitalizing your own headlines, here, based on a lot of news styles, is what I would recommend:

Capitalize the first letter of most words.

Lowercase articles (a, an and the) unless the very first or very last word of the headline.

Lowercase short conjunctions (and, so, but, and or)

Lowercase prepositions of three or fewer letters (in, at, to, on) but capitalize the first letter of longer prepositions (without, from, until, through, etc.). Disregard this rule if the preposition is part of a phrasal verb.

Pay careful attention to “is” and “it.” A verb and preposition, respectively, these should probably start with a capital letter in your headlines.

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January 13, 2014

If Only He Would Get a Clue

Last week I wrote about a reader I call Bert, who on two occasions has referred to people who know less about grammar than he does as “the great unwashed.” Here's another e-mail he sent about one of my recent newspaper columns.

“This morning’s article reminds me of another of my ongoing complaints: the placement of the word 'only.' It is common to hear and read “only” toward the beginning of a sentence or thought, when it should be much later in order to modify what really is intended to be modified. Your article (four paragraphs from the end) says, 'People only began fussing over it in the mid-1960s.'

“You don’t mean that they only began, and didn’t continue or conclude; I’m sure that you mean that they began fussing only in the mid-1960s.  Your next paragraph correctly places the 'only': ' . . . "healthy’ means only ‘in good health’" . . .' -  right?  Nearly 100% of the time, Americans and Brits misplace a modifying 'only,' and while we understand the meaning, careful consideration shows that the 'only' is modifying the wrong thought when so placed.”

What’s Bert’s source, you may be wondering? He doesn’t have one. It’s simply not a rule that you must place “only” closest to the term it modifies. Like a lot of adverbs, “only” can modify whole sentences or thoughts. So its placement is flexible, just like “Soon I will leave,” “I will soon leave” and “I will leave soon.”

Plus, when nearly 100% of English speakers do something a certain way -- well, sorry Bert, but that’s how grammar rules are made. And saying that 99-plus percent of the population should do things your way just doesn’t fly.

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January 6, 2014

'The Great Unwashed'

I poke fun at a lot of the e-mails I get from people who read my column. But the truth is that most of the e-mails I get are perfectly lovely notes from seemingly lovely people. And because nice, reasonable, pleasant letters don’t hold much entertainment value, I don’t blog about them.

If you searched the archives on this site, you might get the impression that the people who write to me are all a little off. But, really, most of them are pretty great.

Then there’s Bert.

Bert, not his real name, lives in Newport Beach, Calif., where he reads my column in his local community news insert to the L.A. Times. He writes to me from time to time, always seemingly under the assumption that he has something to say that I'll agree with.

All the ideas Bert has ever communicated to me boil down to one message:. He and I are better than most people. His reasons have to do with grammar. Though I can’t help but wonder if my column were about gardening, politics, education, cooking, chess, relationship advice, or any of a million other topics, he’d find in them some reason to look down on others.

I used to be nice to Bert, giving him the kid glove treatment in e-mails that explain why he’s wrong. But then Bert wrote this:

“These days, the great unwashed seem to be convinced that I is classier than me, no matter its position in a sentence or phrase.  Of course, me all to often becomes the subject (Me and Jim went.)  ... Ugh!

“I have a New Yorker cartoon that shows two men, one of whom says (in the caption), 'You have no idea what it’s like to be a just between you and me person in a just between you and I world.” ...

“I’m a grammatical traditionalist and a curmudgeonly Professor Emeritus [state university name omitted].”

While there are many things that might strike you about this message (including the misspelling of “too”), here’s what most struck me: the juxtaposition of the words “the great unwashed” and “professor.” A man so critical of people whose grammar skills he considers subpar that he calls them “the great unwashed” is ... an educator.

An educator who looks down on the uneducated.

Gross, Bert. Truly gross.

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December 30, 2013

'The Careful Writer' and Prepositions

Of all the old-fuddy-duddy books in my language library, one of the fuddy-duddiest is Theodore M. Bernstein’s “The Careful  Writer: A Modern Guide to English Usage.” I don’t recommend it. There’s some good information in there, there's also a lot of opinion presented as fact. And because you can’t tell where research-based advice ends and the writer’s biases begin, this book can leave unwary readers misinformed.

However, there’s one little nugget of wisdom in this book that I find myself citing over and over. No other source I know of expresses it as well. In fact, most don’t address the topic at all. It has to do with prepositions.

Is it:

I have an affinity with him or I have an affinity for him?

I am uninterested in that subject or I am uninterested by that subject?

She differs with her husband on that point or She differs with her husband on that point?

Are you enamored of a certain person or enamored by him?

Are you embarrassed by something or can you be embarrassed of something?

These are the types of questions that leave English speakers baffled. It seems like there’s nowhere to turn because, in a lot of cases, there isn’t. Sometimes the dictionary will drop a hint. But when it doesn’t, you’re high and dry. There is no Big Book of Which Preposition to Use With Which Adjective, Noun, or Verb. As a comprehensive listing, the information just isn't available.

Bernstein is one of few who dare to offer a blanket solution. And it’s a good one. Here’s what Bernstein says about all these preposition conundrums and more:

“These are questions that cannot be answered with rules. The proper preposition is a matter of idiom; and idioms, if they do not come ‘naturally,’ must be either learned or looked up. ... If a desired idiom cannot be found here or in an unabridged dictionary (and dictionaries do not in all instances provide this kind of information), the only thing to do is to consult three knowing friends and get a consensus.”

In other words, whenever you're wondering about a matter like "I'm angry at him" vs. "I'm angry with him," there is no better authority than the ear of a native English speaker, except of course that of four native English speakers.

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December 23, 2013

Comma After a Short Introductory Phrase

I got an e-mail from a reader named Mike who had a question about the sentence “Soon I will go to the office,” which I had used as an example in a piece I wrote. Mike wanted to know “Shouldn't there be a comma after soon?”

Sure. Or not. Whatever.

A comma after a short introductory word, phrase, or clause, I told him, is optional. So in "Soon I will go to the office," no comma is needed.

“On Tuesday I will go to the office.” “On Tuesday, I will go to the office.”

You could go either way on these. It depends solely on which way you, the writer, feel best conveys the way you want it to come across.

But the longer the introductory matter, the greater the likelihood a comma will help.

“On the third Tuesday of the month, I go to the office.”

Technically you could skip the comma in the sentence. But I wouldn’t.

“On the third Tuesday of every month that ends in the letter Y, I go to the office.”

In this one, by the time you get to the main clause (“I go”), you’re in so deep that it’s hard to remember a main clause is even coming. So in that case, I’m guess that about 99% of editors would agree a comma is needed.

It’s just one of many areas of the language in which good judgment reigns supreme.

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December 16, 2013

Are Commas Out of Vogue?

Are commas too scarce these days?

That’s the gripe of a reader who wrote to me recently. Here’s what he said: “I find that in today's writing, (even in professionally edited books), there seems to be a lack of what I call "comma sense." I find it more difficult to read something when commas have been omitted; or perhaps the author or editor doesn't see the need for them.”

I agree with him that commas are in somewhat short supply these days. But I disagree that it’s a problem.

Some commas are optional, like the one after a short introductory phrase. For example, “On a recent afternoon I went to the park.” You could put a comma after “afternoon” or not. It’s up to you.

Because rules allow people to make many of their own comma calls, the comma’s popularity runs in trends. Right now, sparse comma use is the reigning aesthetic, with the always-contrary New Yorker magazine being the most obvious exception.

Personally, I'm a devotee of the aesthetic that uses fewer commas. To my eye, unnecessary commas do more harm than good: They break up the flow of the sentence. They slow down the reader. They take a unit that could have been a snapshot of a single idea and break it into chunks the reader has to assemble himself into a single message. So in the publications I edit, I lean toward fewer rather than more commas.

But really, as long as clarity or correctness isn't on the line, it's a matter of taste ... and fashion.

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December 9, 2013

*Data as a Singular

I don’t recommend using “data” as a singular, as in, “The data on this matter is shocking.”

“Data” is an English word that, like many words, is formed from the Latin. When we adopted it, we sort of pushed aside its Latin singular form, “datum.”

But sometimes it just seems kind of odd to treat it as a plural. “I’ve seen the data and it’s shocking” sounds less weird than “I have seen the data and they're shocking.”

If you find yourself in a situation where you’d really rather treat "data" as a singular, you can. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary says it’s “singular or plural in construction.”

The dictionary adds: "Data leads a life of its own quite independent of datum, of which it was originally the plural. It occurs in two constructions: as a plural noun (like earnings), taking a plural verb and plural modifiers (as these, many, a few) but not cardinal numbers, and serving as a referent for plural pronouns (as they, them); and as an abstract mass noun (like information), taking a singular verb and singular modifiers (as this, much, little), and being referred to by a singular pronoun (it). Both constructions are standard. The plural construction is more common in print, evidently because the house style of several publishers mandates it.”

So, like so many other issues in language, it comes down to whether you’re worried what other people think of your English skills. If you’re not too worried about stickler readers judging you, then you’re free to follow Merriam-Webster’s advice.

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