December 2, 2013

Before You Open that Box of Greeting Cards ...

It's holiday greeting card season. And you know what that means: Humiliating grammar and punctuation errors. So I'm rehashing these reminders about mistakes to watch out for.

Happy holidays from the Smiths!

Notice how there's no apostrophe in that? One Smith, two Smiths. And it doesn't matter if your last name ends with S, Z or X. Happy holidays from the Williamses. Happy holidays from the Gomezes. Happy holidays from the Delacroixes. No apostrophe is needed to form the plural of a name.

Only if you were showing possession would an apostrophe apply. We're going to the Smiths' house (plural possessive). We're going to Mr. Smith's house (singular possessive). We're going to the Gomezes' house (plural possessive). We're going to Mr. Gomez's house (singular possessive).

If the opening line of your card has both a name and a greeting, separate those elements with a comma and end the sentence with a period, exclamation point, or colon.

Hi, Joe. Happy holidays, Beth! Hey, mom.

This is preferable to the more common

Hey Joe,

with comma at the end because it conforms with publishing style rules that say to set off a “direct address” like a name with a comma.

However, if you’re opening with just a name and some other word modifying it, like Dear Joe, My beloved Beth, or Dearest Mom, don’t put a comma between those. Also, a greeting like this you can end with a comma or a colon, but note that a period or exclamation point wouldn’t make as much sense because -- unlike Hey, Joe --  Dear Joe is not a complete sentence.

Dear Joe,

Dear Joe:

Christmas and New Year’s are proper nouns and are thus both capitalized. Happy and merry are not (though of course you'd capitalize them at the beginning of a sentence). Nor is holiday. New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day are also proper names that should be capitalized. But dictionaries disagree on the singular new year. Webster’s New World College Dictionary lowercases new year. But Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary says to capitalize New Year. Except in the most generic of contexts, I like the capitalized New Year better.

So you could write:

Wishing you and merry Christmas and a happy New Year! or … and a happy new year!

Both are fine.

The spelling of Hanukkah can be tricky because this word is transliterated from a different alphabet, and people disagree on which English letter best represents any particular foreign sound. But if you might want to note that Hanukkah is the preferred spelling of Webster’s New World and Merriam-Webster’s and, yes, it's capitalized.

Greeting cards have a way of inviting in some of the most incriminating spelling and grammar errors (maybe we’re so worried about coming up with something to say to Grandma that we forget to police ourselves), so watch out for these common typos.

Never use of in place of have or its abbreviated form 've in the terms could’ve, would’ve, should’ve, might've, or their spelled-out forms could have, would have, should have, and might have.

Remember the difference between let’s and lets: Let’s get together in the New Year means let us get together. Whereas the one without the apostrophe is the verb to let conjugated in the third-person singular: Uncle Lou really lets his hair down during the holidays.

Remember to watch their, they’re, and there, as well as who’s and whose.

Their shows possession – We will go to their house for Christmas dinner. They’re means they are. And there is a place.

Whose shows possession – Whose turn is it to cook? Who’s is always a contraction of who is or who has: Who’s going to cook this year?

When in doubt, find out. Ask a friend, check a dictionary, or run a quick Google search.

And happy holidays!

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November 25, 2013

I Was Like, 'No Way'

I was like, “No way.”

The word “like” is legend among grammar grumblers. There are several uses of "like" that they take issue with. But the one they hate most is when it's a synonym for “said.”

“I was like, ‘totally.’”

“She was like, ‘Right?’”

And so on.

This use of “like” has been annoying parents for so long now that the annoyers are becoming parents themselves. And by the time the perpetrators of X, Y or Z language atrocity enter adulthood, their language quirks usually become mainstream, accepted, correct.

No, that’s not a bad thing. That’s how pretty much every word became a word and how every correct usage today became correct usage. Everything was wrong once. So I was wondering if “like” had yet gained any respectability as a formal substitute for “said.”

I’m not finding any evidence that it has. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary does not mention the usage. And Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, which is normally the first to defend such contested constructions, doesn’t mention it either.

So technically “I was like, ‘No way” isn’t sanctioned in formal speech yet.

Still, I kind of like it. It has a connotation that “said” does not. It suggests a reaction that may or may not have been overtly spoken. So it affords the user a freedom that “said” does not.

“I was like, ‘No way’” can mean that those were the words you spoke or that those were the words that ran silently through your head. But “I said, ‘No way’” leaves no such wiggle room. So this usage of “to be like,” which I bet will be sanctioned someday, can be a lot more fun.

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November 18, 2013

A Reminder About "John and I" vs. "John and Me"

A friendly reminder: Don’t say “between you and I.” And don’t say “The boss wants to talk with Bob and I” or “Thanks for meeting with John and I.”

It’s me. Me, me, me. In all those sentences, “I” is a poor choice. Yes, you could argue that the “I” form is idiomatic. But why would you want to? You’re just inviting people to look down their noses at you. And because it’s just as easy to use “me,” there’s no reason to come off like you don’t know the difference between object and subject pronouns.

And if you don’t know the difference now, you will in about thirty seconds. Here goes: “I” is a subject pronoun, which means it acts as the subject of a verb. “Me” is an object pronoun, which means it works as the object of a verb or the object of a preposition. So it’s:

I am here = I is the subject of the verb am

I believe in hard work = I is the subject of the verb believe

I knocked his block off = I is the subject of the verb knocked

Kiss me = me is the object of the verb kiss

He saw me = me is the object of the verb saw

Come with me = me is the object of the preposition with

Talk to me = me is the object of the preposition to

Easy right? Yes. And contrary to popular belief, it’s just as easy when you introduce another person. Nothing changes.

She and I are here = I is a subject of the verb are

Brad and I believe in hard work = I is a subject of the verb believe

My trusty robot and I knocked his block off = I is the subject of the verb knocked

Kiss my baby and me = me is the object of the verb kiss

He saw Craig and me = me is the object of the verb saw

Come with Claire and me = me is the object of the preposition with

Talk to Steve and me = me is the object of the preposition to

When in doubt, just try the sentence without the other person. If it’s “me” when Steve, Claire and the gang are absent, it’s “me” when they’re present, too.

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November 11, 2013

'Councilor' Leslie Knope

I’m a fan of the primetime comedy “Parks and Recreation.” It’s funny, endearing, smart and, as a bonus, features beauty shots of City Hall in my hometown, Pasadena, California.

The show centers around the life of Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), who in the beginning of the series was a city staffer in the parks department but who eventually gets elected to the city council. From there out, she becomes what they call a “councilor.” Not a councilmember, not a councilwoman. A councilor.

I like it.

Moons ago, I worked as a city hall reporter for a small community paper and as editor of another small community paper. In both towns, the elected local representatives called themselves “councilmembers.” If I remember right, this was also what they were called in official records and documents. But it made no difference to us. Our style was to use “councilman” or “councilwoman.”

This kind of gender specificity seems archaic, akin to terms like “lady doctor.” But after the thousand times I had to change “councilmember” to “councilwoman,” I was pretty much indoctrinated.

I don’t cover city government anymore, but I do edit stories about organizations that designate people to speak on their behalf. In their minds, one of these officials is called a “spokesperson.” But a lot like “councilmember,” “spokespersons” don’t exist in my editing universe. You’re either a spokesman or spokeswoman.

The Kool-Aid I drank must have been supersized, because “member” and “person” always sound wrong to me tacked on the end of a word like “council” or “spokes.”

A nice, generic word that sweeps all this bad blood under the rug seems just what the doctor ordered. That’s why I like “councilor.”

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November 4, 2013

*This 'Whom' Is Here to Stay

Sometimes it seems like “whom” should die. It causes so many people so much distress. If an old episode of “The Office” is any indication, only about one in 20 office workers has half a clue how it’s used. And a lot of people who think they know how to use it don’t.

For example, I see "whom" used a lot in ways such as this: “John is a man whom I know will always help us when we need him.” People who know that “whom” is an object figure that, in a sentence like this, it’s functioning as an object of the verb “know.” But it’s not. The object of the verb “know” in this sentence is not a single word but a whole clause “who will always help us.” Clauses need subjects. The verb “help” in this clause needs a subject. So correct here would be the subject pronoun “who”: “John is a man who I know will always help us.”

Sometimes it seems “whom” is just mean. And because it’s fading from all from the most formal uses, it’s tempting to look forward to the day we can bid it good riddance.

But here’s why “whom” is not going to die: in one specific construction, people clearly prefer it.

“I’m spending the day with my sister, with who I share many interests.”

That’s totally unnatural, right? Even in the most casual usage, someone who finds herself hemmed in to a sentence like this is going to say “with whom I share” and not “with who.”

In fact, anytime the pronoun comes immediately after a preposition, people seem to prefer “whom”

with whom

to whom

from whom

True, this situation doesn’t come up much. Casual speech usually sidesteps these constructions, for example by putting the pronoun at the beginning and the preposition at the end (“Who are you going to the movies with” instead of “With whom are you going to the movies”). But in those less-common situations, I don’t see “whom” disappearing anytime soon.

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October 28, 2013

*Deceptively Simple?

Ever given much thought to the word “deceptively”? I hadn’t, until I came across the following in Word Court, Barbara Wallraff’s compilation of columns from her former Atlantic Monthly column.

Here’s what a reader asked her: “A friend and I cannot agree on the meaning of phrases combining ‘depectively’ and a modifier – for example, ‘deceptively easy.’ I contest that something that is deceptively easy is, in fact, easy and is deceptive because it appears difficult. My friend argues that a deceptively easy task is one that appears easy but is difficult. Please help.”

Good one, huh? I always sort of took the former view: that "deceptively" before an adjective means that it has the qualities of that adjective, just it’s hard to see it at first. So someone who talks in a lot of big words but express a simple message is expressing a deceptively simple idea.

Unfortunately, Wallraff reported, it’s not that simple.

“The sad truth is that at this moment in history ‘deceptively easy’ means nothing in particular,” she wrote, citing the American Heritage Dictionary.

Here’s what that dictionary has to say.

“When deceptively is used to modify an adjective, the meaning is often unclear. Does the sentence ‘The pool is deceptively shallow’ mean that the pool is shallower or deeper than it appears?”

Unlike many other dictionaries, American Heritage likes to cite a Usage Panel -- a group of esteemed wordy types from all across the word-pushing world -- for matters like these. Here’s what American Heritage reported: “When the Usage Panel was asked to decide, 50 percent thought the pool shallower than it appears, 32 percent thought it deeper than it appears, and 18 percent said it was impossible to judge. “

As a result, American Heritage gives this advice, which is basically the same as Wallraff’s: When the context does not make the meaning of ‘deceptively clear, the sentence should be rewritten, as in; The pool is shallower than it looks’ or ‘The pool is shallow, despite its appearance.’”

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October 21, 2013

Squoze

In 1985, Ronald Regan was speaking publicly about a small growth that had appeared on his nose. At first he thought it was a pimple, but it was actually skin cancer. Before he figured that out, however, he took matters into his own hands.

“I picked at it and squoze it and so forth and messed myself up a little,” he reported.

Aside from the question of why a public figure would say something so gross to reporters, this statement raises the obvious question: Squoze? Really? Is that, like, a word?

Not according to grammar-nazi columnist James Kilpatrick, who wrote that he had never heard such a thing. And not according to Webster’s New World dictionary or Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, both of which note that the past participle of “squeeze” is “squeezed” and only “squeezed.”

And with that, we enter the realm of “dialectical past tenses.”

Words like “thunk,” “brung,” and “squoze” can be heard in certain little subgroups around the country. For example, “squoze” is most common in regions that grow oranges, according to Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage. Past forms like this are not “standard,” which means that they’re not widely used, so dictionaries don’t include them.

Remember, that's how dictionaries work: All they do – for every word, spelling, pronunciation, definition, and inflected form – is report how we, the English-speaking people, use the language. They don’t tell us what’s right or wrong. They listen to us, then report back what they heard in tomes called dictionaries. We take these rulings as right and wrong. That’s our choice and it’s a good one. After all, there’s no better referee of the language in existence. Still, “squoze” is only wrong if we decide to put that label on terms excluded by dictionaries.

I actually do. In my work as a copy editor, I need a referee. I need someone to just “make the call” on a million little matters. I accept dictionaries' decisions as matters of right and wrong. But linguists aren't fond of labels like “wrong.” They prefer labels like “dialectical” and “nonstandard.”

So while I can assure you that the word “squoze” won’t show up in any article I’m editing (outside of a quotation of course), you can think what you will about Reagan’s having squoze a growth on his nose.

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October 14, 2013

*'There's' Before a Plural

I’m writing today with an update on my tolerance of “there’s” before a plural. But first, some background.

As I’ve reported before, I don’t like it when there's, a contraction of there is, comes before a plural. Like: "There's people inside" or even "There's a lot of people inside."

It's an unusual situation because usually a pronoun before a verb dictates the number of the verb (He is here. They are here.) But there can be different from he or they because it can work as something called the “existential there,” which does not dictate the number of the verb.

“There is a car parked on the street.”

“There are cars parked on the street.”

Notice how the verb changes even though there doesn’t? With existential there, the real and intended subject isn’t there, even though there is positioned like a subject, right before the verb. These sentences really say:

“A car is parked on the street.”

“Cars are parked on the street.”

We can tweak them a little to give them emphasis by putting “there is” in front, nudging the real subject to a sort of second-fiddle position. Nonetheless, the traditional take on these types of sentences is that this “notional subject” -- the word car in "There is a car parked on the street" or "There are cars parked on the street" -- still dictates the number of the verb (is or are).

Yet people don't always do it this way. In a lot of cases, especially when there are intervening words like a lot, people use there plus the contracted form of is before a plural.

“There’s a lot of cars parked on the street.”

Is it wrong? Not exactly. It’s considered a pretty standard idiom. But, as I’ve reported in the past, it has long bothered me anyway. That’s probably because I learned it was “wrong” before I learned that it is, in fact, okay. And usually what happens is that, once I learn something is okay, it slowly begins to sound okay to me.

So it seemed I should give a little update on where I stand today on there’s before a plural. Here goes: I still don’t like it. It still sounds bad to me. It still has a ring like “Joe want money” or “Cats is cuddly.”

Will I ever change my mind? I’ll keep you posted.

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October 7, 2013

*Can I Quotation You on That?

Years ago, someone told me you can’t use the word “quote” to mean “quotation.” As in, you can’t say, “There aren’t enough quotes in this article.” You have to say, “There aren’t enough quotations in this article.”

I think it came with a little lecture on nouns vs. verbs – that is, that “quote” is a verb, you quote someone, and “quotation” is a noun, you use his quotation. But I’m not sure. It was a long time ago.

When you get a piece of advice like this, the logical thing to do is check it. The answer’s as close as the nearest dictionary. So of course, I didn’t. I just spent the next who-knows-how-many years deleting “quote” and replacing it with “quotation” anytime I was worried who might see it.

There’s an old saying about laziness – something about how it ends up causing you more work. I’m sure I could find it if I tried.

But instead, I’ll spend my one precious bit of energy today looking up “quote.”

Surprise, surprise. In Merriam-Webster’s, Webster’s New World, and American Heritage dictionaries, after its main entry as a verb, it says that “quote” can also be a noun -- a synonym of “quotation.”

So all these years I could have been saying, “Let’s add another quote” or “I don’t like this quote” instead of worrying that I’d get rapped on the knuckles for not using “quotation” instead.

What’s that famous quote? “Better late than never”?

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September 30, 2013

More Confusion About Sentence-ending Prepositions

Recently, after I mentioned in a column that there’s no rule against ending a sentence with a preposition, a reader e-mailed the following:

<<Regarding ending sentences with prepositions … We should avoid the practice because ending a sentence on a preposition almost always creates a passive sentence.>>

Huh?

I wrote back, trying to get to the bottom of what he was talking about -- and trying to explain passives. He must have seen that his grasp of passives wasn't what he thought it was, because he backed off on that argument. But he stood firm against sentence-ending prepositions.

<<Sentences that end on prepositions are longer, less comprehensible and less exciting than necessary. For example: That is the table the book is on. The book is on the table.>>

Sigh. I shouldn’t be shocked to see such a twisted grasp of the issue. And I shouldn't have been shocked that it came from someone who identified himself as a professional writer who taught English. But I was.

Yes, “That is the table the book is on” is a clunkier sentence than “The book is on the table.” But the clunkiness is not caused by a sentence-ending preposition. It’s caused by a desire to say something quite different from the other sentence. In the longer sentence, the point is that THAT is the table. The whole first clause is dedicated to clarifying which table we’re talking about. “The book is on the table” says something else.

So I e-mailed him the following examples:

Who are you blowing kisses to? / To whom are you blowing kisses?

A claw hammer, not an ax, was the tool he murdered her with. / A claw hammer, not an ax, was the tool with which he murdered her.

What are you talking about? / About what are you talking?

In none of these does a sentence-ending preposition cause a passive. (A passive, as I tried to explain to him, occurs when the object of a transitive verb, like “dinner” in “Joe cooked dinner,” is made the grammatical subject of the sentence, as in “Dinner was cooked by Joe.")

Nor does a sentence-ending preposition in these examples create sentences “longer, less comprehensible and less exciting than necessary.”

He wrote back that the claw hammer example (which, by the way, I borrowed from Strunk & White) would be better as just “He murdered her with a claw hammer, not an ax.” I agreed. But that wasn't the point. The point was that, some sentences work best with a preposition at the end. And there's no reason to object when they do.

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