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Pam Nelson: The Grammar Guide

 

Archive for May 2010

Number of comments in parentheses

31: There is no I in grammar, but there is one in etiquette

A reader left a message for an editor last week, saying that we had made a grammar error in the first sentence of the lead story of the Weekend section. Here is the sentence: Last weekend, I, with the help of several friends, went on an eating tour of Durham. Before returning the reader’s call, the editor asked those of us nearby to help her spot the error in the sentence so she would be prepared to discuss it with the reader. We puzzled over it for a while, but we could not figure out what the reader had[.....]

25: They are different from you and me: Lax usage

People who have worked hard at perfecting their writing and language use sometimes cringe when they read or hear what they consider lax usage. What stands out like a weed in the flower patch to them doesn’t even register with other people. For example, some readers are keenly attuned to the difference between "different from" and "different than." The argument is that "different from" is more idiomatic in front of a noun or pronoun because different is not a comparative adjective and shouldn’t be used with than. So we would use this construction, as an N&O story did, "That[.....]

23: Can you feel what I feel? Empathy's adjective

A reader sent me an e-mail message about word usage in a caption that appeared on the Sports front This article was originally posted by the Raleigh News & Observer, a subsidiary of The McClatchy Co.; is posted here to provide continuity; and is copyright © 2011 The News & Observer Publishing Company, which reserves the right to remove this post.

16: Arguing with idioms: Batten down the hatches

A quote in a New York Times story that The N&O used in print inspired my latest idiom research. Here is how the quote appeared early in the editing at The N&O: "It’s a corporate problem," said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., who has been particularly critical of BP’s operations in Alaska and will lead the House committee hearing. "Their mentality is to get in the foxhole and button down the hatch. It just seems there is this pattern." Leaving aside Stupak’s mixing of metaphors (foxholes on battlefields, hatches on ships), the quote confuses button and batten. This could have[.....]

11: Word choices we have to make: Grammar Guide quiz

Copy editors learn early in their training to distinguish commonly confused words. Stylebooks and writing manuals have entries and lists of such words. One of my favorite books is "Working With Words," by Brian S. Woods, James L. Pinson and Jean Gaddy Wilson. I have a 2003 printing of the book, and Chapter 8, titled "Usage," has two helpful lists: Misused Words and Mistaken Phrases and Confused Words. On the list of confused words, for instance, are tocsin (a disaster signal) and toxin (a poisonous substance of plant or animal origin) and reluctant (unwilling to act) and reticent (unwilling[.....]

4: Sometimes grass is only sleeping: Chinglish in translation

The New York Times has an interesting article about a commission’s efforts in Shanghai to make public signs and menus more intelligible to English speakers. This article was originally posted by the Raleigh News & Observer, a subsidiary of The McClatchy Co.; is posted here to provide continuity; and is copyright © 2011 The News & Observer Publishing Company, which reserves the right to remove this post.