Front page

Pam Nelson: The Grammar Guide

 

Archive for December 2011

Number of comments in parentheses

29: Lessons in grammar never go to waste

A lesson I learned years ago helped me spot the error in this suggested headline from a writer: The ice maker doesn’t always cometh.

20: Writers care about grammar, too (3)

A reporter recently sent me this question: Which of the following is correct: “Ten percent of Americans plan to give….” “Ten percent of Americans plans to give…” I know the first one sounds better, but I think the second is grammatically correct when you think of “of Americans” as a modifier for “ten percent,” which would be doing the action. I was pleased to tell her that her instinct was right and that she should use the plural verb plan. I explained that, in this case, the number of the verb is determined by the noun that comes after[.....]

18: Working outside newspapers (5)

I hope it’s clear that even though I am clinging to my job as a daily newspaper copy editor, this blog is aimed at anyone who edits or writes or reads. I am most interested in hearing from editors who are working outside daily newspapers. I would dearly love to read stories about freelance editors — how you market yourself, where you have found work, what kind of work you’re doing. It’s encouraging to hear that people are finding work as editors. I believe in editing and in the value we editors add to writing in any form.

14: Misplaced modifiers amuse and confuse us (5)

If you are a copy editor, you probably recognize the problem in the following sentences, and they probably give you a chuckle just before you realize how challenging it might be to fix the problem. As the 27-year-old owner of four Raleigh restaurants, it’s hard to tell which part of G Patel’s resume is more impressive. Standing at the burned house, where Daniel Moses’ mattress springs can be seen through the charred window, cotton stretches to two horizons. Now in its seventh year, various artists will perform from 7 to 11 p.m. Sept. 30 in downtown restaurants. Co-written by[.....]

11: Why I am still a copy editor (4)

Perhaps the title of this post should be “Why am I still a copy editor?” Certainly, the occupation I chose years ago has been beleaguered through the years. We newspaper copy editors have always had the worst shifts, working at night and on weekends and holidays. We have always been the ones in a newsroom who must make deadline, despite how many deadlines had been missed earlier in the cycle. We have been blamed for mistakes and blamed even more vehemently for not catching mistakes. We made disgruntlement part of our jobs — just like the pica poles, proportion[.....]

7: Copy editors can help

Sometimes, a simple fix can make the difference between a reader finishing a story and giving up in befuddlement. I encountered this sentence in a story about two young men pleading guilty to a drugstore robbery Rhaim Santiago assaulted the cashier by striking them in the head with the butt of the firearm. A paragraph later in the story said the police report had not identified the clerk who was hurt in the robbery, so I suppose the reporter could not use the singular pronoun that would have been appropriate (him or her). I did wonder whether the police[.....]

6: Grammar Guide quiz — Hodgepodge

Here is a new Grammar Guide quiz. This one is a hodgepodge of issues of grammar and usage.

6: A new place to blog

Welcome to the continuation of the Grammar Guide blog in a new place! I have been writing about language since 2005 on newsobserver.com, but when my job as a copy editor was eliminated in Raleigh and moved to Charlotte, I decided to end the blog there. I was lucky to get a chance to blog here at copydesk.org. Thanks to Andy Bechtel for suggesting that I blog here and to Daniel Hunt for getting the blog set up. I hope to continue to offer Grammar Guide quizzes and to help journalists and others with the tricky problems of grammar,[.....]