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Pam Nelson: The Grammar Guide

 

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March 4: A new quiz for National Grammar Day 2013

Today is National Grammar Day. My fellow grammar geeks have been busy. If you check out the Grammar Day page, you’ll see all sorts of activity and postings. I am disappointed that none of my Grammar Day haiku on Twitter achieved honorable mention in the Grammar Day haiku contest, but I enjoyed all the charming and clever entries. Fun was had by all. I am a little late with this post, but I have a new Grammar Guide quiz. This one is all about word choice, and, of course, it’s more about usage and editing than grammar. But “grammar” is large[.....]

Feb. 8: More about the singular “they” (2)

I participated in an ACES Twitter chat, Your Grammar Question Answered, Tuesday during which we chatted about the singular “they.” One of my co-chatters, @KUBremner, aka Lisa McLendon, noted that the singular “they” can be handy as an epicene — a word that has only one form for both masculine and feminine. So we could use the epicene “they/them/their” in a sentence such as this: Everyone picked up their pencils and began the test. “Their” refers to the indefinite pronoun “everyone.” Because we don’t know everyone’s sex, we use “their,” which sounds less formal than “his or her” and doesn’t[.....]

Feb. 1: Go ahead, see if I care (1)

Copy editors are criticized sometimes for caring about things that other people don’t care about. We are ridiculed for reserving “enormity” for “great wickedness” and not using it to mean “immensity” or “vastness.” We are told that readers don’t care that “begs the question” doesn’t mean “raise the question.” Usage is changing, we’re told. Pay attention to the things that matter. Indeed, we should be able to keep our eyes on the forest as well as the trees. First, we need to make sure that the copy we edit makes sense and reads well. If we are responsible for[.....]

Dec. 4, 2012: If you see something, say something: The copy editor’s code (1)

The first sentence in a recent news story in the Clayton News-Star, the community newspaper that is delivered to my house twice a week, stopped me. I puzzled over it for a while before going on to finish the article. Here it is: One home and one camper have been burned to a singe in a fire that the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office suspects was caused by arson. The word that stopped me was the noun singe. I wondered at first if the writer meant to write “burned to a cinder,” which seemed to me to be more idiomatic.[.....]

Nov. 12, 2012: Recovering newspaper copy editor writes a post-election quiz

Watching the 2012 election as an outsider, my first since leaving the newspaper business for good, was most relaxing. I could express political viewpoints to my friends on Facebook, although I did avoid such expressions on the Grammar Guide Facebook page and on the Grammar Guide Twitter feed. I didn’t have to stay awake to the bitter end on Election Night, although I did make it through Ohio. I was glad not to be working that night, though I missed the pizza newsroom bosses provide for the folks who are hard at work. The latest Grammar Guide quiz has some[.....]

Sept. 7, 2012: Strunk and White: Into the Elements again (3)

You might not think that such a slim book would inspire such devotion and such loathing. Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style is less than 100 pages long in most editions and was first published in 1959, but even today its influence is broad and deep in American writing. A New York Times story published in the 50th anniversary year of Elements of Style reported that about 10 million copies have been sold. A measure of the book’s importance is that its 50th anniversary was noted. The book has spawned an illustrated version, an opera and a book[.....]

May 18, 2012: Two Latin abbreviations that confuse us: namely, i.e. and e.g. (1)

A mildly profane tweet I saw recently took people to task for confusing i.e. and e.g. — something I never had to worry about when I worked for daily newspapers. We never let these abbreviations into print. Now, I work for publications that do use i.e. and e.g., and I sometimes run across uses I must puzzle over.

April 24, 2012: Today’s reading: Hopefully and only

I haven’t written about the Associated Press style guide editors’ decision to amend the guidance on “hopefully.” Here is the new entry, just in case you missed it: hopefully The traditional meaning is in a hopeful manner. Also acceptable is the modern usage: it’s hoped, we hope. Correct: ”You’re leaving soon?” she asked hopefully. Correct: Hopefully, we’ll be home before dark. I figured everyone else was handling the reaction stories and posts. Indeed, John McIntyre and Bill Walsh, among others, have responded. My favorite post comes from Geoffrey Pullum on Lingua Franca. It explains how “hopefully” came to be sent into sentence adverb exile.[.....]

April 23, 2012: Talking like my generation: apoplectic

Presidential adviser David Axelrod described President Obama as “apoplectic” about General Services Administration spending. I think Axelrod was showing his age, 57, which is close to my own. I can’t imagine that many people under 40 would use that word. I love apoplectic. It sounds Shakespearean and Southern at the same time. It means “furious,” according to the American Heritage Dictionary, Fifth Edition, and it comes from the old word apoplexy, which meant a stroke but later was used to refer to a “fit of rage,” the dictionary says. The word connotes anger so white-hot that the enraged person[.....]

April 13, 2012: ACES 2012: Editing at a hub

I’ll be part of a panel discussion on editing at hubs at the national ACES conference this afternoon (4-13-2012). Here is the description from the ACES program: Editing at a Hub Todd Kistler, Thom Wright, Los Angeles News Group; Pam Nelson, McClatchy Newspapers As the concept of editing hubs spreads, more copy editors find themselves in this work situation. Three hub editors talk about setup and workflow, adaptations they’ve needed to make, and how they’ve solved problems that have arisen, plus answer questions from the audience. Here are the main points that I hope to get across at the[.....]

April 3, 2012: Hey, use a dictionary, kids

The UNC-Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication has decided to drop the spelling portion of a test of grammar and usage that it has given students for almost four decades. Here is a post about the change on the Romenesko blog. The J-school will replace the spelling portion with testing on word choice. I am not too worried about the journalists of the future not being able to prevent or catch ordinary misspellings and typos in their copy. Spellcheckers are not perfect, but they are valid tools and getting better. It is more important to me that[.....]

April 1, 2012: Grammar Guide quiz – Words we mix up

The newest Grammar Guide quiz (No. 64) has 10 multiple choice sentences. Some of these sentences came from real-life editing; others I had to make up. I hope you’ll find it worthwhile. Despite the date I am posting, this quiz is not meant to be a trick. If you have a comment, please leave it on this post or send me an email message. Click here to start.

Feb. 15, 2012: “Lowly” copy editor? Surely you jest (2)

A post by Yoni Goldstein at the National Post of Canada asserts, I hope with irony, that the copy editor in modern newsrooms is “basically, a human spellchecker and guardian of the newspaper’s arcane style guide, a set of rules (like whether to spell the word “aging” or “ageing”) most editors and reporters either ignore or forget.” This has caused a stir among our kind. I first saw the link on a Facebook post by Testy Copy Editor and later read a spirited and pointed response from John McIntyre, who has said what needs to be said about this.[.....]

Feb. 4, 2012: Word choice: Predominate and predominant

These two sentences stopped me recently — one from a Twitter feed, the other from a piece I was copy-editing. ACLU warns General Assembly to stop using predominately Christian prayers to start sessions. Inspired by her travels to Mound Bayou, Miss., the nation’s largest predominately black town, Marshall-Linnemeier’s exhibit spins off images of experimental plantations set up during the Civil War by the Union government at Davis Bend and Port Royal. The word in common is predominately. I changed it to predominantly in the story I edited. Here is why.

Jan. 2, 2012: Check the facts: 10 tips for copy editors (16)

Checking facts is part of some copy editors’ jobs. When I have trained copy editors on newspaper desks, I tell them that the main fact-checkers are the writers, followed by the line editors. But I also tell copy editors that inaccuracy in a published piece hurts everyone’s credibility. I did not learn to check facts in my first few years as a copy editor. I was more focused on correcting grammar, usage and style and on writing a good headline. But when I began working at The News & Observer in 1987, the point of fact-checking was driven home.[.....]

Aug. 23, 2008: What you can grow

This sentence led a reader to call us last week: Since she quit her job in March, her goal has been to continue growing the business. As I indicated with italics, the offending phrase was "growing the business." The reader, who was quite animated, wanted us to stop using this bit of business jargon. In her mind, you can grow flowers and you can grow a beard, but you cannot grow a business. In "Garner’s Modern American Usage," Bryan A. Garner writes, "Recently, however, grow has blossomed as a transitive verb in nonfarming and nongrooming contexts. It is trendy[.....]

Aug. 16, 2008: Don't fear the apostrophe

Two advertisements caught our eyes this week. They have apostrophe problems, but different ones. The first, pictured below, falls into the old trap of using an apostrophe to make a plural. The shopping center mentioned in this ad, which came as a direct mail flier, is Clayton Corners (multiple corners). The second ad appeared on television. It has a more unusual apostrophe problem, as you can see below. We use apostrophes to make nouns possessive, a vestige of a time when English was a more inflected language, when words changed form to indicate their function in a sentence. Pronouns[.....]

Aug. 10, 2008: Pronoun madness

Yes, there are much more important issues than this, but a few readers do notice when we mix up who and whom. Here is an example from Friday’s 2A, a spot where we promote stories coming up in print or features online. Of course, the sentence should read, "Go online now and see whom you selected as the Triangle’s Best Bartender." The test is to rearrange the sentence and to try another pronoun: You selected him as the Best Bartender. The object of the verb "selected" needs to be a pronoun in the objective case. I use "him" in[.....]

Aug. 7, 2008: Guess the most common words

This is fun. Click here to see how many of the 100 most common words in English you can guess in five minutes. 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.

Aug. 6, 2008: Try a word quiz on Triangle Grammar Guide

Today’s quiz is one of those that a regular commenter has called a "spelling" quiz. True, some of the choices in the sentences on the quiz are between two homonyms, but at least one sentence will ask quiz takers to choose from two words that are often confused but have different uses. I put a timer on this quiz, just to try out that function of the quiz-writing software. Three minutes is probably much more than anyone would need to complete the five sentences, but if you find the time is not sufficient, please send me a message or[.....]

Aug. 6, 2008: Rules for word order

I ran across this Professor Grammar video on YouTube that explains the English grammar rule on word order for adjectives before nouns. The professor uses the acronym OPSHACOM for opinion, shape, age, color, origin and material. I have linked to the video below if you want to watch. Warning: It’s corny and slightly annoying, but the lesson is good. The video lasts about six minutes. Here is another site that explains adjective order and it has a practice quiz. And this About.com page on English as a second language uses a slightly different explanation for adjective word order.  [.....]

Aug. 5, 2008: Word choice: Emigrate and immigrate

A reader called writer David Menconi to object to a word use in Menconi’s Arts & Living profile of singer Aline Simone. Simone was born in the Ukraine in 1975, to dire circumstances because her parents were on the outs with the ruling Soviet regime. Her family immigrated to America when she was an infant. The caller, who left no name, contended that the verb should have been "emigrated." Menconi had originally written "emigrated," but in proofing the page, I changed the verb to "immigrated," relying on the Associated Press Stylebook and other usage authorities such as Theodore Bernstein,[.....]

Aug. 4, 2008: Apostrophes plague the sign-makers

My husband visited the North Carolina mountains for a few days and came back with these images of signage mishaps. The second sign is particularly odd. It’s on a manufactured item, so presumably hundreds more are out there with the same mistake.               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.

Aug. 4, 2008: A dictionary's new entries

The annual update of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary includes about 100 new words, according to Merriam-Webster Online. The print version of the dictionary will be out in September. I am a bit late with this news. The Web site asked for reader submissions of their own favorite "mondegreen," which is a word or phrase that results from mishearing something said or sung. One of my favorites was from church. When I was a child and the congregation sang The Doxology ("Praise God, From Whom All Blessings Flow") I always heard "Praise him all preachers here below." Makes sense, right? The[.....]

Aug. 2, 2008: Triangle Grammar Guide quiz

Today’s quiz is different from previous Triangle Grammar Guide quizzes. In each of the five parts, you will see two sentences and must choose the correctly written (or, at least, the better written) sentence in each pair. I fully expect to hear from you about better versions of the correct sentences and appreciate any comments you have. After the quiz, you’ll be directed to the grammar blog, and you can leave your comments on this post. (Don’t read the comments before you take the quiz if you don’t want to be influenced by others’ comments.). This quiz has another[.....]

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