Usage « Grammar Guide « copydesk.org

Pam Nelson: The Grammar Guide

‘Usage’ archive

Number of comments in parentheses

May 12: Check out the new Grammar Guide quiz (inspired by good usage)

I often use published mistakes for my Grammar Guide quizzes, but today I was inspired by writers and editors who got things right. All of the sentences in today’s Grammar Guide quiz (It’s No. 71) come from The New York Times. I read the national edition in print on Sunday mornings. This quiz will betray my reading interests; I turn first to the Sunday Review, the Book Review and Sunday Styles (I love the wedding reports). As usual, the quiz is more about usage and copy editing than about the mechanics of grammar. And I am somewhat prescriptivist in[.....]

March 6: Know the idioms

Even native speakers have problems with English idioms. A colleague told me of crossed signals from a misused idiom. An organizer’s email message told a group planning to attend an event together to meet in a certain place “in the event of rain.” My colleague took that to mean if it were raining, the group would gather at the designated place. Otherwise, he thought, the group would meet at the event’s entrance. It wasn’t raining, so he and at least one other person went to the entrance, rather than the other designated spot. When several members of the group[.....]

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[.....]

Jan. 3: We often accidentally let this one go

I have seen this nonstandard spelling more than once: But investigators say Furey had actually been showing the boy the gun when it accidently discharged. To teach someone how to avoid this spelling, I would remind him or her that the shooting could be described with the adjective accidental. So when we use the adverb form, we add -ly to accidental. This is advice derived from Paul Brians’ explanation.

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.[.....]

Dec. 2, 2012: What, me worry? When a copy editor reads the paper (13)

My recovery from newspapers has hit a few bumps lately. I haven’t missed the work exactly, but I have seen a few lapses in my local newspaper, which happens to be my former employer, that caused me to cringe, left me irritated and made me wish I were still there to have (perhaps) averted the mistakes. I write today in sorrow that the organization I once worked for had to thin its ranks of more experienced copy editors. We truly are missed. I started to write this post without identifying the paper because I have friends who work there[.....]

Oct. 15, 2012: This post is due to a misreading (2)

One of the usage rules drilled into my head many years ago is that due to can be used only as an adjectival phrase and that often the phrase we need is because of, which works as an adverbial phrase. The classic example is: I fell because of the ice on the sidewalk. (because of modifies the verb fell. My fall was due to the ice on the sidewalk. (due to acts as a subject complement — an adjective to modify fall.)

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[.....]

Aug. 19, 2012: Sometimes it’s just a spelling error — Quiz No. 68

John McIntyre wrote recently in his You Don’t Say blog about whether an incorrect spelling could be considered a typo rather than a writer’s ignorance of the correct word. The example he used is principle/principal. As Mr. McIntyre wrote, sometimes the writer merely mistypes, but sometimes the mistake is the result of confusion.

July 22, 2012: Life after newspapers: Copy editing skills are portable (1)

I have learned a great deal since I started working for the AICPA‘s magazine and newsletters group about four months ago. We publish the Journal of Accountancy, The Tax Adviser, CGMA magazine and newsletters for certified public accountants. I no longer stumble over acronyms and abbreviations such as GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) and FMV (fair market value), and I have an inkling of how our nation’s tax policy reflects our cherished capitalism. But the most important lesson I have learned is that a conscientious, well-trained copy editor who has worked for daily newspapers for more than 30 years[.....]

June 27, 2012: Don’t trust a machine to do a human’s job

Pros don’t need to be told, but Microsoft grammar checker once again proved to me this morning that it can’t be trusted. It flagged this as a subject-verb agreement problem: The results of the survey very much reflect current market sentiment … I guess it got lost on its way from the subject to the verb. If you need practice on subject-verb agreement, try Quiz. No. 67.

June 24, 2012: Verbs and the problems they give us – Quiz No. 67

Copy editors need to keep their eyes on verbs. Readers notice when verbs don’t agree with their subjects. Yet it’s easy sometimes to get lost in a tangle of phrases on our way to the verb. Intervening phrases can lead writers to choose a singular verb when a plural verb is needed or vice versa. I noticed such a problem in a history museum exhibit today. Seeing a problem in a public sign came at just the right time, though, because I was at work on a new Grammar Guide quiz all about verbs. I have posted the quiz[.....]

June 12, 2012: Irregular verbs: Splitting from or clinging to old forms

A verb in a newspaper report sent me to the dictionary and usage books. Presbyterian churches around Charlotte now face the same philosophical debates over Biblical authority and homosexuality that have cleaved other religions. I wondered whether cleaved was the most accepted spelling for the past participle of cleave, meaning, in this case, to split apart. The tense in that clause is present perfect, which combines has or have with the past participle.

June 10, 2012: Pronouns: “They” is too much with us (2)

I am almost ready to come around on the view that “they,” “them” and “their” are acceptable after a singular pronoun antecedent (When the bell rings, everyone picks up their books to go home.) Almost. I don’t freak out when I read such constructions. (In truth, I probably never freaked out. I am a fairly even-keeled person — except when I see scary whales or hear Chris Matthews yammering.) I still change such constructions in editing. Where I work, the publication style guide explicitly calls for doing so. We use “he or she” when such a construction is called[.....]

May 16, 2012: Word choice quiz: More tricky sentences (1)

I’ve run across some interesting examples of confused words lately. Sometimes, even in context, these sentences can be quite challenging. I chose what I think is the better word, but some writers and editors might disagree. Give the quiz a try.

May 8, 2012: Tricky word usage quiz: Distinctions you might know

My new job requires me to use The Economist Style Guide for some of the copy I edit. Today as I was thumbing through the book, I hit upon an entry that reminded me of the Guide’s rather persnickety usage advice. I decided to gather some examples and create a Grammar Guide quiz (No. 65) based on advice from the Style Guide. I learned many of these word choice distinctions as a newspaper copy editor and still adhere to some of them. They are good to know, if only as self-defense. As you would any usage guide, you can[.....]

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 8, 2012: The questioning editor: Isn’t it ironic? No, it’s not (2)

Copy editors can help writers by questioning the logic of a passage or the use of a word. Writers often pick up wrong ideas from reading misused phrases or words. A persnickety copy editor can serve to get a writer to think more clearly. A sentence stopped me as I read today’s local paper (The Clayton News-Star, a semiweekly publication that is part of The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C., where I formerly worked). The story was about an N&O press operator from Clayton who had won a lottery prize. I’ll underline the word that led me to[.....]

March 6, 2012: Good usage: Home in vs. hone in

This sentence from a piece by Frank Bruni in the New York Times illustrates the standard use of “home” in a spot where writers might choose “hone.” “Because we didn’t see Santorum coming, we homed in on his extremism late, so that he was able for a long while to play offense instead of defense and choose his talking points.” Bruni is using the metaphor of locking on a signal and following it, as a missile is guided to a target. Some writer would choose “hone in,” thinking perhaps that the image is of narrowing a viewpoint. Usage may[.....]

Feb. 24, 2012: Grammar Guide word choice quiz – No. 63

I have a new 10-sentence multiple-choice quiz for you to try. I was reminded by something I read recently that these quizzes are actually about usage rather than grammar. In fact, most ordinary English speakers and writers need no guidance on grammar. It’s usage that we stumble on. Of course, English is what we make it, and what is common and preferred usage in one era is outdated in another. Copy editors follow current and common usage principles. With that disclaimer, here is the quiz. I hope it proves fun and useful.

Feb. 10, 2012: We beg you to stop “begging the question”

I read this sentence in a story recently: The churches say they have no money for upkeep, and the world-renowned hospital says it has no need for churches. Which begs the question: what happens to architectural gems that no one can afford to maintain? I don’t even understand why writers started using “begs the question” at all. It doesn’t even make sense in the way they want us to read it. But even if we could discern that they mean “raises the question” or “prompts the question” or even “dodges the question,” the phrase “begs the question” has a[.....]

Jan. 10, 2012: A tricky agreement problem: Neither-nor

I encountered this sentence in a news story today: Neither Prince nor Malloy were wearing seatbelts, according to the accident report. You might have spotted the problem; it’s easier to see when the sentence is isolated. When two subjects are joined by neither-nor or either-or, choosing the right number for the verb can be tricky for writers. Focus your attention on the noun closest to the verb. If it is singular, as in the sentence above, choose the singular verb. If the noun is plural, choose the plural form of the verb. The sometimes maligned Associated Press Stylebook advises[.....]

Dec. 29, 2011: 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.

Jan. 20, 2008: Grammar-usage-pronunciation problems that bug you

Here are a few peeves from readers: My personal language pet peeve is the expression “I could care less.” If people thought about what they were actually saying they would realize that by saying they “could care less” means that they care quite a bit. “I couldn’t care less” is the correct way to express a lack of regard for a particular circumstance or situation. Arguably is a pet peeve of mine as well, less because of redundancy than because, frequently, it falls into the “could care less” school of reverse meaning: while it accurately softens the absolute certitude[.....]

Jan. 13, 2008: A new Triangle Grammar Guide quiz

At last, I have a new quiz. This one is hodgepodge (or, as a smart but crotchety copy editor once said, “It’s not even hodgepodge; it’s just podge.”) I threw in a usage question that many people will disagree with. (Oy, I ended a sentence with a preposition! Horrors!) Please leave a comment if you wish. Because some readers might be new to the blog and the quizzes, here is a short explanation. The quiz has five sentences. You choose the correct (or the better) of two words in the sentence. You click through each page of the quiz[.....]