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Pam Nelson: The Grammar Guide

 

‘Vocabulary’ 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[.....]

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.[.....]

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.

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.

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[.....]

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[.....]

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[.....]

Jan. 6, 2012: What will the Word of the Year be?

The American Dialect Society will choose its Word of the Year today. Here is the list of nominees. I like lists and I like words, so I look forward to the choice. Of course, this exercise is mainly a way for the American Dialect Society to get noticed once a year because journalists love to write about the word of the year. I am in favor of publicity for linguists and other word nerds. Humblebrag, amazeballs and deather are my favorites on the list, but I think occupy has the edge.