Danglers aren't easy

Danglers are easy to spot but can be surprisingly tough to fix.

As a working mom, finding time to get enough sleep is difficult.

Technically, this is a dangler because the modifying phrase — in this case the first four words — isn’t right next to the noun it should be modifying. The whole dangler concept, in fact, is based on the idea that any phrase that functions like an adjective, modifying a noun, should be right next to that noun.

As a working mom, Jane finds it hard to get enough sleep.

Here, the modifying phrase “as a working mom” is right next to the noun it modifies, “Jane.” So this sentence does not contain a dangler. But in the first example, that same phrase is positioned next to the word “finding,” which is clearly not the noun that we’re describing as a working mom. That’s the difference.

This one was easy to fix because we made up a person and rearranged the main clause so that her name would be the first thing to come after the modifying phrase. But what if we don’t want to name a specific working mom?

As a working mom, a woman finds it hard to get enough sleep.

Awful, huh? So here’s another way to go.

A working mom finds it hard to get enough sleep.

Here we dispensed with the modifying phrase altogether and pilfered its noun to make it the subject of our single-clause sentence. That’s okay, I suppose. But this sentence now seems lacking.

One option, of course, is to just ignore the fact that our first sentence contained a dangler. After all, the whole point of all this grammar stuff is to ensure clarity. And that sentence was pretty clear from the get-go. Still, it lacks precision, which I value a lot. So I would definitely look for ways to improve the sentence before throwing my hands up.

When a word or phrase that’s dangling is a participle, the error is called a (wait for it) dangling participle. This can either mean progressive participle like "walking," "knowing," "realizing," or "yelling," or a past participle like "surprised," "shaken," "hired," or "thought." And it can mean either a lone participle like “Surprised, Roger jumped sky high,” or a longer participial phrase like, “Surprised by screams of his friends and family, Roger jumped sky high.”

But even noun phrases can dangle:

A man of great courage, the steps John took were impressive.

The steps aren’t a man. So this is a dangler, and it’s definitely one I would fix: John was a man of great courage, and the steps he took were impressive.

But, in my experience, sometimes it's best to let a dangler dangle.

How to write every holiday

Here comes another year full of holidays — some of them easy to write, others not so much (as anyone who’s wondered where to put the apostrophe in Presidents Day can attest). So as 2025 winds down, here’s how to write all the holidays to come in 2026.

New Year’s, New Year, new year. A new year in the generic sense isn’t capitalized. So you’d say, “Looking forward to seeing you in the new year.” But holidays are almost always proper nouns, so “happy New Year” gets a capital n and y (and note the lowercase h). When you’re making resolutions, that’s usually treated as possessive: a New Year’s resolution.

New Year’s Day, New Year’s Eve. Treat these as distinct holiday names, with “Day” and “Eve” capitalized.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day. There’s no “Rev.” or “Dr.” in the holiday, which falls on the third Monday in January. And according to both the Associated Press Stylebook and the Chicago Manual of Style, you shouldn’t put commas around “Jr.”

Valentine’s Day. Put an apostrophe and an s after “Valentine” when you’re talking about the holiday, making it singular possessive. The word “valentine” is lowercase when you’re talking about your loved one or a card or gift for that person: He’s my valentine. I’m sending him a valentine. You can also call the holiday Saint Valentine’s Day.

Presidents Day. Every third Monday in February, people are baffled about how to punctuate Presidents. And for good reason: There are several correct ways to write this holiday name. AP style says no apostrophe: Presidents Day. Chicago style writes it as plural possessive, with the apostrophe after the s: Presidents’ Day. It’s also commonly called Washington’s Birthday. All of these are correct.

St. Patrick’s Day. There was just one St. Patrick, so this holiday, which falls on March 17, is singular possessive, meaning the apostrophe goes before the s.

April Fools’ Day. As you can surely attest, there’s more than one fool out there. This day is for all of them, so write it as plural possessive, with the apostrophe after the s: Fools’. If you’re using “fool” in a generic sense, for example if someone falls for a trick, you call them an April fool with a lowercase f.

Mother’s Day. In May, the logic of possessive and singular holidays breaks down completely. Even though the day is for all mothers, we write it as though it’s for just one: Mother. So the holiday is Mother’s Day.

Fourth of July, July Fourth, the Fourth. To follow the style of professional publishers, don’t use a numeral in this holiday name. Spell out Fourth when you write Fourth of July, July Fourth or the Fourth — all are correct. If you don’t care about editing style, there’s nothing wrong with writing July 4th or even 4th of July.

Veterans Day. If you’ve ever noticed that many news outlets use no apostrophe in “farmers market,” you have a basis for understanding why there’s no apostrophe in Veterans Day. The idea is that the words “farmers” and “Veterans” are working more like adjectives in these terms than like true possessives. So just “Veterans Day” is the way to go.

Thanksgiving Day. Thanksgiving is one of the easier holidays to write. But “Thanksgiving Day” isn’t as clear. For the record, the word “Day” gets capitalized when you’re making it part of a holiday nickname. So: Thanksgiving Day.

Hanukkah, Chanukah. Both these spellings are correct, but Merriam-Webster’s dictionary says Hanukkah is more common and AP style prefers the H spelling as well.

Christmas Day, Christmas Eve. Just as we saw with Thanksgiving, the “Day” in “Christmas Day” gets capitalized, and the same logic applies to “Christmas Eve.”

Xmas. Write Xmas with no hyphen. And don’t worry that this is in any way anti-religious. According to Garner’s Modern American Usage, “The X is not a Roman X but a Greek chi — the first letter in Christ’s name.” So this abbreviated holiday name in no way erases its namesake. If do you use it, note that you can use “a” or “an” in front of it, depending on how you believe Xmas is pronounced. If in your mind it sounds like eks-mas, you would write “an Xmas present.” But if you hear it as Christmas, you would write “a Xmas present.”

Spring, summer, fall, autumn, winter. Seasons are all lowercase, “I love the spring.”

Poor headline capitalization: A major tell

If there’s one thing that can tell me, in a single glance, that a news article was not edited by an experienced pro, it’s the headline capitalization.

Here’s an example from a Yahoo Finance headline I saw a while back:

Stocks Pull Back: Why it Might Not Last

One look at that headline and I know that someone in the organization doesn’t know what they’re doing. The reason: the lowercase I in “it.”

A lot of editing styles capitalize the first letter of most words in a headline, but they make exceptions for some prepositions, articles, and conjunctions — especially short ones of three or fewer letters — unless they come at the beginning or end of the headline.

“Simpson Back in Jail”: Here, the word “in” is lowercase because it’s a short preposition. But if "in" were first or last word, the "i" would be capitalized: “In Jails, Mental Health Suffers” or in “Jones Decries the Mess He’s In.”

These capitalization rules aren’t a matter of right and wrong. This is a style thing. But when you’re making a clear effort to follow this style, you don’t want the world to see that you don’t know how.

In the case of our Yahoo headline, the editor was probably used to seeing “Simpson Back in Jail” and gave “it” the same treatment as “in.” That was a mistake.

"In" is a preposition. "It" is a pronoun.

I see the same mistake with “is.” Just because it’s a two-letter word starting with I doesn’t mean it should be treated like “in.” "Is" is a verb.

Some online publications just skirt the whole issue by capitalizing every single letter, including all the prepositions, articles and conjunctions: “Simpson In Jail And Out Of The Way.” At least in this style you don’t have to test your editors’ knowledge of prepositions, conjunctions and articles. But it sure looks ugly.

The best course is just to learn the basic parts of speech before you publish.

Oxford's Word of the Year: 'rage bait'

Not long ago, making people angry was a bad idea. Nowadays, rage is a hot commodity.

Time it right and you can build a whole media empire or political machine on some well-cultivated fury. At the very least, you can get a lot of clicks on TikTok or whatever gizmo you use to turn anger into dollars.

But let’s face it, people can only rage at a limited number of things every day. And as more and more enragers compete for a limited pool of enragees’ finite rage resources, the successful anger pusher needs an edge.

And that (I assume) is part of the story of the 2025 Oxford University Press word of the year: rage bait.

If you’re P.O.’d that the word of the year is in fact two words, by all means, send money. But there’s a good explanation. Lexicographers use the word “word” for any term that encompasses a single unit of meaning. So two-word words are words, which lets us have individual dictionary entries for phrasal verbs like “blow up,” nouns like “night owl” and other two-word combos.

“Rage bait” is defined, according to Oxford, as “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted in order to increase traffic to or engagement with a particular web page or social media account.”

To pick their annual winners, Oxford uses a combination of staff expertise and public input. Their goal is always to zero in on a word or term that best captures the current zeitgeist.

“The fact that the word ‘rage bait’ exists and has seen such a dramatic surge in usage means we’re increasingly aware of the manipulation tactics we can be drawn into online,” writes Casper Grathwol, Oxford’s president of Oxford Languages, on the publisher’s website. “Before, the internet was focused on grabbing our attention by sparking curiosity in exchange for clicks, but now we’ve seen a dramatic shift to it hijacking and influencing our emotions, and how we respond. It feels like the natural progression in an ongoing conversation about what it means to be human in a tech-driven world — and the extremes of online culture.”

I take heart in Grathwol’s words. Yes, it’s a bad thing that people out for money and power are dragging us around by the spleen, but at least we’re aware of it and have the vocabulary to talk about it.

For the win, “rage bait” beat out “aura farming,” which Oxford defines as “the cultivation of an impressive, attractive, or charismatic persona or public image by behaving or presenting oneself in a way intended subtly to convey confidence, coolness, or mystique.”

“Rage bait” also beat out “biohack,” a verb meaning “to attempt to improve or optimize one’s physical or mental performance, health, longevity, or wellbeing by altering one’s diet, exercise routine, or lifestyle, or by using other means such as drugs, supplements, or technological devices.”

As you might guess, some of Oxford’s picks stand the test of time, others don’t. For example, 2021’s word of the year was “vax,” which both captured 2021 and seems to be sticking around. But 2022’s winner was “goblin mode” — a slang term that Oxford says is mostly used in the expressions “in goblin mode” or “to go goblin mode” and which is defined as a type of behavior that is “unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations.”

I don’t recall hearing that even once, and I doubt I ever will.

“Rage bait,” however, is big business. And if language can help us better identify it, explain it and ultimately avoid it, the whole world will be better off.