April 20, 2026

The Best Punctuation Book, Period now fully revised

TOPICS: BEST PUNCTUATION BOOK, COMMAS, COPY EDITING, PUNCTUATION

The major publishing styles have changed a lot of rules, especially for punctuation. Prefixes are less likely to need hyphens, "etc." is no longer necessarily followed by a comma in book publishing, and more. The revised edition of The Best Punctuation Book, Period reflects all the newest rules. You can find it wherever you buy books and e-books.

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April 13, 2026

A friendly reminder about "and I" vs. "and me"

TOPICS: AND I VS. AND ME, GRAMMAR, I VS. ME, OBJECT PRONOUNS

A friendly reminder: Don’t say “between you and I.” And don’t say “The boss wants to talk with Bob and I” or “Thanks for meeting with John and I.”

It’s me. Me, me, me. In all those sentences, “I” is a poor choice. Yes, you could argue that the “I” form is idiomatic. But why would you want to? You’re just inviting judgment. And because it’s just as easy to use “me,” there’s no reason to come off like you don’t know the difference between object and subject pronouns.

And if you don’t know the difference now, you will in about thirty seconds. Here goes: “I” is a subject pronoun, which means it acts as the subject of a verb. “Me” is an object pronoun, which means it works as the object of a verb or the object of a preposition. So it’s:

I am here = I is the subject of the verb am

I believe in hard work = I is the subject of the verb believe

I knocked his block off = I is the subject of the verb knocked

Kiss me = me is the object of the verb kiss

He saw me = me is the object of the verb saw

Come with me = me is the object of the preposition with

Talk to me = me is the object of the preposition to

Easy right? Yes. And contrary to popular belief, it’s just as easy when you introduce another person. Nothing changes.

She and I are here = I is a subject of the verb are

Brad and I believe in hard work = I is a subject of the verb believe

My trusty robot and I knocked his block off = I is the subject of the verb knocked

Kiss my baby and me = me is the object of the verb kiss

He saw Craig and me = me is the object of the verb saw

Come with Claire and me = me is the object of the preposition with

Talk to Steve and me = me is the object of the preposition to

When in doubt, just try the sentence without the other person. If it’s “me” when Steve, Claire and the gang are absent, it’s “me” when they’re present, too.

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April 6, 2026

Punctuation is an artificial construct, which is why it's less intuitive than grammar and usage

TOPICS: COPY EDITING, GRAMMAR, PUNCTUATION

When it comes to grammar and word usage, English speakers can trust their gut. For example, if you know that “fewer” is usually better than “less” for countable things, you might nonetheless hesitate to say something like “I have one fewer dollar than I did yesterday.” “Fewer” just sounds worse than “less” here. That instinct is right: “less” is more correct to describe singular things, like one dollar.

Punctuation doesn’t work the same way. When it comes to questions of when to use an apostrophe or hyphen or where to put a period or comma, your instincts can’t be trusted.

Unlike language, which developed naturally, punctuation is manufactured — a set of rules that humans created for use in print. And because punctuation didn’t arise organically, it has less to do with your instincts.

That’s why your gut might tell you to use an apostrophe to form the plural in “We ordered a round of Bellini’s,” when in fact you should write “Bellinis.” The reason: You don’t use apostrophes to make plurals, except when you do, for example when writing student grades: “Henry got all A’s and B’s.”

Your gut may tell you to put an apostrophe in a past tense verb like “I demo’d the entire product line,” when in fact it should be “demoed.” You may be naturally inclined to use an apostrophe in verb forms like “He always just Venmo’s me the money,” when in fact it should be, well, I’m not sure, since Venmo isn’t in the dictionary as a verb. But I’d bet the farm on “Venmoed.” The reason: You don’t use apostrophes to conjugate verbs, except when you do.

Take, for example, “OK.” If you want to use it as a past-tense verb and you don’t want to spell it out as “okay,” how would you do that? OKed? OKd? O.K.ed? O.K.d? If you’re following AP style or Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, none of those. According to those sources, you use an apostrophe to make different forms of the verb: We OK’d the project. She OK’s projects like this all the time. They’ve been OK’ing these projects for years.

Why no periods in OK? Simply because that’s AP’s preference, which needn’t apply to you if you prefer O.K. Though that does make the verb forms like O.K.’d even weirder.

But if your hunch is that this means abbreviations like US and ID have no periods, your hunch is off, at least as far as AP is concerned. In that style, U.S. has periods, ID does not and, for the record, USA doesn’t either. You can defy all those rules and still be in line with professional publishers, though, since book publishing allows all those breaks from AP style.

Quotation marks are another danger zone for go-with-your-gut writers. People seem to understand that a period or comma comes before the closing quote mark when the whole quote is something someone said: “I like the beach,” Josie said. But when the quote marks are there to call out words, people assume the comma goes outside: Today there’s a “red flag warning”, according to the posted signs. That assumption makes sense both instinctively and logically, yet it’s not true. The comma or period, in American English at least, always goes inside.

Then there’s the issue of terms like “e-reader,” “email,” “e-book” and “esports,” all of which are correct in AP style, and none of which have much logic to how they’re hyphenated.

Anyone who knows, or intuitively understands, that two words describing a noun are hyphenated ends up writing some compounds correctly, “a well-appointed office,” which is right, and other compounds incorrectly, like “a beautifully-decorated office,” which is wrong because adverbs that end in “ly” are exceptions to this hyphenation rule.

If you want to get words right, don’t overthink them. If you want to get punctuation right, ignore your instincts and stick to rules: Don’t use apostrophes to make plurals unless it’s absolutely necessary. Don’t use apostrophes to conjugate verbs unless the dictionary says otherwise. Always put a period or comma before a closing quote mark. Don’t hyphenate “ly” adverbs. And check a dictionary to see if periods are preferred in abbreviations.

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March 30, 2026

Our bizarre dependence on the letter S

TOPICS: CONTRACTIONS, COPY EDITING, GRAMMAR, PLURALS, possessives, VERB CONJUGATION

One of the craziest things about the English language is our bizarre dependence on the letter S. We give it way too many jobs.

* S has to work like any other letter, representing a specific sound (spill, brass, star).

* We also use S to form plurals (apple —> apples).

* We use it to form possessives (Pete’s car, Mr. Smith’s hat).

* We use it to conjugate verbs. (I walk, he walks. You think, she thinks.)

* And we use it to stand in for our most common verb in contractions (Joe is nice —> Joe’s nice).

Other languages don’t have this problem. For example, in Spanish, S is used to make plurals (un gato, dos gatos). But to show possession, Spanish speakers use “de,” meaning “of” (el gato de Juan = Juan’s cat). And Spanish doesn’t rely solely on S to conjugate verbs (yo hablo, tu hablas, el habla, nosotros hablamos, ellos hablan).

Italian doesn’t even use S for its plurals. It has a different system in which one horse -- un cavallo -- becomes i cavalli in the plural.

Our weird dependence on S is at the root of a good many mistakes. For example, when people write “I went to the Thomas’s house” (which should be Thomases’) or “The dog wagged it’s tail (which should be “its”) or “Ray let’s the dog on the couch” (which should be “lets”).

The only way to avoid these mistakes is to keep track of whether your word is plural, possessive, both plural and possessive, a contraction, or a conjugated verb. And with all those pitfalls, it’s not hard to understand why someone could get so flustered as to think that one carrot plus another carrot equals two “carrot’s.”

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March 23, 2026

He says. He said. Said she. Says she.

TOPICS: GRAMMAR, QUOTATION ATTRIBUTION, SPEECH TAGS

Here’s something that drives me nuts (even though I can't really defend my position):

 “Spring is a wonderful time to visit,” says tourism board representative Jane Doe.

“The potholes will be fixed by summer,” said the mayor.

“The new Jetta has also been redesigned,” spokesman Joe Dane says.

The reason these drive me nuts? I have to change them to

tourism board representative Jane Doe SAID

the mayor SAID

spokesman Joe Dane SAID

Why do I have to change every “says” to “said” and put every one of them after the name instead of before? Because that’s how I first learned to do it, darn it.

In my first couple editing jobs, I was exposed a lot to the idea that news and feature articles should 1. use everyday, conversational language and 2. make sense.

The word “says” in “Joe Dane says” suggests he does so regularly. That’s different from “said,” which suggests he said so in an interview with a reporter. A reporter can know whether Dane said something in an interview, but he probably doesn't know whether Dane runs around saying it all the time. What’s more, it wouldn’t matter that much if he did. We’re not reporting on the man’s habits. We’re reporting on the car, and Dane’s telling us once that it’s redesigned is all that’s probably relevant to the story.

As for the part about using everyday language: In conversation, you don’t say, “Said Betty, lunch will be served in the conference room.” You say, “Betty said lunch will be served in the conference room.” Putting “said” or “says” before the name is contrary to normal conversational language and often Yoda-like (Rants on, she does).

So I like my quotation attributions in the past tense and in most cases I like the “said” to come after the name. The obvious exception, of course, is when something else must immediately follow the name. Like, “The Jetta has been totally redesigned,” said Joe Dane, president of North American sales.

But here’s why I can’t defend my position: These aren’t rules. Not in the larger world, anyway. And though some publications may have a policy of not using present-tense quotation attributions or ones that put the “say” part before the name part, it doesn’t mean you can’t do it that way. It just means that no one who writes for a publication I edit can do it that way.

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March 16, 2026

'Backseat' bucks a trend to become 'back seat'

TOPICS: BACK SEAT VS BACKSEAT, COPY EDITING, GRAMMAR

Not long ago, a cellphone was a cell phone. A teenager was a teen-ager. Goodbye was good-bye. A website was a Web site. Legroom was leg room.

Words and compounds evolve all the time. But in this corner of the language world, there’s a clear trend: Two-word nouns become one word. Hyphenated nouns do the same. And it’s not just that handful of examples I gave above.

“New compounds typically enter the language in open or hyphenated forms,” writes Amy Einsohn in the second edition of “The Copyeditor’s Handbook.” “If the term gains currency, the word space or hyphen disappears and the term becomes solid.”

It doesn’t always happen. Some two-word nouns stay that way. But when change occurs, it’s always in one direction: “open” or hyphenated terms close up to become one word. It’s a one-way street.

Or it was until now. As I learned recently from a Bluesky post by Benjamin Dreyer, author of the best-selling “Dreyer’s English,”  the word “backseat” has bucked the trend. It was a closed, one-word compound in the 11th edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. But now that dictionary considers it two words: “back seat.”

At least, that’s the form Merriam’s considers most standard. The one-word “backseat” is still acceptable as a variant.

This opening of a formerly closed word is pretty historic. But “back seat” isn’t the only term bucking the trend. “Light bulb,” Dreyer pointed out, is another. As I can confirm in my 11th edition Merriam’s dictionary, copyright 2009, “lightbulb” was standard and “light bulb” was the variant. Now, we’re back to “light bulb.”

How do these changes happen?

Regular readers of this blog know that dictionaries simply reflect how you and I are most likely to use the language. Lexicography is reportage, not rule-making. Some people hate to hear this. They think it’s wrong when dictionaries “cave” to poplar usage. But that’s not, and never has been, how language works.

Every grammar rule and every word definition came from popular usage. When grammar books or dictionaries formalize our choices, we may consider these the “rules” of language, or not. But the English language we know and love today evolved from the English language someone else knew and loved yesterday, which itself was a variation on a past iteration, all the way back to people who said “thee” and “thou.”

But the evolution of “back seat” and “light bulb” has less to do with how you and I speak and more to do with how publishers write. That is, when you’re talking, there’s no difference between “back seat” and “backseat.” So, to know how something is written, dictionary-makers rely mainly on published writing. And here’s where things get really interesting. Published writing isn’t like speech in that it doesn’t usually blaze new trails in language. Publishers tend to follow rules, so when their designated dictionary says “backseat” is one word, they write it as one word.

Except they didn’t. Comparing the history of the two spellings in published writing, we can see that, shortly after Merriam’s determined “backseat” is one word, publishers rebelled. In the mid-2010s, just as Merriam’s 2009 edition should have ushered in a trend toward “backseat," this one-word form took a big dive in popularity. So it’s no surprise that a decade later Merriam’s was forced to change course.

If you want to align your writing with the pros’, use “back seat.” If you prefer “backseat,” that’s fine, too. And if you, like some people who replied to Dreyer’s post, are wondering about the adjective form, as in “back seat driver,” you should know that there is no adjective form. There’s only adjectival use, called “attributive” in grammar speak, of the noun form. That’s what we call it when a noun like “paint” is used as an adjective in front of another noun like “store.” And because Merriam’s lists “back seat” only as a noun, it’s also the form you’d use attributively: “back seat driver,” or if you like hyphens, “back-seat driver.”

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March 10, 2026

Single quotation marks

TOPICS: GRAMMAR, PUNCTUATION, SINGLE QUOTATION MARK

I don’t remember when I first learned about single quotation marks, but I have a vague memory of assuming they were as useful as quotation marks, or close to it. Sometimes you quote someone. Sometimes you quote someone quoting someone else. Seemed sensible to me.

Real-world single quotation marks are very different from what I thought. Sure, sometimes you need to quote someone quoting someone. And sometimes you need to quote someone mentioning a book or movie title. But these legitimate uses are much rarer than I’d have guessed. In my experience, most single quotation marks are used in error. Here’s how to get them right.

Know the basics

This sentence shows single quote marks used correctly: Mike said, “I was talking to John who called Venice ‘an extraordinary vacation spot.’”  You’re quoting Mike and putting that in regular quotation marks. And because Mike quotes John, John’s speech goes in single quotation marks. That’s the principle.

Know how to get fancy

A quotation of a quotation goes in single quotation marks. But if there’s a quotation nested inside that internal quotation, that gets double quotation marks. Amber said, “Chris told me Brad said, ‘Steve called him “my man.”’” Thankfully, we don’t have many occasions to nest quotes one into another like matryoshka dolls. When we do, that’s probably a sign we should reword our sentence. But in the rare cases when it comes up, it’s good to know the rule is simple. Just alternate single quotes then double quotes then single quotes and on and on.

Streamline headlines

Headlines, at least in news editing, use single quotation marks in place of doubles: New developments ‘troubling,’ mayor says. Think of this as a convention from the days when news was consumed mostly on paper and news outlets sought to save space with tight writing and punctuation.

Pick a style for titles

You’ve probably seen movie titles, book titles and the like in quotation marks sometimes and in italics other times. There’s no one right or wrong way to do this. It’s just different preferences of different publishing styles. You can use either method, but if you use quotation marks for titles know that these are plain-old, regular quotation marks, just as you’d use for quoted speech. “Star Wars.” Don’t use singles instead unless the title is within a quotation.

Don’t fall for “quotation marks lite”

Quotation marks, which are doubled, show direct speech. Therefore, a lot of people assume, single quotation marks must be a milder, noncommittal type of quotation mark perfect for putting in quotes things like sentence fragments and words being referred to as words, as in: Maria uses the term ‘synergy’ a lot.  That’s logical. Unfortunately it’s just not true. Words being discussed take plain-old double quotation marks: Maria uses the term “synergy” a lot. The same is true for words or phrases used ironically or with doubt cast on them: He gets his information from “experts.” Even if that’s not a direct quotation, double quote marks are the way to go here, not singles.

Know where the other punctuation goes

Single quotation marks follow these rules, which are the same as those for regular quotation marks: A period or comma, in American English, always goes before the closing single quotation mark: Renee said, “The movie ‘Jaws,’ which I saw in the theater, still scares me today.” A colon or semicolon always follows a single quotation mark: Renee said, “The movie was ‘Jaws’; I saw it in the theater.” A question mark or exclamation point goes after the single quotation mark unless it's part of the quote: Renee said, “We enjoyed ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ almost as much.”

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February 23, 2026

'Whomever' tricks even professional writers

TOPICS: GRAMMAR, WHOMEVER VS WHOEVER

If you’re looking for a reason to avoid using “whom,” the best one I know is illustrated in this excerpt from an ESPN blog:

“The game will be determined by whomever can pass better.”

That was penned by a professional writer who recognized that the sentence structure called for an object. That’s why he used “whomever,” which is an object pronoun, instead of “whoever,” which is a subject pronoun. But it was the wrong call.

I see this error a lot. It’s one of those rare mistakes that may actually be more common among professional writers than among amateurs. I suppose that’s because professional writers feel more obligated to use “whom” and “whomever,” whereas amateurs don’t feel the need to sound so formal.

“Whom” and “whomever,” experts say, are for formal speech and writing. In informal speech and writing, you can just always use “who” and “whoever” and not worry whether they should have had Ms in them.

And professional writers seem to get the basic concept: who and whoever are subjects, whom and whomever are objects.

An object is either the object of a transitive verb, like “cake” in “We ate cake,” or the object of a preposition, like “Pete” in “The book was written by Pete.”

Our ESPN writer knew that “by” is a preposition. So whatever followed “The game will be determined by” was an object. But, in this case, the object is not a single pronoun like “whomever.” It’s a whole clause like, “whoever can pass better.”

Clauses need subjects, and subjects must be in subject form. Compare “he can pass better” to “him can pass better.” The first one, which uses a subject pronoun, is clearly right while the second, which uses an object pronoun, is clearly wrong.

But here's the clincher: A subject needs a clause even if that whole clause is itself functioning as an object. So the subject form, “whoever,” is needed to make the true object, the clause, make sense: The game will be determined by whoever can pass better.

When in doubt just remember that whenever a word seems to be filling the job of both an object and a subject, the subject form wins. Or try plugging in "he" and "him." If the subject pronoun -- "he can pass better" -- works and the object pronoun "him" -- "him can pass better -- doesn't, then you know you want the subject "whoever."

Sadly, a lot of people who know the basic difference between who and whom don’t know how to handle this specific dilemma. The “whoever” vs. “whomever” issue gives them away. That’s why, if you don’t know how to use all these pronouns in all these situations, you may be safer ignoring “whom” and “whomever” altogether.

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February 16, 2026

Farmers market. Couples' retreat. Shopper's paradise. It's hard to know where the apostrophe goes.

TOPICS: apostrophe, COUPLES' RETREAT, FARMERS MARKET, GRAMMAR, SHOPPER'S PARADISE

Sometimes it seems like the English language is designed to make us feel bad about our grammar. Take, for example, terms like “farmers market,” “couples’ retreat” and “shopper’s paradise.” Is the first word in each a plural? A plural possessive? A singular possessive? Without knowing the answer to each, you can’t know where the apostrophe goes.

Editing styles and language experts agree that no one rule governs these terms. A plural like “farmers” modifying a noun like “market” may be functioning not as a possessive but as an adjective, meaning it requires no apostrophe. Think: shoe store. No possession is implied. In this interpretation, the idea isn’t so much that farmers own the market. The idea is that the market is about farmers. In fact, this is how most news outlets write it: farmers market, no apostrophe.

Or you could take the view that the market really belongs to the farmers, either in a literal sense or in a loose figurative sense. In that case, you could choose “farmers’ market,” plural possessive. Many top publishers do.

The singular possessive “farmer’s market” is less popular. I don’t know of editing styles or publishers that write it this way. But when you think about a farmer’s almanac or a shopper’s paradise, you could argue that “farmer’s market” is also a singular possessive.

“Shopper’s paradise” uses the idea of a single, fictional shopper who sort of represents every shopper. From that point of view, it makes sense to suggest this paradise belongs to that person. Hence the common practice of treating this as singular possessive. “The chocolate lover’s package” does the same thing. The package is for “the” chocolate lover, aka anyone who fits that bill.

“Couples’ retreat,” “couple’s massage” and “couples therapy” illustrate how meaning affects punctuation. The retreat is for multiple couples, it’s theirs, in a way. So the plural possessive is a popular choice.

In a couple’s massage, there are (I assume) just two people getting a treatment, and together they form a single couple. You could argue the massage is theirs, hence “couple’s massage,” or you could argue the massage is about them the same way the market is about farmers, which justifies “couples massage.” The plural possessive “couples’ massage” seems less practical, though I suppose you could think of it as a service offered to all couples.

“Couples therapy” comes with a handy helper: Merriam-Webster’s dictionary. According to their online edition, the term has become so standard that it deserves its own entry, which they write with no apostrophe. That doesn’t mean you can’t take a different interpretation — especially if your meaning is a little different: the couple’s therapy is going well. The plural possessive, couples’ therapy, doesn’t seem as popular, perhaps because it implies at least four people sitting in one therapist’s office.

No one should feel bad for not knowing how to write these terms. Besides, even if you don’t know, you probably get them right anyway.

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February 9, 2026

'Amongst' and 'amidst'

TOPICS: AMID VS AMIDST, AMONG VS AMONGST, GRAMMAR

It's not wrong to use "amongst" and "amidst" in place of "among" and "amid." But from a plain language point of view, it's probably a bad idea. Consider:

“He is amongst the best executives in our company’s history.”

“You are amongst friends.”

“We’ll keep working hard amidst all the chaos."

Me, I have a knee-jerk reaction to these words. That reaction is chop, chop, chop. It’s an editor thing. I just delete the “st.” Always. I don’t think about it.

Of course, that’s only possible when I’m editing. When I come across these words in the wild, I don’t have the same power. I can’t change text someone else published, and I can’t edit the voices coming out of my TV or live human beings. Yet the reaction is pretty ingrained, so I cringe a little and silently delete the “st” in my mind. “Amongst” and “amidst” just sound wrong to me, and for good reason.

The editing style I use most in my work, Associated Press style, says that “amid” should be used instead of “amidst” and  “among” should be used instead of “amongst.” AP doesn’t give a reason. But their longtime preference for plain language as well as shorter spellings (space on the page was at a premium in AP’s formative days) probably explain it.

Rounding out the top two most influential guides in publishing, the Chicago Manual of Style feels the same way: In its entry covering “amid” and “among,” the guide is clear: “Avoid ‘amidst’ and ‘amongst,’ especially in American English.”

Does that mean “amongst” and “amidst” are wrong? No. They’re only wrong for writers and editors aiming to adhere to one of those two editing styles. Everyone else can use them if they choose, though maybe they should think twice about it.

Dictionaries list “amongst” as a variant form of “among,” noting that it’s less common in American English than British. “Amidst,” too, is considered a variant form, though Merriam-Webster’s doesn’t say this one is more popular in British English.

By “variant form,” the dictionary means these words are correct, but nonstandard. In other words, “among” and “amid” are more natural for speakers here in the U.S. When you’re trying to communicate, simple language is often better because it doesn’t distract from the message the way frilly words do.

“Amongst” strikes many people, including Bryan Garner, author of Garner’s Modern English Usage, as pretentious.

Merriam-Webster’s disagrees with Garner: “Our evidence doesn’t confirm that view.” They cite examples of nonpretentious “amongst” uses like this one from an old TV Guide: “Amongst the evidence were verbal slams from such network luminaries …” and this one from Cruising World: “Pelican is a wild town where one year before there had been a shootout of sorts amongst some fishermen.”

Those excerpts are held up as proof that “amongst” is not pretentious. But I’m not sure they prove Merriam’s point. They both sound kind of fussy to me.

“Amidst” doesn’t draw as much criticism, perhaps because it seems less deliberately fancy-pants than “amongst” does.  In fact, I’d argue that “amidst” sometimes seems like the most natural choice. To me, “amidst all the chaos” sounds better than “amid all the chaos,” but you may disagree.

The worst thing about “amongst” and “amidst” isn’t the risk of sounding highbrow. It’s the risk of sounding lowbrow — like someone using big words to try to sound smart and, as a result, sounding not smart. Plain language conveying good information and ideas is always better than fancy, fussy words masking a lack of substance. So “amongst” and “amidst” can work against effective communication.

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