November 14, 2016

Singular 'They': It's Still Fine

A few weeks back, a National Review contributor went on a tear about how awful it is that we use they as a singular pronoun and about how we should all use he when we don't know an individual's sex, as in, "Everyone with a locker should make sure he locks it."

The writer wasn't very nice about it, "Trying to depluralize they is an asinine effort, stemming from a stupid misunderstanding made by stupid people."

A number of us language types pointed out how very, very wrong the piece was. (Here's my two cents). But a particularly delightful contribution came from linguist and Arrant Pedantry blogger Jonathan Owen. Here's what Jonathan had to say.

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November 7, 2016

Don't Literally Explode When You Hear This

"Literally" is the gift that keeps on giving. There's no end in sight to the fighting over whether you can use it to say stuff like "The town was brought literally to its knees." I get why that bothers people. I avoid loose usages of "literally" myself. But saying this is wrong when every respectable dictionary has been saying for years that it's acceptable is, well, wrong.

Here's the one and only John McIntyre setting the record straight.

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October 31, 2016

More on Singular 'They'

Over the years I've written a number of columns about singular "they." The most recent was just this week. But it hasn't published yet, so here's an oldie but goody that includes insights from some real-life bona fide linguists.

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October 24, 2016

Time for a Punctuation-with-quotation-marks Refresher

American English speakers: Do you know where to put a quotation mark relative to another punctuation mark? If you're taking your cues from the Internet, British English users or especially Wikipedia, you're doing it wrong. In American English we have slightly different rules. Here they are.

A period or comma always goes inside the quotation marks. It doesn't matter if they pertain to the quoted matter or not.

Ben likes the word "emoticon," but he hates the word "emoji."

A question mark or an exclamation point can go inside or outside the quote marks, depending on whether it applies to the quoted part or the whole sentence.

Alfred E. Neuman's catchphrase is "What, me worry?" But do you remember who said, "Don't have a cow, man"?

A colon or semicolon always goes outside the quote marks.

Here's what you need to know about the word "emoji": It's more popular than "emoticon"; young people use it regularly.

Yes, this is more confusing than British English rules, which will put a comma or period after a quote mark when logic dictates. And, yes, it appears that the Internet is forcing American English in this direction. But for now, at least, a comma or period after a closing quote mark is still an error in American English.

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October 18, 2016

I or Me After 'Than'?

In the premiere of the HBO series "Westworld," two programmers at a high-tech amusement park are talking about a colleague.

"No one respects him more than me," one says, "but —"

He doesn't get to finish the thought.

"I," his superior corrects him. "No one respects him more than I. Your pronoun is the subject of the second clause."

Was she right? My latest column has the answer.

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October 10, 2016

Six More Punctuation Mistakes You're Probably Making

The comma or period after a closing quote mark is probably the most common punctuation mistake I see. But my most recent column highlights six more common mistakes, including putting the apostrophe before the S in the '90s (instead of before the 9) and letting your computer turn your apostrophe into an open single quotation mark.

Here's the column.

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October 3, 2016

Language Changes Happening Right Now

Are you more likely to say "They started to walk" or "They started walking"?

According to an interest piece on Mental Floss, the infinitive in a case like this is losing ground to the "ing" form. And that's just one of the interesting language changes researchers say are happening as we speak (pun intended). Here's the article.

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September 26, 2016

Good Things Come to ...

Do good things come to he who waits? Or do good things come to him who waits? Ask a thousand people and you'll get somewhere between 999 and 1,000 bewildered looks.

It's a tough question. You need not one but two grammar concepts under your belt to figure out the answer. You need to know about prepositions. You also need a solid understanding of relative pronouns.

Here's a recent column explaining everything you need to know.

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September 19, 2016

An Easy Fix for a Faulty Parallel

Sometimes, fixing a faulty parallel is as easy as adding the word "and." The hard part is spotting the error in the first place. Here's a recent column about one I caught and how I fixed it.

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September 12, 2016

Writing Is Hard. Editing Is Harder.

"You will be charged with taking what is defective and rendering it merely mediocre," Baltimore Sun copy editor John McIntyre warns his editing students, "That is pretty much the most that editing can ever accomplish."

Just one of the nuggets  of wisdom the “Old Editor” shares in this charming video.

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