Not Commas But Not Not Commas, Either

I'm pondering the commas in this sentence, which was is based on a passage from a CNNmoney.com article:

"Then someone sees, not words on a page, but a vibrant person sitting across the table from them."

From time to time I encounter these structures while copy editing -- the "not blank but blank" structures. I'm never confident in how to handle them commawise.

Should "not words on the page" be set off with commas, as it is here? Clearly, the phrase is an insertion -- an interruption. But, combined with the "but" before "a vibrant," the commas sever the transitive verb (sees) from its likely intended object: (a vibrant person).

Obviously, there's nothing wrong with inserting parenthetical information between a verb and its object. But when the result is to resume the non-parenthetical with a "but" that comes before the object of the verb, it seems to create a logic problem for the whole structure.

My inclination is to leave the commas out: "Then someone sees not words on a page but a vibrant person sitting across the table from them."

I should note: The original sentence was actually a little more complicated: "If someone sees, not words on a page, but a vibrant, energetic person sitting across the table from them, age becomes much less of an issue."

Those other, obviously correct commas seem to somehow make commas around the "not blank but blank" phrase more beneficial.

If only this issue were as easy as whether to eat turducken.

I Don't Like This?

Any statement can be a question. When speaking, you just inflect upward. When writing, you just slap a question mark at the end, which implies an upward vocal inflection. So it's, like, Valley girl talk?

Still, question marks like the one after "10am" in this Web posting annoy me. My guess is that the writer didn't really intend to imply an upward inflection. She certainly wasn't asking whether Erica says that. The writer used the question mark only to make clear that she wanted an answer. It's like putting a question mark after "Guess what."

And, considering how unreasonably peevish I am about that, we probably shouldn't get into the topic of people who seek definitive answers about McDonald's hours not from McDonald's but a from a friend named Erica then seek confirmation from faceless strangers.

The Greatest Thing I've Read All Year

My advice to writers just starting out? Don’t use semicolons! They are transvestite hermaphrodites, representing exactly nothing. All they do is suggest you might have gone to college. — Kurt Vonnegut

I came across this quotation in Armageddon in Retrospect exactly one week after I filed the manuscript for my new book — a book that contains an equally emphatic but nowhere-near-as-clever tirade against semicolons. Deadlines schmedlines. When you come across something like that, you'd be nuts not to submit a new version of the manuscript with a note to the editor, "Sorry, but I just had to include this quote. So I hope you don't mind reprinting all 200 pages ..."

Monday Word Miscellany

Saw this in Paul Krugman’s NY Times column today:

Discussing the causes of that crisis, Mr. Summers pointed to things that the crisis countries lacked — and that, by implication, the United States had. These things included "well-capitalized and supervised banks" and reliable, transparent corporate accounting.

The lack of suspensive hyphenation caught my attention. I would have written "well-capitalized and -supervised banks.” I think a hyphen before "supervised" could have added just a tad more clarity.

Saw this in a U.S.News & World Report story on Yahoo today:

Research by Atlee Burpee, the world’s biggest seed company, found that $50 of seeds and fertilizer can yield $1,250 worth of produce.

Setting aside the incredible fun that is the name Atlee Burpee (finally, a name for my first-born, should such a first ever be born), what interested me here was “$1,250 worth of produce.” In non-numeric form, a structure like this is often considered a “quasi-possessive,” which calls for an apostrophe. “You can grow hundreds of dollars’ worth of produce.” But “$1,250’s worth of produce” would be (most would agree) silly. I never noticed that before.

From a Los Angeles Times headline this morning on an article about job hunting:

It’s still all about whom you know.

Whom? Really? What would I have done if I were the editor making the call on “who” versus “whom” here? I’m not sure. Yes, newspapers are held to a sometimes unreasonably high standard on using “whom,” but the expression “It’s who you know” is such a popular figure of speech that “whom” seems awkward here.

I suspect that, after agonizing over it a bit, I would have gone for “It’s all who you know” – then spent the next day letting all my calls go to voice mail.

I'm a Question Mark Conservative ... Or Am I?

Technically, it's fine to eschew question marks when a question is really intended as a statement.

Who cares.
Really.
Can you believe it.
How do you like them apples.

But that's not how I roll. In my writing, it's:

Who cares?
Really?
Can you believe it?
How do you like them apples?

I know these aren't really questions seeking answers. I realize that they're intended as statements. But to me, it is their core essence as questions that makes them useful as statements. So I give 'em question marks.

I'm more prejudicial in the opposite situation: when people add question marks to statements and commands.

Guess what?

That, to me, is a command plain and simple. Though I suppose there's an argument to be made in favor of putting a question mark here, I'm anti-question mark in this situation. Or at least I thought I was until 15 minutes ago when I was writing an e-mail to a friend. I wrote:

I promised him I would help with the project for free. And, guess what? I
flaked.

A moment later I noticed it and changed it.

And guess what. I flaked.

But for some reason, I didn't like that either. I recast my sentence ("and, suprise, surprise -- I flaked") and am now left wondering what got into me. (I'm also wondering: what got into me? And I'm even wondering what got into me?)

Writers Should Stop Worrying About … (First in an occasional series on style points for which all writers should be granted absolution)

hyphenation

There are so many style points that writers think they’re SUPPOSED to know. So they’re embarrassed that they don’t know them. It’s a waste of valuable energy – energy that could be spent writing. A classic example: hyphenation.

Here, according to AP and its go-to dictionary, are some “correct” hyphenation choices.

A well-known couple
A recently married couple
A full-time worker
Joe works full time
The job is full-time
A copy-edited manuscript
A manuscript copy edited by Joe
A water-skier water-skis on water skis
Jane is a 12-year-old
Jane is 12 years old

No one expects writers to know all these. Heck, no one even expects copy editors to know all these. We have to look them up.

When it comes to hyphenation, the only things a writer needs to know are:

1. Hyphens are most commonly used to form compound modifiers that come before a noun, with the goal of avoiding confusion: “a man eating duck” vs. “a man-eating duck.”

2. Sometimes a hyphen is part of a word’s official spelling. Only the dictionary knows all these.

3. Hyphens are an art, not a science. Clarity and common sense trump the “rules.”

This Citys Where Youll Glimpse Punctuations Future?

According to British publication Mail Online, the city of Birmingham is dropping apostrophes from road and street signs. Apparently, there were already so many apostropheless signs -- signs for places like Kings Norton, Acocks Green and Druids Heath -- that theyve given up.


I dont yet know how Ill feel about this once Ive formed an opinion. But I do know one thing: Im 100% sure that they should elect Cormac McCarthy as mayor.

Single Quotation Marks = Quotation Marks 'Lite'? Nope

If regular quotation marks can be used for unfamiliar terms, then single quotation marks must be for kinda-sorta unfamiliar terms, right?

For some reason, this idea seems to be growing in popularity with writers whose work I copy edit. They're writing stuff like:

The episode's 'reveal' came when Joe turned up alive.
Elizabeth 'showcased' her talents.
The poker player had a serious 'tell.'

While I can see why someone would think this, it's officially getting on my nerves (since I have to fix them).

In American style, quotation marks are used mainly for direct quotations, to denote irony, or to denote unfamiliar terms: You can "showcase" your "awesome" car by parking it out front.

Single quotation marks are usually just for quoted matter within quoted matter: "Joe told me to 'pipe down,'" Becky said. The biggest exception is in headlines, where a lot of styles call for single quotation marks instead of regular quotation marks: Body Surfing 'Totally Rad,' Obama Says.

But, according to most mainstream style guides, that's about it. They're not quotation marks "lite."

(Sorry if I sound "cranky," but I'm very "busy" working for an "employer" whose recent Chapter 11 filing is causing them to make a mockery of the word "compensation.")

New Yorker Comma Curiosities

I noticed recently some rather curious comma choices in the New Yorker. Specifically, its editors seem to prefer to set off with commas prepositional phrases of "in" + a year. They don't do it all the time, but they seem to do it a lot lately. Some examples:

When he died, in 1984, he was remembered mostly for his popular study of multiple-personality disorder, written with Corbett Thigpen, “The Three Faces of Eve.”

After receiving his doctorate, in 1963, and returning to Vancouver, he set about what would be his life’s work.

Few experts understand counterinsurgency and counterterrorism better than this former Australian army officer and anthropology Ph.D, who has advised the American, British, and Australian governments, was one of General Petraeus’s strategic whizzes at the start of the surge, in early 2007, and writes so well that you’d never imagine he’s spent his whole career in government, the military, and academia.

His good looks, charm, and verbal skills—qualities that made him such an effective predator—convinced many in the Tacoma community that he was innocent, up until the time he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, in 1979.

Most editors whose work I see would make those:

"When he died in 1984, he was ..."

"After receiving his doctorate in 1963 and returning to ..."

"... was one of General Patraeus's strategic whizzes at the start of the surge in early 2007 and writes so well ..."

"... he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1979.

Theirs are all valid choices. The writer or editor has a lot of freedom to decide which bits of information are "parenthetical" and thus should be set off with commas. But personally, I suspect this is just another example of the New Yorker thumbing its nose at conventional editing/writing wisdom.

What Demon From Hell Hath Brought These Monsters Upon Us? Oh, Yeah, It Was Lynne Truss

This just in:

Two guys have been sentenced to a fine and probation after correcting apostrophes on a historic sign. When asked why, during their multi-state sign-editing spree, they didn't also change the word "emense" to "immense" on the 1930s-era Grand Canyon sign, one remarked: "I was reluctant to disfigure the sign any further."

It's good to see their cross-country rampage was tempered by calm restraint and sound judgment.

Here's the whole story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26351328/from/ET/

Yeah, I 'Knew' That

I "learned" a term this weekend. One it seems I "should" have known, since it's in the Chicago Manual online and probably the hard copy version, too. (I'll check when I get "home.")

The term is "scare quotes." It means, according to Chicago online, quotation marks used not to identify a quotation but "to alert readers that a term is used in a nonstandard, ironic, or other special sense."

How did I, someone who has "read" the Chicago Manual and other style guides "many" times, manage to overlook that term? I'm sure I was just focused on more "important" things.

Hope someone out there finds this "helpful."

P.S. Thanks to Cortney for edumacating me on this one!

Omelets Are Better Than Omelettes, the Apostrophe Does Not Swing Both Ways, and Is Texting Destroying Our Language?

A couple of tidbits to share today that I present in kinda bare-bones form since I'm a little too sniffly-sneezy to weave them into a more entertaining form.

* Three out of three dictionaries I checked with prefer the spelling "omelet" to "omelette." All of them, however, allow both spellings.

* If it ain't facing left, it ain't an apostrophe. In my copy editing work, I'm coming across a lot of right-facing apostrophes (that is, ones with their openings to the right, like the letter C). MS Word likes to make them when you hit the neither-right-nor-left-facing apostrophe key. There's a name for a right-facing apostrophe: an open single quotation mark. Real apostrophes face left.

* I finally found an expert to answer the question, "Are kids screwing up our language with their technology and texting and IMming and blogging and ROFLing?" The answer: No. Technology is not hurting the language at all. Happily, it's just poisoning kids' minds. I got this from a Noam Chomsky clip I found on YouTube. (The whole talk is long, so if you want to hear just this portion, skip to around minute 50.) He makes a good case.

Signs of a Bigger Problem

This is not one of those blogs with lots of pictures of poorly punctuated signs. But this pair of signs I noticed in a parking lot the other day was just too good to pass up. They appeared right next to each other, like this:

Yet upon closer inspection they revealed some interesting differences:

" ... at vehicle owner's expense .."

" ... at vehicles owners' expense ..."

I like this because, to me, it doesn't reveal the stupidity of the signmaker. It reveals the stupidity of the system. What IS the best way to handle issues of agreement in these signs?

In the first one, at vehicle owner's expense is a fine choice. But it ignores a flaw. It attributes to multiple vehicles a single owner.

The sign with the sticker appears to be a noble attempt to fix this. To correspond with multiple vehicles, it references multiple owners. You've got to applaud that effort.

But vehicles owners doesn't work. The plural of vehicle owner doesn't include an S after vehicle. You could use vehicles, but it only makes sense as a possessive: vehicles' owners'. And that's just weird.

The only way to get around this agreement problem without creating weird possessive issues is to write:

All unauthorized vehicles will be towed at the expense of their respective owners.

But that defies another priority for signmakers: economy of words.

So with that, I'll just express my sympathies for the people who have to make these signs and, out of respect, will refrain from mentioning the issue of capitalization.

The Most Common Mistake in My In-box

E-mails I get about my columns and books are frequently laden with apologies, disclaimers, and self-deprecating remarks about the sender's grammar. Stuff like: "I'm sure I'm making a ton of grammar mistakes in this message." That's a shame, because the grammar in those e-mails is usually fine.

But there is one mistake that crops up in them a lot. These people often put periods and commas outside of quotation marks.

When he said, "Make my day", Eastwood became legend.

This is how they do it in Great Britain. But it's an error here in the U.S.

The rule here is that commas and periods always go inside quotation marks. Colons and semicolons always go outside. Question marks and exclamation points can go either way, depending on whether they pertain to the quoted matter or to the whole sentence. So it's:

Did you hear the policeman yell "Stop"? (Whole sentence is a question, quoted matter is not.)

but

I heard Jane ask, "Why won't you stop?" (Question falls within the sentence.)

Strangely, e-mails from people other than readers -- ones from friends and even forwarded messages originated by complete strangers -- do not seem as prone to this mistake. Perhaps it's because people writing to me about grammar and usage are more likely to include quotations. But it's also possible that it's a product of self-consciousness -- at least partly.

Comma-dy

So I was talking to Paula Poundstone last night about commas …

Did that sound convincingly casual? Did I successfully mask my awe about getting to talk to a comedian I’ve admired for years?

No? That’s okay. I can admit it: I’m dazzled and resorting to name-dropping. But in the process I can also pass on a bit of information that you might find interesting.

It started last night when -- thrill of thrills -- I was one of the authors on a panel with Poundstone, comedian Robert Schimmel and authors Dan Kennedy and Beth Lisick (all of whom were hilarious, by the way). It was an event for Friends of Libraries USA and was part of the American Library Assn.’s annual conference at the Anaheim Convention Center.

Afterward there was a book signing. Once I finished signing copies of Mortal Syntax, I joined the line of people waiting for Poundstone to sign copies of her book, There’s Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say. She was so gracious -- chatting up the people in line and dipping into a seemingly bottomless font of funny stories.

When I got to the front of the line, she told me a little about her struggles to help assure that her kids get a good education -- especially when it comes to grammar and punctuation. It’s an even tougher struggle than you might guess. Poundstone told me that, a while back, she had been talking to one of her kids’ teachers and she mentioned that she would like her kids to have a good grasp of how to use the comma. The teacher, according to Poundstone, said (and I paraphrase): “I don’t teach them about commas. Commas are going to be obsolete soon.”

I paused. Did this teacher know something I didn’t? Was he privy to some cutting-edge research demonstrating that the comma is melting away like the polar ice caps? (Self-doubt is my default response in these situations, by the way. You could tell me, “Did you know your middle name isn’t really Margaret? It’s Beelzebub,” and my first impulse would be to check my birth certificate.)

It was the kind of statement that could easily put grammar-minded people like you and me on the knee-jerk defensive. “No way, man! The comma lives!” So in this case I’m pleased that I seriously weighed the idea before deciding that the teacher was, more likely than not, full of crap.

Yes, commas are largely ignored in school kids’ text messages. Yes, this could change how and when they’re used. But, like grammar in general, commas arose out of their usefulness. To pilfer an example from “Eats, Shoots and Leaves,” consider the difference between:

Woman. Without her, man is nothing.

and

Woman without her man is nothing.

I think the comma will survive. If I’m wrong, that’s okay, too. It will just mean that we found some other way make ourselves understood. Until then, I’ll just be happy that no commas are required in the sentence:

Teachers who talk out their backsides should consider other careers.

The Semicolon: A Sideways Wink Indeed

It was nearly hidden on a New York City Transit public service placard exhorting subway riders not to leave their newspaper behind when they get off the train.

“Please put it in a trash can,” riders are reminded. After which Neil Neches, an erudite writer in the transit agency’s marketing and service information department, inserted a semicolon. The rest of the sentence reads, “that’s good news for everyone.”

This excerpt is from a story that appeared in the Feb. 18 New York Times.

The article went on to praise Neches’s punctuation prowess and even included a high-five from punctuation pontiff Lynne Truss. Coincidentally, it came out just days after my column on semicolons and why, usually, they stink. My reasoning: Often, the semicolon is not used as a tool to aid the reader. It’s used as a tool to aid the writer – aid him in showing off that he knows how to use a semicolon.

When I read this NY Times piece, I was torn. Was this self-serving punctuation? Or was this a free English lesson slipped in with a public service message? A benevolent demonstration of proper punctuation? I wasn’t sure.

Then I read the article a second time, paying closer attention to the sentence that contained the semicolon:

“Please put it in a trash can; that’s good news for everyone.”

What is good news for everyone?

The word “that,” in cases like this, is supposed to have a clear antecedent. It’s supposed to be obvious which word or phrase it’s pinch-hitting for. But in this case, our supposedly erudite writer was more focused on the opportunity to show off his semicolon mastery than he was on meaning.

So, once again, the semicolon proves it's more likely to be abused than simply used.

P.S. A shout-out to Temperance for calling the NYT piece to my attention!

P.P.S. Don't miss the irony of the labeling of an "erudite writer" by an article reporting on a message to subway riders not to leave "their newspaper" behind.

Comma Magic

Reporters who do not read the style guide should not complain about their
editors.

Reporters, who do not read the style guide, should not complain about their
editors.

Big difference, huh? (I had forgotten about this example until I rediscovered it in a style guide yesterday.) The rule at play: Use commas to set off nonrestrictive clauses -- i.e. clauses that don't restrict or narrow down the subject. Use no commas when the clause is designed to do just that -- i.e. narrow down the set of reporters to just those who don't read the guide (instead of suggesting that none of them do.)