Tag Archives: punctuation

May 21, 2010 · 7:50 am

They is wrong

According to the Fake AP Stylebook’s April 21 Facebook post:  “Avoid using masculine pronouns in sentences where the subject’s gender is not specified.  Broads find it offensive.”

What this broad finds offensive is the subject/pronoun disagreement that often occurs as a result of a writer’s attempt at political correctness.

I am a firm believer that political correctness and grammatical correctness are not mutually exclusive.  (Though if I did have to choose?  Hmmm.)

It is incorrect to suggest that “everyone have their say” or “the winner deserves their prize.”  In these instances, because the subject is singular,“their” should be “his.”   “He” and “his” are considered gender neutral, even though they are masculine pronouns.  For those sensitive to gender equity in grammar, “his or her” is perfectly acceptable.  Or,  if we know that the subject, say “winner” in the earlier example, is female, we may say “the winner deserves her prize.  “Their” is just plain wrong.

Also, remember that “everyone” is singular, even though it sounds like a lot of people.  Every one.   So please do not say “everyone is entitled to their opinion.”  

I recently stumbled on a blog that claims to specialize in writing.  I won’t call out the blogger by name because I know how hard it is to churn out copy day after day, and I am the first to admit that, in so doing, I make mistakes regularly. There is a difference between making a mistake and deliberately breaking a well-known rule.

The blogger wrote this week, “It helps a writer’s ego as well as their ability to write if they have peers to read and give feedback on their work.” 

The writer is a “he” or a “she,” not a “they;” otherwise, it would be “writers’ egos” and “writers’ work,” plural.  And if the choice is to go plural possessive, please note where the apostrophe goes.

Six days earlier, the same blogger wrote:  “Everyone has read a bit of bad prose or poetry in their life and access to the Internet seems to make it easier to point out other’s grammatical and spelling errors as well as their downright awful writing in general.”

Oh, really?

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April 29, 2010 · 5:07 am

Lay down your peeves

Personally, I find the “Got milk?” ad—and every tired play on it—peeve-provoking.

I found myself tempted to ask, “Got peeves?”  in a tone of ridicule but thankfully, I had my answer before I had the chance to type those clichéd words.

Comments I received on a recent piece on poorly written song lyrics showed that my readers are bursting with word usage gripes, off the radio as well as on.

So, friends, this playground is safe.  Let ‘em out. 

I have a top 10 list of my own, in no particular order.  If there’s sufficient interest, we can explore each one in detail at some later time.  

Apostrophe used to form a plural.  I don’t like to look a gift horse in the mouth, but it’s tempting when the tag reads From: The Smith’s. 

“I” used as an objective pronoun, as in please send your response to Mary and I.  If Mary drops out, send your response to I?  Really?  Conversely, some of the same people bugged by I turn right around and say, she is as old as me.

“Myself,” other than as a reflexive pronoun, as in, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact myself.  You cannot contact myself because you are not I.  Also, “myself” is not an intelligent substitute for “I.”

“Different than” instead of “different from.”  This one appears to have cropped up lately and is getting out of control, even among the most articulate of speakers.  Someone please do something.

Prepositions as sentence-enders.  I realize the rules have relaxed on this one and I am willing to accept that, where it makes sense.  Where it does not make sense:  “How long were you gone for?”  “Where did you get that from?”  “How late will you be out til?”

Random quotation marks.  If you are going to put something in quotes, someone better have said it.  Who said, Wipe your “Feet?”   This example comes from the “blog” of “unnecessary” quotation marks  – check it out for a chuckle. 

Mispronunciation.  One example, Pulitzer is PULL-it-ser, not PEW-lit-ser.  NU-cle-ar, not NU-cue-lar.  I could go on—and will.

Punctuation outside the quotation marks, when writing in the United States.  I realize the Europeans do it differently but, until Jeopardy is filmed in the UK, I’d like the clue-writers to put periods and commas back inside the quotes.

Adverbs preceding absolute adjectives—such as unique, true, accurate or pregnant.  Nothing is “very unique,” “so true,” “completely accurate” or “a little bit pregnant.”  It is or it isn’t.

People who don’t think good grammar matters, especially public speakers.  I read an analogy once that likened good speech to a practiced art.  The commentator noted that, when we go to a musical performance and a singer hits the wrong note, we don’t say, “that’s all right, I know what note he meant to sing.”

Wow, it’s hard to stop at 10.

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April 26, 2010 · 7:37 am

Today is history

My blood was literally boiling (just making sure you are paying attention).

Yesterday morning on Weekend Today, an error-filled news caption hit me like finger flick between the eyes.  Occasional errors happen—everyone’s human—and,  given it was Sunday, I decided to be charitable and give the show a chance to notice and correct it before the end of the piece.  It almost always happens that way.  A misspelled word or other error appears in the caption but the next time it appears, it’s been corrected.  Not this time.

The caption read, “Single Mom’s of Choice” and focused on women who opt for artificial insemination over waiting for a mate.  Of course the first thing that jumped off the screen (not literally but almost) was the misplaced apostrophe in Mom’s.  Then I noticed the erroneous preposition.  It should have read Single Moms by Choice, not of Choice.  Single moms of choice would mean someone chose them.  The whole caption needed to be scrapped.

Jenna Wolfe had introduced the piece by saying that “one out of four children are raised by a single parent.”  Come on, where are the editors?   As the sloppy caption popped up for about the fourth time, “Relationship Expert” Robi Ludwig explained that for women over 35, “their options for fertility is decreasing.” 

I had already choked on my French Roast during Jenna’s earlier blathering about something, I can’t recall what because all I heard was, “I was like…and Lester was like… and then I was like…and then he was like…”  Is this a morning news program or the cafeteria at San Fernando Valley Junior High?

That’s it.  Charles Osgood, I’ve loved you for years.  You are smart and articulate and your stories are intelligent and interesting.  I’ve seen the error of my ways.  I am moving to CBS where the writers, producers, anchors and reporters don’t share one brain cell.

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April 8, 2010 · 5:23 am

Who gives a fig about an Oxford comma?

They say if you love something, set it free.  That’s what I am doing with the Oxford comma.

Just a refresher:  the Oxford comma, also called the series comma or the serial comma, is the comma used immediately before a grammatical conjunction—such as and or or—preceding the final item in a list of three or more items.  For example, a list of three fruits can be punctuated as either “apples, oranges, and bananas” (with the Oxford comma) or “apples, oranges and bananas” (without the Oxford comma).

I don’t know for certain, but I suspect the Oxford comma made its way into accepted practice around the mid-1960s.  At least that’s the time I began writing sentences.  I must have been right on the cusp, so I’ve always used the comma. 

I do know those older than I eschew it.  My father is horrified by an Oxford comma.  My brother, eight years my junior and an accomplished public relations executive, uses it.  The attitude of some much younger may best be expressed in a 2008 song by the group Vampire Weekend, called “Who Gives a F*** About an Oxford Comma?”  In general, older writers don’t like the comma, younger ones do and the youngest ones may not really care.  That’s a subject for another day (but let it be noted that I have some faithful readers who are under 25 and keenly attuned to such matters).

Whether or not an Oxford comma is correct truly depends upon which authority you consult.  Nevertheless, a wise wordmistress reminded me just recently that consistency is what’s more important.

Either way, this year I’ve made a definitive choice.  Perhaps it is a desire to return to a cleaner, simpler way of life.  I am making a conscious shift and ditching the Oxford comma.  No ifs, ands or buts.

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