Posts in category: Style on the Go archive

November 21, 2007: Issue 214

Some common Thanksgiving words and mistakes often associated with them:

cornucopia Despite the -ia at the end, this term for a horn or horn-shape basket overflowing with food is singular. The plural is cornucopias.

gizzard This word for the food-grinding organ in a turkey’s throat has two z’s. Another common error: Some people insist it’s edible.

pilgrim Capitalize only when you refer to one of the settlers of Plymouth Colony. Other travelers (to Mecca, to Jerusalem, to Lourdes, to Graceland) are pilgrims with a small p.

wattle This is the fleshy thing that hangs from a turkey’s neck—not to be confused with snood, the thing that hangs over the beak, or with waddle, which you might do after Thursday’s meal.

Safe travels and happy gatherings!

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November 1, 2007: Issue 211

In general, every pronoun needs an antecedent. (Refresher: An antecedent is the noun to which a pronoun refers. In the sentence “Britney promised she’d shape up,” Britney is the antecedent for the pronoun she.)

In some colloquial expressions, the pronoun it can go without an antecedent.

acceptable: It’s easy to imagine this house on a Greek isle.
acceptable: It pays to do scheduled maintenance.

In many cases, though, you can tighten and clarify a sentence by ditching that dangling it.

acceptable: It might take you years to save for an addition.
preferred: You might need years to save for an addition.

acceptable: If it’s in the budget, have cabinets built to fit the corner.
preferred: If budget allows, have cabinets built to fit the corner.

Whatever you do, avoid using it twice in a sentence with different antecedents.

please, please don’t: It’s so much easier to do it this way.
preferred: This way is so much easier.

Thumbs up: Last week we asked for your favorite grammar-related movie lines. We especially liked this submission from Michelle Abraham, an exchange from Never Been Kissed.

David Arquette, as Robert Geller: “What’s the matter? You look nauseous.”
Drew Barrymore, as his copy editor sister, Josie: “Nauseated. I look nauseated.”

Stop by the CE department to claim your prize, Michelle. By the way, you know what we really love about that movie? The 25-year-old copy editor has her own office. With a window. And her own assistant. And an entire day to edit one story—with a pencil.

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October 25, 2007: Issue 210

Well, maybe it’s not educational, but it’s funny. Check out this clip.

Nominative versus objective case—now that’s comedy gold. And it brings to mind one of our favorite movie lines: Luke Perry as Oliver Pike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer asking, “Are you addressing I?”

Do you have a favorite grammar-related line of dialogue? E-mail it to us.

For the record: In that clip from The Office, Ryan was right.

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October 11, 2007: Issue 208

Avoid using italics for emphasis. Italic type already has enough jobs to do: setting off titles, foreign words, unvoiced thoughts, words used as such. Italicizing words that don’t fit those categories is as likely to confuse the issue as to clarify it.

All-capital type isn’t a great option, either. It’s difficult to read and, in the age of e-mail, widely construed as yelling.

When you want to stress certain words, look for ways to do it with punctuation or sentence structure. Emphasis naturally falls near the beginning and end of a sentence or after strong punctuation marks such as colons and dashes.

avoid:
Remember, you have to live with your decision.
Remember, YOU have to live with your decision.

options:
Remember who has to live with your decision—you do.
Remember: You have to live with your decision.
You have to live with your decision, remember.

Good grammarians sometimes come out ahead: While “The Way I Are” by Timbaland was at No. 15 on the iTunes Top 100 chart earlier this week, “The Way I Am” by Ingrid Michaelson was 11 spots above it.

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October 18, 2007: Issue 209

How you form the plural of medium depends on the definition of the word.

When medium signifies a channel of communication or a means of artistic expression, the plural is media:
The network’s new president has 20 years’ experience in broadcast media.
She works in varied media—fabric, paper, and sometimes clay.

When medium means a size, a middle, or a spiritual communicator, the plural is mediums:
We need to order more navy blue mediums.
Happy mediums aren’t so easy to find.
Three mediums claimed to have contacted her great-great-grandfather.

And a usage note: Although media is slipping into popular use as a singular noun, avoid that technically incorrect construction. If it feels awkward to use a plural verb (“The news media are at it again”), try usingmedia to modify an obviously plural noun (“The news media outlets are at it again”).

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October 4, 2007: Issue 207

Our style is to use first names for homeowners and last names for professionals:
Jay and Lana Boyer hired architect Emma Jackson to design their addition. Jackson and Lana took a neighborhood tour to identify projects that Lana particularly liked.

Things get a little sticky, though, when a professional team involves two members of the same family. In that case, use first names to avoid confusion:
Mother-and-daughter design team Janie and Kristin Abbott took on the project. Janie started on a new color scheme for the drab kitchen, while Kristin tackled the awkward arrangement of the entry and great-room.

While we’re discussing last names, let’s talk about names that end in -s or -es, such as Andrews. We form the plural by adding -es: the Andrewses. We form the plural possessive by adding -es and an apostrophe: the Andrewses’ yard. But those constructions quickly gum up copy. Rephrase when you can to keep text smooth: the couple, the family’s yard.

Possibly the most embarrassing correction ever: This mistake will make you wince.

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August 30, 2007: Issue 202

Be careful with questions. They can help create a connection with readers, but watch out for these pitfalls.

Don’t stack up too many:
Is your home office too small? Awkwardly arranged? Is the look outdated? Do you need more storage?
A barrage like that will make your reader feel like a White House press secretary at a daily briefing.

Don’t ask questions with obvious answers. If you’re writing for Darts Monthly magazine, for instance, don’t ask:
Do you love to play darts?
It’s hard to imagine why else someone would pick up Darts Monthly.

Above all, don’t ask a question if you’re not going to answer it.
Can you have chocolate without wrecking your meal plan?
With a teaser like that, you’d better follow up with solid information:
Of course you can! Try these delicious but low-calorie, low-fat recipes.

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September 6, 2007: Issue 203

A refresher on tenses of the verb prove:
This house proves that energy efficiency can be elegant.
A search of county records proved that the house was even older.
She has proved herself as a budget-friendly designer.

Note that in the final example, the past participle is proved, not proven. Use proven only as an adjective:
a proven method

Who needs the Bionic Woman? We’ll be cutting out a little early Friday to catch the first episode of WordGirlon PBS. See a preview.

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September 13, 2007: Issue 204

A few unfortunate slip-ups have made it into our magazines lately. We don’t like to dwell on the negative, but we would like to make some suggestions to keep those particular errors from happening again.

When you insert dummy copy into a live layout (to fill out a short line, for instance, or to adjust to a change in the size of a text box), make that type a bright, unmistakable color. Magenta at 100 percent usually works. The dummy type is far less likely to slip through the final stages of proofing that way.

Any proper name in a hed or dek should set off a warning in your brain: Check me! Make sure the name, whether it’s a person or location, matches the name in the story. We don’t get any points for spelling Mississippi correctly in the hed if the location is really in Missouri.

Don’t zone out while you run spell-check. It’s easy to get lulled into the click-click-click groove as you tell the program to ignore soffit, cabinetry, and other perfectly good words it doesn’t like—not to mention Web addresses. Slow down enough that you’re aware of what you’re bypassing, and don’t try to multitask; this is not the time to listen to your 17 phone messages. In short, spell-check is an aid in careful proofreading, not a substitute for it.

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August 16, 2007: Issue 200

In honor of our 200th issue, we present fun facts that have nothing to do with our jobs but do involve the number 200:

• The echidna, an Australian mammal that lays eggs, is smaller than a grain of cooked rice and
  weighs only 200 milligrams when it hatches.

• Mud flows from the eruption of Cotopaxi, an Ecuadoran volcano, oozed more than 200 miles in 1877.

• Researchers believe that a bowhead whale can live 200 years, making it the longest-lived mammal on Earth.

• In South Dakota in 1823, fur trapper Hugh Glass was badly mauled in a fight with a grizzly bear. Glass’ companions left him for dead, but he crawled 200 miles to the nearest fort (and lived 10 more years).

We can’t leave you without a style tip, so please note that “apropos” is one word, with no accents and
no italics.

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