The latest from your experts.
by Grammar Girl |
In honor of the Super Bowl, I present a copyeditor who takes things a little too far:
by Grammar Girl |
Two lovely bloggers have been kind enough to give me the Versatile Blogger Award, and according to the rules, I am required to tell all of you seven interesting things about myself and nominate fifteen other bloggers.
I’d Like to Thank the Academy…
But first, thanks to the two people who saddled me with this chore delighted me with this honor. 
Lorca Damon, a sassy author (Autism by Hand and others) and the 2010 National Prison Teacher of the Year. (Top that! I, for one, would never mess with her.)
Erin Berry, author of The Chronicles of IDIOT (“You are correct, there is a government conspiracy.” But it’s not what you think.)
Seven Interesting Things About Me
By Grammar Girl |
One of my best finds this year was a site called Ujam that lets you easily create your own songs. For someone like me—who loves to fiddle with lyrics and the idea of music, but doesn’t own any instruments or live with a musician—Ujam is miraculously empowering. You sing a song, and it creates music (real, multi-instrument music!) to go with it.
My Funny Version of “Jingle Bells”
Here’s an example: A couple of nights ago, I fiddled around with their Christmas music and made “Jingle Bells: The Bitter School Teacher Version.” I’m not happy with my singing because I accidentally posted it live when I meant to save it to improve later, but I still wanted to show it to you so you can see just how easy it is to make a song.
It took me less than an hour to do this: Jingle Bells: The Bitter School Teacher Version. (Please, seriously, just know that I can sing better than this!)
by Grammar Girl
Ben Zimmer has an interesting post today over at Language Log about something Newt Gingrich recently said that is hard to parse because it has so many negatives:
It’s very hard not to look at the recent polls and think that the odds are very high I’m going to be the nominee. (ABC News, emphasis added)
Ben’s post didn’t address the problem with the “high odds” part of the sentence though, and I just happen to have consulted recently with a mathematician about that topic for my upcoming book GRAMMAR GIRL’S 101 TROUBLESOME WORDS (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell’s). Here’s what he helped me conclude: Continue reading ‘Are High Odds Good or Bad?’
by Grammar Girl
In the United States, we always put periods and commas inside quotation marks, but twice in the last week I’ve seen writers break this rule when confronted with a quotation that ended with a question mark and also needed a comma after it to make the whole sentence work. Here’s an example from this week’s Grammar Girl podcastand article about Christmas carols:
The Christmas carol we’re going to tackle today is “What Child Is This?”, written in 1865 by William Chatterton Dix.
Omit the Comma Before an Attribution
Although it’s not exactly the same situation, the AP Stylebook says that when you’d put a comma at the end of a quotation before the attribution, but the quotation ends in a question mark, you should omit the comma. (“Merry Christmas,” Squiggly said. “How many days until Christmas?” Aardvark asked.)
Keep the Comma After a Title
The Chicago Manual of Style editors make a similar recommendation for attributions, but take a new stance on titles in their newest edition (16th edition, section 6.119): they recommend keeping the comma when a title ends with a question mark or exclamation point, as in the example above from the Grammar Girl podcast. Therefore, according to Chicago, which addresses the question most directly, the best way to write the sentence is as follows:
The Christmas carol we’re going to tackle today is “What Child Is This?,” written in 1865 by William Chatterton Dix.
by Grammar Girl
A couple of years ago, Steve Bell (@stevebwriter) wanted to know whether “turkey,” the name of the bird, is related to Turkey, the country, so I made this video explaining the roundabout way turkeys came to be called turkeys.
Mignon Fogarty is the author of Grammar Girl’s 101 Misused Words You’ll Never Confuse Again. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook.
by Grammar Girl
A Twitter user name Nick Piesco forwarded me the following message about making product names plural:
The Company Line: iPad 2 Tablets
Product names are always tricky because they are usually trademarked, and companies don’t like you to use trademarked words generically. The Apple page Guidelines for Using Trademarks and Copyrights gives this example:
Rules for Proper Use of Apple Trademarks
1. Trademarks are adjectives used to modify nouns; the noun is the generic name of a product or service.
2. As adjectives, trademarks may not be used in the plural or possessive form.
Correct: I bought two Macintosh computers.
Not Correct: I bought two Macintoshes.
By Grammar Girl
Let’s hang out in NYC!
I’m having a Grammar Girl meet-up at City Bakery in Union Square in New York City, Thursday night, November 10, 2011, from 5:00 to 7:00.
It will be informal. I won’t have books for sale, but I’ll be happy to sign any books you bring, take pictures, and answer questions. You can meet other language lovers, and maybe even help me figure out what big project I should work on next!
Write it on your calendar and remember to come. See you Thursday.
By Grammar Girl
We’ve added three new designs to the free computer wallpaper you’ll get when order the new book in the 101 WORDS series before it goes on sale November 7, for a total of five (five!) free designs. Just order 101 Words to Sound Smart, send in your receipt before November 7, and Macmillan will send you these five wallpaper sets with my favorite quotations, grammar tips, and words from the book. Let knowledge seep into your mind as you go about your daily computer work!
We have sizes for all the popular monitor resolutions. These are really fun, and I’m already using them on my own desktop!
Preorder it here: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books-a-Million |iBookstore | Powells
How to Get the Free Wallpapers
Continue reading ‘More Free Grammar Girl Wallpaper Designs’
By Grammar Girl
The World Series has fans asking how to make an abbreviation such as RBI plural. It can be confusing, since it’s the R-part (run) that is becoming plural. Should it be RsBI or RBIs or something else?
Even though it doesn’t make absolute logical sense, you make initialisms and acronyms plural by adding an s to the end no matter what part would be plural if you wrote the whole thing out: even though it would be runs batted in, you write it RBIs.
Can You Ever Use an Apostrophe?
In the past, some publications used apostrophes to make acronyms and abbreviations plural, so until a few years ago, it was common to see something like RBI’s or CD’s in the New York Times. Currently, all major publications and style guides I’m aware of recommend simply adding an s (without an apostrophe).
When Do You Use Periods? Continue reading ‘How Do You Make “RBI” Plural?’
