ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

It Is contraction = ONLY acceptible use of it's.

(pls ignore my spelling errors, because I know I am right on the its/it's issue)

http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000227.htm

possessive of it has no apostrophe EVAH!!

viz: the dog licked its wounds

ditto plural of it ("he ended his avant-garde poem with a whole line of its"

otherwise it would read "the dog licked it is wounds" or "the dog licked it has wounds"

how abt:
Giving feedback to a subordinate helps him learn (her learn). [and then alternate the order]

Grammatically incorrect but increasingly tolerated in my experience. In the version of business English our business uses here in England, no-one would even notice. Except the sort of pedants you'd like to irritate.

Giving feedback to subordinateS helps them learn.

Dilemma solved.

either or'sgood with me

men can eat a bag of dicks

i live for the day i see this in any corporate communication

no, them is acceptable these days, and has been for years

things belonging to Cousin It are Cousin It's

That's what people kept telling me, but I was never that adventurous.

It used to be gramatically acceptable to use a masculine pronoun (he, him, etc.) when referring to a person of unspecified gender (you know what I mean.. I can't think of any other way to put it), but now the "he or she"/"his or her" method is the proper form.

I'm not sure if it makes a difference whether you use a slash or the word "or." I suspect that the slash is unacceptable in formal writing.

Unless it's academic writing, and it allows you to make a terrible pun somehow.

Proper, maybe. But it should be pointed out that if you're having to cram this into your sentence, you;re writing a clumsy sentence, and you should probably drop back and punt.

hyphens
Our style is to use one word wherever possible, including some instances where a word might be hyphenated by other publications. Hyphens tend to clutter up text (particularly when the computer breaks already hyphenated words at the end of lines)

Inventions, ideas and new concepts often begin life as two words, then become hyphenated, before finally becoming accepted as one word. Why wait? "Wire-less" and "down-stairs" were once hyphenated. In pursuit of this it is preferable to go further than Collins does in many cases: eg trenchcoat is two words in Collins but one under our style

Never use hyphens after adverbs, eg politically naive, wholly owned. But do use them to form compound adjectives, eg two-tonne vessel, three-year deal

Do use hyphens where not using one would be ambiguous, eg to distinguish "black-cab drivers come under attack" from "black cab-drivers come under attack"

Tracer, I read this as advocating the phrase "fact-checking" as a verb (sorry, should have made that clear) so thanks were in order!

assuming i only have one brother, would it be acceptable to write, "I went with my brother Isaac to the store" or do i have to write, "I went with my brother, Isaac, to the store" ?

for some reason i am under the impression that non-essential info can be stuck in without commas as long as it is only one or two words. but apparently, this is wrong?

(fun with nonessential elements)

'I went to the store with my brother Isaac.'

The evidence for “Americanization” of French culture is mixed, and its extent is impossible to measure, as culture is not easily definable, let alone quantifiable.

Please can you help me arrange it so it sounds better. Most importantly I need a more essay-register way of saying "let alone", but the whole sentence seems really clumsy still and I don't know how to fix it.

I hope there's someone around who can help. My head hurts.

Culture is not easily definable, much less quantifiable. Thus, not only is the evidence for "Americanization" of French culture mixed, but its actual extent is impossible to measure.

?

the "not only/but" thing is unnecessary

Thanks all.

I just finished my essay, wahey!!

I've decided to switch from a Jan 27, 1997 format to a 27 Jan 1997 format for dates because eliminating the extra comma helps the readability of some of my nastier sentences.

Here it is: "Although there are many different types of HLA proteins, each person has only a small, relatively unique set that is inherited from their parents."

Thanks much. And, uh, I'm on deadline, so hurry up!

Although there are many different types of HLA proteins, individuals inherit from their parents only a small and relatively unique subset.

etc.

"Although many different types of HLA proteins exist, each person inherits only a small, realtively unique set."

.. not sure if that meaning is accurate or not. You may want to clarify the sentence in that .. is only the inherited set small, or is the total set small?

You don't have to be a grammar/usage nazi to object to torture in all its forms, including wrt the language.

Also, I want to kill the person who prompted Andrew's initial post.

So, any thoughts on "relatively unique?" Oh shit I'm an idiot, I just realized that is a great pun! Maybe I should keep it, then.

I was hoping to just get rid of the whole "unique" problem and go with something that means what Dan said, but not using that irksome word. Old-school is to insist that there are no degrees of unique; either it is or it isn't, period.

HUMAN LEUKOCYTE ANTIGEN: also known as major histocompatibility complex (MHC). These proteins are found on the outside of almost every cell in the body and play an important part in controlling the immune system. Although there are many different types of HLA proteins, each person has only a small, relatively unique set that is inherited from their parents. Some HLA types are associated either a faster or slower progression of HIV disease. The type of HLA proteins a person has is also important in identifying good "matches" for tissue grafts and organ transplants.

So yeah, ya'll can go to town on the rest of it, too (if you like!).

Do I have the world's coolest job or what?

I'm kind of sucking as a med writer right now. I'm better as an editor, I think.

"their" is a perfectly acceptable form of non-gender third-person-singular possessive: i have the might of the oxford dictionary on my side. (er, i think.) god damn, it's a living language: let it evolve.

right, back to ILM. it's safer there.

Don't go back to ILM, stay here!!!

?

There are many different types of HLA proteins, but each person inherits only a small and essentially distinct set.

is how I'd do it. "exist" is a waste of a verb, because everything exists. (i know this isn't in yr orig. sentence, this was a suggestion.) "different" is superfluous, because you've already got "many types" - i assume these many types are not "the same"!!! "unique" cannot be modified by degree. "that is" is unnecessary.

also in radio you are never allowed to start a sentence with "although" because people will have their brains too full to quite follow the next bit, the bit that you actually are supposedly more concerned with anyway

HUMAN LEUKOCYTE ANTIGEN: also known as major histocompatibility complex (MHC). These proteins are found on the outside of almost every cell in the body and play an important part in controlling the immune system. Although there are many types of HLA proteins, each person has only a small set inherited from his or her parents. Some HLA types are associated with either a faster or slower progression of HIV disease. The type of HLA proteins a person has is also important in identifying good "matches" for tissue grafts and organ transplants.

Thank you all for helping me out--for whatever reason this particular definition (and especially that second sentence) was giving me fits. So now one last question--do you think that definition would be helpful if you were just an average joe and came across this weird term "HLA" when reading something about HIV/AIDS?

I know I should have a real focus group for this stuff, but time and money do not permit.

And I have no particular issue with letting language evolve, but a singular "their" is a really painful direction to let it go, if only because there will be terrible stand-up comedians in 2060 doing stupid Gallagher "English doesn't make sense" routines about how a single person pays "their" rent. I actually prefer "his or her" -- easier to read that as a workable unit than to temporarily suspend all rules of singular/plural agreement for just one case. In informal writing, it's easier to blow by, but in anything that strikes a formal tone it completely broadsides me. (Especially when it's so so easy to construct a sentence that avoids the issue entirely.)

The Tracer version is a big improvement, but although 'relatively unique' has to go, there is some sort of meaning there that is now gone. It's hard to find a better term there. I'd probably go with 'distinctive', but I'm not that happy with it.

I can't assess the definition very well - I read a fair bit of science, and have read a reasonable amount about proteins and so on. It seems very clear, I think.

The stand-up comic would have a better time with something like "A man jerks off their own penis", which is a construction not unlike one I've found myself using before, and which I eventually realized I have no problem with whatsoever.

Chris, I would say that the use of 'their' implies a lack of knowledge of the sex of the person(s) being discussed, which is untrue, so I do think it is bad.

Days after I took my current job, I was offered another writing clear English summaries of new scientific patents. I should have mentioned that earlier - it almost makes me a professional at this stuff!

gypsy get ready to laugh becuse that's the kind of thread this is!

xpost

I admit that English doesn't offer a good solution to the genderless singular third-person pronoun ("one" is pretentious and affected in English in a way that "on" isn't in French). But of the not-good solutions, I don't think "their" is the best. I usually try to write around it, or go with some kind of his/her construction.

Whereas I think it implies that the person in question is not specific. Using "their" underscores that we are not talking about some man in partiuclar. ("Bob Jones jerks off their own penis" would be weird.)

I mean, either "their" or "his" is fine there, I'd argue. But I don't think that "their" is at all "wrong", and it's something that I, as a native speaker, have produced on numerous occasions.

please tell me it was a copyeditors' convention! i know there's an argument here about adjectival phrasing, but really: it's a facile one usually propounded by people on the losing side in "sense v typography" arguments.

still, heheheh, a convention of subs. jesus christ, what a depressing thought. i love my job dearly, but ... the idea of that makes me want to hang myself from the nearest misrelated participle.

i'll come back with a more rounded argument in favour of the possessive when i have more time (ie when i'm not on deadline!) i had the same fight with one of my colleagues yesterday, and i ain't budging :)

except ... "childrens" isn't a word. if it was attributive usage, surely it'd be "children ITV". but woah, who'd say that?

i think the argument i'm getting at here is that when someone says "childrens ITV" or "copyeditors conference" they're actually thinking in the possessive. try it with other irregular plurals and you'll see what i mean.

right. i have a magazine to get to the printers. but hang on: there's only one printer. so: printer's; ie the establishment belonging to the printer. how many people actually think that through?

jesus christ, look at the time.

and then i started to ponder about Casuistry's point about whether the convention belonged to the copywriters.. well it's certainly there FOR the copywriters, would that be enough?

Afterall say in a restaurant you'd have gentlemen's and ladies' toilets right? They're all really the restaurant's toilet for the gentlemen and ladies.

and now I'm all confused when people say things like "Alright gents???" When "Gent" can really be an abbreviation for both gentleman and gentlemen. Were they actually asking "Alright gent's" to find out whether the men's toilets are okay??

i love the smell of pedantry in the morning.

Unless it's a very small business, there's probably more than one printer that works there. So, I'd say "i have a magazine to get to the printers'."

(I mean, if I was the editor of a magazine, I would)

which means i've sent the mag to the printer ... or the printer's.

or, more simply: "i've sent the mag, despite the best efforts of our advertising server, and now i'd really like some fucking lunch."

i'm glad this thread was revived because i'm reading eats, shoots and leaves right now! i only wish i had time to read the whole thread instead of going to work :-(

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/1861976127.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

ZERO-TOLERANCE IS A COMPOUND ADJECTIVE! IT'S FUCKING HYPHENATED!

as, er, i often point out to my subs.

and, umm, wrong. i mean, words such as "childrens" or "womens" might be "acting more like adjectives" but the fact remains that they don't actually exist as lexical items. children's ITV, women's issues. i'd argue that the key - as with so many grammatical issues - is the way it's said.

anyway. have any UK pedants seen the standfirst on page two of today's guardian G2 section? four literals in five decks. there but for the grace of god ...

I'm gonna use this thread to complain about people that OVERUSE it, though. The example that always raises my hackles is using a hyphen before an adjective but after an adverb ending in "-ly." Like "your regularly-scheduled program." No. DELETE. I've noticed certain people on ILX -- not naming names -- do that a lot.

But that's a different objection, innit? You could use an apostrophe with those words on that basis and still leave it off elsewhere. The whole language doesn't have to be hostage to a handful of weird plurals.

gypsy mothra ... no, you're still not convincing me at all :)

mind you, what kind of pedant am i when i can't even be bothered to use the shift key?

Wouldn't that seem ridiculous though? "We were discussing women's issues outside the butchers shop today, just as the crew for children's BBC appeared, in girls outfits"

(also, my use there of "since" in the sense of "because" was another topic -- some style guides disallow it, others say it's fine)

what's next? anyone fancy a good-humoured fight about semicolons?

no, thought not.

– — ... hey, courier doesn't display a difference. i assume times does ...

[posts to check]

casuistry: that's a good point, although i'd like to investigate further. if you do remember the specific term, could you post it here?

Also, I think it's Help! ;-)

I apply Morbius's rule when it comes to, for instance, periodicals, in which the title is enclosed in italics, and you have the difference between The New York Times and Chicago Tribune based on what's actually on the masthead.

The reasoning behind using the cap tends to be that something like "The Beatles" is a proper title, in much the same way that The Stranger is the title of a book.

The reasoning behind not using the cap tends to be that it makes your text smoother, allowing you to elide the difference between your definite article and the thing itself's. Just as you would write "a recent Newsweek article," you're able to write "a recent Believer article," even though you'd otherwise notate that publication as The Believer. Nobody wants to write "did you read the The Believer article about Virgil." And it's even more important when you want to use a different type of article: neither does anyone want to say "I really like this The Beatles song called 'Julia.'"

There are all kinds of slippages here on all kinds of related issues. Sometimes it's unclear how much the entity itself considers the article to be a part of its name. If the letterhead for an organization reads "The Socialist Brotherhood," you don't know if they're capitalizing "The" as part of the title or just because it's the first word of the heading -- the text below may well say "due to lack of funds, the Socialist Brotherhood is closing its office." There's also a text called Oxford English Dictionary -- no "the" -- but we wouldn't refer to it like normal books; we say "check in the Oxford English Dictionary," even though we wouldn't say "have you read the Gravity's Rainbow." (The formulation we want is obviously "check in THE ... DICTIONARY.") Sometimes the subjects specify -- Ohio State University let everyone know a while back that they're not Ohio Statue University, but rather "The Ohio State University," capital "The," no matter where in the sentence you're using it.

I prefer being really flexible about eliding it, especially in spots where it's going to come up a lot, like when talking about bands.

And there are some publications where this is still flexy, like the kind of magazine things I was talking about ("I saw this great Nation article about..."), or with classic floating-the texts, like Homer's (the Iliad? The Iliad?).

xpost of course

widely ignored convention in the UK is that you don't cap the 'the' for newspapers EXCEPT The Times

in Ken's counter-example it shd be "butcher's shop" (or just "butcher's" or indeed "butcher"), unless it is a single shop in which a number of butchers trade independently, in which case "butchers' shop" (as per grimly) or "butchers shop" (as per martin) are equally good. I prefer the second bcz i wish to strip the lil bleeder aht of everyfing i hate it so

It's true that -- when stand-alone -- "A man jerks off their own penis" emphasises the sense of a generalised rule more than ""A man jerks off his own penis" or even "The man jerks off his own penis" but frankly it's never going to BE stand-alone, and context will (well, should) do the work of revealing which is meant. ALSO: It is a rule easily falsified.

Also it's worse than that, Mark, the school is actually asking that you refer to them -- mid-sentence -- as The Ohio State University. With the cap. (The one thing you can say to their credit is that they're a business, and businesses have been known to do much nit-pickier things in the creation of brand image and the protection of trademarks. There are still all kinds of weird things where a business, say, capitalizing one letter in a product name would actually violate someone else's service-marked product name, or whatever.)

I am trying to think of an exception/example where a non-quote non-ital title really does manage to successfully claim its article. There's surely something.

I recently ran something where I wanted to describe a band as being in tune with the demographic of (ahem) the publication titled The Wire, but the editor changed my usage -- "Wire-friendly" -- to the more proper "The Wire-friendly." (I'm not sure if, per CMOS, you'd use an n-dash in that latter forumation.)

I kinda miss Se7en: other mag started doing it for a while, even when we'd stopped. S&S still omits the colon implied by the line break, which I hate eg Robin Hood Prince of Thieves

I thought this said, "the Beatles or The Beetles?" and laughed. 'Hoo boy, nobody's made that joke since 1963...oh wait.'

Although this is weird: I was convinced that "old-school" was hip-hop slang that somehow wormed its way into mainstream usage within the last ten years or so! Webster's marks its first usage as 1803!

Important statement: I've never worked anywhere that didn't route something or other in cross-it-off fashion.

More important question: where would one acquire classics of copyeditor porn, such as Sorority House Style, Cap that Ass, Stet Me Hard, Big Black Bullet Lists, and Little Non-Hyphenated Adverb/Adjective Modifiers with Big Hard Hyphens?

To my credit, I did not go berserk.

>Elaine: People go to South America.
>Jerry: Yeah, and they come back with things taped to their large intestine.

I suppose Jerry gets a free pass, since Elaine used the plural subject "people," not him, but note that damned numerical disagreement that keeps bugging me lately!

-- nabisco (--...), March 9th, 2006 4:40 PM. (nabisco) (later) (link)

Srsly. I keep fixing that now that you've alerted me to it.

I also keep running into a similar agreement issue that's less egregious but still bothers me:

"Lemurs have a tail that allows them to swing through branches."

I don't like the implication that many lemurs have only one tail among them, but the alternative ("lemurs have tails") makes it less clear as to how many tails each lemur has. I change this sometimes and leave it as is when the pluralization sounds clunky, as it often does. And about a third of the time that I change it, it comes back to me stetted, anyway.

That structure is actually really weird, politically speaking -- it's very rationalist and essentialist! To the point where it sounds really musty and Victorian plus smacks of the kinds of essentialism that now creeps us out ("The female of the species is XXX" / "The Negro is XXX" / etc.) But then we start talking about something where essentialism is exactly what we want -- lemurs have tails! -- and the right construction has been somewhat diminished.

http://www.moresaltplease.com/images/salt%20shaker.gif

An astronomer, a physicist and a mathematician were holidaying in Scotland. Glancing from a train window, they observed a black sheep in the middle of a field. "How interesting," observed the astronomer, "all Scottish sheep are black!"

To which the physicist responded, "No, no! Some Scottish sheep are black!"

The mathematician gazed heavenward in supplication, and then intoned, "In Scotland there exists at least one field, containing at least one sheep, at least one side of which is black."

i'd suggest: "a/the lemur's [adjective] tail allows it to swing through branches". the adjective is important here: what's so great about this tail? i mean, badgers have tails but they can't swing through branches.

at least, i don't think they can.

i've never read the first post in this thread before. it makes me want to rip out people's eyes and eat them. there really is no fucking hope for (english-speaking) humankind.

if it genuinely arouses markelbyesque levels of intense, pointless rage, though, maybe you should re-examine things, a little

BASTARDSSSSSS

With apostrophes, it's cos it makes you expect a different progression

RJG, i'm a subeditor! futile rage against tiny grammatical transgressions is my raison d'etre. without it, i am lost.

Oh spelling masters of ILE, can you settle this dispute?

-- grimly fiendish (simonmai...), March 10th, 2006 7:52 AM. (later)

See one Language Log post about "word rage."

Bad moment to misplace an apostrophe.

is feels better but i can't explain why

basically: how closely linked are the two concepts?

"shopping and fucking are important to me."

"drinking and fighting is important to me."

also, the phrase "a vital membership" is common to both participles/gerunds/whatever they are, which suggests that "building and maintaining" is a single ... christ, what? gerundive noun phrase, i guess. apologies if my terminology's wrong: it's a long time since i've dealt with this sort of stuff academically, as opposed to just shouting and rewriting.

(this is a pragmatic approach, rather than a structuralist one, but i think it works. next!)

out of context, i'd suggest: "building and maintaining membership is vital to X's success." you could also use "the" or "our" membership. perhaps.

i'd have rewritten the whole sentence, but i lack the authority. don't ask about "vital membership"--you'll just be told about "solutions"

xp tracer, as ever, otm

In other words: smileys vs. smilies.

For no particular reason, I prefer the former.

With 'mitigate' – is the it possibility which is to be mitigated, or the possible event? The possibility is discrete from the event if you see what I mean.

NB I fully expect to be shown to be wrong.

crosspost

Technically, it seems to mean the latter, but once you start thinking about the words on that technical of a level, you start wondering why the word "possibility" is used. "Possibility" is kind of strict -- things are possible or not -- as opposed to words like "likelihood" or "chances," which imply more of a spectrum of odds. So now, in addition to the original ambiguity, you can start thinking about whether the phrase is supposed to mean the former of those things (trying to make a possible event impossible) or the latter (trying to reduce the chances of the event). It depends on the type of event, I guess.

On the plus side, if you want your readers to start having complex thoughts about what words really mean, then yes, this phrase is a great one.

An ESL client for whom I'm doing some editing wrote:
"Jim hands the last sheet of paper to gloomy Jeff."
I changed this to:
"Jim hands the last sheet of paper to a gloomy Jeff."
Now aforementioned client wants to know why I put the "a" in before "gloomy". He's quite right to ask this, as he's trying to learn, but for the life of me I can't explain why I did it -- it just sounded more idiomatically correct to me. Is it GRAMMATICALLY correct and can anyone give me a sound rule to trot out to him (because I've looked in all the bleedin' resources I can think of -- online, Chicago, Copyeditors' Handbook -- but am not quite sure what to actually look for here) or is it wrong and I've lost my mind? Perhaps I should just admit defeat and tell him to recast as "to Jeff, who looks gloomy"... TIA for helping out and saving me reputation...

Nabisco, if you can give me a good explanation of the practical semantic difference between "trying to make a possible event impossible" and "trying to reduce the chances of the event", I will stop thinking that you get totally bonged out when you think about language.

I can't find a rule on the "a gloomy Jeff" construction but you could make an argument that "Gloomy Jeff" sounds like a proper name whereas "a gloomy Jeff" describes the current gloomy incarnation of this particular person named Jeff. That is totally me talking out of my ass, though.

the practical semantic difference between "trying to make a possible event impossible" and "trying to reduce the chances of the event"

... that's more just a random thought on top. Because yeah, I think there's a slight difference between how we talk about things being "possible" and the way we talk about them being "likely."

For instance, if a nuclear technician says "the possibility of a meltdown is unacceptable," then the solution might be to shut down the reactor entirely (because a meltdown is either possible or not).

Whereas if he says "the likelihood of a meltdown is unacceptable," then the solution is just to take steps to reduce the chances of a meltdown.

So I just mean there's a difference between possibility and probability -- one's more absolute, the other's more scaled -- and the connotations of "possibility" versus "likelihood" match up with that.

that's how it is; i don't like the way it looks. what would you do?

"23% of 13–15-year-olds"

September is just around the corner; grammar is in the air!

So the rich ones took buses into poorer neighborhoods just so they could try tobacco?

and yes it is countries.. the phrase appears so often that i wonder if it would be ok to say "(LMICs)" after the first ref and then just use that

But what do I know: apparently, the second Google hit for "big upped" is something I wrote on ILM two years ago!

Big-upped = "Big up to my man Ray-Ray"
Bigged-up = "I just want to big up my girl Trina back home"

... in which "big up," the earlier usage, is a noun (something given to someone, like a shout-out), whereas the later usage is a transitive verb.

l-r: ILE, ILM, nabisco

I'd also propose that you hear "big ups" (plural) just as often as the singular, when it's used in this way.

Oh bother, you've basically all said it already.

xpost -- I meant "big-upped" refered to a noun in the way that e.g. "toilet-papered" can be a verb that's been made out of a noun. Also, yes, spot on with "big ups!" Which are kinda offered TO people, right?

So: "I big-upped Nabisco" = "I said, 'Big up to Nabisco.'"
Whereas: "I bigged-up Nabisco" = "I was talking about how great Nabisco is."

You're hardly one to talk, but you're right in this case.

shout-out n (1990) : a brief expression of greeting or praise given esp. on a broadcast or audio recording

I think my problem with "bigged up" is that it's difficult to accept "big" as a verb with multiple tenses ("bigs," "bigged," etc.). "Up," on the other hand, already functions in this way in expressions like "upped the ante."

How do you shot something like, "Joey Jojo Junior Shabadoo, the Székesfehérvár, Hungary, based lovemachine, etc."? Do I need to shots a hyphen before "based" even though I have to specify what country Székesfehérvár resides in? Don't tell me I have to nix the comma after Hungary!

Next up: how do I kill the co-managing editor who's been ruining my reviews because he used to be the copyeditor and thinks he has a coherent grasp of grammar/style? Without, of course, arousing suspicion.

x-post

quotation marks: 1) double quotation marks all the time, right, except if one is quoting something and there are quote marks within that quote (these become single quotation marks), 2) include all punctuation inside the quotation marks or only non-period/comma punctuation? and if there is a source in parentheses, put period after that, correct? "Blah blah blah 'blah' blah!" (Thingy 1992).
and also (from the paper i'm actually editing): - These superheroes, with names like “Black Lightning” and “Black Panther”, indicate the status - that comma there, should in go inside the quotation marks or is it correct as is, according to Chicago style.

with names like "Black Lightning" and "Black Panther," indicate the status

I'm not sure about the source in parentheses, since I don't really know Chicago Manual of Style at all -- every course I've ever taken has used MLA. I'm assuming that the exclamation is what's throwing you off, though, right? Because "ordinarily you'd just do this" (Dude, 2005).

i have to say, i dig APA but i'm going MLA for my own stuff, unless i go do something in psych or maybe soc, of course...

thanks :)

From ahem wikipedia manual of style, yes ok I know, but they speak the truth here:

When punctuating quoted passages, include the punctuation mark inside the quotation marks only if the sense of the punctuation mark is part of the quotation ("logical" quotations). When using "scare quotes", the comma or period always goes outside.

But I am (1) not a sub/copy editor and (2) a Britisher. So don't listen to me. Why *would* you put the punctuation inside the quotation marks, unless they are part of the quotation to be marked?

(xpost - yay, I speak sense!)

cornhole each other, mostly.

"You do" (WTF, 2009).

Unlike the serial comma thing (which, Robyn, just make sure your quote-comma style matches your serial-comma style!), the punctuation-outside rule is one point where I'm willing to admit that the UK style -- while not typographically pleasant -- is probably more logical in terms of meaning. I'm often copyediting and want to suggest a replacement phrase, and I'll write something US-style, like, I dunno...

use "bonus," to avoid repetition

...and then be slightly afraid whoever takes up the comment might interpret the comma as part of my suggested change. (Bad example, as I would just omit the comma there, but you know what I mean.)

"That's incredible!" he said.
"Are you coming with me?" she asked.

When a complete sentence is in quotes, the full stop should be inside the inverted commas: He said: “The cheese will be very tasty.”

If only part of a quotation is used, the punctuation is outside the inverted commas. He said the cheese would be “very tasty”.

When a sentence ends with a quote inside another quote, split the two sets of inverted commas with the punctuation mark. He said: “The mice claimed the cheese would be ‘very tasty’.”

According to CMOS:
My favorite The Beatles' albums are Help! Sgt. Pepper's, and Revolver.

One last citation punctuation: if you're setting the quotation in a block (i.e. when you're quoting 3+ lines), the citation doesn't have punctuation at the end. Though I'm thinking of MLA, don't know about CMOS.

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Work, 2999

If only part of a quotation is used, the punctuation is outside the inverted commas. He said the cheese would be “very tasty”.

This is actually just UK style pretending to be complicated. The top one goes inside quotes because the mark is native to the quote itself. The bottom one doesn't, because it's not.

xpost

Yes, but your earlier table said "UK=outside the quotes" which is wrong.

One thing that does bother me, though: a foreign word that's not in Webster's is supposed to be italicized, but if you're speaking of it in the plural, the "s" has to be in roman, which just looks messy to me. For instance:

"I ordered a Thai iced coffee and two pad kee maos."

It makes sense to do it this way, since pad kee maos is presumably not the way that the Thai language pluralizes this dish -- in other words, the "s" is functioning as an English plural, even if the rest of the word is in Thai. But still, eek.

Her favorite songs are “Hello Dolly!” “Chicago” and “Come with Me.”

As for the "Hello Dolly!" example, yeah, that's tricky.

No, stet, it's just the simple way of putting it. The reason UK style does this --

He said: “The cheese will be very tasty.”

-- isn't because of some kind of "the mark goes inside the quotes" style, it's because the full stop is actually functionally part of the quote. (The main thing style is dictating there is that you don't put a whole extra period on the outside, as well.)

So, yeah, UK goes outside. The above isn't some big exception to that, it's just an instance where the quote happens to come with its own punctuation.

What's more, we do things like
"i really like cheese," barry said

(Stet this is a minor and meaningless point but I think the arcane simplification I'm working with is that you'd no more move the period outside the quotes than you would move the quote outside the quotes, because the period is part of what you're quoting to begin with. We're verging on total obscurity here, though, so it's not really important to hash out.)

"i really like cheese," barry said

The comma goes there because it's a substitute for the full stop which would be there if barry said were not. I reckon.

<i>lol @ Kruk: "If he pitches like he did tonight in the playoffs, he'll be in-valuable!"
Ravech: "You mean as in not valuable."
Kruk: "Yeah!"

-- The Bearnaise-Stain Bears (crump...), September 27th, 2006 9:48 PM. (Rock Hardy) (later)

It's easy to laugh at Kruk here, but I felt a little bad for the professional meathead who doesn't know there are prefixes that mean one thing or the opposite, depending. "In-" as "very" (invaluable) vs. "In-" as "not at all" (indefensible). Oh well, I think I'll just lol @ him anyway.

Dusty Bottoms: What does that mean, in-famous?

Ned Nederlander: Oh, Dusty. In-famous is when you're MORE than famous. This man El Guapo, he's not just famous, he's IN-famous.

Lucky Day: 100,000 pesos to perform with this El Guapo, who's probably the biggest actor to come out of Mexico!

Dusty Bottoms: Wow, in-famous? In-famous?

Main Entry: in-
1 : in : within : into : toward : on
2 : 1en-

Main Entry: en-
1 : put into or onto : cover with : go into or onto -- in verbs formed from nouns

Neu! Britney Spears, Smoosh and Edith Piaf.

Neu!, Britney Spears, Smoosh and Edith Piaf.

also to avoid confusion with nu britney spears.

(also, at first i thought neu! britney might be kind of awesome but then i realized it really would not)

This is my first foray onto this thread, so be kind.

I keep getting sentences like this at work:

Although much of the NOC's plans are devoted to oil, ...

And the count/non-count usage of much/many is troubling me. Obviously it's grammatically wrong, because the NOC's plans are plural, so we shouldn't use much. However,it would be misleading to use many, because they don't have a bunch of different plans, some of which are devoted to oil. Something like

Although much of the content of the NOC's plans is devoted to oil, ...

would be correct, it sounds terrible. Any ideas? Or just let it slide?

ps Pity me having to sub reports about the Libyan oil industry. Sigh.

I must edit my own posts on this thread of all threads!

Or avoid the issue by using "a lot"

Lets substitute 'cakes'. (These are stupid artificial examples. Can't think of anything better)

Much of the cake was eaten. YES. Many of the cakes were eaten. YES.

Much of the cakes were eaten? NO. (And a lot can stand in for either, but the meaning changes depending on whether it's a plural or not)

You see my problem?

You don't use a full stop after most abbreviations (in our house style anyway) because people aren't cretins. I know Mr is an abbreviation. No. gets one because you don't have to be a cretin to get it confused with no, the opposite of yes. Nos doesn't get one because nos is obviously the abbreviation for numbers and not something else.

Sense trumps consistency.

Not really...

Berlin and Hamburg were bombed during the war. Much of these two cities was destroyed.

That's acceptable isn't it? In which case "much of NOC's plans" is also acceptable (and semantically different from "many of NOC's plans")

That is OK. But you've used a singular verb. In my case that would mean changing it to

Although much of the NOC's plans is devoted to oil, ...

which is horrible. I lack the wit to explain why your example works, though. Anyone else?

A number of people were gathered

Thanks.

(I am interested in the underlying grammar of this, though, if anyone else is still awake.)

I suppose 'a number' is acting as a collective noun there, though.

I think much/many is different.

Much of these two cities was destroyed.

There's an implied noun after much, IMO, e.g. "Much architecture of these two cities etc." or something similar, because the cities themselves weren't destroyed, but something in them was.

How about "most" instead of "much" in your NOC example, which I read as being a relative majority issue?

meanwhile, here's the copyediting story of the week.

(Ha, although I think we all get snobby on this topic when it comes to whatever we personally do: I am that way people describing themselves as "writers.")

It makes more sense for a longer event with many bands, especially something like All Tomorrow's Parties where it's a specific artist's vision of what's teh hotness in music at the moment.

Why? If you book a night of five bands, surely you then book a weekend of them, too?

So: Messrs Schroeder's horse.

So: Messrs Schroeder's horse.

eh? but there's more than one schroeder, and you'd say "the schroeders' horse" ... nah, i'm with nabisco.

Well, maybe if you're choosing artists on more than just "a bunch of bands that will please a certain demographic and bring people to the festival." Even then, "curated" is a bit pretentious.

the crowd's horse
the messrs schroeder's horse

it's the presence of the "the" which rescues it from impossible eccentricity -- it pushes it over into extreme formality

but if formality is the order of the day, you shd probably opt for "the horse of the messrs schoeder" -- which handily pussies out of the prob

"sixfold" vs. "six-fold" (et al)

Is there a rule on these? One right, one wrong, acceptable alternatives, different uses? Months ago my boss indicated what he felt was correct - I think one was an adjective and one an adverb - and as it seemed perfectly clear and self-evident at the time, no one wrote it down. And of course I can't find it discussed authoritatively on the internet.

best thing to do is get yourself a good dictionary - i always recommend the oxford dictionary for writers and editors - and make that your style bible: ie try to ensure everyone you're working with sticks to it. but that's easier said than done, as i know only too well :(

i can e-mail you a copy of my legendary 1996 undergraduate dissertation on punctuation if you want, but you'll need a) pagemaker 5 and b) a really, really high tedium threshold.

xpost
no dissertations, thanks :)

Our style is to use one word wherever possible, including some instances where a word might be hyphenated by other publications. Hyphens tend to clutter up text (particularly when the computer breaks already hyphenated words at the end of lines).
Inventions, ideas and new concepts often begin life as two words, then become hyphenated, before finally becoming accepted as one word. Why wait? "Wire-less" and "down-stairs" were once hyphenated. In pursuit of this it is preferable to go further than Collins does in many cases: eg trenchcoat is two words in Collins but one under our style; words such as handspring, madhouse and talkshow should all be one word, not two words, and not hyphenated.
Do use hyphens where not using one would be ambiguous, eg to distinguish "black-cab drivers come under attack" from "black cab-drivers come under attack".
Do not use after adverbs ending in -ly, eg politically naive, wholly owned, but hyphens are needed with short and common adverbs, eg ill-prepared report, hard-bitten hack, much-needed grammar lesson, well-established principle of style (note though that in the construction "the principle of style is well established" there is no need to hyphenate).
Finally, do use hyphens to form compound adjectives, eg two-tonne vessel, three-year deal, 19th-century artist.

sixfold = adverb e.g. "Their numbers increased sixfold."
six-fold = adjective e.g. "This is a six-fold napkin." (I don't know what a "six-fold napkin" is, I just made something up.)

___fold = one word, whereas "six-fold" is just two words crammed together that you use as an adjective to describe something that has six folds in it.

i don't just make this shit up, you know :(

cof cof cof

Staying white and nerdy: Pop parodist Weird Al bigs Youtube up for his Grammy nominated album Straight Outta Lynwood.

Maybe for the same reason I prefer "big-upped" to "bigged up" (i.e., I'm thinking of "big up" as a singular unit), this strikes me as all kinds of wrong. Surely it should be "Weird Al big-ups YouTube"? But I also get the logic behind this -- they're simply treating "big up" like other multi-word verbs like "take up" (there's nothing off about "Weird Al takes YouTube up on its offer to do a weekly video"). Still, though.

(Also, "Weird Al" should be in quotes, but that's his own personal style.)

It's not "mic" it's "mic." -- a contraction used on the labels on mixing desks etc. And I'll proclaim that real-style on the em aye cee

verb ( -leys, -leyed) [ intrans. ] hold a conference with the opposing side to discuss terms : they disagreed over whether to parley with the enemy.