ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

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 :(