ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

getting dainty now, are we?

there's a time and a place

(he dabs the corners of his mouth with a crisp linen napkin and places it down next to his plate, smiles warmly and speaks)

You can say what you like, Your Royal Highness, but fuckin' A that was a prime bit of tucker and no mistake.

wtf is fucken?

it's a fuck inside of a chicken

cankles-speak iirc

i'm actually with aimless on fuckin a, i wouldn't messageboard capitalize it because too much work but if i were to use it formally (...) i would

objet fuckin' a

aimless otm

fucken, eh?

I know, I know, STYLES, but:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/4-copy-editors-killed-in-ongoing-ap-style-chicago,30806/

Also, orthography game:

http://type.method.ac/

"...many of whom are displaced refugees who risk imprisonment to travel for even the most basic care."

that second "who"...it's who, not whom, right? they are traveling, who = subject, care = object?

I would say so. Whom usually only used after a preposition - if at all - these days.

plus a double-whom would make that a really strange-sounding sentence

could just say "risking"

yes, "who" because it's the subject of the relative clause

(though the direct object is "imprisonment" and I guess "care" is some kind of indirect object but that's where my grammar runs out - not that it makes any difference to the who/whom question here)

ha no yeah you're right about the object

thx!

If I wanted to file Dr. John alphabetically, would he go under D or J? Wikipedia lists him under J, but to argue against that, the title is part of his stage name, so D, no?

Yeah D. A possibly more interesting question is whether he goes with the Do's or the Dr's. I would say Do on the basis that Dr. is an abbreviation.

Good question, though I would lean the other way, just because you have to go by the letters you actually see, and not infer them ( though we pronounce them that way).

Excel imo

Hope he doesn't get filed in the wrong place at the wrong time.

You should not file music alphabetically imo.

Yes, file it by tempo instead.

http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/n601/gamalielratsey/2013-03-09095803_zps2648a64c.jpg

wealth-blessing plz.

haha

Fighting shy of colons-stupid or beyond stupid?

Colons are not just for Sunday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22403731
What kind of lunatic complains about the phrase 'too much, too young'?

After a childhood avid for the praise generated by my schoolwork's demonstration of correct spelling and punctuation I have slowly turned traitor to the whole notion that minor aberrations in either category are worth paying attention to. I accept them in informal writing without demur, unless they somehow obscure the meaning or introduce an unwanted ambiguity.

I especially condemn those who become hissy over perfectly good split infinitives.

xp http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4606

^ I can't open that link, caek

try now?

http://nowealth.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/the-goveites-behind-bad-grammar-awards.html

Ah, so *that* kind of lunatic

Funny thing about the "bad grammar awards" is that there's actually only one award, so they can't even get the basics right.

Writing report cards...I think I know the answer to this, but I want to double-check: "Moses's" or "Moses'"? (Has to do with his best piece of art, not his commandments.)

The standard construction I was taught would be Moses', but as an adult I find that the visual clue provided by the apostrophe alone is quite easy to miss, so that I've come to prefer the non-standard construction Moses's, due to its superior clarity of meaning.

P.S. There's no reason why one would be pronounced any differently than the other, in that an extra s added to the final s equals the sound: ss.

As a teacher writing a report card, I'd say go with the standard construction, so you don't get (unjustly) criticized as illiterate.

I can't remember when or where, but at some point I internalized this distinction: if the names ends in an 's,' but you can say it when apostrophized normally, go with the extra 's'. I can say "Moses's" just fine, so I'd rather go with that. (As opposed to "Flanders's," which is very difficult, maybe even impossible to say.) But I know what you mean--also, the person proofreading them will likely have an inflexible view that "Moses'" is correct.

"Moses's" actually is standard because "Moses" is not plural

Speaking of proofreading, "if the name..."

Different style guides say different things, so in this case, go with what you think will be the clearest construction.

in AP style you add the extra "s" if the next word doesn't begin with "s."

Thanks, all...The sentence reads "Moses's best piece of work this term...", so I guess AP would have me go with the one 's'. I'm going to go with "Moses's," though, which just feels right to me (hoping I don't get questioned on it, because I can sometimes get my back up over stuff like that).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tciT9bmCMq8

cheat, write two sentences so that you can say 'moses' in the first and 'his' in the second. they'll love all the extra attention you will have lavished on their lad.

iirc OUP style guide and fowler's says moses' (and jesus', odysseus', etc.) for "classical" names, but 's for modern names.

that's a ridiculous rule

The way I learned it was that you always put 's on the end, even if you have a name ending in 's'. It's definitely the more logical way to do it, although it's a bit awkward.