ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

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do what any real sub would do. say "sixfold strikes me as wrong. It seems like a lot. Can't be right. I'll make it say "four times".

― stet (stet), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 13:36 (nineteen years ago)

lol. i often take that out, although to be honest, after i while even i start to rebel against flattening people's texts completely. people keep throwing the same mistakes at you over and over, and you start to forget what's actually a mistake.

xpost
no dissertations, thanks :)

― i'll mitya halfway (mitya), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 13:41 (nineteen years ago)

Doesn't the Graun style guide say that hyphens gradually disappear as the hyphenless form becomes more acceptable so, if in doubt, don't hyphenate? I don't think I'd hyphen tenfold, for example, but if it was anythingelsefold I'd try to find a more attractive way of putting it.

― Mädchen (Madchen), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 14:22 (nineteen years ago)

Ah, here's what I was after:

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.

― Mädchen (Madchen), Wednesday, 7 February 2007 14:24 (nineteen years ago)

I'm guessing the adverb/adjective thing breaks down like this:

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.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Thursday, 8 February 2007 01:15 (nineteen years ago)

nice try. don't think the world's grammarians will be rewriting their style books just yet :)

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Thursday, 8 February 2007 09:08 (nineteen years ago)

Actually, a quick look at the dictionary shows that "sixfold" is a word. No need for hyphenation at all.

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Thursday, 8 February 2007 09:15 (nineteen years ago)

"the dictionary". which one? chambers? oxford? you'll find discrepancies.

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

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:18 (nineteen years ago)

It's in Webster's 11th, which is my bible at this job.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:23 (nineteen years ago)

depressing to read this thread. i always think i know english grammar pretty well. :-(

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:26 (nineteen years ago)

Once any dictionary says something can be one word and not hyphenated, I take that as carte blanche to switch.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:27 (nineteen years ago)

I can't be bothered with cartes.

― Mädchen (Madchen), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:35 (nineteen years ago)

They're quite fun when you put them before the horsee.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 8 February 2007 17:49 (nineteen years ago)

ts: ground ball vs groundball vs ground-ball

― Elsa Svitborg (tracerhand), Thursday, 8 February 2007 18:39 (nineteen years ago)

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

cof cof cof

― stet (stet), Thursday, 8 February 2007 18:44 (nineteen years ago)

fu cof

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Thursday, 8 February 2007 21:29 (nineteen years ago)

In light of our conversation about "bigged up" vs. "big-upped," here's a headline from ILX sponsor Paper Thin Walls:

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.)

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:41 (nineteen years ago)

Grammy-nominated as well ;-)

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Friday, 9 February 2007 16:48 (nineteen years ago)

My pet peeve: the use of "mic" instead of "mike" for microphone. What the fuck? Bicycle has no K, but you don't ride your "bic." Bic is a PEN, pronounced "bick," and "mic," whenever I see it, is pronounced "mick" in my head. SO STUPID.
As copy-editor of a small music-related publication, I buck the tide. And I'm not alone. Small islands of rightness exist in the prevailing sea of wrong.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:01 (nineteen years ago)

I hate "mike" for microphone, but I don't think argue against it with counterexamples -- it's just an aesthetic choice, like how "Internet" still looks weird when I see it lowercase, even though I use "website" (lowercase, one word) all the time.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:06 (nineteen years ago)

Jaymc, I DEFENDED YOU ON THE LOST THREAD!!!! I CANNOT BELIEVE I AM HEARING THIS FROM YOU!!!!

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:07 (nineteen years ago)

MIC IS ICK.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:08 (nineteen years ago)

I'M PSYCHED FOR MIKE.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:09 (nineteen years ago)

read: "I don't think I can argue against it..."

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:10 (nineteen years ago)

Okay okay. I forgive. Just let me carry on a bit more.
"Mic" has no "e" to indicate a long "i," for one. It CAN'T, because that would make it MICE. You can't make a microphone out of a mouse just by taking away its "e!"

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:12 (nineteen years ago)

I believe, though my husband disagrees, that "mic" is a recent development. I could SWEAR that I grew up reading "mike."

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:13 (nineteen years ago)

Tone-Loc
Jean-Luc Godard

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:14 (nineteen years ago)

You're right about "mike" predating "mic," though: the former is dated to 1924 and the latter to 1961, according to Webster's.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:17 (nineteen years ago)

Ha! Thank you.
Rappers have a tradition of misspellings that would be ludicrous if pronounced phonetically. Flavor-Flav? That's always bugged me. FLAVE, dude!
And the French? They spell everything wrong.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:19 (nineteen years ago)

Other musicians are unable to spell their names right—not just rappers.
Suzzy Roche? Rhymes with "scuzzy?"
Neneh Cherry? That sounds like a schoolyard taunt.
For Fuck's sake, people.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:21 (nineteen years ago)

And atheletes! Picabo Street!
She RUINED an entire Winter Olympic for me.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:22 (nineteen years ago)

I'm so upset at the memory that I can't spell athlete.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:23 (nineteen years ago)

Oh god, everyone has fled the thread because they don't want to slip and fall on all the mouth-froth.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:27 (nineteen years ago)

lol our prose just ain't as purple as yours

― i'll mitya halfway (mitya), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:42 (nineteen years ago)

The only one that gets me is "micing," like in "We found Hannett in the other room, micing up the kick drum" -- in that case I actually do imagine the person with a bucket full of little mice, setting them on drum heads and stuffing them in amplifiers.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:56 (nineteen years ago)

Oh Lordy, that reminds me of "chicest."

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Friday, 9 February 2007 17:57 (nineteen years ago)

the use of "mic" instead of "mike" for microphone.

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

― stet (stet), Friday, 9 February 2007 19:39 (nineteen years ago)

mic.ing

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:09 (nineteen years ago)

Anthony Microphonecio

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 9 February 2007 20:10 (nineteen years ago)

three weeks pass...

"My and John's landlord has asked us to forward the following advert" sounds wrong.

"Our Landlord (John and I) has asked us to forward the following advert" is rubbish.

"The landlord of John and I has asked us to forward the following advert" sound grammatical but pretentious.

What to do?

― caek, Monday, 5 March 2007 16:53 (nineteen years ago)

I think the first and last are correct but the first sounds best.

― Ms Misery, Monday, 5 March 2007 16:56 (nineteen years ago)

John and I have been asked by our landlord to forward ...

― .stet., Monday, 5 March 2007 17:17 (nineteen years ago)

'Mine and John's landlord' sounds good to me.

― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Monday, 5 March 2007 17:19 (nineteen years ago)

Take away "and John's" though and "Mine Landlord" sounds completely ridiculous.

― Ms Misery, Monday, 5 March 2007 17:30 (nineteen years ago)

So don't take it away!

― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Monday, 5 March 2007 17:33 (nineteen years ago)

It would be "the landlord of John and me" (not that that's the option I'd go for). I'd go with stet's suggestion

― Maria :D, Monday, 5 March 2007 17:37 (nineteen years ago)

or "of John and mine"

― Maria :D, Monday, 5 March 2007 17:37 (nineteen years ago)

John's and my landlord? Oh, crap. Just use his name. Who cares if people know that he/she's your landlord. Or John's.

― Beth Parker, Monday, 5 March 2007 17:41 (nineteen years ago)

Our landlord has asked John and me to forward the following advert...

― Maria :D, Monday, 5 March 2007 17:44 (nineteen years ago)

One obvious avoidance trick is "Our landlord has asked John and I to...."

Seriously, though, forget this "mine" stuff: unless you live in the 18th century, you don't say "mine NOUN!" My noun + John's noun = My noun, and John's, too = My and John's noun; it sounds counterintuitive and off-paradigm, but I can't see that there's anything wrong with it apart from aesthetics.

― nabisco, Monday, 5 March 2007 17:45 (nineteen years ago)

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