ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

yes i'm with charlieno4, although i agree it's ugly

Personally, I would go with #4, although a case could be made for #1, since there isn't likely to be much confusion.

In the case of the sauce made of red wine, though, I would argue strenuously for "red-wine-based sauce," since "red sauce that happens to be wine-based" makes a whole lot more sense (and thus is likely to be read by some as such) than ""vegetable ink that happens to be oil-based."

#2 and #3 shouldn't be used, as "-based" should always be hyphenated.

#4

When I'm done with the TV show I'd really like to try and do more movies so I guess that's when I'll really see how competitive it is.

My problem with this is the "try and" construction. I usually change it to "try to" but am I being too harsh? He's not trying and doing more movies, he's trying to do more movies, right?

I Just think "try and" is a spoken-only construction that oughtn't be written down. Thoughts?

Definitely. "Try and" makes no sense - what are you going to try, and why are you doing this other thing at the same time?

yes, agreed. "try and" comes across my desk more than i'd expect it to. i always change it.

DUDES
"vegetable oil--based inks"
with an N dash
Chicago style
that's what it's there for

Hmmm, I only really use the en-dash in a case like this when hyphenating all three words makes it confusing as to which words go together.

For instance,

"A screwdriver is a vodka-orange-juice concoction."

Since it's not clear whether it's "vodka and orange juice" or "vodka, orange, and juice" or some drink called "vodka orange" mixed with juice, it'd make better sense to say "vodka--orange-juice" (where the double hyphen represents an en-dash).

erk! i have never seen the n-dash used that way

DUDES
"vegetable oil--based inks"
with an N dash
Chicago style
that's what it's there for

This is the in the UK, and I'd never use -- I've never seen -- an N-dash used in that way.

For what it's worth, the text originally had version 1, which I immediately marked to be changed to 4. Then I doubted myself, posted to this thread, found another instance of version 4 and steted my change. (Also, the first example was in whatever-you-call-the-bit-on-page-3-of-a-magazine-with-all-the-small-print, which never changes, so version 1 had been happily existing there for several issues before I came along to meddle with it).

And I'd use "vodka and orange-juice concoction" (hyphen in "orange juice" even though it doesn't normally need one).

This is the in the UK, and I'd never use -- I've never seen -- an N-dash used in that way.

I would never use a sentence used in this way either.

"The en dash is used in place of a hyphen in a compound adjective when one of its elements is an open compound or when two or more of its elements are open compounds or hyphenated compounds (see 7.83)."

the post--World War II years

I am skeptical of those who say they've never seen en dashes used this way, since it is sensible Chicago style, and it used by many major publications and in many common texts.

I've never used Chicago style. The style guide at my current job recommends the en-dash in compound nouns, at least one element of which is a group of words (such as "a New York--Seattle flight"), and also in compound adjectives of similar construction (such as "German--Scots-Irish ancestry"). It's not very clear on adjective-participle constructions like "red wine-based sauce."

Sure, J, but I'm saying I KNOW you've read stuff like the New York Review of Books, the Village Voice, or Slate, three out of a whole bunch of publications that use en dashes that way (IIRC).

oh, that chicago-style thing is joyous. i'd forgotten all about it, and my incredibly short-lived attempt to introduce it into scottish journalism. absolutely wonderful. i envy you, nabisco, being able to use it.

given that it's not a convention with which UK readers would be familiar, however, the correct answer is #4, and i'll fight anyone who disagrees. to the death.

there's a subeditors' group on facebook now. joy.

looks like somebody around here's using en dashes....

chicago style

Actually, I am UNABLE in my work capacity to use those disambiguating en dashes, which kinda saddens me.

Apparently there are now books on typography that advocate throwing out the em dash entirely, and using spaced-out ens for dashes. Which makes me want to barf, and which I suspect is subtly influenced by the fact that word turns a spaced-out "--" into an en.

word = microsoft Word

Nabisco, I feel like maybe I've mentioned this to you before, but can you do something-- talk to Scott or whatever-- about Pitchfork's ghastly habit of using double hyphens as in this sentence, with only one space instead of two? I mean, I'm OK with substituting double hyphens for em-dashes when it comes to web journalism, but the single space really drives me nuts. At least they seem to be consistent about it.

Check out this masterpiece of headline subbing (click thru for story)
)
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=337901&cc=5739

And I'd use "vodka and orange-juice concoction" (hyphen in "orange juice" even though it doesn't normally need one).

that's just madness.

i've literally never heard of this chicago-style en dash thing in my life! i don't think it exists in the uk, as grimly said.

mind you, grimly also disagreed with me - so a fight to the death it is!

(where's this subs' facebook group then?)

Up there with "Keegan fills Schmeichel's gap with Seaman"

Also "Celtic need Fanni to tighten up"

xpost

that's just madness.

it is, although i bet we'd disagree as to why ;)

(where's this subs' facebook group then?)

it's findable. a good sub can find anything ;)

(a really good sub wouldn't use the same emoticon twice in succession, mind. probably.)

J, I've brought that up with them before, and Ryan had an explanation for why he chose the style -- something about certain browsers breaking and wrapping lines in the middle of the two-hyphen dash? Like:

and this album -- which is really ridiculously awesome -
- is now available

I'm not clear on whether that's a style he adopted back in the day, under different browser conditions, and just sticks with now, or if that's still a concern.

Oh, that kind of makes sense, actually.

how hard is it to search "--" and replace with —, sheesh

note that comma is grammatical, not htmlical

So hella easy on a mac, just alt+hyphen. That is really the only thing I like about Macs – easy makings of the symbols & more arcane punctuation marks & c.

yeah! if it's gonna be on a web page though you got to use those codes.

one in five 18- to 29-year-old buyers failed to carry out any basic assessments

how do we feel about they hyphen after the 18?

It displeases me

it's not wrong though is it? i've had arguments about this before but i can't find any diktat either way.

hyphen's fine where it is

Yeah, that hyphen seems pretty standard to me.

it's grammatically correct and i like it. but, as N,B&S says, it upsets some people.

fuck them ;)

hahaha how about "one in five 18–29-year-old buyers"

good article about esing em and en dashes in the web here - http://www.alistapart.com/stories/emen/

probably an easy one, but...from CNN:

Chief Justice John Roberts suffered a seizure Monday, causing him to fall at his summer home off the coast of Maine, the Supreme Court said.

could a comma after "fall" or "home" save Roberts from a watery grave? or is this correct, and the fall/off coincidence just seems to make it more ambiguous than it is?

I think it's OK as is, since the phrases are arranged in a logical sequence.

E.g., "causing him to fall" --> Where did he fall? --> "at his summer home" --> Where is his summer home? -- "off the coast of Maine"

If he really fell off the coast of Maine, it'd make more sense to say "causing him to fall off the coast of Maine at his summer home" or "causing him to fall, at his summer home, off the coast of Maine."

I have a question. Why do we use the apostrophe-S in a phrase like "A friend of Nabisco's lent me a dollar to buy a popsicle"? It makes sense in "Nabisco's friend lent me..." since it's functioning as a possessive, but when the word "of" is already there designating possession, there doesn't seem to be the need to use the apostrophe, too.

This was in last week's New Yorker, in that article about the woman with the bionic arm. Supposedly, a "friend of Mitchell's had heard about" the new scientific advances in prosthetics.

We just do. I think it's got something to do with the 'a' at the start. If you said "Nabiso's friend lent me..." then that implies we know which friend you're talking about (perhaps because Nabisco only has one friend), so that's not very useful when it's not a specified friend. You couldn't say "a Nabisco's friend lent me..."

If you use pronouns/possessives it's quite odd, too. You could say "your friend", but not "a your friend", or "a friend of you", or even "a friend of your", it would have to be "a friend of yours".

I've not heard of anyone falling off a coast before. Off a cliff, sure, but off a coast, nope. So I think the sentence is fine.

But why couldn't you just say "A friend of Nabisco lent me..."?

It's odd and inexplicable, but for some reason "A friend of Nabisco" sounds stilted and archaic (or just yodarrific) whereas "A friend of Nabisco's" does not. To my tin ear, anyway.

Yeah, I agree it sounds odd, I just wondered if there was some reason for doing it that way that I wasn't aware of.

I'm going to reach really far up my ass for this one:

The phrase "A friend of Nabisco" has an oratorical ring to it, along the lines of "A statesman, a patriot, and a friend of the common man." As if "Nabisco" is a (possibly grandiose) abstract entity. Adding the 's demotes "Nabisco" to the status of human individual.

This doesn't answer the question of "Is there grammatical justification for the practice of adding an apostrophe-s to a noun that's already been designated as possessive by the word 'of'?" Also it's a complete fabrication. But it has the ring of truth.

"A friend of Dorothy"

If you're starting a sentence with a letter that's lowercase by nomenclature, eg, "n-3 fatty acids," do you cap the N?