ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

In my opinion one is referring to a particular heel that belonged to Achilles

one is not! one is speaking metaphorically! otherwise:

"achilles' heel" would be OK without the article

would fly (so to speak): "achilles' heel always acted up when the storm clouds gathered over mount olympus"

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

Pub near me has just rebranded to "Dr Ink's". The sign now reads:

Dr.Ink's                     ...and dining

A subheading reads

"Exercise independently of weight loss"

This has got to be "independent." Some editors just cut & paste from body text.

I think I'm changing it to

"Exercise effects independent of weight loss"

Is that comprehensible?

Is the story about exercise that has nothing to do with losing weight? Cardio, etc?

The section is about whether exercise can affect blood pressure ASIDE FROM a weight-loss element.

probably "effects of exercise"? can you use a comma to set off the "independent of weight loss"?

Comma there not really our style... and you have no idea how much I wish this was a "story," instead of a pile of poo perpetrated by doctors in Texas and editors in India.

Exercise independently of weight loss

That's a perfectly good imperative sentence you have there, directing the reader to take exercise without regard to any weight loss they might experience as a result.

the NYT and some others will say

"increased to $1000 from $500"

rather than

"increased from $500 to $1000"

i trip over this every time. presumably that's just because it seems less common. but that notwithstanding, is it more correct/better?

nope.

"[NOUN] coupled with [NOUN] presumably explains [OBJECT]."

or "explain"?

Recast it. "The combination of NOUN and NOUN explains OBJECT."

with the "presumably," of course.

You could even keep "coupling" as your subject. The coupling of x and y presumably explains etc etc

i don't recast, too much to do

You asked for a fucking opinion, don't wave it away when it shows up.

you're basically saying "noun - coupled with noun - presumably explains ..." so it's singular.

Yeah, singular. Recasting averted.

look I'm sorry, WmC, but I'm a proofreader, not an editor. So we all agree anyway.

I was not waving it away, I apprec the answer.

look I'm sorry, WmC, but I'm a proofreader, not an editor.

OK, I didn't know that until now. No worries.

With Tracer here. The simple test is that you could replace "NOUN coupled with NOUN" with "this" and the acceptability of "explains" becomes crystal clear.

Quotations inside quotations inside quotations. Single or double for the "What the hell are they doing" line

“It could be [called] a lot of different things, but it will take a while to get to that point,” Anderson said. “You’ve heard me say before, "It might be 25 minutes of hell and 15 minutes of ‘What The Hell are they doing?” Hopefully it will be the type of basketball that our fans can enjoy, our kids can enjoy. They’ll get a chance to showcase their God-given abilities. It’s fun for fans. And it’s winning basketball.”

I think the rule is to go back and forth.

So: "You've heard me say it before, 'It might be 25 minutes of hell and 15 minutes of "What the hell are they doing?"' Hopefully it will..."

Thanks. That's from Arkansas basketball coach Mike Inception, btw.

xp

Yikes! I've never seen quotation-mark nesting to three levels before. The convention is single-quotes for the second level of quoting. There must be a convention for the third level, but I am at a loss what it might be. Italics?

is the same true for switching between parentheses and brackets? for example, if you have one level with parentheses (and then nest something else [in brackets, and then maybe (another level)])?

It's back and forth for the quotation.

Don't do parentheses in parentheses! You think you're Raymond Roussel?

I've seen parentheses nested wildly (just multiple sets of parentheses (like this, not alternating with another form of punctuation (the effect is especially dizzying when they all end together))).

I've also seen the convention (parentheses [brackets {braces}]). Not sure there is a ruling on this from a major style guide. A sensible person would probably try to figure out a way to restructure things so you don't have such a complicated sentence.

nested parentheses in maths go the other way around { [ ( ) ] }

Anything in parentheses should be banished to a footnote or eliminated with extreme prejudice

(Tracer Hand)

excelsior bait, that

I don't think you need the third level of quotes. If What the hell were a second level I'd leave them in, but your job is to aid the reader, and in this case you aid the reader by taking them out:
“It could be [called] a lot of different things, but it will take a while to get to that point,” Anderson said. “You’ve heard me say before, 'It might be 25 minutes of hell and 15 minutes of what the hell are they doing?' Hopefully it will be the type of basketball that our fans can enjoy, our kids can enjoy. They’ll get a chance to showcase their God-given abilities. It’s fun for fans. And it’s winning basketball.”

i think that's confusing, too!

one (my) solution would be to put it in italics:

“It could be [called] a lot of different things, but it will take a while to get to that point,” Anderson said. “You’ve heard me say before, 'It might be 25 minutes of hell and 15 minutes of What the hell are they doing?' Hopefully it will be the type of basketball that our fans can enjoy, our kids can enjoy. They’ll get a chance to showcase their God-given abilities. It’s fun for fans. And it’s winning basketball.”

though on the other hand i relish the opportunity to inceptionize language

Part of the context of this is that Anderson with Nolan Richardson pioneered the "40 Minutes of Hell" approach to college baseball. It became more than just a description to the way the game played. Almost like "Greatest Show on Dirt" or something.

So his "15 Minutes of with" is a little self-parody on his part. But to match it with the "40 Minutes of Hell", you still have to separate it from the rest of the sentence, as a title.

Plural of "centre-half" (to describe two or more footballers who play the centre-half position).

I want to type centre-halves but it looks wrong as they aren't halves of a whole. Centre-halfs also looks wrong and the spell checker gives it a red squiggly line but I say it as "halfs", I think.

I could cheat and use "centre-backs" or "central defenders" but I'd still like to hear opinion.

"centre-half players"?

centres-half

centre-halfs imo but i agree it's against instinct

My instinct is to rewrite the whole thing.

^stock answer itt :)

everyone else seems to use halves though, maybe it's just one of those accepted inelegancies

"soccer players"

^stock answer itt :)

Yeah. Sorry. I gave up battling the language a long time ago. If it's hard to make work, there's probably a better way to do it. Your question is bloody good though — it's one of those constructions that doesn't seem to have an easy/obvious form.

there's a baseball version of this. "to fly out" is to make an out by hitting the ball and having someone catch it before it hits the ground. so the past tense is... "flied out". feels a bit wrong but "flew out" would be 1000000x wronger

technically "centre backs" is more correct in reference to the modern central defender position, i use "centre back" and "centre half" interchangeably like most people but iirc "centre half" technically refers to the old style W formations and other oddities where the centre half wd be positioned more like a modern holding midfielder tho they wd still have the key defensive duties.

having said that, or if "centre half" is specifically what you wanna use, i wd go with "centre halfs" too.

You know, I struggle with this on a weekly basis on ILF. Perhaps if I only had one centre half to moan about, this would never be an issue.

I think I generally plump for centre halfs.