ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

p sure it should be "We invited the strippers, which JFK and Stalin."

"The festival featured Emerson, Lake and Palmer, The Captain and Tennile and Hall and Oates"

Emerson, Lake and Palmer s/b ELP

Wha? We're still jammin' on that Oxford comma gig?

Oxford comma 4 lyfe. What's the argument about treating the rules of grammar like some mystical, unbreakable canon, as opposed to a tool where one should strive for usage that provides the best clarity and readability in written works? Say in US English, usage of the oxford comma, or putting some punctuation outside of quotation marks. Why "radical," man instead of "radical", man? I find that a little ugly and completely senseless.

great

What I have yet to hear is a good argument for not using the oxford comma.

unnecessary

He said a good argument.

and then I said unecessary didn't I

better to leave flexibility for actual meaningful deployment than mere slavish ticcy habit -- it isn't routinely necessary for meaning so you're just wasting it using it except when it ensures a specified clarity

would be my suggested good argument

as a sub i started out an ultra-rossian but for purposes of lilt and indicated rhythm after a time i began to prefer writers who cut back on commas

So a jewellery site says a cheap fashion ring is made of 'lead and nickel free metal'. If they wanted to actually say it was made of a metal that is free of lead and nickel, should they have said 'lead- and nickel-free metal'? Or is what they had acceptable? I couldn't parse it well.

It needs the dashes. Saying it the other way seems like some rather second- or third-rate kind of grammar.

pp otm

maybe it is made of lead and other metals that are not nickel

or the nickel and lead they put into their ring is free

"made of zircon and porkchop free metal."

They also said it was silver in the description but they meant silver in colour.

This is where "silver-toned" is useful. Like "chocolate-flavored."

"lead- and nickel-free metal" is correct, but sometimes people who are not in the business of caring about text (including purveyors of cheap fashion rings) are SO dubious about hyphens. They think it can make them look fussy and uncool. Many who ARE in the text business are dubious too. You have to say, "Either you rewrite this gibberish from scratch or we're gonna need to bring on the hyphens."

anybody read after deadline from the NYT? it's not super challenging but it's fun anyway

"We found no differences between both groups"

Isn't "both" wrong when "between" already tells you there sre only 2 groups? I would use "the groups."

"between" doesn't strictly imply two according to Merriam-Webster:

There is a persistent but unfounded notion that between can be used only of two items and that among must be used for more than two. Between has been used of more than two since Old English; it is especially appropriate to denote a one-to-one relationship, regardless of the number of items. It can be used when the number is unspecified <economic cooperation between nations>, when more than two are enumerated <between you and me and the lamppost> <partitioned between Austria, Prussia, and Russia — Nathaniel Benchley>, and even when only one item is mentioned (but repetition is implied) <pausing between every sentence to rap the floor — George Eliot>. Among is more appropriate where the emphasis is on distribution rather than individual relationships <discontent among the peasants>. When among is automatically chosen for more than two, English idiom may be strained <a worthy book that nevertheless falls among many stools — John Simon> <the author alternates among modern slang, clichés and quotes from literary giants — A. H. Johnston>.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/between

huh, news to me! I'm used to seeing the between/among orthodoxy.

between the/se groups, every time

Yeah, the copy chief here agrees. Thanks!

I would use 'between the two groups'. The reason why the sentence looks strange isn't that 'between' already suggests two groups, it's that 'both' shouldn't be used in that way. I can't quite find the way to explain it clearly, but when you're finding differences between things, the differences are either there or not, they're not there in one group and absent in another - thus 'both' is redundant.

thx, I agree

OED and Fowler agree with Merriam-Webster: and Fowler points out, correctly, that "among" can't in fact do the work (for more than two) that "between" does for two. "In all senses between has been, from its earliest appearance, extended to more than two... It is still the only word available to express the relation of a thing to many surrounding things severally and individually; among expresses a relation to them collectively and vaguely: we should not say the space lying among the three points..." (Not sure if this is Fowler or Fowler quoting the OED; think the latter.)

"We found no differences between the/se groups" is of course fine -- for saving space, for tidy elegance etc -- as long as (if this matters) context tells you that only two groups are being referred to (as it quite likely will, esp. in a scientific context); but "between" isn't what's doing this work (specifying two-ness), if only because your reader might be an OED/Merriam-Webster/Fowler baby, and thus deaf to this particular convention.

Not sure what exactly the between/among orthodoxy is: "We found no differences among both groups" is of course grammatical, but it's not the same as "We found no differences between the two groups."

Compare "We found no differences among the various groups" and "We found no differences between the various groups"; the first (per OED/Fowler) means that all items in all groups were identical (though the groups may have varied, for example in size); the second means that all the GROUPS were identical (but says nothing about the variation or otherwise WITHIN any of the groups individually, except they they vary identically).

"We found no differences between both groups" IS wrong, but for the opposite reason! It's wrong because "between" can't apply to LESS than two objects ("both groups" functions as a single unit).

"Meta-analysis" is sometimes used to refer to an analysis of raw data, which are obtained from multiple sources and combined.

Can that comma be removed, bcz "are" needs to be clearly associated with "data" and not "an analysis"? Or does the comma not have anything to do with that issue?

totes unnecessary comma

actually, remove , which are

excellent!

i agree with mookieproof, but the style at my old job was such that if you just took out the comma, you would also have to change "which" to "that."

I'd say the comma should come out anyway: as long as it's in there, it seems to be implying that's other raw data, not obtained from multiples sources etc, which the term "meta-analysis" can't be used in reference to. (Which is presumably not the case...)

"are" has to connect with "analysis" rather than "data", bcz "data"wd take "is" -- the comma isn't relevant to that issue.

Actually, it was the author who asked that "which are" be inserted, but hell, that's unnecessary. Unless he wants to make it clear that the anlysis isn't what's obtained from multiple sources... but "combined" does that already.

xp

And what n/a says would make my point clearer probably, though it's not style everywhere -- the sentence with the comma and the sentence without mean slightly different things (the sentence with it being what i take to be an unlikely meaning).

"data"wd take "is"

I think this might be a transatlantic thing? Our style guides treat "data" as plural.

yeah, I'm going with "raw data that are obtained from..."

yeah i was confused by what mark was saying there, data is plural and analysis is singular

yes, sorry, i meant "analysis" would take "is", data takes "are"!

(tho i got muddled for the reason you guessed, because i do tend to be a bit brutal about fossil classical plurals, when i'm in charge of the stylesheet: data is plural in latin not in english etc)

(ie i'd say "this data is shit" not "these data are shit", but i;d expect a fight from all the writers who think their english is better than mine)

this datum is the king turd.

i agree with mookieproof, but the style at my old job was such that if you just took out the comma, you would also have to change "which" to "that."

― congratulations (n/a), Thursday, October 20, 2011 5:05 PM (24 minutes ago)

yeah it should be "that"

yeah, I'm going with "raw data that are obtained from..."

― incredibly middlebrow (Dr Morbius), Thursday, October 20, 2011 5:16 PM (15 minutes ago)

otm

^concur

(tho you could indeed drop "that are" and lose nothing)

"these data are shit" sounds kind of like "these herd are grazing"

Is "civils works" correct in UK (or any other) English? I wanted to change it to "civil works" but the phrase turns up often enough on google for me to doubt myself. (Until five minutes ago, I had no idea "civils" was a word at all - hence my confusion.)

i'd go with civil works tbh, never heard of the other

apart from names of firms - where it anyway appears to be a contraction of civil works -- and some kind of in-industry shorthand which follows this firm-naming usage to much the same effect, i can't find anywhere where something subtly or significantly different is intended

i think the "civils works" you're mainly discovering are typos! certainly there's nothing wrong with "civil works", so i too would stick with it

we've had 'attorneys general' this week in the news, very pleasing imo