ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

1. That is such a tiresomely pedantic point that I'm tempted to respond to it by pointing out that "most of the world" does not use English at all

2. Part of what makes it tiresomely pedantic is that I'm fairly sure you will never in your life refer to British usage as "British / Australian / New Zealand / some Indian / Nigerian / Falklands / ... and on and on and on" usage because IT'D TAKE FOREVER (and anyway each of those places have their own variances)

3. The main part of what makes it tiresomely pedantic is that it's called British usage because this alleged "most of the world" that uses it was colonized by Britain, in about the same way that Americans like me use the "English" language despite totally not living in England

Haha I honestly don't know if they use serial commas in Liberia or the Phillippines

It's not tiresomely pedantic at all, but you make good points.

Speaking of pedantry, by 'most of the world' obviously I mean most of the world in which English is the primary language. Various countries that were protected/invaded/colonised by the US use US English, e.g. The Philippines, but generally English takes a back seat in such places anyway.

This will all be meaningless within a few generations, really -- I'm sure by then we'll be talking about British usage, American usage, and Indian usage

Ahahahahaha. I love how Indian English has created new words that make perfect grammatical sense (e.g. upgradation) but sound enormously out of place to us.

conceived of during

"This link appears broken" aargghh

Is this actually wrong or is my hatred misdirected?

"He is likely still at home" aaarrgh again.

These are total amerkin-isms, right?

Standard American would be "This link appears to be broken" and, in most American speech, "He is most likely still at home"

Actually, for the second one, there are big parts of the country where people would do that, in semi-colloquial speech and writing -- "He's likely still at home," sure

he is probably at home

i don't think i would ever say "likely," though i use it in writing

"likely" in that sense, that is

It's weird to think about fixed rules for that first one: the norm in that case would be to say "it appears TO BE broken" (or "it LOOKS broken"), but depending on the adjective, it's easy to imagine someone omitting "to be" and saying, e.g., "it appears rusted"

hahaha

- It appears, rusted.
- His leg prevented him, jumping.

Hear that? It was my brain exploding.

Actually that same problem exists to a lesser extent with "it appears to be, rusted"

omitting "to be" is a scottishism - "this shirt needs ironed".

They do that lots of places in the US, too!

Actually that same problem exists to a lesser extent with "it appears to be, rusted"

LOVE SHACK, BABY...

the train seems late

he wants stabbing

oh yeah, you pronounce it "shock," rite?

'shack'

"I'm going to check my facebook"

"I'm going to check facebook"

?? I always say the first but I think it might be odd?

i don't think it matters, does it? it's a question of semantics. (number of times i've used that as a get-out: 2,430,431.)

well, none of it really matters, silly!

I just thought I'd raise the question here, rather than start a poll innit

I'm going to check Facebook / I'm going to check MY Facebook PAGE / (ACCOUNT)

... would seem like the fussy technical thing, but yeah, I can't imagine this mattering, and I can't imagine people using Facebook long enough for anyone outside of the marketing division to be remotely bothered about whether you have "a Facebook" or "a Facebook page/account"

Although I do feel like I've seen this raised with "MySpace," because it has MY in it, therefore it's easy to think of yourself as having "a MySpace" and not "a MySpace account"

So umm hahaha I think the popular logic might be that Facebook is a collective BOOK on which you have a "page," but MySpace is yours, it's your MySpace, not an account on Everyone'sSpace

"I'm going to check my Facepage" is correct.

well, none of it really matters, silly!

this should be the board description for ILX. or life.

ok here's one. if you're using the word "then" to mean "former," but the title is two words, where do hyphens go? "as suggested by his then law clerk william rehnquist." original says "then-law clerk" but i think that's wrong. it has to be either no hyphens or "then-law-clerk," doesn't it? can't find it in chicago manual.

I would go with zero hyphens here, unless you are required to diagram the sentence.

Or else rephrase it to eliminate the English-teacher-nip.

but i think that's wrong. it has to be either no hyphens or "then-law-clerk," doesn't it?

why? could you say then-clerk?

or just 'clerk'?

I don't understand why "law clerk" would have a hypen? Maybe I'm not thinking about it right, but "then-law clerk" seems reasonable to me.

No hyphen. In that case "then" functions as a simple adjective, just like "former." You would only use a hyphen if it were something like "his then-liberal law clerk William Rehnquist."

I mean, I wouldn't hyphenate "state cop" or "baseball player" or "English teacher" so I don't see the point....

Or: "as suggested by William Rehnquist, his law clerk at the time."

I think the confusion here is that "then law clerk" looks like an adjectival phrase that modifies the noun William Rehnquist (in which case hyphenating the whole thing seems useful), but it's not: "law clerk" is the noun and "William Rehnquist" is an appositive.

ohhh ok yeah, you're right. that's what i was thinking. i can't get rid of it because i'm editing, not writing.

The Chicago Manual of Style contains a handy solution to this sort of thing, but it's most easily found not under "hypens" but under EN-DASHES! This is the thing they are most awesome and useful for! As discussed upthread. Leaving aside Jaymc's grammatical objection in this instance, the answer to "I need to hyphenate but one of the terms is two words" is as follows:

World War II(1/N)era
Pulitzer Price(1/N)winning

and in this instance, if you wanted

then(1/N)law clerk

ok i will look into that right now. thanks! i think it's still a hyphen though because we (lawl review) don't really follow chicago except as a last resort, and en-dashes are only supposed to signify a range of numbers.

Well just FY general I, that's not any kind of Chicago-specific rule -- I think of it as a pretty generally accepted use of the en-dash (and it's followed in most publications I read, including not-that-fussy ones like Entertainment Weekly and online ones like Slate) ...

There are instances where it's necessary for clarity, but the only example springing to mind is the British one about black cab-drivers (who are black and drive cabs) and black cab(1/N)drivers (who drive black cabs and are whatever color they are)

i just read it and you are right. i might go for the en-dash anyway because it does make more sense and doesn't really break the rules, and because i'm the boss.

but the only example springing to mind is the British one about black cab-drivers (who are black and drive cabs) and black cab(1/N)drivers (who drive black cabs and are whatever color they are)

This example is good for why you would want to use a hyphen versus not use a hyphen, but an en dash shouldn't even come into it unless it's something like "black cab(1/n)driver license."

The example I used upthread, which I like, is "a screwdriver is a vodka(1/n)orange-juice concoction."

^^^^^this is AMA's style -- using the en in combination with a hyphen, not instead of.

True dat, Jaymc, that example only works with modifying ... I was totally unaware of any style that actually used the other hyphen, though I suppose it's visually sensible. (Though I will admit to being distrustful of AMA style, since so much of it is optimized for, like, scientific uses that are not hugely relevant to the rest of us...)

once again, US english kicks UK english's arse. i love that en-dash convention but it just isn't used here, and would immediately be "corrected".

that said: in this instance i don't think i'd use it even if i could. "then law clerk" -- no punctuation -- seems absolutely perfect to me.

arse ass.