ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

Whereby the bell tolls

it's an awkward sentence, but i'd say "from whom" rather than "for whom" to replace "whereby" up there. the decision is coming from the promoter, it's not for him

Is a "but" after a semicolon correct? How?

context?

Say, "he was first and formost my Father; but since day one he was my best friend in the entire world."

Isn't the semicolon a de facto conjunction, rendering the "but" redundant?

some may disagree but i would not use a semicolon there

It needs a comma instead, and no cap on Father.

if you keep the but use a comma
if you get rid of the but use a semicolon

also formost is spelled wrong

sorry, i'm working on a paper away from my style guide ... is there a consensus about how long a quote should be in a paper before it is moved from just being quoted within a paragraph to being separated out into its own indented paragraph?

i think i always used the indent for quotes of about three lines or greater

it seems sort of dependent on the format of your page in general, though -- you know, whichever looks more natural and clear

MLA iirc says four lines or more

eh, i indented it because i need to pad the length of the paper a little to be honest

i use the 50 word rule

ha it's 51 words

I liked the part where Nick said his quote was:

51 words

That was pretty cool.

lol

whoa

i'm going to make all my posts in block quotes from now on

it'll like be my thing

Came across this at work: "non-EU-member Switzerland."

My initial thought was that it should be "non-EU member Switzerland" since no one would write "EU-member Switzerland" (i.e., with the hyphen).

But then it struck me that "non-EU member" is a really weird phrase. Because ordinarily you'd parse that as "What kind of a member is Switzerland? A non-EU member" -- when in fact Switzerland is not a member of anything at all. It's not a member of the non-EU, it's a nonmember of the EU. But "EU nonmember Switzerland" gets approximately 0.07% the number of Google hits as "non-EU member Switzerland."

So I sort of feel like I get why someone wrote "non-EU-member" was used -- to keep the "member" closer to "non." I'm still not sure it works, though.

Haha, ignore obvious fuck-up in my second-to-last sentence.

I would deploy an en-dash on this one

i.e., "non(1/N)EU member" handily indicates that what Switzerland is not is the full unit "EU member"

Oh shit, you're right. I don't know why that didn't occur to me.

*Seethes with envy once again at awesome en-dash convention the UK just doesn't have*

Should the slangy contraction "'em" be capitalized in a title? For example, should it be "Make 'em Say Ooh" or "Make 'Em Say Ooh"? I'm thinking the former.

Hang 'Em High looks better to me than Hang 'em High.

CMOS gives no advice on this that I can find, and I have no answer myself, although my inclination is that the apostrophe itself, since it represents dropped letters, might also represent the capitalization of non-included letters; capping the E seems weird to me because it's not the beginning of a word to be capitalized

(note: okay, sure, I would not follow that logic at the beginning of a title, but that's different)

That was my thinking, that the capitalized T in "them" is dropped, so the "e" isn't capitalized. I could go either way, though.

(btw I'm only posting with capitalization out of respect for this thread)

A quick survey suggests that my workplace capitalizes them:

George Gershwin's "When You Want 'Em You Can't Get 'Em (When You've Got 'Em You Don't Want 'Em)"
The film Give 'Em Hell, Harry!
The film Hang 'Em High
The film Keep 'Em Flying
The Singin' in the Rain song "Make 'Em Laugh"

Springsteen's "Bring 'Em Home"

'Er Indoors

Ok, will capitalize, thanks.

Although I guess I should point out that there's no style rule on the books and the capitalization on those may simply be a result of various copy editors independently saying "looks right to me."

Okay I am helping do some community newsletter. Submitters always find some amazing next level uses of passive voice. This is today's little riddle of a sentence:

A free-will donation will be received.

How can I rework this to have it make sense but still retain some of her desired timidity?

"attendees may feel free to make donations", or "we will be accepting donations" or something?

Donations are voluntary but greatly appreciated.

GIve us the fockin' money.

^ Keep the cap I for extra unhinged value, too.

"For a minute or two, a young couple - early twenties - were walking beside me."

Should that be "was walking"? I feel it should be, but it doesn't quite sound right...

economist style guide seems to make sense on this:

There is no firm rule about the number of a verb governed by a singular collective noun. It is best to go by the sense—that is, whether the collective noun stands for a single entity (The council was elected in March, The me generation has run its course, The staff is loyal) or for its constituents: (The council are at sixes and sevens, The preceding generation are all dead, The staff are at each other's throats). Do not, in any event, slavishly give all singular collective nouns singular verbs: The couple have a baby boy is preferable to The couple has a baby boy.Indeed, in general, treat both a pair and a couple as plural.

Thanks for that, joe, I think I'll keep the "were". (Although it's supposed to be American English and I have a feeling Americans are less inclined to pluralise collective nouns.)

Putting "Twenties" before it subliminally makes the reader expect "were".

uh i'd totally go w/ "was" there

How does ILX come down on "however" at the beginning of a sentence? Yea or nay?

Yeah, I would go with "was" there, too, although I get the impression the UK is more lenient about this.

How does ILX come down on "however" at the beginning of a sentence? Yea or nay?

I'm totally cool with it, and I'm not sure why some people tend to avoid it, unless it's just a sentence variety thing.

Depends. If it's something that should have been in the previous sentence: "I would have done that, however circumstances prevented me" then no.

If it's something that qualifies something in the sentence: "However bad things may get" then yes.

^ agreed (I think you meant to say "I would have done that. However, circumstances.." in your example)

My 10th-grade English teacher taught us to always bring "however" into the middle of the sentence, i.e. "Circumstances, however, prevented me from..."

"In this document we will examine bla bla bla" - should this be "shall"? Never been very clear on the difference.

(Yes, the whole construction is slightly icky. I don't think I can escape it altogether, but alternatives gratefully considered. I hate writing this kind of thing but someone told me to turn their bullet points into full sentences for the introductory waffle)

Thanks!

I'd use 'will' with 'we'.