ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

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So, if your publications house style is for "prewar" and "postwar", would you have "pre- and postwar" or "pre- and post-war" in that instance?

― Alba, Monday, 23 April 2007 15:03 (seventeen years ago) link

I would have "pre- and postwar."

― jaymc, Monday, 23 April 2007 17:27 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, like Jaymc says -- the hyphen isn't saying "this is a hyphenated word," it's saying "the rest of this word appears elsewhere." (Just like hyphenated line breaks!) It's like the typographical equivalent of the little jagged-line icon.

― nabisco, Monday, 23 April 2007 17:31 (seventeen years ago) link

Since Michael has more than one sister, it should be "Michael's sister Janet showed her boob", but if he had only one, then it should be "Michael's sister, Janet, showed her boob", right? I don't think many people follow this rule, but it makes sense to me. Only problem is, it's not always worthwhile finding out if someone has more than one sister or whatever just for the sake of getting the commas right.

― Alba, Monday, 23 April 2007 17:37 (seventeen years ago) link

Grrr you mean BRITISH people don't follow that rule. It bugs all hell out of me, since it's about the simplest of all the restrictive vs non-restrictive issues in the world, and yet I'm still constantly reading about "the English band, New Order" or something.

― nabisco, Monday, 23 April 2007 17:57 (seventeen years ago) link

Only problem is, it's not always worthwhile finding out if someone has more than one sister or whatever just for the sake of getting the commas right.

Ha, I end up having to do this at work all the time.

― jaymc, Monday, 23 April 2007 18:00 (seventeen years ago) link

P.S. there are contexts where you might use either of those Jackson examples, depending on how you've set up the field of people you're talking about. But for the most part I'm amazed by people's missing the nuances of these, because everyone's 100% clear on them when speaking. E.g., if there were two hammers sitting next to one another, you'd say "the hammer on the left is mine," and if there were a hammer and a watermelon sitting next to one another, and you were talking to someone who'd never seen a hammer before, you'd say "the hammer PAUSE on the left PAUSE is mine."

― nabisco, Monday, 23 April 2007 18:01 (seventeen years ago) link

And they would say "why are you yelling 'PAUSE' at me?"
And you would say "COMMAS."

― nabisco, Monday, 23 April 2007 18:02 (seventeen years ago) link

Jaymc - wll, OK, deadlines mean there's often not time to do so, let's put it that way...

― Alba, Monday, 23 April 2007 18:04 (seventeen years ago) link

But modernist, being an adjective, would be lower case, right?

I didn't know about the hammer/watermelon thing. But it makes total sense. Wow, some of my sentences are going to change.

― Zoe Espera, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 08:30 (seventeen years ago) link

is the use of "an" instead of "a", before words like "hotel" and "horrific", anachronistic? i prefer it but many will point and laugh.

― CharlieNo4, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 10:23 (seventeen years ago) link

Do you make decisions or take them? I personally hate the phrase 'to take a decision' although I did read an interesting article years ago about how it was an odd turn of phrase (at the time) and was used to 'track' who had really written certain political speeches etc.

― Not the real Village People, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 10:29 (seventeen years ago) link

decisions are made. action is taken.

― CharlieNo4, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 10:36 (seventeen years ago) link

But modernist, being an adjective, would be lower case, right?

not if you're talking about someone who was part of your capitalised modernist movement. i mean: "german" is an adjective too, and you'd cap that :)

it's like the problem we have at work with "nationalist" (one sympathetic to scottish nationalism) and "Nationalist" (one affiliated to the SNP).

charlie: i think it's not just anachronistic but plain wrong. however, i'm interested to see if anyone's got a convincing argument in favour. (i don't actually have a good grammatical one against; i'm sure there is one, but i don't have time to find it).

xpost: that sounds sensible, too.

― grimly fiendish, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 10:44 (seventeen years ago) link

Might just write the essay in grimly ilx post style. No capital letters at all.

Ta, grimlers.

― Zoe Espera, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 10:56 (seventeen years ago) link

Hmmm. Askoxford.com is inconclusive:

The form an for the indefinite article is used before a spoken vowel sound, regardless of how the written word is spelt. If you say 'an otel' when speaking (which is now often regarded as distinctly old-fashioned), then it may be appropriate for you to write 'an hotel'; but most people say 'hotel' with a sounded 'h', and should write 'a hotel'.

By contrast, words such as 'honour', 'heir' or 'hour' in which the 'h' sound is dropped are written with 'an'.

― CharlieNo4, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 11:03 (seventeen years ago) link

I think the BBC decided that it's "An Hotel", weirdly.

― the next grozart, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 11:12 (seventeen years ago) link

There was another recent thread all about ans and as (what is the best way to write that, by the way, "an"s and "a"s?) and aspirated hs, Charlie. Can't rememeber what it was called.

I think "an historical" etc is widely deprecated, yes, though it seems to be one of those hypercorrective things that people do to try to sound right. I can't believe you really want to write "an hotel". Why?

― Alba, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 11:39 (seventeen years ago) link

in the same way an American might write "an herb" i suppose; or indeed in the same way i'd write "an honour".

― CharlieNo4, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 11:43 (seventeen years ago) link

another one:

for goodness's sake

for goodness sake

for goodness' sake

argh. i'm leaning towards the first one.

― CharlieNo4, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:00 (seventeen years ago) link

goodness's sake? nobody says that!

― the next grozart, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:02 (seventeen years ago) link

they don't but it's the only correct one of the bunch. GAZUMPED BY GRAMMAR.

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:14 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't see what's wrong with "for goodness' sake".

― ledge, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:20 (seventeen years ago) link

I see we touched on this above where "if it's a plural, add an 's'" seemed to be the rule. Nonsense! If no extra 's' is pronounced, don't add one!

― ledge, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:24 (seventeen years ago) link

I see we touched on this above where "if it's a plural, add an 's'" seemed to be the rule.

nono, if it's a plural, DON'T add another s - just the apostrophe will do. But goodness is single and this needs another s (i think), odd as it may look.

― CharlieNo4, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:27 (seventeen years ago) link

Yes, meant "if it's singular...", d'oh. But why add another s? It's pronounced goodness not goodnesses.

Results 1 - 10 of about 551 for "goodness's sake" - no measure of accuracy I know but 551 is not very many.

― ledge, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:29 (seventeen years ago) link

"If the singular possessive is difficult or awkward to pronounce with an added s sound, do not add an extra s; these exceptions are supported by University of Delaware, The Guardian, Emory University’s writing center, and The American Heritage Book of English Usage. Such sources permit possessive singulars like these: Socrates’ later suggestion; James’s house, or James’ house, depending on which pronunciation is intended."

― ledge, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:31 (seventeen years ago) link

I recognize none of those institutions. *sniff*

― Ms Misery, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:32 (seventeen years ago) link

since the phrase has passed so far into idiom i think choice #2 would actually work fine

ledge, AP style calls for ANY proper name ending with s to just get an apostrophe - so i think those examples are not in fact very illuminating

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:33 (seventeen years ago) link

that's kind of cool that Emory is considered an authority on these things!

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:33 (seventeen years ago) link

Considered an authority by - well I'll give you one guess as to where my uncited quotation was from.

― ledge, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:38 (seventeen years ago) link

I just use "for fuck's sake". Problem solved.

― Ms Misery, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:38 (seventeen years ago) link

Or "for the sake of goodness". Which flows really well.

― Zoe Espera, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:52 (seventeen years ago) link

The sake of goodness:

http://www.shanghaiquartet.com/winelist_gfx/image.php?id=26_t

― ledge, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 14:55 (seventeen years ago) link

i can't believe that took so long...

― CharlieNo4, Tuesday, 24 April 2007 15:45 (seventeen years ago) link

what's the plural of Doberman (ie the type of dog)?

― CharlieNo4, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 11:47 (seventeen years ago) link

Dobermany.

― Alba, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 11:59 (seventeen years ago) link

*applause*

― CharlieNo4, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 12:00 (seventeen years ago) link

chortleX0r

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 12:24 (seventeen years ago) link

Style / usage / logic question:

If someone were to write, in a business context, something along the lines of "paper costs are expected to increase by 7%" ... would you consider that, by itself, a meaningful statistic? It feels kind of useless to me without some kind of time framework attached -- is there any kind of given in the business world that a statement like this defaults to meaning "for the next year?"

― nabisco, Monday, 7 May 2007 16:48 (sixteen years ago) link

no it could mean for the next quarter, or it could be year-over-year, or month-over-month...really needs definition.

― tipsy mothra, Monday, 7 May 2007 16:54 (sixteen years ago) link

Not...that I'm aware of, altho I don't specialize in paper buying. And I don't know about the wider world of business...

― Laurel, Monday, 7 May 2007 16:54 (sixteen years ago) link

The paper was just a random example. I called this out on something last week, but they're declining to fix it -- I can't imagine what kind of thought process lies behind that, unless it's just "oh, whatever, who cares."

― nabisco, Monday, 7 May 2007 17:18 (sixteen years ago) link

Or more likely "I don't know, and I'm sure as hell not tracking down the source of the statistic and figuring out the frame."

― nabisco, Monday, 7 May 2007 17:19 (sixteen years ago) link

People don't care about statistics making sense. The other day I had something like "The survey found companies' paper costs had increased by an average of up to 7%" and I asked them whether it was an average or up to and they said "I don't know - that's what the press release said."

― Alba, Monday, 7 May 2007 17:24 (sixteen years ago) link

Charlie, I would assume the plural is "Doberman Pinschers" or just "Dobermans." In the same sense that you wouldn't call several footrests "Ottomen." Doberman Pinschers is the 'most' correct, though.

― Will M., Monday, 7 May 2007 17:33 (sixteen years ago) link

Here's a sample sentence (which I've obviously made up but which mirrors in its construction one I'm supposed to copy-edit):

"Under the guidance of Tom Ewing, ILM was founded in 2000 and ILE came on the scene in 2001."

So I've always been taught that complete subject-verb-object thoughts should be set off with commas when conjoined to other such complete thoughts. And so my instinct is to add a comma after 2000. But in this case, it seems like both events (the one in 2000 and the one in 2001) are relating back to the opening clause "under the guidance of Tom Ewing." In which case the comma might make it sound like ILM was founded under Tom's guidance, and then, later, separately, ILE came on the scene (having nothing to do with Tom).

I know that it's considered OK to omit the comma for conjoined sentences when they're super-short, like as in "He punched me and I collapsed" -- and one could make a case that the phrases here are short enough to do this, too -- but obviously sometimes they're longer, and I'm looking for a general rule, since I see this crop up quite a bit.

― jaymc, Thursday, 10 May 2007 17:16 (sixteen years ago) link

n which case the comma might make it sound like ILM was founded under Tom's guidance, and then, later, separately, ILE came on the scene (having nothing to do with Tom)

exactly. gramatically, that's your answer.

― grimly fiendish, Thursday, 10 May 2007 18:59 (sixteen years ago) link

You could always rewrite the sentence slightly rather than focus on just "comma or no comma," couldn't you? That's what I tend to do when following a rule might obscure the intended meaning.

― mitya, Friday, 11 May 2007 06:20 (sixteen years ago) link

International style question! I know Brits say/write "different to," rather than "different from," but I can't imagine that they also say "X differs to Y in that blah blah etc." Is the UK just inconsistent on this point, saying "different to" but also "differs from?"

― nabisco, Friday, 11 May 2007 21:23 (sixteen years ago) link

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