ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

joke's on you, this was supposed to be the Grammar Friends thread

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

Altough what I was actually looking for
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lae8FewbnuU

table, these days I work mostly in technical proposal writing. In past lives I have grazed through the worlds of newspapers, trade newsletters, association and nonprofit communications, PR / advertising, sales, marketing. The only constant is needing to pay the bills.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaU1J8KMWbY

This discussion has accumulated so many responses I'll need to load the entire thread to find out exactly that which is being discussed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI2cwfluyNo

Oops, sorry, wrong thread. Meant that for COVID-19.

All which I want for Christmas is you

Ha exactly!

James Redd: I can, at least, perceive the answer to your Joyce question.

I like the old-school, polite and precise sense of humour currently to be found on this particular thread.

On that/which, someone once gave me a pretty simple way to work it out: if you could add a “by the way” after “which”, without changing the sense of the sentence, then it’s right. Sometimes when I’m editing it’s not clear whether the author means to be restrictive or not. In those cases I sometimes fudge it by making an exception to the “comma before which” rule.

Excellent!

Why "at least, perceive," pinefox? Only connect!

Here is the entry from the AMA, fwiw:

Relative pronouns may be used in subordinate clauses to refer to previous nouns. The word "that" introduces a restrictive clause, one that is essential to the meaning of the noun it describes. The word "which" introduces a nonrestrictive clause, one that adds more information but is not essential to the meaning. Clauses that begin with which are preceded by commas.

YMP, interesting. I've only been doing this for about a year, all pharma ads and such. Some of the writers at my last gig were abysmal, so it could get a little fun and spicy in the comments, but for the most part, pretty blah. Definitely one of those jobs where I objectively work less and make more doing so than any other job I've had, which feels okay since I'm 37 and have been a gravedigger for a living, only a few years ago.

table, I don't wish to get too financial up in here but in terms of the relative lucrativeness of wordmongering jobs this is what I have observed directly:

I started in conventional journalism in 1993ish for wages that were decidedly low but seemed fine at the time
I approximately doubled my pay in 1994ish by shifting to the trade press (newsletters and association publications aimed at a niche audience)
Approximately doubled it again in 1998ish by shifting to PR/communications/marketing (including pharma PR)
Approximately doubled it yet again in 2004ish by shifting to proposal writing/tech writing

The level of work has remained constant. I still write like a college student - in the two or three hours before each deadline, full of coffee (or something)

Old-timey pictures of the Sphinx which, by the way, are terrible

Old-timey pictures of the Sphinx that, by the way, are terrible

I think we need to establish whether all old-timey pictures of the Sphinx are terrible.

i found one from the thutmosid dynasty which i think is quite good so but posting it actually messes up the purpose of the thread! so i don't think this "by the way" device helps me! (this issei’s may be an artefact of the thread being a kind of imperative?)

old-timey pictures of the sphinx which are terrible -- plz to post terrible old-timey pix of the sphx
old-timey pictures of the sphinx that are terrible — ditto (but i dislike the alliteration )

old-timey pictures of the sphinx which (by the way) are terrible — seems off bz it’s not "by the way"! it’s the purpose of the thread!
old-timey pictures of the sphinx that (by the way) are terrible — ditto (plus alliteration grrr)

old-timey pictures of the sphinx, which (by the way) are terrible = *all* OTPotS are terrible (proved to be untrue, also not the point of the thread)
old-timey pictures of the sphinx, that (by the way) are terrible = absolutely certainly a solecism in the entire english-speaking world

oops s/b (this issue may be an artefact of the thread being a kind of imperative?)

Yes, the point of the “by the way” trick is to see whether it works with “which”, not whether it works better with “which” or “that”. In this case, as you say, it doesn’t work with “which”, which tells you it should be “that” instead.

is "works with which" = "means what you meant"?

Yeah. Like, if I had a sentence that was “Elephants, which are the world’s largest land animals, are fun to ride on”, adding “by the way” after “which” would make the sentence more long-winded but it would pretty much mean the same, so “which” is right.

Whereas if it was “Elephants which have no tusks are unlikely to be poached” then adding “by the way” would change it completely.

That/which feels like one of those artificial distinctions that has some use in theory but I’m not sure how much confusion it really avoids, even if everyone were on board with the rule. I mean, there’s no equivalent for “who” and we seem to get by.

yes i think what's subliminally throwing me a bit here is that the threadname has a kind of "fuck around and find out" element to it = "post roughly this kind of picture until we can decide if inserting "by the way" changes the meaning, or (you know) not?"

dear grammar friends,

the commas in the second bullet point are wrong, right? like super wrong? (mark i know your answer already)

https://i.imgur.com/nWTlFfn.jpg

the first one is? but the 2nd ain't too badly

I agree Tracer; I would cut both commas. You could also consider deleting "that" (is that the mark answer?), but I'd probably reword it to something like "The administration believes that reassuring their European allies about energy supplies will make them more willing to place sanctions on Moscow."

(oh and you can cut the "that" in my rewording too)

first one is wrong yes, second one is unproblematic and actually somewhat helps clarity i feel

if you do x then y follows
if you do x, then y follows

^^^both ok

better still rewrite tho

Here's the thinking: European allies will likely be more willing to place sanctions on Moscow if they are confident about energy supplies

i think "the theory is that if" is just ugly writing in the first place and it's this ugliness that the first (bad) comma is attempting to cover up

also the shift from ("are reassured") to ("would be more willing") seems weong tho my late-night parsing is not quite up to why as regards the technics

it shd either be fully indicative = ("are reassured") to ("will be more willing")
or fully subjunctive = ("were reassured") to ("would be more willing")

i believe

haha i was wrong i did not know what you would say after all!

second one is a BAD headline -- inscrutable, poor construction

commas aside there is an easier way to say that:

Experts suggest European allies would be more willing to place sanctions if they are assured about...etc

you know how it is when people get wedded to a theory

Yeah I'd rewrite it to avoid that construction, not just tweak the number and placement of the commas

now that i’m looking at it again, i don’t like the comma in the actual headline either

same

the need to jam explanatory clauses into headlines layer-cake-style seems like an NYT pathology of anxious tone

what they *mean* is "US to back up Europe's fuel flow, ftb Russia ffs" (and so they shd say it)

sure but get rid of the comma!

"I'm phoning you, because I want to talk to you."

why are you pausing? are you short of breath? shouldn't you take an LFT??

commas are most often a sign of baroque sentence construction tendencies tbh, eliminate if at all in doubt

im reading the grammarly explanation of how a comma before because is usually wrong and sometimes right, and not exactly disagreeing -- but definitely wanting the option of "sometimes that wrong comma is good and right to help inflect delivery with the unexpected"

"US to back up Europe's fuel flow ftb Russia"

"US to back up Europe's fuel flow, ftb CAPITALISM ffs"

the NYT uses them (in headlines) to signal its self-important sense of measured objectivity

"pedalling furiously, a unicycling clown"

There's an old and probably apocryphal story about a famously cranky writer (usually Twain but possibly Hemingway) was told he didn't use enough commas. He sent his editor a page of just commas and said to use them as the editor saw fit.

I'm not anti-comma; I think punctuation aids understanding when used well. If you have a pair of commas that is not denoting a list, you usually intend a parenthetical phrase. Try replacing them with parentheses or with em dashes and see if it makes sense that way.

The theory is that (if European allies are reassured about energy supplies) they would be more willing to place sanctions on Moscow.

The theory is that—if European allies are reassured about energy supplies—they would be more willing to place sanctions on Moscow.

Those are no better than the original; the sentence doesn't make any sense without the material in between the punctuation.

Also I see mixed cases. If you're doing a conditional sentence, don't you need both verbs to agree? Like, if the main verb phrase is "would be more willing," then the first verb also needs to be conditional, right? Like "if European allies were reassured..." or even "if European allies were to be reassured..." But those are fussy.

How about

Reassuring European allies about energy supplies could make them more willing to back sanctions.

Or

European allies may be more willing to back sanctions if they are reassured about energy supplies

?

I agree with almost all the views expressed here, but

a) I don't agree with cutting 'that', as I've noted before re: Guardian (though a headline is different from regular prose)

b) I don't know what 'ftb' means in Mark's text.