This lead on newsobserver.com confused me this morning:

A person was killed just before 11:30 p.m. Wednesday when they were hit by a train in Four Oaks, Johnston County dispatch officials said late Wednesday.

Who is "they"? Was more than one person on the tracks?

As I read the rest of this short report, I realized that the writer had used "they" to refer to a single person because the sex of the victim was not known. So what is the alternative? Some would recommend writing "he or she," but others would find that silly and unwieldy. The writer could have repeated "person," and, indeed, the rest of the brief uses a noun ("victim" or "person") to avoid having to choose a gender- or number-specific pronoun. An editor might have recast the lead entirely (provided the editor had time!) to:

A person was struck by a train and killed just before 11:30 p.m. Wednesday in Four Oaks, Johnston County dispatch officials said late Wednesday.

In instances such as this one, I wish English had a singular pronoun that was not gender-specific -- like "it," but for human beings.

I was watching MSNBC's "Morning Joe" this morning with the closed captions on. As host Joe Scarborough talked to David Axelrod of the Obama campaign, Axlerod said the Latin phrase "ad nauseam," which means something that continues to the point of nausea. Here is how this phrase was rendered in the captions:

Add gnaws eum

Go to dictionary.com to hear a pronunciation of "ad nauseam."

Go here for a interesting article about closed captioning from the Atlantic.

Here is an article from the National Captioning Institute about how real time captioning is created.

By the way, I am a big fan of closed captioning, and this post is not meant to denigrate the people who do these captions.

Finally, I have a new Triangle Grammar Guide quiz for you to try. I have upgraded to a full-featured version of the freeware I had been using. I will be able to make quizzes with different kinds of questions. But for today the quiz is five simple multiple choice questions. You might notice that the background and the buttons are slightly different. I hope the quiz works well for you. If not, please send me a note. You will see a print button on the results page, so if you are a student who is getting extra credit for taking the quiz, you can take the printout to your teacher. Also, at the end of the quiz your browser will automatically send you back to the grammar blog.

Click on the question mark icon or here to begin. Have fun.

A colleague gave me a copy of the ninth edition of "Style Guide" from The Economist newspaper. Here is the advice that I found in the "grammar and syntax" entry:

Try not to be sloppy in the construction of your sentences and paragraphs.

Yes! That sums it up.

The "Style Guide" has other good advice:

* pair and couple: Treat both pair and couple as plural.

* fund: (verb) is a technical term, meaning to convert floating debt into more or less permanent debt at fixed income. Try to avoid it if you mean to finance or to pay for.

The book also has a section on the differences between British and American English (petrol vs. gasoline, power point vs. electrical outlet) and a section titled "Useful Reference" including calendar differences and administrative districts in countries around the world.

This is a useful book. That's the highest praise I can give. The book, published by Profile Books, is available online. You can also find it at Amazon for $17.79.

The Economist has an online style guide too.

A reader, Loretta from Carrboro, wrote recently about a broadcast reports that refer to something that someone did or was "before his [or her] death," such as "Charlton Heston was a conservative activist before his death." It seems obvious that the last prepositional phrase is not necessary. Death tends to stop folks from being any kind of activist. As Loretta and I agree, this is not a big issue and it certainly isn't a grammar, usage or style error. It's just, as Loretta puts it, an "irksome idiom."

I'd been looking for examples in print or online that illustrate the needless use of the phrase "before his death." I found one today:

"Soap fans were shocked when Mike Reid died suddenly last year, but his television legacy lives on, thanks to ITV1's decision to air the last series he completed before his death."

The writer refers to "the last series he completed," so "before his death" is just a hiccup at the end of the sentence. But maybe there is a reason for this that isn't clear to me. Do the writers or broadcasters who use this phrase think they need to cover themselves, to acknowledge that the action or state of being was true before the subject died?

Loretta cited an example that brings up another issue: Eve Carson was "a widely known student leader before her death." She points out that Carson remains a widely known student leader.

Of course, most instances of "before his [or her] death" don't fall into this category of "irksome idiom," because the writer is referring to a period of time that is relevant to a person's death, as in "the night before his death" or "in the weeks before his death." Those references are fine.

I'm on a "death" watch now, and I'll post other examples as comments.

Grammar Guide wants to be cool like On the Beat, TV Eye and Uncle Crizzle, so here is the "Grammar Rock," verb edition, video from YouTube.

A reader sent an e-mail message last week to point out some grammar problems and typos in the Career Builder section published by the N&O's Classified Advertising Department. The reader is also a writer and teaches writing. She uses the section to teach the importance of good writing. I hear from other readers who say that they find grammatical, spelling and usage errors in the newspaper (in print and online) particularly disheartening because we (the newspaper) should be setting a good example for students.

Indeed, published writing does teach others how to write. I use that argument with those who assert that a poorly constructed sentence still makes its point, that readers will understand the ideas being put forth even if the sentence uses nonstandard grammar or usage. The most important obligation of the news media is to inform the public, and I contend that making that information as clear as possible is essential to fulfilling that obligation. Accuracy and clarity can be enhanced with sentence structure. As the reader who complained about the Career Builder article pointed out, misplacing "only" in a sentence makes the meaning wrong.

I worry about stepping on toes or hurting feelings when I point out the errors that I or others have found in print and online. But as the reader's note to us shows, errors, even the most common typos, can undermine our purpose.

Afterthought: It occurred to me that I should add to the headline on this post: "... but not as much as sports."

Can you tell what's wrong with the sentences in the list below? I think many of you will see the problem in these sentences now that they have isolated. On the other hand, context can certainly help a editor figure out how to fix such problems.

* Whether trying to conceive, pregnant or a new mom, trianglemom2mom.com will be the leading source of information for Moms in the Triangle.

* Overgrown with weeds, Megan thought he was crazy for even considering the purchase.

* Born in Clayton, not far from her present home, Little's parents farmed cotton, corn and tobacco. Like many daughters of the South, her parents had no money to send her to college.

=> Read more!

Writers use a variety of sentence structures. The normal order of English declarative sentences is Subject-Verb. When we are first learning how to build sentences in English, the examples usually stick to the simplest form. Most subjects in the S-V structures are nouns or pronouns. (The dog ran. The boy skipped. The father laughed.) But, as we become more proficient at our language, we learn that a subject can be a phrase or a clause that functions as a noun.

Three sentences from Sunday's (March 30, 2008) News & Observer illustrate the use of phrases or clauses as subjects of sentences.

In a Christian Science Monitor story:

How people hear something depends on their own experience and worldview, says Teresa Fry Brown, who teaches the art of preaching at Emory University in Atlanta. (How people hear something is the subject of the verb "depends").

In a T. Keung Hui story about the education of gifted students:

How to better serve gifted students has recently surfaced as a local and state issue. (The infinitive phrase How to better serve gifted students is the subject of "has surfaced.")

In a Jay Price story about an effort to rename Pope Air Force Base:

What the base would be called hasn't been decided either, Drohan said, though there seems to be support for simply calling it Pope Field. (What the base would be called is the subject of "hasn't been decided.")

A noun phrase or clause acting as the subject of a sentence takes a singular verb.

Grammar-usage books make it to my desk often. I rarely write about them because they are irritating to read and use or just don't have anything new to offer. A new book is out that I like. It's "Mortal Syntax" by June Casagrande, who writes a newspaper column called "A Word, Please." This is her second book; her first had the funny title "Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies."

"Mortal Syntax" (Penguin Paperback Originals, $14) has the subtitle "101 Language Choices That Will Get You Clobbered by the Grammar Snobs - Even If You Are Right." And that's exactly what you get with "Mortal Syntax." Casagrande goes through 101 of the most disputed grammar-usage issues such as fun as an adjective, "for free," whom and "one of the only." In other words, she writes about the very issues that I hear from readers about hear about from readers. [edited 4:22 p.m. March 30, 2008. -- I heard from a reader.]

=> Read more!

The quiz returns with five sentences I have encountered in print. Today's quiz is all about word choices. Click on the question mark icon or here to begin. Have fun and leave a comment if you wish.

By the way, we N&O bloggers get a report each month with our rankings by number of page views. Triangle Grammar Guide ranks near the middle -- far behind the sports and politics blogs and Sue Stock's useful Taking Stock blog, but with a respectable number of hits each month. Thank you for coming to this blog and for the notes and comments.

UPDATE (3/28/08): After you take the quiz, be sure to come back to the blog and read the comments that have been added to the post. A couple of smart readers have challenged a couple of the sentences on the quiz.

Here is a screen caption from a recent MSNBC newscast:

The caption writer needed "affect" here, of course. One way to remember this is that "affect" is almost always used as a verb and you can remember "affect" with "the a means action." It would be better, though, to know the difference in meaning. "Affect" means to influence or to have an effect upon; "effect" as a verb means to create or to bring about or to accomplish, as in "We wish to effect [bring about] a change in consumers' attitudes."

Take this link to the Online Writing Lab at Purdue University for a good explanation (scroll down just a bit). Or go to Professor Paul Brians' explanation. Grammar Girl has a funny cartoon to explain "affect/effect."

A thoughtful reader wrote to ask that we at The N&O avoid using the language of war to refer to political campaigns. He listed a few terms that show up in political reporting: battleground states, all-out attack ads, war chest, opposing camps.

I was reminded of the reader's words as I watched "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" one day last week. Rob Riggle was doing a report about the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, emphasizing that mainstream TV reports were calling the primary votes Tuesday "do or die." In the bit titled "Mortal Kombat '08," Riggle said one candidate, Obama or Clinton, would win and the other one would die. Riggle, whose reports I love not just because he's funny but also because he's a former Marine who went to Iraq last year to report for "The Daily Show," was spoofing the hyperbole of television reporters, anchors and especially spittle-spewing pundits. Of course, no primary vote is "do or die." It's just politics, people! And given that some of our leaders and candidates have been assassinated or nearly assassinated, it truly is uncomfortable to hear folks on TV talk about "do or die." It's just wrong.

=> Read more!

This was on the screen Monday night (March 3) on "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric" during Bob Schieffer's commentary about the Texas presidential primary. My husband spotted it and pointed it out to me.

I checked the CBSnews.com site this morning for the video and, sure enough, the mistake was still there. If you don't mind sitting through a commercial, you can see it here.

Just to remind us all: The correct spelling here would be "its," the possessive form.

Try the quiz. Click on the icon or here to begin.
Tuesday is National Grammar Day. Martha Brockenburgh, founder of the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar, suggests that we go forth and spread the word about the use of standard grammar. That sounds like a good idea. If you have any success in that regard, please drop me a line here. Go to the National Grammar Day site for a useful list of 10 top grammar tips.

By the way, National Punctuation Day is in September.