grammar

Astute readers lay out the rules for lie-lay

tgrubb61 — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:16:12 -0500

Grammarians may have noticed a misused verb in the first sentence of a story Monday about the Captain John S. Pope Farm in northern Orange County:

“Thomas Crisp Jr. stood at the edge of a wire fence Friday morning in northern Orange County, two bales of hay laying at his feet.”

Two readers took the time to email me about the error - using "laying" instead of "lying" - that was edited into the story late Sunday.

“Kindly assist in teaching by example the uses of lie-lay,” reader Wendy Smith wrote in an email.

For the record: The verb “lay” and its derivatives – laid and laying – require an active voice and a direct object (a person, place or thing). For example, “she laid the bales of hay at his feet.”

However, the verb “lie” and its derivatives – lay, lain, lying – take an indirect object: “The bales of hay were lying at his feet.”

As a former copy editor, I know how easy it is to make mistakes when you’re pressed for time. We stand corrected.

Grammar Guide quiz: Just a note before I go

Pam_Nelson — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 13:12:54 -0400

This is my final post on the Triangle Grammar Guide. I was among the copy editors and designers at The News & Observer whose jobs were eliminated in Raleigh. I, like the rest, was given the choice of leaving the company or accepting a job in a new central publishing center at the Charlotte Observer. I chose to continue to practice my profession, and I will begin work at the publishing center on Aug. 22.

The publishing center will take over the design and copy editing for the Charlotte Observer, The News & Observer, the Rock Hill (S.C.) Herald and all the community papers produced by the Observer and The N&O. The center is ramping up and is expected to be fully operating by the middle of September.

For the time being, I will continue the Grammar Guide at my personal blog site. I hope to have exciting news there in a few weeks about a new permanent home for the Grammar Guide.

Today's quiz is posted at The Grammar Guide. Click here to begin the quiz.

I am still glad to hear from readers and hope that you will follow me to the Grammar Guide blog and leave comments there. You can also send email. I am on Twitter @grammarguide.

Calling all word nerds: Grammar Guide quiz is up

Pam_Nelson — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 10:02:26 -0400

A new Grammar Guide quiz is up. Here is the disclaimer for all you sticklers: No, it's not really about grammar; it's about usage and word choice. The sentences all come from real life this time -- from copy I have read or have edited. Of course, we copy editors don't catch everything -- as readers remind us often. We try, though, even in these trying times.

Click here or on the question mark icon to begin the 10-sentence quiz. Be sure to click through to read the explanations (which, by the way, are the same whether you answered correctly or incorrectly). Leave a comment here if you would like or send me a message.

I am on Twitter, too -- #grammarguide.

Word usage: How "impact" got a bad reputation

Pam_Nelson — Sat, 14 May 2011 10:28:25 -0400

I made this edit one night last week:

The company adopted new accounting standards after the acquisition that significantly ~~impacted~~ affected its results, so comparisons with year-ago results are skewed.

I admit that it was an almost automatic action on my part. I had about 18-20 pieces of copy to edit that night, and we copy editors have had it drilled into our heads that the verb impact should be used sparingly, if ever. Most of the time, we've been told, it can be changed to affect or influence. Impact, some editors say, is an example of a noun turned into a verb, and they hate it. I think I made the right edit in the sentence, but I decided to examine my teaching on this -- because the more I read and learn about usage, the more I realize that nothing is as black-and-white as most copy editors see it.

The first authority I cite on this is the widely influential and revered "The Careful Writer" by Theodore M. Bernstein, published in 1965. Bernstein writes, "A strong word, impact is in danger of losing some of its power at the hands of the kind of faddists who are always reaching for the flame thrower to light a cigarette." He says the word should imply a forceful collision. The use he cites is of the noun. He doesn't even seem to recognize it as a verb.

"The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage" says that the verb impact means "strike with force." Imagine the collision of two heavenly bodies. The Times stylebook says, "Do not use it to mean affect or have an effect; in that sense, it is technical jargon." I am certain that the Times' thinking on this word is the most direct influence on the strictures placed on impact as a verb in the olden days (the last quarter of the 20th century anyway) at The N&O. (By the way, that other big influence, "The Associated Press Stylebook," doesn't mention impact.)

R.W. Burchfield's 1996 edition of "Fowler's Modern English Usage" notes that impact as a verb meaning "to press closely into or in something" is actually an older usage than the noun. But he says that the widespread figurative use in the 1960s drew criticism as jargon and barbarism. He counsels writers to avoid that use. "It is very likely that it will pass into uncontested standard use as time goes on. At present it has something of the air of a guest who has turned up at a party uninvited." If I could, I would tell Mr. Burchfield that the word still is not an accepted member of word society in some journalistic circles.

Bryan A. Garner in "Garner's Modern American Usage" (Third edition, 2009) doesn't toss out the verb impact altogether, but he says that if affect will do the job, use it. He also suggests "have an impact on" as an alternative, but, among my colleagues, that would be considered wordiness.

But now I turn to the usage authority that many of my colleagues would consider too lax -- "Merriam-Webster's English Usage Dictionary" (copyright 2002, 2010). I downloaded this book to my Kindle last week, so now I can carry it around with me wherever I go. This is language geek cool!

M-W says the figurative use of the verb impact became widespread about 1980 and that is when the criticism started in earnest. The M-W editors say that the references since 1980 come less from literary sources and more from politicians, business writing and reportage. I can see how a word used by politicians and business people might carry a whiff of jargon, and if there is one thing that has been pounded into our heads, it is that jargon turns off readers -- even the readers who use jargon.

The M-W editors make a good point about substituting affect for impact: spelling. People don't always spell affect correctly, and computer spellcheckers will not catch effect for affect.

So where did this source checking leave me? I will continue to look at impact with suspicion, but not disdain. Unless a writer is reporting on a high-speed wreck, I expect to change the word.

For more on impact, here is a link to an entry at Everything You Know About English Is Wrong.

Practice your word usage skills: Grammar Guide quiz

Pam_Nelson — Sun, 08 May 2011 06:56:08 -0400

Here is a new Grammar Guide quiz. Almost all of the 10 sentences involve word usage challenges. I have one timely sentence at the end that is more of a copy editing or proofreading challenge.

Click here or on the question mark icon to begin.

Click here to find other Grammar Guide quizzes.

Let's learn about pronouns: Grammar Guide quiz No. 55

Pam_Nelson — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:34:47 -0500

The latest Grammar Guide quiz involves pronouns. Some explanations in this quiz include grammatical terms such as "nominative case" and "bare infinitive." Those are for the true geeks among us. I hope even those with only casual interest in grammar and usage will find something of interest in the quiz and the explanations.

Click here to begin the quiz. As always, I welcome comments and e-mail messages.

My plea for hits on the quiz I posted Sunday with posts on my own Facebook page and the Grammar Guide Twitter feed @grammarguide worked wonderfully well. I am grateful to all who tried the quiz and who spread the word.

Don't expect the lexicographers to referee

Pam_Nelson — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 10:54:46 -0500

Columnist Barry Saunders finds fault with the word ginormous and wishes editors would not allow such coinages into the pages of dictionaries. John McIntyre, who writes You Don't Say at baltimoresun.com, explains that lexicographers are not legislators. They describe what is going on with language; they do not put a stamp of approval on coinages merely by adding them to the dictionary.

Of course, I don't recommend using "ginormous" in a news story or in an academic paper. The New Oxford American Dictionary's entry for "ginormous" notes that it is "informal, humorous." That's guidance that writers can heed. And if you are on a job interview, it might be best to describe your capacity for hard work with a more formal word -- enormous or boundless, perhaps.

Tricky word choices: A Grammar Guide Quiz (No. 54)

Pam_Nelson — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 11:37:06 -0500

The latest Grammar Guide quiz involves commonly confused words -- as you might have guessed, one of my favorite copy editing challenges. Some of the sentences on the quiz lend themselves to varied interpretation, so if you happen to choose the "incorrect" answer, you could argue that you read the writer's meaning differently. This quiz has 10 sentences, rather than the standard five. I've been saving up examples. As an enticement, I promise a little humor in some explanations.

Click here to begin the quiz. As always, I welcome comments and e-mail messages. Tell your friends and spread the word. I could use some hits.

Word nerd reading: Untranslatable expressions

Pam_Nelson — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 08:54:37 -0500

I saw this feature in the March issue of Reader's Digest: Eight expressions that ought to exist in our native tongue but don't. The excerpt comes from a travel site called Matador Network.

My favorite is "jayus" from Indonesian: "a joke so poorly told and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh." Check out the list of "20 Awesomely Untranslatable Words from Around the World" by Jason Wire.

The disappearing regional dialect: Raleigh

Pam_Nelson — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 09:42:01 -0500

A story in The News & Observer's Sunday edition might be interesting to language buffs and fans of regional accents. Robin Dodsworth, an associate linguistics professor at N.C. State University, says that the Raleigh accent is gradually disappearing.

She's also looking for natives of Raleigh to participate in her study. If you grew up in Raleigh -- as far south as Garner or as far north as Wake Forest -- and want to contribute your voice to Dodsworth's data, e-mail her at robin_dodsworth@ncsu.edu.

Kayaker vs. canoeist: agent nouns and suffixes

Pam_Nelson — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 10:34:32 -0500

A reader asks this interesting question:

Two items in the news yesterday made me wonder, and I hope you have an answer to my question. The first Item referred to a man in a kayak as a "kayaker," the second item referred to a man in a canoe as a "canoeist." Both are paddling a watercraft, so why is one an "er" and the other an "ist"?

Both kayaker and canoeist are agent nouns, words formed from other words to identify a person taking an action. I thought the answer could lie in the etymology of the suffixes -er and -ist. The suffix -er comes from Anglo-French, and -ist comes from Greek. But kayak is an Inuit word, and canoe apparently came into English by way of French and Spanish from native languages in South America and the Caribbean. Etymology doesn't give a clear answer.

I checked usage authorities and could find no rule on when to use -er (sometimes -or) or -ist to create an agent noun.

Two things might appear to govern the choice: sound and writing. Canoeist sounds better and is more easily understood in writing than canoeer. Kayaker probably falls more easily off the tongue than kayakist. I think that also applies to other agent nouns. We go by sound and writing to determine which suffix to use.

We could imagine, too, that an -er noun carries an image of more vigorous action than an -ist noun. Kayakers do seem to be paddling furiously whenever I see them, and when I have tried kayaking myself, I found it quite stenuous. But I know canoeists have vigorous moments, too. I certainly admire those who pursue either activity.

So if you are uncertain about which suffix to choose when forming an agent noun, the best course is to find the word in the dictionary.

Here is a link to an examination of various job titles that use -er, -or or -ist.

Confused words: The RAVEN flies again

Pam_Nelson — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 19:36:06 -0500

I've run across two sentences recently that confused affect and effect in a similar way:

While the university doesn’t yet know what schools, programs and departments might be effected [by budget cuts], leaders there are moving quickly.
BSH plans to phase out sales of its 27-inch, front-load washers and dryers by the end of the year, and effected employees will stop working this spring.

Both of the underlined words should have been affected, as in "to have an effect on." The writers could have puzzled this out by turning the sentences around, perhaps. The budget cuts will affect schools, programs and departments. Closing down the production line will affect employees. That's how I would figure out the right spelling.

Some people like to use the mnemonic RAVEN: Remember Affect Verb Effect Noun. Of course, effect can be a verb also, meaning "to bring about." But most of the time, if the word you want is a verb (or a verb form used as a modifier, as in the second sentence), use affect.

Confused words: Two words of disinclination

Pam_Nelson — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 21:09:18 -0500

This sentence from a blog post illustrates a pair of commonly confused words. Read the sentence and see whether you can figure out what I am referring to. Then hit the Read More button.

Although Rep. Renee Ellmers campaigned last fall as an ardent opponent of the new health care law passed by Congress, she was not reticent about taking advantage the health plan offered to members of Congress.

Did you spot reticent as the word that is incorrectly used? Writers sometimes confuse reticent, which means "disinclined to speak," with reluctant, which means "disinclined to take an action." The writer should have written that Ellmers "was not reluctant about taking advantage ..."

This confusion is common enough that it has been drilled into the heads of many copy editors. Our antenna (which probably look like red pencils) twitch whenever we encounter the word reticent. We immediately start applying our training.

[UPDATE: As comments below point out, I used "antenna" as plural in the previous paragraph. The plural is spelled "antennae" or "antennas." I goofed.]

As I thought about the sentence on the blog post, it occurred to me that perhaps the writer wanted to say that Ellmers was not shy about taking advantage of the health plan. I can see that shy and reticent could come up together when a writer is scrolling through his mind's thesaurus, but reticent applies more aptly to someone who is reserved or taciturn. Shy, on the other hand, implies someone who might be timid or ill at ease with other people.

Quick grammar lesson: Prepositions and pronouns

Pam_Nelson — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 08:53:22 -0500

This sentence from a TV Squad question-and-answer with the author of a book about "American Idol" made me cringe and stopped me hard:

We all watched and saw that there just was not a great chemistry at all between he and Ryan Seacrest, but do you think it's also fair to say that no one was going to get in the way of the mogul-in-the-making that Seacrest has proven himself to be?

Now the writer could argue that this is just speech and we can forgive grammatical errors in speech, but I say that if it's published it needs to be edited. Of course, I guess you have to know what's wrong before you can fix it.

In case you didn't catch it, "between he and Ryan Seacrest" should be "between him and Ryan Seacrest," or, even better from my fourth-grade teacher's point of view, "between Ryan Seacrest and him." After a preposition (between) use the objective case of the pronoun (him, not he). I would also change "proven" to "proved."

A dog who knows grammar

Pam_Nelson — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 06:42:11 -0500

A wonderful headline ("Sit. Stay. Parse. Good girl!") attracted me to this New York Times story about a border collie who knows more than 1,000 nouns and appears to understand verbs. It mentions a Nova episode about dogs' intelligence.

Please, call me ma'am

Pam_Nelson — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 11:43:57 -0500

A friend's Facebook status update reminded me that I wanted to write about the honorific ma'am. Some women don't like to be called "ma'am." I do.

The term got some attention last fall when Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chastised Gen. Michael Walsh for addressing her as "ma'am," instead of "senator," in a Senate committee hearing.

Some women don't like to be called "ma'am" because they think it's sexist or ageist. A woman in this camp may not want to be reminded that she is older than the person who is addressing her. She thinks, in other words, that "ma'am" means old, not respect or courtesy. Or she might think that it is a subtle way of putting her down as a woman or alluding unnecessarily to her marital status. Some women believe that "ma'am" is too formal. Some women think "ma'am" puts them down in a way that "sir" or "mister" doesn't diminish a man. I thought Senator Boxer was within her rights, but I also thought she should have let the general's references slide. It is, after all, the military's way to drill members on using "sir" and "ma'am." Senator Boxer ended up looking rather ungracious.

Natalie Angier of the New York Times summed up the arguments against "ma'am" in a piece last fall. Here is a transcript of NPR's Talk of the Nation with Angier, which includes interesting reactions from callers.

I am on the other side of this divide. I love to be called "ma'am." It indicates that I have reached a certain station in life -- both by age and by personal and professional accomplishment. It's true that it means that I am not a young "miss" any more, but I don't wish to be and my gray hair would give me away every time. I deserve every "ma'am" that comes my way and some that have not. Like Senator Boxer, I worked long and hard to get here.

I have begun flinging around more "ma'am" too. The other day, I made a point of replying "no, ma'am, thank you," to an older female cashier who was giving me great service in a grocery store checkout line. She deserved my courtesy and respect, too, for doing a job well.

I would not, though, ever hold the lack of "ma'am" against anyone, whether restaurant server, grocery store bagger, taxi driver or child. It's fine by me if you don't call me "ma'am." But your tip might be better if you do.

Of course, this is a language blog, not an etiquette lesson. So now I must address the etymology of ma'am. It is a contraction of madam, which comes from "ma dame" or "my lady." Madam has become associated with a certain kind of businesswoman, but it is a form of address for a woman who is married or has reached a respectable station in life. In Britain, the queen is "ma'am." I think that's a great recommendation for the term.

I would very much like to hear what you think. Please consider posting a comment on this blog.

Grammar Guide quiz -- Verbs are the subject

Pam_Nelson — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 10:55:18 -0500

I found a quiz that I wrote a while ago but apparently hadn't posted. All five sentences deal with making the correct verb choice.

Click here or on the question mark icon to begin.

You can also take this holiday-theme quiz from 2008.

And click on this link to find links to more past quizzes. (I think they all work, but if you encounter any weirdness, send me a note. Thanks.)

This is an "awesome" post

Pam_Nelson — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 12:23:36 -0500

I have used the word awesome a few times lately to describe something that I found terrific or impressive. This surprised me because my husband and I have a running eyeroll over the word that we consider today's most overused and least understood. Many of our young friends and colleagues of the Millennial generation use the word the way we baby boomers are prone to using cool. It is the default word for something that is impressive or pleasing.

The word's first meaning is "inspiring awe," referring to that overwhelming feeling of wonder, fear, reverence or admiration. When believers refer to an "awesome God," it is more likely to refer to their supreme being's power and boundless love for humankind. When I said that my friend has "awesome gray hair," I was using it in the current sense. I think my friend's hair is beautiful and impressive.
I've had -some words on my mind a few times lately. A writer used the word irksome in a piece that I read a few weeks ago, and one of my recent earworms was Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." These incidents led me to wonder about the suffix and where it comes from.

The suffix means "characterized by a (specified) thing, quality, state or action," according to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Random House's College Dictionary refers to the suffix as "unproductive," a linguistics term that refers to a morpheme (word particle) that has no meaning unless is it bound to another. (This led me to a Wikipedia article about cranberry morphemes. Read it when you have time.)

That label "unproductive morpheme" tells us something about the words such as awesome, irksome, lonesome, burdensome and tiresome. They sound old-fashioned in their original meanings.

I've always wondered whether lonesome and lonely mean the same thing. It seems to me that lonesome is a cowboy out on the prairie with no one but his horse and his cattle to keep him company. He isn't necessarily in a bad frame of mind, but he would probably welcome a human voice. Lonely is an urban dweller who lives in an apartment (maybe drab but maybe ornate or tasteful) and has nothing but a cat and a TV set or the Internet for company. He probably is depressed and yearning for human contact.

The adjectives tiresome, irksome and burdensome carry heavy connotations. A tiresome person is one who willfully wears out his welcome. An irksome person is just trying to get on everyone's last raw nerve. A burdensome task is one that seems to carry no reward for all its trouble.

In Fowler's Modern English Usage (the later edition by R.W. Burchfield), the entry for -some notes the many words that have fallen out of the language. "The general picture is of a suffix lying ready at hand to be clapped on to a virtually limitless class of adjectives or nouns, but failing to produce words of long standing except in a small number of cases."

P.S. The suffix -some has another use, illustrated by the words threesome and foursome, meaning a group of so many members.

Grammar myths: Yes, you can start sentences with "but"

Pam_Nelson — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 19:29:49 -0500

Two colleagues came to me with a question: Is it incorrect to begin a sentence with and or but? I told them that beginning sentences with and or but is neither a grammatical violation nor a usage breach.

One colleague couldn't believe it; he had been taught all through school that a good writer never begins a sentence with and or but. I pointed out that a writer may choose for a stylistic reason to avoid such sentences, but that the "rule" is a myth.

Even Fowler's "Modern English Usage," published in 1926, considered this erroneous edict to be a "lingering superstition." Bryan A. Garner in "Garner's Modern American Usage" calls it "rank superstition."

The Chicago Manual of Style says this:

There is a widespread belief -- one with no historical or grammatical foundation -- that it is an error to begin a sentence with a conjunction such as and, but or so. In fact, a substantial percentage (often as many as 10 percent) of the sentences in first-rate writing begin with conjunctions. It has been so for centuries, and even the most conservative grammarians have followed this practice.

So if you are a teacher who still tells your students that it is incorrect to begin a sentence with and or but, please stop. You can tell them, instead, that they should avoid such use because there are still superstitious people who might bug them or grade them down. You can tell them to use such constructions sparingly.

But it is perfectly fine to start sentences with and or but. And I will stand up to anyone and say so.

Try Grammar Guide quiz no. 52 on word usage

Pam_Nelson — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 08:42:13 -0500

The latest Grammar Guide quiz has more parts than usual. I have 11 sentences that offer you a choice of the preferred word. Some are tricky homonyms; a couple of sentences involve words that differ in connotation.

Click here or on the question mark icon to begin. Note that the results of the quiz will come to me via e-mail, but I won't see any identifying information.