Grammar is like K-Y Jelly — when used correctly, everyone benefits. But copywriters and art directors find equal pleasure wreaking grammatical havoc, the results of which Strunk and White deemed “the mutilation of language” back in 1918. They’d likely cringe at Honda Civic’s tagline “To Each Their Own.” (Do you know why?) And sometimes there are good reasons to disregard the evolving commandments of English language construction, like how pronouns must agree with their antecedents, especially when following the “rules” will turn off your reader. But even in 2012, some things should be right every time. Who the hell are Strunk and White? And what are these things we should get right? Come find out. We’ll talk about where these “rules” came from, the assumptions made about those who appear not to follow them and a few grammar basics. Punctuation isn’t so boring if you think about quotation marks as little hugs, ravishing commas and periods. It’s almost hot, in a syntactic kind of way.
4. William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
“Today, the language of
advertising enjoys an
enormous circulation.
With its deliberate
infractions of grammatical
rules and its crossbreeding of the parts of speech, it
profoundly influences the tongues and pens of
children and adults…. You will want to try writing
that way, using that language. You should do so at
your peril, for it is the language of mutilation.”
6. 1,000 years ago
Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
- Beowulf
7. 700 years ago
Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
- Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”
8. 400 years ago
I remember Adam, it was vpon this fashion
bequeathed me by will, but poore a thousand
Crownes, and as thou saist, charged my bro-
ther on his blessing to breed mee well: and
there begins my sadnesse…
- Shakespeare’s “As You Like It”
9. 100 years ago and so on
“P” banned the split infinitive in 1834.
Ben Franklin wanted all nouns capitalized.
Thomas Jefferson went ape shit with
apostrophes (see Declaration of Independence).
Noah Webster determined standard spellings.
Henry Watson Fowler publishes “A Dictionary of
Modern English Usage” in 1926.
Strunk & White warn of mutilation.
22. Serial Comma:
Per the AP Stylebook
Use it when items in a series have internal
conjunctions
– Judy ordered cheese fries with bacon, green eggs
and ham, and beer to go.
• Use it when the elements are complex
– The main points to consider are whether they
serve cheese fries with bacon and spicy sauce, if
we can take the beer to go, and what time we
need to be back to the office for yet another
meeting.
23. Serial Comma:
Per the AP Stylebook
Use it when items in a series have internal
conjunctions
– Judy ordered cheese fries with bacon, green eggs
and ham, and beer to go.
• Use it when the elements are complex
– The main points to consider are whether they
serve cheese fries with bacon and spicy sauce, if
we can take the beer to go, and what time we
need to be back to the office for yet another
meeting.
24. Serial Comma:
Per the AP Stylebook
Use it when items in a series have internal
conjunctions
– Judy ordered cheese fries with bacon, green eggs
and ham, and beer to go.
Use it when the elements are complex
– The main points to consider are whether they
serve cheese fries with bacon and spicy sauce, if
we can take the beer to go, and what time we
need to be back to the office for yet another
meeting.
25. Serial Comma:
Per the AP Stylebook
Use it when items in a series have internal
conjunctions
– Judy ordered cheese fries with bacon, green eggs
and ham, and beer to go.
Use it when the elements are complex
– The main points to consider are whether they
serve cheese fries with bacon and spicy sauce, if
we can take the beer to go, and what time we
need to be back to the office for yet another
meeting.
29. Show omission and ownership
Indicate what’s missing
– Judy O'Malley
– Rock ‘n’ roll
– Don’t, can’t, it’s, you’re, they’re
– Summer of ‘69
Indicate possession
– Judy’s clients
– Judy’s clients’ demands
– Judy and Jonah’s house
– Judy’s and Jonah’s houses
Avoid confusion when making single letters plural
– Cross your T’s, dot your I’s and earn all A’s
Per the AP
Stylebook
30. NOT needed to make nouns plural
The Joneses, who have lived in both Kansas
Citys, wore leg warmers in the 1980s.
This:
33. Introduce a list
Judy’s backpack held our beach necessities:
towels, sunscreen, small farm animals and
Corona Light.
34. Introduce a list
Judy’s backpack held our beach necessities.
towels, sunscreen, small farm animals and
AVOID:
Corona Light.
Judy’s backpack held our beach necessities, including: towels,
sunscreen, small farm animals and Corona Light.
BECAUSE:
Judy’s backpack held our beach necessities, including.
35. Introduce text
Judy promised me this: Our love will not die
unless we are both dead, and then maybe the
memory of our love will spur others to love
nondead people, but the original love, which
was ours, will have died.
36. Introduce text
Judy promised me this. Our love will not die
unless
AVOID: we are both dead, and then maybe the
memory of our love will spur others to love
Judy promised me that: Our love will not die unless we are both dead,
nondead people, but the love will spur otherswhich
and then maybe the memory of our original love, to love
nondead people, but the original love, which was ours, will have died.
was ours, will have died.
BECAUSE:
Judy promised me that.
37. Introduce text
Judy promised me this. Our love will not die
unless
AVOID: we are both dead, and then maybe the
memory of our love will spur others to love
Judy promised me that: Our love will not die unless we are both dead,
nondead people, but the love will spur otherswhich
and then maybe the memory of our original love, to love
nondead people, but the original love, which was ours, will have died.
was ours, will have died.
BECAUSE:
Judy promised me that our love will not die unless we are both dead,
and then maybe the memory of our love will spur others to love
nondead people, but the original love, which was ours, will have died.
38. Introduce a long quote
Just as she was leaving, Judy turned and recited
a limerick:
A flea and a fly in a flue
Were caught, so what could they do?
Said the fly, "Let us flee.”
"Let us fly," said the flea.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.
39. Explain and emphasize
Judy refuses to eat ice cream: She is allergic to
dairy and ice.
Judy refuses to eat one thing: ice cream.
42. Yeah
• It’s not quite a full • It’s more than a
stop. pause.
43. Join related sentences
Replace a junction . . .
– And
– But
– Or
. . . with a semicolon
(Keep the conjunction if one or both clauses use
an excessive amount of punctuation.)
45. Without a conjunction
Before:
The baby was due on Saturday, but she was
born on Sunday instead.
After:
The baby was due on Saturday; she was born on
Sunday instead.
46. With a conjunction
The baby girl, Jennifer, was due on Saturday,
July 2, 2011, which is exactly one year after her
brother, John, was born; but she arrived (thanks
to a C-section) on Sunday, July 3, instead, which
upset her sibling, as he was reluctant to share
the affections of his mother with such a squirmy
little being.
47. With a conjunction
The baby girl, Jennifer, was due on Saturday,
July 2, 2011, which is exactly one year after her
brother, John, was born; but she arrived (thanks
to a C-section) on Sunday, July 3, instead, which
upset her sibling, as he was reluctant to share
the affections of his mother with such a squirmy
little being.
48. Separate serial items with
internal punctuation
The specials tonight are beer cheese soup, which is
made with aged cheddar, ale, cheese, beer and
cream; spinach, feta and spicy walnut salad; and an
obscenely large cut of red meat with your choice of
mashed, fried or baked potatoes.
– The entire family celebrates July birthdays: The
youngest, Jennifer, was born in July 3, 2011, via C-
section; her brother, John, was born the year before
on July 2; and her parents, Judy and Jonah, were both
born on July 28, 1980.
49. Separate serial items with
internal punctuation
The specials tonight are beer cheese soup, which is
made with aged cheddar, ale, cheese, beer and
cream; spinach, feta and spicy walnut salad; and an
obscenely large cut of red meat with your choice of
mashed, fried or baked potatoes.
– The entire family celebrates July birthdays: The
youngest, Jennifer, was born in July 3, 2011, via C-
section; her brother, John, was born the year before
on July 2; and her parents, Judy and Jonah, were both
born on July 28, 1980.
53. More online sources
• Bartleby.com • Guide to Grammar and
– Strunk & White, Fowlers Writing
• Purdue Online Writing – Index, quizzes
Lab (OWL) • Chicago Manual of Style
• U of IL Center for – Subscription required
Writing Studies • Grammarphobia
• Oxford Dictionary – The living dead
• Paul Brian’s Non-errors
My tweets: @gmariethatsme
My blog: towriteawrong.tumblr.com
I hail from Durham, North Carolina where I work at McKinney. Durham is often compared to what Austin “used to be”Keep Austin WeirdKeep Durham DirtySpeaking of dirty, the Panel Picker proposal and session description compared grammar to K-Y Jelly: “When used correctly, everyone benefits.” But you don’t always need it. So KNOW YOUR READER. Ads are usually written with a certain audience in mind. When advertising yourself online, you can’t really “know” your reader. Bottom line: Your message will more likely suffer without grammar than with it. When in doubt, use grammatical lubrication.The phrase “language of mutilation” indicates that something was one way and now, through mutilation, it is another way. That “one way” is assumed to be correct/right/good. Its “mutilation” makes something incorrect/wrong/bad.Why can’t the “other way” be simply different? Another version of language? Why must it be negative? Where is this judgment coming from?
William Strunk Jr.- Professor of English at Cornell for 46 years- Wrote “Elements of Style” in 1918- Required it in all of his classesE.B. WhiteStudied at CornellStrunk’s studentWriter of “Charlotte’s Web” and “Stuart LittleUpdated and edited “Elements of Style” in 1959Won an honorary Pulitzer Prize in 1978 for his work as a wholeStrunk/White facts“Elements” has been in continual print since 1959Sold more than 10 million copiesIllustrated edition published AND book set to music in 2005 (http://web.archive.org/web/20060827225315/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9844117/site/newsweek/)In 2011, Time magazine listed the writing style-guide as one of the 100 best and most influential books written in English since 1923
First four lines of Beowulf prologue, first work known to be written in English Example of “Old English”Translation:Lo, praise of the prowess of people-kingsof spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,we have heard, and what honor the athelings won!Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,Translated first lines of Beowulf
Chaucer would not have been able to read Beowulf – took just 300 years for the language to change that drasticallyTranslation:When in April the sweet showers fall That pierce March's drought to the root And bathed every vein in liquor that has power To generate therein and sire the flower;500 years ago:1490 -- First printer in English—William CaxtonFirst English language standards—London’s Chancery begins developing a standard English to use when producing government documents.
Unedited ShakespeareThere are only six surviving signatures from Shakespeare, and they are all spelled differently.350 years ago — 1672 — John Dryden said in an essay (“Defense of the Epilogue”) that ending a sentence with preposition is “wrong” (he Dryden wrote in Latin, where preposition-final constructions are not possible, and translated into English. 1712: Jonathan Swift bemoans the loss of the pronounced “ed” at the end of past-tense verbs (rebuk-ed, disturb-ed)First English dictionary published around this time based on what author thought was “correct” instead of how people were already writing/speaking.Banned the double negative though other languages use it readily and without concern1762: Robert Lowth publishes the first official grammar book
Known as “Fowlers” it calls the English grammar myths already in circulation “ungrammatical pieces of nonsense.” - Still in print - Fowler died in 1933
Lynne Truss publishes “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” in 2003Truss factsSold more than 3 million copiesIllustrated and children’s editions already publishedNo. 1 on NY Times nonfiction list for one weekImage: http://dailyoasis.wordpress.com/2011/03/18/eats-shoots-and-leaves/
http://kellysworld.net/2011/10/apple-think-different-ad-hd/"Think Different" has been criticized as a slogan for being grammatically incorrect. "Think" is a verb and should take the adverb, "differently", not the adjective, "different". On the other hand, in certain colloquial expressions such as "think big", this rule can be violated for effect. Furthermore, the Merriam-Webster Online dictionary cites use of "different" as an adverb dating back to 1744.[6] Also, with "different" as a noun, the phrase "Think Different" refers to what to think as opposed to how to think. This is similar to the difference between "Do Good" and "Do Well," where "Do Good" refers to performing good deeds such as being kind to others, and "Do Well" means to perform an action successfully, such as earning a high score on an exam.
http://creativity-online.com/work/honda-civic-ninja-poster/22998Webster says”each” is pronoun meaning “each one”“each” takes a singular verb (Each person has a car.)“each” as an antecedent should take a singular pronoun (his or her)“To each his own” is a phrase meaning that onehas a rightto one's personal preferences. BUT, language morphs…
Grammar = how words are put together in sentences; focus is on the parts of speech (nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections)Punctuation promotes ease of reading by clarifying relationships within and between sentences.I am most often asked about punctuation, so that’s what we’re going to review in the remaining minutes.
Use a comma after the last item before the conjunction (and, but, or) in a simple series
Image credit: http://www.sideofsneakers.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/image8.pngA fictitious and apocryphal bookdedication blogged by Language Hat in 2003: To my parents, Ayn Rand and God. To my parents, Ayn Rand, and God.
January 11, 2012 in The Telegraph article: Waterstones, the bookshop, has dropped the apostrophe in its trading name and logo, sparking outrage among some of its customers. More practical for URLs, email, tweets, etc.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/9007692/Waterstones-drops-its-apostrophe.html#disqus_threadhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/12/waterstones-apostrophe-no-catastrophe
Personal possessive pronouns ending in S often come AFTER the noun being possessed: the car is his, the house is hersQuasi possession: a day’s pay, two weeks’ vacation
Starting a sentence with a conjunction: it’s OK.Per Chicago, when a colon introduces two or more sentences, when it introduces a speech in dialogue or an extract, or when it introduces a direct question, the first word following it is capitalized.
Between complete thoughts normally joined by a conjunction. Keep the conjunction if lots of punctuation is needed in one or both of the separate clauses.Before “transitional expressions” in the middle of sentences -- however, therefore, nevertheless, in any case, rather, for instance, moreover, etc. Help the reader relating the preceding thought to the one being introduced.