When I don’t have quick inspiration for a new blog entry, I do what any decent writer needing a boost would do: I flip through my AP Stylebook for ideas.
Today, I came across a little snippet of information that had slipped right on by me.
Did you have any idea that the AP Stylebook folks frown on using the abbreviated ’til in place of until? I surely did not. They do write that the non-apostrophed till is a perfectly acceptable substitution. But not ’til (no sirree, Bob). You write ’til and you’ll look a fool in front of all your cohorts — a fool, I tell you.
I’ve been doing it all wrong for a very long time. Poo. Fool me once ….
Ice cold and not so sweet — that’s how I like my tea. Apparently, that’s how the AP Stylebook folks like referring to the political tea party, as well.
OK, fine — I’ll try to keep my political views out of this.
The 2011 AP Stylebook succinctly explains the tea party as a “populist movement opposing [the] Washington political establishment.” That’s a short and not-so-sweet account of what the tea party is for those who may not have yet heard of the movement. All two of them.
Please note the lowercase “T” and “P” in the name. That’s really the reason for this post. I’ve seen Tea Party just about everywhere. The AP Stylebook — the ultimate writer’s guide (or should that be “the ultimate guide for writers? See? This writing gig is no cakewalk, folks) — lowercases the phrase, and so I intend to do the same. I wish the same for you.
Now this is a tea party! (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/preppybyday/5076312167/)
Iced tea, by the way, is a fantastic drink to sip all day long if you’re looking for some flavor without calories or weird sweeteners. Regular tea has caffeine, so try non-caffeinated teas if you’re worried about being too wired. Either way, drinking tea keeps you hydrated, which (in my opinion) is a quick cure for a lot of what ails us.
Look at that — not a thing to do with grammar. Oy!
Gibe, my friends, means to taunt. To sneer. To give someone grief (The Jayhawk fans gibed the fill-in-the-blank fans about their team’s multiple air balls). And you, my friends, don’t tend to gibe others, correct? Unless it’s in fun, yes? Or unless KU has just torn your buddy’s team up on the basketball court, right? Which doesn’t always happen, true? True. But it does happen quite frequently, and you — my honest, friendly, kind-hearted friends — don’t gibe others when their team gets it handed to them by the Jayhawks. Right? Hello? Anyone? Anyone?
To gibe or not to gibe — Jayhawkers waving the crimson and blue wheat (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ishane/2036834651/sizes/m/in/photostream/)
Jibe means to change direction (the AP Stylebook’s example: They jibed their ship across the wind) or, as the locals would say, to agree about a certain something (Their account of what happened at the Stop-n-Go before the big game didn’t jibe).
That’s it. Easy enough, right? One letter, big shift in meaning.
We sent 2010 on its merry way into the annals of tricky years last night, and we woke up to a brand-spanking-new year: 2011. Well, hello there, friend! Do unto me as you’d like me to do unto you, yes?
(I’m sorry about that last bit. I really don’t like writing to a day or year or whatever as if it’s going to respond, but I’m working on very little sleep at the moment, so my judgment may not be up to snuff.)
So — I am thinking this morning that I haven’t written a Bloody Well Write entry for a few weeks due to familial adventures and holiday revelry, and I am wondering what the heck I should write about since my brain is still slightly fuzzy from last night’s don’t-let-the-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out 2010 sendoff. (A full round of Liverpool Rummy ended sometime around 3 a.m. Oof.)
How about the whole uppercase vs. lowercase issue concerning the new year? OK, let’s do it.
Happy 2011!
The AP Stylebook folks have it plainly written out in their fabulous printed guide and website; they’ve even presented the answer via Twitter (I highly recommend following @APStylebook). So here it is:
It’s New Year’s, New Year’s Day and New Year’s Eve. But lowercase references to the year: See you in the new year.
Those guidelines make complete sense to me.
New Year’s, New Year’s Day and New Year’s Eve should be initial-capped (i.e., the first letter of each word is uppercase) because they are concerning a specific day or night that is recognized as a holiday the world over. And if we get a day or so off of work because of them, by golly, I think that they should get some extra respect.
The new year is a generic statement and doesn’t refer directly to any particular event or well-celebrated holiday, so it deserves its lowercase status: What I’m looking for in the new year is just around the bend — I don’t want to miss the opportunity.
Hey, that wasn’t so difficult, was it? Nope. So all that’s left to finish this post is this: Thanks a heap for reading my fun little grammar blog, and happy, healthy, humorous days to you in the year ahead.
What’s in a name? Depending on whom you’re talking to, everything or not so much.
When we were trying to pick out baby names, you’d think we were naming the Taj Mahal or Grand Canyon — something that would be around for eons and would have movies made about it. The meaning of the name, the number of syllables, the words it could possibly rhyme with, the ways it could be abbreviated — every little nuance was considered.
Many companies do the same thing when forming their names. And many add the tag Inc. to the name for legal reasons. But, concerning commas, how should those names be referenced in writing if it’s not for legal purposes?
My assumption would be to do as the company does. If ABC, Inc. wants a comma there legally, why not put it there all the time?
Crazy little assumption, but according to the AP Stylebook, that’s an assumption that can drive an editor nuts. The AP Stylebook folks have this to say:
Abbreviate and capitalize as Inc. when used as a part of a corporate name. It usually is not needed, but when it is used, do not set off with commas: “Time Warner Inc. announced ….”
And you know me. I’m not one to ruffle the feathers of the AP Stylebook gods — at least not on a regular basis.
In legal writing, I would absolutely follow the style of the legal company name. But in journalistic, advertising, marketing or PR writing, I’d eliminate the comma. It’s a space-taker-upper, and it separates the Inc. from the main body of the name, which in my mind goes against the purpose of having it there at all. If you’re going to separate the Inc. with a comma, that implies it’s not a mandatory phrase. And if it’s not mandatory, I can think of a graphic designer or two who would think that it’s fluff and that the space could be better used, so take that sucker out.
Indeed, that is apparently the question that never gets answered.
As an editor, time and again I delete extra spaces after periods, much to the chagrin of the writer.
“Two!” they moan. “I was taught that two spaces follow a period.”
I feel for them. I really do. I was taught that same rule in school. The education system follows the Modern Language Association (MLA) guidelines, which stipulate two spaces after every period. Frankly, I’m not sure why two spaces are required. My guess is that those who made the rules back in the day thought that it helped the readability of the piece.
Once I graduated, though, the real world insisted that two spaces after any ending punctuation (period, question mark, exclamation point) was too much real estate. Space is, after all, at a premium across such mediums as newspapers and magazines, so that second space was a luxury that bit the proverbial dust.
And it was a hard habit to break — at least for me. But break it I did. So, while I understand the frustration of those who haven’t yet been influenced by the almighty AP Stylebook — the grammar bible of journalists, advertising agencies and professional writers — I also know that they can kick the second space to the curb as well as I did.
So when my writer friends hand me an article or ad or whatnot and ask me to edit it, I write “universal change” at the top of the page with “only one space after each ending punctuation mark.”
Aren’t ex-two-spaces-after-periods people the worst?
OK, I say to-MAY-to, too. But that’s the apparent difference between pronouncing the long form of P.J.’s (or jammies, if you ask my husband). The subject came up about the correct pronunciation of pajamas, so I followed my M.O.: I looked it up online. Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary has two (count ‘em, two) sound buttons that play the preferred and secondary pronunciations of the word. But when I looked it up, the sound wouldn’t work.
That was last night.
So I checked out a few other sites that also have sound buttons. Webster’s New World College Dictionary, which the AP Stylebook prefers, has one button. And to my horror and my husband’s delight, it pronounced it pa-JAA-mas (the middle syllable sounds like the a in jam).
Ugh. My loving but woohoo-I’m-right husband thought the case was closed.
Today during a break at work, I polled co-workers about their pronunciation preference. Most agreed with my husband; one agreed with me. So I vowed to check out Merriam-Webster’s one more time, and it worked — on several levels.
The first, most prominent sound button confirmed my suspicion: pa-JAH-ma (singular construction, mind you — the middle syllable sounds like the a in saw). The second, less-preferred sound button put forth pa-JAA-ma (again, sounds like jam).
One other tidbit I learned while researching the pajama dilemma: It can be a regional thing. My way (and the correct way, according to Merriam-Webster’s) is the Southeastern United States way to pronounce it. On the flip side, my husband’s pajama preference is popular in the Northeast U.S. and Great Lakes area, as well as the West Coast.
And that’s news to me, for sure. I wouldn’t have guessed that my preference is a Southern thing. Heck, lots of folks have mistaken me for an East Coaster, and I lived in sunny Cali for a spell. But after thinking about it, pa-JAA-mas does have a Southern ring to it. Interesting stuff.
That’s a line from the 1970s’ classic Schoolhouse Rock series of educational short films that helped shape a generation.
The thing is, though, when you go to YouTube to watch this particular film, the headline reads, School house Rock — Elbow Room. The word suggesting a certain amount of personal space — elbowroom — is written as two words (and School house should really be Schoolhouse — aargh!).
That’s no good.
I jest — sort of. When Schoolhouse Rock was in its prime, elbowroom may very well have been spelled with two words, as it’s been around since the 1500s. And most students of the English language know that words with compound qualities often started out as two words, then perhaps migrated to a hyphenated word (or not) before becoming a single word. These same students also know that this is a language of movement. And they also know that any change that occurs in this fabulous language also happens at a snail’s pace.
So elbowroom is now in several respected dictionaries (Webster’s New World College among them). But what about other -room words?
A plethora (OK, “Three Amigos” was just on the tube, so sue me) of -room concepts have made the migration to single word-dom. Examples include:
Barroom
Bathroom
Boardroom (think Donald Trump)
Classroom
Courtroom
Darkroom
Greenroom
Headroom
Homeroom
Legroom
Lunchroom
Mudroom
Newsroom
Playroom
Restroom
Stateroom
Stockroom
Sunroom
Taproom
Toolroom
Washroom
Workroom
And that’s just a partial list. But what about break room? How long does it have to be the red-haired stepchild of the -room family? Its function is similar to the lunchroom; it has just two syllables, making it a prime candidate for one-word status; and it wouldn’t confuse many people by making it one word. What gives? Come on, Merriam-Webster. Get with it, Webster’s New World College. Get on board, AP Stylebook. Breakroom is the way to go.
But don’t quote me on that until it becomes official, folks, for as much as I like improving the language for the sake of good sense, I also tend to follow rules. So until that little miracle happens, continue to use break room.
Other groups of words fit into this two-words-left-behind scenario, such as chat room (a relatively young word), clean room (a room that is kept exceptionally clean and free of dust, debris, etc., in order to manufacture or assemble objects) and great room (another relatively new term referring to space in the house where people tend to hang out because it serves several functions). But those, my friends, are for another day.
A friend of mine has a dog — and an extraordinarily adorable one at that — named Google. This same friend is also the technology teacher at a local middle school. The dog’s name, then, makes even more sense, yes?
So when this friend asked me the proper way to spell the word that implies the action of looking something up on the popular search engine named Google (and then suggested that it could make a decent blog topic — smart friend), I just had to help.
Google, the ridiculously cute pup (photo: courtesy of Google’s owner-mom)
So how do you spell it? Depending on your phrasing, there are a few ways to get your point across:
Here’s a short and hopefully painless post for your quick-reading pleasure.
What is a whipsaw?
A whipsaw is a two-handled saw that dates back to the 1400s. It can be smallish or it can be big enough to cut down large tree. The idea is this: A cutting job that takes enough effort for two people could be made easier if two people actually do the cutting. Most whipsaws average 6 feet in length.
A whipsaw humorously reminds me of the pushmipullyu (a two-headed animal that is part gazelle, part unicorn) from the “Dr. Doolittle” story — when one head moves, the other head instinctively moves in the opposite direction. It’s all about teamwork, my friends.
A whipsaw (photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Two_man_saw.JPG)
Now this is a tea party! (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/preppybyday/5076312167/)
Google, the ridiculously cute pup (photo: courtesy of Google’s owner-mom)
