Tag: grammar

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James Harbeck

“Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain”

August 30, 2022 by James Harbeck | 2 Comments on “Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain”

What’s missing from this sample text? A set of subjects, n = 180, were surveyed using a predetermined questionnaire. Statistical analysis of the responses revealed a statistically significant pattern of association of low-frequency polysyllabic lexemes with greater intellectual value. It’s not short on words, nor on syllables per word, nor on grammatical complexity. It’s an […]

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James Harbeck

But what about plural “they”?

September 21, 2021 by James Harbeck | 1 Comment on But what about plural “they”?

Singular “they” is here to stay, and that’s a good thing. There is no decent reason to require that third-person singular pronouns — and only third-person singular pronouns — always specify gender. “He” has never truly covered men and women equally, though starting in the 1800s some people tried to insist that it did, and […]

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Suzanne Bowness

Teaching Editing

March 9, 2021 by Suzanne Bowness | Leave a Comment

Explaining your craft can help clarify editing for both newcomers and clients It’s one thing to have fantastic editorial skills, to know through years of reading, then training, then working, when a sentence sounds right or a piece flows nicely. But if you’re looking to take your communications to the next level, challenge yourself to […]

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Anna Williams

Grammar Affairs

February 9, 2021 by Anna Williams | 15 Comments on Grammar Affairs

A rocky beginning I’ve had a love-hate, on-again, off-again relationship with grammar over the years. When I was in school I truly despised it. Sentence diagramming and prepositions were the banes of my existence. I loved reading, spelling and creative writing, but grammar was a (supposedly) necessary evil. The problem was that I just didn’t […]

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Gael Spivak

Grammar Matters

August 25, 2020 by Gael Spivak | 8 Comments on Grammar Matters

Antecedents and gerunds. En dashes and ellipses. Gripping topics for editors, right? Well, it turns out they’re not gripping for all of us. As one of the admins for the Editors’ Association of Earth groups on Facebook, I read almost every post and comment (one group alone had 310 posts and 5,611 comments in a […]

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Rosemary Shipton

Mentors

October 8, 2019 by Rosemary Shipton | 8 Comments on Mentors

Throughout my career, I’ve been influenced by many mentors. When I was first hired right out of graduate school, Meredith, the experienced editor I was replacing, spent six weeks working alongside me introducing me to the principles, techniques and subtleties of editing both a scholarly journal and my first book manuscript. As we reorganized the […]

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Marianne Grier

Google as the Editor

January 22, 2019 by Marianne Grier | 6 Comments on Google as the Editor

If you’re a Gmail user, you may have adopted its new Smart Compose feature. This perplexing time-saver has made me question the future of communications since it appeared in my inbox. Smart Compose uses machine learning to help users write faster, clearer emails by anticipating what they’re trying to say and suggesting text they can […]

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Karen Virag

Revisiting Karen Virag: I Are Confused

January 8, 2019 by Karen Virag | 1 Comment on Revisiting Karen Virag: I Are Confused

In memory of Karen Virag, who passed away on Jan. 11, 2014, we are pleased to republish one of her popular blog posts from February 2013. I are confused, aren’t I? Have you ever wondered why we say, “He is, isn’t he?” and “She is, isn’t she?” but we don’t say “I am, amn’t I?” […]

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James Harbeck

Does Verbing Impact the Language?

February 20, 2018 by James Harbeck | 7 Comments on Does Verbing Impact the Language?

A favourite crank for language cranks to crank is the demon of verbing. It wrecks our language, they protest! They target such usages as impacted and referenced in business-speak and medalled in broadcasting. While liberal-minded linguists may see these words as just more of the odd flowers that bloom in the spring (and spring up […]

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Karen Virag

Revisiting Verbal Boobery

January 9, 2018 by Karen Virag | 8 Comments on Revisiting Verbal Boobery

In memory of Karen Virag, who passed away Jan. 11, 2014, we are pleased to republish one of her popular blog posts from November 2013. Verbal whatery? Not long ago in the Air Canada Lounge at Toronto Pearson Airport I noticed a small sign beside a tray of freshly baked cookies. It said: “For the […]

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Wilf Popoff

Wasted Words: Verbal Abuse

September 19, 2017 by Wilf Popoff | 2 Comments on Wasted Words: Verbal Abuse

There are many writers and, apparently, more than a few editors who think that to be and some of its conjugations are not actual verbs. I regularly encounter headings like this: Blabworth is Picked to be Next Publisher. This grammatical confusion is exposed in titles using the conventional upper and lowercase system that calls for […]

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James Harbeck

The Hardest Language

April 11, 2017 by James Harbeck | 2 Comments on The Hardest Language

What language is the hardest to learn? The hardest for whom to learn? The world has many languages of many different kinds, but one thing they all have in common is that kids grow up speaking them fluently and think of them as the natural way to say things. Some languages have many inflections — […]

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Frances Peck

Perilous Punctuation: The Email Salutation

May 31, 2016 by Frances Peck | 20 Comments on Perilous Punctuation: The Email Salutation

An old friend from Ottawa recently visited me in Vancouver. We hadn’t seen each other in years. “One thing I’ll never forget about you,” said Ann (who is not an editor), “is that you taught me the right way to begin an email. Every time I write ‘Hi comma So-and-So period,’ I think of you.” […]

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Ruth E. Thaler-Carter

Facts and Fiction: Grammar Vampires and True Crime

June 30, 2015 by Ruth E. Thaler-Carter | 3 Comments on Facts and Fiction: Grammar Vampires and True Crime

The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed By Karen Elizabeth Gordon. Pantheon Books, 1984, 1993.  Wild, wacky, inventive grammar guide continues to educate and amuse The opportunity to review the new edition (1993) of Karen Elizabeth Gordon’s The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar […]

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James Harbeck

Whom Do You Believe? | Linguistics, Frankly

January 20, 2015 by James Harbeck | 2 Comments on Whom Do You Believe? | Linguistics, Frankly

First of all: If you can avoid using whom, you should. Any but the most formal texts are better off without it; it’s a foreign word for most users, as evidenced by the general inability of even many language professionals to use it quite correctly all the time. Sometimes, however, you have to use it. […]

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Victoria Neufeldt

What’s an Editor to Do?

January 6, 2015 by Victoria Neufeldt | 2 Comments on What’s an Editor to Do?

The vagaries of language can cause even the most experienced editors headaches. Editors as a group are more attuned to the whims and ways of language than the average speaker, but many strange and challenging usages regularly fly under the radar and pass into public text, despite our best efforts. When should an editor accept […]

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James Harbeck

Seriously, What’s the Problem With Sentence Adverbs? | Linguistics, Frankly

September 9, 2014 by James Harbeck | Leave a Comment

The English language is a very complex and powerful thing, capable of many nuances and quite resistant to simplistic attempts at tidying it up. Sadly, not everyone realizes that. Worse still, many people take very narrow and inconsistent views, focusing on pet peeves while letting parallel instances of usage pass unnoticed. It’s as though a […]

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James Harbeck

There’s No Way to Truly Split an Infinitive | Linguistics, Frankly

June 17, 2014 by James Harbeck | Leave a Comment

You can’t split an infinitive. I don’t mean I don’t want you to. I don’t mean it’s not proper to. I mean it’s not possible to. This is for the same reason that I haven’t just broken one off three times, at the ends of the three preceding sentences. The English infinitive is one word. […]

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James Harbeck

I Only Wanted to Explain This | Linguistics, Frankly

April 15, 2014 by James Harbeck | 4 Comments on I Only Wanted to Explain This | Linguistics, Frankly

Adverbs are a problematic and much-maligned class of words. Linguists often have trouble explaining exactly why they go where they go. Some sorts of adverbs are baselessly despised (hopefully, people will eventually get over those hangups, but I’m not hopeful). Some people think adverbs should be excised from writing altogether. I’d like to cover all […]

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James Harbeck

Topics, We Front Them | Linguistics, Frankly

January 14, 2014 by James Harbeck | 4 Comments on Topics, We Front Them | Linguistics, Frankly

English is normally a subject-verb-object kind of language, but there are some interesting exceptions, especially in casual contexts. Consider examples such as the following: Poodles, we walk them. Labradors, they walk us. Chickens we have; roads, not so much. Not one of the clauses above follows standard English sentence order, and yet we understand them. […]

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Karen Virag

GETTABLE GRAMMAR: Verbal Boobery (VB)

November 19, 2013 by Karen Virag | 5 Comments on GETTABLE GRAMMAR: Verbal Boobery (VB)

Verbal whatery? Not long ago in the Air Canada Lounge at Toronto Pearson Airport I noticed a small sign beside a tray of freshly baked cookies. It said:             Now, I have to say, I don’t know why so many people complain about Air Canada. Knowing how many passengers are […]

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Karen Virag

GETTABLE GRAMMAR: I come to praise typos, not to bury them

August 15, 2013 by Karen Virag | Leave a Comment

Summer is often called the silly season—it is, after all, generally a time of cheap escapist paperbacks and brainless blockbuster movies (Sharknado, anyone?). So, in honour of that most thought-free, indolence-inspiring and cogitation-challenged of seasons, for this posting I will neither opine nor berate; instead, I will celebrate the little language mistakes that make us […]

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Wilf Popoff

WASTED WORDS: Stalking Verbosity

July 30, 2013 by Wilf Popoff | 4 Comments on WASTED WORDS: Stalking Verbosity

Verbosity is the technical term for Wasted Words and it reflects the ongoing motif of this blog series. Verbosity noun the fact or quality of using more words than needed; wordiness. (Oxford Online Dictionary) Not much here to make a writer proud. I admit to being verbosity-obsessed: while writing I’m terrorized by the possibility I’ll […]

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Karen Virag

GETTABLE GRAMMAR: Learning to like “like”

April 9, 2013 by Karen Virag | 2 Comments on GETTABLE GRAMMAR: Learning to like “like”

One often hears complaints about how some people litter their sentences with the word like—not as a noun, verb, preposition or conjunction, but as, like, an interjection. Like that. Now I know that Canadians like to blame Americans for all the world’s ills, but we can’t really lay this verbal tic at the feet of […]

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