Unlike The Truth About Grammar’s mock rage (or raging mockery), Roy Peter Clark’s The Glamour of Grammar takes a witty, sometimes humorous, approach to teaching us what we have forgotten or never learned about “practical English.” Clark crams fifty essays into approximately 260 pages in an attempt to cover the gamut of grammar including words, punctuation, meaning, and standards. I would have liked less discussion about etymology (on which Mr. Clark could dedicate an entire book or three) and more about rules of composition, but I understand that part of grammar’s magic depends on knowledge of words’ evolutions.

Some essays are quite short (fewer than two complete pages) as if Mr. Clark ran out of time, energy, or space to further develop the cogitation. Most essays are illustrated with an example from his own or another’s writing. A few bulleted points (what the author calls keepsakes) hang at the end of each essay but seem like something a C-average business student would add to the end of a PowerPoint presentation in order to cram in as much information as possible whilst mumbling to himself, “Good enough.” Edward Tufte be damned.

I agree with most of his advice. A user of bad grammar is an ineffective community member–but! if the rules can be broken in a creative or whimsical fashion without muddling the message . . . . A community depends on effective communication; effective communication depends on common language; and understanding that language requires all participants play by the same rules.

I disagree with other recommendations: Page 182 keepsake: “Do not be afraid to . . . end a sentence with a preposition.” No, no, no! Nicht gut! “Where are you going to?” And I ask, “To what? To dance, to live, to pitch the tent?” Do not keep this for the sake of my sanity!

On one subject dear to me he disappoints. Essay 16, “Let your ear help govern the possessive apostrophe,” restates the simple applicable rules but doesn’t mention the growing tendency of adding an apostrophe when pluralising nouns that end in vowels (e.g., example’s). I need all the help I can get to admonish offenders, Mr. Clark.

I appreciate Mr. Clark’s take on social networking sites and tools and their impact on grammar. He optimistically views Twitter as having its own grammar and filled with potential for new forms of creativity and expression. Not everyone, he cautions, will get it or accept it. I believe new technology has always presented a challenge to the proper grammar of the time (think telegrams and instant messaging) but our language seems able to absorb and flourish with the new grammar in part by imposing the old rules on the new techniques and allowing some new conventions to take hold (such as the use of foreign words in formal and informal writing).

Here are a few essay titles from each chapter to give you an idea of what tools are in this box: “Take a class on how to cross-dress the parts of speech,” “Enjoy, rather than fear, words that sound alike,” “Let your ear help govern the possessive apostrophe,” “Reclaim the exclamation point,” “Learn to lie or lay, as well as the principles behind the distinction,” “Show what is literal and what is figurative,” “Switch tenses, but only for strategic reasons,” “Learn the five forms of well-crafted sentences,” “Unleash your associative imagination,” and “Harness the power of particularity.”

The Glamour of Grammar has fierce competition: in the last thirty days, six English grammar and writing books have been released, according to Amazon.com. This book will have a place on my reference shelf, and I’ll use it for informal writing but not in my work as a technical writer/editor. I have not yet found any spelling errors, though I did see some questionable punctuation that I must investigate in more detail (i.e., it could be a style issue). I thank Mr. Clark for teaching me the origin of “boycott” (page 43), and I think I’ve finally learned the distinctions between lie and lay (Essay 23).

[The publisher provided me a free copy of The Glamour of Grammar for review.]

wrote the below in the item description. Soldiers, fight!

I swear to Jeebus, I am sick and tired of people indiscriminately apostrophizing words! If I see another bee’s, go’s, alway’s, our’s (I’m talking to you, MG Siegler at TechCrunch) or stop’s, I’m going to scream!!!

Tip: Unless you mean to write the possessive form of a noun, just err on the side of caution and leave out the damned apostrophe. If you write like the examples above, you’re probably incapable of comprehending the rules that govern apostrophe usage.

Please refer to Number 17 on the “Everything You Need to Know about Grammar” page.

Is it any wonder that spelling and grammar is getting worse? With teaching like this, I forecast much work for proofreaders and editors.

Martin Gearhead (a.k.a. Asian Martin) snapped this beauty at his local Home Depot. I don’t know what which is more sad:

1. The fact that there are no employees’ pictures posted;
2. The fact that WordArt is still used;
3. The fact that yellow instead of Home Depot Orange™ was used; or
4. The fact that whoever made this doesn’t know that you don’t spell “employees” with a f*%#ing apostrophe.

Thanks, Martin!

Write well (not good), write often (not alot), be careful (not carfull), and check your work twice. Just to be safe, have someone else read it. Bad grammar can cost you!

Deanne Schulz tipped me to a story from 2006 (before this blog’s birth). It’s just as timely today. Globe and Mail reported a story about a grammatical error that cost Rogers Communications (Canada’s AT&T) more than $2 million CAD.

Rogers had signed a contract with a company known as Aliant, Inc. to string communications lines across thousands of poles in the Maritimes. Rogers would pay Aliant about (aboot in Canadian) $9.60 CAD for each pole. Rogers was happy.

Then the nightmare began. Rogers was informed that the contract was being canceled and the new rate was going up, up, up. Rogers was dumbfounded. “How could this be,” they wondered, “the contract is valid for another two years.”

If not for a second comma in a single sentence, the validity of a contract and millions of dollars wouldn’t be in question. Here is the sentence from page seven of the contract: The agreement “shall continue in force for a period of five years from the date it is made, and thereafter for successive five year terms, unless and until terminated by one year prior notice in writing by either party.” [Emphasis mine]

That second comma turned “and thereafter for successive five year terms” into a parenthetical expression which meant the sentence could be interpreted as if that expression were deleted thus applying the option to terminate to the first five-year period.

Canada’s Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) decided the argument. It wasn’t pretty for Rogers: “Based on the rules of punctuation,” the comma in question “allows for the termination of the [contract] at any time, without cause, upon one-year’s written notice,” CRTC said.

Aliant’s new contract tripled the amount Rogers had to pay to lease the space on the poles from $9 to $28.05 per pole.

That’s one helluvan expensive comma!

“Comma quirk irks Rogers“

P.S. It’s Deanne’s birthday today. Happy Birthday, Publicity Chick! How lucky is she to have been born on National Grammar Day?

My bet? The marketing division wonk who made this doesn’t have an English degree. The dealer bet’s first . . . what? First kiss?

It’s not . . .

• Chomping at the bit
• One in the same
• (a) kudo

The following list is courtesy of and copyright © of: Daniel J. Stern
(with modification and addition by Jeff Puthuff)

1. Abbreviations are usually formed by putting together the first letters of the words in the phrase to be abbreviated. Thus, the abbreviation for do it yourself is DIY, not DYI. If you are talking about your car’s positive crankcase vent system, then we can discuss PCV, but otherwise you are probably referring to polyvinyl chloride, which is abbreviated PVC.
2. Au jus is a French phrase that means “with or in (usually its own) juice”. It is an adjective phrase, not a noun. You can serve roast beef au jus, but not “roast beef with au jus”, and there’s nothing such as “au jus sauce”.
3. Loose means not tight, and it has a hissing ssssss sound like a snake in it. Lose means not win or not retain, and it has a buzzing zzzzzzzz sound like a bee.
   
4. Your refers to something that belongs to you. You’re means “you are”. The same goes for there (not here) and their (belonging to them) versus they’re (they are), and were (used to be) versus we’re (we are).
5. Gifts are free. That’s what makes them gifts. If they weren’t free, they’d be purchases. Stop saying I’ll get a “free gift” if I sign up for your crappy mobile phone service or whatever. And really stop using the phrase “for free”. I really mean it. Stop doing it. Oh, and unless you are a tax lawyer or a parent very impressed with your child (whom you consider gifted, i.e., exceptionally intelligent), gift is a noun, not a verb. You didn’t “gift” somebody a free toaster, you gave them a toaster.
6. You may or may not have a penchant for doing this or that or the other thing, but you do not have a “perchant” for it.
7. To revert means to return to an earlier habit, practice, belief, version, plan, or developmental stage. In law, it means the return of property to a former owner or her heirs. It does not mean to reply or get back to someone. “I’ll check our warehouse to see how many of that item we have and revert to you by Tuesday” is wrong.
8. Less means a smaller amount of something. fewer means a smaller number of something. Less water, less air, less money, less hassle. Fewer trips, fewer cups, fewer slices of pizza, and the express lane at the grocery is properly limited to purchases involving 15 or fewer items, not “15 or less items”.
9. I deliberately omitted the word “store” in the previous item, because it would have been redundant. I buy baked goods at a bakery, not a “bakery store”, and I buy food, food-related items, cleaning supplies and other groceries at a grocery. My grandmother bought this sort of thing from her grocer, whose grocery was usually his own small business rather than part of a corporate chain.
10. Momentarily means “for a moment”. It does not mean “in a moment”. If you say you will be somewhere momentarily, it means you will be there very, very, very briefly. It does not mean you will be there soon.
11. Contractions like could’ve, should’ve, would’ve, had to’ve are written thus because they contain the last couple letters from the word “have”. Stop writing “should of”, “could of”, “would of”, and “had to of”.
12. To electrocute means to execute (i.e., kill) a person or animal by means of electricity. It is not a synonym for “charge”, “shock”, “generate voltage near” or “electrify”. Brits take heed, because for some strange reason you seem to think it’s clever to make this error.
13. As many of you know, the Country Bunker has both kinds of music: Country and Western. Likewise, sometimes the same word is used as a noun and as a verb. But the pronunciation is different. Take address for example. You “uh-DRESS” (verb) a letter or a crowd or anyone else you wish to speak to, but mail comes to your “ADD-ress” (noun). You “pro-JECT” (verb) your slides on the wall or your emotions onto others, but that new garage you’re building out back is a “PRO-ject” or “PRAH-ject” (noun). You “reh-CORD” (verb) your thoughts in your blog, so that later you can look back on the running “RECK-ord” or “RECK-erd” (noun) of what you were thinking. Easy enough, right? Well, it works the same way for detail: You read the “DEE-tails” (noun) of a report, but you “deh-TAIL” (verb) your car. “Firefighters rescue a cat stuck in a tree, we’ll have deh-TAILS coming up after this break on Action Six News” is wrong.
14. Kilometre is properly pronounced with the emphasis on the third syllable, and optionally with emphasis on the first. “kil-uh-MEE-tur” or “KIL-uh-MEE-tur” is yes. “ki-LAH-mit-ur” is no. This is an old bad habit, and there’s never a good time to break an old bad habit, so just go ahead and do it now.
15. I left this off originally because I didn’t think it had to be said, but popular demand suggests otherwise, so — Republicans, I’m looking at you again — let’s all say two easy words together: New. Clear. Everyone can say these words. Each of them has only one syllable. They are both practically impossible to mispronounce. Now say them again, without pausing between them: NewClear. Congratulations! You can pronounce nuclear correctly after all!
16. The word ridiculous does not contain the letter “e” in either its written or its spoken form.
17. The apostrophe is a lovely punctuation mark. It looks a little like a helium-filled comma. One use for the apostrophe is to indicate that something or someone possesses something or someone else. Stephen‘s house, the dog‘s tail, the socket‘s connections. Another use is to form a contraction from two words, where “is” is the second word: It’s true, and that’s a fact. Where neither an “is” contraction nor a possessive situation exists, using an apostrophe to warn the reader that s/he will soon encounter the letter “s” is wrong.
18. Supposably and expedential and irregardless are assemblages of letters, but they are not words and so they don’t mean anything. For best results, use only 100% genuine actual real words when building your sentences. Accept no imitations; use supposedly and exponential and regardless.
19. “Kudos” is one of those words that ends in “s” but is not plural, like “pathos” and “ethos” and “gravitas”. The “s” has to be on the end of it, or it’s not a word. There’s nothing such as “giving a kudo” to someone for a job well done.
20. If you care about something, even just a little bit, then you could care less than you do care. If you are trying to be clever and cute about expressing your utter lack of concern regarding whatever matter or idea is being discussed, then you couldn’t care less. If you have been confused by nonsensical justifications for saying “I could care less” when “couldn’t” is meant, reread the sentences preceeding this one as many times as necessary.
21. Stop using the verb “do” as a substitute for whatever verb you really mean; it’s lazy. You aren’t going to “do” Chinese food, you’re going to eat it or order it or have it. You didn’t “do” New Guinea, you went there and saw it. And how did we wind up with a clunker like “doing” drugs? No! You smoke marijuana or crack, you take pills, you shoot heroin, you eat mushrooms. Not all at the same time, it’s to be hoped.
22. Yes, gauge is a less-than-intuitive spelling, because the word is pronounced with an “ay” sound, not an “aw” or an “oh” sound. No, that does not make it okay to spell it “gage”. And since we’re on the topic, “guage” is wrong, too.
23. Significant means real. Substantial means large. They are not synonyms. Stop and think every time you’re tempted to use “significant”; odds are you really mean “substantial”.
24. Like the apostrophe, quotation marks are delightful bits of punctuation. They come in pairs, and are really diverse. But whether they look like « » or like “ ” or like ” ” or like „ ”, they’re used to denote text spoken or written by someone else. They can also be used as “scare quotes” to denote a dubious or questionable word or phrase. They’re not used for emphasis, ever. Please “do not” leave paper in urinal & remember to “flush” is wrong.
25. Normal is not a noun, it is an adjective made from the noun norm. It’s possible to adapt to a new norm, but there is nothing such as “the new normal”.
26. Words that sound alike but have different meanings and spellings are called homophones. Three such words are there, their, and they’re. These words are not interchangeable, and picking the right one requires only the smallest, quickest mental effort. Using the wrong one makes you look lazy and feebleminded. You don’t want to look lazy and feebleminded, do you?
27. Champing at the bit means eager or anxious to get going and do something. “Chomping at the bit” doesn’t mean anything.
28. One and the same means two things are alike. “One in the same” doesn’t mean anything.
29. Stock in trade means all the merchandise and equipment kept on hand and used in carrying on a business. Colloquially, it refers to the resources habitually called on by a person in a given situation (e.g, “A ready wit is her stock in trade”). “Stock and trade” doesn’t mean anything.
30. i.e. means “that is”. e.g. means “for example”. The two are not interchangeable.
31. There is a punctuation mark properly used to indicate words omitted from a quote, and informally used to signify a longer pause and perhaps a looser connection between thoughts than you’d indicate with a comma. It is called an ellipsis, and it looks like this:
    …

    It is used far oftener than warranted, but whether you’re using it correctly or insisting on using it instead of the appropriate comma or semicolon, it is always only ever composed of three dots. Not four, not five, not seventeen, but three. More dots don’t mean a longer pause, they mean you don’t know how to write.