WNW: Grammar Girl's Quick & Dirty Tips Book Review

As long-time readers know, this isn't a review blog. The only reviews I post are about books I have handpicked, and they're usually nonfiction titles I want to pass along to fellow readers and writers. I think the last book I reviewed was Mignon Fogarty's 101 Words Every High School Graduate Needs to Know.

Truth be told, shortly after that post, I meant to post a second review of another book by Fogarty (also known as Grammar Girl, from the podcast of the same name), but after reading the other book, I promptly misplaced it in one of those cases of "I'll keep it in a very safe place so I won't lose it" and, of course, I promptly forgot the safe place.

I didn't want to post a review without having the book beside me because, as I do with so many reference books, I wrote in the margins and wanted to be able to refer to my notes.

For this week's Word Nerd Wednesday, the first bit of good news is that the book is found and at my side! Hooray! Now we can discuss Grammar Girls' Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.

The second piece of news is that I had a great time rereading my notes and then going over the passages they refer to, and I found the book as delightful as I did when I first read it a few years ago. I found stars, underlined passages, and smiley faces all over the place.

Best of all, the author and I share many of the same stylistic peeves, which made me like her even more. Seriously, I couldn't stop grinning over to try and versus to try to on page 45, something I rant talk about on page 90 of my own grammar book. Beside her discussion of another of my peeves, the weak there is/are way of beginning a sentence, on page 81, I'd written, "Yay!"

Grammar Girl is known for her conversational, accessible style, and this book is no exception. It's laid out in an easy-to-read format, with clear headers and fun examples, as well as text boxes with background and other additional information, often fun trivia related to language. (Yes, fun and language can exist in the same sentence.)

The book goes over many common problems in writing, from grammar to punctuation to style issues. She even discusses why the rule of two spaces after a period has changed in the computer era (page 85). (See this post for my explanation, which agrees entirely with her.)

The final chapter is short, and while it won't be one you turn to regularly to remember a rule, it's helpful for writers of all kinds. It talks about breaking through blocks, finding writing groups, revising, proofreading, and more.

At the end of the book, you'll find appendices with lists of commonly confused words and other great references.

I can't cover all of the great parts of a book with more than 200 pages, but here are a few highlights I particularly enjoyed:

• Squinty modifiers. (Page 65.) Great name for an easy error to make with modifiers, with a clear explanation and a great example.
• The semicolon splicer image to help remember how to use the mark (page 75).
• Properly punctuating indirect questions. (Page 89.) I've seen this issue a lot in my editing work, and agree with Fogarty so entirely that in that margin, I wrote "For the love!" because people need to learn this!
• How to properly use a colon. (Pages 92 to 96.) A much-needed explanation.
• The Oxford comma. (She favors it! Woohoo!) 
• The title of chapter six: "Prozac for Pronouns: Getting the Stuntmen of Language Under Control." (Page 139.) LOVE IT.

And this gem on page 96: "Using a hyphen in place of a dash can cause your copy editor to have a mild fit."

Amen and amen.

The book is a quick read, and it's one you'll want to keep on hand as a reference for a long time. 

My only complaint is tiny: A few things have changed since the book's publication in 2008, such as how long Facebook status updates can be. Like I said, very small things. Considering how fast technology changes, I'm impressed how on top of technology she is, and that I noted only a couple of spots where things are different in 2014. 

Get a copy for yourself and another for the writer in your life. (Hint: That's everyone in today's society. We all need to know how to write clearly.) Here's the link again to make it really easy for you. And if you haven't gotten my book, here's that link too.

SOME BIG NEWS IS COMING SOON!

Stay tuned for the announcement of two projects I'm working on with Luisa Perkins. We'll roll out the first one in a few weeks, and the second one a few weeks after that. 

You won't want to miss out on them! 

UPDATE
Coincidentally, right now, Mignon Fogarty (Grammar Girl) is raising money to fund an awesome card game called Peeve Wars. I've chipped in; I hope you will too. The campaign has just 10 days left to reach its goal. Learn more about Peeve Wars and donation rewards HERE. If you have personal grammar and usage peeves (and you know you do), you'll want this game.

WNW: An Excellent Issue. Single & Double Plurals.

I was first introduced to Mignon Fogerty (Grammar Girl) because of this grammar issue. She appeared on  Oprah to settle a viewer's complaint. (If you don't listen to the Grammar Girl podcast, subscribe already!)

Oprah and her best friend, Gayle, had gone on a road trip across the United States, and camera crews followed them. The result was several episodes of something they called "Oprah and Gayle's Road Trip."

A viewer wrote in saying that the title was incorrect; Oprah's name also needed a possessive, like so: "Oprah's and Gayle's Road Trip." She ended her note by saying she was an English teacher and therefore knew this stuff.

The viewer was brought on to tell her side, and then Oprah brought on Mignon to reveal the truth. Did the show get it right or wrong?

The show, not surprisingly, got it right. I doubt Oprah would have embarrassed her staff by bringing on a grammar expert to publicly point out a mistake.

But why was the title correct? Is there a time where making both names possessive would be correct?

First, yes, there are times when making both names possessive is correct. And there are times when it's not. It all depends on whether the ownership is joint or separate.

Let's set Oprah and Gayle aside and look at another example. Either of these sentences could be correct:
Jane and Sally’s bikes are in the garage.
Jane’s and Sally’s bikes are in the garage.

Which you choose depends on context. We need more information about the bikes before we can make the call.

If Jane and Sally have a sporting goods store they own together, and in it, they have several bikes, then we have joint possession, and we need only one apostrophe. In that case, the first example is correct, because Jane and Sally are acting as a group of ownership. Together, they own the bikes. So:
Jane and Sally’s bikes are in the garage.

But if Jane and Sally simply own different bikes (Jane’s is purple, and Sally’s is blue), we’re dealing with separate possession, so each girl needs her own apostrophe to show her ownership of her bike.
Jane’s and Sally’s bikes are in the garage.

Another example: Let’s take Tom and Joey, who are brothers. Let's talk about their parents. Because the parents belong jointly to both boys, we don’t need to make both of their names possessive. We use a single possessive to show joint ownership:
Tom and Joey’s parents go on dates every weekend.

But what if Tom and Joey are buddies rather than brothers? What if both sets of their parents happen to be friends who hang out in a larger group together on weekends? Then the whole situation changes. Now we’re talking about Tom’s parents, and we’re also talking about Joey’s parents: four different people, not two. Now we need to make both boys' names possessive.
Tom’s and Joey’s parents go to the movies every weekend.

One way to remember this is by substituting the noun (bikes, parents) for an opinion. If two people share the same opinion, then group their names together as a joint possessive:
        Tom and Joey’s political views sparked controversy.

If Tom and Joey don’t agree on politics—let’s say Tom is a Democrat and Joey is a Republican—then both names need an apostrophe, because we have separate views:
        Tom’s and Joey’s political arguments sparked controversy at school.

Or you can always remember the Oprah viewer who was wrong. Oprah and Gayle took their trip together. It was their joint trip. Therefore, the title of those episodes needed only one apostrophe. If they’d gone on separate trips, we’d need two.


If you're from my generation, you can just think of a favorite movie to get this one right. Bill and Ted had a shared adventure. Therefore, their movie is Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.



This topic and many more are new to the second edition of my grammar book. It's got more than double the word count of the original, with tons of new entries and many expanded ones to address more commonly asked questions I get. We're putting the final touches on it now.

Watch for it in May!

WNW: Why Punctuation Matters

People joke that I'm the Grammar Nazi.

My critique group says that I know exactly how to use commas (and then they go comatose, and tweet about it, if I try to explain why a semicolon is correct on page 5).

For that matter, rumor has it that when they speak about our group and mention members' strengths, they bring up punctuation as my strength.

While I do know my fair share of punctuation rules, I do like to hope that in the 12 years I've been there I've been worth more than fixing comma splices. :)

But yes, I do care about punctuation more than the average reader or writer. Why? Because it adds nuance and meaning that nothing else can. The same words can have a totally different meaning with a few different punctuation marks.

This is true with big issues like pacing, tone, and mood.

But to make my point, I'll go a bit over the top for today's Word Nerd Wednesday.

First off, read Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots, and Leaves (the title of which is a punctuation joke). If you think punctuation is stale and boring, read that book. I read it on the treadmill and nearly fell off, I was laughing so hard.

Truss has several other titles, including picture books. I own one of them, and my kids love it. My third grader took it to school for show-and-tell. (And probably had to explain it to the class . . .)

To make my point about how punctuation can change meaning, here are three fun examples:

1) I've seen this one go around Facebook under the guise of, "Punctuation saves lives!"

Let’s eat Grandpa.

(I doubt he's very tasty)

versus:

Let’s eat, Grandpa.

(Yo, Grandpa, dinner's ready! I'll race ya to the table!)

2) I saw this one in college during my nerd training (read: English major studies). The professor, a woman, wrote the following sentence on the board:

Woman, without her man, is nothing.

I was rather incensed. Until she changed the punctuation.

Woman: without her, man is nothing.

And then I laughed.

3) One of Lynne Truss's books, Twenty-odd Ducks, includes a punctuation joke right on the cover with the title. With the hyphen, the title means, "roughly twenty ducks." If you take the hyphen out, it means, "twenty weird ducks." So the cover has twenty funky ducks: some that are striped, one ready to go snorkeling, and so on.

Even the subtitle has a play on punctuation: Why, Punctuation Matters

On each page spread, the book has the same sentence but with different punctuation (and therefore different meanings), plus illustrations to match.

You need to get your hands on a copy. Really. As proof, I present my kids' favorite 2-page spread from the book. It's gruesome, which may be why they love it.

The first page shows a king strolling near a group of girls bowing and throwing flowers at him as he says, "Ah, life is grand." The caption reads as follows:

The king walked and talked. Half an hour after, his head was cut off.

The second page makes the whole thing read as one sentence, which changes the meaning drastically:

The king walked and talked half an hour after his head was cut off.

Above the caption: three illustrations showing the king decapitated and his head talking ("Why can't I feel my lips?") as his body walks around.

Hysterical, if you ask me. At the end of the book, Truss manages (quite brilliantly) to write an entire letter to a school teacher on one page and then changes the meaning entirely using nothing but punctuation on the other.

Convinced that punctuation matters? I hope so. At the very least, remember point number one: punctuation saves lives.

WNW: One or Two Spaces?

Several weeks ago, while waiting to meet with the family after church, Erin and I started talking about our daughters, who are now great friends. Then she mentioned Word Nerd Wednesday and a possible topic.

I wondered why I hadn't addressed it before:

What's the rule for spaces after a period: one or two?

First the short answer, and then the explanation for the longer answer:

With very few exceptions, use ONE space.

I know that saying so will make a lot of people annoyed with me. Sorry! I know how hard it is to retrain your thumb to not hit the space bar twice.

I learned this the hard way with my first freelance article job. The editor (kindly) asked me to submit my future work with one space so she didn't have to remove the extra spaces for me. I got motivated (hey, money and bylines were on the line!) and quickly trained myself to do one space.

To understand today's rule, we need to understand the old one.

Why we needed two spaces in the past:

If you're 35 or older (raising my hand here), you were likely taught to type on an actual typewriter. That typewriter probably used Courier font.

Courier is one of the rare fonts in which each character takes up exactly the same amount of space, whether it's a lowercase l, an upper case M, or a period. It didn't matter what you typed; the carriage advance the same amount. In all, we got 10 (or maybe 12) characters in every inch. No matter what. That made calculations easy for figuring out how to center titles or tables. (Remember that math? Ugh.)

Back in the Dark Ages of Courier during typewriter-dom, had we typed with one space after a period, sentences would have run together, making text hard to read. We needed a visual cue for sentence breaks.

The solution: Two spaces after a period. Tada! A visual gap between spaces, making the flow of text easy to follow.

Why it changed:

Enter the computer era, with lots and lots of fonts, almost none of which have equal character sizes. Characters take up all kinds of spaces proportional to the letter or punctuation mark. An M is far wider than an I, for example.

With proportional fonts, we no longer needed two spaces; the end of one sentence no longer ran into the beginning of the next, because a space was naturally bigger than a period but smaller than wide letters like W and M.

We got the built-in gap we needed for clarity with one space instead of two.

It goes further than that.

If you stick with two spaces with the modern proportional fonts, the space ends up looking like a massive gap, far bigger than two Courier spaces. Worse, if your writing goes for several lines or paragraphs, you may end up with ugly "rivers" of white space going down the page.

Instead of clarifying your words, two spaces makes the whole look amateurish and unprofessional.

This is especially true if the document is fully justified, which spreads the text out evenly over the line to create an even look on both margins. With that formatting, if you type two spaces after a period, the justification will spread everything out far, including your double space. You'll end up with giant gaps. I've seen some gaps that look like 4 or 5 spaces.

Why you should train your thumb to tap the bar once:

The new rule may not matter so much if you're typing stuff only for yourself. If you prefer two spaces, and no one else will see or care, more power to you. (For my sake, don't fully justify the margins, though.)

But you should work on doing it right if other eyeballs will be looking at your writing. That includes not just professional or aspiring writers, but anyone applying for college or a job or writing a letter to a business or anything where another person's opinion will matter.

It's just like making sure you have no spelling errors. Two spaces doesn't look clean or polished in the 21st century. Most modern fonts simply look better with one space, and two tends to look like a mistake.

What if your thumb won't cooperate?

Thanks to word processing programs, searching for something specific and replacing it with what you really want is a snap. If you cannot get yourself to type one space, or you find yourself slipping from one space to two spaces and back again, don't stress it.

When you're done writing, do a search for two spaces and replace each instance with one space.

You'll look professional and save your sanity!

WNW: Use (and Abuse) of the Semicolon

FIRST OFF, some news . . .

Back by popular demand: Precision Editing Group is hosting their next Live Critique Workshop in a month! It'll be held at the American Fork Library on Saturday, March 3rd. Attendees are divided among tables, and they get to work with an instructor (staff are all both published writers and professional editors) assigned to each table. Bring along several pages of a work in progress to be workshopped. It's a great learning experience and a bargain to boot. But space IS limited. For full information and instructions for registering, visit the PEG Workshop blog.

Now to today's topic.

Of late, I've come across oodles of egregious semicolon abuse, and it's made me realize that

a) Not everyone in the world loves that little punctuation mark like I do and

b) Fewer know how to use it.

This post is my small attempt to help a bit in rectifying the numbers of both camps.

First off, let's debunk a common misconception.

Myth: Semicolons are totally outdated for fiction and, if used at all in today's writing, should be only in stuffy non-fiction work.

(Note how I remained totally neutral in describing the myth. Ahem.)

Truth: Semicolons are alive and well in all kinds of writing, including fiction.

Of course, as with any punctuation mark (or word, or literary technique), semicolons can be overused, but that doesn't mean you should avoid them altogether.

For me, semicolons are part of my writer toolbox. I like semicolons because they do two awesome things:

1) They allow an association or connection between thoughts that no other method can achieve.

2) They provide a pause length that's different than any other punctuation mark creates.

In other words, sometimes you just need a semicolon to get the feel across. This is where I bring out my orchestra conductor analogy.

Imagine punctuation as being the signals from a musical conductor (a writer). Each mark tells you, the reader, how to interpret the sentence: whether to slow down, speed up, add emphasis, trail off.

As a writer, if you get rid of the semicolon, and you've thrown away what could be the tool for creating the exact feel your sentence needs.

The Semicolon Rule of Thumb

While the best semicolon use is when you're connecting two thoughts, technically (from a grammatical standpoint) you can use one to connect any two complete sentences.

Ask yourself: Can the words on each side of the semicolon stand alone as a real sentence?

If the answer is YES, you can use the semicolon, such as here:

Kelly asked if I'd go ballroom dancing with her; I can't dance.

Note two things from the above example:

1) Both sides could stand alone as a sentence.

2) The second half has more meaning because of the first half.

It's the second part that messes people up. Because the second half gets emphasis, writers sometimes get it into their heads that any emphasis at the end of a sentence requires a semicolon. Not so.

If whatever comes after the semicolon isn't a complete sentence, don't use a semicolon.

Let's show that in action.

How NOT to Use a Semicolon

Here's an example of trying to give emphasis to the end of a sentence when the second part cannot stand alone as a sentence.

David bought Mary a bouquet of her favorite flowers; miniature peach-colored roses.

ARGH! (I shall refrain from pulling out my hair, but only just.)

The flower description (miniature peach-colored roses) is not a sentence. Ergo, you cannot use a semicolon before it.

But what if you really want to emphasize the kind of flower (or whatever else) at the end?

Easy. Pull out a different punctuation mark from your trusty tool box. Use an em dash.

David bought Mary a bouquet of her favorite flowers—miniature peach-colored roses.

Here is where I'll add one punctuation difference that really is common between fiction and non-fiction. In the example above, you could use a colon instead of an em dash. Either is correct.

Just know that colons are relatively rare in fiction. You'll see them here and there, but the majority of the time, colons are saved for non-fiction, and in fiction, em dashes are used instead.

To learn more about em dashes and how to make them properly (because no, they are not hyphens smooshed together, and they aren't en dashes), see the last part of THIS POST I wrote for the Precision Editing Group blog some time ago.

WNW: I Want This Book

If you're a true word nerd and already know grammar and punctuation rules, you'll get a huge kick out this book (which I'm dying to buy):

This "Absolutely Phony Guide" is by the folks behind one of my favorite Twitter streams: FakeAPStylebook. If you're on Twitter, follow them. Now. They're brilliantly funny.

The book is filled with fake "rules" and suggestions. One example: “Weapons and the Military: Shoot first, then ask questions about shooting.”

Not so sure about the rules? No problem; just go in with the knowledge that chances are, everything you read is bogus (even if you aren't getting the joke).

Note that the misspellings and typos are totally on purpose. This is my kind of humor book!

Read more about it in The New Yorker. And then buy it HERE from Amazon.

Word Nerd Linkage

It's a day late for Word Nerd Wednesday, so I thought I'd do something a little different: show you some of my favorite nerdy places to hang out.

Oxford Dictionaries Online and their Word World blog brings me no end of joy. I follow their Twitter stream, and it always points me toward posts that cheer the nerd inside me. (Up today: Five Events that Shaped the History of English)

Check out this fun Michigan Today post about obscure words. (It even mentions mondegreens, which we talked about more than a year ago HERE. In related news, we bought Mad Gab for Christmas.)

Grammar Girl. I'm going to admit here that I first learned about Mignon Fogarty, known better as Grammar Girl, when she appeared on Oprah to clear up some grammar confusion. She has a great podcast and blog (and a book and regular vlogs on YouTube) where she addresses a wealth of grammar and usage issues. (I admit I've learned a few things from her.)

"The Alot" on Hyperbole and a Half. The writer here is hysterically funny and does a few other posts related to language, like the one on the semi colon. (Note that the entire blog isn't about language or punctuation, and some posts are somewhat PG-13, definitely not appropriate for kids.)

Fake Editor and Fake AP Stylebook. Both of these are on Twitter, and their streams keep me in stitches. (November had a Fake NaNo Tips feed. Holy crimeny, I laughed.)

Also on Twitter, and showing that his wit is just as sharp with 140 characters as it is on the silver screen, is Steve Martin. He's a great writer as well as actor, and his tweets show an awesome grasp of not only what Twitter is (and how to poke fun at it) but how to craft a great tweet with the language. (Like how he used "FYI" and went on to explain that it means "for your information" but FYI is shorter . . . all in the same tweet.)

Common Errors in English. This site is a treasure trove of information. Stuck on whether it's wrack your brain or rack your brain? What about the difference between discreet and discrete? The guy behind the site is thorough and easy to understand, and the it's all arranged alphabetically. Just click on the letter of the word you're wondering about. (He has a book version and a calendar. I think I need that.)

Proofreader's Marks, courtesy Merriam-Webster. I do a lot of freelance editing, and while most in digital, every so often I get a hard-copy job. Once or twice, I'll get a brain freeze (which was the right way to insert a hyphen?), so I pull up this bookmarked site and double-check.

National Punctuation Day. Yes, it has its own website. Remember this one when September rolls around.

Funds for Writers has been listed as one of the top 101 best web sites for writers by Writers Digest for over a decade. It's a fantastic resource. (Tooting my horn here: I won the 2009 essay contest. Felt kinda cool.) The owner, C. Hope Clark, has a sister blog, updated regularly in addition to putting out three regular newsletters with oodles of great information for writers.

Not that I'm even a little biased (Hahahaaa!) but I think Precision Editing Group's Writing on the Wall blog is pretty great too.

I could list more word and writing-related sites, but I'll stop there and leave you with one that's for the pure fun of it. It's where we see inside the lives of the people who inhabit those picture-perfect catalogs like Pottery Barn: Catalog Living.

Check it out and laugh.

WNW: The Much-Abused Semicolon

;

Rampant semicolon abuse is so frequent that I just have to post about it in hopes that maybe one person will stop the mistreatment of the poor mark and give it some respect. Or at least keep it from being so regularly misused.

Let's start by getting two things clear:
1) A semicolon is NOT a fancy way to show a pause.
2) A semicolon is NOT a colon and therefore is NOT used the same way.

In other words, the following examples are WRONG.

The fancy pause semicolon: Trixie climbed to the top of the high dive; terrified.

The semicolon-as-colon: At home, Jane began her second arduous job; keeping house and caring for her children's physical, emotional, and spiritual needs.

Please don't do those. Pretty, pretty please?

A semicolon is used correctly when the text on both sides of it can stand alone as complete sentences.

THIS version would be correct:
Trixie climbed to the top of the high dive; she was terrified.

See? Separate the sides:

Trixie climbed to the top of the high dive.
(Complete sentence? Yep.)

She was terrified.
(Yep. That can stand alone too.)

(The fact that you could find a way to show her terror instead of telling it is another post.)

Colons introduce a list or significant information. Usually, that information isn't a full sentence (although there are exceptions).

Fixing the semicolon-as-colon is way easy. Just replace the semicolon with the colon that should have been there to begin with.

At home, Jane began her second arduous job: keeping house and caring for her children's physical, emotional, and spiritual needs.

Here's another issue to clarify: semicolons are not the punctuation equivalent of the dodo bird. They are used in contemporary writing, even fiction. Regularly.

Yes, even in fiction.

(Okay, I admit to overusing them at times, to the point of arguing with my editor over keeping some. So I'm a semicolon addict.)

I've heard people claim that semicolons belong only in non-fiction, that em dashes should be used instead, at least in fiction.

I disagree. Vehemently. (Me have a strong opinion? Shocker, I know.)

Here's the thing: semicolons serve specific purposes, and no other punctuation mark can do exactly the same thing. Sure, sometimes an em dash can work, but an em dash gives a slightly different feel and longer pause length than a semicolon.

Now, I don't advocate throwing in semicolons with abandon, even when used correctly. Too many call attention to themselves, and anything that draws a reader out should be avoided.

But there's some great lines that deserve a semicolon, like when you want a close connection between two sentences. A period can't do it. Using a comma + conjunction is correct (Trixie climbed the high dive, and she was terrified), but again, that adds a different feel.

(A perfectly fine feel, if it's what you're going for, but not a semicolon feel.)

Sometimes the semicolon is the only way to get the rhythm, the pacing, and the tone you want.

This may sound odd to non-word nerds, but a writer who has a great grasp on punctuation is like a conductor leading a symphony. The writer leads the reader along with clear signs for pausing at the right places, speeding up here, slowing down there, emphasizing this part.

Learn to use the semicolon; you'll thank me.

(Couldn't resist throwing one in.)

WNW: The Apostrophe Song!

This error drives. Me. Crazy.

I addressed the issue right before Christmas one year begging people to NOT use an apostrophe on their gift tags (such as, "to the Smith's") because that implies ownership. (To the Smith's what? Their dog?)

With gift tags and such, we're talking PLURAL situations. Plural.

(Say it with me. PLLLLUUUURRRAAAL.) Plurals take an S.

And they take NO APOSTROPHE. That's possessive (ownership).

Therefore, you're giving cookies to a group of people all called Smith. Hence, the Smiths.

And you go to the store to by a bunch of bananas, plural. So you don't use an apostrophe, because that would make a single banana own something.

So: NOT banana's (you're buying the banana's . . . peels?) but bananas.

I found yet another fun video that showcases a peeve. Enjoy!

In other news, Lisa Loo over at Is That a Garage Door on My Ceiling? has moved into her house FROM a garage (hence the title of her blog).

She totally rocks. In totally unrelated news, she put my blog button on her side bar. :-D

She has a new problem: since her blog name no longer fits, she needs a new one and is hosting a contest for it. Check out the details HERE.

WNW: Colons, Commas, Parentheses, Oh, my!

Can you believe it? Word Nerd Wednesday is BACK!

After an unscheduled hiatus . . . ahem . . .

First, a link over to my Good Things Utah interview that aired live this morning.

CLICK HERE to watch my tongue go so fast that it's surprising that smoke isn't coming out of my mouth! (Oh, and to see an actual Flat Daddy of a currently deployed solider.)

Today we're tackling several questions Rebecca recently asked in a comment:

#1: Where do I put the comma, before the parentheses or after?

Simple answer: AFTER.

Parentheses let you add something in the middle of a sentence, an aside or clarification. Because of that, the sentence must be able to stand on its own if you pull the parentheses out. Take this sentence:

After Officer Brad spoke to the students (the fifth and sixth graders), he passed out information about Internet safety.

The clarifying addition of saying exactly which students were there helps, but it's not necessary for the sentence to make sense. You could just as easily say:

After Officer Brad spoke to the students, he passed out information about Internet safety.

But if the comma is inside the parentheses, then the comma is part of the insertion. Take it out, and the comma gets cut too. It's lost from the entire sentence, which makes for a long, convoluted line to read:

After Officer Brad spoke to the students he passed out information about Internet safety.

Definitely want that comma in there. Put it OUTSIDE the parentheses.

MINOR CONFUSION: This makes perfect sense, right? Well, not everything does. When you're dealing with quotation marks, you almost always put the commas or other punctuation INSIDE, even if they aren't part of the quote.

Gotta love how consistently random American English is.

#2: Do you capitalize the "n" in "not"?

Short answer: NO.

I'm assuming this refers to what to capitalize in titles. DO capitalize:

• All verbs, no matter how small (even IS, WAS, etc.)
• All nouns, pronouns, and proper names (CAR, THEM, HE, JUDY)
• The first and last word, regardless of what they are.
• Really long prepositions (at least 5 letters, such as WITHOUT, AGAINST, BENEATH)

Do NOT capitalize:

• Articles (THE, A, AN)
• Prepositions, unless they're long (ON, BY, INTO, OUT, etc)
• Short words (AND, IF, etc.)

Hence some of my titles:

Lost Without You

Three words, so the first and last get caps. The middle word is a preposition, but it's long, so it gets caps too.

At the Water's Edge

Cap at even though it's a preposition, because it's the first word. Don't cap the. Cap the other two big words.

House on the Hill

Only the first and last words get it, because the middle two are a preposition and an article.

Spires of Stone

First and last. The middle word is too small to matter.

See how that works? Pretty simple.

#3 When using colons, do you capitalize the first word that comes after them?
Generally speaking, no.

Whatever comes after a colon is still part of the same sentence, so you continue as you would with any other part of a sentence, in lowercase:

Mark read over his grocery list: bread, eggs, cheese, and a case of Sprite.

Sometimes writers will add an uppercase letter after a colon for a specific effect, or if the what comes after can stand by itself as a sentence. In the last case, the capped letter isn't needed. One exception would be this very post. Sometimes I'll lead into an example with a colon, but that's pretty much ending the sentence, and I'm beginning something brand new with the example sentence.

#4: When do you use actual numbers such as 12:00 versus twelve o'clock?
That's largely up to the publisher. I've seen it both ways, and which you use is really up to your editor and what style guide they're using. Neither is incorrect.

I personally prefer to spell out times, because numbers pull me out of the text and remind me that I'm reading, while words feel more natural and keep me in the story world. But that's just me.

WNW: "Then" Help

Reader question day here on Word Nerd Wednesday.

UPDATE: I originally wrote this post on a headache brain. Hence, I used the term contraction when I meant conjunction. (Yeah, I know. DUH. Like those two things are anything like one another.) Thanks a million to the alert reader who pointed it out so I could fix it and not look like a total idiot into the eternities.

I was recently asked something akin to the following (rephrased since I didn't get around to asking to use it . . . but I'm just going with it, because it's what I have in my head right now, and I'm guessing there are more people out there who have the same question . . .)

According to some advice I have received in the past, I should technically NOT write a sentence like this:

I tripped on the sidewalk, then dropped my keys.

My question is about the ", then" part.

This is all over literature. Good literature, too.

[The questioner went on to list several bestsellers, including a recent award winner]

So why do people say I'm wrong? I try to use both the comma with "and" as much as possible, but sometimes it sounds too heavy like that.

This is especially true when my priority should be trying to maintain a true teen voice. So what's the rule there?

Here's the gist:

I don't think there IS a rule about using a comma before then, beyond the almighty Word putting the squiggly green line under it and proclaiming it wrong. (Can you tell how much I love that program?)

See, Word is wrong about 1/3 of the time on things like lie/lay, so you can't count it on it. Which is really a problem, because I think a lot of people, including editors, are starting to believe Word and its pretend rules. The idea of a second-rate program dictating our future grammar rules? That's scary to me.

Off my Word soapbox and back to using commas before then. Feel free to do it.

Granted, if you do it too often (just like if you do anything too often in writing), it'll get repetitive, and you don't want that. Oh, and then can't stand alone as a conjunction, so don't use it that way, but otherwise, heck, use it, I say. I do.

Okay, so follow-up issue: What's a conjunction? (So you can avoid using then that way.)

Conjunctions are words like and, or, for, nor, yet, but, so: something you add a comma before and then use to combine TWO COMPLETE SENTENCES THAT CAN STAND ON THEIR OWN.

(Note: You'll find much of this in There, Their, They're. Not verbatim, because I'm just writing it off the top of my head, but I use similar examples in it, and the concepts are there. You get it free today. You're welcome. :)

Here's an example of a sentence with two complete sentences inside it that are then combined with a comma and a conjunction:

He gave his wife flowers, and she smelled them.

If you take out the comma and the and above, you have two complete sentences, grammatically speaking:

He gave his wife flowers.
She smelled them.

Totally lame examples, but they give you the idea.

Here we're using then correctly, because we don't have two complete sentences:

He bought his wife flowers, then gave them to her.

See how you can't take out the comma and then and have 2 complete sentences?

He bought his wife flowers. [Complete sentence.]

Gave them to her. [Not a complete sentence.]

Therefore, we can combine the two without a conjunction--just with then. Once again:

Correct: He bought his wife flowers, then gave them to her.

**Incorrect** He bought his wife flowers, then she smelled them.

This time we DO have two complete sentences:

He bought his wife flowers.

She smelled them.

Two complete sentences. We need a conjunction with the comma to make it right.

Since then isn't a conjunction, it can't combine the two by itself.

Correct: He bought his wife flowers, and then she smelled them.

Now we have two complete sentences grammatically and a conjunction combining them.

All is well with the world.

But while it's technically correct, people often hate the pairing of AND and THEN or other pairings of conjunction [OR and THEN, BUT and THEN, etc.] because it starts feeling heavy, as our questioner pointed out.

So here's my trick to avoid using both a conjunction AND then: just rephrase one of the grammatically complete sentences so it can't stand alone. That way the conjunction isn't necessary and you can throw in then without it.

BUT we still have the question as to whether you can use the comma before then when there's an incomplete sentence (or subordinate clause, if you're getting all technical).

I say yes, the comma is fine, like with this sentence we used above:

He bought his wife flowers, then gave them to her.

Almighty Word, with its green squiggle, says no, that's wrong. It should be like this, without the comma:

He bought his wife flowers then gave them to her.

Both can work, but there's a subtle difference in tone and pacing between the two. Sometimes you want that comma pause. And that's OKAY.

My editor tends to lean toward taking out the commas before then. Sometimes I prefer to leave them in for the sake of pause length or rhythm. Sometimes I let him take them out, other times I push to keep them in.

But if you've read all my books, you might notice far fewer commas before then in Tower than in any of my other novels.

That's because I let my new editor take a lot of my commas out. It was kind of interesting getting used to a different style. I sort of liked it. That, and I spent my time fighting to keep em dashes and semi colons. (Those tend to be more important to me.)

I've done a little digging, and as far as I can tell, there really is no a rule (or much consensus) about commas before then being wrong besides Word hating them.

But then, Word has been known to mark so many things with that stupid green squiggle that I know for a fact are correct that I don't generally trust it with grammar issues anyway. Since we can't trust Word's grammar feature, don't stress it.

(I could do an entire post about how much I loathe Word . . .)

So there you have it: commas before then are okay, but not if you're using then as a conjunction.

Remember: I have a running list of possible topics for WNW, but if you have a specific question, please do pass it on (e-mail me or drop it in the comments), and I'll throw it onto the list.

WNW: Answers and Winners

First, the answers to the quiz, because I just KNOW you're dying to find out, right? Right?

**crickets chirping**

I'm telling you anyway. :)

1. Which of the following languages have I NOT studied?

a) German

b) French

c) American Sign Language

d) Finnish

e) Russian

Answer: GERMAN

I took a year of French in 4th grade and another in 8th. ASL was my language in college, and I got pretty darn good at it, to the point that I almost entered the interpreting program (but got sidetracked by that marriage thing). I obviously studied Finnish while living in the country, and I took two years of Russian in high school.

2. In what grade did I take my first language class?

a) 2nd

b) 4th

c) 6th

d) 8th

Answer: 4th

Sort of answered that already, huh? :)

My elementary school started up a new language program then with 30-minute language classes before regular school hours. My sister and I signed up with French. She was in 2nd grade, and I was in 4th.

3) What was the first language I studied?

a) German

b) French

c) American Sign Language

d) Finnish

e) Russian

Answer: French. Beating a dead horse now.

4) Why did I pick that one?

a) I heard it was easy.

b) My friends were taking it.

c) My grandpa is from a country that speaks it.

d) I wanted a challenge.

e) My parents picked it for me.

Answer: My grandpa is from a country that speaks it.

My paternal grandfather immigrated from Switzerland, which, by Swiss law, made my father a dual U.S. and Swiss citizen by birth, which made me a dual citizen as well. I figured it would be a cool thing to take a language spoken in that country. (Granted, French is spoken there less than other languages, but it is spoken there, and that was my primary motivation for picking it.)

5) Probably the biggest factor in my becoming a Word Nerd is that:

a) I took a class about the history of English and loved it.

b) Dad is a linguist.

c) I worked at a library.

d) I learned to read at a young age.

e) I used to read the encyclopedia for fun.

Answer: B) Dad is a linguist.

Hands down. If it weren't for our dinner table conversations about etymologies and other weird word nerdy stuff, I wouldn't care about language like I do. It helped that I had great English teachers in high school and college.

I was a Word Nerd way before that History of the English Language Course in college, which should have been the coolest thing ever but was a nightmare because of the teacher. (Note to the BYU English department of 1993: don't have non-linguists teaching language courses. Save the literature professors for literature courses.)

6) While living in Finland and attending public school there, what language class did I attend?

a) Swedish

b) French

c) English

d) Russian

Answer: C) English

This may sound counter-intuitive, but attending English class helped me learn Finnish. Think about it: if I had to take the same quiz as the Finnish kids did, translating words from Finnish to English or vice versa, I had to know what the words were in Finnish to pass. If I didn't know that "talo" meant "house," I was up a creek. By taking the English class, I learned Finnish much quicker.

7) What is my favorite language "toy"?

a) Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends, by David Wilton

b) Word Nerd: More than 17,000 Fascinating Facts about Words, by Barbara Ann Kipfer, Ph.D

c) The Oxford English Dictionary

d) The Write Express Rhyming Dictionary

Answer: C) The Oxford English Dictionary

If you've been here very long, this was an easy one. I could have been more specific and said my OED on CD. It's a joy to behold and "play" with. Um, I mean do research with.

As a side note, my father was the linguist behind the coding for the Write Express Online Rhyming Dictionary. You can search not just for rhymes but for ANY phonetic sounds in words. It's a great tool for language teachers of any kind. It's way cool. My little sister and I spent a summer being beta-testers on it. That's a blog post of its own I should do some time.

8) What language did I study in high school for 2 years?

a) French

b) German

c) Russian

d) Japanese

Answer: C) Russian

Oops. Already gave this one away answering #1. I have no clue why I didn't stick with French after junior high and what on Earth possessed me to take up Russian, but I did and had fun with it for two years. I still get a kick out of sounding out the Cyrillic alphabet.

9) Who was my favorite professor at BYU?

a) Dr. Snyder

b) Dr. Oaks

c) Dr. Thayer

d) Dr. Crisler

Answer: B) Dr. Oaks

In all honesty, I loved all of these teachers. They were each great in their own way.

(I have a hysterical story about Snyder. Oh, and another about Thayer. And I'll say that, crimeny, Crisler scared the heck out of me. He pushed me to the limit and challenged me to go farther and deeper than I thought I could. But I thank him for that! He was tough. In a good way.)

That said, Dr. Oaks impacted me and my Word Nerdiness in huge ways, and if I could sit in on his classes again, I would in a heartbeat. His cannibal jokes alone would be worth it.

10) What high school teacher do I credit for my understanding of punctuation?

a) Miss Drummond

b) Miss Jarmon

c) Mrs. Oldroyd

d) Miss Winn

Answer: A) Miss Drummond

Again, I really did have all these teachers, and they were all good, but Miss Drummond was in a league all her own. She's living proof that you can teach punctuation and grammar and have it make sense and stick with a student for life.

She's also the person I credit with first teaching me the basics of writing. I purposely didn't take the AP English class, instead taking her College Prep English class because I thought she'd prepare me for test better than the actual AP teacher could. I challenged the test and got a 5 (the highest possible score). I give her the credit. She was amazing.

Miss Drummond is in the unique position as the only person who had intense educational contact with my family as both a student and a teacher:

• She took a class from my dad on transformational grammar. Don't ask what that is. I don't even know.
• She had my brother as a student. (He swears she was the first and only teacher he ever had who could explain grammar so it made sense--see? It's not just me!)
• She had my older sister as a student.
• Then she had me as a student. Twice. (Sophomore and senior years.)
• And I was her TA one year too (junior year).

To say she had an impact on my family would be a mild statement.

So there ya go: my history as a Word Nerd.

Now for what you really want to hear . . . the winners:

The person with the most correct answers (a whopping 9 of 10!) was Amber Lynae!

You might not believe this, but the random drawing winner, using Random.org picked Amber Lynae again.

Seriously. BUT . . . I didn't think that was fair, since the point was to have two winners getting two books. (Sorry, Amber Lynae!)

So I made the executive decision of having Random.org picking another winner, and that person is Jami!

Both winners: Please contact me directly via e-mail in the next two days so I can find out which book you want and so I can get your shipping information. (Remember, it can even be one that's out of print, so you've got 7 to pick from.)

In the meantime, for all my readers, try this mind bender on for size:

(Please, if you've heard it before and know it, don't ruin the fun for everyone else in the comments. Thanks in advance!)

Do you know what the following sentence means?

Maresy dotes'n doesy dotes'n littel amsy divie.

Say it aloud if it helps to figure it out.

Next time, we'll discuss what it means and how (and why) it messes with your brain.