TexasDesign

My mother tells me I struggled with spelling as a child; however, she needn’t remind me. I remember very well. Then, directly after college, when I served in the Peace Corps in Columbia, South America, all that changed: I suddenly acquired excellent spelling skills! The reason had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the language in which I was communicating. Compared to English, Spanish spelling is extremely easy. “Sounding out” words works in Spanish; it is often useless in English. All this is by way of introducing this ExcitingWriting Advisory, a bit of fun doggerel I hope you enjoy. (I did not write it; if anyone knows who did, please e-mail me. A big thank you goes to Perry Steinhoff for sending this to me. He is a very thoughtful person.)

We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes,
One foul is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice. Read more

Colons are used in Latin and in Romance languages pretty much the same way we use them in English. (Colons caught on in English about the year 1600.) The Latin word “colon” derives from the Greek word that means “limb, member or portion.” Think about that as we go through the various uses of the colon.
By the way, plural for colon in Latin is “cola,” so you could write the name of the soft drink: Coca ::::.
Colons are used to introduce: 1) lists, 2) phrases, 3) subtitles, 4) sentences, 5) generalizations and 6) quotes. Read more

Once upon a time, a period married a colon and gave birth to a semicolon. The semicolon had some of the characteristics of a period because it usually came at the end of a clause that could stand on its own as a sentence. It had some of the characteristics of a colon because it caused the reader to slow down and nearly come to a full stop. It also resembled its uncle the comma because it gave a sense of flow to two clauses locked in a love embrace. When little Miss Semicolon grew to adulthood, she said, “I’m all about relationships.”

The function of the semicolon is in bringing two clauses together in a relationship but not necessarily specifying what the relationship is. The relationship happens in readers’ heads; that is the beauty of the semicolon. Read more

Last month’s EWA prompted a number of complementary messages and a few suggestions for improvements.

Tom Schneider found two typographical errors. Particularly distressing to me is the fact that I covered both of them in an earlier issue on sound-alike words. Last month I wrote, “slight of hand” when I meant to write “sleight of hand.” I wrote, “assent” (meaning “to agree or concur”) when I meant to write “ascent” (”upward movement”). I don’t think I will make either error again; regardless, my mistakes illustrate the formidable challenges of attempting even minimal mastery of our language.

Tom also pointed out that I had talked about grammar in the introduction of last month’s piece yet had discussed a point of punctuation in the EWA itself. I had always thought punctuation is a subset of grammar, but that is not so. Grammar relates to a system underlying the structure of a language. Punctuation refers to the various marks we use when writing to make the meaning clear. Who knew? Now we know.

I have wanted to delve into grammar with my ExcitingWriting Advisories for some time but had many reasons for not going there. How much can I cover in one EWA? Would my readers like me to cover the subject? In some areas of grammar, there are disagreements on proper usage. After publishing 67 issues of my EWA, I have come to these conclusions: If I do not set out to be inclusive, no one can fairly accuse me of being incomplete. My readers would like me to cover grammar subjects. Of course, there are disagreements on usage issues, but I can weigh in with my thoughts. So, here goes.
–Chuck Lustig

Rising Above the Common Comma.

Commas are to writing what fire hydrants are to dogs; they break up the walk, I mean, the writing, into easy portions.

Here are a few things I know about commas:

1. Use of serial commas (or, if you are writing a screenplay, you could call it, “No Country for Old Commas.”): What do I mean by serial commas? “I like X, Y and Z.” “We covered subject A, B and C.” The rule in the AP Style Guide and many other style guides: Use commas between simple serial items but omit the comma between the next-to-the-final item and the word “and.”

If the items in the series are complicated, do not omit the last comma. For example:

The issues in the campaign are the value of the dollar, the rule of law, the failure of foreign policy, and the separation of church and state.
Read more