Mignon Fogarty's Blog: Mignon Fogarty's Blog - Posts Tagged "grammar"

A recent article in the Huffington Post included a sentence that used "data" as a plural noun and sounded so awkward that I thought it was a good example of why sometimes you should either make "data" singular or use a different word:

"Drought was also considered a possibility, but until about 10 years ago there were few data that allowed correlation of dry periods with the archaeological evidence." (emphasis added)

Although the author was valiantly trying to follow the sometimes-rule that "data" is plural because in Latin it's plural ("datum" is the Latin singular), I was cringing—not a response you want from your readers.

It's easy to come up with better options:

* scientists had few results that allowed correlation
* there was little information that allowed correlation

And, of course, if you're OK with "data" being singular when it's a mass noun (a point I've addressed on my site and in 101 Troublesome Words), you could write "there was little data that allowed correlation."

Scientists are more adamant than nonscientists about keeping "data" plural, so making "data" singular may not have been a good choice for this particular sentence, but since the article was on the Huffington Post, and therefore written for the general public, rewriting the sentence to sound more natural would have been a good choice.

Mignon Fogarty is better known online as Grammar Girl.

Today, the print edition of the Los Angeles Times ran the following headline about Octavia Spencer winning an Oscar for her role in The Help:

Hands down: At last, it's just deserts for Spencer

Now, the LA Times is getting a flood of comments from people who believe the paper erred and that the headline should have read "just desserts," according to Henry Fuhrmann, who oversees the paper's copy desk.

The correct phrase is "just deserts." It has everything to do with the word "deserve" and nothing to do with sugary treats. (You can read more about it on the Grammar Girl site. I also covered it in [Book: 101 Misused Words].)

I heard a similar story a few weeks ago from a different source, which makes me think that "just deserts" may be a skunked term, as Bryan Garner of Garner's Modern American Usage calls words that cause problems no matter how you use them.

Furhmann seems to have a good attitude about the readers' gripes. He writes, "I appreciate their passion, even if they believe we erred."

Mignon Fogarty is better known online as Grammar Girl.

I heard an interesting thing about grammar and mystery novels when I was at Stanford the other day.

It's possible that clues appear more often in subordinate clauses than main clauses of mystery novels because people aren't as drawn to the subordinate clauses. The professor speculated that putting a clue in a subordinate clause is a way to hide it in plain sight.

Has anyone else heard this theory or noticed it in practice?

Mignon Fogarty is better known online as Grammar Girl.

My last blog post was about hiding clues in subordinate clauses, and I just talked to someone who uses grammar in a different way to hide information. (It's been a great week for grammar tidbits!)

An old friend who is a lawyer says he always uses active voice in his briefs except when he has a piece of information that looks bad for his case. Then he switches to passive voice because he thinks people gloss over passive sentences more easily than active sentences. He thinks when something is in passive voice, it doesn't draw as much attention.

Interesting approach. If you're a lawyer, do you deliberately switch between active and passive like this?

Mignon Fogarty is better known online as Grammar Girl. Read her article about active voice versus passive voice.

Time is running out! Mother's Day is Sunday, and I need to tell you that the official name is singular: Mother's Day.

The founder intentionally made the name singular because she wanted people to honor their own mother. She did not intend it to be a day of celebrating motherhood in general.

Mignon Fogarty is better known online as Grammar Girl.

Merriam-Webster has been collecting words through its Open Dictionary for some time, and now Collins Dictionary is getting in the game.

Merriam-Webster includes "humble brag," "tanorexic," and "remail," and Collins includes "amazeballs," "YOLO," and "Tebowing."

Here's how words normally get in the dictionary. What do you think is the best way to handle the flood of new words (some great and some awful) that appear every year?

(The title of this post, "If You Ran the Dictionary," is a tribute to one of my favorite children's books, If I Ran the Zoo.)

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Mignon Fogarty is better known online as Grammar Girl and is the author of the new book Grammar Girl's 101 Troublesome Words You'll Master in No Time.

BroadwayGirlNYC on Twitter started fantasizing about "Grammar Girl: The Musical," and people have been joining in with song suggestions.

"Wonderful Noun" (@BroadwayGirlNYC)
"Into the Words (@SuzieD_NYC)
"Don't Say 'Lie' When You Mean 'Lay'" (@Bobster427)
"If I Had a Grammar" (@J_Keith)
"She's Hysterical. She's Hilarious" (me)

What songs can you imagine? If you post it on Twitter, use the hashtag #GrammarGirlMusicalSongs.

UPDATE, July 24: Additional songs people have suggested:

"Marian the Grammarian" (@pianoeditor)
"Maxwell's Silver Grammar" (@pianoeditor)
"Talk Like a Linguician" (@pianoeditor)
"Conjugate! Conjugate! Dance to the Music" (@larry_kunz)
"Larry Kunz ‏@larry_kunz)
"(You're My) Soul and Punctuation" (@larry_kunz)
"When you're an editor, you're an editor all the way. From your first red pencil to your last dyin' day." (@larry_kunz)
"I was Plussed" (@quickbrownfox42)
"An Excellent Nomer" (@quickbrownfox42)
"Morphologically Misunderestimated" (@quickbrownfox42)
"Grammar Thing Going" (@meliciaaarghh)
"Noun Song Glory" (@meliciaaarghh)
"The Last Night of the Word" (@meliciaaarghh)
"Nounsies" (@StageElf)
"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Dictionary" (@StageElf)
"Part of Your Word" (@SuzieD_NYC)
"Magical Mr. Apostrophes" (@melissa_hank)
"They're In Their Car Over There" (@devospice)
"If I Were a Rich Girl" (@atrudel)
"Killing Me Softly with You're Song" (@atrudel)

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Mignon Fogarty is better known online as Grammar Girl and is the author of the new Grammar Girl's 101 Troublesome Words You'll Master in No Time.

I haven't been tweeting much the last couple of days because my tweets seem insignificant with Sandy bearing down on my East Coast friends.

However, I answer questions when I can, and Stuart asked, "@GrammarGirl considering rash of natural disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes), Could you explain the correct use of 'hunkered'?"

Hunkering Down

You're most likely to hear "hunker" followed by the word "down," especially when someone is talking about preparing for a natural disaster.

We're hunkered down in the panic room.
Bob hunkered down in the bar.

When you're hunkering down, you're preparing to spend a long time somewhere.

Etymology entries say "hunker" probably comes from an Old Norse verb that meant "squat."

For the full definitions and and other uses, see the entries at American Heritage, Dictionary.com, or Merriam-Webster.

I’m jealous! Keith Houston got to meet the wife of the man who created my favorite punctuation mark: the interrobang.

I'm shining light on "shine" versus "shone" today!

This is just one of a year's worth of delights from THE GRAMMAR DAILY, coming out November 14.

(Remember: Every time you preorder a book, an angel gets a taco.)



The Grammar Daily: 365 Quick Tips for Successful Writing from Grammar Girl