Grammar Resources

A discussion on grammar among some members of the IWW prompted the post of these grammar resources ...

Since we're talking about resources for grammar rules, here are a few that I use regularly. Where do you go for answers to grammar questions (besides your friendly neighborhood copyeditor?

• PainintheEnglish.com
• The University of Chicago Writing Program
• The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

In print, I regularly find myself flipping through ...

• Elements of Style
• The Chicago Manual of Style
• ActionGrammar
• Woe is I
• The Write Way

"Not in My Back Yard!" "Or Is It Not in My Backyard?"

Things That Matter Enough
by Carter Jefferson

Having lived a fairly long time, I am pretty used to the language shifting under my feet, and I don't get usually get as mad as Lynn Truss does when I see something weird in print. But not too many years ago some idiot start spelling "back yard" as one word -- "backyard." It has caught on, and now I see it everywhere. It even made first place in the AHD4.

"Front yard" hasn't suffered that indignity -- the space is still there in AHD4 and nearly everywhere else. Gross discrimination, I say.

Everybody should know, but some don't, that what's in the dictionary is not what words ought to be, but what enough people say or write -- including illiterates, thoughtless types, and people even you wouldn't like.

Think of the way this sounds: "The swings are in the back yard." Note that when you speak there's the tiny pause between "back" and "yard." Of course, you might say "It's a backyard swing," without that pause and it would sound just right. But a "back seat driver" still takes the pause, so all compound adjectives don't follow the same pronunciation rules.

Of course, all those people in Weston, Massachusetts, who stopped the bike trail from coming through can't say "Nimby" anymore; they have to say "Nimb," right?

Last night, however, I learned to my immense joy that the New Yorker, which is pretty careful about words, still spells "back yard" the way it ought to be spelled. It's at the end of the third paragraph of an article in the financial section of the Aug. 11 & 18 issue called "The Permission Problem."

Of course, it may be a typo, and some proofreader is in big trouble. But maybe not. Just for now, I'm going to believe they meant to spell it that way. You could, too, and then we'd take back that lost ground, swing and all.

You think these things don't matter enough to comment on? Fine. You're not me.

A Little Fun with the English Language

I enjoy reading the columnist James J. Kilpatrick. Once a political commentator, he has in retirement written regularly on the vagaries -- and proper use -- of the English language.

This week Kilpatrick takes on "their," that illustrious plural pronoun now evolving toward the singular. He cites ...

The New York Times: "Nobody wants some sicko drilling a peephole in their locker room."
The Federal Aviation Agency: "We will take action against anybody who violates their obligation ..."
The Seattle Times: "until everybody has said their piece."

Kilpatrick concludes the discussion with ...

In its sometimes disappointing way, The Associated Press Stylebook ducks the issue. So, too, with the eminent Henry Fowler in his Modern English Usage. Fowler's inheritor, R.W. Burchfield, gently waffles ..."Popular usage and historical precedent favor the use of a plural pronoun in such contexts, but many writers prefer to use 'he' or 'he or she.'"

What about it? I would love to hear from editors, authors, speechwriters and serious readers (God bless you!) and will report your consensus.

A Constant Good Read

The well-known political commentator, James J. Kilpatrick, is retired, but he continues to publish a column, sometimes focusing on the activities of the US Supreme Court and more often on language, grammar, and syntax.

His current column is especially interesting in light of the constant admonition to write tight, J K Rowling and her assorted adjectives, adverbs, and dialog tags aside.

Kilpatrick offers, "Often just an extra word or two will make the difference between prose that glides and prose that stumbles."

Here's an example from the current column ...

The Washington Post often contributes to the adjectival goo: "President Bush nominated Deputy Treasury Secretary Samuel W. Bodman yesterday as his second secretary of energy, tapping an administration veteran to lead the Energy Department at a time of unstable oil prices and rising nuclear proliferation concerns." The sentence falls not trippingly. How about, "unstable oil prices and rising concerns over nuclear proliferation"?

Kilpatrick always provides a good read about language, and he even sometimes presides over a session of The Court of Peeves, Crotchets & Irks.

Grammar Mavens

IWW administrator and IWW Blog tender Carter Jefferson likes to rummage amongst the pages of various grammar texts, and he has a counterpart in the political columnist James J. Kilpatrick.

Carter speaks occasionally to the IWW's Writing list. Kilpatrick's column can be found, among other places, on Yahoo's Opinion page.

Mr. Kilpatrick corrected me when he opened a session of his Court of Peeves, Crotchets & Irks. My own was the use of the word ensure. I believed that ensure existed merely as the lifted pinky on the tea cup of language. I complained to Kilpatrick the word had no value other than pretension, that any instance where a person might be eager to use ensure when either insure or assure would be a better fit.

Here is Kilpatrick's reply ...

Many thanks for your inquiry about "insure" and "ensure." I've written about the distinction a couple of times, but perhaps not lately. In many contexts the distinction is too slim to bother with. Strictly speaking, we ought to reserve "insure" for purely financial contexts. We insure against loss. We sign up for the derivative noun "insurance." We buy life "insurance" policies that pay off in money. For everything else, the better choice is probably "ensure." Their marriage began well, "But his heavy drinking soon ensured its collapse."

If you run across interesting examples of doubtful usage, please pass along the dated citations.

Cordially James J. Kilpatrick.

I was certain ensure existed simply to allow Emily Post and Henry James to avoid writing about the mercantile classes, but I was wrong.

I'm often wrong. Sometimes for years. Or decades. As when I reversed the references of "each other" and "one another."