peeves and passes

Recently, on a drive from Palmerston North to Auckland, I spent some time musing on which grammar issues bother me and which ones don't. Of course, the very fact that this issue was taking up space in my brain illustrates that I'm a Tragic Grammar Nut. I could have been taking in all the delicious signs of spring: the soft greens of newly unfurled leaves, spring lambs and calves, even little black piglets in one paddock. I could have been swelling with nationalistic pride; New Zealand is gripped by World Cup Fever so there were All Black flags everywhere, fluttering from cars, letter boxes, roof tops. One farmer had even filled a whole paddock with flags and black and silver balloons.

But no, I was thinking about grammar and punctuation.

What doesn't bother me? Well, I decided that comma splices in some situations (I recently read a PD James novel that was full of them) don't raise my blood pressure too much, especially if I can see the reason for them. Incomplete sentences don't worry me too much, again, if there's a reason for them. I can cope with some misplaced commas. And I'm very comfortable about starting sentences with conjunctions.

But what can't I live with? Sorry, I'm a stickler for apostrophes - even when the mistake doesn't really cause any confusion. I think this is a weakness in my character: I should be more forbearing, but there it is. I can't bear "should of" to such an extent that I would correct someone who uses such an expression, whether that person is a total stranger, a friend, a salesperson or my boss. But my biggest peeve is one that hit me in the face on this trip. We stopped in Hamilton for a meal at our favourite Turkish restaurant and there was a GIGANTIC advert which said, in letters half a mile high, "More data, less dollars". It was all I could do not to head to the nearest hardware store to buy a ladder, black paint and a paint brush and correct it. I was still yelling "FEWER dollars!!" as my partner bundled me hastily into the car, executed a swift u-turn, and headed back on to the motorway out to Auckland.

So what are the grammar errors you can live with? And which ones bring out the Grammar Nut in you?


Image source: https://mrswhitegsl.wikispaces.com/Words+to+the+Wise

Help Nest Feature 1: Mind your p's and q's

Hi D.T.
This was your comment: Is it P's and Q's or Ps and Qs or p's and q's or ps and qs? What about this one? Ben wanted to yell Help but he was ashamed. Is it Help, "help," help, or what?

Those are interesting questions. I don't know about the US, but in Australia we have a helpful Commonwealth of Australia Style Manual, with lots of information for grammar geeks like me. The latest edition (2002, p. 88) says that the form p's and q's is the best one. Italics and no apostrophes are possible (ps and qs), but not so clear. In general, letters of the alphabet should take an apostrophe in the plural. Decades, however, have no apostrophe, so that the decade of the nineties is referred to as the 1990s. The Style Manual also says that 'most shortened words and phrases are made plural simply by adding s, without a preceding apostrophe' (pp. 152-153). That means we have MPs, TVs and CDs. By the way, we don't need to use full stops (periods) with contractions and acronyms, so that we have Mr (not Mr.) and NATO (not N.A.T.O.). We do have full stops when an abbreviation consists of only the first letter of a word, such as p. (page) or fig. (figure).
That also reminds me of the difference between ed. (editor) and edn (edition), where ed. takes a full stop because 'd' is not the last letter, but end has no full stop because 'n' is the last letter of the word!
Some Latin short forms seem to keep the full stop: e.g., et al., etc., but not MS (manuscript), NB (take note) or PS (postscript), all of which are written in capitals. How does that sound? As clear as mud? (That's a British English expression whose meaning you can probably guess!)
In regard to the second question about yelling 'help', I think I'd say:
Ben wanted to yell 'Help!', but he was ashamed. This is similar to the example in the Style Manual (p. 116): He heard the Speaker call 'Order!'
In that case it's a direct quote, so you can use quotation marks.
Have fun writing, and don't forget to dot your i's and cross your t's!
Julia