Come on, MSNBC!

Everyone knows Carrie lives on the Upper East Side! And that East Side is two words.

Good news about the trilogy, though.

A few HOURS? But I need to play Scrabulous NOW!

My latest pet peeve, as far as technical difficulties go:

Hooked on Phoenix

A screen cap during a Phoenix Suns game the other night:

(thanks to Eric and Erica!)

If it's broke, for goodness sake — FIX IT!

I e-mailed NPD about this last week. It's still there:


They's a problem wit you login, bro!

Come on, CNN!

Over the weekend, CNN had these hed busts on its homepage for more than six hours. I see this sort of thing from them all the time!

Copy editors asleep at the wheel, or no copy editors? Which would be worse ... hmm ... I can't decide.

My favorite NYT byline

If you like G!na Kol@d@ ... gettin' caught in the rain ...

Paws/pause (Or: I'm wrong a lot.)

These two words are not easily confused, apparently, unless you're me.

So, I'm reading an NYT article a bit ago, which quotes a bit of the Christmas carol, "Up On The Housetop." And then I'm thinking, "SPOTTED! AN ERROR IN THE TIMES! BY ME!"

It said, "Up on the housetop / reindeer pause / down comes good ol' Santa Clause."

How could they confuse PAUSE and PAWS? What carrots. So I looked up the lyrics to confirm my catch, only to discover I was dead wrong. I know reindeers can PAUSE, but alas, I guess they don't have PAWS.

So are they hooves?

OMG, nothing to post

It's as if the grammatical world has stopped on a dime and has decided to stop bugging me. It must be the Christmas spirit!

Anyone else have news?

Things that bug me about the NYT

• The excessive use of prepositional phrases at the beginning of heds:

• Awkward 'Is Dead' construction in obit heds. It's just ... harsh:

• Really egregious errors in pieces about my favorite band after The Beatles that clearly were not fact-checked. I know concert reviews are on super-tight deadlines, but c'mon, people*:

*That was for Alex.

"I'm feelin' kind of basic today ... "

This may be old news to some of you, but I've seen it a lot lately, in my e-mail in box and beyond:

"I'm going to my parent's house for Thanksgiving."

No no nono nonononono. Unless you mean your parents are no longer sharing a roof, and you do not care to specify which one (Mom's or Dad's) house you are going to, no no nonononoooo. No. It's parents'.

Same goes for sisters or brothers. If you have more than one, and they are collectively owning something (or live together, or whatever) move the apostrophe one space to the right. That's the rule, you turkeys.

Should I be scared?

Friends, I think I've gone over to the Bad Place. Oh wait, I've been there for some time.

Anyway. I'll share this anyway.

So last night, I'm watching Ghostbusters, right? And since (because?) I love movie trivia, I activated the special feature where the screen displays interesting factoids scene by scene. Soon, I noticed a misspelling in one of them that was on the screen for just a few seconds ("Winson" instead of "Winston" -- spell the characters' names right, for heavens to Betsy!). I was horrified at the error, but this was soon replaced by me being horrified that I noticed the error.

But really, I should expect such instances of freakdom from myself by now. It's been known to happen at stranger times, in stranger places (read: Saturday at 2 a.m. in a bar) than watching a DVD on my couch.

On that note, let's talk about since vs. because. Although my Stylebook is within arms reach, I won't look it up now. Anybody have a quick and easy way to remember the correct usage of both?

What would the wizard have to say about this?

Dear Margaret Hamilton,

I'm confused.

So, like, the part where you're writing in the sky with smoke that is somehow being emitted from your broom (all with amazing haste, no less), saying, "Surrender Dorothy"? Are you, like, speaking directly to her? As in "Surrender, Dorothy"? If so, your failure to smoke-draw a comma there creates a lack of clarity.

Or, perhaps you are saying, in a command form, "Surrender Dorothy!" as in, "Give her up and stop protecting her!" to the Tin Man, Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion*?

There are two ways to interpret this, all thanks to a comma (or, in this case, a lack thereof). People like me need answers, Margaret Hamilton.

Also, props on the little loops in your R's. You must have a bit of girly spirit in there somewhere, you wicked old hag.

For this letter you can thanks TBS, as they aired TWOZ back-to-back last night, enabling me to ponder these sorts of things (and for giving me blog material).

Love,
Sarah

*Are those names supposed to be capped?

Years, year's and years'

It's a tricky one, but I found this error today and felt it was a good time to explain what's up.


When using a phrase such as the above, it's always a plural possessive if you're talking about more than one year's/month's/day's anything. ie. In 10 years' time, more than four months' therapy, less than one day's pay. Plural things are plural, even when they have an s already. That's where it gets confusing, I admit.

I won't even go into the above usage of over instead of more than. I hate over when used like it is up there, but apparently, some people are becoming more accepting of it. But remember, kids: just because some say it's OK doesn't make it right.

When TKs happen to good people

Twice on the same part of the same page. Ouch.

Oh, noooooo ...

Good thing only one writer is striking

Well, according to this, anyway:


Nice work, VH1.

An attempt at AP Style gone wrong

(Or: Things originally discovered by Dan.)

Full article here. Also note this is the "corrected version."

Hey, at least it's not mulls

Gawker takes a look at the abundance of "Honey, I Shrunk the ... " headlines in New York Times history (or, since the movie came out in '89).

It's funny, check it out.

This explains so much

On Thursday, I sent this e-mail to the bus company:

"FYI ...
At least one of your buses (the one in the Halloween parade last night) misspells ROCKEFELLER CENTER on its side. Eeek."

And I received this reply the same day:

"Dear Mr. Eeek,
Thank you for letting us know about the bus misspells. We are very appreciating it and we will take care of it.
Best regards,
Lyr Bar."

Now THAT is scary

During the Greenwich Village parade last night, I saw this on the side of a tour bus full of costumed people:


Try ROCKEFELLER. At least it's correct on their Web site, but I wonder how many of its buses bear this horrifying error. Probably many or all of them.

And then I rode the subway home with four drag queens in assless* pants. I love this city!

*Ass-less?

I'll snag a photo later

There's a tacky jewelry store by my office that has about 15 paper signs on the window today, each one of which says "SALE." Yes, with the quotes. I'll get a pic for you all soon.

I've gotta get braver/more shameless about photographing such things. I don't want people to think I'm weird. But hey, this is New York. I saw a guy carrying a deer head down 38th Street earlier this year while filming himself, and nobody cared.

No grammar atrocities to report today. Anyone else have news?

Clearing up the confusion

Lately I've been seeing a lot of "use to" and "suppose to." Don't forget the D's! On this topic, I was never really sure about this. Good to know! So is this, if you care.

I love Brian's Errors! Happy Friday, fellow nerds.

Disasters in YourTube-vertising

Exhibit A:

See it for yourself here.

Hey, girl's's's's! Let's all go eat at Bennigans's's's's!!!

Someone my own size

Web sites are so easy to pick on.
I'm very curious about this "gourmet" salon and the "you" that can be created via my new look. I gotta get me a "Hair Stlytist," too.

As seen in Coney Island ...

Or: The one time I don't have my camera phone!

Seen on a hand-lettered sign on a glass case at a deli:

Fresh "Cookies"

Love it. Reminds me of my "new" favorite "blog."

Nerd books

Currently Reading (And So Can You!)
The Dictionary of Disagreeable English :: Robert Hartwell Fiske
The Elements of Style :: William Strunk Jr.
The Associated Press Stylebook 2007 :: The Associated Press

Any more suggestions?

Have some (phone and grammatical) decency!

So, it's a little off the topic of grammar, but it is a pet peeve — and pet peeves are welcome here!

I don't like when you pick up the phone and people say, "Hi. Who is this?"

"Who are you trying to reach?" is my standard, I'll-show-you reply.

Actually, this does have to do with grammar after all (don't most things?), as when I say, "WHO are you trying to reach?" it is technically supposed to be WHOM, yes?

But I know the rules, therefore I break them.

On a related topic, I hate it even more when I answer the phone, "Good afternoon, this is Sarah," and the person on the other end says, "Sarah, how you doin' today?" without identifying themselves first. It's bad manners AND bad grammar!

[cue barfing noises]

Hey, Pearce people ...

So, I told my high school journalism adviser about this blog, and he said he was gonna make you read it (sorry) for class. I haven't a clue if you're actually doing it, but if you are, feel free to leave comments regarding what you'd like to see covered here — be it things you find confusing, funny or, let's face it, just plain annoying — about grammar or related topics.

And if you have ideas for guest posts, I'd be happy to have contributors to the cause of greater grammar everywhere!

In the meantime, be nice to Mr. G, and remember: I was once in your chair — you too can aspire to be this nerdy!

Why would they do that? Why?

Hyphen, hyphen, go away ... come again another day.

This e-mail is also an offender in the world of Arbitrary Capitalization. I'm unlikely to do it myself but am much less a stickler on the failure to use a comma following Hi, even though it's technically correct to use one. Because sometimes you just don't want a pause there.

But wait, there's more (from the same person):

Owwww, it hurts. It physically hurts.

When good specs go bad

Kids, this is what happens when waaaaay there's too much emphasis on filling out a headline for the sake of everything lining up just so:

Egads. Issue seen as key one? Blech! This smacks of "your story is too short, so I'm gonna need to put an extra dek on that hed" to me. I also don't like "seen as," because it begs the question "by whom?" and doesn't answer it.

Let's rewrite this. Ideas?

Soup du jour of the day

Things never to write:

completely destroyed
surrounded on all sides
young child
added bonus
all-time new record (this one makes sports editors twitch uncontrollably)
closed fist
exactly the same
join together
previous history
advance warning
unsolved mystery

Other stuff worth mocking:

It's raining outside. ... Because indoor rain is a you-know-what.
Tell me, in your own words. ... Unless you were planning to quote someone.
At this point in time. ... Time is all we have, bro. Even in space.
Make a Xerox copy. ... You copyright infringer, you!
Where's the ATM machine? ... Also see: He signed the NAFTA Trade Agreement.
And that's the honest truth. ... Because so many true things are lies.

Submit your own!

So I can show you the error of their ways

A tech question, for the benefit of YSV reader(s?):

Does anyone know how to get pictures off a camera phone (or cameraphone) when said phone did not come with any sort of device for to transfer images to iPhoto? This blog would be much cooler if it had photos (or photo's) of the English-language butchery I see daily — nay, hourly! — on New York City streets.

This is a wicked ruse to get me to shell out greenbacks for phone accessories, I'm sure. It's the 2007 equivalent of "batteries not included," no? Like I have any money. I work in editorial!

You too can tighten your copy!

Reading a hunka-hunka burnin' verbiage during a 10-hour shift yesterday, I came across some Personal Copy Pet Peeves (PCPP):

• Continued use of "in fact," as it tends to be superfluous and take up precious column inches.

i.e. Linus was whiny. In fact, he was also short.

• Extraneous use of "that."

i.e. She said that she was sick of writers' excessive use of extra words.

• Using "different" after a number, as below. Again, this is implicit in what's already being said.

i.e. The hellhole* Chinatown apartment was home to more than 100 different species of insects.

• Unnecessary "up"-iness, and other preposition overuse.

i.e. Tighten up, loosen up, open up, close down, reading through, and (my personal favorite) off of.

We all have PCCPs. What're yours?

*One word or two? You decide.

That's bad for your comma

Let's dive right in — I don't think commas are necessary to offset the below-mentioned dictator's name:

[via The New York Times]

I do believe we are in the presence of what I shall henceforth call Press Release Commas. Writers of such releases are quite keen to place commas around all name drops (i.e. Rock icon, Elvis Presley, has left the building). They'd no doubt like you to pause and gawk at all names they mention, hence the commas.

In the above case, I do believe Kim Jong-il acts as an appositive, and commas aren't needed there, because it is essential information in the sentence. Just like here:


If anyone cares to debate this, the floor is yours. I could be (and often am) wrong. Please, you discuss!

Same words, different meaning

Or: So the Mile-High Club does exist!
Caption reads: Lynn Varian, 59, became pregnant with Megan Carmody, 33, while she was a flight attendant. (Photo via CNN)

How not to use less and fewer

Notice it says "simulated imagery," whatever that's supposed to be. Also? If this is the "after" photo, I'm very disturbed.

I've been called worse

Play it yourself here.

Um ... bumblebee? Seriously?

Thousands of hyphens perish as English marches on
By Simon Rabinovitch

LONDON (Reuters) - About 16,000 words have succumbed to pressures of the Internet age and lost their hyphens in a new edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

Bumble-bee is now bumblebee, ice-cream is ice cream and pot-belly is pot belly.

And if you've got a problem, don't be such a crybaby (formerly cry-baby).

The hyphen has been squeezed as informal ways of communicating, honed in text messages and emails, spread on Web sites and seep into newspapers and books.

"People are not confident about using hyphens anymore, they're not really sure what they are for," said Angus Stevenson, editor of the Shorter OED, the sixth edition of which was published this week.

Another factor in the hyphen's demise is designers' distaste for its ungainly horizontal bulk between words.

"Printed writing is very much design-led these days in adverts and Web sites, and people feel that hyphens mess up the look of a nice bit of typography," he said. "The hyphen is seen as messy looking and old-fashioned."

The team that compiled the Shorter OED, a two-volume tome despite its name, only committed the grammatical amputations after exhaustive research.

"The whole process of changing the spelling of words in the dictionary is all based on our analysis of evidence of language, it's not just what we think looks better," Stevenson said.

Researchers examined a corpus of more than 2 billion words, consisting of full sentences that appeared in newspapers, books, Web sites and blogs from 2000 onwards.

For the most part, the dictionary dropped hyphens from compound nouns, which were unified in a single word ( e.g. pigeonhole) or split into two (e.g. test tube).

But hyphens have not lost their place altogether. The Shorter OED editor commended their first-rate service rendered to English in the form of compound adjectives, much like the one in the middle of this sentence.

"There are places where a hyphen is necessary," Stevenson said. "Because you can certainly start to get real ambiguity."

Twenty-odd people came to the party, he said. Or was it twenty odd people?

More PR fantastics

Or: Fun with "superfluous" quote "marks"

From a press release I'm reading/getting background from for a story:

Esquire, owned by Hearst Magazines, was the winner of the 2007 National Magazine Award for "Reporting" ...

Makes it sound like this was the same kind of "reporting" Stephen Glass was "doing."

Facebook, nooooo!

Terrible.

Odd observation

Not to digress too much from the point of this blog, but ... I just realized everything I was carrying in my hands (before I sat down to type this) began with the letter c.

I like to think I noticed this because I like alliteration. A whole lot. Excellent literary device, that one.

Oh, and it was coffee, couscous and cucumber. Weird lunch, I know.

Double meanings

CNN.com breaking news ...

'The jury in the Phil Spector murder trial is hung, judge says'

My first thought: "FOR WHAT?"

Either way's fine with me

Though it's tough to admit, there are a few things in grammar that don't seem to matter.

For instance, a sign above a locker room that says "players entrance." Would it matter if it said "players' entrance" instead. Is it wrong for it to just be plural? Maybe this is one of the things I don't quite get.

I do know it doesn't work for drinks menu versus drinks' menu, as the drinks are not owning the menu, but you see my point. Don't you?

The rules are: there ARE no rules!

Or: Hyphenating hyphenates.

Say you're dating someone online. You're having an e-mail-intensive relationship. Yeah, so, that double hyphen? How does that even work? Or does it?

I realize there's an Internet Age section or whatever in the Stylebook now, but I don't know whether it addresses the Awkward Double Hyphen Dilemma (haha ... ADHD!).

Just ordered a 2007 edition (referred to on the Web site as The Journalist's "Bible," and I'm not sure why "Bible" has to be in quotes).

For six months, I've been Stylebook-less. It feels like forgetting your wallet — you feel naked, exposed and very likely to misuse a dateline.

Don't ask, don't tell

Tomorrow night I am going to be eating dinner at a place whose Web site uses Comic Sans.

Other than that, I'm really looking forward to it.

Misunderestimations in speech

Today's topic is awkward moments in conversation where someone (and more than once it's been me) has no idea he or she is saying something incorrectly:

Exhibit A: I know someone who cannot pronounce the word vehemently. For some reason, he says vuh-HEMPT-lee. It's ... weird.

B: Anytime the phrase "for all intensive purposes" escapes someone's lips *

C: Sometimes I feel like half the people I know pronounce it supposeably.

D: And now for the self-deprecating portion of the program ...

Once in a budget meeting, in front of the publisher, I had to read the lede graf of a story about Viagra (which is embarrassing enough) which used the word impotent. I pronounced it "im-POE-tent," as in not potent. As in scent.

Needless to say, I had probably never used said word before, nor do I these days — but I know how to say it ever since this:

"Um," the publisher said, in front of the entire room. "Im-POE-tent?"

And then they all guffawed — a little too hard. Nothing like being openly mocked. That'll learn ya.

*Thanks to J-Dub

Press releases: Birthplace of grammar atrocities?

Dear all PR people,

Oh. My. God.

Love,
Sarah

P.S. Tell your coworkers to read my blog. K, love ya!

A memo from the Department of Homeland 'Duh'

Or: Overheard on my cell phone

Reporter: We've been swimming in Larry Craig coverage.
Other person: Oh yeah?
Reporter: Do you know who Larry Craig is?
Other person: Oh my God, don't insult me.

A discussion of S's

I used to make a thin argument about the reasoning behind what I am now calling The Apostrophe S-yndrome. My argument doesn't hold water, and now I am forced to conclude there is no truly solid explanation for why this happens.

My old argument was one based on the faulty assumption of inconsistency and can be captured in this sentence I just made up:

"If you are going to make greeting card's, you should definitely write Merry Christma's on the front."

If society's inclination is to, as Dave Barry famously said, use the letter 's' only to "alert the reader that an 's' is coming up at the end of the word," then why doesn't anyone misspell Merry Christma's ... or, like, dresse's? It's humorou's.

But I think where people get confused is the mistaken belief that everything plural is also the owner of something, or itself (see: Go Bronco's, magazine's for sale, tasty burrito's). I have come to see I am terrible at explaining why seeing a list of BEER'S on a menu is sickening (and it's not just because I hate beer).

The only thing I can think of is to yell, as a sports editor I know used to say, "Beer's WHAT?"

And they still don't get it.

(I spotted the above image while buying a concert ticket online last month. Maybe they should eliminate those lovely "convenience" charges and hire a copy editor.)

With whom are we supposed to keep up?

There's a commercial on in New York right now advertising a casino in New Jersey. It's a scripted scenario about the Jones and Smith families, and its pronunciation of Jones bugs me.

They just say "the Jones."

My inclination is to say Joneses, as that's technically the plural — and that's how we say it when we talk about keeping up with them. Whether to cap the The, however, is something I'm not prepared to answer (but I lean toward keeping it down).

My mom called the other day asking how to punctuate an invitation for a party given by several families, and it forced me toward a most inconvenient use of this "rule" for pluralizing surnames.

The culprits? We'll call them the Wilson-Tate family.

There was just no good way to do this. I mean, "Hosted by The Smiths, The Connors and The Wilson-Tateses"? See, this is why I'm not a feminist. Just take his name, woman!

It's tricky, and it can happen to any family, hyphenated or no. For example, The Rogerses just looks weird. And what do seasoned j-nalists do when this happens? That's right, kids. Write around it!

"Hosted by The Smith, Connor and Wilson-Tate families."

And SCENE.

He did not have an answer for that woman

Bill Clinton was on Oprah yesterday, and she asked him just what I've been dying to know: What's he gonna be called if his wife wins in '08? "There's no precedent," he said — which is true.

The way I see it, here are the possibilities:

1) President Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
2) The president and the First Gentleman.
3) Captain Clinton and her first mate.
4) Miss Hilly and Slick Willy.
5) President Clinton Part Deux: Bizzack in the Whizzle Hizzle.

He joked to Oprah that his Scottish friends think he should be "First Laddy." My first thought? The massive potential for a hed bust. Spellchecker won't catch an omission of the second 'd.'

I mean, that's just kindling.

D.E.A.R. time drama

Dude, remember D.E.A.R. time? Drop Everything And Read?

I have a distinct memory of one D.E.A.R. time, where I was probably reading a Ramona*, The Boxcar Children or The Babysitters Club — when I came upon a quirky word I didn't know.

The sentence was something like, " 'C'mon!' she shouted."

So I go up to ask the teacher what this whole c'mon deal was about, and, because she was a good teacher, she challenged me to "sound it out." I clearly recall pronouncing it SEMEN — which didn't matter, because I didn't know that word either.

"kuh-MAHN," she corrected. "It's short for come on. But good try, Sarah."

I have to wonder if she still tells that story in the faculty break room. Mrs. Harris, have mercy on a girl.

*I would have linked to the author's site, but I just ... can't. It's done in (wait for it) ... Comic Sans.

East Coast irony

Help me

Y'all, I'm in an ethical grammar jam.

Over the past, well ... forever, I've had a friend who uses your when it should be you're — just like, oh, approx. 97 million other native speakers.

In the interest of protecting identity, I don't want to go into how I know this ... but I know he or she will inevitably impart this incorrect usage to a sizable group of impressionable people and/or become embarrassed in the misuse of these words in the near future.

I've never said anything, but I'm feeling conflicted now. [cue Dennis Hopper "Speed" voice]

What do you do?

Liquid ledes (as opposed to ... )

Arrrgh, the 'no exception' lede.

It's like saying, "Most people have skin, and Tom Thomas is no exception."

I would like to hear others' lede pet peeves. Please — you share!

Fun with misplaced modifiers

OK, readers: write your own in the comments!

Lessons in copspeak

I recall seeing a memo at some point (Missourian? Sentinel?) regarding how never to quote law officials saying worthless things. Hence, this graf from the story about the cell phone bomb threats (and where they may have come from) caught my eye:

"It was either national or international* ... it was not a local** cell phone company," he said.

Are they kidding with this? I mean, I know CNN has a hed bust on the main page, like, every day (a recent gem went something like: 'Owen Wilson was attempted suicide, police say'), but seriously: this is J105-level knowledge.

Wah wah.

*Yes, it was. Hey, and did you know Bin Laden is either alive or dead?
**A good follow-up question would have been: Um, "local" cell phone company?

Explanation

The title "Your Sew Vein" is a blushing admission of my tendency to obsess on spelling/grammar/style errors beyond what some view as necessary, or sane. "People make mistakes," they say.

Yes, and I catch them.

This is that place to air our struggles with things that make the world go 'round ... such as love, money, dangling participles and crusading against the comma-happy masses.

"Up-and-coming artist, Tom Smith, will hold an exhibition Friday ... "

NO NO NO. You do not need a comma there. Or there. Take 'em out. Out!!

The birth

I've been contemplating a grammar blog for a long while. In some respects, it's not the most original idea (see: Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips), but it's just too damn tempting not to start my own, what with all the material life on the grid provides me.

It was on the backburner until last night, when yet another sighting of a typed sign asking for tip's sent me over the edge.

I hope soon to get a camera phone, but for now I will photograph as much as I can, keep my eyes peeled or just report on the many offenses I see on the go in Manhattan. Think of this as Perez Hilton meets Poynter.

And welcome.