A reader writes:

I was helping my son with a paper last night and one of the issues with quotes and commas came up.  Mind helping me on this one?

It was a series of short sentences with exclamations that were quoted and then followed by the citation.  What do you do with that?

 This is what he wrote:

 While walking towards the establishment of his old boss, Mr. Fezziwig, Ebenezer exclaims, “Why it’s old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it’s Fezziwig alive again” (Dickens 34).

 The end sentence, “…Fezziwig alive again!” was to have an exclamation point.  He left it out so he could put the period at the end of the citation.  Do you keep the exclamation point AND the period?  I didn’t know the answer.

An important thing to remember is that exclamation points and question marks almost always have their own set of rules that don’t correspond to the more common rules relating to commas and periods. That’s the case, here.

As a reminder, here are some rules for punctuating a parenthetical citation:

When citing regular text, the parenthetical citation should be within the punctuation.

Most popular press and public grammar issues concerned misplaced apostrophes and the use of apostrophes to make words plural as in potato’s and lemon’s (Truss 49).

Note that there is no comma between the author’s name and the page number.

If the author’s name is in the text, just the page number is required in the citation.

According to Truss, most grammar issues are related to the misuse of apostrophes (49).

If you are quoting text, the period goes outside of the quotation marks next to the parenthetical citation.

“Another writer tells us that punctuation marks are the traffic signals of language: they tell us to slow down, notice this, take a detour, and stop” (Truss 7).

BUT, and we are now safely back at the original question: How do we write a citation and punctuate the sentence when the quoted material ends with an exclamation point?

Well, remember at the beginning of this, I told you that exclamation points and question mark behave differently? Well, this is an example. This is the rule:

When using a parenthetical citation with a quotation that ends in an exclamation point or question mark, keep the original punctuation inside the quotation, and place a period after the parenthetical citation.

“Might the tide turn, however? Are there any reasons to be cheerful on behalf of punctuation?” (Truss xxv).

Which brings us back to the example in the original question which should look like this:

 While walking towards the establishment of his old boss, Mr. Fezziwig, Ebenezer exclaims, “Why it’s old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it’s Fezziwig alive again!” (Dickens 34).

And there you have it.

Tip 2: The semicolon

A reader writes:

I think that you need to do a piece on the semicolon.  I do not know whether it has gone out of style, but it seems to me that the poor thing has a place.

Perfect timing. After reading so many proposals where the poor semicolon was misused and abused, I was thinking that it must be time for a semicolon refresher. This is our third foray into the wonderful world of the semicolon, but its pretty clear that its time has come, again.

Let’s start with the easy stuff. We  recently talked about using a comma in a compound sentence in which the independent clauses are separated by a conjunction such as ‘and’ or ‘but.’

We will estimate the extent to which patients request prescriptions for selected drugs, and we will assess the extent to which they had these prescriptions filled at least once.

Well, if you have a compound sentence with no conjunction and, as a result, no comma, then you separate the clauses with a semicolon.

We will estimate the extent to which patients request prescriptions for selected drugs;  we will, then, assess the extent to which they had these prescriptions filled at least once.

In a list (whether introduced by a colon or not), you use a semicolon to separate items ONLY if the items already have internal commas; otherwise, separate items with commas. In this case, the semicolon is used to add clarity to the sentence.

The total health care costs of participants receiving the intervention will: (a) decrease over the timeframe of the study, (b) show a similar change as is seen for individuals receiving traditional counseling, and (c) be lower than among age- and sex-matched adults from the same clinical practices.

(NO COMMAS INTERNAL TO ITEMS IN LIST SO NO SEMICOLON.)

Providers may find this intervention compelling for its potential to reduce staffing needs, including physicians, nurses, and other staff; facilitate communication between patients, health providers, and family members; and supply a forum for the collection, management and presentation of data.

(THERE ARE INTERNAL COMMAS INCLUDED IN THE ITEMS, SO SEMICOLONS ARE NEEDED TO SEPARATE THE ITEMS.)

Some people think that if we introduce a list with a colon, we always need to follow it with semicolons. But that’s not true; we only use the semicolon if there are internal commas in the list.

Stay with me, we are almost done now. I just need to tell you what a conjunctive adverb is. Conjunctive adverbs act as conjunctions in that they connect two clauses; however, they are weaker in meaning than conjunctions. Here are common conjunctive adverbs:

after all                                         in addition                                    next

also                                               incidentally                                   nonetheless

as a result                                      indeed                                           on the contrary

besides                                          in fact                                           on the other hand

consequently                                 in other words                              otherwise

finally                                            instead                                          still

for example                                   likewise                                        then

furthermore                                  meanwhile                                    therefore

hence                                            moreover                                      thus

however                                       nevertheless

Because they are weaker than conjunctions, we set them off with a semicolon before and a comma after.

I was going to finish the experiment today; however, I left the samples at the other lab.

It seems as if the proposal will be funded; therefore, we need to make sure everything is in order to start the study.

That’s pretty much it. We covered the main stuff anyway. This is all you really need to know to keep your semicolons happy.

A reader writes:

Hello, I’m a weekly reader but haven’t contacted you before. In this example, is the “that” optional, wrong, or correct? “Mr. X said [that] he likes coffee.” This would be for a formal write-up, like meeting minutes.

My answers are sometimes, no, and yes. Let me explain, but I’ll start with the last and work my way back.

The reader asks if ‘that’ is correct in the construction, “Mr. X said that he likes coffee.”

The answer is yes. ‘That’ is acting as a conjunction, here, and is used to introduce the noun clause, “he likes coffee,” and this usage is absolutely correct.

The reader asks if ‘that’ is wrong in that construction.

The answer is no; it is fine.

The reader asks if ‘that’ is optional in that construction.

The answer is sometimes. Conversationally and in very informal writing, the ‘that’ is optional. But in any type of formal writing (including the reader’s minutes and all of the professional writing we do), the ‘that’ is not optional and should always be used.

‘That’ is a bit of a wild word. It can function as an adjective, a conjunction, a pronoun, or an adverb. Don’t worry about how it is used; just know that we want to use ‘that’ in our formal writing.

Tip 2: Commas

We’ve been in a frenzy of grant proposal writing and reading around here. For some of us, sleep is a fond but distant memory. And having been caught up in it myself, I have come to one somewhat sad but inescapable conclusion: No one knows how to use commas. No one. That excludes me, of course, but no one else knows how. I don’t understand it myself; it seems relatively simple. I think I blame in on the teachers you had  when you were a child who told you to use a comma everywhere you would pause when speaking. What drivel! What a mess! Everyone’s speaking style is different resulting in a morass of commas used willy nilly, hither and yon. What’s a poor writer to do?

Okay guys, here it is, the definitive list of rules of comma usage. I know we’ve gone through this before, but I am eternally hopeful. Now, PAY ATTENTION.

PLEASE NOTE: I’ve heavily edited all of the examples below, so no use speculating about authorship; any unfortunate writing is all mine.

1. Use commas to separate items in a list.

The total health care costs of participants receiving the intervention will: (a) decrease over the timeframe of the study, (b) show a similar change as is seen for individuals receiving traditional treatment, and (c)  be lower than among age- and sex-matched adults from the same clinical practices.

The items are those of (a), (b), and (c), so commas are needed.

2. Use a comma before the word ‘and’ in a list. This is called a serial comma, and it should be used to avoid ambiguity.

We will select applicants who are highly motivated, talented, and have excellent training in their content area.

A classic example demonstrating the ambiguity without the commas is this dedication:

To my parents, Ayn Rand and God.

versus

To my parents, Ayn Rand, and God.

Much clearer.

3. Use  a comma before the conjunction (e.g., and, but, or, so, yet) in a sentence with an independent clause on either side of the conjunction. (An independent clause is a group of words that has both a subject and a verb and can stand on  its own as a sentence.)

The focus is on physicians encouraging loved ones who are physicians to be part of the care team, and we hope that this mechanism also encourages non-physicians to play an integral role.

Each clause can stand on its own as a complete sentence, so a comma is needed before ‘and.’

The focus is on physicians encouraging loved ones who are physicians to be part of the care team.

We hope that this mechanism also encourages non-physicians to play an integral role.

But if either clause is not independent and can’t stand on its own as a sentence, then DO NOT USE A COMMA.

Physicians are more likely to counsel when they feel counseling is important and when they are knowledgeable about the topic.

NO COMMA. This is a very common mistake. You only use the comma if BOTH clauses can stand on their own.

Physicians are more likely to counsel when they feel counseling is important, and doctors counsel most when they are knowledgeable about the topic.

4. Use a comma to separate introductory words from the rest of the sentence.

Upon survey completion, you will be provided with an email address that you can use to register for a chance to win.

5. Use commas (before and after) to separate a parenthetical phrase from the rest of the sentence.

The application, no longer than ten pages, must describe the design of the proposed model.

6. Use a comma between adjectives if the comma could be replaced by the words, ‘and’ or ‘but.’ If you can substitute ‘and’ or ‘but,’ the adjectives are coordinate adjectives that call for a comma. If it doesn’t make sense when you put in ’and’ or ‘but,’ then you DO NOT USE a comma.

I expect that the legal, justified argument will finally prevail.

She called me a little old lady, and all I could do was nod.

7. Use a comma to set off a quotation.

William James once said, “The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”

There are other rules about when to use commas (e.g., in addresses, salutations, dates), and there are even some exceptions, but for our purposes, these are the main ones. If you learn these, my head won’t be spinning during the next proposal frenzy, and I would very much appreciate that.

A colleague recently  sent me this comic on ‘Deciphering Academese’ that I thought you might enjoy: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=405

Tip 1: Sneaked or snuck

A reader writes:

First of all, thank you for the WLUT,  I love the weekly emails. I typically forward them to a good friend who is notorious for correcting people on their language. We’re both big fans! Anyway, my question for you is (and I’m sorry if you’ve answered this before, but I couldn’t find it on your blog) is what is the appropriate past tense for sneak? I was recently corrected by my aforementioned friend after I used the word “snuck”. He quickly and proudly, told me that “snuck” isn’t a word, and that the correct word is “sneaked.” Despite the fact that the past tenses of peek and leak are peeked and leaked (just to name a few), I can’t help but feel funny when saying “sneaked”. Please confirm!

I hate to let down a reader who is a fan of the WLUT, but I am afraid that this time I have to, but with a caveat. This is the deal: the past tense of sneak follows the same patterns that the reader suggested and is, indeed, ‘sneaked,’ and ‘snuck’ is generally considered non-standard English. However,  there are almost as many people who use ‘snuck’ as there are who use ‘sneaked.’ And moreover, many of those were actually taught in school that ‘snuck’ was the correct past tense of ‘sneak.’  Furthermore, I love ‘snuck.’ It sounds downright ‘sneaky.’ Now, I wouldn’t use it in my formal writing, but why would we ever use the verb, ‘sneak’ in our formal writing anyway? But in conversation, I would not look askance—there is something very descriptive about ‘snuck.’ You know how I often say that language changes and evolves? Well, this is a great example. Snuck is increasingly being considered standard, and you can even find it in some dictionaries! Its usage is so common that I find it hard to believe that it won’t become a reasonable alternative to sneaked. I also would not be surprised if someday it became more common to use ‘snuck’ than it is to use ‘sneaked.’

I know that there are some people who are very conservative about language and grammar and who will be appalled by this post. To them I say, “Get over yourselves already.” Part of what I love about language is its color, and nobody’s going to tell me that ‘sneaked’ is more colorful than ‘snuck.’

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Tip 2: Frauding or defrauding

Speaking about being appalled, I love that language changes, but I am horrified when a supposedly professional writer mistakenly changes language in a supposedly professionally-edited big city newspaper. So you can imagine my reaction the other day, when I opened up the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and saw this headline:

Businessman sentenced for frauding investors

Yikes! Seeing this in the Post-Gazette made me start doubting myself. Could ‘fraud’ ever be used as a verb? I looked in dictionary after dictionary. I looked at website after website. And, nope, my original horror was justified. I even asked an attorney friend if ‘frauding’ could possibly be legal jargon. No.

Okay, this is the lesson Post-Gazette:

Fraud is the noun.

Defraud is the verb.

Pretty simple, right? I’ll say it one more time: Fraud is the noun, defraud is the verb. The headline should have read:

Businessman sentenced for defrauding investors

Where are all the good editors when you need them?

I saw this phrase in a report recently:

Exemplary Clinical Research Projects: 2011

It preceded a listing of the names of 30 clinical research projects conducted at US universities in 2011. I paused for a moment when I read the title and wondered whether the author intended to use ‘exemplary’ or did he (I knew the author was a man) really mean ‘examples of’ or ‘representative’ or something else altogether. I bet he used ‘exemplary’ as a fancy way of saying ‘examples of.’ This is the bottom line:  ‘Exemplary’ is not a gussied up way of saying ‘examples of.’

‘Exemplary’ means ‘commendable’ or ‘worthy of imitation’; the word has a positive connotation.

[NOTE: I know that ‘exemplary’ can also have a somewhat negative connotation as in ‘exemplary prison sentence,’ but that usage is rare in academic medicine, so I think it’s best not to consider it.]

I think the confusion comes from the definition that refers to ‘exemplary’ meaning ‘illustrative of’ or ‘typical.’ Folks sometimes look at that and mistakenly think that if it’s ‘illustrative of’ then it is  ‘an example of.’ But it’s not.

‘Exemplary’ in this sense means ‘an ideal example’ or an example that ‘typifies’ something. It is the model model (if you know what I mean). It’s not just ‘an ordinary example’—it’s the ‘ultimate example’; it’s the ‘best example.’

All of this goes for ‘exemplar,’ too.

By the way, after I wrote this up, I spoke with the author noted above, and found that he, in fact, had used ‘exemplary’ correctly. He did mean that these were the best examples of clinical research projects completed last year. Oh well, it still is a useful lesson.

Tip 2: Closing salutations in business emails

A reader writes:

I would not have used “Best Regards” to close my email to you if I had known of your aversion to “Regards.” I just did a quick search (feeling a little self-conscious about it) to see if I was using it correctly.  Wow.  The range of opinions on how to end an email are astounding.  I find the international community most interesting—the struggle to get things right when nothing sounds right makes a hard language that much harder.

But now I’m curious about the correct close to a formal communication (I set aside the arguments about whether email is ever formal; it absolutely can be if you’re using it that way).  I know we have options, but I’m out of touch with the nuances.  I assume there are rules, or guidelines, or something.

[NOTE: He is referring to my rant on December 15 http://languagetips.wordpress.com/category/regardregards/ .]

The reader is right—there are a lot of opinions. Are there rules and guidelines? That’s less clear. There seems to be some kind of unanimity that business emails should have formal closing salutations, but the definition of formal for a business email is far from clear.

First, do we even need a closing salutation in business emails? While I found conflicting advice about this, my feeling is that it depends.  If I am sending an email to a colleague with whom I am working on a particular project and we communicate fairly frequently, I would say that it is not necessary to have a salutation or even your name in the email. With that person, you are really having an email conversation rather than sending a missive. However, if it is someone with whom you rarely communicate or if it is someone with whom you have a more formal relationship, then I would say to use a closing salutation. The same holds if you are writing to a group of people.

By the way, I recently received a business email from a watch company writing to me about a warranty with this closing salutation, ‘One Love.’ I have to say it freaked me out a little bit. I didn’t know what ‘One Love’ referred to. Was it a religious thing? What was the intended innuendo? Was this company-wide or from a rogue employee? From a watch company? From whom did I  get this watch anyway? Definitely freaked out.

I later looked this up on the Internet, and found that according to the Urban Dictionary,

One love refers to the universal love and respect expressed by all people for all people, regardless of race, creed, or color.

And it’s name comes from a Bob Marley song which goes:

“One love, one heart. Let’s get together and feel all right”

Well, that’s a nice sentiment. And I always liked that song. But still, in a business letter? Thus, I came up with my first hard and fast rule for business email salutations: Don’t use a salutation for which the reference is not universally and immediately clear…unless you want to freak someone out. When sending a business email, I would stick with business-like language.

This is some of what I found:

‘Sincerely’ is just right. ‘Sincerely’ is too stuffy for email.

‘Ciao’ and ‘cheers’ are too informal for business.

‘Best,’ at best, gets mixed reviews.

‘Thanks’ is okay if you mean it.

You should always use a salutation, and you should change it each time you correspond with someone, so the recipient will see that you are making an effort.

This last one, to me, is completely insane. Who would have the time to constantly come up with new salutations? And to prove you are making an effort? To me, it just says that you have too much time on your hands, and you need some more work to do.

These are viewed as okay:

Kind regards

Best regards

Warmest regards

I am generally fine with these; however, I don’t want you to get in the habit of using ‘regards’ and ending up using ‘in regards to,’ so I would stay away from them.

Many thanks

Kind thanks

Truly

Many thanks is fine; I am not as comfortable with kind thanks and truly. I’m not sure why—they just seem a little too familiar for business correspondence, and also, they feel a bit old fashioned and tired.

Best wishes

Warm wishes

Thanks again

Best wishes and thanks again work. I’m not sure about warm wishes. How warm do you want to be at work?

I remain faithfully yours

Unless you have a butler, I would eschew this one.

With appreciation

Okay.

In the interests of full disclosure. I use ‘thanks’ and ‘best’ as my closing salutations most frequently. To me, ‘best’ is pretty benign and doesn’t convey any but a neutral message. I have read that some feel that it’s a sort of brush off, but I have never felt that way (and it is certainly not my intent when I use it). And ‘thanks,’ for me, makes sense because I so often want to say thank you, and this gives me the opportunity.

So it seems it all comes down to this: Don’t write anything you wouldn’t feel comfortable receiving and try not to freak out your correspondent, but do be professional, and be polite.

One Love.

I just reviewed an IRB protocol that included this sentence:

We plan to conduct quantitative analysis of objective data obtained in regards to BMI, blood pressure, waist circumference, cholesterol levels, and glucose levels.

So what do you think made me weep a little when reading this sentence? Of course, ‘in regards to.’ This topic has come up every year since the WLUT began in January of 2008. This will be the fifth time I have addressed the topic—first in March 2008, then a year later in April 2009, next in July 2010, and most recently, in January 2011. I haven’t looked it up to check, but five times? Yikes! This just may be the most frequent topic of all! But why? It shouldn’t be so hard. Maybe if I write bigger…

Stop using ‘in regards to.’ ‘Regards’ is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.

The correct, albeit wordy, expression would be ‘in regard to.’ No S on regard. Without the S, it means ‘concerning,’ or ‘about,’ or ‘regarding’—all of which would be improvements over ‘in regard to.’ With the S, it means

NOTHING AT ALL. IT’S MEANINGLESS. IT MAKES NO SENSE.

Sorry, it just got to me a little bit. I was going to write a bit on how to use ‘regards’ in a salutation or something, but you know what? There are other, better salutations, so let’s do this: Throw it out. Never use it. Sweep ‘regards’ into the dustbin. Let’s pretend that it is not a word. Delete it from your vocabulary. Never use it again.

REGARDS

Ahhh, I feel better now.

So how else can ‘regard’ go wrong? Let me mention a few things to remember:

There are some people who use ‘regardless’ when they mean ‘despite.’ They are not interchangeable. ‘Regardless of’ can be used in that way, but not ‘regardless.’

There are some people who use ‘irregardless’ when they mean ‘regardless.’ ‘IRREGARDLESS’ IS WRONG AND SHOULD NEVER, EVER BE USED. Sorry, I almost yelled there a little.

Finally, the correct idiom is ‘regardless of whether’; however, people often say (erroneously) ‘regardless whether’ as in for example:

We are going to complete the harvest regardless whether or not it rains later. (WRONG)

We are going to complete the harvest regardless of whether or not it rains later. (RIGHT)

Incidentally, the ‘or not’ is usually superfluous when you say ‘whether’; the ‘or not’ is implied in the word, ‘whether.’ For example:

In this experiment, we have to decide whether or not to include all of the possible cell types. (RIGHT)

In this experiment, we have to decide whether to include all of the possible cell types. (RIGHT)

However, when ‘whether or not’ is used to mean ‘regardless of whether,’ the ‘or not’ is required. For example:

She insists on writing the manuscript whether or not the findings are statistically significant. (RIGHT)

She insists on writing the manuscript whether the findings are statistically significant. (WRONG)

But I digress. How did ‘regard’ turn into ‘whether’? On to Tip 2.

Tip 2: Shouldn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t

Have you ever found yourself in a situation in which you knew the answer to something, but for the life of you, you couldn’t think of the reason your answer was right. That’s what happened to me this week. Here’s what happened.

A reader wrote:

These wlut mails are my favorite part of the week. Thank you so much for sending them. I have a grammar question regarding would/could. A friend of mine keeps using the phrase ‘would not’ as in ‘would not you do the same thing?’ or ‘Could not you do….’

I feel he should use the short form or ‘wouldn’t.’

Is it ok to use the ‘would not’ and ‘could not’ phrases?

I wrote back:

I would always say wouldn’t you or couldn’t you, but is it actually wrong to say would not you or could not you? That’s a great question, and I’m not sure.

I was at a loss. I thought I knew the answer, but I didn’t know the rule that made it so. I looked everywhere, but part of the problem was that I didn’t know how to word the question: did the rule have to do with negative questions? Did the rule have to do with conditional words? Did the rule have to do with auxiliary modals? It could have been anything. I looked high and low—in my books, on the Internet, I talked to colleagues, but there was nary a clue.

This is what I knew: I knew that we would not say ‘Would not you do the same?’ or ‘Could not you do the same?’ in lieu of use the contractions. We would, in fact, say, ‘Would you not do the same?’ or ‘Could you not do the same?’ if we decided we did not want to just use ‘wouldn’t’ and ‘couldn’t.’ But why, I cried. Why?

Finally, our old standby, The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS), came to my rescue with this brief discussion of verbal phrases:

5.102 Verb phrases

The combination of an auxiliary verb with a principal verb is a verb phrase, such as could happen, must go, or will be leaving…A verb phrase is negated by placing the negative adverb not after the first auxiliary {we have not called him}. In an interrogative sentence, the first auxiliary begins the sentence and is followed by the subject {Must I repeat that?} {Do you want more?}. An interrogative can be negated by placing not after the subject {Do you not want more?}; contractions are often more natural but may paradoxically serve as positive intensifiers {Don’t you want more?} {Isn’t the sunset beautiful?}. Most negative forms can be contracted {we do not–we don’t} {I will not–I won’t} {he has not–he hasn’t} {she does not–she doesn’t}…

University of Chicago, The Chicago Manual of Style, 16^th edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/16/ch05/ch05_sec102.html

‘Interrogative,’ by the way, is a word or the form used in asking a question. My first thought was to trash the overly complicated and pretentious writing used in CMOS, but then, I remembered that it had given me my answer. I still don’t have a reason, but I have a rule, and that will suffice. For now.

Have a happy holiday everyone! Remember, there is no WLUT for the next two weeks due to the holiday break. See you in January!

A reader writes:

I have always thought that the word ‘insurance’ was both the singular and plural form of the noun, just as deer is.  However, I have heard people say ‘insurances,’ and if you look at the profile of any doc in the UPMC General Internal Medicine group, you will find that it says ‘Insurances Accepted:’ followed by a list of insurance companies.

As long as we’re on the subject, I have always thought that the proper pronunciation of the word is ‘in SUR ance,’ with the accent on the second syllable.  However, I increasingly hear people say ‘IN sur ance,’ with the accent on the first.  At first, I thought this was just some johnny-reb pronunciation because I heard primarily from those who  learned to speak English south of the Mason-Dixon line, but I now I also hear it from people who should know better.

What say you?

I say that UPMC is using jargon. Specifically, it is using jargon specific to the insurance and financial industries. Remember, jargon is a language specific to certain professions or groups to allow those in the group to use shortcuts to communicate quickly and easily among themselves. ‘Insurances’ is a shorthand way of saying ‘insurance plans.’ It’s not that great of a shortcut, and I’m not exactly sure what it gets them, but it’s clearly a word they use. I’ve seen some examples of the use of ‘insurances’ in the New York Times—generally in business articles. The problem, as I see it, is that people in the industry forget the people outside of the industry don’t know the terminology. They use this language all the time, so they forget it’s not universal. That’s why we find words like ‘insurances’ in places designed for the general public. It’s not very user-friendly and is often a mistake when communicating outside the profession.

Now, I know some of you will google ‘insurances’ and tell me about references from the early 1900s or even earlier. That may be true, but the reality is that it’s still jargon, and insurance folks should limit its use to when they are talking to one another. When developing something for the general public, they should use ‘ insurance plans’ or something that means the same.

Let’s move on. I’m not particularly thrilled with ‘insurances’; however, I get downright cranky when it comes to INsurances. This pronunciation is wrong and is incredibly annoying. The correct pronunciation is with the emphasis on the second syllable, illustrated like this on dictionary.com: in-shoor-uhns. No dictionary is ever going to put the stress on the first syllable (in-shoor-uhns), and I am pleased about that. So why do people do it? I think it comes…and this is just my own thought…I think it comes from the perversion of the pronunciation of ‘defense’ that occurred over time. Have you noticed that hardly anybody pronounces it correctly these days? Instead of dih-fens, folks pronounce it dee-fens—In Pittsburgh, I think it started years ago when the Steelers were in their glory days, and it seemed that everyone was a rabid Steelers fan. For some reason, the pronunciation stuck and seemed to transfer over into everyday speech. It is wrong, very wrong.  But my guess is, this tendency to put the emphasis (wrongly) on the first syllable drifts across words and every now and then, infects one. This is one fault, we should really try to be aware of and avoid doing. Leave the defense on the football field.

Tip 2: An opinion about opine

A reader writes:

Is “opine” accepted as common usage today?

Sure. “opine’ is a great word and means to hold or express an opinion. The more common definition is to express an opinion.

Immediately after the reader sent this message, I started seeing the word everywhere. It was in the newspaper; it was in a book I was reading, I heard it on the news. It was everywhere. I feel very confident affirming that ‘opine’ is in wide usage today.

Here’s an example from a New York Times op ed piece about Iran from November:

Politicians like to opine on foreign policy, but they change with election cycles. Career diplomats and intelligence officials are often left to clean up the mess elected officials and political appointees leave behind.

And here is an example from November’s US News and World Report on Republican campaign gaffes:

Politics is kind of like sports–everyone feels equally entitled to opine on it and how it should be done,” says Matt McDonald, a partner at Hamilton Place Strategies and a veteran of Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and President George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign. “It’s not as easy to actually run a presidential campaign as people outside might think.”

And just so you know that its use isn’t limited to politics, here’s a quote from a November issue of Women’s Wear Daily:

“Today’s eye makeup in a way touches on extreme,” opined makeup pro Pat McGrath.”

And from perezhilton.com (what ends I go to for you), in a story on Britney Spears (I repeat, the ends I go to, oy):

“She’s definitely ready,” he opines. “She loves to work. She’s a very strong person. Everybody goes through setbacks in their lives. [But] every day, I see her getting happier and stronger.”

Have I convinced you? ‘Opine’ is alive and well and doing very nicely, thank you. As is, evidently, Britney Spears.

I’ve recently seen a deluge of disastrous displays of punctuation in grant proposals that include a lot of citations. When the citations are displayed as superscripted numerals,  sometimes the period or full stop is placed before the numeral and sometimes after. Sometimes there are spaces involved and sometimes not. What is particularly disconcerting is that I have seen these inconsistencies all in the same proposal—even in the same paragraph! We have talked about this before (http://languagetips.wordpress.com/category/punctuation-wfootnotes/), but that was a couple of years ago, and writing about it again gives me an opportunity to give you a little news vis-á-vis American Medical Association (AMA) style which many of us use when preparing scientific manuscripts.

First, what is the difference between a reference and a citation? No, this isn’t an old joke—we tend to use the words synonymously, and we use footnote and endnote the same way. I don’t think I have to rehash footnote and endnote; everyone knows that a footnote goes at the bottom of a page and an endnote at the end of a document. But what about reference and citation? Well, citation refers to the place in the manuscript, where an article or other work is cited. Both of the following include citations:

Jeffrey Adams (1977) hypothesized that the popular belief that the moon is made of green cheese stems from a profound fear of moldy cheese.

Fourteen satellites were circling the outermost planet at the time of the explosion.^{26, 29}

Reference refers to the detail about the article or other work cited that would allow someone to find it. A complete reference of the type commonly found in grant proposals would include the names of the authors, the title of the article, the journal in which it was published, the volume number, the page numbers, the year it was published, and, these days, the NIH Manuscript Submission reference number or the PubMed Central (PMC) reference number.

Both of the following are references:

Seltzer DL, Arnold RM, Siminoff LA. Are non-heart-beating cadaver donors acceptable to the public? J Clin Ethics., 2000; 11(4)347-356.

Arnold RM, Seltzer D, Han PM. Opioid contracts in chronic pain management:  objectives, elements, and uncertainties, Am J Med 2006:119(4):292-6.  PCMID: PMC1960426

So the reference is the detail on the citation. But where does bibliography come in? Well, the bibliography consists of the references that were reviewed for the proposal and were related to the topic including those that were not actually cited in the text.

Oh my. That was a bit of a long way to go to get to a relatively short tip.

[NOTE: Please note that this tip is referring to citations involving numerals only and not in-text parenthetical citations that follow different conventions. I’ll write an explanation for punctuating those citations in the future.]

Okay, here goes. When using  numerals as citations (superscripted or otherwise), the punctuation generally goes before the citation. I say generally because of the AMA style note that I mentioned above. The AMA Style Manual states:

“Use arabic superscript numerals outside periods and commas, inside colons and semicolons. When more than 2 references are cited at a given place in the manuscript, use hyphens to join the first and last numbers of a closed series; use commas without space to separate other parts of a multiple citation.”

Iverson C, Christiansen S, Flanagin A, et al. AMA Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors. 10th ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 2007.

So while the numeral is outside periods or commas, if you are using a colon or semicolon, the reference numeral is inside the punctuation:

The last step of the experiment was omitted, resulting in a negative finding.^79,83

The author reported that the results were biased¹²; our work found the same thing.

The only other thing I want to say about this is that there should no spaces between the punctuation and the citation, and as the AMA Style Manual states, “use commas without space to separate other parts of a multiple citation.”

Now, the AMA Style Manual is certainly not the only style manual around, and others do not necessarily concur with putting superscript numerals within colons and semicolons. I think the much more important issue is consistency. Figure out your style or the style of the journal you hope to be published in, and stick to it—at least in the same document.

Tip 2: Would is a wimpy word – reprised

In another recent proposal, I saw this:

Essentially, the control intervention would use the same components as the test intervention except that there would be no human interaction with the participants.

What I object to here is the use of the word, ‘would.’ It seems like such a weak word to include in a proposal. I remembered that this topic was written about before, so I looked it up. And lo and behold, the article said exactly (almost word for word) what I was thinking about using ‘would’ in a proposal (funny how that works). So I am reprinting, here, what I wrote back in August. ‘Would’ is, indeed, a wimpy word.

So what’s wrong with would? It’s a perfectly good word. Well no, it isn’t—not when we are writing grant proposals.

When we write a proposal, we are hoping to persuade the reviewers, the program officers, and the advisory councils of the merit of our work and how and why the work is worthy of being funded. It is no time for conditional, dare I say, wimpy language. It comes off as whiny, almost begging:

“If you would, please sir, only give me the money, then I would do the experiment.”

That is not how we are going to get funded. We have to sure of ourselves, commanding in tone and displaying confidence that we are going to get funded.

 “We will conduct the experiment in three steps.”

 ‘Will’ is a much more powerful word than ‘would,’ and we should use ‘will’ in our grant proposals.

Same thing goes for ‘can’ and ‘could.’

So there.

A reader writes:

Subject: Joint Degree Accepts to Date

I’ve noticed the truncation of nouns — or perhaps the amputation of their suffixes.

The Subject line above:  ”accepts” instead of “acceptances”  and there are others: “consults” instead of “consultations” and “invites” instead of “invitation.”

Maybe you can do a piece on this.

Okay, here goes.  At first, I wasn’t sure what to say about this ‘truncation of nouns,’ and I didn’t know how to start.  I was at a loss until I can across an old column by the late, great William Safire, and then I had my ‘eureka’ moment. Eureka! I don’t think that this is about the ‘truncation of nouns’ at all, although that argument could easily be made (new words developed through truncation are common, e.g., ’gym’ from ‘gymnasium’ and ‘exam’ from ‘examination’). I think, however, what we have, here, is a functional shift, which is when the word stays the same but becomes a different part of speech. In this case, I think we are seeing the verbs—accepts, consults, and invites—being used as the nouns—accepts, consults, and invites. They look just the same but, generally, are pronounced differently; as nouns, the emphasis is on the first syllable—as verbs, the emphasis is on the second or third syllable.

I thought of another one: the noun, ‘disconnect,’ represents a functional shift of the verb, ‘disconnect.’ And there is the noun, ‘construct,’ from the verb of the same name. Functional shifts occur more frequently for nouns becoming verbs (think of the dreaded verb, ‘impact,’ and think of the functional shift next time you go to ‘google’ something or other) than it does for verbs becoming nouns, but that is what has happened in this case. Words that have changed this way are usually considered colloquialisms when they are first used, and gradually, they creep into the mainstream. They sound ugly and awkward when you first hear them, but you get used to them as they become more prevalent. I am very familiar with ‘consults’ as a noun, and it doesn’t bother me a bit. I feel the same way about ‘disconnect’ and ‘construct’ and certainly would feel funny talking about a ‘disconnection’ or a ‘construction.’  That just sounds awkward. I have referred to ‘invites’ myself, but I would only use it casually and probably only in conversation. And then there’s ‘accepts.’ I had never heard it before I read this reader’s note, and as far as I am concerned, it has not left the ugly and awkward stage yet. While there may come a day when ‘accepts’ falls trippingly off my tongue, right now, it just sounds horrid.

Finally, I know in the past that I have ranted about some of these functional shifts (think again of ‘impact’ and using ‘dialogue’ as a verb), and I don’t know if I’ve mellowed with age (I doubt it, I still won’t use ‘impact’ as a verb or ‘data’ as singular), or if it’s just the case that I have become more familiar and comfortable with these constructs. Still, it will be quite a while before ‘accepts’ as a noun find its way into my vocabulary.

Tip 2: Update on bullets

Last week, I provided a set of guidelines on using bullets effectively. I think the timing was fortuitous, because not long after I received this.

A reader writes:

Perfect timing with the bullet topic … I’m editing slides where the person is using bullets, but on one slide they have a numbered list. The lead-in is that three types of meditation were used, then they are listed 1, 2, 3. Not sure if the formatting will stay, but here’s what it looks like -

Aim 1 is to compare 3 varieties of meditation:

• 1) transcendental meditation
• 2) breath watching meditation
• 3) walking meditation

I think in this part they need to get rid of the bullets (or not use numbering). To use both seems odd.

First, I have to say that I made up all that stuff about meditation; I wanted to change the topic of the presentation so that the email was not identifiable (I don’t want anyone to get in trouble with his or her colleagues).

Second, yes, of course it looks odd. It looks extremely odd. That’s because it’s completely WRONG. You would never use BOTH bullets and numbers together on a slide. Choose one or the other. And, unless there is an easily recognizable hierarchy or order, I would stick to bullets. We don’t want to imply anything that we don’t mean.

Third, a couple of our guidelines were not used in the slide. The first letter of each bullet should be capitalized, and each line should end in a period.

[NOTE: I am still not completely satisfied the second guideline there, especially with bullets this short. I’ll keep thinking it over.]

But you have to admit that the slide looks better like this:

Aim 1 is to compare 3 varieties of meditation:

• Transcendental meditation.
• Breath watching meditation.
• Walking meditation.

Enough said.

A reader writes:

I looked through the topics on the web site and came across the article on punctuation around quotation marks.  I get the rule that commas and periods go inside the quotation marks.  But it makes my head hurt when I have to use it that way when it clearly makes no logical sense.  For example:

This is a more disturbing film than “The Life and Times of a U.S. President.”

This just seems wrong to me.  It looks like I am asserting that the period is part of the title of the film.  So do I really have to do it that way?

I’m sorry, because I do feel your pain, but the answer is yes. This is the convention that we use in the US. In the UK, it is the opposite, that is, periods and commas are generally outside the quotation marks and are only inside the quotation marks if they are part of the quotation. It is very telling that grammarians call the US method ‘conventional’ and the UK method, ‘logical.’

I agree with our pained writer that the US form tends to defy logic, but there is some logic to why this style was originally developed. The convention started centuries ago and had to do with typography and the printing process. There are different stories about the origin of the conventional style of using punctuation within quotation marks. One story holds that aesthetic concerns were responsible—they hold that it was more attractive to have the punctuation inside the quotes instead of hanging outside in the cold. [NOTE: I have to agree; to me, it is more pleasing but then again, I learned to read in the US, and it might just be that I am used to seeing type this way.] Another story is that the method was the result of the low print quality of newspapers—that periods and commas were difficult to see in smudgy news copy. The last story I heard has to do with mechanical printing and movable (and as result, reusable) type and espouses that putting the punctuation outside the parentheses often resulted in punctuation being broken away from the attached quotation marks: “, being more fragile than ,” — regardless, only the first possibility recounted here still holds, since printing is now almost universally computer-driven.

Still, the convention persists and has no appearance of going away anytime soon. I agree with the writer that the example is problematic:

This is a more disturbing film than “The Life and Times of a U.S. President.”

I would probably resolve this by rewriting the sentence to avoid the awkward structure, e.g.,

I found “The Life and Times of a U.S. President” to be a less disturbing film.

Alternatively, we could italicize  the title instead of using quotes. In general, the rule is to italicize longer works (e.g., book titles) and to put quotation marks around shorter works (e.g., chapter titles) However, I’ve seen contradictory “rules” about film titles; some say to use quotation marks (e.g., AP Style Manual), and others say to use italics (e.g., Chicago Manual of Style).

This is a more disturbing film than The Life and Times of a U.S. President.

 Using italics helps make the sentence more graceful. So keep in mind, when you have a sentence you are uncomfortable with, there are generally ways to rewrite it or reformat it that will bring you peace of mind.

 Tip 2: Using bullet points

Bullet points can be very useful for written communication. They highlight important material. They can be quickly read. They present critical points clearly.  They break up long pieces of text. Done well, they are succinct.

Or I could have written it this way:

Bullet points can be very useful for written communication:

• They highlight important material.
• They can be quickly read.
• They present critical points clearly.
• They break up long pieces of text.
• Done well, they are succinct.

The “rules” around the use of bullets are changing all the time, and they are often conflicting. I am going to present some guidelines that make sense to me for proposal writing, in particular, and for writing in general.

First of all, I am going to slash a rule, that was drummed into me many years ago and that I have faithfully followed until recently. This is the rule:

When you have a set of bullets introduced by a statement with a colon, end each bullet with a semicolon, and add the word ‘and’ before the final bullet.

So why am I willing to kill this rule now? It’s simple: it makes no sense. If the beauty of bullets is that they are short, clear, and to the point, why mess it up with fussy punctuation? That’s plain silly.

The main thing to keep in mind when you are using bullets is consistency. They should be parallel in terms of format, capitalization, punctuation, and length.

• If one bullet in a list is a sentence fragment, make all of the bullets sentence fragments.
• If one bullet in a list is a complete sentence, make all of the bullets complete sentences.
• All bullets (whether sentence fragments or complete sentences) should start with a capital letter.
• All bullets (whether sentence fragments or complete sentences) should end with a period.

[NOTE: That was a hard one, and I could have gone either way, but this was my fallback position since it is easy to remember, and once memorized, we wouldn’t have to think about whether to punctuate or not.]

• All bullets should have consistent structure with respect to starting with nouns or verbs.
• All bullets should be of a similar length. (Since there is no hierarchy in a bulleted list, having a very long bullet among shorter ones would give more emphasis to the longer bullet.)
• All bullets should be relatively short. (If we want to meet the bullet’s goals of easy readability, brevity, and clarity, we don’t want to get lost in long complex thoughts.)
• All bullets should be simple, and you should avoid bullets that are fancied up (⌘v✪★) and might be a distraction for the reader.
• All bullet points should be related. (All should be associated with the same topic.)
• All bulleted lists should be kept pretty short. (A long page of bullets would get boring in a hurry.)
• All bullets should be indented. (The obvious exception to this is in proposal writing—there, we need every bit of space we can get.)

Keep in mind that bullet points are effective in communicating information,  but they are not warm and fuzzy, and they will not be helpful is your goal is to create a rapport with your audience.

And that’s about it. If you don’t like these guidelines, don’t fret. Change is happening all of the time.

]]> http://languagetips.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/1269/feed/ 0 dlseltzer dove http://languagetips.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/weekly-language-usage-tips-commas-again-nesting-parentheses/ http://languagetips.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/weekly-language-usage-tips-commas-again-nesting-parentheses/#comments Thu, 03 Nov 2011 09:59:31 +0000 dlseltzer http://languagetips.wordpress.com/?p=1263 ]]> Life is good. Every time that I think I have run out of things to say and have no idea what to write about in the wlut, someone sends me a proposal or some other writing to review. And there you have it—more topics for the wlut. These aren’t new, but a brief review is good for the soul (and the manuscript, too).

Tip 1: A review of comma usage

We have talked about how and when to use commas many times, but commas continue to be one of the biggest bugaboos of our writing. In the past, I have written about lots of the rules surrounding comma use (http://languagetips.wordpress.com/category/commas/page/2/). Today I want to focus on just two rules: those associated with using a comma with ‘and’ in a sentence—I am not talking about the serial or Oxford comma—there are no lists associated with these rules. Here is an example:

We have assembled an outstanding group of project leaders, co-investigators, and staff, and  our multidisciplinary faculty has an impressive track record of prior collaboration.

[NOTE: All sentences in this wlut have been greatly edited to fit the discussion and to ensure author anonymity.]

The above sentence is a compound sentence, that is, each clause of the sentence could stand on its own as a complete sentence if not joined by ‘and.’

We have assembled an outstanding group of project leaders, co-investigators, and staff.

Our multidisciplinary faculty has an impressive track record of prior collaboration.

This is the rule: in a compound sentence, place a comma before the conjunction that joins the sentences. Common conjunctions include ‘and,’ ‘’but,’ ‘so,’ and ‘or,’ for example. So, if the clause on either side of the conjunction is independent, that is, it can be a complete sentence on its own, USE A COMMA.

Here’s another example:

The core infrastructure is depicted in Exhibit 6, and the infrastructure will provide leadership, administration, management, evaluation and dissemination activities to enable the conduct of research.

Each clause can stand on its own, and when joined, a comma is required before the conjunction:

The core infrastructure is depicted in Exhibit 6.

The infrastructure will provide leadership, administration, management, evaluation and dissemination activities to enable the conduct of research.

Let me state the rule again: in a compound sentence, place a comma before the conjunction that joins the sentences.

The other rule is related to the rule above and is another frequent source of our writing mistakes. This is the rule: if you have a sentence with multiple parts or clauses and one part is not independent, that is, it cannot stand on its own as a complete sentence, then don’t use a comma before the conjunction.

Here’s an example:

Adolescents access healthcare services at high rates through hospital emergency rooms and account for a large percentage of repeat ER visits.

In this example, the first clause can stand on its own as a sentence, but the second part cannot stand on its own. It is missing a subject.

Adolescents access healthcare services at high rates through hospital emergency rooms.

account for a large percentage of repeat ER visits

Although the subject (adolescents) of the second clause is understood (and that is why it is considered a clause), it is not stated, and, as a result, that part of the sentence cannot stand alone. This part of the sentence is also considered a sentence fragment.

Here is another example:

A publication committee will plan products from the research and will implement policies and procedures for authorship and dissemination of results.

In this sentence, there is an independent clause:

A publication committee will plan products from the research.

But the remainder is a sentence fragment and cannot stand on its own.

will implement policies and procedures for authorship and dissemination of results

Therefore, DO NOT USE A COMMA.

Let me restate the rule:  If a sentence has one completely independent clause that can stand alone as a sentence and is joined by a conjunction and a sentence fragment that cannot stand on its own, then NO comma is used before the conjunction.

In summary:

With two independent clauses joined by a conjunction, use a comma.

With one independent clause joined to a sentence fragment by a conjunction, do not use a comma.

Here’s another way to remember this rule: if you have a compound sentence use a comma before the conjunction; if it is not a compound sentence, then don’t use the comma.

Tip 2: Nesting parentheses

This is the sentence that caught my eye prompting this review of parentheses within parentheses:

 The framework suggests that predisposing factors (e.g., demographics, attitudes, health beliefs, social structure), enabling factors (e.g., personal, family, community supports and resources), and need­s (e.g., perceived and evaluated (“objective”) symptoms/functioning) facilitate or impede health service use and delivery.

What caught my eye was the much punctuated (‘objective”) embedded in a longer parenthetical phrase: (e.g., perceived and evaluated (“objective”) symptoms/ functioning).

First, there is never a need for  setting a word off with both quotation marks AND parentheses. I want to make that very clear. Too much punctuation makes writing difficult to read and comprehend.

In this case, I think the quotation marks would suffice. I would normally use parentheses, but the word is already nested in a parenthetical statement, and for clarity (and also for grace), I would recommend that you don’t embed a parenthetical remark within a parenthetical statement. That being said, if you do feel the need to use parentheses within parentheses, then the secondary parentheses should really be brackets, i.e., [ ]. They look like squared off parentheses, composed of straight lines. As I say, however, you should not do it. And if you feel the need to add still another parenthetical remark (parentheses within parentheses within parentheses)—and as I say, don’t do it— then the tertiary parentheses should be curly brackets, i.e., { }. But as I say, don’t do it. Enough said.