grammar » Absurd Intellectual

On capitalizing “internet”

Posted by T. Keith Edmunds on 18 March 2011 Everything Else

Mar 182011

Though I’m sure Grant will chime in with a contrary point of view, likely citing the CP style book, I’m going to make my viewpoint known.

The internet no longer needs a capital letter. There. I’ve said it. Just as Pluto was demoted from a planet, the internet has been relegated from a proper noun to a common noun.

Why do I feel the need to make the pronouncement? Well, someone has to. Check your reference books, check various (repuatable) reference sites online and you will get a variety of answers. In a realm of confusion, I am declaring once and for all that the capital “I” is not required for the internet.

According to Wikipedia (from the article dedicated wholly to this issue):

Words for new technologies, such as Phonograph in the 19th century, are sometimes capitalized at first, later becoming uncapitalized.

I would suggest that the internet is no longer a new technology and, as it is a commonly used communications tool globally, it has become a common noun. Just as we don’t refer to “the Radio” or “the Newspaper” or even “the Power Grid,” the internet has joined the ranks of the no-longer-proper.

Certainly, I hold no illusions that my position on the controversy (and, yes, in some circles it is a controversy) will sway any one to my point of view. But I did spend an hour today trying to determine what the rules of grammar state, and in the absence of a firm, widely-accepted rule, I have made my own.

Now to wait for the contrarians to weigh in….

Check your apostrophe placements

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 22 November 2010 Everything Else

Nov 222010

If you hate the misuse of apostrophes, please check out the previously-blogged about ApostropheCatastrophes site.

If you need a refresher on proper use of the apostrophe, you could do worse than The Oatmeal. (You could also do better — for example, the Purdue Online Writing Lab.)

But if you think you’re amazing in every apostrophantastic way, take the test and find out:

Apostrophe Test Part 1 (the easy one)
Apostrophe Test Part 1 (more fiendish)

I got a perfect 10/10 on the first one, and 28/30 on the second one — with an explanation! Errors follow for all to judge:

I parsed that sentence as being three ‘tyres’ that were car tyres specifically. Perhaps police were looking for a dozen stolen tractor tyres and three car tyres. Of course, on further reflection, I would have written the sentence as “car tyres” in that case, eschewing the ‘s entirely, but I plead cultural chauvinism — I was fooled by the British diction.

No excuse on this one, though — just dropped the ball in trying to juggle that many apostrophes in my head. I very much don’t think I would make that error in actually writing, but editing in my head was more difficult.

Good luck if you try it — post your scores, if you dare.

Hooray! It’s National Punctuation Day today!

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 24 September 2010 Modern Life

Sep 242010

Last year, when I discovered that there was a “holiday” known as National Punctuation Day, I was ecstatic.

This year, I am more sedate. But I am still happy. Please, take the opportunity to think about punctuation and to celebrate its proper use. Like other aspects of good grammar, punctuation helps clarify communication. Have you ever had people misinterpret what you are saying or writing? Punctuation helps mitigate that. It’s essential.

Last year, the folks who run NationalPunctuationDay.com asked you to celebrate with meatloaf. This year, it’s a less-delicious, but more-creative exercise: poetry. Specifically, they are asking for your best punctuation-related haikus.

They’ve even got a bunch to start you off:

Serial comma.
What is your philosophy?
To use or not to?

Raised by two parens
I’ve been bracketed since youth.
I’m an inside job.

Dot dot ellipses
The yada yada of print.
So on and so forth.

Punctuate or die.
What is a writer to do?
Good writers will know.

You, too, can enter: Send your best 5-7-5 (syllables, that is) poetry to Jeff@NationalPunctuationDay.com to enter. Haikus received by Sept. 30 are eligible for prizes.

And again this year, I will take the opportunity to highlight these blogs:

No, go out and celebrate the day with some sort of punctuation goodness.

A quick primer to irony and some advice

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 16 June 2010 Modern Life

Jun 162010

The Oatmeal has done it again. This time, the one-man juggernaut of humour, quizzes and grammar advice (all done by Matthew Inman, btw) has tackled irony.

Irony, despite its being beloved by hipsters and the lazy commentariat everywhere, is a slippery and difficult subject to master. That’s why it’s also beloved by English majors.

The Oatmeal’s take on irony, to this English major’s eye, looks pretty spot on. He tackles verbal irony, dramatic irony and situational irony. And, he spends some time knocking down common assumptions about irony:

See? See how it’s not really ironic, but it’s so frustrating because it could possibly be somewhat interpreted as slightly ironic, so people will argue about it? That’s the bane of irony-lovers everywhere.

The Oatmeal even handles that well, with a gigantic piece of advice (spoiler): “In other words, don’t debate irony.”

Read the whole thing here.

A grammar lesson

Posted by Amy Breen on 11 June 2010 Modern Life

Jun 112010

I had to chuckle when I saw this video, because the “could care/couldn’t care” thing is a HUGE pet peeve of Grant’s. Every time someone says that they could care less, he kind of goes off on a tear.

(via)

Weird Al Yankovic is on a grammar bender

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 2 April 2010 Modern Life

Apr 022010

I guess it makes sense — a man who makes his living with witty wordplay must know an awful lot about how words go together.

So it’s not surprising that Weird Al Yankovic is out there, somewhere, right now, fixing bad grammar wherever he encounters it.

Oh, you want proof?

and

How blurg can write in the fourth person

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 28 February 2010 Vintage/Retro

Feb 282010

I’ve previously posted about the Weekly World News archives being hosted online by Google, but here’s a particular gem:

(from Winston Hearn, via Coudal)

The David Foster Wallace grammar challenge

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 16 December 2009 Modern Life

Dec 162009

Amy and I have posted a few times about David Foster Wallace, because we each read Infinite Jest during the “Infinite Summer” just past. I loved it. Amy, I think, believes it might have broken her brain, and it’s been tough for her to pick up a book since.

One of the things I loved about the book was its use of language (I’m not alone, I’m sure). DFW knows his way around the written word, that’s for sure.

Do you?

Try the David Foster Wallace grammar challenge. Ten questions, each with a glaring (to him) error. It’s tougher than it looks. I got a couple right, whiffed on a couple more, and couldn’t spot anything wrong with the bulk of them.

For example, what’s wrong with this sentence: “I only spent six weeks in Napa.” Can you spot it? It’s subtle, and I didn’t get it. But it sounds obvious to my ear once I read the answers, which you can find here, along with explanations.

Good luck!

To-day is Nat’l Punctuation Day … celebrate! With meatloaf?

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 24 September 2009 Modern Life

Sep 242009

Today (Sept. 24) is National Punctuation Day — at least, according to the people who run NationalPunctuationDay.com. It’s the sixth annual, and they’re ready to celebrate — with a baking contest.

Yes, “hold on to your oven mitts,” they say, download the official recipe for Punctuation Meat Loaf (pdf), shape it into the form of a punctuation mark, send in some before-and-after pictures, and you could win a T-shirt.

Unfortunately, as Amy commented, some of the meat loaf pictures look as if they came out of someone’s colon.

Anyway, for a pretty good brief history of the evolution of punctuation, I really enjoyed this article on About.com, especially this bit at the end:

Countless style guides have spelled out conventions for using the various marks–but they don’t always agree. In modern prose, dashes are in; semicolons are out. Apostrophes are tossed around like confetti, and quotation marks are commonly dropped at random on the most innocent words and phrases.

And so it remains true, as G. V. Carey observed decades ago, that punctuation is governed “two-thirds by rule and one-third by personal taste.”

Despite that, I see tons of people who use punctuation as if it were still the Middle Ages: ie. willy nilly.

Businesses, in particular, should pay particular attention to good grammar. Too often, I see poorly-spelled or -punctuated signs, and it doesn’t leave me with a very good impression of the business. Except, actually, for those times when I think to myself, “Wow, a store run by uneducated rubes! I’ll surely be able to baffle their salesclerks and arrange myself a deal!”

Today’s a good day to highlight these blogs:

At any rate, I know it’s a silly made-up holiday, but I fully support National Punctuation Day.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 16 September 2009 Everything Else

Sep 162009

How did I get a whole English degree without coming across this sentence?

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. Apparently, it is perfectly legitimate as a sentence — grammatically quirky, perhaps, but legit. Explains Wikipedia:

The sentence is unpunctuated and uses three different readings of the word “buffalo”. In order of their first use, these are

a. the city of Buffalo, New York (or any other place named “Buffalo”), which is used as an adjective in the sentence and is followed by the animal;

n. the noun buffalo, an animal, in the plural (equivalent to “buffaloes” or “buffalos”), in order to avoid articles;

v. the verb “buffalo” meaning to bully, confuse, deceive, or intimidate.

Marking each “buffalo” with its use as shown above gives

Buffalo(a) buffalo(n) Buffalo(a) buffalo(n) buffalo(v) buffalo(v) Buffalo(a) buffalo(n).

Thus, the sentence when parsed reads as a description of the pecking order in the social hierarchy of buffaloes living in Buffalo:

[Those] (Buffalo buffalo) [whom] (Buffalo buffalo) buffalo, buffalo (Buffalo buffalo).

[Those] buffalo(es) from Buffalo [that are intimidated by] buffalo(es) from Buffalo intimidate buffalo(es) from Buffalo.

Bison from Buffalo, New York, who are intimidated by other bison in their community also happen to intimidate other bison in their community.

THE buffalo FROM Buffalo WHO ARE buffaloed BY buffalo FROM Buffalo ALSO buffalo THE buffalo FROM Buffalo.

And if that makes sense, you’re quicker on the draw than I was. I had to read it a couple of times, and there are other helpful examples in the Wikipedia link.

Apparently, it’s just one of several similarly constructed sentences. Try “James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher.” Now, add punctuation, and a line break:

James, while John had had “had”, had had “had had”;

“had had” had had a better effect on the teacher.

Whew. Kind of fun, but a brain workout!

A capital offense — the lower-case ‘L’

Posted by Grant Hamilton on 15 August 2009 Modern Life

Aug 152009

Blog lowercaseL is devoted to finding and exploring the phenomenon of people who write in uppercase letters — except for the L. I particularly enjoyed the entry above, where a contributor has attempted to publicly shame the offender. From the blog’s ‘About’ page:

The gist of lowercase L is this: I have noticed that, when people create handwritten signs, they sometimes choose to capitalize every letter except the letter “L”. I can understand using some lowercase letters like “i” and “y”, to stylize the handwriting. But why confuse matters by using the only letter that, when lowercase, is identical to an uppercase “I”?

Sometimes, the blogger notes, people will write in uppercase until they hit ‘L’ and then they’ll switch into all lowercase for subsequent letters. See for example, here.

Let me hereby declare my unwavering public support for this blogger’s [sisyphean/quixotic] quest.

(via mefi)