The English Blog

The Yahoo! Style Guide

"The Yahoo! Style Guide" covers the basics of grammar and punctuation plus a multitude of topics with a Web-specific focus. You'll have to buy the book to get the whole story, but the free companion website features content excerpted from the book and more help and resources from Yahoo! editors. 

COMMENT
Very useful resource for those who write for the web or anyone interested in grammar and punctuation. You can read a review here.

ALSO SEE
• Click here: A field guide to English usage online (Boston.com)
• The Guardian Style Guide
• The Economist Style Guide
• Columbia Journalism Review’s Language Corner

Sky Video: Fed Up With Fish & Chips? Try Frogs' Legs Instead

You don't get much more British than fish and chips. But one shop in Sunderland has added a distinctly French flavour to its cuisine - frogs' legs. Sky's Peter Lane reports.

READ MORE
• The ultimate hoppy meal: Chippy serves deep fried frogs' legs (Sunderland Echo)
• Why we shouldn't eat frogs' legs (Guardian)
• Are frogs on their last legs? (Guardian)
• A short history of frog eating (Guardian)

COMMENT
Although the British have been calling the French frog-eaters (now mostly shortened to Frogs) since at least the 16th century, frogs' legs are no longer a popular dish in France. However, you do find them on restaurant menus occasionally, and I have seen frozen frogs' legs on sale at Auchan. In fact, almost all the frogs' legs eaten in France come deep-frozen from Indonesia. Snails, that other great French food stereotype, are more popular, but I'm sure many younger French people have never tasted snails in their life.

PUNCTUATION POINT
Should it be "frog's legs" or "frogs' legs", or even "frog legs"?  (It's the same question for "pig's trotters", etc.) The Guardian favours the plural "frogs' legs", but a Google search throws up a lot of "frogs legs", which is definitely wrong.

SarcMark: The Sarcasm Punctuation Mark

From UPI.com:

A Michigan company announced the release of software Tuesday that introduces new punctuation to the typed word: The sarcasm mark.

Sarcasm Inc. of Washington Township said the SarcMark, which resembles an open circle with a dot in the center, can be installed on computers via a program that can be downloaded from sarcmark.com for $1.99.

The company said it has versions of the program for several computer systems as well as BlackBerry devices.

"Statements have the period. Questions have the question mark. Exclamations have the exclamation mark. When you see the newest punctuation mark for sarcasm, you'll know the writer of that sentence doesn't literally mean what they're writing; they're being sarcastic," the company said in a release.

COMMENTS
They say that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, and I think the SarcMark commercial (below) does nothing to dispel that idea. What about a punctuation mark to show when you're being ironic? Now that would be useful. You could call it the IronMark. I suggest using this symbol ¤ (It's on the $/£ key on my computer. I never knew what it was for.) Perhaps I should patent that ¤.

SEE ALSO
• The rules of sarcasm (BBC News)
• How Sarcasm Works (howstuffworks)
• Do we really need a sarcasm mark? (TimesOnline School Gate)
• The Irony Mark (While You Were Gone, Daily)
• Sarcasm punctuation mark aims to put an end to email confusion (Daily Telegraph)
• Sarcasm punctuation mark? Who needs it ;-) (Daily Telegraph)
• Sarcasm punctuation most revolutionary mark since the smiley (ZDNet)
• The rise of the SarcMark—oh, how brilliant (The Guardian)

POSTSCRIPT
It seems the irony mark already exists.

Cartoon: Tiger Woods Climate Change

This cartoon by Paul Thomas from the Daily Express cleverly links the Tiger Woods crash scandal/affair to the Copenhagen climate change summit.

COMMENTARY
The joke is that the delegates are discussing global warming and one of them says that there's been a dramatic drop in temperature at Tiger Woods's house. This is a metaphorical reference to the domestic atmosphere as his wife learns of her husband's growing list of alleged affairs. And, of course, there's the humour in the idea that even at the Climate Change Summit, Tiger Woods is on the agenda.

PUNCTUATION NOTE
Should it be "Tiger Woods' house" or "Tiger Woods's house"? Opinions differ. According to Jane Straus on GrammarBook.com: "Although names ending in s or an s sound are not required to have the second s added in possessive form, it is preferred." The Guardian Style Guide is more categorical: "Words ending in -s use -s's (Dickens's house)." The Economist Style Guide agrees: "Use the normal possessive ending 's after singular words or names that end in s: boss's, caucus's, Delors's, St James's, Jones's, Shanks's." However, according to Wikipedia, "... some modern writers omit the extra s in all cases, and Chicago Manual of Style allows this as an 'alternative practice'". You pays your money and you takes your choice.

Grammar for Business

I've just received an email from Cambridge about their new book Grammar for Business. Unfortunately, the email contains a BIG mistake. Can you spot it? (Click on the image to enlarge.)

Yes, it should be booksellers' (with the apostrophe after the s). As written (with the apostrophe before the s), we'd have to assume that the title is only available from one bookseller.

If you're interested (and I hope the book doesn't contain such basic errors), you can download an excerpt or view the table of contents.

Overseas students are better at English than the British

From The Independent on Sunday:

British undergraduates are nearly three times more likely to make errors in English than those from overseas, according to new research.

A study of written work produced by final-year students revealed that, on average, they had 52.2 punctuation, grammatical and spelling errors per paper compared with just 18.8 for the international students.

Spelling errors included "flourescence" for "fluorescence", "alot" for "a lot", "seperate" for "separate", "yeild" for "yield", "relevent" for "relevant", "introduications" for "introductions" and "pail vains" for "pale veins".

"There were hundreds of cases of disagreement in number between subjects and verbs (such as 'male sterility are useful', 'fertility in most breeds have low heritability')," added the research. Wrong plurals – such as varietys, two theorys and the two hypothesis – were common, it added.

Grammatical errors included "done by my partner and I" and "a women".

On punctuation, it added: "Semicolons were often used to introduce lists. Very few students used colons.

"Some never used possessive apostrophes, and there were many apostrophes used in non-possessive plurals – 'the cows rectum' and 'the harem's of seals'. Full story >>

COMMENT
What do you expect from science students?

FOOTNOTE
Listen to an interview with the author of the study from Radio 4's Today programme.

National Punctuation Day

Today is National Punctuation Day. You will find a good collection of punctuation resources and information about each of the punctuation marks pictured below on the official NPD site.

The Apostrophe Man

The Telegraph has an interesting story about a man with a mission to preserve standards of punctuation.

Even his admirers admit he is "a bit of an old codger". But Stefan Gatward – accountant, former private in the Gordon Highlanders and now Anglican day chaplain – remains unrepentant.

Known as The Apostrophe Man of Royal Tunbridge Wells, Mr Gatward shot to fame last week after taking the law (or at least a bylaw) into his own hands by adding a missing apostrophe to the street signs on his road.

St Johns Close became St John's Close and overnight Mr Gatward gained respect and derision in equal measure. While many of his neighbours congratulated him on his stand, the apostrophe was scratched off three days later.

Fearful of an appearance at a magistrate's court – or should that be magistrates' court? – Mr Gatward decided not to paint in the apostrophe again.

However, determined to halt the slide of the Queen's English into what he regards as a babel of Americanisms and street slang, he has instead embarked on a tour of the spa town in order to point out the grammatical howlers which besmirch its street signs. Full story >>

CBBC Newsround: News-Based Lessons

The excellent CBBC Newsround site has hundreds of news-based lessons for teachers. Categories include Arts, Business, Crime and Justice, Environment and Health. The Literacy lessons cover a wide range of grammar and punctuation topics.

COMMENTS

A fantastic resource for teachers.   

Video: How To Use Commas

Punctuation: How To Use Commas

 MORE ON COMMAS
• Extended Rules for Using Commas (The OWL at Purdue)
• BBC Skillswise: Using Commas (factsheet, game, quiz, worksheet)
• GrammarBook.com (21 rules and a quiz)

Britain's Got Punctuation Problems

Susan Boyle's neighbours prepare for her return, but they've managed to make at least three mistakes on their poster. Can you spot them? (Answers below.) 

MISTAKES
1. "Your" should be spelt "you're"—it's an abbreviation of "you are" not the possessive adjective.

2. "Superstar" is one word not two. (OK, it would have been difficult to fit the whole word but it should at least be hyphenated.)

3. There's no need for an apostrophe in "eye's". It's not possessive, but plural. This is a common mistake, known as the "greengrocer's apostrophe". 

4. If we were being really pedantic, we could also point out the unfortunate mix of upper and lower case letters. And strictly speaking, there should be a comma after 'Susan' and a full stops after 'eyes' and 'done'.

Punctuation Corner: The Dash Versus the Semi-Colon

There are certain forms of punctuation some people just can't stand—the dash for example. A best-selling author has now called on writers to stop using it. The writer in question, Lionel Shriver, and Erica Wagner, literary editor of The Times, discuss whether the dash is a useful tool—or if it is just used by writers who don't quite understand the semi-colon.

You can read the very witty article by Lionel Shriver which inspired this Radio 4 interview at Standpoint Online.

COMMENT
Personally, I find the dash very useful—it's ALT+151 on your computer keyboard, by the way. And don't confuse the hyphen (-) with the dash (—). If, like me, you're not sure when to use a semi-colon, watch this video:

Punctuation: How To Use Colons And Semi-Colons

The joy of exclamation marks!

Stuart Jeffries has written a very amusing piece in The Guardian about the much maligned exclamation mark. Click here to read it!

There is a town of 1,471 happy souls in Quebec called Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!. The second "Ha!", amazingly, is part of the town's name, not my commentary on the first "Ha!". Unlike, for example, the Devon town of Westward Ho! Ho! There, the second "Ho!" is mine. Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! is the only town in the world whose name has two exclamation marks. It will remain so until Wolverhampton is renamed Wolverhampton!! to highlight its funky new Black Country vibe, which, all things considered, seems unlikely. 

Or maybe I'm wrong. After all, exclamation marks - those forms of punctuation derided by the funless and fastidious - are making a comeback, thanks to an internet renaissance that is bleeding over into every form of written communication. Once it was bad form to end a paragraph with an exclamation mark. Now it's borderline obligatory. Once it was enough to put a sign on your door: "Back in five minutes." Now, without the flourish of an exclamation mark, that sign lacks verve or at least zeitgeisty voguishness. Go figure! Full article >>

COMMENT
According to Fowler's Modern English Usage: "Except in poetry the exclamation mark should be used sparingly. Excessive use of exclamation marks in expository prose is a sure sign of an unpractised writer or of one who wants to add a spurious dash of sensation to something unsensational." Poor old Fowler must be turning in his grave!

Video: Grammar Bullies

This is a clip from Room 101, a BBC comedy series in which celebrities are invited to discuss their pet hates. Marcus Brigstocke, a British stand-up comedian (though he's sitting down here), gives Lynn Truss, and all those other grammar bullies who think that a misplaced apostrophe is a hanging offence, a good going over.

About.com: Grammar and Composition

About.com's Grammar and Composition site has a lot of resources which would be useful for teachers and learners of English:

• Writing Tips
• English Grammar
• Punctuation & Mechanics
• Correcting Errors
• Words
• Composing Sentences
• Composing Paragraphs
• Composing Essays
• Rhetoric & Style
• Readings & Resources
• Exercises & Quizzes
• Grammar & Rhetoric Glossary  
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