How to not write bad - Ben Yagoda 2013
The Oxford Comma
How to not write wrong
In a series of three or more items, do you put a comma after the penultimate one (right before the and or or)? That’s another trick question. If you are writing for the Associated Press, the answer is no. If you are writing for the New Yorker or the Oxford University Press, the answer is yes. (The OUP is so well known for this protocol that it has come to be referred to as “the Oxford comma.”) If you’re writing for yourself, the key thing—as in style choices generally—is consistency: choose a style you like, and stick with it.
We brought wine, cheese and snacks to the party.
We brought wine, cheese, and snacks to the party.
That said, in order to prevent ambiguity, you sometimes need to use the Oxford comma.
The greatest singing duos in history are Simon and Garfunkel, Jan and Dean, and Brooks and Dunn.
I am thankful for my parents, Ayn Rand, and God.
The OC is also called for when the items in the list are independent clauses or are long.
Bill washed up, I took a shower, and we all went to sleep.
For furnishing his dorm room, he brought all his Boy Scout ribbons, the home-run ball Chase Utley personally autographed for him in 2007, and a refrigerator his mother picked out for him at Target.
5. ;
My initial thought is to limit this entry to one sentence: “If you feel like using a semicolon, lie down until the urge goes away.”
That is because when my students utilize this piece of punctuation, a substantial majority of them utilize it incorrectly. Just this past semester, a student’s article for a feature writing class had this: The Delaware Welcome Visitors Center is a sight for sore eyes; literally. What she needed was a dash or a colon—pieces of punctuation I have already employed three times in this entry. (For the other problems in the sentence, see ”Apostrophe” and “Literally.”)
But while it is tempting to outlaw semicolons and just move on, that would be too easy. For one thing, there is a particular circumstance when a semicolon absolutely has to be used. This is a series of three or more items, one or more of which contain a comma. Thus:
I’ve lived in Madison, Wisconsin; Wilmington, Delaware; and Toledo, Ohio.
You can see the confusion that would result if the semicolons were replaced by commas, or nothing. A semicolon is called for in only one other situation, and it really isn’t that hard to grasp. A semicolon can be used to connect two independent clauses if the clauses aren’t already linked by conjunctions (and, but, although, etc.).* This can be quite useful if the clauses are short, and a period would create an unintended Hemingway or See-Dick-Run sound:
I got home last night; Bill was already there.
A colon or dash could also be employed in such sentences, but these marks imply an “and therefore” or an “and here’s what I mean” connection between the two elements. A semicolon suggests a relationship as well, but a more subtle or complicated one.
John Updike wrote sixty-three books; I wonder how he found time to sleep.
I really like Sauvignon Blanc; Chardonnay is too oaky for my tastes.
Just remember: use this piece of punctuation in a series whose elements have commas, or a sentence consisting of two complete sentences. Otherwise, step away from the semicolon.
6. :
The colon presents two issues of correctness. The first is simple: do not use more than one of them in a sentence or you will seriously confuse the reader.
The second concerns capitalization after a colon. If what follows isn’t a complete sentence, do not capitalize (unless the first word is a proper noun).
The president listed three economic goals: lower taxes, increased trade and more jobs.
If what follows the colon is a complete sentence, follow house style; if there is no house style, follow your own lights, but be consistent.
I follow a simple principle: To thine own self be true.
I follow a simple principle: to thine own self be true.
7. “ ”
a. Doubling Down
With two exceptions, in the United States one always uses double quotation marks (“like this”) rather than the single quotes, or “inverted commas,” favored in the United Kingdom and the former and current outposts of the British Empire (’like this’). Seems simple enough, but recently students have grown unaccountably fond of using single quotes, not so much for actual quotations but for ironic scare quotes and one- or two-word catchphrases. (Using quotation marks for anything other than quoting what someone said or wrote, or in rendering titles of books or movies and the like, is usually a bad idea stylistically, but that’s a topic for Part III). So:
[We’re devoting Friday to some serious ’day drinking.’]
We’re devoting Friday to some serious “day drinking.”
The two exceptions: single quotes are properly used in the United States in newspaper headlines—such as ford to city: ’drop dead’—and in quotes within quotes:
“When I walked in at three in the morning,” he said, “my mom was like, ’You’re grounded.’”
b. Go Inside
[Tonight we’re seeing “My Fair Lady”.]
[“I feel like going to the beach this weekend”, he said.]
Students and other people seem to find it irresistible these days to place periods and commas outside quotation marks. And why shouldn’t they? The stuff inside the quote marks is a unit, and thus it would appear logical to put punctuation outside it. Indeed, doing so is correct, assuming that you live in the British Isles. But in America, we never put commas or periods outside quotation marks. And so this is an easy one to remember. Never outside, always inside.
Tonight we’re seeing “My Fair Lady.”
“I feel like going to the beach this weekend,” he said.
Bear in mind that this applies only to periods and commas. We in the United States are fine with putting every other kind of punctuation outside of quotation marks unless the punctuation is part of the quote. Indeed, I think I can say without fear of contradiction that semicolons and colons never go inside quotation marks.
I am so excited to be singing Rodgers and Hart’s “Have You Met Miss Jones?”!
Bob’s favorite word is “chillax”; isn’t yours “ginormous”?
8. ( )
There are three relevant rules for parentheses themselves:
1. If you set down an open one (with the outside of the curve facing left), you have to eventually set down a closed one, with the outside of the curve facing right. (Don’t laugh—I have encountered such orphan parentheses on lots of occasions.)
2. You can’t follow a set of parentheses immediately with another set of parentheses, unless you’re being cute. Being cute is a risky game.
3. If by any chance you feel you need to use a pair of parentheses within a pair of parentheses, first of all, see if there is a way to avoid this. If there isn’t, use brackets ([]) instead of parentheses for the interior pair. That reminds me that the only other common use for brackets is to briefly clarify something ambiguous or deleted within a quotation.
When Haldeman said that John Dean was about to testify, Nixon replied, “That’s a load of [expletive deleted].”
The content inside parentheses (TCIP) has to conform to a lot of rules, many of them relating to the relationship between the TCIP and the material that comes before it. If both are complete sentences (and remember that TCIP can be more than one sentence), follow this pattern.
I loved the play last night. (The rest of the audience seemed to feel otherwise. Or so it seemed.)
If TCIP is not a complete sentence, then:
1. Do not put any punctuation immediately before or after the open parenthesis.
2. Make the first word of TCIP lowercase, unless a proper noun.
3. No punctuation right before the close parenthesis, with the occasional exception, in informal writing, of an exclamation point or question mark.
4. Choose whether or not to use any punctuation after the close parenthesis based on the particular needs of the sentence.
Here are some examples, all of them in the form of song titles (parenthetical song titles being a splendid and underappreciated genre). The titles are given in lowercase so as to show proper capitalization, and closing punctuation is included.
(You gotta) fight for your right (to party).
There’s a kind of hush (all over the world).
You can look (but you better not touch).
I (who have nothing).
Don’t come home a drinkin’ (with lovin’ on your mind).
Alone again (naturally).
If I said you had a beautiful body (would you hold it against me)?
What about punctuation when the parentheses come in the middle of sentence? Simply act as though the parens were not there, and put the appropriate punctuation at the end of the close parenthesis. (This is the opposite of what you do with em-dashes. Go figure.)
Weighing in on the question were Bernstein (against it), Gallo (for it), and Allenson (undecided).