grammar

Unconfusing “The Confusables”

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I was recently gifted a copy of Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style, a book by Random House Copy Chief Benjamin Dreyer. It is one of the latest in a line of modern guides on editing and writing that shed the stuffiness usually associated with language and instead take on the subject with wit and humor.

Amid references to pop culture and classic literature, tips on spelling and punctuation, and even a relatable confession that the rules of grammar aren’t always  interesting (sorry, linguistics enthusiasts), there is a chapter called “The Confusables.” Confusables are homonyms, synonyms, similarly spelled words, words with comparable meaning — a word you thought you meant but did not. As Dreyer puts it, “Spellcheck is a marvelous invention, but it can’t stop you from using the wrong word when the wrong word you’ve used is a word (but the wrong word).”

He’s right. Spellcheck and software like Grammarly are useful, but they don’t perform the same function as an editor. This can feel hard to explain to businesses looking for a way to cut costs. Copy editors are increasingly difficult to find in newsrooms, advertising agencies, and other companies that decide to leave writers to edit their own copy. But, like with many of the finer points of editing, confusables are hard to detect, and a keen, well-trained eye is needed to spot them. (Not to mention it feels pretty darn satisfying to catch one.)

Dreyer includes a list of common confusables in his book. Here are a few I have seen recently:

Affect/effect

This is one of the more common pairs of confusables. There are some subtler differences between the 2 words, but most of the time the RAVEN rule (Remember, Affect is a Verb, and Effect is a Noun) will get you by.

Casual/causal

In medical and scientific editing, we frequently discuss the use of causal language in studies (ie, the inference that there is a relationship between variables).  Casual language might be used to describe a relationship with friends. A misuse of either of these words might be easy to read over because they are very close in spelling, but they are very different in meaning.

Discreet/discrete

To be discreet means to be prudent, while discrete means separate or distinct. I used to have a hard time differentiating these 2 words until a fellow editor shared her mnemonic device that the t between the e’s of discrete keeps them separate from each other.

Intermediate/intermittent

These confusables, though different in definition, have some crossover in usage. Intermediate means in the middle, while intermittent means in intervals. So, sure, a solution could be mixed using either intermediate or intermittent shaking. But how does one quantify an intermediate shake? It’s likely intermittent is meant in this situation, but if something isn’t completely clear, it’s always best to ask the author to clarify.

Peak/peek

This pair is tricky because writers might think of the oft-combined “sneak peek” and want to use the ea spelling for both. However, peak refers to a high point, such as the peak concentration of a drug, and peek means to look. The way I keep these straight is associating the ee of peek with the ee of peer or the 2 e’s in eye.

Rational/rationale

These 2 words have similar spelling and meaning, with only one letter setting them apart. However, rational means to be reasonable while rationale is the reason behind said reasonableness.—Jamie Scott

Advice After Mischief Is Like Medicine After Death

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When acquaintances learn that I am an editor, a common response is “I better watch what I say around you.” I would like everyone to watch what they say around me at all times, but for reasons having nothing to do with my career.

Still, that response is often followed by curiosity and questions. Giving advice is one of life’s simple pleasures. Giving advice is even better when someone actually asks for it. Is any writing more concentrated than an advice column? It’s the written equivalent of a shot of absinthe but better for you. My advice hero is Carolyn Hax, and I have also enjoyed Emily Yoffe and Miss Manners. I won’t claim to belong in their illustrious company but I do have the AMA Manual of Style. I don’t think they do.  

I’ve selected questions from the last year whose answers can get you leafing through the manual. As you read these and have questions in turn of your own, remember that, unlike me, the AMA Manual of Style is always there for you.

Dear AMA Style Manual Guru,

I am indexing binomial organism names and have come up with a shortcut that separates the genus from species when the genus is otherwise repeated. Can you help me justify this decision?

Rogue Editor

Dear Rogue Editor,

We are all learners here and I object to the hierarchy implied when you refer to me as a guru. In the interest of collaboration, please call me Sir.

AMA Style Manual Guru

Dear Sir,

I am indexing binomial organism names and have come up with a shortcut that separates the genus from species when the genus is otherwise repeated. Can you help me justify this decision?

Rogue Editor

Dear RE,

No. See 13.1.1, Alphabetization and Sorting.

Dear Sir,

I’m using an acronym that relies on irregular capitalization when spelled out. I am worried that readers will feel misled or as if the acronym is too forced. How can I handle this discrepancy?  Asking for a friend.

Dear Nameless,

You worry too much. Readers will not question the acronym if they follow 10.6, Acronyms and Initialisms. You should too. Or your friend should. Look, you both should. An irregular use of capitalization will be harder for readers to follow than standard capitalization. By the way this column has a word count, so let’s dispense with salutations and sign offs and stick with Q and A.

Q: If you have a hyphenated compound in a page heading, do you capitalize the second half of the word: First-Line Therapy? or First-line Therapy?

A: Because “first-line” appears in Webster’s as a specific term, the AMA Manual of Style indicates that the “l” would be lowercase. See 10.2.2, Hyphenated Compounds. When each part of a hyphenated term carries equal weight, capitalize the initial letter of both words. I always enjoy capitalization questions. Keep them coming.

Q: Even though you prefer capitalization questions, I have a question about pluralization. In a world in which most signage offends grammarian sensibilities (Free Kitten’s to a Good Home), an editor (not unlike you) noted that my paper used “too many and’s.” How should I respond to this editor?

A: See if you can use serial commas instead of successive and’s and look up 9.6, Plurals of Symbols, Letters, Numbers, and Years. Then thank your editor for helping your article attain clarity for readers. You’re welcome.

Q: Why can’t I use the numerical expression of ordinal numbers? They keep getting edited out and I think they are clear and that the visual effect communicates more quickly than spelled ordinals.

A: This is the third (not 3rd) time you’ve asked. I know it sounds harsh but it’s for your own good and someday you’ll thank me. You just can’t. Now stop asking. Numeric expressions of ordinals may be jarring and interrupt the flow of text (see 19.2.5, Ordinals).

Q: I often see the pronoun “one” presented as the number. What’s this whole world coming to?

A: True, the pronoun should be spelled out (19.2.3, One Used as a Pronoun). You may see someone interpret a pronoun as the countable “1,” and it may get into print even when the pronoun precedes a prepositional phrase (“1 of us” for “one of us”). The only assurance I can offer is that no one was harmed in the publication of that phrase and the sun still rises and sets each day.

Q: “Two weeks of symptoms is expected” or “Two weeks of symptoms are expected”?

A: Smart money is on the first choice. A unit of measure uses a singular verb. See 9.2, Collective Nouns. Noun phrases is are funny that way. Your ears may have to adjust to this new knowledge.

Q: I have a father in law problem. He constantly undermines me. My wife is his only daughter, and when I am at the grill (my specialty!), he maneuvers into my area so he can flip the burgers himself. Then he claims that I don’t know how to grill. How can I get him to stop?

A: You have a father-in-law problem. See Hyphen, 8.3.1. —Timothy Gray

Looking Forward to the 11th Edition

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At the most recent annual conference of the American Medical Writers Association, we received a sneak peek at some of the changes to come with the AMA Manual of Style 11th edition. AMA Manual of Style Committee Members Cheryl Iverson, Stacy Christiansen, and Annette Flanagin gave an overview of some highlights, including changes to the way references are styled, updates taking into account the growing presence of social media, and changes to nomenclature. Other topics included updates to corrections processes, clarification of authorship guidelines, and data sharing rules.

In this post, I thought I’d share some of the changes that I’m most excited about as an editor, many of which promise to make the editing process easier and more intuitive. Several new guidelines for styling references caught my attention. For example, electronic references in the current edition mirror traditional references with the addition of a URL in the middle of the reference and a date accessed at the end. The new edition will put URLs at the end of a reference, similar to how DOIs currently appear. Another welcome change is the omission of publisher locations from references to books and reports, which seems sensible given the multinational nature of publishing and the increasing move toward digital formats.

An update to the style of tables and figures was also covered in the presentation. Starting with the 11th edition, column heads in tables and axis labels in graphs will appear in sentence case capitalization rather than title case. Table and figure headings and labels in scientific publishing often contain a great deal of text, making it all the more important to display that text in a way that’s as easy as possible for readers to parse. In addition to saving space, the use of sentence case capitalization throughout figures and tables will make these elements appear more standardized and easier to read.

The new edition also makes some helpful distinctions between AMA style preference and alternatives considered acceptable. For example, it is now acceptable to use of “they” as a singular pronoun. In addition to circumstances in which “they” is a person’s preferred pronoun, this construction can also be helpful in preserving patient confidentiality (eg, avoiding the disclosure of patients’ sex in a small sample size to preserve anonymity).

Many other exciting changes are anticipated with the upcoming 11th edition. Stay tuned for more!—Heather Green

 

 

Transitions of Note, As Such

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I come to praise the lowly transition, the chemical drain opener of scientific writing. A transition unclogs copy. Just pour it in and it works.

In our daily responsibilities, time does not always allow for an examination of language functionality at that level of detail.  More pressing concerns prevail.

In processing a manuscript into final article form for JAMA Network journals, an editor applies several rounds of detailed attention to the information. The process involves many musts. The title must not be declarative or give away the conclusion. The abstract must be complete. The type of study must be specified. The results section must include appropriate data. The methods section must identify ethical or institutional review board approval or waiver as well as informed patient consent. The statistical analysis section must specify the statistical tests used and not present P values alone without comparative data. Figure and table elements must be complete. Abbreviations must be tracked for consistent use. The discussion must include a paragraph about the limitations of the study type. The conclusions must not be overstated or absolute.

Along with including these musts, the copy must follow JAMA Network style conventions, from the picayune (no period after “vs”) to the consequential (wording presents patient first: patients with diabetes instead of diabetics). The end matter also has to follow the author contribution, conflicts of interest disclosures, and identification of funding requirements.

The introduction, methods, results, and discussion format for scientific articles lead readers from section to section. Within those sections, subheads guide readers from one major topic to another.

What about finer divisions of thought than can be accommodated by subheads? In the dash to process 3000 words according to scientific format and AMA style directives, something often gets lost in the shuffle: the utility of the transitions used to move the reader within and between paragraphs of a subsection. One could argue that if transitions go unnoticed then they have done their job. Readers have gone from point A to point B, and no one has gotten hurt.

There is no must for transitions, but the AMA Manual of Style lists 6 functions of a transition with standard examples that perform those functions.

When I review a proof after the list of musts has been confirmed, I am sometimes startled that a conjunction or transition at the paragraph level appears several times in rapid succession. Three uses of of note occur at the end of the discussion section. Four occurrences of as such appear as an opening phrase. Even that being said has slipped by although no one is actually talking. A couple of buts might more properly be ands. Suddenly I am surrounded by however, furthermore, in addition or additionally, and therefore. A little CTRL + 4 action shows 7 however, 4 furthermore, and a walloping 9 additionally uses all within a 9-page original investigation.

Gliding across all-purpose transitions is quite easy as one goes about identifying and focusing on the musts. An all-purpose transition works because it is a transition regardless of whether it functions specifically.  When faced with rapid-succession infelicities, I strike them, perhaps keeping the first. Items of note are apparent from their inclusion. As such in most cases has no actual antecedent. A congenial and from a misbegotten but adds to readability. A quick note to the author usually begets a response ranging from “ok thanks” to something a little more effusive but not overboard.

We have become accustomed to reading right past transitions perhaps because we are not striving for literary awards. No one throws a parade to celebrate a sentence whose dispatched as such has hit the bricks.

Why note how transitions are used? I’m not advocating parades, which would eat significant processing time. Accurate transition use is part of a standard of completeness. Every movement toward specificity is worthwhile to give readers a clearer view of the author’s point. With this in mind, every transition, as such, is of note.—Timothy Gray

Grammar Myths

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A Grammar Girl podcast from March 2018 in celebration of National Grammar Day detailed 10 common grammar myths. Some are plainly incorrect, some are overgeneralizations, and some are points of disagreement between different stylebooks. Even good writers (and editors) get it wrong sometimes!

I’ve seen authors use the term “run-on sentence” to describe a sentence that, while grammatically correct, may have overstayed its welcome. Medical articles are full of long sentences: when adding a word, a clause, or parenthetical numerical values makes the meaning clearer or renders a statement more scientifically accurate, we’ll do it! As Grammar Girl points out, “In a run-on sentence, independent clauses are squished together without the help of punctuation or a conjunction. If you write ‘I am short he is tall,’ as one sentence without a semicolon, colon, or dash between the two independent clauses, it’s a run-on sentence even though it has only six words.”

Use of the passive voice (GG’s myth No. 6) falls under the category of overgeneralizations. The active voice is often your best bet. According to the AMA Manual of Style, “In general, authors should use the active voice, except in instances in which the actor is unknown or the interest focuses on what is acted on.” When I first started working in the field of medical editing and my manager advised me to avoid the use of the first person in abstracts even if it meant rewording to use the passive instead of the active voice, it blew my mind a little. I certainly understood when a perplexed author took me to task for edits that changed the wording of a sentence in his abstract from active to passive. (I also learned the value of a comment specifying why I’ve made a change when it’s something that might not be obvious to an author.)

To further confuse things, different style guides have different rules, and when the guides disagree, a variation can seem like a mistake. Myth No. 7 deals with possessives and the apostrophe-s. AMA style is to omit the final s in the possessive form of a name that ends with s, using only an apostrophe. However, even editors sometimes have the admonitions of long-ago English teachers stuck in their heads. In college I learned that an ‘s was always added, except for classical or biblical names. So the phrase, “Harold E. Varmus’ discovery of retroviral oncogenes,” for example, sets off alarm bells in my head. Yet per AMA style, it’s absolutely correct.

My favorite of Grammar Girl’s myths was No. 3: “It’s incorrect to answer the question ‘How are you?’ with the statement ‘I’m good.’” When someone asks me how I am, and I say “good,” and when I ask them how they are in return they say “I’m WELL,” it feels like a citizen’s arrest, and I don’t love it. But I’ve always thought these scoldilockses were technically correct because the verb am should be modified by an adverb, well. Not so! GG points out that “‘good’ isn’t modifying ‘am’ in the sentence ‘I am good.’ Instead, ‘good’ is acting as the subject complement and modifying the pronoun ‘I.’” This one was news to me—turns out even editors fall prey to grammar myths sometimes!—Heather Green

 

 

 

Faster Than a Sentence Fragment

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My dad held onto his old comic books from when he was a kid — Mad Magazine, Spider-Man, X-Men, and Batman. I know it’s unoriginal, but how could I not fall for the Caped Crusader? I romanticized Batman’s brand of justice: smart, deliberate, vigilante, under the cover of darkness, and always, always for Good. I read both crates of my dad’s comics when I was a boy, but Batman was the only series I came back to as I got older. I took the stories and their Good and Bad morality seriously.

Now I’m an adult and a professional editor. I thought characters like Batman didn’t exist off the page. Then I heard about the Grammar Vigilante. It’s relatively old news, but I only heard about the Grammar Vigilante last month. He’s been correcting storefronts in Bristol, England, for 13 years. When he sees an incorrect apostrophe (“Amy’s Nail’s” is one example), he goes out at night with his homemade Apostrophiser to correct the mistake by covering it with a colored sticker. That’s the kind of real-world vigilante justice I can get behind, and it’s something almost anyone reading this blog can chuckle about.

Strangely, I look at the Grammar Vigilante as seriously as I did Batman. What strikes me is his belief in making these corrections despite the risks. “I do think it’s a cause worth pursuing,” he says in the video. He denies his actions are a crime, quipping, “It’s more of a crime to have the apostrophes wrong in the first place.” Despite the joke, he defaces private property and could face legal action if he is caught.

I believe in the Grammar Vigilante.  The AMA Manual of Style includes chapters on grammar, plurals, and capitalization and quite long chapters on punctuation and correct and preferred usage. As the lattermost suggests, some of these rules are up to interpretation or preference but others are simply right. The primary goal of the written word is to communicate, and that is done most effectively, with the least confusion, using proper grammar and punctuation.

I have a personal tie-in to all of this. In high school, I worked as a server at a restaurant. One day, one of the managers posted a long document about new policies and expectations with explanations for each change. I read it standing next to a coworker and said that I wished I could copy edit the sheet to fix some small errors. She turned to me and looked hurt and disgusted, told me that was insulting, and said that nobody else cares about the right way.

I felt embarrassed, and I didn’t talk about the sheet with anyone else. I didn’t have the ability to put it into words then and still struggle arguing it now, but improper grammar, no matter how small, obscures meaning and harms interpretation. Proper grammar and punctuation aids my reading just as much as it does for those who don’t know or don’t care about it.

Are the Grammar Vigilante’s corrections helpful? Or pretentious? Or even noticed by most? Is there a difference between correcting public storefronts and private postings? By Batman’s morality, is he doing Good or Bad? I don’t know, but I support what he does. He’s not a hero, but I think he’s a silent guardian, a watchful protector. He’s my real-life Dark Knight.—Kevin Brown

Quoth the Raven

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The word impact as a verb comes up pretty often in the course of my work. I am not a fan (and neither is the AMA Manual of Style). I prefer to use affect instead, and when it comes to nouns I like effect better than impact, but I always had to stop and think about it and be sure that I was correctly using these words. I just could not remember. Then, a few weeks ago, I was poking around the internet and came across this useful mnemonic device, RAVEN.

“Remember: Affect is a Verb and Effect is a Noun.”

It’s not a new thing, but I hadn’t heard it before. It stuck in my mind because crows and ravens, those smart, handsome birds, are very interesting to me. Since then, I’ve noticed that the phrase popped into my head right away when I was confronted with the effect/affect question.

Happy Halloween!—Karen Boyd

 

 

Singular They

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One of the more common mistakes I come across while editing is improper use of the singular they. People use it all the time informally, so it often creeps up in more formal writing and authors don’t even know it’s incorrect. Sometimes it’s easy to rewrite the sentence as plural, but other times it’s a real struggle. That’s why I was excited about the recent trend toward allowing it in certain cases. Both the AP Stylebook and the Chicago Manual of Style updated their policies earlier this year to include a few exceptions when rewriting the sentence as plural would be awkward or unclear.

The AP Stylebook now includes 3 examples of when singular they can be used:

  1. A singular they might be used when an anonymous source’s gender must be shielded and other wording is overly awkward.
  2. When an indefinite pronoun (anyone, everyone, someone) or unspecified/unknown gender (a person, the victim, the winner) is used.
  3. In stories about people who identify as neither male nor female or ask not to be referred to as he/she/him/her.

The 17th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style now includes 2 ways in which they can have a singular meaning.

  1. When referring to someone whose gender is unknown or unspecified. This use of the singular is acceptable in speech and informal writing, but for formal writing, Chicago still recommends avoiding it, offering various other ways to achieve bias-free language.
  2. When a specific, known person does not identify with a gender-specific pronoun such as he or she. This usage is still not widespread either in speech or in writing, but Chicago accepts it even in formal writing.

The AMA Manual of Style will follow suit with the next edition, allowing the use of plural pronouns with singular indefinite antecedents (eg, Everyone allocates their time) in an effort to avoid sex-specific pronouns and awkward sentence structure.

Even though there’s more flexibility with the singular they than before, in most cases rewording usually is possible and still always preferable, especially in formal writing.—Tracy Frey

 

Everything Is Relative (Pronouns)

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Unless you fell down a Google rabbit hole and ended up here unintentionally, you’re probably already aware just how much information is contained in the AMA Manual of Style. But to put it in perspective, the style guide’s current iteration contains 1010 pages, and that’s not counting the pages at the very beginning that are numbered with Roman numerals (because no one reads those anyway, right? [sorry Cheryl]). Still, despite the borderline-unmanageable amount of information in the AMA Manual of Style, the articles I edit on a day-to-day basis are usually very sound regarding obscure rules found 3 bullet points below a niche subsection of information explaining…you-name-it. I can generally count on authors to italicize gene names and keep corresponding proteins unitalicized or to capitalize virus terms that end in -virales, -viridae, or -virinae, etc.

But the cost of the attention to the more complicated nuances of AMA style seems to be that baseline grammatical rules get overlooked. I’m not saying that the articles that hit my desk are anarchically grammarless, but there are usually at least 1 or 2 hard-and-fast grammatical conventions that get ignored. And the rule that gets violated far and beyond all the others pertains to the usage of the relative pronouns “that” and “which.”

So here’s a quick refresher for everyone (myself included): A restrictive clause directly affects the intended meaning of the subject in the preceding clause, and restrictive clauses are introduced by “that.” Nonrestrictive clauses are not necessary to the intended meaning of the subject in the preceding clause, and nonrestrictive clauses are introduced by “which.”

Example of a restrictive clause: The band The National wrote a song that is my favorite song. Because “that is my favorite song” modifies the subject “song” to a degree essential for the intended meaning, a restrictive clause introduced with “that” is necessary (the subject “song” would not be the particular song in question—my favorite song—if the restrictive clause wasn’t present). The modified subject’s intended meaning hinges on the restrictive clause.

Example of a nonrestrictive clause: The band The National wrote a song called “The Geese of Beverly Road,” which is a perfect example of early-00’s indie-rock songwriting. Because “which is a perfect example…” simply describes the subject “song” and doesn’t change its intended meaning, all that’s required is a nonrestrictive clause introduced with “which.” The modified subject would still be the song in question (“The Geese of Beverly Road”) in this context without the information the nonrestrictive clause provides.

I know, I know, this seems to be a nitpicky issue that no one save the professional manuscript editor would get hung up on, but precision with language hinges on attention to grammatical detail, which is crucial when presenting scholarly research and information.—Sam Wilder

“NEW YEARS RULIN’S”

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As a long-time manuscript editor, it’s not often that I come across things that are full of grammatical errors, but don’t need a lick of editing and are perfect just as they are.

I’ve had Woody Guthrie’s NEW YEARS RULIN’S tacked up in my cube for a while now, and periodically take it down and examine it and marvel at it.

These RULIN’S  are as good as any life advice from any philosopher. What better advice could a person offer than, for instance, to Love Everybody, Learn People Better, Read Lots Good Books, Stay Glad, or Keep Hoping Machine Running—not to mention Dream Good and Change Socks? I love his little sketches and “Middle of Book” note.

I don’t know if Woody was laying on the rustic, ungrammatical charm in his RULIN’S, but I wouldn’t change a thing if asked to edit this advice for a good life.—Karen Boyd