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SMH, AP Style is what broke me of my Oxford comma usage (as in, omitting it unless needed for clarity).
…and it’s the industry standard, unlike this nice charming treatise by the Charlotte’s Web guy.
Also, a pig and a spider? Charming tale, but the spider better stick to befriending pigs. I assume all spiders want to kill me, and that’s a survival strategy that’s served me well over the years. If that spider approaches me, I’m whipping out a can of Raid or a shoe.
I ar engeneir. You’re farticle is currently cunfused me.
Did David really type “awful lonely” after all those rants?
DAVID, YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID
I shared this article with my wife, who is an editor by training and profession. And yes, she loved it. But more importantly, she has two solid suggestions.
First, “Typos mean you’re human, bad grammar means you don’t care.” Should be the next Autopian t shirt.
Second, the thumbs up icon should be a horn that goes “beep beep.”
Blah, blah, blah. Where did you say the You-Hoos are?
As an engineer who manages the work of other engineers, what David highlights here gives me immense satisfaction. I’m an engineer who can talk to non-engineer humans, so I get the opportunity to try and decipher the grammatically incoherent comments my fellow engineers contribute and convert them into words with the correct meaning and sentences conveying the proper thoughts. For a bunch of folks who care very deeply about the numbers conveying the right value, it amused me how little they can care about their words conveying the right information!
I think you mean “try to decipher” 😛
It warms my Liberal Arts heart to see a mention of Strunk & White, I figured it was lost to history once emojis were born.
Now I need to know how DT feels about the Oxford Comma.
Ahem.
Quoth DT, “It’s fairly straightforward, and also in the legendary grammar book ‘Elements of Style’ by Strunk & White — a book that I bought for each member of our team (out of my own pocket!).”
Surely he knows that book titles (like movie titles, TV series titles, and record album titles) should be italicized, whereas short story titles (like TV episode titles and song titles) get wrapped in quotation marks.
Harrumph.
Also S&W is a grammar book the same way toilet paper is a tree.
Drivers *WHO*…
Readers *WHO*…
People *WHO*…
Also, The Chicago Manual of Style or GTFO.
I remember wanting to slap a few people with a thick copy of the AP Stylebook back in my Jello Picnic days.
(…and everywhere else I’ve ever worked, for that matter.)
These issues are way down the the list of grammar/editing/spelling issues on this site.
Every article has obvious simple errors without having to argue if Strunk & White or AP Style Guide is the one true answer.
The content is worth dealing with the grammar issues.
Strunk & White just sounds like it should be the title of a Die Antwoord album.
English is not my first language. I learned it through reading, and later through TV shows. So, for most of my life, what was on print was the correct way to use the language.
I still rely on it for my grammar, to help me “feel” the language and speak/write it properly. So, all jokes aside, you have my thanks for taking care of it here.
Also, unrelated to the present topic, I would like to note my utter contempt for the words “successfully” and “successful”. Way to many repeated letters, and MAKE YOUR DAMN MIND ALREADY on how many L you want to use!
Across the pond, the tendency is to refer to corporations as plural entities rather than singular. This drives me nuts. For example, “Vauxhall have released the new Corsa,” as opposed to “Vauxhall has released the new Corsa.” And ironically, my colleagues here don’t seem to like using the Oxford comma. I’m constantly adding these into reports that I am tasked with editing.
Any British writers are excused. Voice is a fragile thing not to be messed with.
“Voice is a fragile thing not to be messed with.”
Voice is a fragile thing with which not to be messed. 😉
Also, passive voice should be avoided.