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Archive for the ‘Usage’ Category

GMAU hits #280 on Amazon

Posted by: Samantha Enslen, president and senior editor, November 2nd, 2009

I got an update from Bryan Garner today on the status of his appeal to editors and writers ’round the world to buy the new edition of Garner’s Modern American Usage.

Here’s what he has to say:

Thanks for your response! The appeal succeeded in taking GMAU3 from #4,000 on Amazon.com to a high of #280. It was #1 in dictionaries for a time, and #3 in editing resources. And the book received a good deal of positive attention as a result. Many thanks for your support. Now what the major chains will do is perhaps still a ticklish matter . . .

Good luck, Bryan! We’ll continue to buy the book direct from Oxford if needed . . . but here’s hoping that Amazon continues to carry it as a result of this grassroots push.

Posted in Copyediting, Resources for editors, Usage | no comments »

I got this email on Friday from Bryan Garner. He’s not really a personal friend <sigh> . . . I just subscribe to his daily usage tips. He writes that Amazon is no longer interested in carrying Garner’s Modern American Usage, and he asks writers and editors everywhere to request the book from Amazon and Barnes & Noble in an effort to change their minds.

Here’s his note.

If you’re a fan of my usage tips and Garner’s Modern American Usage…

I have a favor to ask of you as a loyal reader: In the next few hours or days, would you please go to www.amazon.com or www.bn.com and buy one or more copies of the new third edition of Garner’s Modern American Usage as holiday presents? In fact, keep this gift possibility in mind through the end of the year, won’t you?

I need your help in sending a message to the major bookstore chains: they’re not stocking the book because they’ve told Oxford University Press that they consider usage guides a “defunct category.” It’s maddeningly unbelievable. Please help me show them that they’re stupendously wrong.

Meanwhile, in the coming months you might ask about the book when you’re in a bookstore: ask the managers why they don’t stock copies, and encourage them to do so.

If you’re curious to see what effect you’re having, watch the rankings on Amazon.com or Bn.com in coming days and weeks. We’ll be alerting the major chains to those numbers, and we want to get as close to the top 50 as we can. If you’re trying to order and see that the book is labeled “out of stock,” order anyway: the effort is also to ensure that the online booksellers keep adequate stocks.

In return for this favor – it’s a grassroots effort – I’ll be happy to inscribe copies that you send to LawProse for that purpose, if you (1) include a filled-out FedEx airbill for returning them to you, and (2) suggest an appropriate inscription.

Thank you for whatever help you can provide in this endeavor to show booksellers that the concern for good English is alive and well.

Readers of this blog know that I consider Garner’s Modern American Usage to be an absolutely essential reference for all editors and writers. I turn to it weekly, if not daily, for guidance. It’s almost unbelievable to me that Amazon could consider not carrying it.

If you don’t own a copy of Garner’s or need to update to the next edition, it sounds like now is the time to buy. Maybe if enough people respond to this email Bryan WILL become a close, personal friend.

One can only hope.

Posted in Resources for editors, Usage | 2 comments »

New edition of Garner’s available

Posted by: Samantha Enslen, president and senior editor, July 9th, 2009

Break out the champagne! A new edition of Garner’s Modern American Usage is available!

(I know, only editors could get excited about this. But I am excited.)

Garner’s is the de facto standard usage guide for American English, offering guidance on burning issues such as when to use farther versus further or when to use which versus that. Garner writes in a highly readable style, and his approach simple and sensible:

Generally, writing is good if readers find it easy to follow; writing is bad if readers find it hard to follow.

He is also highly practical, writing that:

… recommendations on usage must be genuinely plausible. They must recognize the language as it currently stands, encourage reasonable approaches to editorial problems, and avoid refighting battles that were lost long ago.

The need to “recognize the language as it currently stands” and adjust one’s usage decisions accordingly is all the reasoning I need to purchase this third edition of the book.

What are you waiting for?

Posted in Resources for editors, Usage | no comments »

One-Sentence Paragraphs … Yay or Nay?

Posted by: Samantha Enslen, president and senior editor, August 1st, 2007

Correspondent E.F., a great writer and good egg, writes today with a concern from one of her clients …

He seems happy but commented that I use a lot of one-sentence paragraphs. I never noticed this, but it’s probably a holdover from reporting work. Is there a rule against this? He wasn’t really complaining but sort of musing about it because he says writing workshops claim this is a no-no.

My response? One sentence paragraphs are perfectly fine — as long as they are used smartly and judiciously. Moreover, there’s no rule against them, despite what high school English teachers or “workshop leaders” might tell you — and what you might find in Strunk & White’s Elements of Style.

As a rule, single sentences should not be written or printed as paragraphs. An exception may be made of sentences of transition …

But I don’t use S&W as a rulebook, just as a very general primer on good writing — so I disregard this “rule,” and don’t consider it authoritative.

Moreover, William Safire advises against any pedantic insistence that one-sentence paragraphs must never be used. And Bryan Garner writes in his Modern American Usage that “long sentences slow the reading and create a solemn, portentous impression; short sentences speed the reading and the thought.” Couldn’t the same be said of long and short paragraphs?

I advised E.F. to tell her client — if she had to give him an explanation — that in this age of short attention spans, short paragraphs are often preferred to long paragraphs, and one-sentence paragraphs are perfectly acceptable. Short paragraphs help readers access your copy easily and digest it in manageable chunks. They also help draw attention to important points that are significant enough to stand alone — a critical factor to consider knowing that many readers are actually “scanners.”

Of course, it wouldn’t make sense to have every paragraph be one sentence long. Good writers vary the length of their paragraphs, much as they vary the length of their sentences — as part of the process of crafting clear, readable, resonant prose.

Posted in Clear writing, Copywriting, Resources for editors, Usage | no comments »

Since vs. Because

Posted by: Samantha Enslen, president and senior editor, January 23rd, 2007

QZSue sends this James J. Kilpatrick article on why “since” should not be used to mean “because”:

Yes, it is true that every standard dictionary informs us that “since” may be employed in the sense of “because.” I beg you, fergit it!

What the usual suspects do not say is that the usage is slovenly, sloppy, careless, unthinking, and likely to confuse the casual reader. The practice cannot be condoned, even when it is employed by a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

This is today’s rant: In an opinion in June 2005, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote: “I would hold that, since there is no clear statement of coverage, Title III does not apply …” He meant ” because there is no clear statement …” In an opinion in a criminal case just a year ago, Scalia wrote of terminology that is misleading “since we hold that in all capital cases …” Again, he meant, “because we hold …”

Although I have to give Mr. Kilpatrick props for holding the Supreme Court justices up as paragons of poor usage (not what they are usually known for), I have to disagree with his hard-line stance on the use of “since.” I think it’s too late in the evolution of the language to force writers to use only “because” to mean “because.”

The role of editors is to make sure that readers understand what authors mean to say, not to dogmatically enforce (sometimes arcane) rules of usage. And since readers easily understand since to mean because (see, I just did it), what’s the harm in using it?

Posted in Editorial style, Usage | no comments »