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Writers on the Net
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Vol. 7, No. 9
September 2004

IN THIS ISSUE:
THREE WRITING BOOK REVIEWS
~~CLASS SCHEDULE~~ [to current class schedule page]
PUNCTUATION POINTER: the apostrophe
GRAMMAR: "singulars"
ROOTS: "hurricane" and "typhoon"
~~NEWSLINKS~~
QUOTATION

THREE "WRITING BOOK" REVIEWS
By Paula Guran

THIS MONTH we look at three recent books of interest to writers. (THE GROUCHY GRAMMARIAN came out two years ago, but is now available in softcover from the Quality Paperback Book Club.)

EATS, SHOOTS & LEAVES: THE ZERO TOLERANCE APPROACH TO PUNCTUATION
by Lynne Truss
Gotham Books /240 p/ $17.50
(April 12, 2004)
ISBN: 1592400876

It was delightful to hear of the surprise success last year of a punctuation guide in the United Kingdom. The same book has now become a number one best-seller in the U.S. as well. It's a pity, though, that EATS, SHOOTS & LEAVES is the lucky book. As one would expect, it is the author's personality that sets such a book apart and makes it a pop cultural sensation. Author Lynne Truss is witty and as long as you feel slightly superior to the average poor punctuator, you'll find her humorous. If you are punctuation-challenged yourself or have sympathy for those less than punctuation perfect or understand (as Truss obviously does not) that email, IMs, and text messaging is not formal written English, Truss comes off as smug. Truss's passion for proper pronunciation may be sincere, but unfortunately her shrill, over-the-top style detracts from her cause. She also makes more than a few errors of her own. (I spotted some myself, but here's an expert's opinion from an article in The New Yorker .) Unlike the "curmudgeonly" Bill Walsh (author of the recommended LAPSING INTO A COMMA and THE ELEPHANTS OF STYLE), who may be gruff but who provides well thought out reasoning to correct our faults, Truss bludgeons us with pronouncements. One can have "zero tolerance" for punctuation sins, but Truss seems to forget that one should be tolerant of the sinner. She treats ignorance as inferiority and calls those who use punctuation incorrectly "stupid."

* * *

WHEN GOOD PEOPLE WRITE BAD SENTENCES: 12 STEPS TO BETTER WRITING HABITS
by Robert W. Harris
St. Martin's Griffin / 240 p / $13.95
(June 14, 2004)

ISBN: 0312328044 If your life has been impacted by addiction or helped by a "12-step" program, you may not find this writing guide as clever as its author hopes you will. The premise is to deal jocularly with grammar, spelling, punctuation, and other writing mistakes as an "addiction to bad writing" and "malescribism" (the dysfunctional compulsion to write poorly) that can be cured "one sentence at a time." The author claims his goal is to "help people understand the roots of bad writing" so the "healing process" can begin. For this reader, the joke wore thin within a few pages. Although some good advice is offered here and there, it is buried in "healing tips" and "endnotes" to each chapter that point out mistakes that have been intentionally made. Some tips are exceedingly obvious, others are vague ("Don't switch verb tense without a good reason." "Enliven your writing with metaphors -- but use them correctly and with restraint."), some are overly simplified ("Never omit the final comma is a series.") Overall, the "cute" medium does not present the message of clear writing. There are plenty of genuinely helpful and far more entertaining books on English usage on the market, so skip this one.

* * *

THE GROUCHY GRAMMARIAN: A HOW-NOT-TO GUIDE TO THE 47 MOST COMMON
MISTAKES IN ENGLISH MADE BY JOURNALISTS, BROADCASTERS, AND OTHERS WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER
by Thomas Parrish
Wiley / 192 p / $19.95
(September 20, 2002)
ISBN: 0471223832

THE GROUCHY GRAMMARIAN is both helpful and entertaining. It's arranged in 47 readable topics covering common mistakes in the English language. It's a "how-not-to" manual that explains what one should *not* do -- an effective and direct way one can learn what should be done. Parrish uses mistakes from top print and broadcast media so the reader is reassured that even those who should know better are sometimes mistaken. One does feel a bit of sympathy for those so-used, however. When working under a deadline or in front of a camera, a slip of tongue or keyboard is to be expected (and those in the print media should have been saved from their gaffes by vigilant copy editors.) Parrish writes clearly and well and his grumpy (but neither nasty nor condescending) alter ego makes for an amusing read. Presented in a narrative manner that can be read straight through, the book also possesses an excellent index that can be used to check specific points. Parrish provides a good bibliography that inadvertently points out that as enjoyable and edifying as THE GROUCHY GRAMMARIAN may be -- it is no substitute for a few standard volumes that no writer should be without. Since it covers common mistakes, those mistakes are quite commonly covered in almost any usage manual. At a hardcover price of $19.95, it's hard to justify this one unless you just happen to like or collect such tomes.

PUNCTUATION POINTERS:
the apostrophe (')

Here, thanks to The Apostrophe Protection Society is their version of the rules concerning the use of apostrophes in written English:

1. They are used to denote a missing letter or letters, for example:
I can't instead of I cannot
I don't instead of I do not
it's instead of it is

2. They are used to denote possession, for example:
the dog's bone
the company's logo
Jones's bakery (but Joneses' bakery if owned by more than one Jones)

... but please note that the possessive form of it does not take an apostrophe any more than ours, yours or hers do

the bone is in its mouth

... however, if there are two or more dogs, companies or Joneses in our example, the apostrophe comes after the 's':

the dogs' bones
the companies' logos
Joneses' bakeries

3. Apostrophes are NEVER ever used to denote plurals! Common examples of such abuse are:
Banana's for sale --which should read-- Bananas for sale
Menu's printed to order --which should read-- Menus printed to order
1000's of bargains here! --which should read-- 1000s of bargains here!
New CD's just in! --which should read-- New CDs just in!
Buy your Xmas tree's here! --which should read-- Buy your Xmas trees here!

GRAMMAR
singulars

Words like "anybody," "each," "every," "everybody," and "nobody," are used to refer to a number of people or things. Those words are grammatically *singular* because each refers to one person or one thing at a time. You can change the verb to correct the grammar, but usually wind up with a nit-picking phrase like "he or she" or "his or her." It is often easier to avoid the issue by re-phrasing.

Incorrect: Everyone must complete their assignments.
Correct but picky: Everyone must complete his or her assignments.
Correct: All students must complete their assignments.
Correct: You must complete your assignments.

Incorrect: Each book must have a bar code on their back cover.
Correct: Each book must have a bar code on its back cover.
Correct: Each book must have a bar code on the back cover.
Correct: All books must have bar codes on their back cover.

"Neither" and "either" can also be a problem.
Incorrect: Neither of my proposals were accepted.
Correct but picky: Neither of my proposals was accepted.
Correct: Both my proposals were rejected.
Correct: I didn't have an acceptable proposal.

ROOTS
"hurricane" and "typhoon"

Major tropical cyclones in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific Oceans are called "hurricanes" but in the western Pacific and Indian Oceans they are "typhoons." Either one has winds over 74 miles per hour that circulate counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere. If the wind speed is less than 39 miles per hour, such weather events are "tropical depressions." They become "tropical storms" when the wind speed exceeds 39 mph but remains less than 74 mph.

"Hurricane" comes to English from the Spanish word "huracán." The Spaniards adapted the word from the language of the Taino Indians who inhabited Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and Puerto Rico at the time of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the western hemisphere. In Taino, "hurakán" meant "center of the wind" - "hura" = "wind" + "kan" = "center." The word may also be related to "Hurakan," the name of the ancient Mayan god of wind and storm, whose name means "one-legged" in Mayan. In Taino imagery, the zemi (or deity) who controls the hurakan is depicted as a circular head with no body. Two hands spiraled off the head in opposite directions, an apt representation of the circular action of a hurricane. Some sources claim this god's name was also a variant of Hurakan. Others disagree. You'll also come across interpretations stating the Maya and Taino considered this an "evil god" or "evil spirit." This is probably a modern extrapolation.

The word entered English as "furacano" or "furacane" in a 1555 translation of writings by Columbus. The first recorded use of "hurricane" was by Governor John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony who wrote of the "Great Colonial Hurricane" of August 1635 that passed between Boston and Plymouth, Massachusetts

"Typhoon" comes from two different sources. In Cantonese, the word "taai" translates to "great" and "fung" to "wind." A "taai fung" is a "great wind." "Taifu," in Japanese has about the same meaning.

In ancient Greek, the father of the winds was called Tuphon and the word was also used as a noun meaning "whirlwind, typhoon." Arabic borrowed the word during the Middle Ages and when Arabic-speaking Muslim invaders settled in 11th century India, the word passed into languages spoken there. The descendant of the Arabic word, passed into English through an Indian language. Its first recorded appearance in English came in 1588 and referred specifically to severe storms on the Indian subcontinent.

The Cantonese "taaifung" was first recorded in English as "tuffoon" in 1699. The two forms became the modern "typhoon." The current spelling first appeared in 1819 in Shelley's Prometheus Unbound.

QUOTATION:

"Writers take words seriously--perhaps the last professional class that does--and they struggle to steer their own through the crosswinds of meddling editors and careless typesetters and obtuse and malevolent reviewers into the lap of the ideal reader." -- John Updike

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