Tag Archives: grammar

Housekeeping

Posted on by

Today’s a housekeeping day. The dishes are in the dishwasher, there are clothes in the dryer, and we’re collecting estimates to replace our fence.

No, seriously. I know it’s hard to believe, but we actually do dishes occasionally and–what? Oh, yeah, that. Really:

So, that being the case, I might as well do a little electronic housekeeping and clear out the pile of stuff that’s been piling up because they’re not even long enough for a Short Attention Span Theater post.

But first, this commercial message:

On Sunday, I’ll be at Borderlands Books in San Francisco, pushing The RagTime Traveler. The plan is to cover the history of ragtime music and the history of TRTT before I sign copies. That’s darn ambitious for an hour, so if you’re into train wrecks, come watch this one develop!

Moving on.


I’ve griped about greengrocers’ apostrophes before (customer’s what?), so I’ll just note that this is the first time I’ve seen single quotes used instead of double for those darn useless quotes. But why didn’t they put quotes around “customer’s” and “manager”?

Ahem.

In the “you only had one job” category. If that qualifies as a rolled hose, I really want to look inside the bin and see how many scraps of paper, broken tools, and rotting vegetables qualify as not trash.

Sigh.

Back to grammar. The way I read this, it’s perfectly fine for me to play with the condiments for sanitation purposes. My kids will just have to watch. Or I can let them play with the condiments as long as it has nothing to do with sanitation. Hey, kids, how high can you stack the creamers? No, Billy, you can’t clean the spilled jelly off that container; that would be sanitary!

Argh.

OK, last one.

Lawyers have a strange view of what is necessary and appropriate.

Case in point: a few years ago, our local hospital closed. That’s a whole rant of its own, so I’ll spare you for now. But unwinding its affairs has been a protracted affair.

Earlier this week, both Maggie and I got letters from a law firm representing our county healthcare district informing us that the hospital’s patient records will be destroyed in a few months.

Frankly, that seems like a good idea to me, especially since they’re providing a way for former patients to claim their records if they need them for their new doctors.

But what struck me as odd is that the letters also informed us why we got them. It’s because each of us is either (1) a former patient; (2) a family member of a former patient; (3) an insurance company “known or believed” to have given insurance to a former patient; or (4) “the Attorney General of the State of California.”

Let that sink in for a moment.

They consider it appropriate to send these letters to insurers who might have had clients who were treated at the hospital. OK, so there are no names on the letter; it’s not a privacy violation. But where the heck did they get the names of those companies “believed” to have served former patients? If they were listed in the hospital records, shouldn’t they be considered “known” rather than “believed”? Or did they just send one to every insurance company they could find a name and address for?

The real kicker for me, though, is that this law firm apparently believes there’s a one in four chance that I’m the state attorney general.

Really, guys, it wouldn’t have cost that much more to send a separate letter to the AG? Heck, the savings in ink from not printing Item Four on those millions of letters would more than outweigh the cost of some clerk’s time.

Last Week In Review

Posted on by

There was a lot going on in the world last week — much of it was even relevant to this blog*. Most of it was far from time critical, though, so I didn’t feel compelled to drop everything and put fingers to keyboard (I almost wrote “put pen to keyboard”, which seems like it could work, but would probably be a bit messy.) Instead, I bring you this assemblage of short items summarizing last week.

* Meaning, of course, “Casey found it interesting.”

  • Putting the most important story first, to ensure that it gets seen even by those with short attention spans. I hasten to note that nobody who regularly reads this blog could be suffering from that problem — the comment is aimed at the occasional drop-in reader. A moment of silence in memory of George Thornton, who passed away Sunday, 27 October. Mr. Thornton will be remembered for decades to come as the prime mover in the famous “Exploding Whale” fiasco. I won’t even attempt to summarize the events of 12 November 1970; I invite you to watch the video embedded below, and then to visit the commemorative website for more information. Let us mourn the passing of a mind that thought dead whales and dynamite were a natural combination. I’ll skip the inevitable jokes about proper disposal of Mr. Thornton’s remains, and simply refer you to the comment section of the NBC News story, where all of the jokes have already been made.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_t44siFyb4
  • Google Announcements As many of you are aware, Google announced — and began shipping — the new Nexus 5 phone and Android KitKat. The phone is, as expected, similar to LG’s G2, and the OS is, as expected, similar to Android Jelly Bean. What’s most interesting, however, is what didn’t get announced (and thanks to go Ars Technica for pointing these out.) On the hardware side, Google’s Android.com promotional website was updated to include the Nexus 5; the updates include photos of what appears to be an unannounced 8-inch tablet. Since the Nexus 7 was just updated a few months ago, it seems improbable that this would be a replacement; however the Nexus 10 has not yet been updated. Perhaps this is Google’s next entry into the “large tablet” space, and intended to compete head-to-head with the new iPad Mini. Over on the software side, KitKat all but drops the standalone Home screen app that provides the home screen and app drawer: it’s now a stub that redirects calls over to the search app. Yes, you read that correctly: the home screen and app drawer are now part of the search app. It’s an interesting move on Google’s part to tie Android users closer to their own tools, and I look forward to seeing how device manufacturers and carriers react, as this will certainly affect their ability to differentiate their devices through home screen tweaks and proprietary UIs.
  • A major milestone in my professional development has been reached. With a rejection on Sunday, 3 November, I now have enough that each finger could claim one. Yep, rejection number 10. I realize the email was a form letter, but I take heart in the fact that they chose to use the form that says they “enjoyed reading” my submission, and that I should “feel free” to send them other works. Much better than the form that threatens lawsuits for mental damage and warns of restraining orders.
  • Halloween musings A few follow-ups to my comments on Halloween.
    • Apparently a lack of sidewalks isn’t quite the barrier to trick-or-treating that I had thought. Our modest decorations (a giant spider, a few themed lights, and a talking dog skeleton) sufficed to bring in almost 40 candy bandits, a new record.
    • For the record, there was only one zombie and no Miley Cyruses (Cyrusi?). There were also a couple of cats (hurray for tradition!) and fairy princesses. Most of the rest were clearly costumes, but not anything I recognized. I suspect my lack of engagement with most current popular entertainment is a drawback in these situations.
    • Reese’s Cups were far and away the most popular item in the candy bowl. KitKats were a distant second (sorry Google), and Mounds bars barely even registered on the consciousness of the average trick-or-treater.
    • Trick-or-treaters who politely ask “How many may I have?” are a distinct minority. I’ll allow you to write your own “decline of civilization” comments; my own suspicion is that politeness has always trailed well behind the lust for candy among the pre-teen set.
    • No wildly creative costumes this year. However, since the few older kids were obviously towing younger siblings and mostly declined candy, I forgive them their lack of effort. I’ll give them mild props for making a small effort and save my scorn for the parents that made no effort to costume at all, but sent their urchins to the door with an extra bag “for Daddy”.
  • The importance of conjunctionsCJ Maggie spotted this place on our way to dinner Sunday night, and I’m really looking forward to trying them out for breakfast. I’ve never had ham, bacon, or chorizo juice before. Should be quite the tasty — and artery-hardening — experience! (Lest you think this is entirely in jest, be aware that the Internet is full of suggestions for what to do with ham juice (stock, pea soup base, beans), bacon juice (mostly related to eggs), and even chorizo juice (predominantly potato-related). Hint: most people call these items “grease” or “fat”. I’m all for regional dialects and variant word usages, but when it leads to straight-faced suggestions regarding large glasses of liquid pig squeezings, I draw the line…) Seriously, guys, would it kill you to add an “and” before the last word?

What’s Up?

Posted on by

I indicated last week that I was willing to risk the fall of civilization by accepting the modern usage of “literally” to mean “not literally”. The risk is small. If I were doing QA on the use of the English language as a means of destroying civilization, and time or budgetary constraints forced a reduction in test scope, that would be among the first tests to be omitted.

But there’s another trend in English usage that’s of much greater risk. That’s the greengrocers’ apostrophe, and I am not going to compromise on that! Get your plurals correct or risk my wrath!

“Oh, come on,” I hear you say. “Is there really such a big risk in a few extra apostrophe’s? What doe’s it matter if I add an apostrophe in writing plural’s?”

To which I reply “AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaargh!!!!!”

Yes, there is a risk. Not only are you wasting time, effort, and ink, but you are also decreasing your readers’ ability to understand you.

The rules for making a word plural are simple:

1) Add an es if the word ends in s, sh, ch, x, or z.
2) Otherwise, add an s.

Thus:

One bus, two buses
One fox, two foxes
One brunch, two brunches

But:

One bust, two busts
One moose, two mooses
One mouth, two mouths

Watch out for irregular words, though. Some words use non-standard plural forms (one mouse, two mice) or the same word for both singular and plural (one deer, two deer). It’s amazing how few people will notice if you slip up, as long as you use the correct standard form, so be careful.

Please note that there are no apostrophes in any of those plurals. That’s because the apostrophe is used to indicate a relationship between two things: a relationship of ownership or possession. (Note: the apostrophe is also used for contractions (leaving out letters), but that’s a subject for another time.) The rule of thumb to use for possession is that if the relationship can be stated using the phrase “of the”, it can also be stated using an apostrophe.

The rules here are also simple:

1) Add ‘ if the word ends in s.
2) Otherwise, add ‘s.

Thus:

The drivers of the bus or the bus’ drivers
The scale of the fish or the fish’s scale
The tails of the foxes or the foxes’ tails

But:

“Free of the bananas” makes no sense, so not “the banana’s free” (or worse yet, “free banana’s”)

That’s really not so difficult, right? Right.

And it matters. Consider these possible newspaper headlines:

  • Bay Bridge Bolt’s Break
  • Bay Bridge Bolts Break

The first tells us that one of the bolts on the bridge has had a break. We’ll have to read the article to find out whether the bolt has snapped or won the lottery, but either way, it’s only one bolt.

The second tells us that whatever happened, it happened to more than one bolt. I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to be driving across the bridge, I want to know how many of the bolts have retired to Hawaii.

So now you know the rules and you have no excuse for misusing your apostrophes. Henceforth, violators will be sentenced to hang by their ears’.

Uh… ears’ lobes! Yeah, that’s it!