What's next? Thespacebetweenwords?

Government officials in Birmingham, England, have voted to ban apostrophes in road signs. According to an Associated Press story, the officials spent so much time during meetings trying to figure out which place names needed apostrophes, they couldn't get anything else done.

I love the wordplay used by the AP writer, Meera Silva:

LONDON – On the streets of Birmingham, the queen's English is now the queens English.

England's second-largest city has decided to drop apostrophes from all its street signs, saying they're confusing and old-fashioned.

But some purists are downright possessive about the punctuation mark.

I wouldn't say I'm possessive. Fanatical, maybe. But not possessive.

'Your' an idiot

Stupid people should not be allowed to create bumper stickers. I was driving to work this morning and saw the following:

If your going to
ride my ass
pull my hair

I'm going to market my own sticker, but this one will be for smart people:

If you're going to
put something idiotic on your automobile,
at least use proper punctuation.

I guess I'll have to edit it down to fit. Any suggestions?

Which America do you mean?

I love the crossword puzzle in The New York Times. And, being a news geek, I love it even more when the puzzle includes themes on current events.

The last three weeks have included two Sunday puzzles dedicated to the election of Barack Obama. The first was a little tough. The theme was states that voted for Obama. The states' postal abbreviations (not AP style abbreviations) were included in circles throughout the puzzle. Great idea. Then on Inauguration Day, the puzzle focused on Obama himself, including references to "The Audacity of Hope," the U.S. Senate and Vice President Joe Biden.

But Tuesday's puzzle also had what I consider to be a major editing mistake. I can't remember the exact clue, but it was something like "Obama's title beginning Jan. 20, 2009." The answer was "President of America." Last I heard, the name of our country was the United States of America. "America" refers to the continents of North and South America. Obama is not the president of North and South America. People who live in countries like Canada, Mexico, Peru, Honduras and Greenland take offense to this type of thing. (Yes, Virginia, Greenland is part of North America.) And I find don't like it, either, thank you very much.

If we're going to take back our place in the world, let's start with being more sensitive about things like this.

I realize that like headlines, crossword puzzle answers must fit, but that's why they're so demanding to compose. If the writer of the puzzle couldn't find a good answer that fit, he or she should have rephrased the question.

Punctuation: The 'so what?' question

OK, I admit it. I like punctuation. But what word lover doesn't? Bad punctuation can ruin a sentence.

A lot of students, and non-students, wonder why some people are so hung up on punctuation. The reason seems clear to me: Punctuation makes written communication easier to understand. Without proper punctuation, a sentence can lose its meaning, and that's the last thing a good communicator wants. Here's an example I used during the first week of classes this week.

Read the following setence aloud, and try to figure out what it means:

A woman without her man is nothing.

Got it? Good. Now, scroll down and read the same sentence with different punctuation, and see how the meaning changes.

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-
-
-
-
-
-
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A woman: Without her, man is nothing.

See the difference proper puncutation makes? Hope you enjoyed that one.

Male author offers advice. Get it?

During the holiday break I taught an online sports writing class. It went well. Most of the students did all the work and showed improvement. I might just do it again next year.

So why am I going on about this? Well, I wanted to share a little something about our textbook for the course, “The Sports Writing Handbook,” by Thomas Fensch. It was a very good book. I think it provided a great overview of the subject. It even included a chapter entitled "Guidelines for Writing about Women." I was thrilled when I saw this. Then I read the chapter. I should have known what I was in for when I realized it was only four pages long. The book is more than 250 page in all. But I digress. Even though the chapter is short, Fensch does make some good points. He urges readers to avoid "othering," which means to write as if female athletes are the exception to the rule. An example Fensch uses is to avoid the following:

Arthur Ashe was a great tennis player. Billie Jean King is a great female tennis player.

I use similar examples in class. The above implies that when you say "tennis player," you're saying "male," and when you add "women," you're not really talking about "real" tennis players. It implies that because she is a woman, King is somehow less of a tennis player. I'm not saying King could beat Ashe, although she did kick Bobby Riggs' sorry behind, but that's another story.

And Fensch gives a great piece of advice when he says the following:

When you have completed a story about a woman, go through it and ask yourself whether you would have written about a man in the same style. If not, something may be wrong with the tone or even the conception of your article. Think it through again.

That's good advice for all writers, not just those in the sports section. It's all great advice when writing about people of color, those with disabilities, gay men and lesbians, and any other group that's taken it on the chin in the past.

One more thing about Fensch's book. The chapter that immediately follows the one on women is about writing advance stories. On the very first page of this chapter, in his list of guidelines for writing advances, Fensch warns reporters to be on the lookout for teams that schedule "weak sisters."

What does he mean by a “weak sister”? I’ve never heard this term before, but I guess it means a weak opponent. I wonder why it’s not a “weak brother”? I’m assuming that whoever came up with this term used sister instead of brother because girls are traditionally seen as weaker than boys. The fact is, however, that many girls are stronger than many boys. Furthermore, the use of the term, especially in sports writing, serves to reinforce the stereotype that girls are not meant to be athletes. Things like this turn girls off to sports and further the stereotype that sports are a male domain.

I’m not trying to nitpick the book to death. What I’m trying to do is show how important words can be. The way we use words matters. I find it ironic but sad that this example came right after the chapter on avoiding sexist language. Funny. Or maybe not. What do you think?

Ode to an editor

Copy editors receive little praise. They mostly get noticed when they don't do a perfect job. This piece, therefore, made me smile and say thanks. In What My Copy Editor Taught Me, author Dorothy Gallagher recounts learning how to read sentences and how to make her words count. The essay appeared in today's New York Times Book Review. Here's a passage that gets to the heart of what I think good editors ought to do:

Helene had no literary theories — she had literary values. She valued clarity and transparency. She had nothing against style, if it didn’t distract from the material. Her blue pencil struck at redundancy, at confusion, at authorial vanity, at the wrong and the false word, at the unearned conclusion. She loved good writing, therefore she loved the reader: good writing did not cause the reader to stumble over meaning.

Happy National Comma Day

Did I miss the proclamation of National Comma Day? In this morning's news writing class, I discussed the use of commas after cities and states. When I returned to my office after class, I opened an e-mail from a Boston reader who had a question about that very subject. Coincidence? You decide.

Here's the conundrum. Read the following sentences aloud, and see if you need a comma:

• John is a Weston, Conn., native.
• Mr. Smith, the former Greeley, Colo., city manager, has a flower shop.
• Jane Jones has opened an office in Milford, Conn., representing clients in appeals cases.

If you said yes, you're a comma guru. Now try these:

• The Nov. 1, 2005, event went off without a hitch.
• He arrived on Nov. 1, 2005, and immediately began working at the firm.

Yes again. You are so smart!

The Associated Press Stylebook addresses these points in entries titled "state names" and "years," but it does not include the reasons behind the rules. George T. Arnold cites the same rule in the "Media Writer's Handbook: A Guide to Common Writing & Editing Problems," but like the AP, he provides no reasoning.

I tell my students that commas are necessary in each case because what follows modifies the preceding word or phrase. For instance, "Conn." explains where Weston is located, and "2005" describes the year in which the date occurred. If you take out the year or the state name, you do not need a comma. So the following would be correct:

• John is a Weston native.
• Mr. Smith, the former Greeley city manager, has a flower shop.
• The Nov. 1 event went off without a hitch.
• He arrived on Nov. 1 and immediately began working at the firm.

The only example from above that does not follow this rule is the Jane Jones sentence. The sentence simply wouldn't make sense without the comma, even without the state name. I'd change it to the following:

• Jane Jones has opened an office in Milford, where she represents clients in appeals cases.

Remember, commas are our friends. They come in handy when you want readers to pause. The best way I know of figuring out if a comma is needed is to read the sentence aloud. If I pause, I need a comma. If your ear doesn't catch the pause, for whatever reason, you might want to invest in a grammar and usage guide. At UNC, we require all journalism and mass communications majors to buy Arnold's book. The AP Stylebook features a thorough punctuation guide. Both are must-haves for all future journalists.