Title Caps & Quotes

I came across your help blog by mistake. I hope you can help me, even if you are not British. When one writes in English about published materials, when does one italicize and when does one implement the quotation marks? Also, which letters does one capitalize when one writes a title? English Student from Roma

Caro ESR,

It didn't take a poliziotto with a magnifying glass to discern your preference for British English. The BBC has a style guide, and perhaps The London Times has one as well. However, if you're willing to settle for mere brilliance, you might want to invest in The Chicago Manual of Style. In the meantime, here's a short list for your edification:

Use quotation marks around titles of short stories, magazine & journal articles, essays, short poems, poems whose titles are their first lines, book reviews, manuscripts in collections, chapters within texts.

Use italics for titles of books, magazines, journals, long poems, plays, films, works of art.

Always capitalize the first and last word of a title. Then, capitalize all words except articles, prepositions, coordinating conjunctions, the word "to" in an infinitive verb. (Here's another case of style choice. Some publishers prefer to capitalize all prepositions of five letters or more.)

Cari saluti a Roma.

To Split or To Not Split

What is your take on split infinitives? Can I use them, can I not use them? Signed, To Boldly Go

Dear TBG,

I say split away. Well, that's what I say, but that's not what I do. The only reason we were taught not to split English infinitives was because eighteenth-century grammarians were intent on stuffing our blousy Germanic language into the tuxedo of Latin, the language of their one true God. In Latin, as in the romance languages that grew from it—Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, among others, including countless dialects—it's impossible to split an infinitive because their infinitives consist of one word. Nevertheless, as absurd as I find the rule, I still have trouble splitting. Alas, yet another personal quirk.

A beacon of light shines, however, in the following footnote from The Chicago Manual of Style, 14^th Edition:

"The thirteenth edition of this manual included split infinitives among the examples of 'errors and infelicities' but tempered the inclusion by adding . . . they are a debatable 'error.' The item has been dropped from the fourteenth edition because the Press now regards the intelligent and discriminating use of the construction as a legitimate form of expression and nothing writers or editors need feel uneasy about. Indeed, it seems to us that in many cases clarity and naturalness of expression are best served by a judicious splitting of infinitives" (page 76).

Finally, as in so many cases, it comes down to yet another style choice. It depends on the publishing house, your audience, the impression you want to make, and your ability to cast off the yoke of grammatical rules that make no sense.

Thank you for the question.

i CAn'T C WhAt yOu SeE

I got a C+ on a paper that I thought deserved an A. My professor said it was "too emotionally charged" and I should have edited it before handing it in. My feeling is that editing is too clinical and takes away from the emotions. I WANTED the paper to be emotional. If I had edited it, it would have come out boring. Here's a line that he calls "too vague": "The beautiful stars filled me with hope." Stars ARE beautiful. I mean, what's wrong with that? –Insulted and Confused Honor Student

The best writing advice I've ever had is the following: "There's no such thing as good writing; there's only good rewriting" (Professor Paul Dolan, SUNY @ Stony Brook), and it's been my motto since the moment I first heard it 17 years ago. However, to edit or not to edit depends on your audience and how much you care about it. If your only audience is you and you're writing a personal journal, do whatever you want. Seethe and burn and scream out your emotions across the page, scribble bad words, rip it up; it's your own business.

However, if your aim is to communicate a precise vision or point of view that won't go up in smoke or turn into Pablum during its transition from your brain to the reader's, then you're duty bound to edit yourself as well as your writing..

Let's take the word "beautiful" from your sentence and toss it into the editor's net:

A few years ago, I was teaching a class of ESL students to write descriptions without relying on adjectives, especially following linking verbs (verbs that identify the subject). One student wrote: "The flowers smell beautiful." Okay, he was only a third-grader for whom English was a second language. There was nothing wrong with his sentence, except that I didn't know what he meant by beautiful. The class, which comprised third- to sixth-grade students from different parts of the world, talked about that word "beautiful" and discovered it is, indeed, a vague word, because it can be applied to everything from a racehorse to a Swiss watch to a pas de chat to a veggie cheeseburger with onions to the sheen on a poison ivy leaf to an Irish lilt to the way my dogs smell after their bath.

The trick is to show "beautiful" to your reader. In other words, your task as a writer is to paint a lexical portrait for your reader (again, unless you're your only reader). This is what third-grader Sebastian came up with:

"The flowers are trying to touch us with their perfume."

Fourth-grader Dominika began her description with: "It's freezing outside."

On revision, she wrote:" The icy wind is slapping against the windows."

Back to your sentence: "Hope" is a concept that your reader can't see, imagine, or touch; therefore, it doesn't have the wherewithal to fill anyone or anything. We can see corn filling a bin or water filling a basement, but we can't see an idea or a feeling.

In rewriting, you have the opportunity to clarify what you want to say in a manner that moves, not impresses, your reader. Writing is not such a lonely occupation as people say it is, because, if you care about your audience, it's always your prime consideration, and it stands by your side during every stage of the writing process, especially during the editing stage.

So, if you want to keep a diary, then keep one. It's easy to spill words across a page. But, if you want to communicate your ideas, you have to remember that your audience has its own way of seeing the world. If you're willing to do the hard work of writing, the beauty of the stars won't just fill you with hope; perhaps, instead, it will gather starlight from the eons and spread it like a shimmering carpet along the journey of your life.

Thank you for the question.

To Touch Or Not To Touch: That . . . Question.

My friend says no space before and after an ellipsis. I say NO TOUCHING! Do you do it or not?

I was shocked and dismayed not to find the ellipsis mentioned in Strunk & White's famous The Elements of Style. And, I could find no reference to it in the AMA Manual of Style or in Besser's Handbook of Writing Skills. But, fortune led me to The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, which can now boast all the news and all the punctuation advice that's fit to print. Here is their elliptic counsel:

"The symbol for omission … [ellipsis mine] consists of three periods. Separate them with thin spaces (. . .) . . . [ellipsis mine]. Use an ordinary space before and after the three dots. If an omission falls at the end of a sentence, place the regular period right after the last word, followed by a space, then the ellipsis" (page 119).

PS: It's really a style choice. That's why I found it in a style manual, rather that a punctuative law book.

Thank … for … question.

Relatively Speaking

Shouldn't words like Aunt, Cousin, Mom, and Dad always be capitalized when they're followed by the person's name? If you're such a grammar nut, why did you write "Aunt Mamie" with a capital and cousin Eileen with no capital in "Maggie and the Ghost"? —Grammar Maven with a Microscope

Here's the excerpt: "Maybe you heard the story from Aunt Mamie or maybe your cousin Eileen made it up."

Dear GMM,

Good question, cracked microscope.

When a relative's name is preceded by a possessive, don't capitalize. In the sentence cited, "Aunt Mamie" is her name. Had I written "your aunt Mamie," there would have been no capitalization. Had I written "Maybe Cousin Eileen made it up," my cousin Eileen would have merited a capital C (sorry, Eileen, nothing personal).

Thanks for the question and for reading the story to the very end.

Source:The Chicago Manual of Style

Near Death vs Nearly Died

My friends and I are having an argument over the term "near-death experience." -- Nearly Died in Denver

Dear Nearly Died,

Argue no more. Life is too short. I've heard "near-death experience" used incorrectly in reference to someone having come close to dying. For example: "Oh, my god. My car skidded off the road, and I had a near-death experience."

No you didn't. You had an "almost-died experience."

A near-death experience refers to an interlude reported by people who have, in fact, temporarily "died"; that is, their heart stopped beating for a period of a minute or more, and during that time, they believe they've stepped across a threshold into the afterlife—even saying hi to long-dead relatives and feeling the soothing warmth of bright lights—only to be revived and transported back among the living. I have no idea what threshold these people have really entered, but, whatever it is, it's called a near-death experience.

Source: Oxford English Dictionary

That Old Which Has Me Confused

I'm always confused about when to use which or that. Wondering Which.

In American English, there is a difference between "which" and "that."

"Which" is non-restrictive; in other words, it introduces parenthetical, or non-essential, information to a sentence.

Your etchings, which are on the coffee table, are exceptional.

This means, all the etchings in the room are exceptional; oh, and by the way, they're on the coffee table. Notice the commas around the nonrestrictive phrase.

"That" is restrictive, or essential, to a full understanding of the sentence.

The etchings that are on the coffee table are exceptional.

This means there are other etchings on other tables in the room, but the only exceptional ones are on the coffee table. Notice, there are no commas.

I hope your question, which was a good one, is clarified.

The Influence of Affulence

How should you pronounce the word "affluent"? Some people say "afFLUent" and some say "AFluent." So what's the right way? --Got the Flu in NYC

Dear Flu,

I have no idea when or why people started stressing the second syllable instead of the first. I suspect it started with a television personality and seeped into television studios across the land, because I rarely hear it mispronounced EXCEPT on television.

Okay, I'll stop ranting.

The correct pronunciation according to the Oxford English Dictionary and three editions of Webster's New World Dictionary is with the stress on the first syllable: AF-fluent.

Do you hear that, television newscasters and talk-show hosts? AFfluent.

Oh, and the same thing goes for influence. It's INfluence.

It's Easy When You Understand Its Logic

I was just writing an email and this one came up: “its” vs “it’s”

It will help you remember the difference if you remember that the little apostrophe represents a contraction, or shortcut.

“It’s” is short for “it is.” For example:
It’s a simple way of saying “it is.”
It’s much easier to speak and write quickly if we use contractions.

One the other hand, “its” indicates possession. For example:
Don’t judge a book by its cover.
The dog was chasing its tail.
That cat is afraid of its own shadow.

Thank you for the question. It's a good one.

Comma Down!

Aren't you supposed to put a comma between adjectives when there's a list? My professor says I use too many commas. -All commad out.

Editors (and perhaps professors) are using fewer commas these days. Commas are often omitted after short introductory clauses, before and after short parenthetical clauses, and sometimes between short independent clauses. But, lucky us, there is one rule of thumb we can consider when we're listing adjectives:

If you can't replace the comma with the word "and," don't put one there (except for the serial comma).

The hungry brown bear was eating blueberries, huge summer walnuts, and a mound of great big dried leaves.

1. Don't put a comma between "hungry" and "brown," because you wouldn't say "a hungry and brown bear."
2. Don't put a comma between "huge" and "summer," because a "summer walnut" is a single entity. You wouldn't say, "a huge and summer walnut."
3. Don't put a comma between "great" and "big" or between "big" and "dried," because you wouldn't say "a mound of great and big and dried leaves."

If you need further explanation, feel free to email or post an example from your own writing.