Write It Right ~ I believe in commas!

Whoever designed this cover needs to study grammar.  The "EAT, RAY, LOVE" part is a cutesy attempt to play on the title of Elizabeth Gilbert's book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (I think the book's title has no commas, which is incorrect).  Thanks to Chrisbookarama, I learned:  "A missing comma makes Rachael Ray a cannibal."

Cannibal version:
"Rachael Ray finds inspiration in cooking her family and her dog."
With commas added:
"Rachael Ray finds inspiration in cooking, her family, and her dog."

Words or phrases in a series of three or more need commas between each item, as I've done in the second line.  In the first line, she is "cooking her family" and "cooking her dog."  In the corrected version, she "finds inspiration in cooking" and "finds inspiration in her family" and "finds inspiration in her dog."

To be fair, I went to the Tails, Inc. web site and found a post saying the cover shown above was photoshopped.  Here's their original October 2010 cover, according to this site:

Write It Right ~ cited, sited, sighted

I read on someone's blog (that muddled someone shall remain nameless) that a person had "sited a book."  That's when I decided it's time for another Write It Right post.  Today's words are cited, sited, and sighted.  First, notice that I'm using them all as verbs.

cite
–verb (used with object), cit·ed, cit·ing.
1. to quote (a passage, book, author, etc.), esp. as an authority: He cited the Constitution in his defense.
2. to mention in support, proof, or confirmation; refer to as an example: He cited many instances of abuse of power.

site
–verb (used with object), sit·ed, sit·ing.
1. to place in or provide with a site; locate.
2. to put in position for operation, as artillery: to site a cannon.

sight
–verb (used with object), sighted, sighting.
1. to see, glimpse, notice, or observe: to sight a ship to the north.

The blogger's usage of sited means a person had placed a book somewhere.  What she meant was that someone had cited (quoted or referred to) a book.  I rather doubt that the muddler reads my blog, but if she does, maybe she'll sight something worth knowing.

This Write It Right post is part of my new series about words and writing.

Write It Right ~ two books on writing (no, three)

I was too busy to respond a month ago, when Chris of Chrisbookarama wrote Thoughts on Two Books about Writing.  I had been re-reading the third edition of The Elements of Style by Strunk and White (that would be the 1979 edition), and it was beside me on my desk as I read her post praising the book.  The other book Chris mentioned was The Writing Life by Annie Dillard.  Chris asked, "Do you have any favorite books on writing you would recommend?"

  The one that immediately came to mind was William Zinsser's On Writing Well, now in its seventh edition.  It's an excellent book on writing, and I was surprised that no one else mentioned it.  Wikipedia says,

"Zinsser emphasizes word economy."

Author James J. Kilpatrick, in his book The Writer's Art says that if he were limited to just one book on how to write, it would be William Zinsser's On Writing Well. He adds,

"Zinsser's sound theory is that 'writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it.'"

Some teachers even go as far as to tell their students to "Zinsser" their work (to zinsser means to take the clutter out of their essays).  The cover pictured here is the 30th anniversary edition.

I also have Writing to Learn (1988) by Zinsser, on how to write and think clearly about any subject at all.  The title of the second chapter may sound familiar to teachers:  "Writing Across the Curriculum."  Think of it as an interdisciplinary approach to writing.

Zinsser's web site has excerpts from several of his books, including On Writing Well and Writing to Learn.

This Write It Right post is part of my new series about words and writing.

Write It Right ~ peaked, peeked, piqued

Three times in as many days, I've run across a word I haven't seen (or maybe haven't noticed) in years.  Two of the three times it was misspelled.

• "His curiosity was peaked by the mysterious lady."
• "That peeked my interest."
• "I was both piqued and relieved to find that my little peccadillo had caused my siblings so much mirth."

A peak is the pointed top of something, like Mount Fuji (above).  It's the high point, as in a machine running at peak performance. To peek at something is to take a quick look, as when we play peek-a-boo with a baby or peek from behind a newspaper.


The word the writers of the first two examples above wanted was "piqued."  To pique can mean to excite, as in arousing curiosity, interest, or resentment.  These children have definitely become curious about the ... whatever it is.

If I've piqued your interest, click this link to read a clever post about these three words.  You may also want to peek here to see a photo of President Barack Obama playing peek-a-boo with a baby.

This Write It Right post is part of my new series about words and writing.

Write it right ~ plural words

Why people can't spell

I've been teaching my writing classes why pronouns must agree with their antecedents.  While reading blogs this morning, I ran across this sentence:

"...some artist risk their lives to create and speak in a hostile environment."

artist = singular subject
their = plural pronoun

The pronoun their refers back to artist.  One or the other is incorrect.  I read the whole paragraph and know the writer intended the plural artists, yet she consistently used the singular word artist instead;

"We learn about many Haitian artist."

many = more than one
artist = singular

I think the problem is not about spelling, but about hearing.  It's hard to distinguish between the spoken words artist and artists, but they look different on a page.  A careful reader should notice that one word has an "s" on the end and the other does not.  People cannot spell correctly because they don't read and thus are unable to really hear what is said.  Here are other examples of writers having problems with plurals that I've run across today:

"I may be one of the rare person who has not read this book."
"I picked up seven novels and six DVD."
"...a countless amounts of dreams..." (The whole phrase is a mess.)

Cheating in class

I discovered another reason why students may be confused about plurals.  During yesterday's grammar test, one young man was looking up something on his large-screen cell phone, which I confiscated until the end of class.  I teach at a college, yet his screen showed me that he was looking up "PLURAL."  Could you tell me the plurals of bird and baby?  Those were two of the eight words on the test.  It occurred to me that he didn't know the meaning of the word plural.  Maybe I should start with vocabulary:

plural = more than one
antecedent = preceding

I told my early class yesterday their biggest writing problem was failing to listen to the instructions.  A few minutes later one young man said, "Would you repeat that?  I was working on something else."  No one seemed to notice the irony, and I am rapidly losing hope that I can get through to some of them.

This Write It Right post is the first in my new series about words and writing.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves ~ by Lynne Truss, 2004

Last year, I mentioned this book in a post about grammar and punctuation, but I didn't think of making it a "real" book review. Here's what I said:


Does bad grammar make you [sic]? Me, too. To read an editor's post about misused quotation marks, followed by her readers' comments on bad grammar, click here: http://snickollet.blogspot.com/2007/04/im-not-going-to-work-but-im-still.html

After you read that, get yourself a copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. The book is hilarious!

To teach a class on grammar and punctuation I used a program called "I saw a dollar walking down the street." Don't you just want to ask, "Which way was it going?"
__________

So now, belatedly, here's a review of the book.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss was published in 2003 in Great Britain, followed by the American edition in 2004. It's nonfiction, of course, and sounds terribly boring because it's about punctuation. But it isn't at ALL boring, I promise.

I'm adding this larger picture of the book's cover so you can see that the panda on the ladder is painting out (whiting out) that comma between "Eats" and "Shoots." (Click to enlarge the picture.) The title comes from information about pandas, that a panda "eats shoots and leaves." Bamboo shoots, that is, and bamboo leaves. If you put a comma where it doesn't belong, it appears that the panda eats (something), then shoots (notice the gun in the other panda's paw), and leaves (the scene of the crime). Gotta be careful about those commas. Wow, they can really change the meaning of a sentence!

I already wrote that the book is hilarious, so you know I had fun reading it. For that reason I give it a high rating.

Rated: 9/10, an excellent book.

I saw a dollar walking down the street

Does bad grammar make you [sic]? Me, too. To read an editor's post about misused quotation marks, followed by her readers' comments on bad grammar, click here: http://snickollet.blogspot.com/2007/04/im-not-going-to-work-but-im-still.html

After you read that, get yourself a copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. The book is hilarious!

To teach a class on grammar and punctuation I used a program called "I saw a dollar walking down the street." Don't you just want to ask, "Which way was it going?"
__________

UPDATE: See my short review of Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss here.