Because I have a fetish for has-beens who cash out, a few months ago I was following David Beckham’s first MLS game on ESPN.com.
The phrase “took finally the field” gave me pause: Did ESPN.com make a rare grammatical mistake? Or was it just another lame attempt by an American sports writer to infuse humor into a piece on Beckham by trying to sound British?
About 30 minutes later, I had my answer.
It’s better to be wrong than a hack anyway.
The Economist’s May 31st issue contained an article titled “What I’ve learned” by Tony Blair in which he “reflects on the lessons of his decade as Britain’s prime minister.”
A few days ago The Economist printed my letter in response to Blair’s piece on its website (scroll down to the last letter):
SIR–
Tony Blair lays out evidence for Iran’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Al-Qaeda’s having been “in Iraq before Saddam’s fall”. It’s unfortunate that Mr. Blair’s credibility is such that my immediate reaction was to wonder if he was exaggerating. Notably, Mr. Blair did not reflect on the need for accuracy and honesty in dealings with the public.
Mr. Blair goes on to write “terrorism recruits adherents on the basis of an appeal to human emotion”. How do accounts of yellow cake purchases in Niger and Mr Hussein being 45 minutes away from unleashing weapons of mass destruction differ from the terrorists’ tactic? It’s unfortunate that none of Mr. Blair’s reflections pertained to the need for world leaders to be honest and forthright when advocating a course of action—especially when making the case for war. Inflated, or “sexed up”, claims cause a loss of credibility which, in turn, can mean future threats go unheeded. And leaders who exaggerate these threats see their potential wasted and legacies tarnished.
Zach Everson
Washington, DC
(Please note the punctuation, notably putting commas and periods outside of the quotation marks, follows the standards for British English.)
For the past two months I was busy working with Microsoft and telecentre. org to create the Telecentre Knowledge Network, a wiki that
discusses issues facing the global telecentre movement, presents a condensed view of the knowledge about telecentres, and offers activists a place to share the knowledge and wisdom that comes from running telecentres.
(And as telecentre.org is a Canadian entity, “telecentre” is spelled correctly—although it took some getting used to.)
The wiki works like Wikipedia, except that it is for sharing knowledge about a specific field and not the world at large.
As for my contribution, I helped
Please explore the Telecentre Knowledge Network and tell others about it. Wikis are only effective when people share their knowledge and experiences.
The main use for quotation marks, of course, is to differentiate quotations and previously published material from an author’s original text. (When citing text that is three lines or longer, however, the standard convention is to offset and indent the excerpt without using quotation marks.)
Quotation marks also are used when referring to a word or phrase as the word or phrase itself and not what it means. For example:
USAID does not like its contractors to use the title “commercial sex workers” when referring to women who have sex for money because it believes the phrase destigmatizes the profession.
As for punctuation, periods and commas go inside the closing quotation mark regardless of whether or not they are part of the original quote. Unless they are in the text being quoted, however, colons, semicolons, question marks, and exclamation points belong outside of the closing quotation mark.
(Those rules for punctuation are for American English; in British style only punctuation that is part of the original quote goes inside the quotation marks. Yes, British style makes a lot more sense. But my website stats show that you probably aren’t British, so you’re stuck having to abide by the confusing and illogical American way.)
If a footnote or endnote accompanies the text, the reference number goes outside of the closing quotation mark.
And only use single quotation marks if text within a quotation needs a quotation mark.
Steve started to get jittery. He had just overheard his mom tell his dad, “And then Danny ran in and told me ‘Steve said a word you shouldn’t say.’”
Finally, do not use quotation marks for colloquialisms or buzzwords. According to The Elements of Style, “To do so is to put on airs, as though you were inviting the reader to join you in a select society of those who know better.” And no one wants to be thought of as “putting on airs.”
From Mr Bush’s first veto in the July 22, 2006 Economist (subscription required):
And a decision by Mr Bush in 2001 allows federally-funded scientists to experiment on the few dozen embryonic stem-cell “lines” that already existed then, which can be propagated in a laboratory [emphasis mine].
I don’t like pointing out grammatical mistakes unless I’m on the clock or they’re amusing (yes, I know that the capitalization of the tags on this site is inconsistent—it’s a software issue, however, and not a grammatical one). In fact, I try not to edit when I am reading for pleasure—it slows me down.
When The Economist breaks a convention, however, (and not just by using quirky British English) I run to my grammar books.
From the adverbs entry (p. 36) of The Economist Style Guide (remember when I wrote that this book was a good reference?):
Adverbs do not need to be linked to participles or adjectives by hyphens in simple constructions: The regiment was ill equipped for its task; The principle is well established; Though expensively educated, the journalist knew no grammar. But if the adverb is one of two words together being used adjectivally, a hyphen may be needed: The ill-equipped regiment was soon repulsed; All well-established principles should be periodically challenged. The hyphen is especially likely to be needed if the adverb is short and common, such as ill, little, much and well. Less-common adverbs, including all those that end -ly, are less likely to need hyphens: Never employ an expensively educated journalist [emphasis mine].
Did the impeccable Economist err or am I missing something?
My writing focuses on travel and culture and has appeared in Air Canada's enRoute, BlackBook, Budget Travel, Gridskipper, UpTake, Deadspin and Examiner. I'm also the editor-in-chief of Louisville.com.
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