Dreyer's English

by Benjamin Dreyer

  13.

  The vocative comma—or the comma of direct address—is the comma separating a bit of speech from the name (or title or other identifier) of the person (or sometimes the thing) being addressed. As commas go, it’s not particularly controversial. No one—at least no one I’d care to associate with—would favor

  I’ll meet you in the bar Charlie.

  over

  I’ll meet you in the bar, Charlie.

  Right?

  And so it goes with “Good afternoon, Mabel,” “I live to obey, Your Majesty,” “Please don’t toss me into the hoosegow, Your Honor,” and “I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too.”

  And yet—there’s always an “and yet”—while copyediting one frequently runs into the likes of

  And Dad, here’s another thing.

  or

  But Mom, you said we could go to the movies.*10

  which one invariably corrects to

  And, Dad, here’s another thing.

  and

  But, Mom, you said we could go to the movies.

  Copy editors periodically run into pushback—generally accompanied by a put-out “But my rhythm!”—on that comma, but they should hold firm, and writers should get over themselves. It’s just a comma, and it’s a proper and meaningful comma, and no one’s pausing in midsentence to take a walk around the block.*11

  This is as good a place as any, I suppose, to note that honorifics either attached to names or used in place of them should be capped,*12 as in the aforementioned

  I live to obey, Your Majesty.

  and

  Please don’t toss me into the hoosegow, Your Honor.

  Similarly, when one is speaking to one’s mother or father:

  I live to obey, Mom.

  and

  Please don’t toss me into the hoosegow, Dad.

  But: A passing casual reference, not in direct address, to one’s mom or dad does not require a capital letter.

  A bit of copyeditorial controversy tends to pop up when a writer offers something like:

  I’m on my way to visit my Aunt Phyllis.

  Which many copy editors will attempt to downgrade to:

  I’m on my way to visit my aunt Phyllis.

  Writers tend to balk at this sort of thing, and I tend to side with them. I myself had an aunt named Phyllis, and so far as I was concerned, her name was Aunt Phyllis. And thus I refer to her, always, as my Aunt Phyllis.*13

  On the other hand, I’d be more than happy to refer to “my grandmother Maude,” because that is who she was, not what she was called.*14

  Note, by the way, that I do not refer to “my grandmother, Maude,” as I—like everyone else, I suppose—had two grandmothers.*15 Though I might well refer to “my maternal grandmother, Maude.” (See “The ‘Only’ Comma,” in Section 16, below.)

  14.

  We were all thoroughly indoctrinated in grade school to precede or follow dialogue with a comma in constructions like

  Atticus said dryly, “Do not let this inspire you to further glory, Jeremy.”

  or

  “Keep your temper,” said the Caterpillar.

  It should be noted, though, that this rule does not apply in constructions in which dialogue is preceded or followed by some version of the verb “to be” (“is,” “are,” “was,” “were,” that lot), as in:

  Lloyd’s last words were “That tiger looks highly pettable.”

  or

  “Happy New Year” is a thing one ought to stop saying after January 8.

  In each of these cases, the phrase in question is less dialogue than a noun-in-quote-marks, and thus no comma is called for.

  15.

  Will you go to London too?

  Will you go to London, too?

  Q. When do I precede a sentence-ending “too” with a comma, and when not?

  A. Whichever you choose, the other way will look better.

  I spent a great many years periodically revisiting my big fat stylebooks in an attempt to get it into my head how to properly do the “too” thing, and the explanations never sank in. In the examples above, does one of them mean “Will you go to London as well as Paris?” and does one of them mean “Will you as well as your mother go to London?” I haven’t the foggiest. So to blazes with it. If you can hear a comma before the “too,” feel free to use it. If you can’t, feel free to not.

  16.

  THE “ONLY” COMMA

  If a writer writes a sentence like

  He traveled to Pompeii with his daughter Clara.

  a copy editor will, if the fact is not already known to the copy editor, query in the margin:

  AU: Only daughter? If so, comma.

  Thus the comma I choose to refer to—since I am perpetually confused by the grammar terms “restrictive” and “nonrestrictive” and can never remember which is meant to be which—as the “only” comma.

  “Only” commas (except at the very ends of sentences, they travel in pairs) are used to set off nouns that are, indeed, the only one of their kind in the vicinity, as in, say,

  Abraham Lincoln’s eldest son, Robert, was born on August 1, 1843.

  The notion being that as one can have only one eldest son, his name in this sentence is an interesting, noteworthy, yet inessential piece of information. Thus if I encounter

  Abraham Lincoln’s eldest son was born on August 1, 1843.

  there can be no question that it’s Robert who is being spoken of, rather than the subsequent Edward or Willie or Tad, whether Robert is named or not.

  Conversely, in a sentence lacking the unique modifier “eldest,” one must be told which son is being spoken of, thus:

  Lincoln’s son Robert was an eyewitness to the assassination of President Garfield.

  Or, say:

  George Saunders’s book Lincoln in the Bardo concerns the death of Abraham Lincoln’s son Willie.

  Again, it’s crucial, not merely interesting, that we know which of Abraham Lincoln’s sons is being spoken of, and that the son in question is not Robert, Edward, or Tad.

  At the other end of the spectrum, then, be careful not to set an “only” comma where there is no only-ness, as in, say:

  The Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist, Edith Wharton, was born in New York City.

  Because Mrs. Wharton is merely one of many winners of the Pulitzer, there should be no “only” comma.

  Best Illustration of the Necessity of the “Only” Comma I’ve Ever Managed to Rustle Up

  Elizabeth Taylor’s second marriage, to Michael Wilding

  Elizabeth Taylor’s second marriage to Richard Burton

  17.

  The “only” comma rule is also helpful in differentiating between “that” and “which,” if differentiating between “that” and “which” is your bag.

  If you’re about to offer a piece of information that’s crucial to your sentence, offer it up without a comma and with a “that”:

  Please fetch me the Bible that’s on the table.

  Which is to say: Fetch me the Bible that is on the table rather than the Bible that’s under the couch or the Bible that’s poised picturesquely on the window seat.

  If you’re offering a piece of information that’s perhaps interesting amplification but might well be deleted without harm, offer it up with a comma and a “which”:

  Please fetch me the Bible, which is on the table.

  One Bible and one Bible only.

  The “that” vs. “which” rule is not universally observed, I must note. Some writers find it pushily constricting and choose between
the two by ear. I find it helpful and, admiring consistency as I do, apply it consistently.

  18.

  What goes up must come down, and that which commences with a comma, if it is an interruption, must also end with one, as in:

  Queen Victoria, who by the end of her reign ruled over a good fifth of the world’s population, was the longest-reigning monarch in British history till Elizabeth II surpassed her record in 2015.

  It’s that comma after “population” I’m wanting you to keep a good eye on, because it has a tendency to go missing. It’s so frequently omitted in published British prose that for a long time I thought they had some national rule against it. They don’t. They’re just sloppy.

  That concluding comma has a particular tendency to get forgotten in sentences in which a parenthetical has been stuffed, turducken-like, into the interrupting bit, as in:

  Queen Victoria, who by the end of her reign ruled over a good fifth of the world’s population (not all of whom were her own relatives, though it often seemed that way), was the longest-reigning monarch in British history till Elizabeth II surpassed her record in 2015.

  That error gets past reasonably adept copy editors with a bit too much frequency, so be better than reasonably adept copy editors, please.

  COLONS

  Colons are not merely introductory but presentational. They say: Here comes something! Think of colons as little trumpet blasts, attention-getting and ear-catching. Also loud. So don’t use so many of them that you give your reader a headache.

  19.

  If what follows a colon is a full sentence, begin that full sentence with a capital letter, which signals to your reader: What’s about to commence includes a subject, a verb, the works, and should be read as such.

  Post-colon lists of things or fragmentary phrases should begin with a lowercase letter: items on a grocery list, the novels of a particular author, etc.

  This differentiation is by no means universally recommended, much less observed, and writers who were trained to commence anything that follows a colon with a lowercase letter (a convention I find puzzling, as if suggesting that a sentence following a colon is somehow not a legitimate sentence) bristle at it, but I consider it a valuable way to signal to readers what flavor of text they’re about to read and to avoid sending them scurrying grumpily back to the colon once they realize that what they thought was going to be a sentence isn’t one, or that what they thought wasn’t going to be a sentence is one.

  APOSTROPHES

  20.

  Before we get to what you do use apostrophes for, let’s recount what you don’t use them for.

  Step back, I’m about to hit the CAPS LOCK key.

  DO NOT EVER ATTEMPT TO USE AN APOSTROPHE TO PLURALIZE A WORD.

  “NOT EVER” AS IN “NEVER.”

  You may reapproach.

  Directing their disapproval toward miswritten produce signs advertising “banana’s” and “potato’s” (or “potatoe’s” or even “potato’es”), the Brits have dubbed such incorrectly wielded squiggles “greengrocer’s apostrophes.” In America, where we don’t have greengrocers, we should, I’d say, call them something else. The term I was first taught was “idiot apostrophe,”*16 but that’s not really nice, is it.

  Let’s simply call them errant apostrophes. Which is kind of classy, don’t you think?*17

  In any event, don’t use them. Not for bananas, potatoes, bagels, princesses, Trumans, Adamses, Obamas, or whatever else you’ve got more than one of.

  For a modest monthly fee I will come to wherever you are, and when, in an attempt to pluralize a word,*18 you so much as reach for the apostrophe key, I will slap your hand.

  21.

  The pluralization of abbreviations, too, requires no apostrophes. More than one CD = CDs. More than one ID = IDs. More than one ATM = ATMs. Etc.

  22.

  To say nothing of dos and don’ts, yeses and nos, etc.*19

  23.

  There’s no such word as “their’s.” Or “your’s.”

  24.

  Here comes a major on-the-other-hand, though: Do use an apostrophe to pluralize a letter.

  One minds one’s p’s and q’s.

  One dots one’s i’s and crosses one’s t’s.

  One brings home on one’s report card four B’s and two C’s.*20

  25.

  I’ll wager you’re adept at the use of apostrophes for simple possessives:

  the dog’s toy

  Meryl Streep’s umpteenth Oscar

  As to common—that is, not proper—nouns ending with an s, one doesn’t, at least not in recently published text,*21 encounter the likes of

  the boss’ office

  the princess’ tiara

  which I find positively spooky-looking, and for most of us, then,

  the boss’s office

  the princess’s tiara

  is the no-brainer way to go.

  Trouble knocks at the door, though, when terminal s’s occur at the ends of proper nouns. When the talk turns to, say, the writer of Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend or the urban activist and author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities or the nemesis of said urban activist and author, how do we style their ownership?

  Well, I can certainly tell you how I style them:

  Charles Dickens’s novels

  Jane Jacobs’s advocacy

  Robert Moses’s megalomania

  Though you may come across much discussion elsewhere regarding the appending or not appending of post-apostrophe s’s based on pronunciation,*22 convention, or what day of the week it is, I think you’ll find that, as with the universal application of the series comma, you’ll save yourself a lot of thinking time by not thinking about these s’s and just applying them.

  I’d even urge you to set aside the Traditional Exceptions for Antiquity and/or Being the Son of God and go with:

  Socrates’s

  Aeschylus’s

  Xerxes’s

  Jesus’s

  26.

  A warning:

  Hasty typing fingers are apt to render the likes of

  Jane Jacobs’s activism

  as

  Jane Jacob’s activism

  As typos go, that sort of thing is perilously easy to commit and to overlook. Be careful.

  27.

  THE POSSESSIVIZATION OF DONALD TRUMP, JR.

  A GRAND GUIGNOL IN ONE ACT

  In July 2017 one of our nation’s preëminent if perhaps somewhat self-delightedly parochial magazines foisted upon the world this headline:

  DONALD TRUMP, JR.,’S LOVE FOR RUSSIAN DIRT

  The writer Michael Colton, in an aghast tweet, identified this particular method of rendering a possessive “period-comma-apostrophe bullshit,” which may not be the precise technical term for it but which does just fine anyway.

  Let me say this about that:

  That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

  If you are a younger or more forward-thinking person, you may already render the names of photocopied offspring commalessly, thus:

  Donald Trump Jr.

  In which case you’ve got it easy:

  Donald Trump Jr. is a perfidious wretch.

  and thus:

  Donald Trump Jr.’s perfidy

  Old-school construction, though, sets off a “Jr.”*23 with commas, as in:

  Donald Trump, Jr., is a perfidious wretch.

  When possessivizing such a person, your options are

  that horror noted above, which I’ll refrain from repeating

  Donald Trump, Jr.’s perfidy (which is adm
ittedly a little unbalanced)

  Donald Trump, Jr.’s, perfidy (better balanced, and at least not eye-stabbingly ugly)

  You choose.*24

  28.

  Let’s move on to plural proper noun possessives, over which many tears have been shed, particularly around Christmas-card time.

  First we have to properly construct the plurals themselves. So then:

  Harry S. and Bess Truman = the Trumans

  John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy = the Kennedys*25

  Barack H. and Michelle Obama = the Obamas

  And, lurching backward to the birth of our republic:

  John and Abigail Adams = the Adamses

  The pluralization of s-ending proper nouns seems to trip up a lot of people, but John and Abigail are the Adamses, as are John Quincy and Louisa, as are Rutherford B. and Lucy the Hayeses, and that seems to be that for s-ending presidents, but you get the point.