Viola Davis was born on 11 August 1965 in St. Matthews, South Carolina.
Note as well that even if the mind may be hearing “August eleventh,” one doesn’t, in just about any context, write “August 11th.” I don’t know why; one just doesn’t.
8.
The use of 555 phone numbers looks just as silly*5 on the page as it sounds in movies or on television. A tiny amount of ingenuity dodges the problem.
“What’s your phone number?”
I jotted it down on a scrap of paper and handed it to her.
9.
Miscellaneously:
Degrees of temperature (“a balmy 83 degrees”) and longitude/latitude (38°41'7.8351", and note the use not only of the degree symbol but of those austere vertical prime marks, not to be confused with stylishly curly quotation marks) are best set in numerals.
So are biblical references to chapter and verse (Exodus 3:12, for instance).
Except in dialogue, percentages should be expressed as numerals, though I’d urge you to use the word “percent” rather than the percentage sign—unless what you’re writing is hugely about percentages, in which case feel free to write “95%” rather than “95 percent.”
Particularly numbery things, like ball game scores (“The Yankees were up 11–2”) and Supreme Court rulings (“the 7–2 decision in the Dred Scott case”), look best expressed in numerals. Plus they give you the chance to make good use of those excellent en dashes.
10.
Confronted by numbered army divisions, court cases, and works of classical music right down to Mozart and his Köchel catalog, I’m happy to hie myself to one of my big fat stylebooks, and I’m happy here to urge you to hie yourself as well.
11.
A crucial, crucial thing about numbers, no matter how they’re styled:
They need to be accurate.
As soon as a writer writes the likes of “Here are twelve helpful rules for college graduates heading into the job market,” copy editors start counting. You’d be surprised at how many lists of twelve things contain only eleven things. This is an easy thing to overlook, but don’t. Otherwise you’ll find yourself with a chapter titled “67 Assorted Things to Do (and Not to Do) with Punctuation” that contains only 66 assorted things. Because I skipped no. 38. Did you notice?
*1 In Microsoft Word you can create small caps by either typing the letters in question in lowercase, highlighting them, then hitting Command+Shift+K or, if that’s not a thing you can readily remember, typing the letters in question in lowercase, highlighting them, then heading up to the top of your screen and fiddling your way through Format and Font.
*2 You may well encounter contradicting style advice on Moon/moon (speaking of our particular one, that is), Sun/sun (ditto), and Earth/earth (the planet, not the dirt thereon). Let your context be your guide.
*3 There are a few other things wrong with that plaque, but that’s a conversation for another day.
*4 Be careful not to write “the years from 1960–1969.” If you’ve got a “from,” you need a “to.”
*5 How easy was it not to write a sentence beginning, “555 phone numbers are just as silly-looking”? Quite.
1. Standard practice is to set foreign-language words and phrases in italics. If a word or phrase, however foreign-language-derived, is included in the main part of your handy Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, eleventh edition, it’s to be taken as English. If it’s tucked into the appendix of foreign-language words and phrases at the back of the book (or is not to be found at all), it’s to be taken as not-English.
The following, then, can be taken as English:
bête noire
château
chutzpah
façade
hausfrau
karaoke
mea culpa
ménage à trois
non sequitur
retsina
schadenfreude
weltschmerz*1
The following can be taken as not-English:
concordia discors
dum spiro, spero
n’est-ce pas?
und so weiter*2
2. Diacritical marks—accent marks, if you prefer—are the little doodads with which many foreign-derived words are festooned, generally above letters (mostly vowels), in certain cases below them (that ç in “façade,” for instance), and in certain cases, especially in certain eastern European languages, through them. In written English they’re occasionally omitted, and the dictionary will often give you permission to skip them, but sojourning in a chateau can’t be nearly as much fun as sojourning in a château, and if you send me your resume rather than your résumé, I’m probably not going to hire you.*3
3. While we’re here: If you must write n’est-ce pas? (the French equivalent of that pointless American tic “you know?,” which the British pronounce “innit”), you must spell it correctly, and unless you’re writing in French, I’d suggest you not write it at all.
4. But here’s an idea: Let’s say you’re writing a novel in which the characters shimmy easily between English and, say, Spanish. Consider not setting the Spanish (or what-have-you) in italics. Use of italics emphasizes foreignness. If you mean to suggest easy fluency, use of roman normalizes your text. (I figured this one out a number of years ago, working on a memoir whose generally English-speaking Filipino American characters’ speech was punctuated with bits of Tagalog, and I’ve suggested the technique to many writers since. Writers seem to find it ingenious, and—bonus—it cuts down on italics, which, used in excess, irk the eye.*4)
On the other hand, if you’re writing a novel about, say, an isolated young Englishwoman living in Paris who is confounded by the customs, the people, and the language, it would certainly make good sense to set all the bits of French she encounters, in narration or dialogue, in the requisite italics. You want that French to feel, every time, strange.
5. Remembering my teenage frustration in reading nineteenth-century fiction that presumed I was fluent in ancient Greek and Latin, I’d urge you to be judicious and thoughtful in dropping swaths of foreign-language material into your text as if (as many writers seem to think) everyone speaks, say, French. Everyone, say, doesn’t.
6. No matter how you’re styling your foreign-language bits and pieces, foreign-language proper nouns are always set in roman, as, say:
Comédie-Française
Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen*5
Galleria degli Uffizi
Schutzstaffel
And though we don’t much speak/write of francs and lire anymore, if we are speaking/writing of them, we do not italicize them.
7. You will find yourself using foreign-language-derived abbreviations in notes sections and bibliographies, as, say:
et al.
ibid.
op. cit.
not to mention
etc.
and these are to be set in roman.
Speaking of foreigners, now’s as good a time as any for:
HOW NOT TO WRITE LIKE A BRIT
Our cousins across the ocean had their chance running the world and the language. At a certain point—something about a Stamp Act and some toppled tea bags, as I recall—we decided to go our own way and set about building not only our own political system but, with a major assist from the determined Noah Webster, our own language.
I’m as guilty as the next chap of appropriating British*6 vocabulary as it amuses me, but a little of that goes a long way, and even I get shirty when it’s overdone. Americans do not live in flats; they live in apartments. When a Brit wears a jumper, it’s a sweater; when an American wears a jumper, it’s one of those invariably unflattering sleeveless
smock things (which the Brits might call a pinafore dress). We ride in elevators; they ride in lifts. They pump petrol; we pump gasoline. Our chips come in a bag; their chips are french fries, as in “fish and,” and what we call chips they call crisps. We eat zucchini, eggplant, and arugula; they eat courgettes, aubergines, and rocket (and “rocket,” you have to admit, is a spectacular term for a salad green). Brits laugh at us for doing math, because they do maths. And on and endlessly on.*7
Of course, some words do drift over here and take legitimate root. I recall first encountering the word “twee” back in the 1980s and being unable to find it in my dictionary; now one can’t seem to get away from it here, especially in reference to a studiously adorable sort of pop music invariably including ukuleles. And we’ve found many good uses for “queue,” though patriotic Americans still don’t queue up; they get in line. (Unless they’re New Yorkers of a certain age, in which case they get on line.)
But one can’t endlessly appropriate British English just because one is bored with American English. No American can get away with calling a z a “zed,” and as much as one may long to drop “cock-up” into a stateside conversation, to do so would make one sound like a—let me check my phrasebook—cockwomble.
Some other assorted usage, spelling, and punctuational points:
In the United States, Random House is publishing a book. In England, Random House are publishing a book. The Brits often (not always, but often) use a plural for a collective noun.
The Brits think that the word “gotten” is moronic, and they’re not shy about telling you so.
In the United States, save up your l’s for better purposes by writing “traveled,” “canceled,” and “marvelous” rather than “travelled,” “cancelled,” and “marvellous.”
Avoid the Brit “ou,” as in “neighbour,” “colour,” “harbour,” and “labour,” in favor of the streamlined American “neighbor,” “color,” “harbor,” and “labor.”*8 (Proper nouns are always to be kept nation-authentic, though. One should no more refer to the U.K. Labour Party as the “Labor Party” than a Brit should refer to the bombing of “Pearl Harbour.”)
If you like concordance, you’ll be happy to learn that “glamour” is spelled thus on both sides of the Big Water. One occasionally—very rarely—sees “glamor” over here, but it’s drably unglamorous, don’t you think? And yes, “glamorous” is the proper spelling everywhere. There’s no “glamourous.”
I will confess that I do like the looks of the Brit “armour” rather than our “armor”—the u seems to add a bit of extra metallic clankiness—but one must follow the rules. (Note proper-noun exceptions for the U.S. company that provides us with various cold cuts and meat spreads—in this case Armour is a family name—and the makers of shiny, form-hugging sportswear who decided to call themselves Under Armour.)
The Brit “-re,” as in “mitre,” “sceptre,” “fibre,” and “centre,” is our “-er,” as in “miter,” “scepter,” “fiber,” and “center.”
Not that it comes up all that often, but an American can get away with “sepulchre,” which truly looks more sepulchral than “sepulcher,” and the dictionary will back you up on that.
A real argument starter over here is “theatre,” which persisted in the United States long enough that many of our theatrical edifices use it, and, again, proper nouns are to be respected. Most Broadway theaters are Theatres, as in the Shubert Theatre and the St. James Theatre, but be careful not to apply the “-re” spelling where it doesn’t belong: Note the correct Lincoln Center Theater, in uptown Manhattan, and the Public Theater, downtown. (I have an exceptionally large bone to pick with The New York Times, which persists in imposing its preference for “theater” on edifices and companies not named thus, here and abroad. The paper’s constant references to London’s “National Theater” are, on so many levels, galling. That’s not its name.)
Some Americans dig their heels in re “theatre,” often insisting that plays are performed in theatres but movies are shown in theaters (no, we don’t call them cinemas over here), or that a building is a theater but the theatrical art is the theatre. And to them I say: You know you’re doing it because you think that the “-re” spelling is fancier, and I’d like you to stop.
A Brit will read up on foetuses in the encyclopaedia; an American will read up on fetuses in the encyclopedia. That said, “archaeology” and “aesthetic” are our spellings of choice here.
Quite in a class by itself is the U.K. “manoeuvre,” which always looks to me as if its pronunciation might well be the sound of a cat coughing up a hairball.
Over there, things are learnt and burnt and spoilt and smelt. Over here, they’re learned and burned (unless the next word is “sienna”) and spoiled and smelled.*9
Our zero is their nought.
Please leave “whilst” and “amidst” and especially “amongst” to our cousins; “while” and “amid” and “among” will do you just fine.
The Brits are more apt to move backwards, forwards, and towards, whereas Americans will tend to move backward, forward, and toward.*10
And on and on: The Brits analyse; we analyze. We inquire; they enquire. They prise; we pry (or, in a pinch, prize). They plough, we plow. They favor “practise” as a verb and “practice” as a noun; we use “practice” for both. They have licences; we have licenses. (Proper-noun respect, to be sure, to the James Bond film Licence to Kill.) They vary between “judgement” and “judgment”; we use the latter….
Oh, but here’s my favorite: The preferred U.K. spelling of the color that describes ashes and the eyes of the goddess Athena is “grey.” The preferred American spelling is “gray,” but try telling that to the writers who will go ballistic if, in copyediting, you attempt to impose that spelling. In all my years of correcting other people’s spelling, I don’t think I’ve ever come up against more pushback than on this point. My long-held theory—make of it what you will—is that the spelling “grey” imprints itself on some people who encounter it in beloved classic children’s books, and they form an emotional attachment to it.
Or, I don’t know, they’re just stubborn.*11
Americans, as I mentioned in the punctuation chapter, start off by encasing quoted material in double quotation marks; quoted material within quoted material is encased in singles, as in, say:
“Mabel,” I said, “whether you spell the word ‘armour’ or ‘armor’ is of no consequence to me.”
Brits often—but not always—do it the other way around, as in:
‘Mabel,’ I said, ‘whether you spell the word “armor” or “armour” is of no consequence to me.’
The Brits are also apt, I note, to refer to single quotation marks as inverted commas, which I suppose they are, so I won’t argue about it.
The Brits often set periods or commas outside closing quote marks.
U.K.: When it comes to Beatles songs, Queen Elizabeth is particularly fond of ‘Eleanor Rigby’, but her absolute favorite is ‘Drive My Car’.
U.S.: When it comes to Beatles songs, Queen Elizabeth is particularly fond of “Eleanor Rigby,” but her absolute favorite is “Drive My Car.”
If there’s anything that Brits despise about American punctuation, it’s this. “The song title does not contain a comma or a period,” they’ll growl. “Why are you sticking it inside the quotation marks?” For some reason, “It’s the American way” does not satisfy them. But it is the American way, and though I do see the logic of the Brit methodology, I’m certainly not going to be the person who attempts to upend universal stateside practice. Moreover, I find the sight of those periods and commas hanging outside quotation marks saddening. To me they look lonely and unloved.
In British bo
oks you’ll often see feckless little namby-pamby freestanding excuses for dashes – something like this – where we interrupt ourselves—definitively—with real dashes. Ours are better.
*1 Though nouns in German are capitalized, I figure that if a common German noun has made its way into standard English, it should be lowercased like any other standard English common noun.
*2 By which is meant, indeed, “and so on.”
*3 Even if you don’t, as a rule, favor accent marks, you really must concede, mustn’t you, that “resume” for a word pronounced “rezz-ooh-may” doesn’t do the trick. And I presume that people who split the difference and spell it “resumé” live in Middle Carolina or Central Dakota.
*4 If you want readers to skip over a great big swath of your writing, set it in italics, which, over the course of multiple paragraphs, tend to covey Lengthy Interior Monologue or Something Else I Probably Don’t Want to Read.
*5 As this Déclaration is a document not unlike, say, the Declaration of Independence, it does not take the italics it would be entitled to if it were a novel, like Les Misérables, or a mega-novel, like À la recherche du temps perdu. While we’re here: The styling of French titles can be confounding to someone who mostly knows only English, as the French are apt to capitalize only the first word of a title, and the second word of a title if the first word of the title is an article, and maybe some other words if they’re as important as that first or second word, and…Well, it’s a thing. Faced with this styling challenge as a copy editor, I’ll tend to nose around online in search of reliable style guidance on a title-by-title basis. Attempting to impose standard American title casing—that is, capitalizing nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc., and lowercasing articles, prepositions, etc.—not only mandates knowing which French words are which but persists in looking inauthentic: À la Recherche du Temps Perdu. You may also, by the way and by tradition, skip the accent mark on a capital letter, so then A la recherche, etc. This, in relative brief, is why I prefer to copyedit in English.
Dreyer's English Page 8