Another area that I see as being totally abused is in the area of hyphenating words. I'll go over this in a series of posts, but first has to do with hyphenated adjectives. For example:
New York-based company
Red-colored car
Heaven-sent gift
Slow-burning fire
30-page letter.
These all need to be hyphenated because the two adjective words, not separated, would make the sentence unclear. How would these phrases sound and what would they mean if they were not hyphenated?
New York based company
Red colored car
Heaven sent gift
Slow burning fire
30 page letter.
While many readers might understand what's being described, it can be unclear to some readers, and when embedded in the rest of the sentence and paragraph, context issues could make the phrase very unclear. "Heaven sent gift" could be thought of as a misspelled sentence - missing an "a" before "gift," making it "Heaven sent a gift."
A "slow burning fire" could imply that the fire is migrating somewhere, slowly, whereas a slow-burning fire clearly means a fire that is in one place, and is slowly burning.
We'll discuss more examples of hyphenated adjectives, and also discuss hyphenated verbs, hyphenated nouns, and other situations when hyphens should and should not be used.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
ABCs
One of the areas that really gets confusing is in the pluralization of abbreviations. Even more confusing is when the abbreviation has a possession.
For example, the three major networks, ABC, CBS and NBC are each the same kind of name -- three-letter abbreviations for a TV network. The plural of these should be ABCs, NBCs, and CBSs. The possessive of these should be ABC's, NBC's, and CBS's. Yet invariably, with CBS, writers will use CBS's for the plural and CBS' for the possessive.
My argument is that CBS is an entity, and the "S" in CBS is not the "s" indicating possession or plurality, but is the first letter of the last word (System). Therefore, CBS should be treated exactly the same as ABC and NBC with regards to the way possession and plurality are indicated. Why should CBS be treated differently than the other two? It shouldn't be and therefore, CBS's (possession) and CBSs (plurality) are the correct ways of writing those words.
Sports fans may recognize that some media refer to the baseball statistic Runs Batted In (RBI) as: "Josh Hamilton had 4 RBIs in the game last night," whereas other media would say "Josh Hamilton had 4 RBI in the game last night." I think that USA Today was the first newspaper to use the "RBI" phrase rather than "RBIs." Just like ERA (Earned Run Average), you can refer to pitchers' ERAs and to batters' RBIs; the statistics' abbreviations are entities unto themselves. I don't think referring to a batter's 4 RBI in a game makes sense, even though the plural word "Runs" is embedded within the abbreviation. I can understand what is trying to be accomplished, but I argue that "RBI" is a "word" unto itself and should be plural on its own.
For example, the three major networks, ABC, CBS and NBC are each the same kind of name -- three-letter abbreviations for a TV network. The plural of these should be ABCs, NBCs, and CBSs. The possessive of these should be ABC's, NBC's, and CBS's. Yet invariably, with CBS, writers will use CBS's for the plural and CBS' for the possessive.
My argument is that CBS is an entity, and the "S" in CBS is not the "s" indicating possession or plurality, but is the first letter of the last word (System). Therefore, CBS should be treated exactly the same as ABC and NBC with regards to the way possession and plurality are indicated. Why should CBS be treated differently than the other two? It shouldn't be and therefore, CBS's (possession) and CBSs (plurality) are the correct ways of writing those words.
Sports fans may recognize that some media refer to the baseball statistic Runs Batted In (RBI) as: "Josh Hamilton had 4 RBIs in the game last night," whereas other media would say "Josh Hamilton had 4 RBI in the game last night." I think that USA Today was the first newspaper to use the "RBI" phrase rather than "RBIs." Just like ERA (Earned Run Average), you can refer to pitchers' ERAs and to batters' RBIs; the statistics' abbreviations are entities unto themselves. I don't think referring to a batter's 4 RBI in a game makes sense, even though the plural word "Runs" is embedded within the abbreviation. I can understand what is trying to be accomplished, but I argue that "RBI" is a "word" unto itself and should be plural on its own.
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