As editor of this great ship called The Autopian, I have the pleasure of reading raw, unadulterated copy. And while it’s mostly excellent thanks to the inimitable talents of this fine crew, we do have some grammar issues we need to solve. So, for a little bit of members-only content, here’s a look at some of those grammatical challenges.
Jason Torchinsky is legendary for making a grammatical mistake that he is literally unable to notice unless he pastes his draft into a google doc first and runs a grammar check. It’s the old “there’s [plural]” colloquialism that I just won’t stand for.
It drives me bonkers. It’s “there are”! How can you say “there is yoo-hoos and Kraft Singles in the cooler”? It’s clearly wrong. Jason, please explain yourself:
Happy to, David. I’ll tell you why I do it: I DON’T GIVE A SHIT. It just sounds right to me: there’s lots of reasons why this is just fine and you should just leave me alone. See? Sounds fine. Plus, the “there are” contraction “there’re” just sounds bad to me. It’s awkward to say, like the word “rural,” it feels formless and gooey and wrong. Everyone knows what I mean. Usage dictates grammar, anyway. This is all classist bullshit. So there. Oh, sorry, I mean “so ther’re.” Happy now, asshole?
Also, “Yoo-Hoo” is capitalized, as it is the proper name of a great beverage and philosophy of living. Now who’s perfect?
That leads me to this exchange:
The fewer/less thing mentioned above also drives me nuts. It’s a simple rule! If we’re talking about a plural, use fewer. If you’re talking about an amount/extent, use less! Example: There are fewer apples. There’s less applesauce. See, easy!
[Editor’s Note: Okay, hold on a minute here. This less/fewer thing is absolute, unmitigated bullshit. You know why this alleged rule exists at all? If you think it’s because of some complex grammarian reason, or even due to some origin in Old English or even a borrowed rule from Latin, you’d be wrong. It’s around because some fussy numbnuts in pantaloons named Robert Baker just decided it in 1770.
That’s right! Dick Baker there wrote some boring-ass tome called Reflections on the English Language and in it he drooled out this:
“This Word is most commonly used in speaking of a Number; where I should think Fewer would do better. ‘No Fewer than a Hundred’ appears to me, not only more elegant than ‘No less than a Hundred,’ but more strictly proper.”
That’s it! That’s all the backing this rule has! Richard Baker pulled it ex recto, just reached up that wrinkly ass and pulled this stupid rule out, and now David prays to it like it’s a fucking Aphrodite carved out of rust. It’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard of.
Does anyone see the “10 items or less” sign at a supermarket and scratch their heads in confusion? No, they don’t because saying “less” there is just fucking fine. You know what we call people who turn to you in line and point up and say “you know, that really should be ten items or fewer?” Assholes. We call them assholes. – JT]
The other thing I mention above is the “try and” colloquialism — it’s “try to.” Don’t say “I’m going to try and walk the dog.” Say “I’m going to try to walk the dog.” This one I don’t really care that much about, but it’s easy! You know what else is easy? Referring to companies/organizations as “its” and not “theys.”
It’s a problem that I’ve had to point out about 1,000 times; even veteran editor Matt gets it wrong sometimes (though, like Jason’s “there’s [plural]” problem, he literally can’t see it! He has to control-F “they” and “their” to catch it. I can respect that).
My first grammatical note above asks writers to use “who” instead of “that” when referring to individuals. “The man that walked down the street” really should be “The man who walked down the street.” It’s fairly straightforward, and also in the legendary grammar book “Elements of Style” by Strunk & White — a book that I bought for each member of our team (out of my own pocket!).
But no grammatical issue is giving me as much trouble as this one:
You see what’s going on here? Writers are linking two independent clauses with a conjunction, and they’re foregoing the comma! Matt is messing with me today:
But even Matt, deep down, knows he’s wrong, for he — like every red-blooded American — has surely watched Schoolhouse Rock’s “Conjunction Junction” video. Behold the masterpiece:
I’m going to allow the University of Wisconsin — Madison to explain how to deal with conjunctions:
My beloved business partner and friend Jason always uses the phrase “USAGE DICTATES GRAMMAR” to try to explain his grammatical errors. This is maddening! That’s just an excuse for not wanting to learn the rules.
[Editor’s Note:
– JT]
As I like to say: Typos mean you’re human, bad grammar means you don’t care.
Of course, I say this as the Typo King.
Strunk & White just sounds like it should be the title of a Die Antwoord album.
English is not my first language. I learned it through reading, and later through TV shows. So, for most of my life, what was on print was the correct way to use the language.
I still rely on it for my grammar, to help me “feel” the language and speak/write it properly. So, all jokes aside, you have my thanks for taking care of it here.
Also, unrelated to the present topic, I would like to note my utter contempt for the words “successfully” and “successful”. Way to many repeated letters, and MAKE YOUR DAMN MIND ALREADY on how many L you want to use!
Across the pond, the tendency is to refer to corporations as plural entities rather than singular. This drives me nuts. For example, “Vauxhall have released the new Corsa,” as opposed to “Vauxhall has released the new Corsa.” And ironically, my colleagues here don’t seem to like using the Oxford comma. I’m constantly adding these into reports that I am tasked with editing.
Any British writers are excused. Voice is a fragile thing not to be messed with.
“Voice is a fragile thing not to be messed with.”
Voice is a fragile thing with which not to be messed. 😉
Also, passive voice should be avoided.
I generally agree with David’s comments, although he should not get so huffy about these issues.
I do wonder where he got this grammar impulse – while the SEAS humanities courses at UVA were better than most other engineering school’s humanities offerings, they were still engineering humanities courses… maybe it is his German (Bavarian??) heritage that drives this impulse? Of course I do not want to count the years between when I graduated from UVA to when David did… maybe things changed.
One thing I have found is that in general it is easier to just write out all the words, then you don’t need to think about the contractions. Also in recent years I try very hard to remove most if not all pronouns because writing out a name or abbreviation eliminates any confusion.
And if you substitute “food” for ‘Yoo Hoos and Cheese’ in the cooler and the “is” works just fine which is the basis for using “is”, although if you substitute in “snacks” you are still stuck with “are”.
I wanted to write an article entirely in Australian, I will need to wait until David is in an EMF-free zone so he doesn’t burst into flames.
Please do it Laurence! Ignore DT, let him rant in the corner! Wait until he has a day off and Torch is in charge, those are great days…
At work, we produce engineering drawings and documents in English, but almost everyone is a native french speaker.
Lots of fun little mistakes I find as a native English speaker.
I am trying to learn French, and I’m just hoping some of the charming slang slips through- I’m thinking of “bottoms up” turning into “dry ass” as the first example, and hopefully one that works its way into engineering documentation.
It’s always fun editing native speakers from other languages. You pick up on certain tics sometimes, like Germans hyphenating and combining words in English that English wouldn’t slam together.
Eh, even as a grammar and more particularly a vocabulary pedant I’m okay with some of these. I know that in these comment sections I’ll often violate some rules in search of a more conversational style even though I know better.
“There’s” when it should be “there are” is fine by me (love what Adrian wrote… apologies for gently tweaking newbalanceextrawide), since “there’re” is just way too awkward and “there are” can be a bit posh. I am also tolerant of “try and” although I avoid it in written material. Those two examples of usage are so deeply embedded in our conversational lexicon that I have no trouble letting it pass.
I do try to use “fewer” when talking about numbers more often than many but I’m not going to be a jerk to others for using “less”. Certainly I’m not going reply “fewer than a hundred” when asked “how many people attended the wedding?”. “15 items or less” is also fine.
Regarding the reference to companies as “they”, I will argue with Patrick on that one relative to context and wording. Don’t forget that corporations are nominally and legally fictional people, and the people who work at a company certainly are a collection of people. Also, such usage is common and accepted in Europe. “Ford announced their…” is fine by me, but “the company announced their” is not as clearly we are now talking about the company as a singular entire entity.
Vocabulary mistakes are the ones that really drive me nuts. Palate/palette/pallet, they’re/there/their, pored/poured are just a few examples. I can stand a few missing or misplaced commas, but for heaven’s sake use the right word!
With all that said, even though this stuff is fun to banter over I do think that the standard of editing is much higher here at The Autopian than with most web-based media outlets. I’m really glad the editorial staff here cares about and pays attention to such things. As long as proper standards are maintained I care far more about great content than the occasional writing flub.
Give’em free reign and run’em through the ringer, I say!
Had to give you a definite thumbs up on that one. When I peak at people’s writing and they unintentionally do what you did there my consternation level reaches its pique and I need some scotch to recover from my fit of peek.
My English teacher used to say, “If you cannot use contractions properly in your writing, you should not use them at all.”
Yes!
This site should aim to be a cut above Jalopnik.
Jalopnik was a “blog” manned by “bloggers”. Autopian is staffed by journalists.
Journalists obey grammar rules.
Just sayin’.
He said, after commenting on The Morning Dump
I love that name so much, haha.
Oh my gods…. Everyone thinks you moved up in the world when you moved to L.A.
Fuck no. You did that when you got everyone on your team a grammar book and expected them to read it for funsies. That’s serious middle-management energy, David.
I mean, good for you. Not my move, though.
Also, as a born and raised FloridaMan and proud Southerner (but not a dumbass racist fuck) the first time I see one of ya’ll spelling ya’ll as “y’all” I will fucking burn down everything you love and dance in the ashes.
It is a word that expresses a distinctly rural viewpoint. The dictionary has no grounds saying how it should be composed.
Ahem.
Y’all is the only correct spelling. And yes it is, in fact, in the dictionary.
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Y’all. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved March 14, 2023, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/y%27all
And y’all need to recognize that it is both singular and plural second-person pronoun.
Nope. Ya’ll is a word derived by Southerners. Rural Southerners. I love my people, but 8 out of 10 of them can’t spell worth a damn.
The word that most closely represents them ought to actually represent them.
I think many will argue the proper plural is “all y’all” (or ya’ll as you prefer, I’ll accept either).
Native Texan chiming in here: the dictionary got it right. It’s “y’all” and “all y’all” if you need to further pluralize it.
My first Latin professor at the University of Oregon was from Texas and she insisted that we use that word so she could be certain we really were learning to distinguish between singular and plural second-person pronouns and verbs. It sounded a bit odd to us in the context of Classical literature, especially since most of us weren’t in the habit of using it as a regular part of spoken English anyway. She spelled it y’all, though. She also explained at one point that she considered her approach with us to be something of a compromise, as she herself had been raised to treat “y’all” as singular with the true plural being “all y’all.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmVnr7rsWrE
The British take a much more severe view of poor grammar. You thought the US was bad.
Who fucking cares about grammar in the Slack? We’re typing at 500wpm trying to pinch off copy for you monsters!
Also, there’s Yoo-Hoo and Kraft singles is absolutely fine. Think about it.
‘There are Yoo-Hoo and Kraft singles’ sounds stupid, we’re not in fucking Buckingham Palace.
Woooooooooooooooooo Adrian!
There’s Yoo-Hoos… oyvey. Maybe “There’s a Yoo-Hoo”
There are a knife. There is knives. There’s a knives.
Mixing singular and multiple particles always reads weird.
I would not, however, bother in Slack, which is more like a written record of dialogue than proper text that follows actual rules. If you’ve ever read a transcription of a conversation, you’d know spoken English doesn’t remotely resemble the written language.
Jason you’re grammar are, terrible, though.
I’m solidly in the David camp on this. (I almost wrote “Camp David”) but corrected it for clarity.
– Ben in Madison
And since we’re in here nerding it up…
Happy Pi Day, everyone! 😀
Take your 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651328230664709384460955058223172535940812848111745028410270193852110555964462294895493038196442881097566593344612847564823378678316527120190914564856692346034861045432664821339360726024914127372458700660631558817488152092096282925409171536436789259036001133053054882046652138414695194151160943305727036575959195309218611738193261179310511854807446237996274956735188575272489122793818301194912 stars.
I get that it’s a slice of pi, so maybe truncation is the metaphorically appropriate option, but it still feels wrong not to round upwards when the next digit is a nine.
“I get that it’s a slice of pi”
It’s kind of a wedge issue. 🙂
One that I see in comments that gnaws at me is the elimination of a subject in a sentence. I read these either as commands “Love those old Volvos!” (damn it, I do, but not because you told me to) or in the voice of an old man on the front porch in a film adaptation of a Stephen King book. “Always loved those old Volvos” (okay, back when you could make a phone call at a phone booth with a dime and beverage cans had pull-off tabs instead of punch-through holes, grandpa). This is utterly inconsequential and so common I shouldn’t let it bother me (and I’ve likely done it myself a few times) but I often wonder where this convention originated.
I’m guilty of this one, and I realize it. I’ll try to do better.
Like I said, I am as well. It’s just interesting to me how commonplace it is.
I want to see the slack that DT isn’t included on.
I love ya David, but I’m team Jason on this one. I understand the grammar rules, but I prefer it to sound right when I read it to myself in my head.
I’m here to kill time and enjoy myself, not to read a textbook.
“Plus, the “there are” contraction “they’re” just sounds bad to me. ”
Surely the contraction of “there are” would be “there’re”, and not “they’re”. Right, Jason? 🙂
I’m thinking DT is my brother from another grammatical mother: his assessment of the grave offenses mirrors my own, and I especially appreciate the subjunctive. To go a bit further, I would add the Oxford comma to the list.
(I am a magazine editor as well, but that is the effect (rather than the cause) of my stickleritis.)
David, as a person who studied English in undergrad and did some Tech Comm graduate work, I’d both like to tell you I sympathize and also please calm down. You’re looking at language as an engineer, and I have seen it so many times. You want structure and rules. I get it. Don’t get too worked up, because it’s not healthy and language is always in flux.
On “there’s,” I get it, but Torch is right to point out that there’re is clunky and this doesn’t sacrifice clarity. Sure, “there are” is correct, but no one’s getting confused here. “Try and” is so thoroughly embedded in common usage that it’s fruitless to try and/to stop it. The companies they/it issue might also be due to your global cadre. “They” is typically preferred in British English. That/who is a little more universal, though groups get a little tricky, much like companies. Is it the group as a whole, or are they the people in the group?
I’m with you on conjunctions and commas, though. That mistake can create clarity and readability issues.
JT your editorial comment has it wrong: the contraction of “There Are” is “There’re,” not “They’re,” which is the contraction of “They Are.”
Contractions are super helpful for communication spoken colloquialisms into text, even informal double contractions like “They’d’ve” (They Would Have) and Wouldn’t’ve (Would Not Have).
The problem, I think, is that JT writes as if the text is spoken English, like how dialogue is written.
I thought he was just taunting David with the incorrect contraction.
“The problem, I think, is that JT writes as if the text is spoken English, like how dialogue is written.”
Whether it’s correct or not, I have to admit that this is the way I prefer to read articles.
Sometimes a quality colloquialism is fine. Do y’all really expect me to spell out “Porsche” like some kind of weirdo in my stuff, too? Hell no. That’s a parsh.
No surprise.
As Mr. Torchinsky has corrected this error, I, the asshole, am indeed happy now.
THANK YOU! I have to grit my teeth every time I read an Autopian article, because I just know it’s going to contain numerous grammatical errors. But I still read them because I love what you folks do and there’s also a bit of a “can’t look away from this grammar train wreck” aspect to it. Anyway, keep fighting the good fight, David! As a grammar/spelling pedant myself, I feel your pain. When I grade chemistry lab reports, I mark points off for incorrect grammar and spelling. Students invariably squawk: “Not Fair! This isn’t an English class!” I point out to them that good, clear communication is vital to the sciences, and it’s an inextricable element when writing something like a report, which explains what you did in lab. Plus I’m the Professor so they can just suck it! 🙂
I once put a multiple-choice question on a final exam in mineralogy for which the answers were four versions of the following, each with a different combination of its and it’s:
It’s a red mineral, therefore its color is red.
This was not well received. I probably shouldn’t have written the exam right after reading their term papers.
As the “Grammar Nazi” in my workplace, this makes me smile.
With so many other irons in the fire I don’t suppose there’s much hope of getting Jason to stop referring to the Volvo 1800S as the P1800S, then?
There is no hope.
Strunk & White?
HELL NO. THIS IS AP STYLE GUIDE TERRITORY. AND DON’T FORGET YOUR OXFORD COMMAS. Damned west coast heathens.
(But David is right about the conjunctions. What the fuck, team? You aren’t getting charged by the byte. Oh, wait, AWS. Uh. Sorry David.)
I’m a West Coast heathen but I’m sticking with Turabian.
Okay, I’m oft grouchy.
But damn, mdharrell. I have never just walked right up to someone and punched them square in the face with brass knuckles.
Yeah, I hadn’t heard of. That book, went and looked and thought “who the fuck uses a style guide from 1912 or whenever the fuck it was written”.
Isn’t everything in the UK based on how things were in 1912?
They were trying to export some of their methodologies to the colonies, but the ship carrying the artifacts collided with an iceberg and sank.
1812, actually.
Fuck, no on the AP Style guide. Talk about the wild, wild west.
Strunk & White were gods disguised as men.
Facts!
Look. The writing world needs structure.
And if you don’t have the latest edition, how are you supposed to know the proper way to hyphenate the latest con artist’s name, whether there’s any punctuation in the company name that reads like an acronym, or when you’re supposed to refer to them as an alleged felon as opposed to just a regular felon?
That’s the wild west the AP Stylebook protects us fr-hang on. I’m told I have to stop writing this comment now as my copy is now out of date.
rootywrm,
I’ll sit by and let you get away with a lot, but this. This is too far! Take that back! You DO realize that the “White” part of “Strunk & White” is actually E. B. White, author of “Charlotte’s Web”?
He wrote about a friendship between a pig and a spider — he’s infallible!
I told you, I still have my 2nd edition from eighth grade, and I still refer to it all the time. (Oh wait, no; I’m thinking of the AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide. Wait, no; both.)
Hang on just one damn second, Mark.
AD&D Second edition?
If this man can’t calculate THAC0 for a level 3 half-elf with a +1 longbow on the spot, he cannot be trusted. How do we even know he’s telling the truth when he says his name is Mark, if that even is his name. Hell, he might even be three cats in a trenchcoat!
I used to have the saving throw tables memorized, but I always needed a calculator for THAC0, even when I was DMing every week. Can’t do math in my head quickly.
And I do have three cats. And a trench coat. I guess I know what I’m trying this weekend…
Mark. We all know that THAC0 truly only exists as a mathematical Gordian knot to keep the jocks at no less than thirty feet away, and every real DM has a beat up Casio FX-602P that someone else set up 6+ years ago. (Or an HP 48 or TI82, but only if the TI also has Drugwars on it.)
And make sure the one working the clutch weighs at least 10lbs, but do not under any circumstances let them near KFC. I’m pretty sure one of the secret herbs and spices is just straight up catnip.
He’s a monster!
I mean, really! What kind of terrible – wait, hang on. Hang on.
E. B. White when hired by The New Yorker, refused to work in the office, instead mailing or dropping off manuscripts. It took months to convince him to come in… on Thursdays only.
Okay. Strunk & White it is.
“rootywrm,”
That is fantastic.
Sorry, other dude, your name is “rootywrm” now. 😀
Honestly, I figured David’s brain is still shorted out from a lack of rust. We’ll need to keep him under strict medical observation, though, as an iron oxide deficiency can lead to serious complications.
That’s a good point – especially if one goes into it largely cold turkey, as he has done. Withdrawal might cause DT to get the Fe2O3 DTs.
SMH, AP Style is what broke me of my Oxford comma usage (as in, omitting it unless needed for clarity).
…and it’s the industry standard, unlike this nice charming treatise by the Charlotte’s Web guy.
Also, a pig and a spider? Charming tale, but the spider better stick to befriending pigs. I assume all spiders want to kill me, and that’s a survival strategy that’s served me well over the years. If that spider approaches me, I’m whipping out a can of Raid or a shoe.
*they’re
The best part about this post is all the automated/interspersed ads.
At least for my viewing, it’s like “Jason hates pet shelters!?”
Lol, you know what, I’m not even gonna fix it. It’s too funny now.