The Grammar Cat

PSA: Managing Contractions

02 Jun 2015 Leave a comment

by Claire in Contractions, PSA, Punctuation, The Apostrophe Tags: Alf, apostrophes, contractions, decades

Today’s question comes from Jim A.

I have a simple question:

If I say, “That’s the cat’s toy,” then “cat’s” is possessive and correct with an apostrophe. [Right-O, Jim. Continue.] But if I say, “Your cats outside,” I am making a contraction with cat and is. Should it be “cat’s,” which appears possessive or “cats,” which appears to be plural?

That’s a good one, Jim. The Grammar Cat comes to you from Texas, so we’re no strangers to blending two (or more) words into one for efficiency’s sake. The heat down here makes things melt into each other, and words are no exception.

Before we get right to it, let’s talk about an important use of the apostrophe. With the exception of possessives, the apostrophe functions as a placeholder for missing letters or numbers. That’s why we use it in contractions like can’t and didn’t. Can’t, of course, is short for cannot. Pull out the second n and the o, insert the apostrophe to indicate missing letters, and you have yourself the contraction. Similarly with did not, you can replace the o with an apostrophe, but you don’t replace the space between words with one. One of my personal favorites is shouldn’t’ve, which is actually three words squashed into one, because like I said, it’s hot down here. Must conserve energy. If there are still questions on it, you might check out our previous post that goes into more detail.

The same use of the apostrophe goes for numbers, specifically decades. Take for instance the 1980s, most famous for big hair, power ballads, and Alf.

AKA Grammar Cat’s mortal enemy

When it’s shortened and the 19 is taken out, most people know instinctively that there should be an apostrophe in there somewhere, but that’s about where general understanding ends. So then we get a whole lot of the 80’s, which is incorrect. It should be the ’80s. That’s because what’s been taken out is the 19, which comes before the 80. Nothing’s been taken out between 80 and s, and it’s not possessive, so there shouldn’t be an apostrophe between the 80 and the s. However, if you’re talking about something that a decade possessed, you could add an apostrophe at the very end.

Example:

“Josie and the Pussycats was the ’70s’ most fabulous cartoon.” Of course, it sounds much better to say, “Josie and the Pussycats was the most fabulous cartoon of the ’70s,” or just not talk about Josie and the Pussycats at all.

So to answer your question, Jim, in the case you explained, you’re cramming together the words cat and is by removing one letter, which means that there needs to be an apostrophe to hold the place of the missing letter; therefore, the correct way to write it is, “Your cat’s outside.”

And I think she wants back in…

Frank’nstein’d

29 Oct 2014 2 Comments

by Julia in Punctuation, The Apostrophe, Word Usage Tags: punctuation

You know those little dangly things that stick up in the middle of words sometimes? No, not the dot in an i or a j. I mean the ones that show up in the middle of an otherwise normal word and stick WAY the hell up like they’re–ah! There’s one! AHH! And another!

Get it get it get it.

When that mark appears in the middle of a word like “they’re” or “there’s,” it’s an apostrophe. “Apostrophe” probably comes from Greek but I’m too lazy to look it up. Let’s just assume it means “little dangly thing in the middle of a word.”

Apostrophes have several uses. They show possession, as in The cat’s fabulous hairdo.

Most of us, thank dog, have a grasp on that usage. The difference between “the cats” (plural, multiple cats) and “the cat’s” (possessive, single cat) is fairly easy to see. If it’s not easy for you to see, just nod your head anyway and we’ll cover it in a later post.

What certain people on the Internet seem to have a harder time with is the difference between a word like “your” (possessive) and “you’re,” which is a contraction of “you” + “are.” The same goes for its/it’s and their/they’re/there. This is something that will literally drive grammar people up a wall, almost as much as misusing the word “literally.”

Literally.

“You’re” and “your” are homophones, like those in Claire’s last post. They sound alike and mean totally different things. But there’s a foolproof way to think about this so that you don’t uset the wrong

Contractions like “you’re,” “it’s,” and “don’t” are like Frankenstein’s monster.

It’s ‘FRAHN-ken-steen.’

Frankenstein’s monster, for those of you who slept through tenth-grade English, was cobbled together out of corpses, which is something it’s better not to think about too deeply. This is why any self-respecting portrayal of Frankenstein’s monster has to include those big-ass scars.

Bonus lesson: calling the monster “Frankenstein” and not “Frankenstein’s monster” is a quick way to distinguish English majors from everyone else. The English majors will begin twitching uncontrollably.

In a contraction like “you’re,” think of the apostrophe like a scar. You, Dr. Frankenstein, have stitched together the words “you” and “are” to make a perfect killing machine–I’m sorry, I mean contraction. A perfect contraction. Yes.

But that “a” in “are” turned out to be superfluous, like having two kidneys, so you cut it out. Removing the letter left a scar, which is the apostrophe.

You + are = you’re

Now let’s say you’re casually writing a sentence. You want to tell your BFF, Fluffy, that you caught and killed one of her favorite birds, which happens to be a grackle. But do you say “you’re favorite bird” or “your favorite bird”?

Un-Frankenstein it to be sure. Would you say “you are favorite bird”? No, because then it starts to sound like Fluffy is a bird, and she will cut you if you start spreading rumors like that.

Bitch, don’t even.

By deduction, we need “your” in this case: “Your favorite bird.”

Now, if you want to make it up to Fluffy and tell her that she’s the best cat in the world, you’d say:

“You’re the best” = “[you + are] the best.”

At this point you can stop thinking about it and move on, because “your the best” does not make any kind of sense whatsoever and will provoke grammar people into a frothing rage.

The same trick works for “it’s” (it + is), “they’re” (they + are), and “I’m” (I + am). If you can’t break it apart, it was never stitched together in the first place.

Example 1:

Look at its cute little face!

Do I mean “look at [it + is] cute little face”? No, that doesn’t make sense. Therefore “its” is correct.

Example 2:

It’s coming toward us! Run!

Do I mean “[It + is] coming toward us”? Yes!

NOW RUN.

Outing Some Sneaky Homophones

28 Oct 2014 1 Comment

by Claire in Word Usage Tags: Homophones, steak

Homophones are, quite simply, the bane of many editors’ existence. They’re one of the most common mistakes, and they’re easy to miss, because the brain is an unreliable monster.

“Is it affect or effect? I don’t know what to believe in anymore.”

Homophones are words that sound alike and may or may not be spelled the same. If they’re spelled the same, then great! You can screw it up all you want and no one will know the difference. It’s when words sound the same but they’re spelled differently that people start to look a little bit foolish.

Wikipedia warns not to confuse the word “homophone” with “homophobe” because Wikipedia is targeted at knuckleheads. Although, if you have fat fingers (or paws), you could very well accidentally type the wrong word, which is just another argument for proofreading.

Editor cat accidentally asked the author to correct the homophobes... but he's not sorry.

Student Cat just received a poor grade from his professor due to “homophobe errors.”

Homophone errors can cause quite a bit of confusion in your writing (or just make you look like an idiot—either way).

Example: The cat killed the vampire with a steak to the heart.

“It’s so crazy, it just might work.”

Unless the vampire has some serious plaque build up in his arteries, this is probably the worst plan for defeating a vampire. Try again.

Example: The cat killed the vampire with a stake to his heart.

That makes much more sense, well, beside the whole scenario taking place to begin with.

One of the main problems with homophones occurs when people don’t know there are homophones to be had. Whenever someone runs into a homophone he or she never knew existed, there tends to be this horrifying moment:

“Wait. Have I been spelling it wrong this whole time?”

We’ve all felt that, so let’s work together to keep that from happening to anyone ever again. It’s time for some of the homophones to come out of the closet!

Altar (n)/alter (v)

The woman placed the cat upon the altar of her shrine.

The psychopath altered the bear’s skin so that he could wear it.

Bazaar (n)/Bizarre (adj)

Scruffy had spent his whole kittenhood selling silk scarves at the bazaar, and no one could haggle better than him.

"Please, sir, I need to feed my litter!"

“Psh! I can’t feed my litter on that offer!”

When Spot saw a cat selling scarves, he wagged his tail and said, “How bizarre!”

So judgmental.

Berth (n, sometimes v)/Birth (n, v, adj)

This one could be tricky if you’re high on catnip or something. The most common confusion with these homophones is when people talk about playoffs of any sort.

"I've worked too hard for you to ruin this with a homophone error."

“I’ve worked too hard for you to ruin this moment with a homophone error.”

One does not earn one’s right to being birthed into playoff existence, though I can visualize the metaphor (all too vividly). Instead, one wins a playoff berth. So what’s the difference?

Berth has a few definitions. Most of them are nautical. When it comes to “berth” as a verb, all the definitions are about ships. So let’s move on. Here are the most useful, non-nautical definitions of berth as a noun, according to the gospel of Merriam-Webster.

1. “An amount of distance maintained for safety.”

Example. You’re going to want to give this cat a wide berth.

2. “Job, position, place.”

Example: This year the Jacksonville Jaguars will have their first playoff berth since 2007.

“What’s the point? It’s not like we have a chance at the Super Bowl anyway,” said the mopey jaguar.

As far as uses for “birth” go, I really hope I don’t have to provide explanation and pictures. Your parents/school districts should have already informed you about that process.

“But what about those nautical terms? Some of us might want to know!”

Fine. You’re asking for it. I’m not kidding about there being a lot of them.

1. Sufficient distance for maneuvering a ship
2. The place where a ship lies when at anchor or at a wharf
3. A place to sit or sleep especially on a ship or vehicle
4. A billet on a ship
And the verb:
5. To bring (a ship) into a place where it can stop and stay : to bring (a ship) into a berth

Complement (v, n)/Compliment (v, n)

Both of these have a positive connotation, so sometimes they’re confused. But trust me, the cat sweater doesn’t “compliment” the sad model’s beard, it “complements” it.

Example of it “complimenting” his beard: “Oh hey,” said the cat sweater, “your beard is awesome and it hides your sadness really well.”
Visual example of a cat sweater “complementing” his beard:

Just like the old saying goes, "They go together as well as a cat sweater and a bearded man."

Just like the old saying goes, “They go together like a cat sweater and a bearded man.”

“Complement” means, “something that completes something else or makes it better,” as is clearly demonstrated by Vince (probably his name) and his amazing sweater, neither of which would be complete without the other. Can’t you see how complete he feels?

Discreet (adj)/Discrete (adj)

This one is a sneaky homo because most people only know one version of the word even exists, and that’s “discreet.” That version means that something is either out of the way or unlikely to be noticed, or it can refer to a person using good judgement or “being discreet.”

So very discreet.

“Discrete” is almost never used (except in Grammar Cat conclusion paragraphs), because it’s almost an exact synonym for “distinct,” so people tend toward that word instead. But “discrete” exists, it’s just being very discreet about its existence.

Hangar (n)/Hanger (n)

This cat is hanging out in some hangers.

This cat is hanging out in a hangar.

For those who still don’t get it, note the plane in the background.

Load (n, v)/Lode (n)

If you’re putting something into or onto something else, you are loading. The only word from this homo pair that can be used as a verb is “load.” Simple enough?

Okay, so here’s the thing. You can have a truckload of kittens…

… and you can have the mother lode of cat toys.

But while they appear very similar (they both have a large amount of something!), you cannot have a trucklode of kittens or a mother load of cat toys. The trick lies in the origin of the word “lode.” It originally referred only to an ore deposit, and the term “mother lode” referred to a particularly large one (that you might be killed for later if you didn’t keep your big mouth shut). Now we use it in reference to anything that we discover a lot of: “I found the mother lode of Fancy Feast at PetSmart today!” A good rule is that if you’re not referring to gold, and you don’t have the word “mother” in front of it, stick with “load.”

Mantle (n, v)/Mantel (n)

This cat is sitting on a mantel:

Mantel = pointless shelf above the fireplace

This cat is wearing a mantle:

Mantle = badass cloak

Two other definitions for the -le version:

1. “The position of someone who has responsibility or authority.”
Example: Fluffy had earned his mantle by defeating the mutt next door.

2. “The part of the interior of a terrestrial planet and especially the earth that lies beneath the crust and above the central core.”
Example: Tiger was terrible at geology; he always mixed up the central core and the mantle on his charts.

Stationery (n)/Stationary (adj)

“Stationery” is a thing. “Stationary” describes a thing. So yes, you can have stationary stationery, but not the other way around.

This cat is not moving. She is…

STATIONARY!

This cat is writing a letter on…

STATIONERY!

I hope we’ve taken a strong first step in outing some homophones. Keep in mind, there are hundreds, possibly thousands (depending on dialects) of homophones in English, so we’ve only touched on a few. Can you think of a homophone pair that needs to be outed? Let us know by requesting a topic, and it might just be our next PSA.

So next time you’re typing a word and you have this sneaking suspicion that there may be more than one way to spell it, perhaps you have actually stumbled upon a homophone! When that happens, be respectful and remember that homophones are actually discrete (boom!) words, not simply interchangeable spellings for the same thing. Let’s treat all homos with the respect they deserve.

Greetings, Earthlings.

05 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by Claire in Foreign Languages, Quotation Mark, Word Usage Tags: foreign language, italics, le chat, quotations

To commemorate Grammar Cat having been viewed in over ninety countries around the globe, let’s talk foreign languages! Well, not actually talk them, because we don’t know many. What we do know, however, is how to integrate them into English text.

cute-animals-japanese-cat-wearing-kimono-pics

The Grammar Cat has been viewed in fourteen countries across Asia! But not China. Never China.

The way to set apart foreign language text from the surrounding English is to add italics. It’s a visual device that’s kind to readers, especially if the language is close to English and may share many words, like, say, French, Spanish, or German. Since English is essentially the lovechild of French and German, it’s riddled with words that were originally French or German. However, not every French word is italicized, because that would be endlessly annoying. The rule for when to add italics is basically contingent upon one question: How stupid are your readers? Okay, so that’s harsh (maybe). But basically, the first use of foreign words and phrases in a text should only be italicized if they are ones with which average readers may be unfamiliar.

This cat has that je ne sais quoi that makes him so very chic!

If you’re unsure whether or not readers will know the foreign word, see if it appears in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary. If it appears in an English dictionary, assume that readers will be familiar with it (or as familiar as they are with the other words in there).

The same goes for when the phrase is found in dialogue.

Example: The man looked longingly at le chat through the glass divider before turning to the clerk. “Combien coûte-t-il?”

While translating “cat” to the French word doesn’t make much sense here, it’s to prove a point, people. Were it not italicized, the sentence might be even more confusing and nonsensical than it already is, because “chat” means different things in each language. You will do your readers a great service if you follow that rule.

At the same time, italicizing every foreign word or phrase is going to become an eyesore.

Too many eyesores leads to glasses, so unless you’re a swanky British cat and can pull off glasses like you were born to wear them, do avoid eyesores.

Example of eyesore: I met the attaché for our weekly rendezvous at the café. She was a brunette southern belle and a bon vivant, and she spent her days eating croissants and éclairs.

Admittedly, most sentences that aren’t about baked goods have many fewer French terms, but hopefully my point is made.

Sometimes, authors think it’d be cool to have their characters speak a lot of a language that isn’t English (looking at you, Agatha Christie!), and the courteous thing to do is often to include a translation into English.

Example: While he called himself le chat sosie de Poirot (Poirot’s cat lookalike), we all knew who he really was.

Bonjour. Je m’appelle Inspecteur Poirot Chat. Vous avez tué mon père. Préparez-vous à mourir.

For those of you unfamiliar with French, I suggest you Google Translate that caption, because I just killed it with that reference to a previous post.

Anyway, you can also use quotation marks in lieu of parentheses, if that tickles your fancy feast. But we all know how some people deserve to be in QMA (Quotation Marks Anonymous), and so for those of you who can’t have nice things, stick with the parentheses.

¿Entiendes?
Comprenez-vous?
Verstehen Sie?
Capisce?
Skilur þú?
Καταλαβαίνετε;
Ooday ouyay understanday?

PSA: Direct Address Commas

28 Dec 2013 Leave a comment

by Claire in Comma, The, PSA, Punctuation Tags: comma, direct address

Let’s get to the point, folks.

A direct address is when you are addressing a person or group directly and you use a name or something like, “sir” or “everyone” in relating to that person or group.

Example: [see first line of post]

I see what you did there…

The direct address can fall anywhere within a sentence. If it begins a sentence, a comma needs to follow it.
Ex: Felix, if you cough up one more hairball on my carpet, you’ll get to see what it’s like to be an outdoor cat.

If the direct address is in the middle of a sentence, there needs to be a comma before and after it.
Ex: You know, kitty, just because I enjoy talking with you doesn’t mean I’m lonely.

If the direct address ends a sentence, a comma needs to come before it.
Ex: Would you like to eat, Fluffy?

Now let’s look at that last sentence without the direct address comma.
Would you like to eat Fluffy?

Please don’t eat me.

You monster.

Inconceivable Diction: an Intervention with Inigo Catoya

16 May 2013 1 Comment

by julia in Uncategorized Tags: word choice

This post is brought to you by:

I know, I know: he’s not a cat. Can we nonetheless agree that Mr. Montoya makes an excellent point about some of our ability to choose words in a way that you won’t lose your readers?

No?

Fine. Here’s Inigo Catoya:

You killed my father. Prepare to cuddle.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s say you’re writing about your cat–not a stretch, right? You’ve got the cat right in front of you, lounging decadently yet sophisticatedly on the windowsill, and all you want, with every iota of your being, is to communicate the grace and beauty you see before you. Your task now is to pick the right word.

Then this happens:

She walked into the room. She saw the cat. The cat looked directly at her with a smoldering green gaze.

Here’s how that works when I read it:

First sentence: cool. Second sentence: cool. Third sentence: ooh, smoldering! Nice word cho–what is “gaze” doing there?

A screeching halt, that’s what happens. No one is going to get carried away by your verbiage if they have to stop and process what’s happening. And this is what I imagine when I see “gaze” used that way:

The gaze is the invisible line between your eyeballs and whatever you’re looking at. “Invisible” is the key word. Eyes can be blue; a gaze cannot be blue. (“Cannot” in this case meaning, “your editor will be imagining blue lasers beaming from your character’s eyes.” If this is your intention, by all means, carry on.) A gaze can, however, be intense or glassy or passionate or whatever. A gaze can also travel at will. “His eyes wandered across the room” is ambiguous at best and requires immediate medical attention at worst.

A look and a gaze are close relatives. Both of them work as verbs and nouns:

The cat looked at me incredulously.

The cat gave me an incredulous look.

The cat gazed at me, murder in its eyes.

The cat’s gaze was murderous.

What you see right before you die.

Even eye works this way:

The cats eyes were full of promises of what was to come.

The cat eyed me like he knew what he was doing.

But when the thing you’re picturing in your mind is your character’s eyes, for the love of cats, say “eyes.” Don’t say “look” or “gaze” or something weird like “scan.” If you use “scan” as a noun, this is what I will picture:

Cat scan. HEH HEH.

“But but but,” I can hear you saying, “I have to talk about my cat’s eyes for six sentences! If I keep using, ‘eyes’ every time, it’ll be really repetitive!”

First of all, if your paragraph is dwelling so heavily on one thing that you have to dig deep into the pits of the thesaurus to avoid repetition, one might choose to take it as a sign that something needs to change. Something that is not word choice. Second, there are still plenty of other things you can use to describe the thing on your cat’s face that it uses to watch birds out the window. Let’s use as our example a confused cat, because it turns out there are a lot of those on the Internet.

The cat’s face showed his confusion.

…sideways.

Confusion radiated from the cat’s countenance.

The cat looked severely confused and alarmed.

IT’S GOT MY LEG. OH GOD.

There you have it: gaze and eyes (and some other stuff). Mess it up and Inigo Catoya will give you scans of withering scorn…

…or something.

The Majestic Semicolon

28 Mar 2013 Leave a comment

by Claire in Punctuation, The Semicolon ;) Tags: bjork, comma splice, independent clause, kurt vonnegut, punctuation, semicolon, series, transitional adverbs, virginia woolf

Grammar fact: Five hundred and forty-two people a day are faced with the conundrum of whether or not to use a semicolon in an important communication. Five hundred and fifteen decide against it, because they just have no freaking clue how it works.

Okay, so that’s not a solid fact, but there are a lot of people who still have no idea how one is used and find themselves utterly confused and wondering how, with modern printing technology, the publisher managed such an egregious mistake of somehow stacking a period on top of a comma.

Or maybe you feel a little overwhelmed when you encounter one and don’t know what to do with it.

“What…is…that?”

But take a moment and think back to the last time you encountered a semicolon. Did you just start spitting up on yourself or did your mind make sense of it by just sort of reading it as a half-assed period? If that’s what your mind did, your mind might be on to something, because the semicolon can sometimes function as a half-assed, wishy-washy period…

BUT MAJESTIC AS ALL GET OUT.

Behold the semicolon’s feline counterpart!

While the semicolon does have quite a few uses in citations, Grammar Cat would rather clean litter boxes for eternity, Sisyphus-style, than optionally talk about citation formatting. If you’re reading this to get that exact information, I suggest you stop wasting your time on this website and get busy weeping. Just get it all out of your system. There you go… No, crying is not a show of weakness… Well, your father was wrong, then.

Without further ado, we present to you the many magical uses of the majestic semicolon.

Use #1: The semicolon can be used between two independent clauses that lack a conjunction, as a way of showing that the clauses are closely related.

So let’s break that into more manageable terms. An independent clause is a phrase that has both a subject and a predicate, meaning it can stand alone as a complete simple sentence: My puppy and kitten always cuddle. The subject is My puppy and kitten and the predicate is always cuddle.

You’re welcome.

Say you have two independent clauses and they’re so closely related that you want to put a comma, but you know your teacher/professor/editor will highlight that in a heartbeat and give you the ol’ comma splice song and dance. But a period between them seems so harsh. This sounds like a job for…

THE MAJESTIC SEMICOLON.

Example: It wasn’t difficult to snag the picture; my puppy and kitten always cuddle.

I guess I’m just feeling generous.

This does not mean that any two independent clauses should be connected with a semicolon just because they follow in a logical order. Like Pixy Stix, Björk, and your friends from high school, semicolons are most easily appreciated when they’re only encountered on rare occasions.

Use #2: When the transitional adverbs however, thus, hence, indeed, accordingly, besides, therefore, and sometimes then separate two independent clauses, a semicolon should be placed before the adverb and a comma should come after it, unless the sentence reads just the same without the comma.

This is probably the rule you remember from middle school and thought was way stuffy and lame and who has time for semicolons when there are Pixy Stix to be snorted? (Disclaimer: Grammar Cat does not encourage or condone snorting Pixy Stix.)

Example: I really wanted to buy the kitten; however, I changed my mind when I remembered how many cacti I’d killed from neglect.

To help you remember the transitional adverbs that lend themselves to the semicolon, here’s a mnemonic device:

The Hairball Has Actually Been Ingested Twenty Times
Thus, Hence, However, Accordingly, Besides, Indeed, Therefore, Then

And here’s a visual:

The Hairball Has Actually Been Ingested Twenty Times. Number twenty-one, coming right up.

Use #3: The semicolon can be used before phrases like that is, for example, namely, and other similarly functioning words when they introduce an independent clause. A comma is often called for after the phrase.

I have a mnemonic device for this one, but it would likely make you vomit or scream or both (it’s the for example part that really makes it unprintable).

Example: Kittens sometimes go to the bathroom in the most unfortunate places; for example, my boyfriend’s work boots.

In the kittens’ defense, the boots did smell like a litter box.

Use #4: Sometimes, and I mean sometimes (and only if you really know what you’re doing and it’s the second full moon of the month and also a Tuesday), the semicolon can be used in place of a comma when two independent clauses are separated by a conjunction.

The editor in me reads that and curses CMoS in the most blasphemous of language; however, the writer in me wants to print that rule on a million tiny slips of paper and then toss them in the air before rolling around on them and then having a good cry, because things are finally, finally, looking up. Sigh.

But before we all get ahead of ourselves, CMoS also clarifies that this rule should generally be used “either to effect a stronger, more dramatic separation between clauses or when the second independent clause has internal punctuation.” And yes, that use of “effect” is correct.

Example of a semicolon for dramatic separation: The cat knew that eating a cactus couldn’t possibly turn out well; but he’d be damned if that stopped him.

Example of a semicolon before an independent clause with internal punctuation: Living in suburbia is a high-stakes game for a cat; for, of all the learned skills, stealth is not only the most difficult to master, but the most crucial to survival.

That example was outrageous and clearly used as an excuse to post this picture.

Use #5: When a sentence that contains a series has punctuation within items of the series, a semicolon can be used to help clearly differentiate each item of the series.

A sentence containing a series just means that the sentence has some sort of list. The series can be anything as simple as, My cat’s favorite things are naps, yarn, and mice, or the series can list longer phrases; for example, actions: My cat woke from her nap, stretched out her paws, and took a swipe at my ankle.

So if the items of the series have commas embedded within them, then the semicolon, rather than the comma, can be used to separate out the larger items. The most straightforward example might be listing cites with the states they’re in:

My kitten traveled with me to Eugene, Oregon; Atlanta, Georgia; Austin, Texas; and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

And TSA was never the wiser. Mwahaha!

The Battle of the Semicolon

Some writers and editors only see the semicolon in terms of it looking a lot like the dagger they wish they could plunge into the hearts of semicolon users. Kurt Vonnegut was among this group. However, some people just can’t get enough, and those are also the people who have a questionable amount of Björk on their iPod. Virginia Woolf, for instance, would have had a separate iPod just for Björk. She was crazy about the semicolon, which begs the question of who would win in a Vonnegut–Woolf death match. Holy crap. Let’s all take a second to imagine that.

No, let’s take more than a second. Let’s let that thought ruminate until the next Grammar Cat post.

Let Sleeping Cats Lie

27 Feb 2013 1 Comment

by julia in Tenses, Uncategorized, Word Usage

You’re not going to like this, grammar cats. I don’t like it either. I’m just going to rip the Band-Aid off:

“Lie” and “lay” are two different words.

DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS.

Lay and lie get confused because even though they have slightly different meanings, they share the word “lay.” The present tense of “to lay” is the same as the past tense of “to lie.” So we can say:

Frank decided to lay the cat on the dog while the dog lay sleeping.

Terrible idea, Frank.

The first “lay” is from “to lay”; the second is the past tense of “to lie.” Are you confused yet? Well, it gets worse: Speaking as someone who has to look this up four or five times a week even though I know the rule, I’ve realized that you just have to memorize it.

But it’s okay! Cats can help us. If there’s one thing in the world cats are good at, it’s being motionless.

Like a goddamn champion.

Lie:

Though we all know cats are noble and honest by nature, they’re good at lying…on things. The present tense of to lie is lie; the past tense is lay; the past perfect tense is had lain.

Lay:

When you use lay, it should usually take an object. So if you find yourself typing lay, ask yourself, “laying what?” (If you’re not laying anything, you probably want to use lie.) The present tense of to lay is lay; the past tense is laid; the past perfect tense is had laid.

Now I’m going to bombard you with examples.

Present Tense:

Lie: The cat lies on the book.

Lay: She lays the cat on the book and realizes she’s not going to get to read it anytime soon.

Present Continuous Tense:

Lie: The cat is lying on the floor, minding its own business.

Lay: Someone is laying office supplies on that poor, long-suffering creature.

Past Tense:

Lie: Grumpy Cat lay in some jerkface’s hands.

Lay: Jack laid Grumpy Cat down and apologized.

Past Perfect Tense:

Lie: The cat had lain too close to the tracks because it thought it had eight lives left.

Lay: He had laid his cat down in the subway station, so he no longer had a cat.

There you go! Repeat those examples to yourself a few thousand times (or put it on a sticky note and attach it to your monitor) and you’ll be ready to navigate treacherous examples like:

The standing lion laid its mouth on the lying lion.

I’m sure it’s an affectionate gesture.

PSA: Try to Follow Along

26 Feb 2013 Leave a comment

by Claire in PSA, Word Usage Tags: try and, try to

I’ll try to make this quick.

“Try to” and “try and” are not interchangeable.

If try describes an attempt to complete another verb, then to is correct. This is almost always the case.

My cat will try to sleep on my face at night if I don’t stop him.

“I think I’ll try to fit in this box. Oh hey! I succeeded!”

If trying is a separate action from the following verb, then there is an and between them. There’s generally only one phrase that uses this, and it’s try and fail.

“I may try and fail, but some part of me will end up in this box.”

Note the different meanings:

I may try and fail.

I may try to fail.

Don’t try to fail at things, folks.

Dashes: What All the Little Lines Mean

18 Feb 2013 2 Comments

by Claire in Punctuation, The Em Dash, The En Dash, The Hyphen, Uncategorized Tags: compound nouns, em dash, en dash, hyphen, phrasal adjectives

You ever find yourself with some alone time—maybe you’re cleaning out a litter box, maybe you’re taking the cat for a walk—when your brain puts together the pieces of a puzzle you didn’t even know you were trying to solve? We all have those moments, and for many of us, one of them is when we realize that there is a dramatic difference between the practical uses of hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes.

It's okay, I do all my best thinking in the bathroom, too.

Let’s be real. This is where 90% of those realizations happen.

For those of you who have yet to experience this heart-stopping, adrenaline-filled punctuation epiphany, this post may help you along in a more subtle, nurturing manner.

Our topic for this post comes from a new reader, who is definitely, completely, not in any joking manner named Duai Rilly Hafta:

My question, Grammar Cat, concerns the use of the em-dash.… My book is full of them because it seemed to reflect how I think, but I wonder if there are conventions for good usage versus, for example, the dry, uninteresting semi-colon.

All cheap jabs to the majestic semicolon aside, this is a great question.

Hyphen:

This is the smallest of the little horizontal line thingies that the English language uses. The most common use is to connect words for clarification. The function is basically the same as when people hold hands to let everyone know they’re together. It’s the “he’s with me” of the punctuation world.

The most common culprit of hyphen use is the phrasal adjective, which you probably already understand, even if you don’t know you know it. Let’s start simple. An adjective is something that describes a noun. A phrase is a group of words that may have a noun or a verb included, but no one is actually doing anything, meaning it’s not a complete sentence with a subject and verb.

The CMoS is kind enough to give a set of rules to follow for phrasal adjectives. Here they are, paraphrased and with cats.

1) If the phrasal adjective is placed before the noun it describes, hyphenate!
ex. That was a cat’s-out-of-the-bag moment.

“Your boyfriend got you a spatula for your birthday.”

2) If the phrasal adjective before the noun contains a compound noun, the compound noun must also be hyphenated.

Compound nouns are just nouns that require more than one word to describe them. For example, cat litter is a compound noun, because either word alone does not express the same idea as the two words combined.

I need to buy some cat. ←Sounds like you’re buying cat meat.

I need to buy some litter. ←Sounds like you’re making terrible financial decisions.

I need to buy some cat litter. ←Okay, I get it now.

So if one of those compound nouns shows up in a phrasal adjective that comes before the noun it describes, hyphenate it along with the rest of the phrasal adjective.

Ex. My cousin Gary is a cat-litter-scooping maniac.

“Is Gary gone yet?”

3) If more than one phrasal adjective is used to describe a noun, you better get your act together and hyphenate each one separate from each other.

Ex. Dude, I think I accidentally adopted a twelfth-regeneration time-lord cat.

NERD ALERT!

4) If two phrasal adjectives share a common ending element, then… Well, I’ll spare you the jargon. Just do it like this:

Ex. Both blue- and green-eyed cats are fully capable of stealing your heart.

But not:

Blue-and-green-eyed cats, because that refers to cats with one blue eye and one green eye.

“Look what your bad hyphenation has done to me! I’m a freak!”

However, if the shared element of the two phrasal adjectives is at the beginning, then you don’t get to use this convenience, and you have to write it twice.

Ex. Brown-eyed and brown-haired cats are the best.

5) If the phrasal adjective includes a duration or amount, the plurals should be changed to singular. So say your cat has been alive for four months. That would make it a four-month-old cat. This is probably the most common misuse of hyphens around. Here are the two correct ways to write age:

a) I own a ten-year-old cat. ←Notice that it’s hyphenated because it appears before the noun “cat,” which it modifies. Also notice that it’s year instead of years.

b) My cat is ten years old. ←Notice that it’s not hyphenated because the adjective appears after the noun it modifies. Also notice that the plural years is back.

6) Sometimes these hyphen rules look terrible once they’re employed. CMoS suggests that in such cases, you find a way to rework the sentence so it doesn’t look so sucky.

En dash:

The en dash is not interchangeable with the hyphen. Ever. Never, ever.

Here are some uses of the en dash:

1) To indicate a rage of numbers, be it time, distance, page numbers, etc.

Ex. I spent 3–4 hours working on this Grammar Cat post.

But if the word from precedes the range, the en dash will not work, and it must be replaced by the word to.

Ex. I worked on the Grammar Cat post from 2pm to 5pm.

Being a Grammar Cat is not all fun and games.

2) To signify to in the context of scores or directions.

Ex. The Carolina Panthers beat the Jacksonville Jaguars 35–17.

Ex. The Austin–Houston commute should be avoided at all costs.

…unless you have this sweet ride.

3) To indicate stuttered syllables in dialogue. Do keep in mind, though, that making a reader trudge through too much stuttering isn’t going to win you any fans as an author.

Ex. “I just w–w–wanted to p–pet the kitty,” the child said through his tears.

Em dash:

Before we get into the em dash and how it can basically be used for most other punctuation marks, let’s have a heart-to-heart conversation about moderation. Em dashes, like exclamation points, can be overused simply because they are so versatile. However, they’re also a fairly loud punctuation mark (like the exclamation point), and draw quite a bit of attention to the element they set off from the rest of the text. So imagine you have a friend who is totally into everything. Your friend is always touting the hottest new band who he loves so much. Do you go and listen to every band his says is the next best thing? Probably not. But if you have a friend who is rarely opinionated but implores you to check out this awesome band he heard, you’re likely to listen. Analogy complete.

1) Okay. The em dash, sometimes simply called “the dash,” can be used to replace parentheses, comma pairs, or a colon.

Here’s a sentence that uses a colon:

Alice in Wonderland provides us with one of the freakiest animal characters known to man: the Cheshire cat.

Now here it is with an em dash:

Alice in Wonderland provides us with one of the freakiest animal characters known to man—the Cheshire cat.

Totally not 100% nightmarish.

Both are correct; however, the colon is a little sharper of a punctuation mark than the casual em dash in this case. The colon is a jab, while the em dash is a nudge.

Here’s a sentence that uses a comma pair (meaning the commas are used to set off non-essential information):

The litterbox, the place where my cat spends most of his time, is starting to stink up the house.

Now with em dashes:

The litterbox—the place where my cat spends most of his time—is starting to stink up the house.

In these two examples, the commas are much more discreet than the em dashes and the separate ideas flow more smoothly.

Here’s a sentence that uses parentheses:

The kitten (he was really more of a cat at this point) no longer fit into his sweater.

Now with em dashes:

The kitten—he was really more of a cat at this point—no longer fit into his sweater.

“I think it shrunk, is all.”

So how does one choose between parentheses and em dashes? Consider parentheses are more of a whispered side note than the loud em dash.

2) The em dash can separate an introductory noun or series of nouns from the pronoun that describes it. Right? I wouldn’t be able to process that without an example, either, so here you go:

Ex. Hoping for catnip, naps, and staring into space—those are the three major pastimes of cats.

3) The em dash can be used to indicate a sudden interruption to thoughts or dialogue. This is not to be confused with ellipses, which indicate a trailing off of thought or speech. The em dash is much more sudden.

Ex. “Meow, meow, meow, me—”
“Shut up, Fluffy!”

4) When dialogue is interrupted in the middle of a sentence by narration that does not include some sort of dialogue tag (he said, she yelled, etc.), use pair of em dashes to insert the narration.

Ex. “I wish I’d written The Cat in the Hat, because”—he puffed up his chest—“I could have added more violence.”

***Note*** Question marks and exclamation points can come before an em dash, but commas, colons, semicolons, and periods (with rare exceptions you may live your whole life without encountering) cannot.

♥ ♥ ♥

Along with the topic request, Duai Rilly Hafta writes, My other question is whether Claire has Italian aunts at all.

This is, of course, in reference to a previous post, which can be seen here. The answer is that yes, Duai, all of my aunts are fairly Italian, but they are not, in fact, named Maria. However, were I to tell you their real names, I would likely incur the wrath of a handful of fairly Italian aunts, which any fairly Italian niece knows is not a smart fight to pick.

“I will have my revenge in this life or the next.”