Punctuation
 

Even the humble apostrophe is not safe [spree: Arianna's smiling mug]!

Since we are on the subject of apostrophes . . .
 

. . . what about its southern cousin, the unassuming comma?

I have no problems with the comma; in fact, I can't use enough of them. I especially love the serial comma, which delimits so very nicely and unobtrusively. But it has been consistently banished from the papers of some. Why? The serial comma has been blessed by Strunk and White [1], and has also been the subject of an "un-negotiable" ukase [2] from William F. Buckley, Jr. who deems its omission a capital offense.


[1] WILLIAM STRUNK, JR. & E. B. WHITE, THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE 2 (4th ed. 2000).
[2] WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR. , BUCKLEY: THE RIGHT WORD 82 (Samuel S. Vaughan ed., 1996).

I don't mind the occasional William Safire column, but god help you if you start quoting the Bluebook.

:bang:


- NYT (I hate that wretched publication) Junkie

I hear ya
 

I hate the Bluebook[1] as well; I didn't crack one open until after my 1L year. My 1L legal writing instructor had us internalize the ALWD[2] manual, which is supposedly the enlightened alternative.

The index of the Bluebook tells a fascinating anthropological story (when I am not absolutely frustrated by it). While the index of the ALWD manual is slightly less counterintuitive, I frankly can't tell which one is less evil.


[1] THE BLUEBOOK: A UNIFORM SYSTEM OF CITATION R. 15.7(f), at 114 (Columbia Law Review Ass'n et al. eds., 17th ed. 2000).
[2] Association of Legal Writing Directors & Darby Dickerson, ALWD Citation Manual (Aspen L. & Bus. 2000).

writer's attic?
 

there's a word that sounds like "garret" that's like some little room at least sometimes used to describe a poet's lair. Isn't there? If there is, could you let me know what it is? Not remembering is buging me.

writer's attic?
 

I'm sure this isn't it, because it doesn't sound like garret, but what pops into my mind is "atelier".

(I know, I know, that's not it...)

:confused:

garrett room, apartment, studio
 

I think the term is garrett room, garrett apartment, or garrett studio, not that I can find it in my dictionary.

Garrett Room, n., Small room in attic of residence used as an artist studios in late 19th century Paris.

writer's attic?
 

Garret is the word. It shows up in my Oxford American Dictionary as "n, an attic, especially a poor one. " I think it's from the French.

Curiosities in the public record
 

Check out The Poetry of D.H. Rumsfeld [spree: a pensive Rummy and bad poetry]

My favorite is:

The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

Bad poetry abounds.
 

The previous post reminds me of Fisher v. Lowe, 333 N.W.2d 67 (Mich.App. 1983), in which the entire opinion is written in rhyming couplets. What makes this opinion interesting, besides the bad poetry, is that it provides a stark illustration of the primary difference between Westlaw headnotes and Lexis headnotes: those of the former result from some -- at times, substantial -- amount of rewriting/processing of those parts they reference within an opinion, while those of the latter arise out of cut-and-paste operations, wherein the text is left unadulterated. Indeed, when looking at Fisher in the West reporter, one readily notices that the headnotes, as well as the summary, mimic the rhyming couplet scheme of the opinion with loving care. Lexis, by contrast, hasn't been as creative; it has only a solitary non-rhyming headnote, cut-and-pasted from a footnote.


-pc

Bad headline
 

A headline on the Oregonian the other day talked about how US troops were moving "perceptively" closer to Baghdad. ARGH.

tm

writer's attic?
 

I used to think the OED was extravagant overkill, I may have to revise my opinion.

Bad headline
 

Ah, yes, the old using-the-wrong-word-to-sound-more-intelligent trick.

What gets me ballistic is the phrase "between you and I," which is apparently seared in the collective conscious, most likely through the concerted efforts of careless 4th grade teachers who tell their students that "between me and you" sounds impolite and barbaric without telling them that it is neverthless grammatically correct. So the "me" and "you" get reversed so as to avoid sounding impolite, and the "me" gets replaced with "I" so as to avoid sounding barbaric. Compounding the problem are songs like Life is a Highway by Tom Cochrane, which managed to get unjustifiably frequent airplay many years ago:

Life is a highway.
I want to ride it all night long.
If you're going my way,
I want to drive it all night long.
There was a distance between you and I.
A misunderstanding once, but now,
We look it in the eye. (emphasis added)

writer's attic?
 

(emphasis added)

(emphasis added)


Perhaps your opinion needs no revision, unless the Oxford American Dictionary is also a 22-volume behemoth like its English cousin.

Bad headline
 

And its cousin, the butchering-a-foreign-word-to-sound-more-cultured trick. Like people who pronounce "forte" with two syllables ("for-tay"), when the French word is pronounced simply "fort."

It divides humanity into three distinct classes. At the top, people who use the word with one syllable. Then people who use it to impress but mispronounce it, with unintentionally bourgeois results. Then, at the bottom, the people who don't know what it means anyway.

Alas, it's the people in the top class who have to suffer the odd and pitying looks, like they're the stupid social climbers who overreached their educations.

Overkill (n., from Ger, "uber" and Flem. "kel" or "kil")
 

The Oxford American is a roughly 2 and one half inch thick, 800 some odd page version that combines a respectible vocabulary, American spellings, and just enough British stick up the ass linguistic puritanism to be humorous without being overbearing. For example, "Careful writers do not use contact as a verb. Instead of contacting someone, they will call or visit him."

It lacks, however, the wonderful etymologies that make the OED indispensible when on a bender in a college dorm room. Wow, those were the days....


(edited because that is what good writers do)

Bad headline
 

The people in the middle win, and the people whom you have identified as on top are the one's whose presumption that we import the foreign word into our language without change qualifies as its own little bit of pretension. Thus, for example, my little Oxford American Dictionary that proved so useful on the other thread shows forte as being pronounced (for tay) regardless of how the French do it. The bourgeois have prevailed so thoroughly that even the priggish Brits concede that the battle is lost; the aristocracy is no more. Vive la revolution!

So, let's bring this all down to a practical level. What do you do when a partner (or attorney more senior to you) uses incorrect grammar? Do you correct it (say in writing?), or do you let it go? I've had back-and-forth bouts on various grammatical issues, where I do it right, and the partner changes it to the wrong, and I change it back. Of course, nothing is said, but I don't really feel I can do anything that the passive-aggressive way. Thoughts?

Grammer
 

As one of those beasts whom you fear, let me say that I appreciate all grammatical corrections, and believe most GPs would. We do, after all, generally prefer to look like fools in front of associates rather than clients.

That having been said, I reserve the right to abuse the language to obtain my ends.

Correcting your boss
 

I would correct it in writing, and more often than not, the person will ask why you changed it, and then I would explain. The back-and-forth works too, and eventually you could just staple a page from some treatise proving that you are (of course) right.

I remember one particularly annoying partner I once worked for who would sooner gouge her eyes out than be proven wrong, who patronizingly began another lecture by pointing out how "half the time you use 'set off' and half the time you use 'set-off'" and then continued the lecture by explaining the importance of consistency, etc.

I politely stepped in, explaining that one is a noun, one is a verb, and depending on the usage, you may need a hyphen, you may not. Her response? Long stare.... "OK"

Turned on heel and left.

GEEZ, I hated her. She is someone about whom the following sentence was uttered (but, lamentably -- I wish I had thought of it first, not by me): "I could put a bullet in her head and get a good night's sleep." Not a popular partner, that one.

For me, it depends on whether the document requires the signature of the supervising partner/attorney.

If the document does not require em's signature, I *might* engage em in an enlightened discourse on the finer points of proper grammar, depending on the egregiousness of the error. Whether I change it back or not depends on how prominent the change would be (e.g., the title of the document vs. some parenthetical text within a footnote) and the type of document.

If the document does require em's signature, I express only mild disagreement (actually, it doesn't really sound like disagreement -- more like uncertainty) limited to a single sentence or less. And if em insists that em is correct, I will prepare a finalized version exactly as em wishes, bad grammar and all. I do this because I view the situation as being equivalent to em having prepared the document all by em's self, signing it, and sending it off.

Grammar partners
 

Damn -- you all work with folks who don't always insist they're right. I think that's my problem. Usually they're pretty obtuse about their bad grammar (well, I guess that's when I notice it). I've started to find it pretty funny. It's one thing when they err in the first place (heck, I do too); it's another to change a grammatically correct sentence (or phrase) to one that is not.

Grammar partners
 

Mine, too. Even when you win the argument by citing to a reliable source, some assjack is always willing to say that nobody observes that rule anymore, and it has better "flow" the way they wanted it. This is usually the point where I humbly acquiesce, because being seen as a team player with a keen sense of which way the wind is blowing is ultimately more rewarding than being right.

It's a special disease in which self-absorbed partners refuse to recognize when the arguments they win with their employees weren't won on merit or with vigorous vetting by properly motivated opposition.

But forte is pronounced "for-tay." It's Italian, not French. The instrument with the black and white keys is a pianoforte, which isn't pronounced "pianofort" in any language as far as I know.

What puts me in an annoyed pedantic mood is hearing the phrase laissez faire pronounced as "law-zay" instead of "less-say."

Beg to differ. As does the American Heritage (sorry, couldn't find the Oxford American online). The two different meanings of forte (quality of strength versus loudness in music notation) have different etymologies (French versus Italian).

Sadly for me, though, the total pussies on the AH usage panel now permit the for-tay pronunciation. Oh, the humanity!

If you have a high strung or otherwise self-important boss - change it and if it is noticed, blame the original error on the boss' assistant's typing - you will all know who the dope it, but em saves face and will not fuss at you.

Or if you are like me, tell them they screwed up and remind them that they need to let their assistant proof their work before it goes out.

-TL

Like I said, this is America, the middle class wins.

But that's a really good dictionary site you've found. I like those etymologies, and I really like that little bit of pomposity in the note at the bottom indicating that users aware of the word's origins may prefer to continue to pronounce forte with one syl., but at the risk of confusing their (stupid) listeners. From now on, American Heritage has my heart. Oxford American, begone.

Grammar partners
 

In those rare instances where I engage in a verbal ping-pong match with a supervising partner/attorney about grammar, I never refer to style manuals, Strunk & White, or any other "authority." Instead, I focus primarily on the unintended vagueness/ambiguities generated by em's "correction," or how the "correction" might result in a change of meaning.

As for those insubstantial grammatical errors which em insists are correct, I simply don't pursue them beyond a passing comment -- for winning them often requires a more academic/theoretical line of reasoning for which em does not have any patience. Any victory in such an exchange will most likely be a phyrric one.

Ahh, I see. You are referring to forte as in "His forte is making deponents cry." I was thinking about music. I was not aware of the discrete etymologies. Thanks for the illumination, Grinch.

BTW, I just checked forte on m-w.com and found the following info that expands a bit on your point. It's an interesting dilemma.

usage In forte we have a word derived from French that in its "strong point" sense has no entirely satisfactory pronunciation. Usage writers have denigrated \'for-"tA\ and \'for-tE\ because they reflect the influence of the Italian-derived forte. Their recommended pronunciation \'fort\, however, does not exactly reflect French either: the French would write the word le fort and would rhyme it with English for. So you can take your choice, knowing that someone somewhere will dislike whichever variant you choose. All are standard, however. In British English \'fo-"tA\ and \'fot\ predominate; \'for-"tA\ and \for-'tA\ are probably the most frequent pronunciations in American English.

Partner Gramar
 

I have no problem editing their work. 90% of the time they don't realize that they had misplaced an "only" or improperly used (or not used) a hyphen). What gets me is when they, upon reviewing a later draft, change it back to its original, incorrect form. I guess, at bottom, I don't really want to discuss grammar with a partner, since it necessarily calls a shortcoming to their attention (and I don't argue the points I'm not sure of); it's somehow different than saying something like "I think the general trendof the cases is contrary to the position you want to take" (translation: every circuit has held directly opposite that which you want to argue).

Partner Gramar
 

If my name is anywhere on it, it will be correct. Truth is, I only deal with my own work, which is never reviewed by anyone and if I fix the boss' work (usually only because I happen to catch a glaring mistake fresh off the printer, not because I am supposed to be dealing with his stuff) I tell the assistant to change it and he never notices. I have been know to say "X, this sounds like crap and it would make more sense this way...." If he argues and wants to sound like an idiot, if his name is on it, I let it go, but he usually agrees in the end. We do not share clients, so it does not affect me if he wants to sound like an idiot.

-T(tells it like it is)L

Bad headline
 

And then there is a separate, elite class of people who can't pronounce the word "nuclear," whose membership apparently includes Eisenhower, Kennedy, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and the Bushes.

Nucular war worthy
 

Heck, where I grew up, people worshed their clothes and asked "Jeet yet?" whenever company came to visit.

So I am not exactly an authority on grammar, usage or even punctuation. But I know what makes my ears bleed and that, my friends, is hearing some ass-jack go on and on about looking for a house with em's reel-uh-tur. Sheesh!

Grammar partners
 

You meant "pyrrhic," right?

tm
yes, that's short for timmy

Ouch!
 

How embarrassing! You are absolutely correct. :D

The score is currently:

tmdiva: 1
pretermitted_child: 0

(If it gets any worse, I may have to change my title. :bow: )


-pc

They so cool they don't need no gramma
 

Yep, the Better Flow argument is the justification of last resort.

The only instance where I would find the Better Flow argument convincing -- if not compelling -- would be if I were preparing rap lyrics for my client.

Indeed, the following autobiographical ditty by eminem just wouldn't be the same if it had proper grammar, which would vitiate its creative force:

Now how the f**k did this metamorphosis happen
From standin' on corners and porches just rappin'
To havin' a fortune, no more kissin' ass
But then these critics crucify you, journalists try to burn you
Fans turn on you, attorneys all want a turn at you
To get they hands on every dime you have, they want you to lose your mind every time you mad
So they can try to make you out to look like a loose cannon
Any dispute won't hesitate to produce handguns
That's why these prosecutors wanna convict me, strictly just to get me off of these streets quickly
But all they kids be listenin' to me religiously, so i'm signin' cd's while police fingerprint me

-Eminem - "Sing For The Moment"

A spirited discussion of lexicons cannot be complete without mentioning Black's Law Dictionary.

Bryan Garner, its editor-in-chief, has written a fascinating article in the Winter 2003 issue of The Green Bag, entitled: Legal Lexicography: A View from the Front Lines. The cite is 6 Green Bag 2d 151 (which is available on both Westlaw and Lexis).

This quote provides a plausible explanation of those times when I have been flummoxed:

Henry Campbell Black had been pretty systematic in his entries, the various contributors to the book in the third through sixth editions--most of whom were anonymous--had allowed the book to sprout all sorts of stylistic inconsistencies. Meanwhile, as far as I have been able to tell, they hadn't really been trained in lexicography.

6 Green Bag 2d at 155.

We Don't Have to Show You No Stinking Grammars
 

The only people I've ever gotten that empty criticism from are teachers, the worst offenders being English teachers, not because they are little velveteen dictators, but rather because they don't know how to teach writing and are too lazy to learn.

Maybe I've been lucky, but the lawyers I've worked for are generally competent with grammar. Like everybody, they may some mistakes or have some preferences I disagree with. I'm conservative about pointing out mistakes. I only point out things I think my superior would appreciate knowing about. This is in part because I don't like to be regarded as a nitpicking or letting my ego get in the way of getting the job done, and also in part because I regard a lot of grammatical rules as matters of personal preference.

Ouch!
 

You're so sexy when you genuflect.

Ouch!
 

Why, thank you.

I suppose groveling, then, would make me positively irresistable. ;)

-pc