Punc--EEK! Capping it off redux

Last week we took a look at capitalization. Several comments came up that deserve clarification.

First of all, I'm not ashamed to admit I got part of it wrong. Or at least, I wasn't clear enough. I included endearments in the list of words that should be capitalized--honey, dear, sweetie. Most often those words should not be capped. Only cap them if they replace the person's actual name. For instance, if I call my sister Grumpyface rather than her given name, I'd cap it. (In point of fact, I do not call her Grumpyface. I call her Runs with Bears. But that's a whole 'nuther story.)

Regarding the names of relatives: If you call you father's sister Aunt Alice when you talk to her, do you also capitalize aunt when you talk about her (indirect address)? Yes, you do. Hi, Aunt Alice. I'll drive Aunt Alice to the store. However, there is an exception. If you're talking about an aunt named Alice, don't cap aunt. I'll drive my aunt Alice to the store, and my brother will drive my aunt Gert to church. 

Thanks to my gentle readers and fellow editors who questioned me on these issues and made me think harder and more clearly about them. Learning never ends.

The permutations of capital letters are nearly endless, especially when language is changing as fast as it is now. When I was learning grammar--heck, when my kids were learning grammar--a capital letter in the middle of word was unheard of. Now we have so many of them--LinkedIn, BrainBashers, InDesign--a new term had to be invented for them. Camel caps. When in doubt, do as I do and refer to CMOS (Chicago Manual of Style). 

Next time, the most misunderstood punctuation mark of them all--the apostrophe.

Punc--EEK! Comma Chameleon

Comma Comma Comma Comma Comma Chameleon

Okay, my age is showing. Please don’t laugh at me. The point is, commas can do a chameleon job on a sentence.  For example:

The driver who won the race was awarded a trophy.

The driver, who won the race, was awarded a trophy.

Although both of these sentences are punctuated correctly, they mean very different things.

In the first sentence, with no commas, any driver who won got a trophy. In grammatical terms, “who won the race” is restrictive. It restricts who gets the trophy.

In the second sentence, the driver, who just happened to win the race, got a trophy. In grammatical terms, “who won the race” is nonrestrictive. The driver got a trophy, and oh by the way, also won the race.

Maybe it will make more sense in context:

1. The driver who won the race was awarded a trophy. The driver who came in second got a bottle of champagne. The other drivers were awarded a dashboard plaque.

2. The driver, who won the race, was awarded a trophy. The pit crew was treated to a party. The team owner received a large check.

In example 1, “who won the race” specifies which driver. Only the winner gets a trophy. The paragraph concerns the rewards given to the participants in the race. In example 2, which concerns the rewards given to the members of a racing team, “who won the race” is just a bit of extra information and could be eliminated without changing the meaning.

Remember the example from a couple weeks ago? “I’d like you to meet my brother Dave.” The same rule applies. What this sentence means is, “I’d like to introduce you to my brother named Dave. My brother named Tom isn’t here.” Dave and Tom are restrictive because they specify which brother. (Not that either of my brothers has ever been able to restrict me. Hah.)

Got a headache yet? Don’t get too hung about the definition of restrictive vs. nonrestrictive. Just remember this--if the information in the phrase or clause could be deleted without changing the meaning of the sentence, you need to put commas around it. If the information specifies a particular person or thing, do not use commas.

Incidentally, another way to determine whether or not to use commas is to try putting dashes or parentheses around the words. If you could do so without changing the meaning, use commas. Be aware, however, that dashes are very emphatic, and parentheses are generally frowned on in fiction.

Note to my readers in southern New Hampshire: I’ll be speaking at noon about “Place as a Character” at the Southern NH Outdoor Recreation Show tomorrow, April 13, 2013. For more information, go to

http://www.milford.nh.gov/town/boards-committees-and-commissions/conservation/southern-nh-outdoor-recreation-expo. 

Punc--EEK Part 4-Quotes within quotes

Quotes within quotes. *Evil laughter* No, seriously, this isn't so bad. You've already mastered the basics of punctuating dialogue and splitting it in several different ways. What do you have to worry about?

First, what is a quote within a quote? At its most basic, it's a character citing what someone else said.
Like this:
John said,"Billy told me, 'Sue is going to get you' yesterday."  Notice John's dialogue is punctuated normally, and Billy's dialogue within John's uses single quotes. That's it. The fun starts with more complicated sentences.

John said, "Billy told me, 'Sue is going to get you,' so I'm not going to school today."  In this sentence, Billy's quote is followed by a comma (inside the single quote) because of the ensuing dependent clause (so I'm not going to school today.) Make sense so far? Let's ramp up the fun.

John said, "Billy told me, 'Sue is going to get you!' so I'm not going to school today."  See the exclamation point? Notice there is no comma? Very good. If Billy's quote ended with a question mark in this sentence there would be no comma there, either.

I know you're all dying to hear about the weird punc I mentioned in last week's post. Such weirdness usually occurs at the ends of sentences.

John said, "I'm not going to school today because Billy told me, 'Sue is going to get you.'"  Aha. Look at that weird '" at the end. Three apostrophes? No. It's a single quote ' to end Billy's dialogue, followed by a double quote " to end John's dialogue.

Suppose you want to inject some excitement. John said, "I'm not going to school today because Billy told me, 'Sue is going to get you!'"  Punctuated like this, the sentence indicates that Billy is excited. Why? Because the exclamation point is inside Billy's dialogue. Suppose Billy doesn't care, but John does. You'd punc it like this: John said, "I'm not going to school today because Billy told me, 'Sue is going to get you'!"  I know, I know. That looks weird. Please don't cry. Remember my basic rule: Punctuate the dialogue. Decide which of your speakers needs the exclamation point, and put it in his speech.

Here's a variant with a question mark in it: Mom said, "You're not going to school because Billy told you,'Sue is going to get you'?"  You could replace the question mark with an exclamation point, but you can't use both. Sorry, but you can't.

In general, exclamation points and question marks stay with the dialogue they belong to, while commas and periods go inside the quote marks. As we saw in the preceding paragraphs, there may sometimes be flexibility. When that happens, the writer gets to make the decision based on where the emphasis needs to be.

One more example, then I'll let your tired minds rest. Who wrote, "All the world's a stage"? The question mark does not belong to the quotation, so it goes outside the quote marks. But: Shakespeare wrote, "All the world's a stage." 

I know you'll find plenty of variations and have tons of questions. Keep remembering to punctuate the dialogue, and you'll get through most situations. If you're still puzzled, consult Chicago Manual of Style or Strunk and White's Elements of Style. Ask your editor, or ask me (and I'll run straight to CMOS or EOS)!

Next time, we'll start on commas.

Punc--EEK! Pt. 3 More dialogue

As we saw last time, dialogue can be split by a tag, and I gave you some tips for how to punctuate that. Again, always remember that you are punctuating the dialogue.

Sometimes you need to split dialogue with an action, and the punc for that looks very strange to a lot of people. Here's an example:

"I think we should go"--she pointed down the hallway--"to the left."

Now I know a lot of you are scratching your heads and wondering if I've gone nuts. Because you want to put those dashes inside the quotes, right? But what's the rule? Punctuate the dialogue. The dashes don't belong to the spoken words, they belong to the tag because it interrupts the dialogue. So they surround the tag. They don't go inside the quotes.

By the way, the action should be a complete sentence in its own right. Please, please, please, don't write something like this:  "I think we should go"--pointing down the hallway--"to the left." An alternative version like "I think we should go," she said, pointing down the hallway, "to the left." is acceptable. However, the tighter, more active "she pointed down the hallway" is preferred.

ALERT: Word processing programs will want to use close quotes after the second dash. Don't let them get away with that. One way to get around the program's proclivity is to put a space after the dash, type the opening quotes, then delete the space. A bit cumbersome, I agree, and if someone knows of a shortcut, I'd love to hear from you.

Sometimes a long speech spills over into a new paragraph. You don't see this much anymore, but it does still happen. In that case, use close quotes at the end of the last paragraph only. Use opening quotes at the beginning of every paragraph:

     "I was born in a small town in northern Arizona," he said. "My parents and grandparents were born there, too, and everyone assumed I'd raise my family in that same small town.

     "But I have itchy feet, can't stand staying in one place for too long. So I left that town behind as soon as I got out of high school, and never looked back. How can a guy stand the same old faces and places all his life?

     "Paris, Calcutta, Adelaide--I love seeing new cities. Gotta keep moving. Someday I'm gonna make it to the moon."

 Okay, that's an awful example, but you get the idea. All the punc stays the same, except you don't use close quotes until the very end. 

Next time, we'll play with quotes within quotes and the weird-looking punctuation that sometimes results.

Punc--EEK Part 2-Splitting dialogue

Last week we talked about  punctuating basic dialogue. The first rule is that punctuation almost always goes inside the quote marks--we'll get to the exceptions later. Let's take it one step further today, and split the dialogue before and after a dialogue tag (he said, asked John, etc.).

The important thing to remember is to punctuate the spoken words as you would any other sentence. The dialogue tag in the middle needs to be separated from these words by commas and quote marks.

"I think," said Jack, "you're making a mountain out of a molehill." Note the commas after think and Jack, the lower case letters at the beginning of said and you're. Also note quote marks after think, and before you're. There is a space between the quotes and the tag. I've marked the spaces in red to make it clear.

Here's another example. "Carol," he asked, "are you sure?" Again, there is a comma at the end of the first part of the dialogue and at the end of the tag. The first letter of the tag and the first letter of the second part of the dialogue are lower case (unless either one begins a name). Most especially, note that the question mark comes at the end of the sentence and inside the quote marks.

Naturally, there are exceptions and variations. Be guided by how you want the reader to "hear" the dialogue. If you read the first example aloud, notice that you slow down a bit when you come to the tag. This suggests to the reader that Jack is speaking slowly, perhaps with an emphasis on I to differentiate his opinion from someone else's, or that he's not entirely sure of what he's saying.

Let's try something a bit more advanced. It's not really complicated if you remember that you are punctuating sentences.

"I'll remember that," said Jack. "Punctuation is really complicated." Here the dialogue consists of two sentences: I'll remember that. Punctuation is really complicated. So you put a period after Jack. Many writers think that if dialogue continues, the tag is always followed by a comma. Not true. If the dialogue consists of two or more sentences, put a period after the tag.

One last consideration today. The rules about question marks and exclamation marks we learned last week also apply to split dialogue.

"I'll remember that!" said Jack. "It's complicated."
"Can you remember that?" the teacher asked. "It's not that hard."

Homework: if you have an example of split dialogue that puzzles you, ask me.

BARRICADE THE EXITS!

In my opinion, there is entirely too much CSI on television. New York, Miami, LA, East Podunk. I get the picture--crime is everywhere. And the investigators are smart, sexy people with great educations and devastating logic. 

My beef is not with the stories or the actors. What I object to is the way writers have picked up on the noun “exit” used as a verb. 

English is always turning nouns into verbs. Look at tasked or gifting. As a further example, until about the 1960s, jet was strictly a noun. Then people started flying in jets. They started jetting. That was cool; jet as a verb is exciting. It implies speed, high fashion, importance. It has an emotional content and descriptive power. 

Not so exit. Police investigators are specifically trained to write emotion-free, neutral text to avoid prejudicing any possible prosecutions. Their reports are dry as dust: “The subject exited the area.” It may be accurate, but it certainly doesn’t carry the same impact as “The perp ran away,” does it?  

I see exit so often in the submissions I edit that it has become like a no-see-um, the ubiquitous New England pest. They’re barely visible, but their bite will jolt me right out of whatever I’m doing. And the last thing you want to do is jolt your readers out of your story.  

Fiction writing is all about emotion. Every time you can choose an emotive word over a non-emotive word, do so. Exit is flat. It shows the reader nothing about the character or the action. It’s an easy choice when you’re writing fast, but in your rewrites you should leave it for police and military reports, stage directions, and computer instructions. Find verbs that play multiple roles—leave, emerge, step out, run away, saunter, take off, veer, sidle, slink, stride. A horse can exit a barn, or it can bolt, skitter, trot, slip, meander, or plod. See how each verb creates a different picture in your mind? 

So barricade the exits. Do a search in your manuscript and examine each use of the word. Replace it ninety-nine times out of a hundred, and watch your writing come alive.

The Lies Have It

Recently the comic strip Pickles featured Opal complaining about things that really annoy her: web sight instead of website, low and behold instead of lo and behold. I’m right there with her. Homophones (words that sound alike) drive me crazy. This morning my local paper trumpeted my right to bare arms. Tank tops for all!

Opal also bemoaned the misuse of lay, as in “I’m going to lay down.” Of course, you all know that it should be “lie down.” What? You’re confused, too? Well, join the club. Lie and lay confuse a lot of people.

Here’s a simple chart I made to help clarify the issue:

Verb	Definition	Present	Past	Past Perfect	Participle	Case
Lie (1)	To tell an untruth	Lie, lies	Lied	Lied	Lying	Intransitive
Lie (2)	To rest in or move into  a horizontal position	Lie, lies	Lay	Lain	Lying	Intransitive
Lay	To set down; to put in position	Lay, lays	Laid	Laid	Laying	Transitive

I included Lie (1), “to tell an untruth,” for completeness. This “lie” is pretty straightforward with the exception of its participle, lying. The y replaces the ie in order to maintain the pronunciation. The same thing happens with the participle of Lie (2).

The difficulty arises with Lie (2) and Lay, specifically because the past tense of Lie is the same as the present tense of Lay. So you could say, “I lay on the sofa” and mean you did it yesterday or you’re doing it today. Except if you mean you’re doing it today, you’re using the wrong verb.

One good clue is in the last column of my chart. Lie is intransitive; Lay is transitive. I know, I know, geeky grammar words, but they’re pretty easy to understand. They contain “trans.” Think transportation, transit, transfer. A transitive verb transfers action from the subject to the object: I hold your hand. She loves you.

Lay is a transitive verb. It transfers action from the subject to the object: He lays his cards on the table. I laid my head on his shoulder. We have laid my father to rest. So whenever you are laying something, use Lay. Fortunately, it’s the easy one to remember—lay, laid, laid.

Lie, however, is intransitive. It describes an action, but doesn’t transfer the action from the subject to the object. “I lie on the sofa” describes what you are doing on the sofa, not what you are doing to the sofa. So when you need to describe an action, use Lie. His cards lie on the table. My head lay on his shoulder. My father has lain in peace for two years. If this seems hard to you, remember that the forms of Lie are harder to remember—lie, lay, lain.

Some folks believe that lie should be used with people, lay with things. This is an urban myth. A blanket can lie on the sofa just as easily as a person.

Got it? No? Check out Chicago Manual of Style for more info. Or a good dictionary.

(P.S.—Just to confuse the matter even more, my dictionary informs me that lie and lay were used interchangeably until about 200 years ago. There is even some discussion of returning to that interchangeability. However, most commentators frown on mixing up lie and lay.)