A grammar infographic

I receive occasional e-mail pitches for snazzy infographics, none of which have made it to the pages of Orange Crate Art. These poster-like creations teem with statements that I have no way to verify. And infographics tend to be the work of, let’s say, interested parties. A recent infographic that purported to trace the history of the United States Postal Service was a thinly disguised pitch for an online stamp dealer — which helped to explain why most of the poster was about rare stamps and $$$.

Here is an infographic that I noticed circulating online today. The source is grammar.net, a website offering online grammar- and spell-checking (and offline software). Of the ten tips on this skeuomorphic page, five have problems:


[Click for a larger view.]

“Mind apostrophes”: The explanation and examples are, at best, confusing. A clearer explanation: “Check whether the word is a contraction or a possessive pronoun. Only a contraction takes an apostrophe.” Keeping the examples in a consistent sequence — it’s /its , they’re /their — would help too. A less obvious problem: possessive case is a dubious term. The Chicago Manual of Style (5.19) and Huddleston and Pullum’s A Student’s Introduction to English Grammar (9.1) recommend genitive case. But why bring in the category of case at all? Possessive pronoun works.

“Always use a comma after an introductory or prepositional phrase”: Introductory and prepositional are not contrasting terms. Better advice: “Always use a comma after an introductory phrase or clause.”

“Memorise homophones and endings”: the -able /-ible rule has many exceptions. To offer this rule without qualification is unconscionable. One must be flexible.

“Appositives: these dependent clauses modify the subject and often add non-essential information – offset with commas”: Lynne Truss must have helped punctuate that sentence. But more to the point: an appositive is a word or phrase, not a dependent clause. An appositive may modify any noun or pronoun. The sample sentences contain appositives (Brian O’Brien, the popular sitcom), not dependent clauses.

“Countable and non-countable nouns”: Few works with countable nouns, not non-countable nouns. Few dresses , houses , cars ? Yes. Few money , snow , or time ? No. No!

Go in fear of infographics.

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[I can’t insist on the that / which  distinction. Notice though that tip no. 6 seems to imply that that can introduce a non-restrictive clause. And I won’t argue for a larger point: that most of these tips concern punctuation, spelling, and usage, not grammar.]

Beckett and Bushmiller

[“Oh this is a happy day!”]

George Bodmer, who draws Oscar’s Day, asked if I knew anything about this: The Beckett/Bushmiller Letters. Now I do.

Thanks, George.

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Page Morton Black (1915–2013)

From the New York Times obituary: “For Gothamites of a certain vintage, it was as much a part of life as BUtterfield, ALgonquin and Horn & Hardart — a jaunty little waltz, its lyrics connoting warmth, fiscal security and celestial reward.”

Paige Morton Black sang the Chock Full o’Nuts jingle.

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Chock Full o’Nuts
Chock Full o’Nuts lunch hour
New York, 1964: Chock Full o’Nuts

Mark Trail recycles

[Mark Trail, July 22 and 23, 2013.]

Frankie is a valued member of the poaching team at Big Mike Morrison’s hunting lodge. He’s steady, that Frankie, day after day. Guy’s consistent. Once in a while he puts down his magazine and shifts his eyes. And then different words materialize in his speech balloon.

Mark Trail offered a grand display of recycling in May with Wes Thompson, Wes Thompson.

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[Frankie looks a lot like a Mark Trail with sideburns and a silly hat. Perhaps there’s deeper recycling at work here.]

Charles Hartman on plagiarism

Charles Hartman writes about being plagiarized: “Defining plagiarism is trickier than you might think, but most of the time we distinguish it from other kinds of copying (allusion, quotation) fairly easily: it’s plagiarism if the copyist hopes no one will notice.”

VDP in TNYT

“I believe that anything worth its salt in the arts must create a wobble. We are not polestars.” Van Dyke Parks talks with The New York Times.

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Study = hard work

From a used-book find:

The story is told of an Egyptian prince who went to the library at Alexandria to learn geometry from Ptolemy, the great mathematician. The prince explained to Ptolemy that he had only a little time between hunting and military activities to devote to study so he wanted to learn geometry very quickly and very easily. Ptolemy sent him away with the statement: “There are many royal roads, but there is no royal road to learning.” The statement is still true. The road to learning is study, and it is a hard, steep, rough road. It takes longer to learn fifty Latin words than it takes to dig a ditch one foot deep, one foot wide, and fifty feet long. There was a college professor in Pittsburgh who spent his summers working as a section laborer on a railroad in northern Michigan, because it was a restful business to lift railroad ties after a year’s hard study. Yes, study is hard work.

William H. Armstrong, Study Is Hard Work (David R. Godine, 1995).

[Royal road: “a way of attaining or reaching something without trouble” (New Oxford American Dictionary).]

Route 66 notebook sighting

[“I write everything in here. I write questions, and answers — everything.” Click for a larger view.]

Rod Steiger plays notebook user and escaped convict Justin Lezama in the Route 66 episode “Welcome to the Wedding” (November 8, 1962).

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And more notebook sightings
Angels with Dirty Faces : Cat People : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Extras : Journal d’un curé de campagne : The House on 92nd Street : The Lodger : Murder, Inc. : The Mystery of the Wax Museum : The Palm Beach Story : Pickpocket : Pickup on South Street : Quai des Orfèvres : Railroaded! : Red-Headed Woman : Rififi : The Sopranos : Spellbound : State Fair : T-Men : Union Station : The Woman in the Window

Movie recommendation: Much Ado About Nothing

Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing — now there’s a string of words I never thought I’d type.

Start again: Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing is a delightful adaptation. The film is in the spirit of Michael Almereyda’s 2000 adaptation of Hamlet, with the players speaking Shakespeare’s language in a contemporary setting. Beatrice and Benedick (Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof) are plausible and appealing, and there are many inventive and hilarious bits of business along the way, particularly from Dogberry (Nathan Fillion) and the security detail. Whedon’s black-and-white film evokes both 1930s screwball comedy and Woody Allen’s comedy of manners, both of which themselves owe something to the Shake. I watched this film on spec, so to speak: I had no idea what to expect. What I got was something magical.

You can find out more at the film’s website.

[Two excellent new movies in three weeks. The other: Stories We Tell.]

Recently updated

This American like Now with more details of the like s in the latest This American Life.

[It’s pouring outside.]