I’m Ellen Jovin, I’ve traveled almost 30,000 miles with my popup grammar-advice stand, called the Grammar Table, and I’m here to answer grammar questions! AMA

On a scale of 1 to apoplectic, how annoyed would you be if there was a grammar error in your post?

That made me laugh out loud. Not that apoplectic, but what a great word that is!

My answer would depend on the error type.

Usually a 3 or 4 for a typo, but certain categories of errors might raise me to a 7.

Are you trying to tell me something? ;)

“Pop up is a verb that describes the action of appearing suddenly. Pop-up is used both as an adjective and a noun to refer to website popups. Popup is the most popular spelling used to refer to a website popup, despite being grammatically incorrect.8 Nov 2021”

Haha! I figured something like this was coming. I sometimes joke that I could be the Dehyphenator for Halloween—I tend to close things up as soon as I think I can get away with it. But maybe you're right that I should be more careful about that one. I will take it under advisement. ;)

Language evolves. Give it a few years and you’ll be correct 😉

It happened with "e-mail", so it could happen eventually!

Are you saying I should be spelling it email? Because I still use the hyphen!

Some people still use the hyphen, so you have company. I switched over a long time ago. The New York Times started writing "email" instead of "e-mail" almost 10 years ago, but I still see "e-mail" in The New Yorker.

There's a pretty good rule of thumb for these verbs that have become nouns, and that is that nouns become a single word. You log in using your login. A popup pops up.

Every day I see people misuse “everyday”, it’s like a regular, everyday thing!

good work on that one

This site explains it as perhaps an eventual final evolution after a period of being a hyphenated phrase.

https://writing-rag.com/153/hyphen-or-not/

Some phrases are used as nouns. “That was a nasty put-down.”

One type of exception to these hyphenations: Some phrases have become so common they have turned into compound words. You have a pickup truck, a login ID, and a nice setup.

(Your comment prompted me to look that up, as I was misremembering that the verb "log in" should be hyphenated. I see now that I've lately been incorrectly hyphenating things with egregious frequency.)

Hyphens are complicated. I tend to hyphenate the noun "follow-up" but not the noun "setup." "Followup" just looks too weird to me, and it makes me want to rhyme it with Puyallup.

Your so nice for not being to upset. /s

Language is a cooperative undertaking.

Have you considered a grammar hotline for people with urgent needs? I feel like the world needs a Grammar Phone.

I have actually considered it. I'd rather sit at the Grammar Table though. ;)

If I end a sentence with an abbreviation, do I add an extra period? I live in the U.S.A..

No, you have fulfilled your obligation by putting one.

Oxford comma....like or dislike?

I am usually indifferent. I’ve gone through different life stages depending on the kind of work I’m doing. In some stages I used it; in others I didn't.

I am currently in an Oxford comma stage of life. But whatever people's general habits, it's good to use it in cases like this, where omitting it could create confusion about the boundaries between items:

At the state fair she ate pizza, spaghetti and meatballs, and corn dogs. Then she regretted it all.

Anyone experiment with intentionally leaving it out to a sentence could have 2 different meanings, leaving the reader in suspense? I wanna do this now.

Here's one for the Oxford comma addicts here. How many people did I invite to the party, according to this sentence?

I invited my mother, my first Spanish teacher, and my neighbor to the language festival.

Staunch Oxford comma supporter here! I absolutely see how that sentence can be ambiguous, but I don't think that's a problem with the Oxford comma. If you invited two people because your mother was your first Spanish teacher, then the sentence could have simply been rearranged for clarity: "I invited my neighbor and my mother, my first Spanish teacher, to the language festival."

I'd be very interested in finding cases where reordering wouldn't help, though!

You don't always WANT to reorder things, though. I want my mom to go first! She's my mom!

But I don't mean to say that I think this ambiguity is a meaningful problem. I don't.

I'd be tempted to put dashes to avoid confusion. So:

I invited my mom - my first Spanish teacher - and my neighbour. "

I guess you could also leave the commas but add" my mom, who was my first Spanish teacher" but personally I prefer brevity.

Yes, I just like to point out that Oxford commas OCCASIONALLY create rather than eliminate confusion. I agree that your other options are better, though.

Opinions on Semi-colons? Personally, I love them but I hear they've fallen out of fashion.

I hope that's not true. If it is, I will have to get rid of all my semicolon T-shirts.

I am disappointed that you didn't write this response such that it required a semicolon.

Yes, that's very sad; semicolons are awesome and should be used more.

Did I do that right?

That was excellent, Zoetje_Zuurtje!

baltinerdist, I'm sorry to disappoint; next time I will do better. ;)

Thanks! I'm not a native English speaker, so this stuff is hard for me. :)

Correct me if I'm wrong u/GrammarTable, but use a semicolon like you would a period for two very connected sentences. Using a period finishes a thought. But, if you're still on the same topic, you can use a semicolon to emphasize the interconnectedness of two sentences.

That sounds totally reasonable.

Hi everyone, it's 1:34 Eastern and I have to go back to work, but I will be back later to answer a bunch of questions I ran out of time for (<-- concluding preposition). Thank you for participating and for making me laugh repeatedly! I love dorky grammar jostling, and I'd love to do this again sometime.

Also, I'm so glad I took that eighth-grade typing class!

Ellen aka The Grammar Table

How do you feel about people justifying their poor grammar with excuses like, "language changes over time" and "common usage"?

We've all irritated people who came before us. When enough people agree about a linguistic mutation, it does tip over into broadly accepted change, but there's not a clear traffic light for the moment this happens, so in the meantime we fight! As I said on Twitter the other day, "Every generation’s language habits are annoying to members of previous generations, and then we die and someone else annoys someone else. It's all part of the marvelous cycle of life, so if you are cranky, great job!"

or similarly, if you correct someone and they say "what does it matter if you still understood what I meant?"

I've given up on your / you're, but the new one that drives me up the wall is could of / should of / would of. How do you of?!

People underestimate how unpleasant it is to read poorly written documents. If I understand your email but it requires 10% more energy to figure out what you are (maybe) saying than it requires for me to understand your colleague's email, well, I am not going to look forward to your email. Imposing on others' time and mental energy has a cost. Good writing is like hospitality. It's not about our own experience; it's about the readers'/guests' experiences.

I've seen that one for my entire life. It is like wallpaper now.

Not OP, but the one excuse I hate is, "Well, it's not a professional environment, I'm just on social media, so what does it matter?" But what happens is those same people make the same mistakes when they are using professional correspondence at work. Habits are hard to break, especially bad ones.

That is true. It's almost like a kind of multi-language fluency. Also, people are often quite bad at recognizing when they have entered a situation that requires greater care. People send too many messages beginning like this to people they don't know and are trying to work with:

hey egbert

That's going to bug some Egberts out there!

Ok if I’m writing dialogue with a question mark, do I do it like this: “What is that?” She asked.

Just make the "she" lowercase and you're good!

What's the deal with ending a sentence with a preposition? Is that a real rule and is just something up with which we must put?

I end with prepositions all the time. In fact, I spend a lot of time trying to get people to stop worrying about that one. Sometimes concluding with a preposition is not the most elegant or high-impact way to end an idea, but sometimes it's needed and natural. Who wants to run around sounding like a weirdo?

"From where are you?"

No! I want friends!

Is it "For fuck's sake" or "For fucks sake"?

Haha, I use the apostrophe. Most of the time I see ffs, which bypasses the issue.

Why is the word colonel pronounced as “kernel”? Is it incorrect to pronounce the word using the middle “l” sound?

It's mildly complicated. You can read a bit about the r component here: https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=colonel. I love roaming around that website.

Is word pronunciation part of grammar? If so, please comment on "nucular" vs "nuclear". This one drives me nuts (as, IMHO, highly educated people mispronounce this seemingly-easy word).

It's technically not grammar, but I happily engage with grammar-adjacent topics too.

Rather than throw stones, because they'd probably come back and bonk me in the head, I will note that people have complained about my own Southern California pronunciation—for example, my vowels in Dawn and Don, and even how I say "the."

It's a rough world out there.

Or why do some European people pronounce "lieutenant" like there's an "F" in it?

Here's some commentary on that: https://www.etymonline.com/word/lieutenant#:\~:text=lieutenant%20(n.),%22substitute%22%20for%20higher%20authority.

Hello, and thanks for the AMA!

1) Do you consider yourself more of a prescriptivist or a descriptivist?

2) Favorite grammatical feature in a language other than English?

I am solidly both. Most of us are solidly both, with our percentages varying depending on context. The prescriptivism goes up when it’s for work and down when there's barbecue involved.

how do you feel about using the word "BBQ" as a noun or adjective in prose?

I can't imagine having a reason to do that myself except maybe on social media or in a text. Do people sometimes pronounce it as the letters, though? B B Q?

I'm my region, "barbecue" (or "barbeque" if you're feeling saucy) refers to the grill, whereas "BBQ" would refer to an event.

For example: "Come to Homer's BBBQ. The extra B is for BYOBB."

In that case, I'd use BBQ where it fits. I don't have a lot of BBQ experience. I have a bit more barbecue experience. :)

Can you use your vast powers to stop people from using 'of' where they should use 'have' and can you prevent the combination of 'hence, why...'? Since I just used one, can you also drill into people's heads that an ellipsis is just 3 dots?

Haha! I will see what I can do.

In Chinese I believe an ellipsis is six dots—extra ellipsisy!

How many languages are you fluent in?

The most I have ever been fluent in at once is six. Fluent goes way beyond just having some skills. I’ve maintained some level of skill in a lot more than six, but it all ebbs and flows depending on how actively I’m using them. Right now I’m refreshing several languages because the pandemic kind of cut into my public practice time!

Nonplussed....why does everyone get it wrong?

I think they see the "non" bit and think, Oh, this person is not bothered, totally chill. It helps to look up the history: https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=nonplussed

Is there an easy way to remember when to properly use ‘who’ or ‘whom’?

For the most part, if it's after a preposition, such as "to" or "for," it is whom. Also if you can rephrase it in a way that you can substitute "he" correctly, it's "who." If "him" is correct, then it's "whom."

That is true, but in the word shuffling and testing, people sometimes get confused. How about this one?

"To __________ (whoever, whomever) is stealing my newspaper every morning, knock it off!"

I can give you one for when you have commas located conveniently nearby. But first, how about a mini-quiz?

1. Mary, ________ (who, whom) I admire, was just fired.
2. Mary, _______ (who, whom) I believe is an excellent writer, was just fired.

Answers: 1. whom, 2. who

In #1, the idea is "I admire HER," so you use the comparable object form, "whom."

In #2, the idea is "I believe SHE is an excellent writer," so you use the comparable subject form, which is "who."

I'm from Oklahoma, so I may be wrong, but "who" seems to work best for both of these.

I laughed out loud at that, ThorinPFK!

When in doubt, I do think it's best to go with "who." "Whom" in the wrong place usually sounds worse to my ear than "who" in the wrong place.

Chicago Manual of Style or Strunk and White? Or a different one?

I don't use Strunk & White anymore, but it influenced me as a young student. I use Chicago and the AP style guide and Garner's Modern English Usage and Merriam-Webster and anything else I feel like checking when an issue is extra ornery.

Starting a sentence with "and" or "but", yay or nay? I can never get a straight answer!

Yes, but it just has to sound cool, and that's a judgment call. It's about the rhythm and the content! Journalists do it. Novelists do it. You can do it too. I do!

This is a huge load off my shoulders! I'm writing a book and was fretting over beginning some sentences that way!

I've done it in all my books.

I have a question about the word "myriad." I was taught in school that the proper way to use this word would be something like:
"He quit his current job due to a myriad of reasons"

Yet in many online articles I see authors use it as such:
"He quit his current job due to myriad reasons"

Which is correct?

I grew up thinking the exact opposite was true, and I remember moving east many years ago and suddenly seeing "myriad of" and thinking it was wrong. Both noun and adjective forms are in use and are fine. Because people are SO likely to think that whatever one does is wrong, I don't use the word anymore. I don't really need it anyway. After all the arguing over what part of speech it is, the fun has been taken out of it for me. ;)

What do you do when you are writing copy for someone else (i.e., for pay) and they insist on style conventions that you think make the prose confusing or harder to read?

Explain gently once or twice, maybe (but only maybe, because people don't want to read some long thing) with authoritative references that demonstrate your subject-matter expertise.

If that has no effect, smile and accept the check.

Is it okay to say:

"There's so many options!" or "There's fifteen from which to choose!" instead of "There're so many options!" or "There are fifteen from which to choose!"?

I hear it all the time on TV and in conversation.

I’d typically say this: “There’re so many options to choose from.”

But yeah, in speech lots of people use a singular verb after “there,” no matter what follows.

I am unlikely to say “There’re so many options from which to choose.” I want to have friends!

Is there a technical name for the thing going on in this sentence:

"He went downstairs and picked up his phone, wallet, keys, and was surprised by a knock at his front door."

Like, I know there should be an "and" before "keys", but is there a snappy and recognisable way to refer to the specific error being committed here? There's a podcast I enjoy that does this 2-3x an episode and it totally yanks me out of whatever the guy is talking about whenever it happens, but since I lack any kind of concise third-party explanation of why it's 'wrong', I feel unable to effectively complain about it.

It's a problem with grammatical parallelism. There is a series (a list) of three nouns in that bit, and that series technically calls for an "and" to finish it out before the writer/speaker abandons the structure and moves on to the next piece of the predicate (verb + additional stuff). I'm surprised you notice this in speech! I would also expect it to happen more in writing than in speech, because in my experience people look at a sentence and start freaking out over the multiple "and"s and removing necessary ones that they would normally keep if they were just talking.

I’ve forgotten how to diagram a sentence. Is it worth trying to pick it up again and if so, can you suggest where to find a decent tutorial?

By extraordinary coincidence, surely no one could have anticipated this, I have some diagramming videos for you if you're interested: ;)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP-B_yUbI53snnHzBN2bAVg

I find it fun to play around with these things. Playing around with language is usually useful in one way or another, I think, but it is not something I go around recommending as a way to, say, improve writing. I'd do it for kicks and giggles, though!

I have an internet point to make here. What is the correct usage of the words "less" and "fewer"?

Use "less" with uncountable nouns and "fewer" with countable nouns. Examples: less water and fewer people.

I don't mean to cause trouble here, but what about this?

1. Write a summary in 25 words or ________ (fewer, less).
2. My pet pig weighs ________ (fewer, less) than 90 pounds.

Is the subjunctive disappearing in English? Do you think that's a bad thing?

British English speakers sometimes skip it in cases where it feels mandatory to me. For example, I do this:

I recommend that he GO (not goes) to the meeting.

I don't usually mind its absence. Every once in a while, though, it confuses me when it's not there.

I love subjunctive! I have books on subjunctive in other languages!

In the form of an old-time SAT question:

Who : That as Whose : __________ ??

Whose.

Fun one.

I was taught about possessive apostrophe usage at elementary school in the 90s/2000s. I thought if a word ends in s but isn't plural, you tack on 's. Like Jesus's. But I see online publications' style guides saying it's fine to just end it in an apostrophe.

Which is it? Am I remembering wrong?

There are multiple coexisting styles for this, which contributes to confusion. Back in the late 1970s, I was probably taught to do Jesus' (same for other Biblical and classical names ending in s), but these days I do Jesus's.

In New York papers, you see different styles:

NY Times: Charles's desk

WSJ: Charles's desk

NY post: Charles' desk

I do Charles's desk. I have your back.

What are some of the grammatical features you've encountered that are the MOST different from English and the Romance languages?

This isn't the MOST different, but I enjoy Slavic languages for their amazing number of forms: numbers, adjectives, and nouns all change form based on case and other factors. There are a lot of cases, and it's quite an adventure.

I also enjoy languages where I don't need a verb in sentences like this:

"I am a grammar nerd."

Arabic is one of those. It's fun and it feels a little rebellious to skip "to be."

I get conflicting advice on the use of collective nouns. Could you please provide direction as to which of the following is correct? Thanks.

1) The majority is.... 2) The majority are... 3) The majority of people is... 4) The majority of people are...

Advice on this subject is regularly conflicting.

#1 and #2 could both work, depending on context.

4 is right in both American and British English. I'd consider #3 weird or outright wrong in both, even in American English, which favors some singulars where British English favors plurals. People think because "majority" is singular in form, it requires a singular verb, but if it's followed by a countable plural noun, which it usually will be, I'd go plural every time.

Sometimes when things sound weird, it's because they are weird. We'd also say "Most of the people are..."

I made a poll for you, dunno if you can see this! https://twitter.com/GrammarTable/status/1551767931176062976

You've been all over the country. What city do you think is most grammatical?

I know better than to answer this question. ;)

OK, more seriously now: There are language lovers and artists everywhere. My neighborhood in Manhattan (the Upper West Side) seems to have a very high grammar-nerd density, though.

I think it's ok to sometimes omit a conjunctive adverb or transitional expression when using a semicolon; would you agree or is that incorrect to do?

Not incorrect. Not all semicolon situations require those. In fact, many don't. Sometimes there's just a quiet suspense hovering around the semicolon. It's chic and it's cool!

On a scale of one to ten (with ten being OMG I FOOKIN’ LOVE IT), how much joy do you get out of sentence diagramming?

That's easy. 10! You?

Is it James' jean jacket or James's jean jacket?

And is it pronounced James jean jacket or james-is jean jacket?

I write "James's jean jacket." I say James-is.

Most of my business clients do James' jean jacket but also say James-is.

We are all correct, which is awesome.

Some people say James jean jacket, but to me that sounds as though the person is named Jame.

I’m a writing tutor and I occasionally write commentary for newspapers. I want to take my writing to the next level by working on long-form essays and books.

What are your top three grammar and style tips for an up-and-comer like me? (Conceptual and theoretical answers are okay)

1. If you think a "correct" way of doing something sounds weird—grammatically, I mean—it might not be a real rule and you should check before you bother following it.
2. There is no such thing as looking things up too often. In authoritative sources, of course—not random websites whose reliability you can't confirm. I am a looker-upper.
3. Sometimes when things don't work stylistically, it's because you are getting in your own way. Authenticity is critical to honest and excellent writing.

Does a ? Or ! Go inside or outside “ “

It varies based on whether the ? or ! belongs to the quote or to the author. For example:

Charles asked, "Where are my keys?"

BUT

Did you just call Charles "a snarling, key-losing misanthrope"?

punctuation in quotations. does it always belong inside the quotes? also, if I'm writing a sentence and it ends with a quoted question:

and once I finished my whole spiel, she had the nerve to ask me, "what did you say?"

is that the proper way to end the sentence? or should there also be a period?

In American English, periods and commas are always inside. For exclamation points and question marks, it depends on whether the exclamation or question is part of the quoted material or part of the author's material.

In your example, capitalize the word "what" and you are all set! No additional period.

I hope I’m not too late here but I’ve always wondered this. For example when someone says “Bob and I’s appointment is at 2pm.” Is that correct? Or is it “Bob’s and my appointment .”? Or is it something else?

Hope this makes sense!

I brought this up a couple of days ago as a chronic problem in English grammar. I do "Bob's and my appointment," but I think my pupils dilate slightly as it comes out of my mouth.

I cannot get behind "Bob and I's appointment."

When you are learning a new language, how do you keep from being confused by the languages you already know?

I don't. I get confused. But I just keep trying. The journey is fun for me.

I have come to accept the British pronunciation of "aluminium" due to the fact that the person who coined the word said it that way in the first place.

In addition, I have recently learned that the person who coined the word "GIF" pronounces it with the soft G sound but I just can't bring myself to do that.

How do I reconcile these two?

I can't say jiff either. You can say it your way to me and I won't tell on you. Language evolves the way it evolves in spite of the preferences of particular individuals.

Do you have a preference on "All of the sudden" vs. "All of a sudden"? Seems the latter is much more widely used these days, but I learned* it as "the" growing up, so it always sticks out to me like fingers on a chalkboard when I hear "a".

*(And speaking of "learned", how do you feel about Americans using "learnt" (and other similar type -ed/t words), when that is more of a British thing? Seems like some Americans will selectively adopt certain 'British-isms' in their writing, while not using others, and this one is one of the most common examples.)

I did a Twitter poll on this in 2019 if you can see these results: https://twitter.com/GrammarTable/status/1202479712485941249. As I expected, "all of a sudden" won out by a lot, but I do hear "all of the sudden." I use "all of a sudden."

I suspect that "learnt" used by Americans will often come across as a little affected in the US. More than "dreamt," for example.

What are your thoughts about ending a sentence in a preposition?

I read once that the reason this became a “rule” is because John Dryden, an English author, hated William Shakespeare’s work. And because Shakespeare apparently did this all the time, Dryden invented this rule to try and discredit the quality of Shakespeare’s writings.

I do it. I do it a lot.

As someone entering graduate school for linguistics, it’s exciting to see this! What’s your educational background and how did you find yourself doing this?

I have a B.A. in German studies and an M.A. in comparative literature. My motto is "Literature first, grammar second," BUT I LOVE GRAMMAR SO MUCH. I've studied a whole bunch of languages for fun, and I am friends with linguists, so I guess they don't find me to be too much of a prescriptivist. You can see more about my background here if you are interested: https://www.ellenjovin.com. Thank you for asking!

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In the US, "judgment." But I don't like it.

In the UK, it would depend on the meaning, and I have to look this one up every time to remind myself of the distinctions made there.

I personally do “accoutrements.” The other is also included in Merriam-Webster, though. I hardly ever write that word!

That’s a matter of spelling, not grammar 🤔

That's fine. I handle grammar-adjacent topics too.

Is "moreso" the new "literally?"

Not around me! Can you give me an example?

Lately, I hear "moreso" used in place of "more" pretty frequently. Like, "I'm moreso hungry than thirsty." It drives my inner amateur grammarian completely insane. :)

Hahaha! I haven't heard that. I have just made you a Twitter poll about that one: https://twitter.com/GrammarTable/status/1551609860688691202.

It's not something I could say!