By Bob Yearick
The Most Common Mistake . . .
. . . is not using the apostrophe to create plurals, although that’s what I’ve been saying for years. Empirical evidence, however, overwhelmingly demonstrates that misplacing quotation marks has taken over the No. 1 spot.
In the United States, periods and commas always go inside quotation marks. This applies whether the quoted material is one word or the entire sentence. Examples:
Sarah said, “I hope to see you at the reunion.”
He claims he was “working,” but I think he was “shirking.”
This rule is, admittedly, counterintuitive because it seems logical that the period, not the quotation mark, should go at the end of the sentence. Perhaps that’s why we in the good ol’ U.S. of A are pretty much alone in this, and it may also explain why about 80 percent of the public (again, speaking empirically here) get it wrong.
Unpalatable, Part 3
For the past two issues, we’ve discussed palate (the roof of the mouth), pallet (a flat transport structure that supports goods while being carried by a forklift; also called a skid), and palette (a range of colors or a comparable range of other things). This month, we take a look at a similar word — palatable — thanks to Jarrett Bell, of USA TODAY, who wrote that Travis Hunter, the No. 1 draft pick of the Jacksonville Jaguars, “. . . is so driven to prove that he can excel while playing receiver and cornerback on the NFL level. And the desire seems palatable as he flashed a huge grin.”
Aside from going from present tense (“seems”) to past tense (“flashed”) there at the end, the writer’s major error was using palatable, which means “agreeable to the palate or taste,” or “agreeable or acceptable to the mind.” We’re pretty sure Jarrett (a frequent contributor here) was groping for palpable — “tangible, easily perceptible.”
Media Watch
• Chris Bumbaca, USA TODAY, writing about Green Bay Packers linebacker Micah Parsons, committed this dangler: “At 26, the Packers will have the pleasure of employing Parsons through the rest of his 20s.” The Packers franchise is 106 years old, not 26, as this sentence implies.
• Chris’s colleague, Jordan Mendoza, made a similar miscue when he wrote: “A five-star recruit in the 2023 class, Oregon was originally where [Dante] Moore intended to go before offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham left for Arizona State.” Oregon wasn’t the five-star recruit, Moore was.
• Reader Jane Buck caught Frank Bruni, erudite columnist for The New York Times, with his spell-check down when he wrote this about actor Sydney Sweeney: “And that Sweeney, Sweeney, Sweeney would be discussed ad nauseum.” That’s ad nauseam.
• Our Midwest correspondent, Cathy Marchand, came across this headline in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
“Where to find pre-fixe meal deals for two in the Twin Cities.” A prix fixe (a French term meaning “fixed price”) is a menu that offers a full meal at a set rate. Diners choose from options for each of three courses, but the price remains the same. Cathy reports that later in the day the paper converted the term to English: “Eight Twin Cities area restaurants serving inexpensive fixed-price meals for two.”
Department of Redundancies Dept.
• Scott Lauber, of The Philadelphia Inquirer, committed one of the (to me) most irritating redundancies when he wrote that Phillies outfielder Nick Castellanos was getting “a pre-planned day off.” With some writers, it’s never enough to plan something; one must pre-plan it.
• A chyron (crawling words at the bottom of the screen) on Philadelphia’s NBC10 informed viewers that “a man accidentally drowned.” The vast majority of drownings are accidental. No need to emphasize it.
• Demetrius Harvey, writing in The Florida Times-Union about Liam Coen, Jacksonville Jaguars head coach: “When asked if he expects Hunter to play on both sides of the ball as he’s done through all of training camp, Coen answered with a simple response.” Responses are answers, and vice versa.
Erratum
• Reader Peter Panzer points out that there was an error in the discussion of military time in the August column: “Hours are numbered 1 through 24, followed by two zeros (pronounced ‘hundreds’).” Peter points out that the two zeros are pronounced hundred, not “hundreds,” so it’s “24 hundred hours.”
Word of the Month
epexegesis
Pronounced eh-pekx-a-gee-sis, it’s a noun meaning the addition of words to clarify meaning.
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