Fogarty - Grammar girls quick and dirty tips for better writing

Grammar Girls

QUICK and DIRTY TIPS FOR BETTER WRITING

MIGNON FOGARTY

A Holt Paperback
Henry Holt and Company
New York

Holt Paperbacks
Henry Holt and Company, LLC
Publishers since 1886
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10010
www.henryholt.com

A Holt Paperback and are registered trademarks of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

Grammar Girl, Money Girl, Modern Manners Guy, and Quick and Dirty Tips are trademarks of
Mignon Fogarty, Inc.

Copyright 2008 by Mignon Fogarty, Inc.
All rights reserved.

Distributed in Canada by H. B. Fenn and Company Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fogarty, Mignon.

Grammar Girls quick and dirty tips for better writing / Mignon Fogarty.1st Holt pbk. ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-8831-1

ISBN-10: 0-8050-8831-8

1. English languageGrammar. 2. English languageRhetoric. 3. Report writing.
I. Title. II. Title: Quick and dirty tips for better writing.

PE1112.F613 2008

808'.042dc22

2008000695

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For details contact: Director, Special Markets.

First Edition 2008

Designed by Linda Kosarin

Interior art by Arnie Ten

Printed in the United States of America

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

For Pat and Dude

Grammar Girls

QUICK and DIRTY TIPS FOR BETTER WRITING

WERE ALL GOOD AT SOMETHING. My husband can calculate sales tax in his head, and surprisingly, it turns out Im pretty good at teaching people about language. The revelation came to me slowly at first, and then in a tidal wave.

I had been working as an independent writer and editor for years when one day at the coffeehouse I decided it would be fun to call myself Grammar Girl and produce a short podcast with fun tips to help people remember simple language rulesthe things I saw people mess up over and over again: who versus whom, affect versus effect, how to use semicolons, and other mistakes of that sort. In its simplest form, a podcast is an audio program that is available on the Internet, and producing one seemed like a fun hobby for a girl who already had recording equipment from another project and already corrected errors for a living.

And thenHoly Internets, Batmanthe audience at iTunes found me, figuratively threw me on their shoulders, and yelled Hurray! until the national media couldnt help but notice. Based entirely on word of mouth, the Grammar Girl podcast soon rose to #2 at iTunes, and with a little help from articles in The Wall Street Journal and CNN.com, it reached #1 and I signed a book deal.

The tidal wave didnt stop. I was sitting at my desk one day, minding my own business, when I got a call from a producer at the Oprah Winfrey Show. She wanted me to come to Chicago and be a guest on the show to answer language questions they had received from listeners. Things like that dont happen to girls like me! I said yes; and together my publisher and I cranked out a Grammar Girl audiobook to correspond with my appearance. It did well.

The stories continued, and the podcast was covered in USA Today, BusinessWeek, The New York Times, and many other outlets. Every time I was sure it would be the last. (How many people could there possibly be who were interested in grammar?) But so far theyve kept coming.

All the while I have continued to put out a free show each week with a quick and dirty tip to help people write better, produce an e-mail newsletter with an additional tip, and oversee the entire Quick and Dirty Tips Network, which has grown out of the original Grammar Girl series. And of course, Ive been writing this book.

Ive spent a fair amount of time (too much time, really) pondering why so many people are excited about my little podcast. From what I can gather, the fun and friendly nature of the show plays an important role, and the need to write well is greater than it has been in a long time. Were writing more often than people did twenty years ago because e-mail and text messaging have taken the place of phone calls, and blogging is a popular pastime. Were all professional writers these days because our coworkers, friends, and family judge us on our writing, and we all secretly fear that we could do a better job.

This book is not intended to be a comprehensive style guide like The Chicago Manual of Style or Garners Modern American Usage (both useful books for truly professional writers). This is a practical guide for everyday writers. I once gave everyone on my Christmas list batteries and film; I am nothing if not practical. So Im giving you the batteries and film of languagethe things everyone will use. I wont have my tips returned for cash or hiding on the closet shelf to be hauled out when I come over for dinner!

My philosophy is that learning about language should be fun. Im not in this for the thrill of running a metaphorical red pen through e-mail messages or blog posts. Although writing badly is like dressing in lime skorts and an orange plaid sweaterpeople noticepublicly correcting a strangers writing is as rude as asking someone with a fashion problem Did you think that looked good when you got dressed this morning? I would do neither. Instead, I hope to raise the waters of good writing by distributing quick and dirty tips as widely as possible. Really, I cant resist: I get flashes of crazy memory tricks, funny phrases, and cartoons where Aardvark (a blue aardvark) and Squiggly (a yellow snail) go on grammar adventures, and I love to share them all with you.

EVEN THOUGH MY SHOW is called Grammar Girl, the secret is that its not usually grammar that confounds peopleits usage. I get complaints from purists, but Usage Girl doesnt have the same ring to it as Grammar Girl, and my books and podcasts arent for purists anywaytheyre for people who actually need help. Usage is about choosing the right word or phrase. Its something teachers generally expect you to pick up on your own, and its the thing youre most likely to get skewered for if you screw up. (Life is so unfair!) I dont recall ever being taught the difference between affect and effect, for example; I was just expected to know.

Certain words are more difficult than others. I call them the dirty words, and were going to tackle them here.

A lot of people learned the rule that you put a before words that start with consonants and an before words that start with vowels, but its actually a bit more complicated than that.

The actual rule is that you use a before words that start with a consonant sound and an before words that start with a vowel sound.

Squiggly waited for an hour.

Aardvark was on a historic expedition.

An hour is correct because hour starts with a vowel sound. People seem to most commonly get tripped up by words that start with the letters h and u because sometimes these words start with vowel sounds and sometimes they start with consonant sounds. For example, it is a historic expedition because historic