"Die heiresses! Die heiresses!" I repeated over and over as I moved around the living room, applying polish to the dusty, mildew-pocked furniture.
An odd mantra for house-cleaning? You bet. But I'd just come across a surefire way to remember how to pronounce diaeresis--those two dots that The New Yorker and other staid publication put over the second o in cooperate. (I never do, preferring to live dangerously and also because it's a pain to do on the laptop.)
In the course of my teaching, occasionally someone will ask about this usage and I've been guilty of calling this mark "those two little dots" or "an umlaut" (incorrect unless you're writing German.) So I am delighted to add this bit of knowledge to my fund of trivia.
Yes, I've been reading another book about grammar and usage. Mary Norris's delightful Between You and Me is part grammar book and part memoir, including Norris's thirty some years at The New Yorker, as well as an early stint as a foot checker at a public pool and later as a milk
From tips on pencils, erasers, and pencil sharpeners to a discussion of hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes--including the hyphen in the title Moby-Dick, to a consideration of proposed gender-neutral pronouns (I hate the use of they for someone of indeterminate gender--they is plural, dammit! but rather like a proposal to use ey, em, or eir) to a hilarious chapter ("F**K THIS SH*T) on the proliferation of profanity in modern prose, the book is a gem.
I loved it. Especially recommended for my fellow word nerds.
There's an excellent review HERE.
8 comments:
Sounds delightful. If they don't teach grammar and punctuation these days (do they?), kids are missing out on a lot of fun. I still recall some of the lessons, trying to punctuate 'Time flies you cannot they pass much too quickly' and having 'different FROM' drilled into me. I still have a battered copy of 'First aid in English' which I used to love to read, mainly for the list of weirdly descriptive collective nouns.
I am reminded of a grammar book that I once read and enjoyed: Eats Shoots and Leaves. It was decidedly British, but I liked it. Canadians are half British anyway when it comes to usage. Maybe more than half.
I think that EATS SHOOTS AND LEAVES was the beginning of my addiction to grammar books. Maybe Strunk and White's ELEMENTS OF STYLE came first with its sly, dry wit.
And let us not forget "The Transitive Vampire: a Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed" for another imaginative treatment of grammar reference.
Looks good.
www.rsrue.blogspot.com
definitely a fellow word nerd herd. I am attempting to teach English to the English! Them and grammar are enemies. Or the roper use of words.
But what is/are en dashes/em dashes? Am I just too thick to get it`/
here not herd. stupid fingers. Ditto proper not roper. I think it’s the auto-correct what does it.
An en dash is basically a hyphen, the width of an n. Hence the nae. And an em dash is a bit longer, the width of an m.
Ah auto-correct-the source of so much inadvertent humor.
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