Unique Baby Names??

I can't even begin to explain how I ended up on this web page, but I found a site that suggested ways to come up with unique names for your newborn (or to be born) children.

Unique punctuation - Create a totally unique name by making unusual use of punction such as the placing of an apostrophe, a hyphen or a middle Capital Letter.

Alternative Spellings - An easy way to create unique baby names. A good example is Ryann or Delyia.

First of all, does that really say 'punction'?

And second, there should be editing rules against this sort of baby naming.

More about parallelism (and a little about diction)

On page two of the handout on semicolons ("Celebrating the Semicolon in a Most Unlikely Location") is an interesting example of parallelism. In this case, paragraphs are made parallel, with a bit of variation.

After reporting Neil Neches's insertion of the semicolon in NY subway placards and explaining how it came to be, author Sam Roberts presents comments by various authorities on grammar and punctuation. The section reads:

Louis Menand, an English professor at Harvard and a staff writer at The New Yorker, pronounced the subway poster’s use of the semicolon to be “impeccable.”

Lynne Truss, author of “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation,” called it a “lovely example” of proper punctuation.

Geoffrey Nunberg, a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, praised the “burgeoning of punctuational literacy in unlikely places.”

Allan M. Siegal, a longtime arbiter of New York Times style before retiring, opined, “The semicolon is correct, though I’d have used a colon, which I think would be a bit more sophisticated in that sentence.”

The linguist Noam Chomsky sniffed, “I suppose Bush would claim it’s the effect of No Child Left Behind.”

Let's look at the structure of these paragraphs:

name of authority / identification of profession / verb / comment

As you'll notice, there is a bit of variation here within the parallel structure: in the last paragraph, Roberts uses a restrictive appositive--"the linguist"--instead of following Chomsky's name with a modifier. He could have easily written "Noam Chomsky, noted linguist and philosopher…" Why didn't he? I think one answer might be that Chomsky is such a towering figure, Roberts felt there was no reason to identify him beyond "the linguist." You'll notice too that out of all the verbs paired with the authorities, the most condescending follows Chomsky's name.

Pronounced and called are neutral in tone, praised is positive, and opined is, in this context, overly formal, suggesting, as sniffed does, something about the authority's character. Opined and sniffed comment on Siegel and Chomsky, respectively, just as their statements comment on Neches. Roberts selected these verbs with care--this is what we mean by diction--and we can see that his sense of humor emerged when he got to the last two authorities.

How should the copyeditor handle something like the last paragraph? I would say that he or she could assume that given the parallelism of the first four paragraphs, Roberts was making a deliberate stylistic choice. Was it a good choice, though, one that should be respected and allowed to stand? I would say yes, but I wonder if Eleanor Gould might disagree…

Neil Neches in one of the cars he helped civilize with the semicolon.

Exercise F

Some of the answers in the answer key to exercise F seem vague to me.

For example, (lines 13, 14, and 15)

"A company that produces fewer than eight or ten titles a year is most likely a two- or-three-person operation,..."

The answer key for 14-15 indicates that a

" A Suspended compound: " two- or three-person operation." Make sure the hyphens and word spaces are indicated correctly."

Other examples included are:

The fourteen- and fifteen-year-old students attended.
Steel-plated or -cased vaults were used.

I feel like the correct answer should be a two-or-three person operation. The explanation doesn't clarify the answer to me. When I look up hyphenated compounds the only explanation that I can find says, "if it is not listed in the dictionary then there is no hyphen." There has to be a better explanation. I find this confusing.

Also, I feel unclear about lines 27- 28,

"books, computer books, gardening books, cook- books, and every stripe of how-to-books."

The answer key for line 28 states that

"Dictionaries show a hyphen in the adjective how-to, but there's no hyphen between the adjective how-to and the noun book.

and then changes "how-to-books" to "how-to book".

I am confused about the placement of the hyphens, and why the the plural form of book becomes singular in the answer key.

Just for kicks.

parallelism

A conversation with Chad on Thursday forced me to turn to my book for answers on this topic. When checking for parallelism I tend to just look at the verbs in the item in question. For example, I would check to make sure all of the tenses matched. However, when I referred to the book I found parallelism can lie not just in verb tense, but also in any part of speech in the series. A series is in parallel form only when each term belongs to the same part of speech, which does not necessarily have to be a verb.

There is a Style Sheet for Everything

I was looking around for examples of style-sheets the other day and I just realized that these are everywhere. Style sheets are present in everything that we use. Web content is mostly constructed of style sheets like the one above. The only difference between our style sheets and the ones used online is that ours deals with grammatical style as opposed to the styling of the appearance that is included in every aspect of this blog and other websites we browse. Just made the connection after my Google search and thought I would share.

especially |iˈspe sh əlē|

In writing a message to a friend, I used the word specially. Curious to see in what respects the word differed from especially, I looked up the latter in my computer's dictionary application. Here is what I found:

adverb

1 used to single out one person, thing, or situation over all others : he despised them all, especially Sylvester | a new song, written especially for Jonathan.

2 to a great extent; very much : he didn't especially like dancing | [as submodifier ] sleep is especially important for growing children.

USAGE There is some overlap in the uses of especially and specially. In the broadest terms, both words mean ‘particularly’ and the preference for one word over the other is linked with particular conventions of use rather than with any deep difference in meaning. For example, there is little to choose between: written especially for Jonathan and | written specially for Jonathan, and neither is more correct than the other. On the other hand, in sentences such as | he despised them all, especially Sylvester, substitution of specially is found in informal uses but should not be used in written English, while in | the car was specially made for the occasion, substitution of especially is somewhat unusual. Overall, especially is by far the more common of the two.

And here is what the thesaurus said:

adverb

1 complaints poured in, especially from Toronto MAINLY, mostly, chiefly, principally, largely; substantially, particularly, primarily, generally, usually, typically.

2 a committee especially for the purpose EXPRESSLY, specially, specifically, exclusively, just, particularly, explicitly.

3 he is especially talented EXCEPTIONALLY, particularly, specially, very, extremely, singularly, strikingly, distinctly, unusually, extraordinarily, uncommonly, uniquely, remarkably, outstandingly, really; informal seriously, majorly.