Archive for the ‘grammar’ Category

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The Vine: February 3, 2010

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

Sars,

I have a co-worker with a superior attitude and jealousy streak who cannot separate her personal life from her professional life. She will yell at someone for misusing the copier because her husband lost his job, and she will be an enormous passive-aggressive bitch if you get pregnant because she is infertile.

We work in different offices, have to see each other once weekly, correspond several times a day re: work related topics via email, and are on the same professional level: middle management. However, while my direct supervisor is a director of the company, her direct supervisor is the CEO. She's privy to things like everyone's salary history, so, if you catch her on a friendly day, she will disclose how much everyone makes and has been known to give out private information about employee bonuses. Without being asked, BTW.

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Posted in Vine, friendships, grammar, workplace | 64 Comments »

The Vine: December 2, 2009

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

Dear Sars,

I'm looking for a great self-help book that can teach me how to deal with difficult people. Specifically, my sister-in-law Carrie.

If I spend too much time trying to describe her, it will only make me upset. I'll write a short list of incidents to help you get a (sour, bitter, foul) taste, and perhaps you guys can identify her specific flavor of "difficult."

1. She once told my family that we were terrible people who obviously don't love her, because we never call her. I call her at least once a month. She has called me three times in 15 years.

2. She once screamed at me in the middle of Colonial Williamsburg that I was ruining her marriage, after I said, "Please be nice to my mom."

3. She told my mother that she was a cold, evil woman and that's why she has no friends. (My mother has been caring for my blind father for 20 years — it's a little hard to take him to parties, right?)

4. Groom at wedding: "I'm so glad you could make it!" Carrie: "Well, you're not making me FEEL very welcome."

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Posted in Vine, grammar, kids, the fam | 74 Comments »

The Vine: November 18, 2009

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

What's the proper construction for the possessive form of a noun phrase such as "commander-in-chief"? I know the plural is "commanders-in-chief," but is the plural possessive then "commanders'-in-chief"? "Or commanders-in-chief's"? That doesn't look right…

This question comes from a friend, and I've already recommended he just stay away from the apostrophe-S construction and go with a prepositional phrase instead ("belonging to the commanders-in-chief" or something to that effect). But now the plural possessive construction question is annoying me.

Thanks much!

LJB

Dear LJB,

"Commanders in chief's" looks wrong to me too, but the documentation I could find online says that's the correct construction.

It's less inelegant than the alternatives, I guess.

Sarah,

I have a roommate problem I'm hoping you can help me resolve. Two months ago, I moved into a house where a married couple and a young man were already living. We all get along really well; they give me space, we chat when we run into each other.

The problem: the man-half of the couple (let's call him P) doesn't seem to grasp the concept of lifting the seat. I share a bathroom with the couple, and the other guy (D) lives in the attic apartment and has his own bathroom. Soon after moving in, the wife of the couple warned me that D sometimes uses our bathroom, and "makes a mess," so if I see him coming out could I please remind him to use his own bathroom instead. As a result of this conversation, for weeks when I had to wipe the seat down before I used it I was mentally blaming D, though I only saw him come out of our bathroom once.

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Posted in Vine, grammar, roommates, the fam | 67 Comments »

The Vine: October 29, 2009

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

Sars,

I'm an intern in my state's legislature. My boss is a progressive, feminist woman; however, one of the staffers in her office (and thus my superior) is a guy, and a somewhat misogynistic guy at that.

He's perfectly fine around my boss and his female colleagues, but when it's just the two of us, he often makes sexist remarks. Most of the time it's silly "women! what can you do?"-type stuff, but occasionally he gets annoyed with either my boss or one of our female coworkers and will go off on a sexist rant about how stupid women are and how they should never have power over anything. He even called a particularly difficult lobbyist the C-word (behind her back, of course). He also occasionally engages me in conversations about the levels of attractiveness of the women in our mutual acquaintance.

Now I consider myself a feminist (that's why I'm working for one in the legislature) and as such when other men act sexist around me, I like to shut them down whenever possible. The problem I have is that I don't know how to do that here.

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Posted in Vine, grammar, workplace | 26 Comments »

The Vine: October 1, 2009

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

Hi Sars,

I have a cat question. I've read through most of the Vine archives and haven't found this one, so maybe it's new. Here's the deal: My husband and I have four cats. One of them is all aloof and princessy, doesn't like to interact with the others, which is fine.

The other three are: Pip, a bratty teenaged kitten (not quite a year); Lucky, a big pushy old customer; Simone: a fat, cross-eyed earth mother type. Pip and Lucky and Simone all get along really well (Simone actually nursed Pip when we got him, even though she'd been spayed and he wasn't her kitten — I know, crazy).

Anyway, the three musketeers generally groom each other and snuggle sleepily together and are all lovey-dovey, except when Pip the teenager decides he needs a playmate and tackles Lucky or Simone. (All three of them weigh about the same amount — Pip may still be the smallest.) Then there's lots of thumping and rolling around and yelling from Lucky or Simone, whoever his current victim is.

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Posted in Vine, cats, grammar, health and beauty | 41 Comments »

The Vine: September 23, 2009

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

Dear Miss Bunting,

Thank you for making me laugh until my sides hurt. It's funny because it's true.

I would greatly appreciate it if you would clarify another word faux pas. My head spins off of my shoulders when I hear the expression "reverse discrimination" or "reverse racism." I am by no means an English scholar but common sense tells me that is it either discrimination or it is not. It is either racism or it is not.

Thank you again. I have saved your site to my favorites. I'm sure I will be referring to it often.

TJ

Dear TJ,

Thanks for the compliments!

My sense of that term is that, on the strict usage point, you're right: "discrimination" and "racism" mean what they mean, and the addition of "reverse" is redundant."

That said, and keeping in mind that the point of correct usage is clarity, "reverse" does indicate additional information, namely that the party suffering the bigotry in question is the group usually considered the majority — Caucasians, males, et al.

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Posted in Vine, etiquette, grammar, workplace | 96 Comments »

The Vine: August 26, 2009

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

Hey Sars,

I have an ex-boyfriend question for you. I'll try to sum up as well as possible.

I dated my ex-boyfriend off and on since we were teenagers, then seriously for 5 1/2 years. We broke up 6 years ago. To say he was an asshole would be the understatement of the year. He treated me like shit, he cheated on me, and I stuck around and took it because I "loved him" or whatever-the-hell. When we finally broke up for really-reals-no-I-mean-it-this-time-seriously, it was ugly. We haven't spoken to each other since, and have only seen each other at social events once or twice.

Apparently, the girlfriend he had after me had a bit of a calming influence on him, and got him to seek help in the form of therapy. From there, he was diagnosed bipolar and has since been on medication. My initial reaction upon hearing this was, "Oh, they have a pill to fix 'asshole'?" Seriously, this guy was such a tool, I have no idea why I stuck around so long.

What's prompting this is that recently I got an email from a mutual friend, stating that he wants to talk to me to apologize for, well, whatever he feels the need to apologize for. I'm torn as to what I should do about this. My initial reaction was, "Fuck you, I don't owe you shit."

But now my curiosity is getting the better of me. I still harbor a lot of resentment and anger towards him. There is the potential that I could achieve some sort of release or closure or pick-your-cliché. There is also the potential that it's a load of crap and he's just trying to get back in my pants.

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Posted in Vine, boys (and girls), grammar, workplace | 66 Comments »

The Vine: July 8, 2009

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

How do you alphabetize a list containing items starting with numbers? I remember learning back in the day that you do it as if you were writing the number out. So "5th" goes under F, as if it were "Fifth." But Word, Excel and other computer programs just put numbers at the top of a list, before letters, which drives me nuts because I'm irrational and can't let go of something I learned in elementary school. What do you think?

Thanks!

Adam

Dear Adam,

In the TWoP book, we did it your way; the entry on 21 Jump Street, for example (hee!) (…shut up), went after the entry on 24 and before the entry on Twin Peaks. That's how I tend to do it when it comes up, and I think most readers of a list can figure out pretty quickly which way it's set up.

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Posted in Vine, grammar, health and beauty, workplace | 80 Comments »

The Vine: June 17, 2009

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Dear Sars,

I stumbled into a problem and I'm way out of my depth. I'm hoping you or your readers will have some advice for me.

My husband comes from a family with a history of cancer. He lost his sister very young to a rare sarcoma, his dad's got a brother who's spent his whole life having tumors removed from his head, and his paternal grandmother died fairly young also, I think of leukemia. The other day I got it in my head to wonder whether there's anything more to this than coincidence.

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Posted in Vine, boys (and girls), grammar, health and beauty, the fam | 55 Comments »

The Vine: June 10, 2009

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

Dear Sars,

"Publicly" or "publically"? My instinct says the latter is preferable, but I see the former (which I HATE) more and more in print and online media. Online dictionaries claim they're synonymous. Am I being old-fashioned and snobbish about this?

Thanks,

I Should Probably Stop Being So Public[al]ly Curmudgeonly

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Posted in Vine, grammar | 64 Comments »

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