Punctuation, It Has an Accent?

Dana D. sent this in, noting the extra comma after "evolved." Is it possible this is, how you say, Russian cat?

Things That Make Us [Sic]

In just a couple of months, St. Martin's Press will publish Things That Make Us [Sic]: The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar Takes on Hollywood, the White House, Madison Avenue & the World.

There are now nearly 9,000 members of SPOGG worldwide, and the book owes much to all you loyal readers with your sharp eyes and even sharper senses of humor.

The book's official Web site is finally live (see it here). We're proud to be running a contest for copy editors in memory of our friend, Steve Higgins, a copy editor and bon vivant of the finest sort. The prize is a good one--an Amazon Kindle. So if you know any professional editors, do pass along word.

You can buy the book in advance of publication at Amazon.com for a mere $13.57. We'll have more updates occasionally as the date draws closer (and as we find the stomach for marketing--not the best part of the job).

Thanks, members of SPOGG. This book is most definitely for you.

Read Our Ellipse

Here's a delightful new book by Craig Conley: Annotated Ellipses.

In it, he takes a page from "The Wind Bloweth," a ellipse-filled novel by Donn Byrne, and he explains the hidden story behind all those daffy dots. It's so creative, so funny, and so completely Craig, who also wrote a dictionary of one-letter words and a field guide to identifying unicorns by sound (really!).

We love it!

Miserable Muffins

They're in the oven RIGHT NOW, so we can't say how they taste. But we're a bit worried these muffins may be the last thing we eat:

To Die For Blueberry Muffins

We think it's possible they meant to hyphenate the recipe: to-die-for blueberry muffins. That would be a fine recipe, indeed.

Still, if we're going to sacrifice ourselves for something, it might as well be baked goods.

Commas and Polygamy

Commas can keep you out of all sorts of trouble:

"American Idol" season 4 runner-up Bo Bice and his wife Caroline Fisher welcomed a baby boy on Tuesday, Aug. 5, reports Usmagazine.com.

"Caroline Fisher" should be set off with commas here. Unless, of course, he has more than one wife, in which case she will be set off by having to share.

If here is only one of something you're identifying with further information--"my wife, Caroline,"--you need to set it off with commas. It's a non-restrictive modifier. In regular English, that means it's something that doesn't limit the meaning of the sentence because it's by definition limited. He only has one wife. Right?

If there's more than one of something--"the American Idol runner up Bo Bice"--you can't use commas to separate Bo from his antecedent. You're limiting the meaning.

There have been many American Idol runners up. Bo Bice isn't even the most famous American Idol runner up to be expecting a child right around now. In fact, we were hoping this was about the birth of the child fathered by American Idol runner up Clay Aiken, who conceived via artificial insemination (a fact we include only to demonstrate this whole comma thing one last time).

A Writer After Our Own Heart

The writer/artist Catherine Cheek has this to say about sloppy language and what it means for us all:

Apostrophe's*

I went to the movies yesterday, and in the restroom there was a sign that read “Water Maybe hot”. It made me grit my teeth, but I didn’t say anything, because I know I’d be that girl, you know, the anal retentive one who always wants to speak to the manager about something.

Today I was at a grocery store and they’ve made their labels print out a little tag at the bottom that says “Thank’s from Fry’s” That one I couldn’t let go. I wrote them an email telling them that they ought to have their signage written by the educated, native English speakers on the staff, because bad grammar sends a negative impression. They’ll probably ignore it. If it were important to them, it wouldn’t have gone all the way to the printer and onto hundreds of packages of meat without anyone seeing fit to correct it.

And that’s what really bothers me the most. That using your language correctly is considered unimportant... (Read the rest of her post.)

A gold star for you, Ms. Cheek. Also, we really like your artwork.

A New and Hideous Gas Crisis

Speaking of portmanteaus, there are two words we don't really want to see together, whipped into creamy use like so much butter and so many eggs.

Those two words? "Gas" and "sex."

And yet, here they are, gleefully intertwined in an article on the Web site of the London Mail: "gastrosexual."

We very nearly threw up in our mouths.

A Home-Grown Portmanteau

The Daughter of SPOGG turns eight years old today, and has decorated the house with a variety of thematic signs (it's a kitten-centric party, if you must know).

Said child invented a lovely portmanteau on a sign illustrating Objects in a Kitten's Room: "excessories."

Excessories are extra (or perhaps excessive) accessories that pile up in the bedrooms of little girls, much to the annoyance of their mothers.

With that fine word, the portmanteau contest is closed. We have about 50 entries. Voting will come soon, so stay tuned!

The Perfect Accessory for the Possibilisuit

Danial P. snapped this photo in a suburban shopping center (the very one we worked in when we turned 16 and could be paid to hang out at the mall).

We can only conclude that our home town is attempting to create a new fashion trend in these grim economic times. The "possibilitie" is just the thing to wear with the "possibilisuit." We will keep our eyes peeled for the possibilipocketsquare and possibilishoes.

With such clothing, anything could happen!

A Housekeeping Matter

Karen S. sent us this horrific example of a misplaced modifier that would be comical if it weren't so sad.

District Attorney Lynne Abraham says any of the nine could have foreseen the horrific fate of the girl, whose emaciated body was found in her mother's squalid house covered with bone-deep, maggot-infested bedsores in August 2006.

As written, the sentence says the house was covered with nasty bedsores. We've heard of houses with good bones, but that not what happened here.

Here's a better way to say what the writer undoubtedly meant:

District Attorney Lynne Abraham says any of the nine could have foreseen the horrific fate of the girl, whose body was found in her mother's house in 2006. The emaciated girl was covered with bone-deep, maggot infested bedsores.