Grammar Matters

It's the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse and helping your uncle jack off a horse!

Welcome to Grammar Matters. Today’s matter of grammar is "a" versus "an."

My friend Brandon asked me, “Is it a unipolar system or an unipolar system? Halp!” [sic]

The quick rule is that he should be writing “a unipolar system.”

Why? The introduction of “an” into the language is designed to help the speaker enunciate and the listener understand. Try saying “a unusual problem” or “a hour later.” Tripped over your tongue, didn’t you? Mouthful, isn’t it? Sounded awkward, didn’t it?

With that, I also want to mention that the same sound rule applies to acronyms. It doesn’t matter what letter the acronym starts with; it only matters how it’s pronounced. So you would say, “a NASA program,” but “an NSA investigation,” and “a UNA thingamawhatsit.”

And if I never have to hear “an historical event” again, it’ll be too soon!

That wraps up this matter of grammar. Join me in the next episode of Grammar Matters, the podcast that helps you write more effectively.

Just for fun:

Is the saying, "Take it for all it's worth," or "Take it for all its worth?"

Yes, I know the answer, but I want to hear convincing arguments. :)

Welcome to Grammar Matters. Today’s matter of grammar is the ellipsis.

You know what an ellipsis is. You may, however, refer to it as a “dot thing,” or you might call it a “dot dot dot.” Or, if you’re one of the overzealous types, that may be a “dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot.”

That’s right, I’m talking to you. The one over there currently hitting the backspace key forty times because you held down the period key the entire time you were thinking of what to say next. You can always tell who the thinkers are, because for some reason they want you to know every time they pause in their typing to think about what they’re going to say next.

“Dear Sam . . . ” they’d write, “I got your last e-mail last week but . . . . . . “--this pause indicates the time it took for the writer to think of an excuse--“ . . . . . I couldn’t write back sooner because I broke both my hands in a freak accident involving . . . . . . . a jar of jelly, two hookers . . . and a snowblower . . you don’t wanna know. Sorry to hear about your mom . . . Love, Jane.”

You can actually time their thought processes by how many dots they use in their ellipses! Dot, dot, dot. Tick, tick, tick. I suppose it’s helpful if you’re trying to pull a Lie to Me via e-mail.

Then you find the people who replace all punctuation with ellipses, like it’s the new trend. “So . . . the other day I went to Sea World . . . and I saw this huge whale eating some kind of walrus . . . true story . . . But anyway . . . What’s been up with you . . . “

It’s enough to drive a body mad, and not just a grammarian, either. Did you fall asleep on punctuation day in third grade? Are you trying to cover up the fact that you don’t know whether to use a comma, a dash, a period, or a question mark? Your apparent love of the ellipsis is a dead giveaway.

Finally, you’ll come across the person who uses the ellipsis for one of its intended uses—dramatic pause—but he’ll use it way too much, so by the time you get to the end of the message the suspense may have actually killed you, whether or not anything exciting happened.

“So, like, ohmigod . . . the other day I was on the bus . . . and I saw this guy reaching toward some other guy’s pocket! I was totally about to scream out pickpocket, but then . . . . . . “—this is the drumroll part of the story, and I always hear the words “waaaait for iiiiiiit” in my head—“ . . . . but then he just grabbed the rail next to the other guy!”

Seriously?

Ellipses seem to be all the rage these days, much like the apostrophe—but that’s another entry.

Okay, short and sweet:

1. Use an ellipsis for dramatic effect. Just, you know, try not to overdo it, or else it becomes annoying, not to mention it actually emphasizes the fact that your story isn’t actually dramatic.
2. Use an ellipsis in dialogue where the speaker may trail off or pause to splutter incoherently—not when you are spluttering incoherently.
3. Fight inertia. Once you start typing those dots out, you must stop after three. Not after two or four or two hundred. Three. And, oh, by the way, you need a space before the ellipsis, after the ellipsis, and between each elliptical dot, for a total of four spaces.
4. Lastly, use an ellipsis in casual writing when you can’t be bothered to write “et cetera,” or “and so forth,” or “and so on.”

That wraps up this matter of grammar. Join me in the next episode of Grammar Matters, the podcast that helps you write more effectively.

Hi, Kris here. This isn't actually an episode of Grammar Matters, but I wanted to take a minute and make a disclaimer, lay down some Grammar Matters law.

Grammarians, you know, will argue over just about anything. In fact, English is such a confusing language that it offers a lot of fodder for fighting over. I'm just another English major who enjoys figuring out why we say the things we do, or why we say them how we do. I like grammar enough that I'm willing to go the extra mile to find out exactly how a word should be used or in what order to place words. So in the end, you'll be reading just another grammarian's opinion. If you're a grammarian too, it's bound to happen that you'll disagree with me or even that you'll find errors in my transcripts, and that's okay. I'm just here to provide a guide for those who might need help or to talk grammar with those who don't. Okay, well, to be fair, I'm mostly here for the fun of it, because I'm geeky like that.

Be sure to keep it nice. I love comments. They tell me that my episode generated enough interest to induce a response. But if you're trolling on my blog--and I will decide that arbitrarily--I will remove your comments. That means go ahead and disagree, but do it in a kindly fashion. And if I see the words "you're wrong" from the same commentor on every episode, you will be forcefully ejected from the building, ya feel me? This is my personal blogosphere-type virtual home, so I'm going to insist on a little respect. But don't make me moderate my comments. That just wouldn't be fun. So then, let's play with some words.