More Punctuation Abuse: Swales

A Few Choice Words, Including 'Mistakes'

By Tom Shales

Thursday, January 11, 2007; Page C01

Most of the details of the speech were being reported on cable news channel and network newscasts all during the day, so it was hardly filled with surprises -- though Bush volunteering to take the blame for mistakes seemed at the very least unusual, not just for Bush but for any chief executive. Reporters and columnists suffer from passive-verb-itis. Passive verbs produce flaccid sentences and make the writer sound tentative—something the otherwise emphatic Mr. Shales appears to eschew. The NY Times Style Book cites the possessive-before-the-gerund rule, but no reporter there or anywhere pays the slightest attention to it. The Blue Shade press swashbucklers scorn a little thing like punctuation literacy, even though they purport to be professional writers and even though not knowing punctuation protocol for a writer is like not knowing how to drive a nail for a carpenter.

Mr. Shales says Durbin did a lousy Democratic-rebuttal job, but the NBC Hardball group rhapsodized about it, saying it sounded like a Republican America-Firsters’ spiel.

washington post: comma-error festival

Mr. Baker, you have made so many comma errors that you have earned a spot on Grammargrinch.blogspot.com. lee drury de cesare

Analysis Washingtonpost

As He Touts a 'Way Forward,' Bush Admits Errors of the Past

By Peter Baker

The evolution tracks the sharp deterioration not only of the U.S. position in Iraq, but also of Bush's position at home. Don’t use a comma to divide a correlative construction.

He added that generals have "reviewed the new Iraqi plan to ensure that it addressed these mistakes" and "they report that it does." An easy comma rule: put a comma before a coordinating conjunction joining two independent clauses.

"He's going to do what's in his heart of hearts and nobody can deter him from that course," said James Jay Carafano, a Heritage Foundation scholar. Second time: put a comma before a coordinating conjunction joining two independent clauses.

"He's never going to make everybody happy and he's not going to make even most people happy, and he shouldn't try. Third time: put a comma before a coordinating conjunction joining two independent clauses.

"The administration is making the same mistakes now that we made in Vietnam and I'm really sorry about that," said Jack J. Valenti, an aide to President Lyndon B. Johnson. Fourth time: put a comma before a coordinating conjunction joining two independent clauses.

Now, it said, dialogue has not worked, Arab states have not fully supported the Iraqi government and many Iraqi forces are "not yet ready to handle" the security threat. A newspaper fetish is to ignore the items-in-a-series comma rule, omitting the final comma. This practice conflicts with the newspaper practice of overusing commas to a faretheewell. The writer needs here to follow the items-in-a-series comma rule with three independent clauses’ comprising the series.

"And his problem is, he will then be held accountable for those results."

Superfluous comma: when a writer omits “that” beginning a subordinate clause, the writer does not substitute a comma for the “that” unless it acts as subject of the subordinate clause.

Boston Globe Misplaced Modifier

GLOBE EDITORIAL

Bush's refusal to face reality

January 11, 2007

A surge of US forces in Baghdad last summer only resulted "Only" goes here. in a higher death toll.

"Only" is the most frequently misplaced modifier. It should go before the word or phrase it modifies.

Boston Globe Misplaced Modifier

GLOBE EDITORIAL

Bush's refusal to face reality

January 11, 2007

A surge of US forces in Baghdad last summer only resulted "Only" goes here. in a higher death toll.