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|HOST: Mignon Fogarty
|VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475)
|Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.
|Theme music by Catherine Rannus at beautifulmusic.co.uk.
|Links:
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/podcasts
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/subscribe
https://www.tiktok.com/@therealgrammargirl
http://twitter.com/grammargirl
http://facebook.com/grammargirl
http://pinterest.com/realgrammargirl
http://instagram.com/thegrammargirl
https://www.linkedin.com/company/grammar-girl
Grammar Girl here. I’m Mignon Fogarty, and you can think of me as your friendly guide to the English language. We talk about writing, history, rules, and cool stuff.
Today, we'll talk about words used out of place, how to use ellipses, and street signs with unusual punctuation.
This first segment is written by Ben Yagoda, so when I say, "I," that's him, not me.
Anatopism
The English writer David Mitchell’s latest novel, "Utopia Avenue," is about a (fictional) late-’60s British rock band who, at various points, encounter (real-life) rock and roll figures. One scene takes place on the roof of the Chelsea Hotel in New York, where Janis Joplin gives an impromptu performance. After one song, she takes her leave because, she says, “I’ve a session tomorrow.”
I found that piece of dialogue surprising, but at the same time not surprising. Surprising that Joplin, a native of Texas, would actually have said, “I’ve got a session” or maybe “I have a session”; the “I’ve a” construction is a Britishism. But not surprising because I’d already encountered a half-dozen examples in the novel of American characters using British words or phrases (and would come upon at least eight more in the remainder of the book). For example:
It’s not only rock stars who talk this way. Other American characters in the book use the British terms “spot on,” “hey presto” (to mean all of a sudden), “chop chop” (to mean hurry up), “the chop” (to mean getting fired), "the run-up,” “reckons” (to mean figures), “eyehole” (to mean keyhole), “carry on” (to mean keep going), and “the till” (to mean the cash register).
Since 2011 I’ve conducted a blog, Not One-Off Britishisms, dealing with British words and expressions that have been adopted by Americans, so I’m admittedly more sensitive than most to this kind of thing. But the "Utopia Avenue" examples aren’t a product of that phenomenon: a half a century ago, when the book takes place, it hadn’t even started yet.
It’s an example, rather, of a different trend: lexical anatopism in British novels with American characters. Anatopism is the equivalent of anachronism, except referring to words out of place rather than words out of time. Fiction writers should be aware of both phenomena, as they are potential pitfalls that will make observant readers cross.
The first instance I encountered of the American-characters-speaking-British-English phenomenon was Emma Donoghue’s novel "Room." Donoghue was born in Ireland and lives in Canada, but the book, which is narrated by a boy named Jack, is set (one comes to learn) in the United States. However, Jack uses the "that"-less construction, “Now I’m five, I have to choose,” and the very British "proper," as in “if I put on my proper shoes” and “I’m not doing proper pictures, just splotches and stripes and spirals.” Meanwhile, his mother tells him. “I have … a big brother called Paul.” (An American would say “named Paul.”)
Probably the most common Britishism in the book is "bits," used to mean “pieces” or “parts.” The word appears 62 times in "Room" (having a book on a Kindle is great for this kind of investigation), and most are pure British, including: “She doesn’t have many soft bits but they’re super soft,” “she’s putting the hem back up on her brown dress with pink bits,” and “For dessert we have a tub of mandarins between us, I get the big bits because she prefers the little ones.” “Tub” is a Britishism (for bowl or container) too as well.
Kazuo Ishiguro’s latest novel, "Klara and the Sun," presents a similar case: English author, unconventional narrator, setting gradually revealed to be the United States, and the narrator and other ostensibly American characters uttering abundant Britishisms. There are eighteen of them, by my count, including: “clever” (“which Americans use to mean ""ingenious or crafty and the British, more generally, as “intelligent”); “en suite “ (instead of “bathroom," which is likely being used more often in the U.S. lately thanks to house-hunting shows on HGTV, but is still much more common in British English); “different to” (as opposed to “different from” or “different than”); and a machine that operates “the way it had always done” (whereas Americans would say “the way it always had”).
A final example, from William Boyd’s latest, "Trio," is an American actress in whose mouth Boyd puts two Britishisms in one sentence. She’s describing her role in her current project: “I’m meant to be a famous film star who’s making a film in Brighton.” “Meant to” for this particular connotation of “supposed to” is pure British. And an American would likely say “movie star” instead of “film star.”
It’s not hard to imagine how this sort of thing happens. For both British authors and British copyeditors, lexical anatopism (like lexical anachronism) is a potential blind spot, a Donald Rumsfeldesque “unknown-unknown” situation. That is, they are aware that Americans would say “elevator” instead of “lift,” or would never say “telly,” but there are thousands of other expressions they probably don’t even realize are exclusively British. They just sound normal. Hence they don’t flag or query them when they come out of the mouth of an American character.
American copyeditors would indeed sense something off, and I’m sure make many changes along these lines. But generally speaking, British books have already gone through the full editorial process before they cross the pond, and therefore often don’t get the fullest level of scrutiny over here. Benjamin Dreyer, the copy chief of Random House (which published "Utopia Avenue") and the author of "Dreyer’s English," says, “When we publish a British book, we don’t do a thorough copyedit, unless that’s been prearranged. We do what I call a ‘vigorous proofread.’ Our editors pick up U.K. terms so obscure that even a reasonably Anglophilic U.S. reader wouldn’t understand them, like ‘ginger group’ [a “formal or informal group within an organization seeking to influence its direction and activity”—Wikipedia] or ‘Sat Nav’ [for GPS].’”
But “eyehole” and “till” for cash register go through.
One might imagine the same thing happening the other way around—that is, British characters in American novels talking in Americanisms. I haven’t noticed it, possibly because I don’t recall reading that many American novels with British characters, possibly because of my own Rumsfeldian blind spot, or possibly because of a point raised by (American) romance novelist and linguistics professor Julie Tetel Andreson: “The influence of American movies and television has brought American usages into English speech—or, at least, this influence has made those usages not as foreign as they once might have been.”
But Andreson says both anatopism and anachronism *are* problems in Regency romances set in the early 19th century. She reports a couple of pieces of dialogue that are guilty of both sins: “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” and “I’ll bet.”
There are, of course, worse sins against literature than this sort of misstep, but they are nevertheless a bad business. As they accumulate in a novel, disbelief gets harder to suspend, credibility is strained, and the author’s spell, such as it is, begins to be broken. So if you're now editing that novel you worked on during National Novel Writing Month, it's something to check, and I also humbly request a bit more effort by copy desks on both sides of the pond to ensure that dialogue is, well, spot on.
That segment was by Ben Yagoda, the author of How to Not Write Bad, About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made, and many other books. You can find out more about him at benyagoda.com and on Twitter.
Ellipses
People often ask how to use ellipses, those little dot-dot-dots you often see in e-mail messages. For example, Mitra from Michigan asked, "When is it appropriate to use '...' in writing? People use it all the time, and it seems like a way to make your writing more informal and conversational, as if you were pausing. Can you also use the dot-dot-dot for formal writing?"
The answer is that you can use ellipses in formal writing in other ways, and you can occasionally use an ellipsis as Mitra described in his e-mail, but you shouldn't overdo it.
In formal writing, the most common way to use an ellipsis is to show that you’ve omitted words. For example, if you're quoting someone and you want to shorten the quotation, you use ellipses to indicate where you've dropped words or sentences.
Here's a quote from the book "Our Mutual Friend" by Charles Dickens: “I cannot help it; reason has nothing to do with it; I love her against reason.”
Now far be it from me to edit Dickens, but if I were a journalist under a tight word limit looking at that quotation, I'd be tempted to shorten it to this: “I cannot help it . . . I love her against reason.” That middle part—“reason has nothing to do with it”—seems redundant, and taking it out doesn't change the meaning. Dot-dot-dot and it's gone, which saves seven words. Clearly, literature and journalism are not the same thing.
Here’s another example from a "Rolling Stone" review of the movie "The Green Knight": "Like all good medieval dramas, it has its share of hallucinogenic weirdness—talking foxes, loping giants, ghostly maidens—and ends not with a bang but with a magnificently mournful sigh."
Now if I wanted to quote the review, and again, if I had limited space, I could use an ellipsis to shorten the quotation by omitting the examples about foxes, giant, and maidens, and write this: "Like all good medieval dramas, it has its share of hallucinogenic weirdness . . . and ends not with a bang but with a magnificently mournful sigh."
But it’s wrong to use an ellipsis to make even a subtle change to the meaning of a quotation.
Integrity is essential when using ellipses this way. It's acceptable to tighten a long quotation by omitting unnecessary words, but it's important that you don't change the meaning. For example, in the "Green Knight" quotation, you shouldn't remove the words "medieval" or "hallucinogenic" because "medieval dramas" aren't the same thing as just "dramas," and "hallucinogenic weirdness" isn't the same thing as just plain old "weirdness."
Now, on to the other use of ellipses that you frequently see in e-mail: the ellipsis that’s used to indicate a pause or a break in the writer's train of thought.
Many people have written to me to say they find this kind of use annoying, but a number of style guides say that the ellipsis can be used to indicate a pause or falter in dialogue, the passage of time, an unfinished list, or that a speaker has trailed off in the middle of a sentence or left something unsaid. (1, 2, 3, 4)
For example, The Chicago Manual of Style states, "Ellipsis points suggest faltering or fragmented speech accompanied by confusion or insecurity." The Manual also contrasts ellipses with dashes, which it says are better for interruptions or abrupt changes in thought than ellipses. (5)
So, it is allowable to use ellipses to indicate pauses or breaks in the writer's train of thought as you see so frequently done in e-mail, especially where a break is meant to feel uncertain. Nevertheless (and this is a BIG nevertheless) most people who use ellipses in e-mail overdo it—a lot.
You should not replace all normal punctuation with ellipses. You should not allow the sweet lure of ellipses to muddle your ability to write a complete sentence. To quote the book "Grammar for Dummies," "Using ellipses in this way can get annoying really fast." (4)
The author of another book, "Punctuate it Right," feels this way about writers who use ellipses to imply that they have more to say: "It is doubtful that they have anything in mind, and the device seems a rather cheap one." (1)
So, use ellipses to show hesitation or a trailing off of thoughts if you must, but use them sparingly, and know that although it's grammatically correct, it's considered by some to be annoying and cheap.
Finally, there are some other special circumstances where ellipses seem to be allowed.
I wouldn't consider this formal writing, but comic strip writers have been known to use ellipses instead of periods. I'm speculating here, but it seems as if the ellipses are being used as a way to draw you into the next frame—as if they are saying, "Keep going; there's more to come." For example, Charles Schulz used ellipses instead of periods at the end of sentences in "Peanuts."
Next, I was surprised to see that The AP Stylebook allows the use of ellipses for what they call "special effects": The stylebook states, "Ellipses also may be used to separate individual items within a paragraph of show business gossip or similar material."
Some famous newspaper writers have used ellipses in this way instead of periods to separate their rambling thoughts. Larry King heartily used ellipses in his "USA Today" column, as did Herb Caen in his "San Francisco Chronicle" column. In fact, Herb Caen is reported to have coined the phrase “three-dot journalism” to describe such writing, and he was so beloved in San Francisco that when he died the city named a street after him—and included an ellipsis in the name. (6) "Herb Caen Way . . ."
OK, now that you know how to use ellipses, you need to know how to make them. An ellipsis consists of exactly three dots called ellipsis points—never two dots, never four dots—just three dots.
How you actually make the ellipsis is a matter of style. The Chicago Manual of Style puts spaces between the dots and the AP stylebook doesn't, so check whichever style guide you use or if you're writing for yourself, decide what you like and be consistent in your use.
One thing that is important is that you never want your ellipsis points to get broken up so they span two lines. Typesetters and page designers use something called a thin space or a non-breaking space that this from happening, (7) and most fonts also have an ellipsis symbol you can insert. But for everyday purposes, it's fine to use regular periods with or without spaces between them. Just make sure your dots don’t end up on two lines.
Also, usually there is a space on each side of an ellipsis. The ellipsis is typically standing in for a word or a sentence, so just imagine it's a single word itself, and then it's easy to remember to put a space on each side.
If you're omitting something that comes after a complete sentence, meaning that your ellipsis has to follow a period, put the period at the end of the sentence just as you normally would, then type a space, and then type or insert your ellipsis. Again, you're treating the ellipsis as if it were a word: the first word of the next sentence. This will result in four dots in a row but this is not a four-dot ellipsis—there's no such thing. It is a period followed by a regular three-dot ellipsis.
And finally, because it's much easier to understand when you can see the sentences, I've included a bunch of examples on the article that goes with this segment on my website, QuickAndDirtyTips.com, of exactly how to combine ellipses with other punctuation marks like commas and question marks. Just search for "ellipses."
To sum up, use ellipses sparingly to indicate hesitation or faltering speech or thoughts, and use them to shorten long quotations when necessary, but be sure you don’t change the meaning. Check your style guide on how to format your ellipses, and when thinking about spacing, it can help to think of an ellipsis as a single word.
Finally, I have a familect story.
"Hi, Grammar Girl. This is for a familect story. Years ago, my young kids would love it when my husband would bring home apple cider in the fall, and because they were young they called it apple spider, and now they're 15 and 13. We still call at apple spider because not only is it cute but it's also kinda spooky good for the fall season. Thank you and have a great day."
Thanks for that story. I bet you have a lot of fun with that at Halloween.
If you want to call with the story of your familect, a word your family and only your family uses, you can leave a voicemail at 83-321-4-GIRL, and I might play it on the show.
I’m Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl. You can find articles that go with each podcast segment at my website, QuickAndDirtyTips.com.
Thanks to my audio engineer, Nathan Semes, and my editor, Adam Cecil, who is looking forward to using New York City's first dedicated curling facility. Our operations and editorial manager is Michelle Margulis, who is currently on a beach with a pina colada, and our assistant manager is Emily Miller. Our marketing and publicity assistant is Davina Tomlin.
That’s all. Thanks for listening.
Sources for the "ellipsis" segment