Archive for June, 2012

International T-Shirt Day

Thursday, June 21st, 2012

Today is International T-Shirt Day! To celebrate, Spreadshirt is offering free shipping on all orders today only with the coupon code T-DAY2012. Check out the Arrant Pedantry Store, and remember that all designs are available for customization in the Spreadshirt Marketplace.

Posted by Jonathon Owen at 10:27 am | No Comments »

Take My Commas—Please

Thursday, June 14th, 2012

Most editors are probably familiar with the rule that commas should be used to set off nonrestrictive appositives and that no commas should be used around restrictive appositives. (In Chicago 16, it’s under 6.23.) A restrictive appositive specifies which of a group of possible referents you’re talking about, and it’s thus integral to the sentence. [...]

Posted by Jonathon Owen at 7:30 pm | 6 Comments »

What Descriptivism Is and Isn’t

Monday, June 4th, 2012

A few weeks ago, the New Yorker published what is nominally a review of Henry Hitchings’ book The Language Wars (which I still have not read but have been meaning to) but which was really more of a thinly veiled attack on what its author, Joan Acocella, sees as the moral and intellectual failings of [...]

Posted by Jonathon Owen at 11:52 pm | 5 Comments »