I meant to have a new post up this week, but things have been a little more hectic than I’d anticipated. I do have an exciting announcement, though: I’ve been asked to take over the column “Grammar on the Edge” in Copyediting newsletter. Every other month, I’ll cover difficult or obscure points of grammar. Watch […]
Yes, it’s another t-shirt-related post. I’ve just launched a new product designer, where you can place designs on whatever products you want—t-shirts, hoodies, laptop sleeves, aprons, iPhone cases, and more. You can even change the colors of the designs and pick your own printing technique. Just click on the Product Designer tab on the menu […]
Some of you may get tired of me hawking my t-shirts. If you’re one of those, I guess you can go ahead and plug your ears for this post. But I’d like to talk a bit about Spreadshirt and why I’ve chosen them to make my shirts. I first started designing my own t-shirts several […]
A few months ago Braden asked in a comment about the history of what as a relative pronoun. (For my previous posts on relative pronouns, see here.) The history of relative pronouns in English is rather complicated, and the system as a whole is still in flux, partly because modern English essentially has two overlapping […]
In the last post, I said that the debate over whether data is singular or plural is ultimately a question of how we know whether a word is singular or plural, or, more accurately, whether it is count or mass. To determine whether data is a count or a mass noun, we’ll need to answer […]
Lately there has been a spate of blog posts on the question of whether data is a singular or a plural noun. Surprisingly, most of them come down on the side of saying that it can be singular—except when it’s plural. Although saying that it can be singular is refreshingly open-minded, I’ve still got a […]
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.
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. […]
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 […]
Today I have a guest post about rules and style choices at Andy Hollandbeck's blog Logophilius. Go take a look, and while you’re there, check out the rest of his site.
