Numerology

I was recently asked what are the rules for writing numbers in formal writing. The question set of a spark of curiosity which flamed into a fire, and the end result is another blog entry. The rules are first…the application follows. 

1.       Any one-word number should be written out. Two-word numbers may be expressed in figures. That is, you should write out eight or thirteen or seventy, but if you choose, you may use the numerals for 36. I, for one, will almost always choose to write out numbers in formal writing unless it is a dollar figure, a date/year, a time, a Bible verse, a decimal, or a huge or wordy number.

2.       Don’t start a sentence with a numeral. Make it “Twenty-one years ago, I choked on a Skittle” not “21 years ago….” That means you might have to rewrite some sentences: “Readers bought 121 copies of Bulletproof the first day” instead of “121 copies were bought the first day.”

3.       Centuries and decades should be spelled out. Use the Eighties or Nineteenth Century.

4.       In formal writing, you should spell out the percentage like “I don’t get fifty percent of my royalties,” but for decimals, you’ll have to write the numerals—unless they start a sentence or a quote. One out of every 7.7 people in the world has a facebook account.

5.       Rounded numbers over a million are written as a numeral plus a word. Use “There are over 526 million daily active facebook users.” If you’re using an exact number, you’d write it out, of course—526,000,212.

So let me apply a few of these rules in my writing (after all, if I don’t, you just read a very boring blog entry). I’m curious if you have ever wondered how many licks it takes to get to the tootsie roll center of a Tootsie Pop? I, oddly enough, was curious, and believe it or not, there’s a website dedicated to that very question…and a discussion forum as well (it sounds like a great way to spend some of your spare time, don’t you think?). I actually found the following quote on the Tootsie Pop website: “This is one of the most profound questions ever posed to humankind and animal alike.” The “ever” part kind of caught my eye…and, well, the part about animals posing this question too. Like a chipmunk and his buddies are standing around counting: “That’s 22,101…22,102….You can do it, Chip, and soon we’ll have answered one of the most profound Twentieth Century questions our species has ever posed.” Here’s another interesting quote: “What you have to do is measure the amount of saliva you produce per lick, measure the volume of the Tootsie Pop, find the amount each lick your saliva takes away from the pop, and divide that much by the total volume of the Tootsie Pop.” So I did the math…twice. I got fourteen once and 902 the other time. So here I was, pleased with myself for coming up with such scientifically accurate data when I ran upon this third quote, reminding me that my data could be flawed if I didn’t consider “acidity of saliva, coarseness of the tongue, pressure per square inch that the tongue is applied to the surface of the tootsie pop, ambient temperature, and the age of the tootsie pop.” So that is when my head exploded, and I unintentionally bit down on my pop after just 112 licks, and what do you know? There was the center tootsie roll. One hundred twelve is the answer.  

So there you are. You know new rules, you’ve discovered a cool new web site, and you have the answer to one of the most profound questions ever posed. It’s been a good day at The Red Pen.

Auto-Correct and Spell Check

Smart phones are awesome. How did we ever survive without all the information they provide at our fingertips? They even correct our spelling for us because, of course, our smart phones know what we want to type even better than we do. At least they think they do--because they’re so smart. A few days ago, I texted my wife and made a smart-alecky comment, followed by the all-important initials jk because, well, I was just kidding. My auto-correct apparently thought I was much more serious than I did, so it auto-corrected to JFK—capital letters and everything. Now, why would I bring John F. Kennedy up? And why would my smart phone think I was talking about him? Was he a smart aleck? Have I ever brought him up before? A friend mentioned the other day that she used the word blah in a text because she was “having a bad day.” It was auto-corrected to Budapest. I got a good laugh out of that, but it was nothing compared to what happened last night. After the Tigers/Yankees playoff baseball game, I texted to a friend that Jeter (Yankee shortstop, Derek Jeter) broke his ankle. Jeter was auto-corrected to heterosexual. I kid you not. My smartphone thought I wanted to say that “heterosexual broke his ankle.” I seriously wasn’t thinking about his sexual preferences; I was thinking about a bone near his foot.

All the above was just introduction, though, to what I really have on my mind about spelling. There are two words that are so commonly misspelled, that, as the wielder of the red pen, I feel it is my duty to straighten things out.

1^st word:  a lot—a lot is two words. I find it interesting that an older version of my Word program ALWAYS underlined alot, indicating it was spelled wrong, but the correction option was allot instead of a lot. My newer version actually fixes the word now and puts the space that belongs. There is no argument about a lot being two words. It just is.

2^nd word: all right—all right is always two words too. But unlike alot, alright is NOT corrected by the Word program, nor is it underlined as an incorrect spelling. Hmmm. Interestingly, the Microsoft Word spellchecker will not highlight alright as an error, but it will also not suggest alright if you spell it incorrectly (for instance, alrite).  Microsoft seems to be sitting on the fence with regard to alright being accepted as standard. I UNDERSTAND it when people say that our language is changing, but what I don’t understand is WHY. Is it because of laziness? Lack of education? I read somewhere that all right is the most commonly misspelled word in the English language (not by number of misspellings but by the consistency of misspellings). 

I’m going to just use some common sense here. I’ve looked at source after source that says that alright is the misspelling of all right. They say that alright is “informal” and that it is “gaining a shadowy acceptance in British English” or “alright is a nonstandard variant of all right.  Even though alright is becoming more acceptable, it is best avoided” or “generally, most editors and teachers don’t think alright is all right” or “alright continues to be looked on as illiterate and unacceptable and consequently it ought never to appear in serious writing” or “alright’s interdiction is as pure an example as possible of a rule without a reason” or “still, even though alright is closing ground on all right, the latter is never wrong and the former is still considered problematic by some” or  “all right  should always be used in more formal, edited writing” or (finally) “if you cannot avoid all right or alright, then opt for all right. Using alright, especially in formal writing, runs a higher risk that your readers will view it as an error. It is far more difficult to justify alright than all right.” One source simply suggested avoiding the word (or words) altogether.

Here’s my point since I’m supposed to make one. When I see the words “problematic…non-standard…informal…illiterate…unacceptable…best-avoided…a rule without a reason…and hard to justify,” I see a problem. And when I see that in “serious writing” and “edited writing” the expectation is to use all right, and that all right is “never wrong,” I tend to become all logical and determine that I will always use all right. 

All right? I’m not JFKing. I’m not having a Budapest day. I’m serious. As serious as a Derek heterosexual broken ankle.

It Really Do Matter

I don’t know what the full conversation was about, but two of my students were having a discussion (instead of doing their work, I’m sure), and one said, “God don’t care about that.” Well, I have a policy in my class that there are four grammar errors I won’t allow my students to make, and that was one of them. For making the errors, my students are required to give a speech in front of their peers. I give them a study guide and twenty-four hours, and then the student must teach the class without the notes. He had to tell what he said, why it was wrong, and what would be right. So I interjected into the conversation and said, “Sure He do. God do care. And I care that you just doed wrong grammar, so you have to give a speech.”

Well, I don’t believe said student realized my own sarcastic grammar gaffes. He was more concerned about the speech, so he replied, “I ain’t doin’ no speech.” Now, I’m not a big fan of the word “ain’t,” but it ain’t one of my speech topics. However, double negatives are, so I thanked him for agreeing to do the speech. He looked at me as confusedly as an eighth-grader with bad grammar could look, and he repeated, “I said I ain’t doin’ no speech.” I smiled and said, “That’s right. If you ain’t doing no speech, you clearly have agreed to do a speech—in your case, two of them.” Within forty-eight hours, both speeches had been completed without notes, and the king of the red pen (that would be me) had struck another victory for good grammar.

I’ve reached the conclusion that popular music has a huge impact on the grammar of our youth, and musicians have been whittling away at our culture’s collective resolve for years. One such example is a song that took both Ringo Starr and George Harrison to write. The chorus went something like this: “It don't come easy; you know it don't come easy. It don't come easy; you know it don't come easy.” Okay, it went exactly like that. The Beatles were songwriting geniuses. Bread followed that hit up with one of their own that said, “Time is on my side 'cause it don't matter to me.” Sheryl Crow got into the act with this classic phraseology:  “It don't hurt like it did. I can sing my song again….I don't think of you no more except for every day or two.” I’d comment if I wasn’t speechless. Now Verne Gosdin is in on all the fun grammar antics. How about the song “That Just about Does It, Don't It”? Yes, Verne, it do. But what them singers maybe doesn’t know are (yes, I made those errors on purpose) according to Alyssa Bonagura, “It don’t matter if it’s rainin’.  Nothin’ can phase me. I make my own sunshine.” And she makes up her own grammar too.

What are kids to do in the face of such a powerful example? Well, maybe they should listen to a business owner’s perspective and consider improving their grammar for their own good. In Harvard Business Review, Kyle Wiens, owner of iFixit and Dozuki, wrote “I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here's Why.”  He said, “Grammar is relevant for all companies. Yes, language is constantly changing, but that doesn't make grammar unimportant. Good grammar is credibility, especially on the internet. In blog posts, on Facebook statuses, in e-mails, and on company websites, your words are all you have. They are a projection of you in your physical absence. And, for better or worse, people judge you if you can't tell the difference between their, there, and they're.” Hmmm…a voice of reason in a culture of grammar laziness. He said he actually gives applicants grammar tests because “grammar signifies more than just a person's ability to remember high school English. I've found that people who make fewer mistakes on a grammar test also make fewer mistakes when they are doing something completely unrelated to writing—like stocking shelves or labeling parts…[and] if it takes someone more than 20 years to notice how to properly use ‘it's,’ then that's not a learning curve I'm comfortable with.” Finally, he said, “Applicants who don't think writing is important are likely to think lots of other important things also aren't important…after all, sloppy is as sloppy does.”

So we as teachers and parents and guardians of our language should spread the word about the importance of using it correctly. And we as writers should be even more cognizant of our craft. Words are our profession for Heaven’s sake, and we should carry on as professionals. It matters; it really do.

** Added on 4/8/19

Since my retirement as a teacher, I've fooled around

with several enjoyable jobs. One was as a cashier at a Kroger grocery store. Most of my favorite fellow workers were our baggers (courtesy clerks). A common question we'd ask our customers was "Would you like your milk in a bag?" A far too common response was "It don't matter." After one such customer pushed his cart away, I told my courtesy clerk that I think it do matter. He looked at me in confusion before I explained what I was talking about. He and several of his friends afterward could often be heard saying "It do matter. It really do." I would smile and agree. It really do. 

OVERSIZE LOAD

So I was driving down the road, and this great big truck was carrying a, well, great bigger truck, and I couldn’t see around it. It waould and this great big truck ick on the road that I can'e idea in which I demonstrate my economic acuity with complete disregas going too slowly, and my lead foot was desperate for activity—like possibly giving someone a swift kick in the seat of his pants. I was actually deep in thought, and I was getting irritated. I’m not one for road rage, but if there was a good time to demonstrate it, it would have been right then. The duel-trucked truck was too big for the road and the speed was too slow for any normal person to condone, but the real problem had nothing to do with the creeping, overly large vehicle. The real problem was that, strung across the wide trailer-bed was a sign, a sign that said “OVERSIZE LOAD.” That was more than I could take. I mean, there’s a man or woman out there in the world who had the fantastic idea to make banners with those words and who is probably settled into his or her castle somewhere in the tropics enjoying the profits of millions of “oversize load” signs, and the person is a grammar illiterate. It’s oversized load, and people who know their grammar become irritated enough with that signage that we all consider running those vehicles off the road whilst we give them a piece of our minds and an immediate grammar lesson.

You see, there are nouns and verbs in this world that are wonderful base words that allow us writers to add suffixes to them, forming adjectives. The following are some of the aforementioned suffixes:  ing, less, able, ic, ful, al, ish, ous, less, y, like, ate, ed .  We take a word like work and make it working, so we can have “a working idea.”  Self becomes selfless, depend becomes dependable, metal becomes metallic, harm becomes harmful, magic becomes magical, freak becomes freakish, thunder becomes thunderous, life becomes lifeless, rain becomes rainy, cat becomes catlike, and college becomes collegiate. It’s a great way to form some wonderfully descriptive words out of some everyday, common nouns and verbs. 

The same grammatical concept, however, applies to the suffix “d” or “ed.” When it’s added to a noun or verb, it can change the word into an adjective. It can be used as a nice way to describe and tell “what kind” of a person, place, thing, or idea. You see, we don’t have a carpet room; we have a carpeted room. We don’t celebrate finishing our laundry with a pile of fold clothes; we have folded clothes. It’s not a defeat team; it’s a defeated team.  It’s not a bake apple pie; it’s a baked apple pie.  The pie is baked, the team is defeated, the clothes are folded, and the room is carpeted. Does anyone say, “The room is carpet”? If you heard the window is wash, the wall is paint, the door panel is dent, and the onions are chop, it would sound wrong to you, wouldn’t it? 

So why do people say “I want some ice tea”? Or they say “I read a print copy of the book.” Or I hear “I own a king-size bed.” Or I read a sign that says “oversize load.”  The tea isn’t ice; it’s iced. The copy isn’t print; it’s printed. And the mattress isn’t king-size; it’s king-sized. Just like the load isn’t oversize; it’s oversized. In each instance, a suffix (d or ed) is added to a noun or verb to create a very useful adjective. Just like super-size is a verb at McDonald’s, king-size and oversize are verbs as well—unless a suffix is added to change the word to an adjective. So Mr. or Mrs. I’ve-lived-the-American-dream-and-got-rich-quick-off-a-simple-idea-in-which-I-demonstrated-my-economic-acuity-with-complete-disregard-for-my-native-language, just know that when I’m stuck behind a wide-bodied truck on the road that I can’t see past and can’t get around, I’m not upset with the truck; I’m upset with your stupid sign.