Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style

by Benjamin Dreyer

Quite possibly you know this comma as the Oxford comma—because, we’re told, it’s traditionally favored by the editors at Oxford University Press. But as a patriotic American, and also because that attribution verges on urbane legendarianism, I’m loath to perpetuate that story. Or you may be familiar with the term “serial comma,” though for me “serial” evokes “killer,” so no again. Whatever you want to call it: Use it.

Whew! I swear I would have stopped reading in disgust if he had expressed the opposite opinion.

As to common—that is, not proper—nouns ending with an s, one doesn’t, at least not in recently published text,*21 encounter the likes of the boss’ office the princess’ tiara which I find positively spooky-looking, and for most of us, then, the boss’s office the princess’s tiara is the no-brainer way to go.

On this point I must disagree. But I read a lot of old literature.

Remembering my teenage frustration in reading nineteenth-century fiction that presumed I was fluent in ancient Greek and Latin, I’d urge you to be judicious and thoughtful in dropping swaths of foreign-language material into your text as if (as many writers seem to think) everyone speaks, say, French. Everyone, say, doesn’t.

Yup. I still get mad about this. The damned Brits do it all the time.

Oh, but here’s my favorite: The preferred U.K. spelling of the color that describes ashes and the eyes of the goddess Athena is “grey.” The preferred American spelling is “gray,” but try telling that to the writers who will go ballistic if, in copyediting, you attempt to impose that spelling.

Or to me! I always spell it "grey," and am unlikely to change.

You could certainly do worse than to follow the standard of Gore Vidal’s immortal Myra Breckinridge: “I am fortunate in having no gift at all for characterizing in prose the actual speech of others and so, for literary purposes, I prefer to make everyone sound like me.”

Excellent.

that mob that sees fifty shades of red, scarlet, and carmine over the relatively newfangled use of “begs the question” to mean “raises the question” may well pass by a “comprised of” without so much as batting an eye.

That's me!

If she’s approachin’ by way of circumnavigatin’ a mountain, she’s comin’ round it, and one can do nicely without a preceding apostrophe. I’m talking to you, people who like to write “ ’til” or, worse, “ ’till.”

Uh oh.

normalcy

Holy shit, this means war! I've been going along with Dreyer so far, but "normality" is non-negotiable.

An epigram is a succinct, smart, and, as a rule, humorous statement, of the sort Oscar Wilde used to toss about like Ritz crackers to stray ducks.

Ah, Oscar.

Criminals are hanged. Paintings are hung.

Okay, I like him again.

Note, please: “a historic event,” not “an historic event.” Unless you’re in the habit of saying or writing “an helicopter” you’ve got no cause to say or write “an historic.”

I get what he's saying here. However, my accent tends toward ellision, and speaking I leave out that H, so I do need the "an." Also, I run it together into one word: "anistoric." Because I say it that way I write it that way. It's a Virginia thing.

The phrase “hone in on” is one of those so-many-people-use-it-that-it-has-its-own-dictionary-entry-and-can-scarcely-anymore-be-called-an-error things, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Nor do I.