Bryson's Dictionary For Writers And Editors (v5.0) (48 page)

In general, hyphens should be dispensed with when they are not necessary. One place where they are not required by sense but frequently occur anyway is with
-ly
adverbs, as in
newly-elected
and
widely-held
. Almost every authority suggests that they should be deleted in such constructions.

         

parentheses.
Parenthetical matter can be thought of as any information so incidental to the main thought that it needs to be separated from the sentence that contains it. It can be set off with dashes, brackets (usually reserved for explanatory insertions in quotations), commas, or, of course, parentheses. It is, in short, an insertion and has no grammatical effect on the sentence in which it appears. It is rather as if the sentence does not even know it is there. Thus this statement from
The Times
is incorrect: “But that is not how Mrs. Graham (and her father before her) have made a success of the
Washington Post
.” The verb should be
has
.

While the parenthetical expression has no grammatical effect on the sentence in which it appears, the sentence does influence the parentheses. Consider this extract from the
Los Angeles Times
(which, although it uses dashes, could equally have employed parentheses): “One reason for the dearth of Japanese-American politicians is that no Japanese immigrants were allowed to become citizens—and thus could not vote—until 1952.” As written the sentence is telling us that “no Japanese citizens could not vote.” Delete
could not
.

When a parenthetical comment is part of a larger sentence, the period should appear after the second parenthesis (as here). (But when the entire sentence is parenthetical, as here, the period should appear inside the final parenthesis.)

         

period
(British, full stop). Two common errors are associated with the period, both of which arise from its absence. The first is the run-on sentence—that is, the linking of two complete thoughts by a comma. It is never possible to say whether a run-on sentence is attributable to ignorance on the part of the writer or to whimsy on the part of the typesetter, but the error occurs frequently enough that ignorance must play a part. In each of the following I have indicated with a slash where one sentence should end and the next should begin: “Although GEC handled the initial contract, much of the equipment is American,/the computers and laser printers come from Hewlett Packard” (
Guardian
); “Confidence is growing that OPEC will resolve its crisis,/however the Treasury is drawing up contingency plans” (
Times
); “Funds received in this way go towards the cost of electricity and water supply,/industries, shops and communes pay higher rates” (
Times
).

The second lapse arises when a writer tries to say too much in a single sentence, as here: “The measures would include plans to boost investment for self-financing in industry, coupled with schemes to promote investment and saving, alleviate youth unemployment, fight inflation, and lower budget deficits, as well as a new look at the controversial issue of reducing working hours” (
Times
). If the writer has not lost his readers, he has certainly lost himself. The last lumbering flourish (“as well as a new look…”) is grammatically unconnected to what has gone before; it just hangs there. The sentence is crying out for a period—almost anywhere would do—to give the reader a chance to absorb the wealth of information being provided.

Here is another in which the writer tells us everything but his phone number: “But after they had rejected once more the umpires' proposals of $5,000 a man for the playoffs and $10,000 for the World Series on a three-year contract and the umpires had turned down a proposal of $3,000 for the playoffs and $7,000 for the World Series on a one-year contract, baseball leaders said the playoffs would begin today and they had umpires to man the games” (
New York Times
).

There is no quota on periods. When an idea is complicated, break it up and present it in digestible chunks. One idea to a sentence is still the best advice that anyone has ever given on writing.

         

question mark.
The question mark comes at the end of a question. That sounds simple enough, doesn't it? But it's astonishing how frequently writers fail to include it. Two random examples: “‘Why travel all the way there when you could watch the whole thing at home,' he asked” (
Times
); “The inspector got up to go and stood on Mr. Ellis's cat, killing it. ‘What else do you expect from these people,' said the artist” (
Standard
).

Occasionally question marks are included when they are not called for, as in this sentence by Trollope, cited by Fowler: “But let me ask of her enemies whether it is not as good a method as any other known to be extant?” The problem here is a failure to distinguish between a direct question and an indirect one. Direct questions always take question marks: “Who is going with you?” Indirect questions never do: “I would like to know who is going with you.”

When direct questions take on the tone of a command, the use of a question mark becomes more discretionary. “Will everyone please assemble in my office at four o'clock?” is strictly correct, but not all authorities insist on the question mark there.

A less frequent problem arises when a direct question appears outside a direct quotation. Fieldhouse, in
Everyman's Good English Guide
, suggests that the following punctuation is correct: “Why does this happen to us, we wonder?” The Fowler brothers, however, call this an amusing blunder; certainly it is extremely irregular. The more usual course is to attach the question mark directly to the question. Thus: “Why does this happen to us? we wonder.” But such constructions are clumsy and are almost always improved by being turned into indirect questions: “We wonder why this happens to us.”

         

quotation marks (inverted commas).
An issue that arises frequently in Britain but almost never in America is whether to put periods and other punctuation inside or outside quotation marks when they appear together. The practice that prevails in America and is increasingly common in Britain is to put the punctuation inside the quotes. Thus, “He said, ‘I will not go.'” But some publishers prefer the punctuation to fall outside except when it is part of the quotation. Thus the example above would be “He said, ‘I will not go'.”

When quotation marks are used to set off a complete statement, the first word of the quotation should be capitalized (“He said, ‘Victory is ours'”) except when the quotation is preceded by
that
(“He said that ‘victory is ours'”). Fowler believed that no punctuation was necessary to set off attributive quotations; he would, for instance, delete the commas from the following: “‘Tomorrow,' he said, ‘is a new day.'” His argument was that commas are not needed to mark the interruption or introduction of a quotation because the quotation marks already do that. Logically he is correct. But with equal logic we could argue that question marks should be dispensed with on the grounds that the context almost always makes it clear that a question is being asked. The commas are required not by logic but by convention.

         

semicolon.
The semicolon is heavier than the comma but lighter than the period. Its principal function is to divide contact clauses—that is, two ideas that are linked by sense but that lack a conjunction. For instance, “You take the high road; I'll take the low road.” Equally that could be made into two complete sentences or, by introducing a conjunction, into one (“You take the high road and I'll take the low road”). The semicolon is also sometimes used to separate long coordinate clauses. In this role it was formerly used much more extensively than it is today.

Words Ending in-
able
and-
ible

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