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Front Page: Dissed by pronouns


Empty packages


Splitsville


Friendly hyphens

Editorial Assistance
Bibliographic babel


Penny for your biscuit

“Because language plays a central role in the way human beings think and behave, we still need to promote language that opens rather than closes possibilities for women and men,” noted the National Council of Teachers of English in its “Guidelines for Nonsexist Use of Language in NCTE Publications” (revised 1985).

“Women should receive the same treatment as men in all areas of coverage,” states the Associated Press Stylebook. “Physical descriptions, sexist references, demeaning stereotypes and condescending phrases should not be used.” While acknowledging that “valid and acceptable words such as mankind or humanity” may be used, the AP guide sets forth some examples for AP writers:

• “Copy should not assume maleness when both sexes are involved.”
• “Copy should not express surprise that an attractive woman can be professionally accomplished.”
• “Copy should not gratuitously mention family relationships when there is no relevance to the subject.”
• “Use the same standards for men and women in deciding whether to include specific mention of personal appearance or marital and family situation.”

The National Council of Teachers of English suggests some practical alternatives:

• “Since the word man has come to refer almost exclusively to adult males,” use alternatives, such as the average person or ordinary people instead of the common man.
• Use “the same titles for men and women when naming jobs that could be held by both”: instead of chairman or chairwoman, use chairperson or chair (is that the chair that didn’t hear Neil Diamond?); use police officer instead of policeman or policewoman.

• Drop the possessive form altogether or substitute an article: change The average student is worried about his grades to The average student is worried about grades.
• Use plural instead of singular: change Give the student his grade right away to Give the students their grades right away.
• Substitute the second or first person for the third person: change When a teacher asks his students for an evaluation, he is putting himself on the spot to When you ask your students for an evaluation, you are putting yourself on the spot.
• The pronoun one or one’s can be substituted for he or his, though it does change the tone: He might well wonder what his response should be could be changed to One might well wonder what one’s response should be.
• Recast the sentence using the “passive voice or another impersonal construction”—for example, change Each student should hand in his paper promptly to Papers should be handed in promptly.
• “When the subject is an indefinite pronoun,” recast the sentence to avoid it: change When everyone contributes his own ideas, the discussion will be a success to When all the students contribute their own ideas, the discussion will be a success.
• Make sparing use of he or she and his or her—for example, change Each student can select his own topic to Each student can select his or her own topic.

• Avoid “diminutive or special forms to name women” (or men), such as stewardess, waitress, or male nurse; use flight attendant, server, and nurse.
• Do not represent women or men as occupying only certain jobs or roles: don’t assume that a kindergarten teacher is a she or that a pupil’s mother would be the one preparing food.
• “Treat men and women in a parallel manner”: instead of The class interviewed Chief Justice Burger and Mrs. O’Connor, write The class interviewed Warren Burger and Sandra O’Connor or The class interviewed Chief Justice Burger and Justice O’Connor.
• “Seek alternatives to language that patronizes or trivializes women” or “reinforces stereotyped images,” such as gal Friday, career woman, or man-sized job.

• “Avoid the quotation altogether if it is not really necessary.”
• “Paraphrase the quotation, giving the original author credit for the idea.”
• “If the quotation is fairly short, recast it as an indirect quotation, substituting nonsexist words as necessary.”

“Sexist expression,” scolds Word. “Avoid using this term to refer to women.” Maybe it thinks that Space Control Broad is a person.

Mindless avoidance of certain words will not help communication. Rather, we need to examine the words we use to make sure that they communicate what we want to say.

—Edwin Newman, A Civil Tongue (Warner Books, 1976)

Keeping Things Together

This problem becomes most apparent when measurements are expressed in groups of numbers and words, as in 3 years or $25 million. Ending one line with 3 and beginning the next with years causes a gap in thought when readers must ask, “3 what?” When a line ends with $25 and the next begins with million, readers first register one amount in their minds, then take a split second to amend it. Dates are another example of number-word groups that should stay together. If a date (for example, September 5, 1999), must be divided, it is better to divide it before the year rather than between the month and the day.

Notice how line division in these paragraphs makes them difficult to read:

    In Israel, all men are required to serve 36
    months in the army (whereas merely 10
    percent of Americans have served in
    uniform). This is in a country of only 8,020
    square miles, about the size of Maryland.

    In a briefing presented to the society on 5
    May, Tom Rutherford, at the request of Dr.
    Richard J. Schmidt, summarized Veronica
    L. Anderson’s book.

Dividing names can also make reading more difficult. This may be hard to avoid with a series of names, but here are a few guidelines: (1) Always keep titles with the name. This goes for titles that precede the name (Dr., Mr., or Gen) as well as those that follow it (Ph.D. or III). (2) Where there is a middle name or initial, it should go with the first name. (3) Don’t separate last names of more than one word (Van Buren or Saint James).

Headings and subheads likewise call for attention. They should be divided with respect to their phrasing. Consider a 21 June 2000 Bloomberg.com headline:

    Indonesia Attorney General Detains Central Bank
    Head

It would have worked better if Central Bank were kept with Head. A good place to divide a headline or subhead is after a conjunction or preposition:

    Third Arrest Made in
    Immigrant Smuggling Deaths

Poorly split headings may qualify as ridiculous if not disastrous. An actual package in a supermarket was labeled

    100% Fat
    Free Meatballs

“Fat-free” should have been joined by a hyphen anyway, but putting the words on different lines aggravates the offense and could give shoppers a wrong idea of the contents. The same problem was writ large on an outdoor sign:

    ENJOY THE HASSLE
    FREE OIL CHANGE

Enough said about the importance of keeping word groups together; the next question is how? Most word-processing programs have a command that keeps words together. In Microsoft Word, select the space between the words, then press Ctrl + Shift + space bar.

An alternative for headlines and subheads is a manual line break. This places the words on different lines, but the program still recognizes them all as one paragraph. Place the cursor where you wish to break the line. Then press Shift + Enter.

Some phrases require more than careful line division. One sentence that came across our editorial desk referred to “proper execution of next of kin notification.” This phrase is liable to shock readers until they reach the last word. In such a case, the best solution is to rewrite the sentence—for instance, “proper notification of next of kin.”

Keep in mind, too, how things may look after they are typeset. In Do you believe your boss would consent? the last words on the page might be Do you believe your boss, giving the reader a wrong idea of how the sentence will end.

Think of a line break or a page break as a pause: will the sentence continue in the same apparent direction, or will the reader get a surprise ending?

—Julie Wright

Hyphens Are Our Friends

Sometimes the context indicates which words go together even without punctuation to help the reader. “He handed me a ten dollar bill” would be clear without the grammatically correct hyphen in ten-dollar, but “He paid me with ten dollar bills” is unclear. Did he pay me ten dollars in singles, or much more in tens? That’s why number-noun combinations are hyphenated.

Number-adjective combinations generally need hyphens. If “forty odd people attended the conference,” does that mean forty weird people? A hyphen in “forty-odd” indicates that those two words go together.

Adjective-noun combinations usually need hyphens too. “High power lines” may be strung from towers. “High-power lines” carry heavy voltage, even if the lines are buried.

Verb-adverb combinations usually need hyphens. If someone is the “best known artist,” maybe there are better artists who are unknown. Best could refer to known or artist. A hyphen between those words tells the reader that this artist is the most famous. (Adverbs ending in ly don’t need a hyphen, since they can’t combine with anything except the verb. “A barely known artist” doesn’t need a hyphen.)

Combinations of two adjectives need hyphens. If “it came with an extra long handle,” did it have a spare long handle or an especially long handle?) “Extra-long handle” is unambiguous.

Noun-participle combinations need hyphens. “I saw a man eating shark.” (A man eating shark meat?) A “man-eating shark” is clearly a shark that eats men.

Sometimes two hyphens are needed. “Tip editors with ten- and twenty-dollar bills.” The hyphen after ten indicates that this word goes with another. The space indicates that it doesn’t go with the very next word.

Finally, if the combination comes at the end of a phrase or sentence, a hyphen may be unnecessary. “The handle was extra long” is clear. Just remember the hyphen’s purpose: whenever the meaning could be unclear, to show the reader that certain words go together.

Beneficial Bibliographies

To be useful, a bibliographic citation must provide enough information for the reader to find the work being referenced. How much detail to give depends on the work and where it may be found. For a book, the author, title, publisher, city of publication, and date are basic; with this information, a librarian can turn up almost any book. There is a good deal of overlap in the names of books, authors, and even publishers, so the date and city help identify a book. If there is more than one edition or volume, these should be given as well.

If the reader is likely to obtain the book from a store rather than a library, the International Standard Book Number should be provided, because many stores use it to order titles. If specific material within a book is cited, the page numbers should be included too.

Citations of periodicals should include the author, article title, volume and issue numbers, date, and page number(s).

Citations of information published on the Internet should include the Internet address plus the name of the website and the page in case the address changes. Electronic documents can include a link to the referenced site.

Whether to place bibliographic notes at the end of a chapter, at the end of a book, or as footnotes depends on when the reader needs the information, but full citations in the text rarely increase readability. Nevertheless, provide some information about the source. “Smith, 1996” says nothing about the source’s identity or credibility. “As Albert Smith wrote in Bibliographic Babel” (I made that up) at least tells us that Smith is the author of a book on the subject.

What about format? You can follow something as complex as Chicago style, with more than a hundred pages on bibliographic citations, or as simple as the three-page “Documentation of Sources” section in the back of Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Whichever style you choose, using one format, with the information in the same order for every entry, makes it easier for the reader.

Many other questions will arise: Should the number of a government report be included? If a journal article has six authors, should they all be listed? Is it OK to use abbreviations of Latin terms (ibid., op. cit., et al.)? The answer always depends on another question: What will be most useful to the reader?

—Steve Dunham

“Chicken biscuit .99˘.”

And worth every penny, too!