Main units:

• Verbal Agreements
• Placement Services
• Pronouns Are Not for Amateurs
• Countererrorist Measures
• The Comma-ist Manifesto
• Punctuational Punctilio
• A Miscellany of Malpractice
  

  ^^  91 

Most—and sometimes even all—of the words in the title of a book, a song, a film, or some other work merit the star treatment of capitalization. The rules governing which words deserve such preferential care, however, are not always honored.
       Distressingly widespread, for instance, is the lowercasing of short verbs, such as is, am, and was.

This failure to capitalize short verbs is not confined to titles appearing in newspapers and magazines. In the index to More Matter: Essays and Criticism (Knopf), an omnium-gatherum of John Updike’s nonfiction, the title of a poem by Karl Shapiro is sloppily shoved at the reader as “I am an Atheist Who Says His Prayers.” In the text of the book, however, the capitalization has been superintended correctly: “I Am an Atheist Who Says His Prayers.”
       Maybe the source of the proliferative lowercasing of is, am, and was is the mistaken notion that all short words call for lowercasing. True, as we will see, most peewee words rarely deserve capitalization. But distinctions must be preserved.
       All verbs, regardless of length, claim capitalized status: “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” (a story by Flannery O’Connor); The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (a novel by Carson McCullers); “Christmas Is a Sad Season for the Poor” (a story by John Cheever); “The Children Are Very Quiet When They Are Away” (a story by Maeve Brennan).
       The same holds true for verbals—words derived from verbs but functioning as different parts of speech. Verbals come in three varieties. The first is the gerund, a verbal noun (always ending in ing), such as Haunting in The Haunting of Sylvia Plath (a critical study by Jacqueline Rose). The second kind of verbal is the participle, a verbal adjective, of which there are three types: the present participle, which always ends in ing, such as Sheltering in The Sheltering Sky (a novel by Paul Bowles); the regular past participle, always ending in ed, such as Collected, in The Collected Short Stories, by Jean Rhys; and the irregular past participle, such as Gone in “Nashville Gone to Ashes” (a story by Amy Hempel).
       The final kind of verbal is the infinitive, which always consists of two words: to (not a preposition here but, in grammatical jargon, the sign of the infinitive) and the stem, or main form, of a verb. The to is never capitalized unless it’s the first word of a title, as in To Kill a Mockingbird (a novel by Harper Lee). The to is otherwise lowercased, as in Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail (a novel by Louise Shivers).       
       The first word and the final word of a title are always capitalized, even if they would be lowercased anywhere else in a title: “So That’s Who I Remind Me Of” (a poem by Ogden Nash); How the Light Gets In (a novel by Louise Penny).
       Nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs are always capitalized, no matter where they appear in a title.

The articles a, an, and the are capitalized only when positioned as the first word in a title or subtitle: A Day, a Night, Another Day, Summer (a short-story collection by Christine Schutt); The Member of the Wedding (a novel by Carson McCullers); Dark Nature: A Natural History of Evil (a book by Lyall Watson).

Capitalization gets trickier with conjunctions and prepositions. A coordinating conjunction (such as and or but) is never capitalized unless it’s the first word of a title or of a subtitle: And the Bridge Is Love (a collection of essays by Faye Moskowitz); My World—And Welcome to It (a collection of short pieces by James Thurber); Lives of Girls and Women (a novel by Alice Munro); The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (a novel by Fay Weldon); Here but Not Here: A Love Story (a memoir, bearing a different subtitle in its paperback edition, by Lillian Ross).
     Subordinating conjunctions (such as if, as, while, when, because, and since) are typically uppercased regardless of length: Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart (a novel by Joyce Carol Oates); And If I Perish: Frontline U.S. Army Nurses in World War II (a book by Evelyn Monahan and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee); “It’s Detestable When You Live It” (an article by Whitney Balliett). A reader occasionally still sees a very short subordinating conjunction lowercased: Play It as It Lays (a novel by Joan Didion).
     Conjunctive adverbs (such as however, thus, therefore, moreover, additionally, and also) rarely appear in titles but must be uppercased when they do: I Shop,Therefore I Am: Compulsive Buying and the Search for Self (an anthology edited by April Lane Benson); The 1974 Detroit Cocaine Myth: EPE and LMP Sell “Elvis Presley: The Cokehead” As Fact; However, It Is False! (a brief book by Darrin Lee). The as in the second title, however, should be lowercased (it’s functioning as a preposition).
       As for the correlative conjunctions either . . . or and neither . . . nor, capitalization practice varies from publisher to publisher: It’s Either Her or Me: A Guide to Help a Mom and Her Daughter-in-Law Get Along (a book by Ellie Slott Fisher); Neither Man nor Woman: The Hijiras of India (a book by Serena Nanda); Neither Here Nor There: The Art of Oliver Jeffers. A writer might conclude that capitalizing both halves of the correlative-conjunction pair is more aesthetically pleasing.     
       Publishers and usage manuals differ on the matter of how long a preposition must be before it requires capitalization, but most agree on either a four- or five-letter minimum. Standard practice for headlines in The New York Times is to capitalize prepositions consisting of four or more letters (“An Artful Life Captured With No Loss of Luster”). At the The New Yorker magazine, the general policy is to capitalize any preposition at least five letters long (“Duet, with Muffled Brake Drums,” a poem by John Updike; “Melancholy Reflections After a Lost Argument,” a poem by Phyllis McGinley). A writer affiliated with a particular publisher should follow that publisher’s guidelines for capitalization.
       Some words that ordinarily function as prepositions can function adverbially in a phrasal verb or a phrasal verbal, which consists of a verb (or verbal) followed by a preposition playing the role of an adverb. Prepositions in adverbial drag require capitalization, as in Woke Up Lonely (a novel by Fiona Maazel) and in these titles of entries in Disquiet, Please!: More Humor Writing from The New Yorker (edited by David Remnick and Henry Finder): “How to Lay Off Your Kids,” by Carina Chocano; “The Breaking Up of the Winships,” by James Thurber; “All I Really Need to Know I Learned by Having My Arms Ripped Off by a Polar Bear,” by Andrew Barlow.     
      If the preposition playing the part of an adverb is attached to a participle to form an adjectival compound modifying a noun, standard practice is to capitalize the adverb and attach it to the participle with a hyphen, as in Picked-Up Pieces (a collection of essays by John Updike).
      Finally, the words who, whom, whose, that, which, how, and what are always capitalized in titles: The Woman Who Was Not All There (a novel by Paula Sharp); For Whom the Bell Tolls (a novel by Ernest Hemingway); Raising Your Spirited Child: A Guide for Parents Whose Child Is More Intense, Sensitive, Perceptive, Persistent, and Energetic (a book by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka); Everything That Rises Must Converge (a short-story collection by Flannery O’Connor); The Complete Eldercare Planner, Revised and Updated Edition: Where to Start, Which Questions to Ask, and How to Find Help (a book by Joy Loverde); Career Match: Connecting Who You Are with What You’ll Love to Do (a book by Shoya Zichy and Ann Bidou).

  ^^  92

 

The answer to your friend’s question?
       It depends.
       With a couple of universally all-purpose exceptions discussed later, The New Yorker, for example, doesn’t capitalize the first word in such constructions—except when the first word is a proper noun or a proper adjective (such as Renata Adler or Adlerian), which always requires capitalization, or the pronoun I.

 At the opposite extreme, New York magazine capitalizes the first word.

The New York Times now routinely capitalizes the first word, and so does The Wall Street Journal, though inconsistencies appear in both. Unless you’re writing for a publication whose style manual requires upper- or lowercasing, you’re free to choose whichever style you prefer. What’s important is consistency.
       With that said, however, there are some sentences in which capitalization is always required after a colon, some in which capitalization is always out of the question, and some in which it’s left to the writer’s discretion unless she’s writing for a publication that prescribes how the capitalization of phrasing following a colon should be handled.
      First, if the independent clause preceding the colon is preparing the reader for two or more consecutive sentences that are elaborating on or providing examples of the statement in the independent clause, you need to capitalize the first word of each of the sentences that are covered overhead, so to speak, by the umbrella of that first independent clause.

Second, when a colon is followed by a series of related questions, each question must begin with an uppercased letter.

Third, the first word of any phrasing that does not amount to the equivalent of a complete sentence must never be capitalized (unless that first word is a proper noun, a proper adjective, or the pronoun I) when it follows a colon that is preceded by an independent clause.

Fourth, when the colon is preceded by phrasing that lacks the grammatical status of an independent clause (phrasing such as a word of warning, a word to the wise, first things first, among the findings, and note to self) but is followed by an independent clause (the equivalent of a grammatically complete sentence), publishing-world practice varies as to whether the first word of the phrasing following the colon should be capitalized (unless, of course, the first word is one that always requires capitalization).
       The New Yorker lowercases after such phrasing, and New York magazine capitalizes, but The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are often inconsistent. (Phrasing following the introductory element and not functioning as the equivalent of a complete sentence, however, never begins with a capital letter unless the first word is one that always requires capitalization, as in One advantage: Costco’s higher wages.) So how should you manage the capitalization? Again, unless you’re writing for a publication whose style manual lays down the law, it’s a matter of your preference—and a matter of being consistent. This book, however, recommends New Yorker style: lowercasing. If the phrase preceding the colon, however, is followed by two or more sentences elaborating on or explaining what was introduced in the phrase, you’ll need to capitalize the first word of each of the elaborative or explanatory sentences that follow the colon.
       Finally, when the colon following an independent clause is directing the reader toward a quotation in the form of a complete sentence, the first word of the quotation is capitalized.     

In sum, there are five patterns to master:

(1) INDEPENDENT CLAUSE: INDEPENDENT CLAUSE.
      Except when the second independent clause is phrased in the form of a question or is the first part of a multi-sentence explanation (as discussed early in this chapter), capitalizing the first word following the colon (unless the first word happens to be a word always requiring capitalization) is a matter of institutional or personal stylistic preference—but be consistent. This book recommends lowercasing.

(2) INDEPENDENT CLAUSE: PHRASE OR SINGLE WORD.
       Capitalize the first word following the colon only if it is a word that always requires capitalization. There is no room for personal preference here.

(3) PHRASE: INDEPENDENT CLAUSE.
       Except when the first word following the colon is a word always requiring capitalization, capitalizing that first word is a matter of institutional or personal stylistic preference. Again, be consistent. This book recommends lowercasing.

(4) PHRASE: PHRASE OR SINGLE WORD.
       Unless the first word following the colon is a word that always requires capitalization, do not capitalize it. There is no room for personal preference here.

(5) INDEPENDENT CLAUSE: “FULL-SENTENCE QUOTATION.”
       Capitalize the first word of the quotation. There are no exceptions.

  ^^  93 

The dust-jacket biographies of authors often state that a writer divides her time between, say, Brooklyn and Ann Arbor. But what if she buys a summer house in Barnegat Bay, New Jersey? Does she now divide her time among Brooklyn, Ann Arbor, and Barnegat Bay, New Jersey?
       No.
       If most people remember anything about how the preposition between differs from among, it’s that the former is used when discussing two things or people and the latter is used when discussing three or more. One speaks of a secret shared between Jorie and her sister and of a joke shared among several friends. But the distinction between the two prepositions doesn’t end there. Among is used appropriately when three or more persons or things are not all interacting individually with the others, as in The manager did everything she could to foster team spirit among her employees. If all of the three or more persons or things (let’s refer to them as A, B, and C), however, are in fact interacting one-on-one with the others (A with B, A with C, B with C), only between makes any sense.
       There was a growing unease among the three sisters means that all three shared something, but there’s no emphasis on the sisters as individuals. There was increasing hostility between the three sisters, however, means that each sister felt increasingly hostile toward each of the other two; the emphasis is on the individuals. Between pinpoints persons or things one at a time; among waves rather abstractly or indefinitely at three or more persons or things sharing something in common without singling out any one of the persons or things in particular. Among is inclusive in its embrace; between is exclusive, putting its finger on just one member of the group before moving on to the next.  

The individual units or passages of the novel are each related from a single character’s point of view. That is, the reader encounters only one character’s perspective at a time.

No matter how many buildings there are at the site, the shuttle travels not among them but between them (that is, between Building A and Building B, then between Building B and Building C, and so on).

Each brother was in a conflict with each of the other two.

The preposition among is inexact and vague in expressing the spatial relations here. The park is wedged between this building and that building and another building and yet another building and so on.

Between should be substituted for among in each of the following four sentences.

As for the question posed at the outset of this chapter: a person divides her time between this place, that place, and some other place. She can be in only one place at a time. Among the countries somebody has visited, France might always be her favorite, but she travels between destinations, not among them.

This sentence about the passage of time—excerpted from a review of a performance by the singer and saxophonist Seun Kuti, son of Fela Anikulapo Kuti, the founder of the species of funk known as Afrobeat—would have readers believe that some sort of phantom generation separated the father’s generation from the son’s generation, because, after all, what could exist between two seemingly consecutive generations other than another generation?

Between each one? Surely the writer means between every two.

  ^^  94 

The misuse of lay for lie, of laying for lying, and of laid for lay is no longer confined to the semiliterate. It’s all over the place, as the following excerpts illustrate.

In those examples, lie should be substituted for lay, lies for lays, lying for laying, and lay for laid.
      So how might we unmuddle the distinction between lie and lay? Let’s say that you have spent most of your day standing, walking, and sitting, and you’re ready to make the pleasurable transition from the vertical to the horizontal and stretch yourself out comfortably. As you ease yourself onto a sofa, or bed, or futon, or hammock, you are about to lie, not lay. Keep that long i of lie foremost in your mind: “I’m inclined to recline supine for a time, all right? Tonight, I’m going to retire at nine and finally delight in some shut-eye of the divinest kind. Let me lie down already!”           
       But what of last night? If tonight, you will lie, yesterday, you lay. It’s that simple. Yesterday, you called it a day and hit the hay—and then you lay on your foldaway bed and pulled the fading rainbow-hued counterpane all the way up over your face. But tonight you’re tired, you want some quiet, and you’re going to lie down on your queen-sized ivory-white sheets.
      Lay is the past-tense form of lie.
      Sounds easy enough, no?
      The trouble, though, is that lay is not only the past-tense form of the verb lie. The combination of letters forming lay also constitutes another verb in our language, a verb entirely different from lie.
       To lay means to place something somewhere—to situate it other than where it has been. Lay is the present-tense form, and laid is the past-tense form: I am going to lay my cards on the table. I want to lay my head on her shoulder. She laid her briefcase on the bed. She really laid down the law.
       It might be time to review some grammatical terminology.
      The present-tense lay and the past-tense laid are transitive verbs: verbs that always take a direct object. That is, they’re always followed by a noun or a pronoun: She will lay her head on the pillow. (The direct object is head.) She laid the can of Mace on the counter. (The direct object is can.)
       The verb to lie, in contrast, is an intransitive verb. That means lie (or its past-tense form, lay) never takes a direct object. It will never be followed by a noun or a pronoun. But it might be followed by one or more single-word adverbs (such as quietly or down): She is going to lie down. Or it might be followed by one or more adverbial prepositional phrases (such as on her side and for most): She lay on her side for most of the night.
       To sum up, let’s say you’re in the present tense. (You’re one of those enviable people who live in the moment.) To use the verb lay correctly, you’re going to have to do something to something: you’re going to have to put something down somewhere. In short, you’ll be active, at least to a degree. But to use the word lie correctly, you’ll need to be finally done with doing things to things—at least for now. You’ve had it with action. So go lie down.
       If you’re someone who lives in the past, though, you’ll be using laid correctly only if you’re mentioning, or remembering, having done something to something: you’ve already laid your clothes out for tomorrow. You’ll be using lay correctly only if you were earlier stretched out.
       Finally, the past participle of lie is lain, but it’s rarely used in this casual age. It sounds fussy and affected. So instead of saying She had lain in bed for days, you could say She had been lying in bed for days. The past participle of lay, though, is the same as its past-tense form. In She laid it on the line, laid is the simple past-tense form, but in She had laid things out as plainly as possible, laid is a past participle.

  ^^  95

 

First, you graduate from a school, a college, or a university. All six of the following sentences desperately need the preposition from.

Second, in all but the most casual prose, avoid using like as a subordinating conjunction; replace like with as if (occasionally, as, that, or the way will do instead). The writer of the following sentence gets things right only in the final dependent clause.

Substitute as if for like in the three following sentences.

Substitute as if for like in the following sentence (and swap had forgotten for forgot [see Chapter 51]).

Substitute that for like in the following sentence—or simply delete like.

Third, maintain the traditional distinction between amount and number.

What the writer means is the number of employees. Use number when a quantity is divisible into individual, countable units: the number of women, the number of smartphones. Use amount when a quantity or mass is not divisible into countable units: the amount of anxiety, the amount of work.
       A similar distinction obtains between less and fewer.

What the writer means is That is ten fewer students than last year. Use fewer much as you would use number—when there are countable units involved. Use less when a quantity or mass is not divisible into countable units: less frustration, less tofu.     

You never want to write one fewer, though. Substitute one less in each of the following three sentences.

In the next example, substitute one less device for one device fewer.

Use less rather than fewer when the emphasis is on spans of time, lump sums, amounts of money, and the like: less than four hours later, less than seven percent of the population, less than eighteen dollars an hour.     
     Fourth, don’t confuse then (an adverb typically expressing a later stage in a chronological sequence) with than (a subordinating conjunction used in expressing a contrast). Substitute than for then in each of the two following excerpts.

Fifth, something isn’t that big of a deal—it’s simply not that big a deal. The preposition of has no place in such phrasing, no logical or grammatical reason for following the adjective.

Even sadder is the screamingly ungrammatical substitution of the preposition of for the helping verb have (or its contracted form:’ve) in could of, should of, would of, may of, might of, and must of.

Sixth, the phrasing as far as functions as a subordinating conjunction, not as a preposition. It’s used correctly only when it’s followed by both a subject and a predicate (such as is [or are] concerned or goes [or go]). It’s used incorrectly if it is followed by only a noun, a noun phrase, or a pronoun.

In a sentence such as As far as the budget cuts, there’s no alternative, the ungrammatical As far as the budget cuts can be converted to a prepositional phrase: As for the budget cuts, there’s no alternative.
       Seventh, a standard by which we judge someone or something is a criterion. The noun criterion is singular. The plural form is criteria. Substitute criterion for criteria in the following three sentences.

Similarly, phenomena is increasingly used as if it were a singular noun. It’s the plural form of phenomenon.

Eighth, you can’t convince anybody to do anything, but you can at least try to persuade her. Convince, when used correctly, is never followed by an infinitive; it’s most commonly followed either by an indirect object and a nounal dependent clause (She convinced Josh that he needs a smaller apartment) or by a direct object and one or more prepositional phrases (Jandice convinced Lisa of the importance of volunteering). Persuade, which means urge, is correctly followed by a subject of an infinitive and then the infinitive itself (Jandice persuaded Lisa to vote).
       Substitute persuaded for convinced in the following sentence.

Substitute persuade for convince in the following three sentences.

Substitute persuades for convinces in the following sentence.

In the following sentence, persuading needs to be substituted for convincing.

The opposite of persuade is dissuade. One dissuades someone from doing something.

A car can be neither persuaded nor dissuaded.

Finally, as for affect versus effect, let’s skip the specialized uses of these words that come into play only infrequently (consult a dictionary if you’re interested—and let’s hope you are) and instead review what the words mean in everyday usage.
       The following two sentences need effect.

 The next sentence needs affect.

To affect means to cause a change in or to have an influence on. Affect is a verb. Effect is a noun that means result or consequence.     

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