The biggest contributor to bad communications is passive construction--the back-pew belchings of lazy writers. Passive sentences reflect a rushed writer who refuses to rethink a phrase to make it active, powerful and clear.
“A leading provider of database software for business intelligence.” That’s passive and flabby. It says almost nothing, except that the company sells database software. Well, wait. We don’t really know if it sells the software; it could be a distributor; it could be a consultant that just installs the software for someone. Provider is a very flabby term. Business intelligence. Some would argue that’s as oxymoronic as “military intelligence.” But people who follow enterprise software know what BI is. Still, in the Internet age when a release goes out, it’s available to everyone online, millions and millions of people. I’d say around 99.9999 percent of the people online don’t know what business intelligence means. So when you stumble into these jargon canyons, claw your way out with active sentences that give a better sense for, in this case, the software and its utility within an organization.
Onward…
Commas in a series: This question came up today. In grammar school (maybe they don’t teach grammar any more), you’re taught to include a comma before “and” and “or” in a series. For example, “Today in San Francisco, it rained cats, dogs, and everything but the kitchen sink.” AP style, however, does not call for a comma. “My therapist told me to eat less, cut back on the booze and exercise more.” So we go with AP style.
Commas, periods, etc. and quotation marks: They always go inside, not outside the quotation marks, unless you’re in the United Kingdom, where, because they drive on the wrong side of the road, they put them outside.
P.S. These things “ “ “ are quotation marks. What the candidate said today on the stump is a great quote.
3 comments:
I really can't wait until one of my "back-pew belchings" gets called out in this blog ;)
IMO, use a comma if it helps the reader understand the sentence. Don't use a comma if it doesn't.
Eats, shoots, and leaves...
AP style, however, does not call for a comma...So we go with AP style.
(Sobs of grief...) I always liked AP style, but I always *hated* their serial comma rule. It comes from the days of setting hot type -- one fewer character to set if it's not there. In this day and age of free typesetting, we have everything to gain and nothing to lose from using the serial comma. It leads to consitency of understanding among readers, and that is our ultimate goal, isn't it? I have heard dozens of cases for using the serial comma, and never heard one decent case for leaving it out.
Commas, periods, etc. and quotation marks: They always go inside, not outside the quotation marks, unless you’re in the United Kingdom, where, because they drive on the wrong side of the road, they put them outside.
Another artifact of lead type -- the sort for a period or comma is so small, and at the bottom, that the mark would often become misaligned, so it was tucked inside the larger quotation-mark sort to help hold the period or comma in place.
What the candidate said today on the stump is a great quote.
No, what the candidate said today on the stump is a great quotation. Quote is a verb. Quotation is a noun. And try as you have, er, I mean, might, you will never persuade me to believe otherwise. :-)
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