#grammar nerdery

[whilereadingandwalking]

What's the "CMS" ?

Fantastic question! That's me being an editor and not realizing it's not exactly general info.

The CMS is the Chicago Manual of Style. It and the Associated Press style (AP) are the two primarily used grammar systems or guides in the United States. Very, very generally speaking, usually AP style is used for news and CMS for books.

I'm a CMS girl all the way. I was trained in it, I live 25 minutes from the University of Chicago Press, who create the CMS, and I'm a fan of the serial comma, which they use.

[gingerpolyglot]

LESS answers the question "How much?"

FEWER answers the question "How many?"

For example:

"How much flour did you say we needed?" "Less than 2 cups."

"How many examples should I put in the guide?" "Fewer than 10."

If you're not sure which to use, turn your sentence into a question and then answer it

[castlefanficprompts]

[ariestess]

As a grammarphile, I abhor seeing any of these things in anything I read. These are things that will kill a story for me, regardless of how compelling the plot is.

Source: (x)

[bitterwaters]

distracted from the content of an otherwise excellent and important article on domestic homicide because it keeps using "till" for "'til"

[mumblingsage]

Find My Fiction update: My speculative fiction piece, "Sibial' in Exile," is in issue #24 of Neo-Opsis magazine. Two fun facts about this one:

1. The apostrophe in the title is used deliberately and correctly. I wouldn't remark on it but I just picked up Lynne Truss' "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" and I want to reassure you all on that point. As for how it's deliberate and correct, I leave that to the story itself to demonstrate. 

2. This is my second published story with an asexual protagonist (the first, "A Marriage Pure and Good," appeared in Scigentasy magazine in September last year; the next, "For Lost Time," will be appearing in Beneath Ceaseless Skies in the near future). Which is not to say you can't headcanon any other character in another story as ace if you like, simply that this is one of the times where I make it explicit. 

[maureen-doolittle]

Okay, people of Tumblr, I need your help.  I'm going to be writing a language observation for my grammar class, focusing on a particular grammar oddity used frequently in everyday language.  I'm thinking about focusing on the specific sentence "I can't even with these feels."

Problem is, I have no idea where in the world these phrases or words came from.  Does anybody know?  If you don't, could you reblog it anyway so that someone who does might see it?

Thanks!