Grammar Q&A

The Owl heard something on the radio the other day that got his feathers in a twist. To straighten them out again, I said I’d do a post about it. He thought it would be best if I used my own example, though. So, here’s my example. A notice appeared on the school bulletin board: “Whoever ran the gym teacher’s socks up the flagpole should turn himself or herself into the principal immediately.” There’s a problem with that sentence. Do you see what it is? You’ve likely taken note of the capitalized word in the post title, which is a rather blatant hint. The last time I checked, it takes quite a while to become a principal. It isn’t going to happen immediately. We know the student isn’t being asked to transform him or herself into the principal, but that’s what the wording implies. When someone reports to authorities, they don’t turn themselves into the authorities, they turn themselves in to the authorities. There’s a subtle difference, but it’s a difference. Turning something into something else implies transformation or movement. The caterpillar turned into a butterfly. or The car turned into the driveway. (This goes for any verb that goes with into or in, of course, not just ‘turn.’) The salient part of the intent of the example sentence is that the culprit should turn him or herself in. Then it goes on to say to whom the person should report. When in doubt, take the last part of the sentence away and see how it looks and sounds. Will he turn himself in? Or will he turn himself into? This post at Writer’s Digest suggests an easy trick for remembering which to use. Quoting the post: “‘Into’ usually answers the question ‘where?’ while ‘in to’ is generally short for ‘in order to.’” Onto can cause similar problems, although various sources that I consulted suggest that it is becoming more prevalent in American English to use onto where previously a speaker or writer would have used on to. Still, saying “We will drive onto New York this evening” evokes an image of a car perched atop the Empire State Building, having driven right up onto the city. But if you say “We will drive on to New York this evening,” it suggests that your journey will continue to New York. There’s a good test for onto and on to at the Writing Explained blog. Quoting the post: “A good trick to remember on to vs. onto is to mentally say “up” before on in a sentence. If it still makes sense, then onto is probably the correct choice.” By now I suspect you could really get into moving on to other things! If you have a question for the Grammar Owl and me, please mention it in the comments, or send an email to mail (at) flubs2fixes (dot) com. We thrive on questions!   READER SURVEY: If you haven’t already completed my Reader Survey, please take a couple of minutes to read the post linked here and to take the survey. Your thoughts and suggestions will be very valuable to me as I make plans for next fall’s blogging. Thank you!  

The Owl and I had a question sent to us recently that we are happy to answer here in our grammar and word use feature, A Word with Beth.   I’ve heard you should have a space before and after an ellipsis. I have seen in books sometimes there is a space before the ellipsis and sometimes there isn’t. Is there a hard and fast rule on this? … And should there be a space between the dots? . . .    Ellipses are a pain in the mm-hmmm! (Ellipses is the plural of ellipsis, which I’m sure you already know.) They’re particularly confusing when, as the questioner said, they’re done differently in different books. Likely that’s because of the style guide that the publisher follows. There may be discrepancies in the way the “rules” are interpreted from style guide to style guide. The basic rule is that there should be a space before and a space after, and yes, the standard is to have a space between each one. Handily, Microsoft Word automatically adds the narrow space between dots that’s all that is necessary, when one types the … so there’s no need when typing in Word to type . . . (dot space dot space dot space). Apple’s Pages does the same. As for the space before and after the three dots, that’s standard, but just to confuse things, it does vary in some books. When in doubt, follow the standard. Grammar Girl (a resource I love, because she explains things in ordinary language) suggests thinking of the ellipsis as the word or words it’s replacing. Then a space before and after it makes perfect sense. Here’s Grammar Girl’s take on creating ellipses. Also, they’re always three dots, not two, not five, not many dots trailing off ad infinitum. Occasionally, you might see four dots at the end of a sentence, but that’s because the part of the quotation that is being omitted has a full sentence before the omitted part. So the fourth dot is really the period after the sentence preceding the ellipsis. One caveat about ellipses — they’re far too widely used. Their chief use is to indicate that something (a word, a number of words, a number of sentences) has been omitted from a quotation. They can also be used to indicate the trailing off of a spoken sentence or thought, but this shouldn’t be overused. That’s a basic take on ellipses. Feeling slightly dotty? 😉   Remember: if you have a question about a sticky grammar point, or the use of a word or phrase, the Grammar Owl and I would be glad to answer it in a future edition of A Word with Beth. You can ask your question in the comments below, or contact me using the email address of my copy editing service, mail (at) flubs2fixes (dot) com. (Do the logical thing with the words in brackets.) The Owl and I look forward to hearing from you!