Privacy or Security: Are the two necessarily incompatible?

A new opinion piece in the New York Times argues that the old either-privacy-or-security paradigm is dead. With so much information changing hands regularly--credit card transactions, medical data, emails, social networking--this author argues that whether we can have privacy has become a moot point. So, what we need to think is not whether we can have privacy OR security (because that question is now outdated), how can privacy and security be balanced. He argues that we need, as a society, to discuss not how much information can be gathered about us, but how that information will be used. Very interesting reading:

Click here to read the piece.

Grammar Rant--rampant redundancy!

Actually, this is not another grammar rant, but is more correctly a redundancy alert. I don't know why it has become so popular these days, but people keep referring to time periods.

Does  that not strike you as redundant? What else could a period be (used in this fashion) but a period of time?

So, don't use the awful phrase, time period. Use one or the other, either:

She knew the French Revolution occurred during this time

OR

She knew the French Revolution occurred during this period.

But, please, don't use both. And those of you who are intending to become teachers (I applaud you all), please don't let your high school or middle school students write about time periods.

Grammar Rant

Occasionally, along with the Grammar Goodies,  I will feel compelled to throw in a Grammar Rant. These will appear randomly, usually when something outrageously wrong crops up in my inbox. Today's Grammar Rant stems from a mass of student emails requesting permission numbers. Now, I am perfectly happy to hand out permission numbers whenever I can, and I have no problem with students sending me permission number requests. And I am THRILLED when students write back after hearing from me (most do not).

Anyway, here's what's getting my back up today.

There is no such word as ALRIGHT.

I can't tell you how many times polite students will respond to my response with the following:

"Alright, I understand. Thanks anyway."

The correct form is ALL RIGHT.

Really, trust me--there is no such word as ALRIGHT.

There, now I feel better...

Grammar Goody #8--Comma Rules, part II

Yippee! Another comma rule.


Put a comma after an introductory phrase or clause. To wit:

Although she never put on her shoes before taking out the garbage, her toes managed to survive nicely without breaks or sprains. 

Without that comma after garbage and before her toes, you'd have a really weird couple of words there:

...garbage her toes...

That clearly would not be good or clear.

This rule used to be hard and fast. Now it's softening somewhat so you will see this type of comma not used sometimes when the introductory clause or phrase is short. But I advise you to ALWAYS put it in. It's never going to be wrong if you do.

So, I would write a sentence like this next one WITH the comma (even though it's not considered wrong to do so without it in some circles):


Although short, the clause was effectively placed and had maximum impact.

The bottom line on introductory clauses or phrases, always set them off from the rest of the sentence with a comma.

Grammar Goody #7-- When to use commas, part 1

You're stumped on how and when to use commas, right? That's because if you were taught it at all, no one  held your feet to the fire and actually made you do it. So, gradually you forgot.

Fortunately for you, commas are among the easiest of punctuation marks to learn the proper placement of.

This last sentence reminds me of an old story about Winston Churchill, the great British prime minister during World War II. He was once scolded for ending a sentence with a preposition (as I just did above when I wrote the "proper placement of"). Churchill had enough of such pedantry, and he replied saying something like "that is a criticism up with which I will not put....)

But I digress. Back to commas. We'll start with rule #1 today and continue with others in succeeding days (I know, I know, but you'll just have to wait for the others...)

1. Put a comma before and if the and is connecting two independent clauses, as in this:


She decided to go to the wedding, and she knew exactly what she would wear. 


So, what's an independent clause? It is a part of a sentence that can stand on its own as an independent sentence. In our example above, we have two independent clauses.

(1) She decided to go to the wedding (could stand as a complete sentence on its own)
AND
(2) she knew exactly what she would wear (also could stand as a complete sentence on its own).


Now, that comma may seem unnecessary, but it it's not. It's required in good writing. 


This rule is also cool with or, but, or nor--not just and. 


Going back to my lame example sentence above, the comma placement would be the same if we substituted but for the and. 


She decided to go to the wedding, but she had no idea what to wear. 

Grammar Goody #5-- How to use semicolons (or, when in doubt, don't)

Sometimes students throw semicolons around, hoping it will make their writing look more erudite. My daughter used to love to throw in a semicolon whenever she thought it might look good. But, appearances aside, that's not a good reason to use this most misunderstood of punctuation marks.

So, here's my advice--only use semicolons in two instances.

1. To join two independent clauses that do not have but, or, nor or and.
So, it would be like this
Jim wanted to go; Jan said she didn't.

Now, you could always break that up into two sentences:
Jim wanted to go. Jan said she didn't.

And that would be fine, but it's also good to leave it as one sentence since the clauses are so short and so closely related.

And now the second time to use a semicolon?

2. To set of items in a series that have internal commas. 

He ordered the steak; the potatoes, the kind with the garlic mashed in; and the vegetable of the day.

See why the semicolon is necessary here? It's because "potatoes, the kind with the garlic mashed in" has an internal comma and yet it functions as one of the things in the list, not two. So, if the sentence was punctuated like this:
He ordered the steak, the potatoes, the kind with the garlic mashed in, and the vegetable of the day

then "the kind with the garlic mashed in" would be one of his menu selections, and that's not what you mean.

So, be precise in your punctuation, lest you get  garlic mashed in somewhere you don't want it.

Last remaining Kennedy insider is gone

Today's New York Times contains an obituary for Ted Sorensen, JFK's principal speechwriter--and the speechwriter responsible for some of Kennedy's most famous lines, such as "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." He was more than just a speechwriter, though. He was also a confidant and adviser.

There's a marvelous 22-minute video interview included on the obituary page. I recommend it highly. We Americans tend to focus on our presidents, ignoring key Congressional representatives and presidential staff members who are immensely influential. Sorensen is such a person.\

Ted Sorensen obituary, 1 November 2010


And there's another article that we should all read: it shows that Kennedy was not the knee-jerk cold warrior he is often made out to be. With Sorensen's influence, Kennedy delivered a speech in 1963 that sounds nothing like cold war saber rattling --rather, it calls for toning down the rhetoric and international acceptance of diversity. Here's the link to the article in the Boston Globe about that speech.

Grammar Goody #6-- Number and Amount are Not Synonymous

Many people use amount these days for everything dealing with quantity, but that's not always correct. There is a hard-and-fast rule about this (not the hyphens between the compound adjective words?)

1. Use amount only for things that can't be counted:
The amount of love in the world today...

The amount of fear...

2. Use number for things that can be counted:
The number of soldiers serving in Afghanistan....

So this sentence below would clearly be wrong (and I heard it on a news broadcast a few days ago)

The amount of voters is much lower this year than two years ago.

Why is that wrong? Because voters can be counted.

BUT, if the sentence were like this:
The amount of voter apathy is much higher this year than two years ago...
That would be correct because voter apathy can't be counted.

Daniel Ellsberg on the newest round of Wikileaks

For my graduate students who are reading extensively into First Amendment issues and my Constitutional History students comes this most timely opinion piece by Daniel Ellsberg about the newest round of Wikileaks about the Iraq War (which he says may be even more significant than the Pentagon Papers were more than 40 years ago.

Ellsberg's article in The Guardian

Grammar Goody #4 --Redundancies = Too Many Words

Redundancies abound these days. They make our discussions lengthy and our writing obtuse.

Here's a list of some of my favorites

1. add in

2. join together

3. time period

4. true facts

5.rise up

6. drop down (a favorite of meteorologists--temperatures don't just drop to -43, they drop down to -43)

7. live studio audience (imagine the possibility of a dead studio audience..might be good for Halloween, I suppose)


And my all time favorite is?

Free gift. (don't you just hate those gifts you have to pay for?)

No, really my all, all-time favorite is:

Each and every. 

Or how about ATM machine. Hey, what does the M stand for?

Something to think about. Any you'd care to add? Leave a written comment below. [get it?]

Grammar Goody #3--It looks wrong, but it's right

I usually like to insist that most grammar and punctuation rules make sense, but this one I must admit just plain makes no sense at all. This is one of those things you just have to learn and remember.

Periods and commas go inside the close quotation marks. 

So, instead of
"Stop", he said as he went about his business  (which looks right)

It must be

"Stop," he said as he went about his business. 

AND

According to Jon Stewart, "this rally to restore sanity will be huge." [period, then close quotation mark]

Grammar Goody #2-- It's confusing knowing which its it is...

We all learned about apostrophe usage in high school: you remember--Susan's dog ate Marthat's homework--that sort of thing.

So, it would be logical (but incorrect) to think that the possessive form of it would be it's. But it's not correct.

OK, let's get to the point (note the let's in that sentence--the apostrophe is NOT representing possession, but something that's missing--the "u" in let us).

So, here's the deal:

An apostrophe represents both possession (as in Martha's homework) AND a place where there's a letter or two missing--as in there's: the i missing when there and is are combined to form there's. 

So, in order to show in the contraction of it is (it's), some grammarian somewhere more interested in confusing people trying to learn English than in any sort of consistency, came up with this rule:

It's is not possessive but is the contraction of it is.

That means that It's = It is. 

And its means the possessive form.

Confused yet?

This might make it easier: Just remember this:

It's hard to fathom, but I understand its logic (I think). 

Grammar Goody #1: The Most Common Young Writer's Mistake

Believe it or not, this is the most common error I see made: pronoun usage.

I'll see a sentence like this:

Each student should be responsible for their words. [their is the pronoun]

In spoken English, this is quite common (not correct, but common). Unfortunately, it's also become common in students' writing as well--probably because it's so common in spoken English.

But it's still not right.

Here's how it must be: (there's really no wiggle room on this):

Each student should be responsible for his or her actions.

Now, I'll agree that seems awkward (because it is), so here's my suggestion. Instead of writing the "his or her" thing, rewrite the sentence to make the subject plural. That way your pronoun needs to be plural too.

So, our new sentence would be:

Students should be responsible for their actions.

Simple!

Someday we may adopt "their" as the universal pronoun for both singular and plural--and that might not be a bad idea--but until then, watch your singular and plural pronouns.

New blog posts coming on your favorite subject: GRAMMAR! No,don't run away!

It has occurred to me over the last seven years of teaching at both UNCWilmington and at UAlbany that students are not learning grammar, punctuation, and writing style as they did when I was in high school. Here's an example of what I mean: many of you, reading that last statement--after rolling your eyes--thought to yourselves, she goofed--she should have capitalized high school. Many students today do just that. They'll write something like, "after I graduated High School, I went to..."

Unfortunately, there are two problems with that. High school, used generically, is not a name--not a proper noun--and therefore is not capitalized.

What's a proper noun, you  say? That's exactly the type of information I'm going to start doling out on a daily basis.

Over the years, I've collected a slew of common mistakes. It's obvious that since I see the same mistakes year after year, class after class, these tidbits were not passed along to you earlier in your education as they were to me, lo those many years ago... It's those commonly made mistakes that I'll be addressing.

So, now I know you just can't wait to check back every day to see what the tip of the day is going to be, BUT hear me out! If you do, I guarantee that you will be happier when you sit down to write, your writing will be better,  your essay grades will go up and you'll get the job of your dreams. Well, I've clearly gone too far on that last one, but you get the point.

And think of it this way, if you learn and then focus on ONE grammar tip per day, it will be relatively painless...and you'll get the job of your dreams....drat, I did it again.

So come back tomorrow for the inaugural grammar goody.

Unrestricted Campaign Contributions and Watergate: There is a Connection

If you're wondering why there are so many campaign ads this midterm election and why so many of them are attack ads, and why most of them are attacking incumbent Democrats, look no further than last spring's Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case. That decision, on First Amendment grounds, allowed unlimited anonymous donations to private groups who in turn are unlimited in their campaign spending.

But what that decision does is to make legal what used to be illegal and which earned people trials and convictions during the Watergate years. Read on to learn more:

"Return of the Secret Donors," New York Times

I truly did not intend for my last post to relate to today's, but I'm afraid that they necessarily do. Yesterday, the administration sought legislation that will enable the government's intelligence gathering services to tap internet communications the same way that they are able to tap phone conversations--by warrant, a protection for innocent Americans. What is your opinion about this? It seems perfectly reasonable, as the government argues, that new abilities to communicate require new extensions of warrantable wiretapping. On the other hand, the FBI has not always to conducted itself according to its mandates and regulations. Your thoughts?
For more, see yesterday's New York Times article:

U.S. Tries to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet

Report Shows FBI Sometimes Slips Back Into J Edgar Hoover Style of Investigation

A new report shows that the FBI has illegally surveilled peaceful, non-terrorist protest in violation of its orders. It should only surveil legal First Amendment activity, like peaceful demonstrations, if it suspects criminal or terrorist activity, but the report shows some slip-ups. This serves as a good example of why governmental agencies need oversight for our protections. Here's the New York Times editorial that brought the report to my attention:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/opinion/27mon2.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

Obama and Jimmy Carter: is there a parallel?

Walter Mondale, Carter's vp from 1977 to 1980 and presidential candidate in 1980, sees a distinct parallel between the hellish difficulties faced by the Carter administration in the late '70s and the seemingly equally hellish difficulties facing the Obama administration today.

Here's a very short article from The New Yorker magazine:

"CENSORED" Label Removed by Craigslist

In yet another twist to the Craigslist "censorship" story, the site has removed the Censored label that it had slapped on its shut-down "Adult Services" section.
See today's NY Times.

Still no word from Craigslist officials about why they responded to the state attorneys general by taking the list down, why they slapped the label on a few days ago, or why they have now taken it down. Stay tuned: this surely is not the end of this story!

Craigslist Censorship?

The latest "censorship" flap concerns Craigslist's adult services category. Recently, apparently in response to some state attorneys general who were concerned that the service was promoting prostitution and child abuse, Craigslist took down its adult services section, slapping a Censored label where it used to be.

 Craigslist executives refuse to discuss this situation but lots of other people are:
The Wall Street Journal
The Huffington Post
The New York Times
The Electronic Frontier Foundation

Many of the reporters and commentators seem to be focused on why Craigslist has taken this action and whether it will continue, but no one seems to be questioning the use of the term "censorship" to describe Craigslist. Just because their management chose to put the word "Censored" above, does that necessarily make it so? Is this really censorship? What does that word mean, anyway? I have written two books arguing that the word is overused and has come to be almost meaningless.

So, is this censorship or is it state legal authorities trying to influence a private business (which could be called many things, not necessarily censorship)?