Main units:

>  PUNCTUATIONAL PUNCTILIO [Other Problems With Punctuation]
 
78.  Boundary Issues
79.  At the time I was writing sentences that could be mistaken for fragments.
80.  An interruptive element in a sentence—don’t forget has to be set off with punctuation at both ends.
81.  Semicolonic Blockages
82.  Irritating Colons
83.  The overdashed sentence is not a dashing one.
84.  The Multitasking Dash
85.  Punctuating Parentheses
86.  Why not learn the use-hyphens-between-words-that-together-form-an-adjectival-compound-preceding-a-noun rule?
87.  We need more precise explanations.
88.  This is no way to get from here-there.
89.  Any friend of Erin’s is a friend of mine.
90.  The Propriety of Punctuational Threesomes

  ^^  78 

Boundary Issues
 

Not knowing where one sentence comes to an end and the next one begins is no way for a writer to live. Yet the boundary between sentences—or, to be more precise, between independent clauses—often ends up mispunctuated. The result is the sentence-structure catastrophe classified as the comma-splice error.

You can even listen without a computer, all you need is a network. (New York Times)

Teachers of English were once fond of the term sentence sense, which referred to a writer’s intuitive grasp of whether a group of words is grammatically complete as a sentence. The term merits a revival, because sentence sense is on the decline. In the sample sentence, we should instantly recognize that the writer has in fact given us two sentences—You can even listen without a computer and All you need is a network—but hasn’t erected a solid punctuational barrier between them. Each of those two sentences could stand on its own, so the writer might have simply replaced the comma with a period and uppercased the a in all.

You can even listen without a computer. All you need is a network.

The writer most likely recognized, however, that the two sentences, or independent clauses, belonged together. The writer, that is, wanted a compound sentence—a sentence comprising two or more independent clauses closely related in meaning. The punctuation mark that the writer needed was a semicolon, not a comma. A semicolon correctly separates two interrelated independent clauses.

You can even listen without a computer; all you need is a network.

If the writer wanted to throw some dramatic emphasis on the second clause, the writer might have separated the clauses with a dash.

You can even listen without a computer—all you need is a network.

A dash would be an elegant substitute for the erroneous comma in the following sentence as well.

It doesn’t matter if you’re an adult or a child, a little Elmo-love goes a long way. (New York Times)
It doesn’t matter if you’re an adult or a child—a little Elmo-love goes a long way.

The comma, though, was dead wrong. A comma can do a great many things, but one thing it can’t do (except in one very special circumstance, discussed in the side note at the end of this chapter) is serve all alone as the divider between independent clauses.

Pittsburgh has long had plentiful options for Greek food, just consider the dozen or so Greek food festivals thrown in the region each summer. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Here, too, a period, a semicolon, or a dash could correctly be substituted for the comma. (And a hyphen should be inserted between Greek and food in the second independent clause; see Chapter 86.)
     Some mispunctuated compound sentences are crying out for a coordinating conjunction to follow the comma. There are only seven coordinating conjunctions in the English language: and, expressing an additive relationship; but and yet, expressing a contrastive relationship; or and nor, separating alternatives; for, expressing a cause or a reason; and so, expressing a result, an effect, or a consequence.

All the smart kids are selling their old gadgets, why aren’t you? (New York Times)
All the smart kids are selling their old gadgets, so why aren’t you selling yours?

Other mispunctuated compound sentences already include a different kind of conjunction—a conjunctive adverb—to join the two independent clauses, but the conjunctive adverb hasn’t been punctuated correctly.

Coat checkroom is complimentary, however we are not responsible for loss or damage. (sign inside the former Four Seasons restaurant, visible in a New York Times photograph)
By definition, American [Airline]’s customers are willing to pay for nonstop service, otherwise they would take US Airways’ cheaper fare. (Wall Street Journal)
Every moment was irreplaceable, furthermore there were no words for it. (The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys [W. W. Norton], by Lilian Pizzichini)
He filed pleadings, settled a divorce, handled landlord-tenant disputes and counseled DUI clients under the auspices of a genuine law firm, however, Charles R. Arrotti was not a licensed lawyer. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

A semicolon, not a comma, must precede a conjunctive adverb that joins two independent clauses, and a comma must almost always follow the conjunctive adverb. There are far more conjunctive adverbs than there are coordinating conjunctions. The most frequently used conjunctive adverbs include also, additionally, furthermore, finally, however, nevertheless, therefore, thus, consequently, indeed, similarly, likewise, meanwhile, soon, then, afterward, and later. Transitional phrases such as the following often serve as conjunctive adverbs as well: in addition, for example, for instance, in fact, after all, in other words, that is, that is to say, in conclusion, in short, to sum up, in sum, and in brief.
     The conjunctive adverb most frequently mispunctuated by professional writers is then, which happens to be one of the few conjunctive adverbs that don’t require a comma afterward.

Just getting the home page to open was hard, then it turned out that the instructions for choosing a username are defective. (Wall Street Journal)
Everyone suspected dinosaurs were giant birds, then a researcher discovered the T. rex protein to prove it. (Wired)
The first year is free, then it costs $59.95 a year for a bundle of services including local gas prices and weather warnings. (New York Times)
At lunch there’s modified counter service, then at dinner Porch becomes a full-service restaurant. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Tostitos will present one spot during the Rose Bowl on Monday, then five commercials will be shown before and during the 41st Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, where Oklahoma State is playing Stanford at the University of Phoenix Stadium. (New York Times)
Eventually he narrows his sights on Grace, a forceful, deeply serious woman who all but bleeds for her charges, then he begins building a larger story around her. (New York Times)
She [Elizabeth Gilbert] urged us to become the heroes of our own stories (something she certainly conquered when Julia Roberts played her), then Iyanla Vanzant, the biggest star besides Oprah on OWN, told us to get rid of the “humping puppies” (the negative voices in our heads) while sipping Champagne (it was her birthday, and we all sang to her). (New York Times)

The comma before then in each of those seven sentences must be replaced by a semicolon. An alternative is to insert the coordinating conjunction and after the comma preceding then.
     Any writer who resorts to using plus as a conjunctive adverb must punctuate it as such.

[The app] Tips for iPhone is intuitive and helpful, plus it’s a great way to while away a few spare minutes. (New York Times)
Substitute a semicolon for the comma, and insert a comma after plus.

A final type of comma-splice error occurs when a writer sandwiches attribution between halves of a direct quotation that consists of the equivalent of two complete sentences. A period or a semicolon, not a comma, must follow the attribution.

“I was very fortunate to get there early,” Mr. Black says of SoundCloud, which claims to have 20 million users, “I might have beat some of the larger radio stations to SoundCloud. I didn’t see that much nonmusic content when I started.” (New York Times)
I was very fortunate to get there early,” Mr. Black says of SoundCloud, which claims to have twenty million users. “I might have beat some of the larger radio stations to SoundCloud. . . .”

PATTERNS FOR CORRECTLY PUNCTUATING COMPOUND SENTENCES
1. Independent clause + semicolon + independent clause + period
2. Independent clause + semicolon + conjunctive adverb + comma + independent clause + period
3. Independent clause + colon + independent clause + period (see Chapter 82)
4. Independent clause + dash + independent clause + period
5. Independent clause + opening parenthesis + independent clause + closing parenthesis + period (see Chapter 85)

A special kind of compound sentence requires nothing more than a comma between independent clauses. It’s known as an asyndetonic compound sentence. Asyndeton simply means phrasing without conjunctions where a reader would ordinarily expect to find them.
I came, I saw, I conquered. (attributed to Julius Caesar)
The press corps aren’t prostitutes, they’re pushovers. (Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants: The Looting of the News in a Time of Terror [Miramax Books], by James Wolcott)

Those examples illustrate the two most striking characteristics of an asyndetonic sentence: the independent clauses must be brief, and they must be grammatically parallel (see Chapter 41).
     Asyndetonic sentences come in two varieties. The first, to which the Caesar quotation belongs, consists of compound sentences in which there are two or more independent clauses expressing an additive relationship; the coordinating conjunction and is implied between the second-last and final clauses: We tried, we failed, we tried again. The second category, to which the Wolcott sentence belongs, consists of variations on the It’s not X, it’s Y pattern, which is often called contrastive or antithetical phrasing: It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.
     Asyndetonic phrasing can be stylish and sophisticated, but it’s best used sparingly.

  ^^  79 

At the time I was writing sentences that could be mistaken for fragments.
 

Readers of that title will fall into two groups. The first will consist of readers generous enough in spirit to recognize that the writer simply forgot to insert a much-needed comma after time. They will good-naturedly insert a mental comma and go on with their lives.
     The second group, though, will be thinking, Where’s the other half of the sentence? They will have intuited that the phrase at the time is functioning similarly to a subordinating conjunction such as when or while. In short, they will misread the word-group as a fragment, because they feel that they’ve been led to expect the arrival of an independent clause—such as I was getting lots of dirty looks—to explain what else was happening at that same time and thereby to complete the sentence. Such readers will feel no frustration, though, if they see a comma after time.
     Easily misreadable sentences beginning with at the time or at the same time are common. In the following sentences, a comma after time will set things right.

At the same time the volume has been raised on the hints of melancholy and pain that thrummed in Capote’s book like a piquant bass line. (New York Times)
At the time his versatility, vision and technical prowess were unmatched by anyone else in world football. (givemesport.com)
At the same time demands on Penn Station are about to explode, with the development of the Hudson Yards and the third phase of the High Line; the prospect of Metro North’s trains and its commuters coming into Penn Station after the completion of East Side Access; and Amtrak’s proposed Gateway Project, a first step toward high-speed rail, which could double the number of Amtrak and New Jersey Transit trains coming into Manhattan. (New York Times)

Sentences readily misinterpretable as fragments almost always begin with an unpunctuated introductory adverbial phrase—sometimes prepositional, as in the examples above, as well as in the following.

In the darkroom Brandt manipulated his negatives to such an extent that each print was more or less unique. (New York Times)

Consider, first, a much shorter word-group: In the attic her mother wrote poetry. Some readers will instantly sense a phantom where or in which after in the attic and expect an independent clause (such as the summer heat was stifling) to follow. That is, In the attic her mother wrote poetry, with a period at its end, is easily mistaken for a fragment. A good writer will not mislead her readers about the direction in which she is taking them. A comma after In the attic will immediately enable readers to regard the word-group as a complete sentence. Similarly, some readers will feel that the word-group about the photographer Bill Brandt (in which, once again, an invisible where or in which can make itself felt between darkroom and Brandt) is pointing them toward an independent clause (such as he achieved another breakthrough) that never materializes.

In the darkroom, Brandt manipulated his negatives to such an extent that each print was more or less unique.
At the university I encountered Saul Steinberg’s The New World. (The Comic Worlds of Peter Arno, William Steig, Charles Addams, and Saul Steinberg [Johns Hopkins University Press], by Iain Topliss)
At the university, I encountered Saul Steinberg’s The New World.

A reader is otherwise likely to sense an implied at which after university and expect an independent clause, such as I also met the love of my life, to round out the construction.
      Prepositional phrases aren’t the only adverbial introductory phrases that, if left unpunctuated, can result in sentences likely to strike readers as fragments.

Once I put it to a New Yorker colleague that Tina didn’t actually seem to like America very much at all. (Some Times in America and a Life in a Year at the New Yorker [Carroll & Graf], by Alexander Chancellor)
Once, I put it to a New Yorker colleague that Tina didn’t actually seem to like America very much at all. OR: I once put it to a New Yorker colleague that Tina didn’t actually seem to like America very much at all.

Commas after the adverbial phrases The night before and While in junior high school at the start of the following sentences will save the day.

The night before Jodie Foster received the Laura Ziskin Lifetime Achievement award. (www.showbiz411.com)
While in junior high school he moved with his parents to Houston, where he worked after school each day in the cafe opened by his father. (New York Times)

Finally, notice how easily the following sentence would appear to become a fragment if the comma following Soon after were omitted.

Soon after, her marriage to Mr. Barton, which had gone through a brief hiatus in the late ’90s, began to unwind. (New York Times)

  ^^  80 

An interruptive element in a sentence—don’t forget has to be set off with punctuation at both ends.
 

Asymmetrical punctuation, such as that in the title of this chapter (which needs a dash after forget), is too common for us to write it off as merely a typographical error. Maybe it’s a punctuational symptom of our culture of acceleration, in which we’re so rushed that we sometimes end up doing things by halves.
     An interruptive element—a word, a phrase, or a dependent clause with which a writer delivers supplemental information to a
reader—needs punctuation both before it and after it. A pair of commas, dashes, or parentheses will do the trick. Of the two interruptive elements (a new documentary film and though politely) in the following excerpt, only the second has been correctly punctuated at both ends.

“Salinger,” a new documentary film touches—though politely—on the story of just five of these young women. . . . (New York Times)
Insert a comma after film.

The punctuation mark at one end of an interruptive element must be identical to that at the other end.

His [Bill O’Reilly’s] opening monologues on Fox News’s The O’Reilly Factor are like stomach rumbles set to words—arias of acid indigestion, and his interviews often resemble police interrogations that have turned ugly. (Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants: The Looting of the News in a Time of Terror [Miramax Books], by James Wolcott)

An appositive phrase (arias of acid indigestion), which is positioned at the end of the first independent clause in a sentence constituted of two independent clauses joined by the coordinating conjunction and, has been set off at one end with a dash and at the other end with a comma. Such mixing won’t do.

His opening monologues on Fox News’s The O’Reilly Factor are like stomach rumbles set to words—arias of acid indigestion—and his interviews often resemble police interrogations that have turned ugly.
Diet Coke will air two spots during the broadcast, one that launched during last year’s show—set to the tune Hooray for Hollywood, and a second that’s been a hit in Europe, about five female friends in a park who share a Diet Coke with a hunky gardener. (USA Today)

Here, a participial phrase (set to the tune Hooray for Hollywood) has been punctuated asymmetrically. (And if you are wondering why, in the parenthesized phrasing in the first sentence of this paragraph, the entire participial phrase hasn’t been italicized, congratulate yourself for being an unusually alert reader. Italicizing is used throughout this book [1] whenever a word or a phrase is being referred to as a word or a phrase—that is, as a combination of letters or several combinations of letters—and [2] whenever a word, a phrase, or clause functions as the title of a lengthy, stand-alone work, such as a book, a film, or a CD. But if one or more words were already italicized in the source being cited, as were the words forming the song title in the excerpt from USA Today, those words must now be presented in standard, or Roman, type. Song titles, though, are typically enclosed by quotation marks instead of being italicized, and quotation marks are used in the revisions below.)

[in each revision, a colon replaces the comma after broadcast (see Chapter 82)] Diet Coke will air two spots during the broadcast: one that launched during last year’s show—set to the tune “Hooray for Hollywood”—and a second, which has been a hit in Europe, about five female friends in a park who share a Diet Coke with a hunky gardener. OR: Diet Coke will air two spots during the broadcast: one that launched during last year’s show, set to the tune “Hooray for Hollywood,” and a second, which has been a hit in Europe, about five female friends in a park who share a Diet Coke with a hunky gardener. OR: Diet Coke will air two spots during the broadcast: one that launched during last year’s show (set to the tune “Hooray for Hollywood”) and a second, which has been a hit in Europe, about five female friends in a park who share a Diet Coke with a hunky gardener. [Wondering why that’s has been replaced by which has in each of the revisions? See Chapter 72.]

The interruptive element is sometimes only a single word.

There are wounds though, many having to do with the complexity of that decision to miss the plane home to the States back in 2004. (Time)
Insert a comma after wounds.

Sometimes the interrupter is a prepositional phrase.

It [a cartoon] shows a fancy-dress party in full swing in the background and, in the foreground an irate middle-aged stockbrokerish guest dressed in a rabbit suit expostulating to his host and some puzzled guests, “This has gone a bit too far, Remson! Someone purloined my Burberry!” (fig I.I). (The Comic Worlds of Peter Arno, William Steig, Charles Addams, and Saul Steinberg [Johns Hopkins University Press], by Iain Topliss)
Insert a comma after foreground. (Also insert and between suit and expostulating; see Chapter 71.)

If the interruptive element is a prepositional phrase with three or more objects in a series punctuated with commas, you might consider setting off the interruptive element with dashes or parentheses to avoid a congestion of commas.

[about a sculpture by Simone Fattal] The pistachio-colored “Horse,” with its roughly constructed Gumby-ish legs, small pointed face, and strange tail is both funny and talismanic. (New Yorker)
The pistachio-colored “Horse”—with its roughly constructed Gumby-ish legs, small pointed face, and strange tail—is both funny and talismanic. OR: The pistachio-colored “Horse” (with its roughly constructed Gumby-ish legs, small pointed face, and strange tail) is both funny and talismanic.

More often, the interrupter is an appositive of the throwaway variety (see Chapter 66).

Jocelyn Hershey-Guest (Amy Sedaris), a children’s book author lives in her son’s head. (Wacky Chicks: Life Lessons from Fearlessly Inappropriate and Fabulously Eccentric Women [Simon & Schuster], by Simon Doonan)
Insert a comma after author (and a hyphen between children’s and book; see Chapter 86).
“Both Flesh and Not,” a new collection of [David Foster] Wallace’s nonfiction isn’t as choice a selection as “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again” (1997) or “Consider the Lobster and Other Essays” (2005). (New York Times)
Insert a comma after nonfiction.
It may be a generational thing. Mr. de Haas, a Chicago-born theater singer with deep roots in jazz and soul is 44, and John Legend, today’s ranking pop-soul balladeer is 33. (New York Times)
Insert one comma after soul and another after balladeer.
In 1977, the surviving Doors reunited to record backup tracks to poetry that Mr. Morrison had recorded; the resulting album, “An American Prayer” sold a million copies. (New York Times)
. . . the resulting album, “An American Prayer,” sold a million copies. [A comma needed to be inserted between Prayer and the closing quotation mark.] OR: . . . the resulting album, An American Prayer, sold a million copies.

The interrupter sometimes consists of an appositive followed by parenthesized phrasing. A comma must be inserted after the closing parenthesis in each of the following two sentences.

We started in Venice, where François Pinault, the billionaire paterfamilias of Kering (formerly PPR) has purchased the Palazzo Grassi to showcase his world-class collection of contemporary art, which he sees as an antidote for his fear of aging. (Wall Street Journal)
Among the uniformly accomplished technical contributions, Luhrmann’s producer wife, Catherine Martin (already a double Oscar winner for “Moulin Rouge”) once again stands out for her production and costume design. (Variety)

The next specimen is only superficially similar to the preceding two examples. The punctuation is in fact perfect but can easily be misread as asymmetrical.

An insanely stuffed biography, Blake Bailey’s Farther & Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson (Knopf, $30) identifies just how much of Jackson’s work was drawn from life—and just how ugly it all was on the inside. (Bookforum)

The phrasing Blake . . . (Knopf, $30) is not an interruptive appositive, though it may at first appear to be; it’s actually the subject of the sentence. And what may at first appear to be the subject of the sentence (An insanely stuffed biography) is intended to be read as an appositive. Because the sentence invites misreading, a writer might consider rephrasing it.

Blake Bailey’s Farther & Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson (Knopf, $30), an insanely stuffed biography, identifies just how much of Jackson’s work was drawn from life. . . . OR: Blake Bailey’s Farther & Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson (Knopf, $30) is an insanely stuffed biography that identifies just how much of Jackson’s work was drawn from life. . . . OR: Blake Bailey’s insanely stuffed biography Farther & Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson (Knopf, $30) identifies just how much of Jackson’s work was drawn from life. . . .

The interrupter is sometimes a nonessential or throwaway adjectival dependent clause (see Chapter 72).

For those who practice the dark arts of PowerPoint or Excel, Apple’s iWork suite, which includes Keynote and Numbers allows you to create elegant presentations or in-depth lists of numbers that add up to create even more numbers. (New York Times)
Insert a comma between Numbers and allows.

Interrupters can also consist of prepositional phrases, participial phrases, or adjectival dependent clauses followed by parenthesized phrasing. A comma must follow the closing parenthesis in each of the following five excerpts. (The second and fourth excerpts also lack serial commas; see Chapter 64.)

From my desk, through the half-open door (“Open or closed?” Shawn would ask as he put his hand on the doorknob to make his exit from each writer’s office; he knew that such fine-tuning of solitude and collegiality mattered) I would catch sight of stray representatives of the five generations. (Ornament and Silence: Essays on Women’s Lives [Knopf], by Kennedy Fraser)
The classic style of waiting tables at Lower East Side Jewish restaurants, by turns cranky, funny and crankily funny (discerning one from another could take decades of practice) probably died with Ratner’s, but flashes of it still surface at Sammy’s. (New York Times)
“Masked and Anonymous,” directed by the “Seinfeld” vet Larry Charles and probably written largely by Dylan himself (the credited scriptwriters seem to be pseudonyms) takes place in a near-future America torn apart by revolution; Jack Fate (Dylan) is a washed-up rock star who gets roped into a benefit concert by the unscrupulous promoter Uncle Sweetheart (John Goodman). (New Yorker)
Robert Giroux, who functioned primarily as top editor to Straus’s publisher (John Chipman Farrar, the third name on the binding, is in the book only briefly) may have been the team member who connected better with T. S. Eliot, Robert Lowell, Jean Stafford, Flannery O’Connor and John Berryman. (New York Times)
In these early scenes Linklater, who wrote the screenplay with Delpy and Hawke (they wrote as a trio for Sunset as well and were Oscar-nominated for it) lays the groundwork for the explosive, ugly conversation to come. (Time)

Asymmetrical punctuation is also common in sentences in which an interruptive element begins with a coordinating conjunction such as or or and.

Regardless of, or perhaps because of the experimental nature of collaborative dinners, they're growing in popularity—for both customers and staff. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Insert a comma after or perhaps because of.
Jesse’s son, Henry, or Hank (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) is 14, and though he’s just spent a month with them in Greece (the film opens with Jesse saying an anxious, needy goodbye to him at the airport), it’s apparent that Jesse has never been able to reconcile his guilt over choosing a woman over his child. (Time)
Insert a comma after the closing parenthesis in the first set of parentheses in the sentence. (The ending of the sentence is less than felicitous. A suggested revision: Jesse has never been able to resolve his guilt about having chosen a woman over his child.)
Adrian, “arguably the king of Hollywood Golden Age glamour,” was particularly shrewd about designing for great stars, such as Joan Crawford, for whom he did 28 films. His sketches for her, and also for Garbo (“Camille,” “Two-Faced Woman”) and Norma Shearer (“Marie Antoinette,” “The Women”) are seen alongside his bizarre outfits for the Munchkins in “The Wizard of Oz.” (Wall Street Journal)
Insert a comma after the second closing parenthesis.

Finally, the interrupter can be a hybrid, such as a pair of prepositional phrases followed by an adjectival dependent clause.

In October—at the time of the announcement that Hemingway had won the Nobel Prize, O’Hara wrote in his Collier’s column: “You read, probably, that Ernest Hemingway is going to write and act in a film about a safari. . . .” (The O’Hara Concern: A Biography of John O’Hara [Random House], by Matthew J. Bruccoli)
Substitute a comma for the dash after October.

  ^^  81 

Semicolonic Blockages
 

Every semicolon erects a much-needed barrier between major structural components of a sentence. Sometimes, unfortunately, the barriers are set up in places that make for rough going in the sentence’s verbal pathway. The semicolons become obstructions. A writer’s use of semicolons should never obscure the design of a sentence—particularly the jointure where the subject meets the predicate. In fact, the only phrasing a reader should ever expect to find after a semicolon is either (1) the equivalent of another complete sentence or (2) one or more additional elements in a series (a) that will bring a sentence to a close or (b) that is set off at both ends, with either dashes or parentheses, as an interruptive element.
     One of the standard uses of the semicolon is to separate items in a series when at least one of them includes a comma as interior punctuation.

Other liaisons included one with Simon Youngman, a diamond heir, Alexander Spencer-Churchill, the scion of several posh houses, and her latest, Alex Loudon, 30, a cricketer and financier. (New York)
Other liaisons have included one with Simon Youngman, a diamond heir; Alexander Spencer-Churchill, the scion of several posh houses; and her latest, Alex Loudon, 30, a cricketer and financier.

In that sentence, the series (functioning as the direct object of the transitive verb included) brings the sentence to an end. When a reader sees a semicolon, she expects it to be followed by phrasing equivalent in grammatical status to the phrasing that precedes it. Her expectations will not be thwarted as long as a series in which semicolons separate the items is positioned at the end of a sentence. Increasingly, though, writers are positioning a semicoloned series at the very start of a sentence or, without strong enough punctuation to set it off, somewhere in the middle of a sentence—and the results can be disorienting.

Most important, [Roy] Lichtenstein’s large-featured images, with their Ben-Day dot patterns; thick, black contours; and flat, bright colors are almost ergonomically comfortable to the eye. (New York Times)

A reader can’t help sensing that things are seriously out of whack in the design of that sentence. The punctuational dividers between the elements in the midsentence series are stronger than the divider between the two principal parts of the sentence: the complete subject (Lichtenstein’s large-featured images) and the predicate (are almost ergonomically comfortable to the eye), both of which flap about flimsily at the beginning and the end instead of striking a reader as weighted and stationary. The semicolons become punctuational blockades and wall off the three parts of the series from each other so solidly that the dividing line between the simple subject and the first word of the predicate (that is, between images and are)—which should be the most conspicuous boundary-marking line in the sentence—ends up obscured, because the writer failed to insert a comma after colors to mark the end of the long interruptive element. In fact, it’s easy for a reader to misconstrue and flat, bright colors are almost ergonomically comfortable to the eye as an independent clause unto itself, a misreading that would lead the reader to conclude that the three items in the series are nonparallel (see Chapter 41).
     The result is an ungainly sentence; it looks off-kilter. Most of the weight of the sentence is in the long prepositional phrase attached to the subject. In the revisions below, the core words of the subject and of the predicate (images and are, respectively) stand out unmistakably.

Most important, Lichtenstein’s large-featured images—with their Benday-dot patterns; thick, black contours; and flat, bright colors—are almost ergonomically comfortable to the eye. OR: substitute parentheses for the dashes.

Following are guidelines to help you relieve semicolonic blockages in sentences you are writing or editing.
     First, when the introductory phrasing of a sentence includes a series whose elements are set off by semicolons, either substitute commas for the semicolons and parenthesize any supplementary phrasing, or rework the introductory element (or the entire sentence) so that semicolons are no longer needed.

From a pair of seven-foot-tall Sukuma guardian figures, staring gravely down at whoever approaches; to a five-inch-long Chagga ceramic female form nestled, like an infant, in a banana-leaf cradle; to a row of beaded Tabwa masks from the museum’s permanent collection, this is a sensational array. (New York Times)
From a pair of seven-foot-tall Sukuma guardian figures (staring gravely down at whoever approaches), to a five-inch-long Chagga ceramic female form (nestled, like an infant, in a banana-leaf cradle), to a row of beaded Tabwa masks from the museum’s permanent collection, this is a sensational array.

Or you might simply turn such a sentence on its head to eliminate the top-heaviness.

This sensational array of treasures ranges from a pair of seven-foot-tall Sukuma guardian figures, staring gravely down at whoever approaches; to a five-inch-long Chagga ceramic female form nestled, like an infant, in a banana-leaf cradle; to a row of beaded Tabwa masks from the museum’s permanent collection.
Marshaling the testimony of journalists (including a number from The New York Times); advocates in nongovernmental organizations; and the most distinguished of whistle-blowers, Daniel Ellsberg, Mr. Greenwald contends that government secrecy is entrenched and largely self-serving, as demonstrated by the reprisals inflicted on all of his subjects. (New York Times)
Marshalling the testimony of journalists (including a number from The New York Times), advocates in nongovernmental organizations, and Daniel Ellsberg (the most distinguished of whistleblowers), Mr. Greenwald contends that government secrecy is entrenched and largely self-serving, as demonstrated by the reprisals inflicted on all of his subjects.
On the heels of bestsellers like [Daniel] Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow; How We Decide, by the discredited former New Yorker staff writer Jonah Lehrer; and Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, all of which successfully popularized scholarly findings on our mental fallibility, have come a slew of instruction manuals promising businesspeople, consumers and even the lovelorn the key to beating the decision-making odds. (The Nation)
On the heels of bestsellers like discredited former New Yorker staff writer Jonah Lehrer’s How We Decide, Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, and Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow, all of which successfully popularized scholarly findings on our mental fallibility, have come a slew of instruction manuals. . . .
Between 1949 and 1964, a period that covers his second marriage, to Elizabeth Hardwick; the birth of their daughter, Harriet; and the publication of two of the most important books in the history of American poetry, “Life Studies” and “For the Union Dead,” Lowell was hospitalized twelve times, usually for periods of several months. (New Yorker)
[each of the revisions preserves the climactic structure of the writer’s sentence] Between 1949 and 1964 (a period that covers his second marriage, to Elizabeth Hardwick; the birth of their daughter, Harriet; and the publication of two of the most important books in the history of American poetry, Life Studies and For the Union Dead), Lowell was hospitalized twelve times, usually for periods of several months. OR: Between 1949 and 1964—a period that covers his second marriage, to Elizabeth Hardwick; the birth of their daughter, Harriet; and the publication of two of the most important books in the history of American poetry, Life Studies and For the Union Dead—Lowell was hospitalized twelve times, usually for periods of several months. OR: Between 1949 and 1964, a period that covers his second marriage (to Elizabeth Hardwick), the birth of their daughter (Harriet), and the publication of two of the most important books in the history of American poetry (Life Studies and For the Union Dead), Lowell was hospitalized twelve times, usually for periods of several months.

The next four specimens are unusually off-balance and top-heavy sentences.

Abounding in rotund, improbably buxom nude women; grinning devils; resplendently costumed magi; snakes and other anthropomorphized creatures, and willfully animated by a comical, polymorphous perversity, his images look as if they’d been made by a member of a satanic, Orientalist sex cult. (New York Times)
Willfully animated by a comical, polymorphous perversity (and abounding in rotund, improbably buxom nude women; grinning devils; resplendently costumed magi; snakes and other anthropomorphized creatures), his images look as if they’d been made by a member of a satanic, Orientalist sex cult.
[Mark Lewisohn is the author of Tune In: The Beatles: All These Years] After Lewisohn; after Barry Miles’s strange “Many Years from Now,” a semi-official biography; after Albert Goldman’s “The Lives of John Lennon” and the Beatles Anthology series, there just isn’t much left to say. (New Yorker)
After Lewisohn, after Barry Miles’s strange Many Years from Now (a semi-official biography), after Albert Goldman’s The Lives of John Lennon and the Beatles Anthology series, there just isn’t much left to say.
In recent years, because of her great age; her indomitability; her continued, ardent involvement with music (she practiced for hours each day until shortly before she died); and her recollections of her youthful friendships with titans like Franz Kafka and Gustav Mahler; Mrs. Herz-Sommer became a beacon for writers, filmmakers and members of the public eager to learn her story. (New York Times)
[moving the series to the end of the sentence and substituting commas for the semicolons] In recent years, Mrs. Herz-Sommer became a beacon for writers, filmmakers, and members of the public eager to learn her story because of her great age, her indomitability, her continued, ardent involvement with music (she practiced for hours each day until shortly before she died), and her recollections of her youthful friendships with titans like Franz Kafka and Gustav Mahler.
And sure enough, as he tries to re-establish warm relations with James; his son-in-law, Chris (Rich Sommer, of “Mad Men”); and his ex-wife, Karen (Lisa Emery), Tom gradually comes into focus as a loathsome character, a man in whose redemption it’s hard to have any emotional stake—unless it’s to root for his family to send him packing. (New York Times)
And sure enough, as he tries to re-establish warm relations with crucial persons in his life (James; Chris, his son-in-law, played by Rich Sommer, of Mad Men; and Karen, his ex-wife, played by Lisa Emery), Tom gradually comes into focus as a loathsome character. . . .

A reader occasionally encounters two or more introductory adverbial dependent clauses stacked upon a foundational structure such as the phrasing I would argue that, as in the following sentence.

I would argue that as men press their wives to ask for raises; as women become more aggressive salary negotiators; as young men invest in women’s careers; as women feel pressured to achieve and support; they will earn more. (theatlantic.com)

If you take a wrecking ball to that foundation and let the adverbial dependent clauses stand on their own as introductory elements, the wrongness of the semicolons becomes more readily apparent.

As men press their wives to ask for raises; as women become more aggressive salary negotiators; as young men invest in women’s careers; as women feel pressured to achieve and support; they will earn more.

The wrongness of the semicolons is that they have been forced to do something a semicolon must never do: separate an adverbial dependent clause from an independent clause. In the specimen sentence, a series of four consecutive adverbial dependent clauses have been walled off from the climactic, sentence-ending independent clause that they all share.
     The easiest solution is to substitute commas for the semicolons and to insert the coordinating conjunction and before the final dependent clause in the series.

I would argue that as men press their wives to ask for raises, as women become more aggressive salary negotiators, as young men invest in women’s careers, and as women feel pressured to achieve and support, women will earn more.

Second, when a series whose elements are set off with semicolons functions as the subject of a sentence, either rewrite the sentence so that semicolons are no longer needed in the subject, or use an inverted-sentence pattern.

Reddit, a community discussion site; Boing Boing, the culture blog; and the comedy video site My Damn Channel were blacked out. (New York Times)
The community-discussion site Reddit, the culture blog Boing Boing, and the comedy-video site My Damn Channel were blacked out. OR: Among the blacked-out sites were Reddit, a community-discussion site; Boing Boing, a culture blog; and My Damn Channel, a comedy-video site.
Hudson River School and Luminist painters; Winslow Homer, Albert Pinkham Ryder and Thomas Eakins; and the Ashcan School artists grounded their visions in native experience, paralleling writers like Herman Melville, Mark Twain and Theodore Dreiser. (New York Times)
Grounding their visions in native experience—and paralleling writers like Herman Melville, Mark Twain, and Theodore Dreiser—were Hudson River School and Luminist painters; Winslow Homer, Albert Pinkham Ryder, and Thomas Eakins; and the Ashcan School artists.
Mr. Suskind; his wife, Cornelia; and Walt start spending long hours with Owen, reciting Disney dialogue to draw him out. (New York Times)
Mr. Suskind, Cornelia (his wife), and Walt start spending long hours with Owen, reciting Disney dialogue to draw him out.

A subject in semicoloned-list form can be repurposed as a series of introductory appositives followed by a dash and a capping independent clause.

His [Harold Ross’s] veneration of Katherine Angell; his productive though troubled partnership with his first wife, Jane Grant, a zealous feminist who helped him found the magazine; and his longstanding reliance upon women editors and writers were more than lucky accidents. (The World Through a Monocle: The New Yorker at Midcentury [Harvard University Press], by Mary F. Corey)
His veneration of Katherine Angell; his productive though troubled partnership with his first wife, Jane Grant, a zealous feminist who helped him found the magazine; and his longstanding reliance upon women editors and writers—these were more than lucky accidents.

Third, when a series of elements set off with semicolons functions as an appositive at the start of a sentence, reposition the appositive after the subject, and set off the appositive with either a pair of dashes or a pair of parentheses.

A resident of Antibes, France; Scituate, Mass.; and Poiana Brasov, in Transylvania, Professor Florescu is survived by his wife, the former Nicole Michel, whom he married in 1950; a sister, Yvonne, a Benedictine nun known in religion as Sister John the Baptist; three sons, Radu, Nicholas and John; a daughter, Alexandra Lobkowicz; and 13 grandchildren. (New York Times)
Professor Florescu—formerly a resident of Antibes, France; Scituate, Mass.; and Poiana Brasov, in Transylvania—is survived by his wife, the former Nicole Michel. . . . OR: Professor Florescu (formerly a resident of Antibes, France; Scituate, Mass.; and Poiana Brasov, in Transylvania) is survived by his wife, the former Nicole Michel. . . .

Fourth, when a series of elements set off with semicolons functions as an appositive following the subject of a sentence, use either a pair of dashes or a pair of parentheses to set off the series.

[first paragraph of article] The size and racial makeup of a city, the price of a meal and even the weather can skew the quality and quantity of online restaurant reviews, according to the first large-scale academic study to analyze how outside factors affect crowd-sourced review sites. [fourth paragraph] The researchers, Saeideh Bakhshi, a doctoral student at the Georgia Institute of Technology; her husband, Partha Kanuparthy, who works for Yahoo Labs; and Eric Gilbert, an assistant professor at the university, said the weather’s seeming sway over reviews surprised them the most. (New York Times)

Notice how the end of the sentence—and Eric Gilbert, an assistant professor at the university, said the weather’s seeming sway over reviews surprised them the most—is easily mistaken for an independent clause, when in fact the reader is supposed to recognize said the weather’s seeming sway over reviews surprised them the most as the predicate of the subject of the sentence: the researchers.

The researchers—Saeideh Bakhshi, a doctoral student at the Georgia Institute of Technology; her husband, Partha Kanuparthy, who works for Yahoo Labs; and Eric Gilbert, an assistant professor at the university—said the weather’s seeming sway over reviews surprised them the most. OR: The researchers (Saeideh Bakhshi, a doctoral student at the Georgia Institute of Technology; her husband, Partha Kanuparthy, who works for Yahoo Labs; and Eric Gilbert, an assistant professor at the university) said the weather’s seeming sway over reviews surprised them the most.

The final guidelines concern series functioning as interruptive elements (other than appositives) that are positioned between the subject and the predicate of a clause or between an independent clause and a dependent clause.
     In the nounal dependent clause of the following specimen, three infinitive phrases separated by semicolons awkwardly block off the subject (advice) from its predicate (is all right there in Chapter V). The clumsiness can be resolved by substituting commas for the semicolons and by using a pair of dashes or a pair of parentheses to set off the supplementary phrasing at the end of the third element in the series.

And contrary to the claims of some Elements [of Style] critics that [E. B.] White “didn’t follow his own rules,” it bears pointing out that the advice to be yourself; to experiment freely; and to trust your ear as the final arbiter of style, even, if necessary, at the expense of grammatical correctness, is all right there in Chapter V. (Stylized: A Slightly Obsessive History of Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style [Touchstone], by Mark Garvey)
And contrary to the claims of some Elements critics that White “didn’t follow his own rules,” it bears pointing out that the advice to be yourself, to experiment freely, and to trust your ear as the final arbiter of style—even, if necessary, at the expense of grammatical correctness—is all right there in Chapter V. OR: And contrary to the claims of some Elements critics that White “didn’t follow his own rules,” it bears pointing out that the advice to be yourself, to experiment freely, and to trust your ear as the final arbiter of style (even, if necessary, at the expense of grammatical correctness) is all right there in Chapter V.

When a series whose elements are set off with semicolons functions as the compound object of a preposition in a prepositional phrase following the subject of a sentence, use a pair of dashes or a pair of parentheses to set off the prepositional phrase, as in the revision of the sentence about Roy Lichtenstein earlier in this chapter, or rephrase the sentence in inverted form.

But the impeccable contributions of Kevin Kanner on drums; Mr. Pizzarelli’s younger brother, Martin, on double bass; and Konrad Paszkudzki on piano lent the evening an extra musical dimension. (New York Times)
But lending the evening an extra musical dimension were the impeccable contributions of Kevin Kanner, on drums; Mr. Pizzarelli’s younger brother, Martin, on double bass; and Konrad Paszkudzki, on piano.

In the revision of the next specimen, the independent clause has been moved to the start of the sentence and the two introductory lists (the first of which includes semicoloned elements) have been moved to the very end.

In books such as Adios, Strunk and White; Clear and Simple as the Truth; and The Sound on the Page, and in the academic press, in articles with titles like “Interrogating the Popularity of Strunk and White,” “A Multi-Million Dollar Hoax?” and “Ideology, Power, and Linguistic Theory,” critics have attempted to knock the conceptual pins out from under this perennial best-seller. (Stylized: A Slightly Obsessive History of Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style [Touchstone], by Mark Garvey)
Critics have attempted to knock the conceptual pins out from under this perennial best-seller in academic-press articles with titles like “Interrogating the Popularity of Strunk and White,” “A Multi-Million Dollar Hoax?,” and “Ideology, Power, and Linguistic Theory”—as well as in books such as Adios, Strunk and White; Clear and Simple as the Truth; and The Sound on the Page.

When the subject of a sentence is followed by an interruptive element in which a series whose members are set off with semicolons functions as the compound object of a preposition in a prepositional phrase attached to a participle, use a pair of dashes or a pair of parentheses to set off the interruptive element.

A kind of pub on wheels, propelled by pedaling, the beer bike—which in Europe is usually but not always steered by an employee of the tour company rather than by one of the partygoers—is thought to have been invented in the Netherlands in the late 1990s. [next paragraph] But in recent years, the contraption, variously promoted as a social lubricant; an original, environmentally correct way to see a city; and a healthier, calorie-burning alternative to sitting in a bar, has expanded its appeal beyond the Dutch border to several European countries and the United States. (New York Times)
But in recent years, the contraption—variously promoted as a social lubricant; an original, environmentally correct way to see a city; and a healthier, calorie-burning alternative to sitting in a bar—has expanded its appeal beyond the Dutch border to several European countries and the United States. OR: But in recent years, the contraption (variously promoted as a social lubricant; an original, environmentally correct way to see a city; and a healthier, calorie-burning alternative to sitting in a bar) has expanded its appeal beyond the Dutch border to several European countries and the United States.

When an independent clause is separated from a dependent clause by an interruptive element that includes a series whose members are separated by semicolons, use a pair of dashes or a pair of parentheses to set off the interruptive element, or, when possible, substitute commas for the semicolons.

The entertainment company would have a similar management structure to the current company, with Mr. Murdoch as chief executive; Mr. Carey as chief operating officer; and James Murdoch as deputy chief operating officer, though a person close to the company cautioned that no executive decisions have been made. (New York Times) [The sentence also suffers from a faulty comparison; see Chapter 36.]
The entertainment company would have a management structure similar to that of the current company (with Mr. Murdoch as chief executive; Mr. Carey as chief operating officer; and James Murdoch as deputy chief operating officer), though a person close to the company cautioned that no executive decisions have been made. OR: The entertainment company would have a management structure similar to that of the current company, with Mr. Murdoch as chief executive, Mr. Carey as chief operating officer, and James Murdoch as deputy chief operating officer, though a person close to the company cautioned that no executive decisions have been made.

Some semicolonic blockages can prove especially difficult to unblock.

It [the film Child’s Pose] sounds heavy and it plays as lightly as a ton of cascading bricks, starting from the moment that Cornelia; her husband, Aurelian (Florin Zamfirescu); and her sister-in-law, Olga (Natasa Raab), begin coolly strategizing how to aid Barbu. (New York Times)
It sounds heavy and it plays as lightly as a ton of cascading bricks, starting from the moment when the task of coolly strategizing how to aid Barbu becomes the challenge facing Cornelia; her husband, Aurelian (Florin Zamfirescu); and her sister-in-law, Olga (Natasa Raab).

In sum, as you proceed with caution to ensure readability in any sentence with a series whose elements are separated by semicolons, your options often include shifting the series to the end of the sentence or setting the series off at both ends with dashes or parentheses.
     If one or more items in a series do not include commas, there is no pressing need for semicolons in the first place.

She tried on hats; played charades; and worried about the proportions in a new mixed cocktail. (The World Through a Monocle: The New Yorker at Midcentury [Harvard University Press], by Mary F. Corey)
She tried on hats, played charades, and worried about the proportions in a new mixed cocktail.
Writing last year in Slate, Farhad Manjoo made a convincing case that in the era of Jon Stewart; The Onion; the wiseacres on Twitter and Facebook; and the crowd-sourced humor that appears everywhere on the Web, political cartoons as a form are on life support. (New York Times)
Writing last year in Slate, Farhad Manjoo made a convincing case that in the era of Jon Stewart, The Onion, the wiseacres on Twitter and Facebook, and the crowd-sourced humor that appears everywhere on the Web, political cartoons as a form are on life support.
Actors who worked with Fuller (Bill Duke, Constance Towers); veteran directors and writers (William Friedkin, Buck Henry); and James Franco intone Fuller’s punchy writings from within his cluttered office. (New York Times)
Actors who worked with Fuller (Bill Duke, Constance Towers), veteran directors and writers (William Friedkin, Buck Henry), and James Franco intone Fuller’s punchy writings from within his cluttered office.

The semicolons in the following sentence may have been inserted for emphasis, but the series would lose none of its force if commas were substituted.

They [the artworks] merge two and three dimensions as well as mediums; make suave use of digital design and fabrication; and include wryly narrated digital animations. (New York Times)
A PRIMER OF SEMICOLONIC PRACTICE
     There isn’t a whole lot that a semicolon is ordinarily expected to do. In fact, the semicolon has only three primary uses in workaday prose. No matter its function, though, a reader has every reason to expect that whatever follows a semicolon is going to be grammatically equivalent to whatever precedes it.
     First, the semicolon is used to separate two independent clauses—word-groups that are each equivalent to a complete sentence.
Her heart told her to move to Brooklyn; her head told her to stay put.
On the rare occasions he imposed a title deriving from a place outside the story itself (as in “Of Thee I Sing, Baby” and “Over the River and Through the Wood”); the title would invite interpretation because it had been deliberately selected for its thematic value rather than for its value as a generic label. (John O’Hara: A Study of the Short Fiction [Twayne], by Steven Goldleaf)

To the left of the semicolon is a word-group that cannot stand on its own as a grammatically complete sentence (it consists of nothing more than a hybrid introductory element: a prepositional phrase to which a dependent clause has been attached, followed by a parenthesized prepositional phrase); to the right of the semicolon, however, is an independent clause—a word-group that can stand on its own as a complete sentence.

Replace the semicolon with a comma.

Second, a semicolon is positioned before a conjunctive adverb (such as however or therefore) that joins two consecutive independent clauses. A comma almost always follows the conjunctive adverb (see Chapter 78).

The latest version of the software is exceptionally user-friendly; however, it’s very expensive.

Third, as illustrated earlier in this chapter, semicolons separate elements in a series when one or more of the elements include interior commas.
     Avoid punctuational inconsistency in any such series. Make sure that a semicolon, not a comma (or, worse, no punctuation at all), precedes the final element—regardless of whether the final element is preceded by the coordinating conjunction and.

They also described, with excruciating accuracy, certain behaviors and idiosyncrasies of a type of young women and how they live, like going to the bathroom in groups; buying expensive workout clothes (charged to Daddy’s credit card); talking about celebrities; thinking Diet Coke, iced coffee, and fro yo are food groups, and speaking solely in abbreviations. (New York Times)
Substitute a semicolon for the comma following food groups.
It’s [The Penrose is] a welcoming place. Though it has only been open since last June, like Wilfie & Nell, it feels pleasantly lived-in: brick walls; a selection of stools, tables and expansive booths; some old-looking stuff in frames on the walls (it seems safe to say that no one will ever go to the Penrose to study the art), wooden floors that appear to have seen some traffic. (New York Times) [The prepositional phrase like Wilfie & Nell is an ambiguous modifier; see Chapter 24. The revision below resolves the ambiguity, correctly positions the modifier only (see Chapter 22), and inserts a serial comma (see Chapter 64).]
Though it has been open only since last June, it feels, like Wilfie & Nell, pleasantly lived-in: brick walls; a selection of stools, tables, and expansive booths; some old-looking stuff in frames on the walls (it seems safe to say that no one will ever go to the Penrose to study the art); wooden floors that appear to have seen some traffic. OR: Though it has been open only since last June, it shares with Wilfie & Nell a pleasantly lived-in feel: brick walls. . . .
The mashed potatoes are cut with 40 percent cauliflower; the gravy is made from porcini mushrooms and you can get your entree on a bed of kale instead of a bun. (New York Times)
The mashed potatoes are cut with 40 percent cauliflower; the gravy is made from porcini mushrooms; and you can get your entrée on a bed of kale instead of on a bun.

Finally, make sure that in any sentence including two or more semicolons, the phrasing set off by the semicolons is grammatically parallel (see Chapter 41).

The burger ($12) is made with Pat LaFrieda beef; the first-rate macaroni and cheese ($10) with Irish cheddar; and, for an extra $1, applewood bacon. (New York Times, print edition)

The first semicolon is preceded by an independent clause; the second semicolon is preceded by an elliptical independent clause (the verb phrase is made has been intentionally withheld); and following the second semicolon and the coordinating conjunction and is phrasing consisting of merely a prepositional phrase and a noun phrase. The closer one reads the sentence, the more one realizes that the sentence does not really include a three-part series; what is punctuated as if it were the third element in a series is in fact a detail that supplements the information provided in the second element. The sentence, it turns out, has no need for semicolons at all.

[the first is the correction as it appeared on the Web site of The New York Times] The burger ($12) is made with Pat LaFrieda beef, the first-rate macaroni and cheese ($10) with Irish Cheddar and, for an extra $1, applewood bacon. OR: The burger ($12) is made with Pat LaFrieda beef, the first-rate macaroni and cheese ($10) with Irish Cheddar (and, for an extra $1, applewood bacon).

  ^^  82 

Irritating Colons
 

A reader expects that a colon following an independent clause will serve as a gateway to phrasing that offers examples or elaborations or clarifications to supplement and enrich her understanding of what has already been stated. The colon is a portal to climactic phrasing that will wrap things up for a sentence. A reader encountering a colon therefore has every reason to believe that a terminal punctuation mark is just around the corner. The last thing she expects is that after presenting the examples or elaborations or clarifications, the sentence will gets its second wind and go heading off in a new direction. But writers sometimes lose sight of the fact that a colon signals that sentential closure is about to be achieved.

Mr. Johnson liked to tell employees that there were two kinds of people: believers and skeptics, and at Apple, there were only believers. (New York Times)

The reader of the phrasing that precedes the colon in that sentence will be correct in assuming that the only business remaining to be done is to specify the two types of people into which all of humankind is divisible. Because the writer has positioned a colon after people, the sentence has to come to an end after believers and skeptics. Its work will then be finished. Instead, though, the writer keeps moving forward after the specification and delivers a second statement. And by annexing an independent clause (the equivalent of a stand-alone sentence) to the noun phrase following the colon, the writer has failed to respect and honor boundaries. The results are ramshackle. A writer gets one shot at winding things down after a colon—and that’s it. In the phrasing that follows a colon, there can be no second acts.

Mr. Johnson liked to tell employees that there were two kinds of people: believers and skeptics. And at Apple, he would go on to say, there were only believers. OR [the writer is free to dispose of the colon]: Mr. Johnson liked to tell employees that there were two kinds of people—believers and skeptics—and that at Apple, there were only believers.
It’s perhaps unfair to consider the epigraph a microcosm of the book as a whole, or to believe we hear the author’s voice in the borrowed words she’s chosen to introduce her story, but readers do. Thus when I happened on M.F.K. Fisher’s “The Gastronomical Me” (1943) in a secondhand book store and read the epigraph: “To be happy you must have taken the measure of your powers, tasted the fruit of your passion and learned your place in the world (Santayana),” I knew I had met an author who would be a lifelong companion and guide. (Wall Street Journal)

Here, in the second sentence of the excerpt, the colon introducing the quotation leads the reader to assume that the sentence will call it quits as soon as Santayana has had his say. The trouble, though, is not only that the quotation is followed by the equivalent of a complete sentence but also that the phrasing preceding the colon is merely an adverbial dependent clause. Any colon introducing a quotation needs to be preceded either by a word-group consisting of at least an independent clause (even something as short and sweet as She said) or by a simple little word or phrase such as Thus or Another example.
     In the mispunctuated sentence above, the quotation is functioning as a throwaway appositive (see Chapter 67). The quotation thus needs to be set off at both ends with symmetrical punctuation—a pair of commas (not a stylistically desirable alternative here, though, because the quotation already includes a comma within its phrasing), a pair of dashes, or a pair of parentheses—and not with the asymmetrical punctuation of a colon at one end and a comma at the other (see Chapter 80).

Thus when I happened on M.F.K. Fisher’s The Gastronomical Me (1943) in a secondhand-book store and read the epigraph, from Santayana—“To be happy you must have taken the measure of your powers, tasted the fruit of your passion, and learned your place in the world”—I knew I had met an author who would be a lifelong companion and guide. OR [to eliminate a multitasking dash (see Chapter 84)]: Thus when I happened on M.F.K. Fisher’s The Gastronomical Me (1943) in a secondhand-book store and read the epigraph, from Santayana (“To be happy you must have taken the measure of your powers, tasted the fruit of your passion, and learned your place in the world”), I knew I had met an author who would be a lifelong companion and guide.
“We, the culinary connoisseurs of all countries and creeds: cooks, critics or simply lovers of Good Food, urge you to stop giving your sponsorship and support to this opaque, obsequious ranking, where nationalism trumps quality, sexism trumps diversity and the spotlight is on the Celebrity Chef instead of the health and satisfaction of the customer,” a petition, available in six languages, declared. (New Yorker)

The asymmetrical punctuation in this specimen is also troubling. There is no place for a colon in the sentence. In fact, the colon muddles the structure of the sentence before the writers have had a chance to present the subject in its entirety. The writers intended cooks, critics or simply lovers of Good Food to be regarded as a throwaway appositive (see Chapter 66), so it needs to be set off at both ends with identical punctuation. A pair of parentheses makes more sense here than a pair of dashes, because the second dash would be forced into multitasking (see Chapter 84).

[retaining the writers’ eccentric capitalization] “We, the culinary connoisseurs of all countries and creeds (cooks, critics, or simply lovers of Good Food), urge you to stop giving your sponsorship and support to this opaque, obsequious ranking, where nationalism trumps quality, sexism trumps diversity, and the spotlight is on the Celebrity Chef instead of on the health and satisfaction of the customer,” a petition, available in six languages, declared.
A PRIMER OF COLONIC PRACTICE
     There are four primary uses of the colon. First, a colon follows the equivalent of a complete sentence that introduces a direct quotation that itself takes the form of at least one complete sentence.
He ended up having an epiphany, “It was my first ‘aha’ moment about this company’s culture.” (Forbes)
In essence, the message was always the same, “I want one of those mixers of yours like the McDonald brothers have in San Bernadino, California.” (Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald’s [Regnery], by Ray Kroc)
Perhaps Pippa’s future can be found in an essay she wrote for The Telegraph when she became an author, “My worry now, having written this book, is that the pressure will really be on. I’ll somehow have to produce the party of the century.” (New York Times)
The author quotes Leon Botstein, who makes a similar point this way, “If Beethoven were sent to nursery school today, they would medicate him, and he would be a postal clerk.” (New York Times)
But then she answered the question for us, “I am here to help you figure out why you are here.” (New York Times)

The error in all five excerpts is commonly called a comma splice (see Chapter 78). In each sentence, a colon must replace the comma that precedes the quotation.
     Second, a colon separates the equivalent of a complete sentence from another sentence-equivalent that elaborates on, refashions, or illustrates the statement that precedes the colon. The colon differs from the semicolon in that a semicolon asserts nothing more than that the two sentence-equivalents it separates are somehow related in meaning. The colon steers the reader toward a capping statement.

The overall vibe was of an intimate party, the band and crowd seemed laid-back almost to the point of sounding like a lounge act. (Seeing the Light: Inside the Velvet Underground [St. Martin’s], by Rob Jovanovic) [The sentence is weakened by a comma-splice error; see Chapter 78.]
The overall vibe was of an intimate party: the band and crowd seemed laid-back almost to the point of sounding like a lounge act.
There are four small, creative flatbread pizzas under $10; one is vegan, two are vegetarian and one was done with chicken. (New York Times)

The first independent clause in the sentence is introducing a series whose elements are each phrased in the form of a sentence-equivalent, so a colon is more stylistically desirable than a semicolon. The colon politely points the reader forward to that series.

There are four small, creative flatbread pizzas under $10: one is vegan, two are vegetarian, and one features chicken.
 

Third, the colon separates the equivalent of a complete sentence from a single word or a phrase that clarifies, restates, or exemplifies the statement expressed by the phrasing that precedes the colon. (A dash would also be appropriate.) Writers sometimes choose a comma instead. That choice can be stylistically unfortunate, especially if the sentence already includes two or more commas.

Thanks to new weaponry built with touch screens, Italian design and the latest technology, the cola wars are returning to an old battleground, the soda fountain. (New York Times)
Thanks to new weaponry built with touch screens, Italian design, and the latest technology, the cola wars are returning to an old battleground: the soda fountain.
Determined not to let Pepsi steal Coke’s thunder, Jennifer Mann, general manager of Freestyle, went on a road trip this week to show customers new, smaller models that address one of the chief complaints about Coke’s machine, the floor space it occupies. (New York Times)
Determined not to let Pepsi steal Coke’s thunder, Jennifer Mann, general manager of Freestyle, went on a road trip this week to show customers new, smaller models that address one of the chief complaints about Coke’s machine: the amount of floor space it occupies.

Fourth, the colon is used to direct the reader forward from the equivalent of a complete sentence to a pair or a list of items. (A dash would also be appropriate.) Unfortunately, writers sometimes resort to a semicolon or a comma instead.

A subscription to Poetry offers the best of both worlds; an immediate dose of life, and a long-term investment in it. (from a subscription-solicitation letter)

Here, the semicolon following worlds lacks the gateway function of the colon; the semicolon is not ushering the reader toward a clarification of the phrasing the best of both worlds.

A subscription to Poetry offers the best of both worlds: an immediate dose of life and a long-term investment in it.
HBA [Hood By Air] the brand had been around since 2006, when it launched as a small streetwear project; logo T-shirts and hoodies celebrating a party thrown by a baby-faced guy named Shayne Oliver and his friends. (New York)
HBA the brand had been around since 2006, when it launched as a small streetwear project: logo T-shirts and hoodies celebrating a party thrown by a baby-faced guy named Shayne Oliver and his friends.
Right now we’re trapped unpleasantly between two ideals, the blissful anonymity of the Net as it was first conceived and the well-regulated panopticon it is becoming. (Time)

There’s only a slight risk that a reader will mistake the sentence for one presenting a series in the undesirable a, b and c form (see Chapter 64), but the comma after ideals merely separates instead of pointing forward.

Right now we’re trapped unpleasantly between two ideals: the blissful anonymity of the Net as it was first conceived and the well-regulated panopticon it is becoming.
Chris had put together two portfolios of color samples, one of caricature and portraits, and one of spots [small drawings] and illustrations. (The Art of The New Yorker, 1925-1995 [Knopf], by Lee Lorenz)

It’s easy for a reader to reach the mistaken conclusion that a total of four portfolios had been assembled. Substituting a colon for a comma after samples will instantly clarify that the phrasing following samples constitutes a two-part throwaway appositive (see Chapter 66) and not the second and third items in a three-item series.

Chris had put together two portfolios of color samples: one of caricature and portraits, and one of spots and illustrations. (OR: substitute the other for the second one)
[an overstuffed sentence in which the reviewer is comparing Mary McCarthy with Katie Roiphe] There are similarities between the two; a penchant for scandalizing the polite sensibilities of their fellow intellectual elites (McCarthy’s breakout hit, the short story “The Man in the Brooks Brothers Shirt,” was in some ways The Morning After of its day), a certain glee in thwarting traditional notions of domesticity (McCarthy was married four times, unapologetically prolific in her sexual dalliances, and was known to scoff when old friends went all bourgeois and Republican on her; Roiphe, a divorced mother of two children by different fathers, has written of her exasperation with peers who use parenthood as an excuse not to have sex or be interesting at parties). (Los Angeles Review of Books) [The first independent clause in the long parenthetical element that ends the sentence is weakened by faulty parallelism; see Chapter 41.]
There are similarities between the two: a penchant for scandalizing the polite sensibilities of their fellow intellectual elites . . . and a certain glee in thwarting traditional notions of domesticity. . . .
Golden fillets of lightly cured and deep-fried cod get two sauces, a glossy bed of garlicky skordalia and a blanket of tomato sauce that’s half sweet and half sharp. (New York Times)

If the slot occupied by the noun bed were replaced by a noun synonymous with sauce or by a noun naming a sauce, a reader would have no trouble recognizing early on that this is not a sentence presenting a series of three elements but instead a sentence whose purpose is to specify and describe the two sauces introduced in the independent clause. Bed, however, suggests that the writer is not going to name the sauces but instead will continue listing ways in which the chef has embellished the cod. (And not all readers, after all, will immediately know that skordalia is a sauce.) When the reader reaches a blanket of tomato sauce, she needs to make another mental readjustment, because she now realizes that the sentence is in fact going to do nothing more than elaborate on the two sauces. But she still hasn’t resolved all of the problems that the writer has burdened her with, because the headwords (bed and blanket) in the two appositive phrases are not logical substitutes for sauce. The writer’s playful figurative language doesn’t quite work. The quick rejiggerings below relegate bed and blanket to a backgrounding adjectival status (with bed as the object in a prepositional phrase functioning adjectivally and the noun blanket downgraded to the descriptive participle blanketing) and bring the names of the sauces themselves to the foreground. Note how the comma is less reader-friendly than the colon (or the dash) in guiding the reader toward the two-part appositive.

Golden fillets of lightly cured and deep-fried cod get two sauces, a garlicky skordalia in a glossy bed and a blanketing tomato sauce that’s half sweet and half sharp. OR: Golden fillets of lightly cured and deep-fried cod get two sauces: a garlicky skordalia in a glossy bed and a blanketing tomato sauce that’s half sweet and half sharp. OR: Golden fillets of lightly cured and deep-fried cod get two sauces—a garlicky skordalia in a glossy bed and a blanketing tomato sauce that’s half sweet and half sharp.
Pop Art is based on two things: ordinariness and eating. It’s about daily consumption; the democratic appetite, ravenous for meat, sweets, life on the street, and getting more of everything, cheap. (New York Times)

A reader doesn’t know how to take the second sentence. Is it intended to list three different things that Pop Art is about—namely, daily consumption, the democratic appetite, and getting more of everything, cheap? If so, the series has been punctuated inconsistently.

It’s about daily consumption; the democratic appetite, ravenous for meat, sweets, life on the street; and getting more of everything, cheap.

Or, more likely, is the phrasing following the lone semicolon intended to function as a two-part elaboration on what the writer means by daily consumption? If so, substitute a colon for the semicolon.

It’s about daily consumption: the democratic appetite—ravenous for meat, sweets, life on the street—and getting more of everything, cheap. OR: It’s about daily consumption: the democratic appetite (ravenous for meat, sweets, life on the street) and getting more of everything, cheap. [The end of the sentence might be further revised as and getting more of everything and getting it cheap.]
As it happens, Regal theaters sell three sizes of popcorn, “small,” “medium,” and “large” (with the large being the “tub” I have used in calculations to this point). (Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies, and Other Pricing Puzzles [Copernicus], by Richard B. McKenzie)

The comma following popcorn lacks the gateway function of a colon.

As it happens, Regal theaters sell three sizes of popcorn: “small,” “medium,” and “large” (with the large being the “tub” I have used in calculations to this point).
In Hollywood during the thirties, Garbo had a total of three long-suffering servants, two maids—Ettie (nicknamed “Whistler”) and Gertrude (“the Dragon”)—and a black chauffeur named James Rogers. (Garbo: A Biography [Knopf], by Barry Paris)

There’s at least a slim chance that some readers will conclude that Garbo had six, not three, persons on staff—three servants, two maids, and a chauffeur. A colon following servants will eliminate any ambiguity.

In Hollywood during the thirties, Garbo had a total of three long-suffering servants: two maids—Ettie (nicknamed “Whistler”) and Gertrude (“the Dragon”)—and a black chauffeur named James Rogers.
In February, after a wave of layoffs at Time Inc., the magazine [Essence] fired three members of its newsroom staff, the editor in chief, Constance C. R. White, the beauty editor and the creative director. (New York Times)

Here the reader has even more reason to wonder whether she is grasping the intended meaning. How many newsroom-staff employees were fired: three or six—or possibly even seven (are the editor in chief and Constance C. R. White the same person, or are Ms. White and the beauty editor the same person)? The writer most likely intended the reader to regard the phrasing following staff as a throwaway appositive (see Chapter 66) that provides information about three fired employees, only one of whom is identified by name, so why leave a reader in doubt? (The results of an Internet search confirm that Ms. White had been the editor in chief.)

In February, after a wave of layoffs at Time Inc., the magazine fired three members of its newsroom staff: the editor in chief, Constance C. R. White; the beauty editor; and the creative director.
A colon will occasionally separate a very short phrase (such as A word to the wise or Among the findings) from a capping independent clause (or, in some instances, a phrase or even a single word); see Chapter 92. Similarly, a colon (much like a dash) may be used as a punctuational divider between (1) a series that is positioned at the start of a sentence and (2) a capping, summational independent clause (as in Keen intellect, compassion, far-ranging curiosity, and inner strength: these are the qualities she seeks in a partner).
In semiformal and casual sentences, a dash can do pretty much anything a colon can. Of the four colonic practicalities discussed in the first side note above, the dash is particularly well suited to the third and the fourth.

  ^^  83 

The overdashed sentence is not a dashing one.
 

Although it might seem dictatorial for anyone to issue a decree limiting the number of times a punctuation mark might legitimately appear in a single sentence, you will be doing your readers a favor if you restrict yourself to no more than two dashes. One would never make such a restriction on parentheses, however, even though a pair of dashes and a pair of parentheses share a common function: to set off interruptive phrasing. But among the ways in which paired dashes and parentheses differ is in their very appearance. An opening parenthesis is immediately identifiable by its shape, and the same goes for a closing parenthesis. Neither will ever be mistaken for the other. An opening dash and a closing dash, though, are indistinguishable.
     In a sentence with a slew of parentheses, a reader will never be confused about where an interruptive element begins and where it ends. A sentence with a design such as the following presents no problems for a reader.
_____(_______)_________(__________)______ _______________(_____)_________________ (_________________).
     Without even reading words, a reader can tell not only that there are four interruptive elements but also where each one starts and ends.
     But what about a sentence like the following?
____—_______— _______ —__________— ____________—_____—________________—_________________.
     Before reaching the midpoint, many readers will be pitched into uncertainty about whether any particular dash, other than the first two dashes, marks the beginning or marks the end of an interruptive element.
     Bear in mind, as well, that a closing parenthesis is often followed by another punctuation mark (most frequently a comma, but sometimes a semicolon, a colon, or even a dash). Those additional punctuation marks further help the reader easily discern the overall design of a sentence.
_____(_______), _______ (                ), _______________(_____); ________________ (_________________).
     A dash, on the other hand (see Chapter 84), is never followed by another punctuation mark within a sentence.
     Even sentences in which the dashed-off interruptive phrasing (and sometimes the surrounding phrasing as well) is fairly brief can be mildly disorienting. Parentheses can come to the rescue.

Disapproving comments ranged from the fairly mild—“Aggressive choice!”—to the outright rude—“It ain’t working, honey.” (How to Lose Friends and Alienate People [Da Capo], by Toby Young)
Disapproving comments ranged from the fairly mild (“Aggressive choice!”) to the outright rude (“It ain’t working, honey”).
High school coming-of-age comedies, a Hollywood subgenre, range from the cleverly inspired—Easy A—to the inane—Porky’s. (USA Today)
High-school coming-of-age comedies, a Hollywood subgenre, range from the cleverly inspired (Easy A) to the inane (Porky’s).
If one feels that there is nothing “we” can do—but who is that “we”?—and nothing “they” can do either—and who are “they”?—then one starts to get bored, cynical, apathetic. (Regarding the Pain of Others [Picador], by Susan Sontag)
If one feels that there is nothing “we” can do (but who is that “we”?) and nothing “they” can do either (and who are “they”?), then one starts to get bored, cynical, apathetic.

In a sentence with two pairs of dashes that are setting off elements of equal importance, the reader-friendly way to remodel the sentence, then, is to substitute parentheses for the dashes, as the following excerpts and revisions illustrate.

But there is no shortage of people, amid their own midlife crises, going off the rails in ways both small—sudden obsessive exercising, immersion in bungee jumping, the imprudent hair transplant—and large—affairs, crackpot investments, substance abuse, or starting a “cultural revolution” in the company. (Wall Street Journal)
But there is no shortage of people, amid their own midlife crises, going off the rails in ways both small (sudden obsessive exercising, immersion in bungee jumping, the imprudent hair transplant) and large (affairs, crackpot investments, substance abuse, starting a “cultural revolution” in the company).
According to the National Employment Law Project, 12 states and at least 60 localities have ban-the-box laws, most of which only apply to public employers. Five states—Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Rhode Island—and seven cities—Baltimore, Buffalo, Newark, Philadelphia, Rochester, San Francisco and Seattle—have laws that cover private employers. (Wall Street Journal) [The first sentence is weakened by a misplaced single-word modifier; see Chapter 22.]
Five states (Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Rhode Island) and seven cities (Baltimore, Buffalo, Newark, Philadelphia, Rochester, San Francisco, and Seattle) have laws that cover private employers.
A particular headache to Josh Logan was the placement of “Wait Till You See Her,” a song for Theseus to sing about Antiope, which combined the best of Rodgers—those beautifully carpentered waltzes—with the best of Hart—his idiomatic phrasing and, not incidentally, his focus on the appearance of the beloved. (A Ship Without a Sail: The Life of Lorenz Hart [Simon & Schuster], by Gary Marmorstein)
A particular headache to Josh Logan was the placement of “Wait Till You See Her,” a song for Theseus to sing about Antiope, which combined the best of Rodgers (those beautifully carpentered waltzes) with the best of Hart (his idiomatic phrasing and, not incidentally, his focus on the appearance of the beloved).
She kept on walking—surely something grand would offer itself up to her when she turned the next corner?—down the busy commercial thoroughfare of New Oxford Street—the sound of distant traffic slurring through London’s mud and where she was confronted by stuccoed fronts and High Victorian kitsch—and on to ancient High Holborn. (The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys [W. W. Norton], by Lilian Pizzichini) [The sentence also suffers from faulty parallelism; see Chapter 41.]
She kept on walking (surely something grand would offer itself up to her when she turned the next corner?) down the busy commercial thoroughfare of New Oxford Street (where she heard the sound of distant traffic slurring through London’s mud and was confronted by stuccoed fronts and High Victorian kitsch) and on to ancient High Holborn.

Readability diminishes further when a sentence with more than two dashes increases in length. In the second sentence of the excerpt below, some confusion arises about whether the writer intended the second interruptive element to end with rip or with Cline. Parentheses are simply more reader-friendly than dashes in such a sentence.

Angel Olsen sang 10 songs at the Glasslands Gallery on Monday night. . . . She beamed forth with a voice that switched between lax—quiet, neutral, relaxed—and over the top—semi-operatic, jumping notes in a warbling rip, in a few 50-year-old ways pointing toward English folk music and Patsy Cline. (New York Times)
She beamed forth with a voice that switched between lax (quiet, neutral, relaxed) and over the top (semi-operatic, jumping notes in a warbling rip), in a few fifty-year-old ways pointing toward English folk music and Patsy Cline. OR: She beamed forth with a voice that switched between lax (quiet, neutral, relaxed) and over the top (semi-operatic, jumping notes in a warbling rip, in a few fifty-year-old ways pointing toward English folk music and Patsy Cline).

When you find yourself using more than one pair of dashes in a sentence, why not ask yourself whether all but one of the dashed-off elements might be enclosed between parentheses (or set off with commas) instead? It’s best to reserve the dashes for the interruptive element of greater (or greatest) importance.

This spring, it has been disturbing to see a number of college commencement speakers withdraw—or have their invitations rescinded—after protests from students and—to me, shockingly—from senior faculty and administrators who should know better. (Michael Bloomberg, in his commencement address at Harvard University, in 2014, quoted in Wall Street Journal)
[emphasizing Bloomberg’s shocked response] This spring, it has been disturbing to see a number of college-commencement speakers withdraw, or have their invitations rescinded, after protests from students and—to me, shockingly—from senior faculty and administrators, who should know better.
[emphasizing the rescinded invitations] This spring, it has been disturbing to see a number of college-commencement speakers withdraw—or have their invitations rescinded—after protests from students and, shockingly to me, from senior faculty and administrators, who should know better.
The repeal of Prohibition had given him [Bing Crosby] a push because saloons had installed jukeboxes in huge numbers—25,000 sold by 1934—and Bing’s records—first on Brunswick, then on Decca—filled those jukeboxes. (A Ship Without a Sail: The Life of Lorenz Hart [Simon & Schuster], by Gary Marmorstein) [Note that this sentence is also weakened by a multitasking dash (see Chapter 84).]
[emphasizing “25,000 sold by 1934”] The repeal of Prohibition had given him a push, because saloons had installed jukeboxes in huge numbers—twenty-five thousand sold by 1934—and Bing’s records (first on Brunswick, then on Decca) filled those jukeboxes. OR [emphasizing “first on Brunswick, then on Decca”]: The repeal of Prohibition had given him a push, because saloons had installed jukeboxes in huge numbers (twenty-five thousand sold by 1934), and Bing’s records—first on Brunswick, then on Decca—filled those jukeboxes. OR [implying that both interruptive elements are of equal importance]: The repeal of Prohibition had given him a push, because saloons had installed jukeboxes in huge numbers (twenty-five thousand sold by 1934), and Bing’s records (first on Brunswick, then on Decca) filled those jukeboxes.
They began a sort of flower war. Mercedes sent Marlene a roomful of white flowers—her room was a white dream, wrote Marlene—and Marlene inundated Mercedes with more and ever more—tulips, orchids, roses, twelve dozen carnations—as the maids Anna and Rose wrung their hands in despair. (The Girls: Sappho Goes to Hollywood [St. Martin’s], by Diana McClellan)
Mercedes sent Marlene a roomful of white flowers (her room was a white dream, wrote Marlene), and Marlene inundated Mercedes with more and ever more (tulips, orchids, roses, twelve dozen carnations) as the maids Anna and Rose wrung their hands in despair. OR: Mercedes sent Marlene a roomful of white flowers (her room was a white dream, wrote Marlene), and Marlene inundated Mercedes with more and ever more—tulips, orchids, roses, twelve dozen carnations—as the maids Anna and Rose wrung their hands in despair.
If I fixed my bra strap or blew my nose or simply stood still to catch my breath, no matter how I was feeling—whether sharing a joke with a coworker or trying not to snap at a rude customer—my face, my reactions, my tone and language were completely visible, caught on one of the store’s many cameras—and a manager sitting in his minuscule office was viewing it all. (Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail [Portfolio], by Caitlin Kelly)
If I fixed my bra strap or blew my nose or simply stood still to catch my breath, no matter how I was feeling (whether I was sharing a joke with a coworker or trying not to snap at a rude customer), my face, my reactions, my tone and language were completely visible, caught on one of the store’s many cameras—and a manager sitting in his minuscule office was viewing it all.

Overdashed sentences can cause other mischief, too.

Women adored Otto’s lips—modeled and sensual, like a young Richard Burton’s—his darkly tanned skin, his sexy habit of speaking through a haze of cigarette smoke, one eye half-closed—and the fact that, as his later cohort Theodore Draper said, “above all, he could not be accused of dullness.” (The Girls: Sappho Goes to Hollywood [St. Martin’s], by Diane McLellan)

A sentence like the one above can leave a reader vertiginous. The trouble is the ease with which she can mistake the second and third dashes for enclosive dashes, as well as the ease with which she can lose her grasp of whether there are two consecutive interruptive elements instead of just one. Making matters worse, the second dash is a multitasking dash (see Chapter 84). The eccentric and unhelpful punctuation of the sentence obscures the uncomplicated structure, in which a transitive verb (adored) is followed by a series of four direct objects.

Women adored Otto’s lips, modeled and sensual, like a young Richard Burton’s; his darkly tanned skin; his sexy habit of speaking through a haze of cigarette smoke, one eye half-closed; and the fact that, as his later cohort Theodore Draper said, “Above all, he could not be accused of dullness.”
Under his own name and many aliases, Otto Katz would serve the [Communist] Party well—as an international writer and editor in five languages, as a Moscow-trained spy and organizer, as a fund-raiser and bagman, as an expert originator of Soviet disinformation, and—according to intelligence sources—as an arranger of political murders. (The Girls: Sappho Goes to Hollywood [St. Martin’s], by Diane McLellan)

In a bird’s-eye view of the sentence, a reader cannot help assuming, initially, that the first and second dashes are setting off a very long interruptive element. If that interruptive element were removed from the sentence, the reader would be left with Under his own name and many aliases, Otto Katz would serve the Party well—according to intelligence sources—as an arranger of political murders. That truncated sentence does in fact make sense, but when the reader returns to the original sentence and reads through it carefully, she will discover that the first and second dashes are not actually working in tandem to set off an interruptive element. Instead, the first dash is functioning singly as an informal substitute for a colon to introduce a five-part series, and it’s the second and third dashes that are together setting off an interruptive element.

Under his own name and many aliases, Otto Katz would serve the Party well: as an international writer and editor in five languages, as a Moscow-trained spy and organizer, as a fund-raiser and bagman, as an expert originator of Soviet disinformation, and—according to intelligence sources—as an arranger of political murders. OR: Under his own name and many aliases, Otto Katz would serve the Party well—as an international writer and editor in five languages, as a Moscow-trained spy and organizer, as a fund-raiser and bagman, as an expert originator of Soviet disinformation, and (according to intelligence sources) as an arranger of political murders.

The following overdashed sentence has so many interruptive elements, two of which have already been parenthesized, that replacing dashes with even more parentheses is not going to make the sentence more reader-friendly.

The reason so many of those books also had unwanted pregnancies—think of Hester Prynne, Tess Durbeyfield, and Eliot’s own Hetty Sorrel, she of the “coquettish tyranny”—is because it was a convenient device for illuminating the thing that tends to stress out most people—fictional or otherwise—which is the collision of transcendent truisms (like the fact that when young people have sex, the woman frequently gets pregnant) and social conventions (like the fact that, 150 years ago and also today, this could be seen as an irreversible stain on the woman’s character). (New Republic) [The sentence is also weakened by faulty predication (see Chapter 45) and an error in the agreement of a pronoun with its antecedent (see Chapter 29).]
The reason so many of those books also included an unwanted pregnancy—think of Hester Prynne, Tess Durbeyfield, and Eliot’s own Hetty Sorrel, she of the “coquettish tyranny”—is that it was a convenient device for illuminating the thing that tends to stress out most people, fictional or otherwise: the collision of transcendent truisms (like the fact that when young people have sex, the woman frequently gets pregnant) and social conventions (like the fact that, a century and a half ago and also today, this could be seen as an irreversible stain on the woman’s character).

And what to do about a sentence with three pairs of dashes?

Like Pynchon, Wallace’s metaphors for certain ideas—like, say, the human condition—are often other ideas—like quantum mechanics—and there’s a sort of faux sloppiness about his prose that enables him to discuss with relative fluency (or, often, lack of fluency) all sorts of subjects—Wittgenstein, Descartes, calculus, physics, twelve-step programs, tennis—without resorting to academese. (Hatchet Jobs: Writings on Contemporary Fiction [The New Press], by Dale Peck) [Note that this is another sentence weakened by a multitasking dash; see Chapter 84. It’s weakened further by a faulty comparison (one writer is being likened to another writer’s metaphors, rather than one writer being likened to another writer, or one writer’s metaphors being likened to another writer’s metaphors); see Chapter 37.]
[parenthesizing the two parallel prepositional phrases beginning with like, which have been set off with dashes in the original] Like Pynchon’s, Wallace's metaphors for certain ideas (like, say, the human condition) are often other ideas (like quantum mechanics), and there's a sort of faux sloppiness about his prose that enables him to discuss with relative fluency (or, often, lack of fluency) all sorts of subjects—Wittgenstein, Descartes, calculus, physics, twelve-step programs, tennis—without resorting to academese. OR [parenthesizing all three phrases that mention Wallace’s subject matter and substituting dashes for Peck’s only pair of parentheses, because the remark that Peck has parenthesized is crying out for more emphasis within the context of a review that is highly critical of Wallace’s novel Infinite Jest]: Like Pynchon’s, Wallace’s metaphors for certain ideas (like, say, the human condition) are often other ideas (like quantum mechanics), and there’s a sort of faux sloppiness about his prose that enables him to discuss with relative fluency—or, often, lack of fluency—all sorts of subjects (Wittgenstein, Descartes, calculus, physics, twelve-step programs, tennis) without resorting to academese.

Asymmetrical punctuation (see Chapter 80) sometimes arises from promiscuous dashing, further diminishing readability.

It was either Peter Asher—Head of A&R at The Beatles’ Apple label, or Tony Cox—an arranger with connections at Island (not Terry Cox of Pentangle, as has been suggested)—who recommended that Boyd use Richard Hewson to do the arrangements for Five Leaves Left. (Nick Drake [Bloomsbury], by Patrick Humphries)

The first and second dashes each set off the left-hand side of an appositive—but in each case, a comma sets off the right-hand side. Substituting dashes for the two commas would further overdash the sentence by adding a fourth dash to a sentence already cluttered with three.

It was either Peter Asher, Head of A&R at the Beatles’ Apple label, or Tony Cox, an arranger with connections at Island (not Terry Cox of Pentangle, as has been suggested), who recommended that Boyd use Richard Hewson to do the arrangements for Five Leaves Left. OR: It was either Peter Asher (Head of A&R at the Beatles’ Apple label) or Tony Cox (an arranger with connections at Island)—but not Terry Cox of Pentangle, as has been suggested—who recommended that Boyd use Richard Hewson to do the arrangements for Five Leaves Left. OR: It was either Peter Asher (Head of A&R at the Beatles’ Apple label) or Tony Cox (an arranger with connections at Island), and not Terry Cox of Pentangle, as has been suggested, who recommended that Boyd use Richard Hewson to do the arrangements for Five Leaves Left.

  ^^  84 

The Multitasking Dash
 

Something seems more than slightly off—to exacting readers, anyway—when the closing dash in a pair of dashes has been asked to function simultaneously in two different ways: (1) as the second half of a pair of dashes setting set off interruptive phrasing and (2) as the equivalent of a comma (or a semicolon, or even a single dash [that is, a dash that is not half of a pair]).
     A dash works best when it’s asked to perform only one function. A multitasking dash easily dumbfounds a reader.

The air around them is charged with anxiety—about the threat of nuclear war, mostly—intellectual restlessness and sexual curiosity. (New York Times)

The second dash is the source of the confusion. A reader needs a few seconds to discern the architecture of the phrasing and conclude that the sentence is presenting a three-element series and that the first element is followed by a pair of interruptive prepositional phrases. The second dash is being asked (1) to bring an interruptive element to its close, which, of course, a dash is perfectly capable of doing (much as a closing parenthesis or a comma would be), and (2) to separate the second item in a series from the first, which only a comma (or a semicolon [see Chapter 81]) can do. The poor reader is expected to recognize that the dash has been called upon to perform two entirely different roles.
     Ideally, when a dashed-off element is removed from a sentence, what remains should be perfectly intelligible, as in the following example.

Her best qualities—empathy, social intelligence, a willingness to collaborate—account for her success as a manager.
  

Extract the dashed-off interruptive element from the Times sentence under consideration above, though, and you’re left with the unpunctuated near-nonsense of The air around them is charged with anxiety intellectual restlessness and sexual curiosity. The words anxiety and intellectual abut in a meaning-defeating way.
     In sentences of that sort, the reader is better served by parentheses, because a comma can follow a closing parenthesis but cannot (in post-nineteenth-century punctuation) follow a dash. Filling the slot between anxiety and intellectual restlessness, though, is going to require the insertion of more than one kind of punctuation mark.

The air around them is charged with anxiety (about the threat of nuclear war, mostly), intellectual restlessness, and sexual curiosity.
But it [milk punch] tastes like magic: smooth, sweet, and spicy—depending on a changing roster of seasonings, such as bergamot tea and Thai bird chili—topped off with your choice of spirit and served over a gigantic ice cube. (New Yorker)

Delete the dashed-off phrasing, and spicy crashes unpunctuatedly into topped: But it tastes like magic: smooth, sweet, and spicy topped off with your choice of spirit. . . .

But it tastes like magic: smooth, sweet, and spicy (depending on a changing roster of seasonings, such as bergamot tea and Thai bird chili), topped off with your choice of spirit and served over a gigantic ice cube.

A rule, then? If the removal of any dashed-off phrasing results in the abutment of two grammatically or syntactically incompatible words, replace the pair of dashes with a pair of parentheses, and insert after the closing parenthesis whichever punctuation mark, such as a comma, is needed to ensure smooth, effortless reading.

Instead he and the younger composer worked out an informal schedule—meeting today at 119th Street, tomorrow at Eighty-Sixth Street—rolled up their sleeves, and went to work. (A Ship Without a Sail: The Life of Lorenz Hart [Simon & Schuster], by Gary Marmorstein)

Strike out the dashed-off phrasing at the end of the first of three items in the series, and the noun schedule is now rubbing itself unbecomingly against the verb rolled.

Instead, he and the younger composer worked out an informal schedule (meeting today at 119th Street, tomorrow at Eighty-Sixth Street), rolled up their sleeves, and went to work.
Lyfe will rely on digital order-taking, G.P.S. customer location—a coaster will tell your server where you’re sitting—online ordering and mobile apps. (New York Times)

Here, too, the interruptive element set off with dashes ends up obscuring, rather than clarifying, the design of the sentence—in this case, a sentence with a four-element series. If the dashed-off element were removed, the reader would be left with the statement Lyfe will rely on digital order-taking, G.P.S. customer location online ordering and mobile apps, in which customer location and online ordering bump up against each other bafflingly.

Lyfe will rely on digital order-taking, G.P.S. customer location (a coaster will tell your server where you’re sitting), online ordering, and mobile apps.
There’s still a poet here who admits all sorts of unlovely things about himself—his casual racism, his delirious obsession with sex—a poet who doesn’t want to court your dislike, who doesn’t always wear the “Seidel sackcloth,” who doesn’t have to brag about having a girlfriend as young as his daughter, if he had a daughter: “The mother of the woman I currently/ Like to spank, I’m not kidding,/ Was my girlfriend at Harvard.” (New Criterion)
There’s still a poet here who admits all sorts of unlovely things about himself (his casual racism, his delirious obsession with sex), a poet who doesn’t want to court your dislike. . . .
When I was a kid, you saw lots of thinner people reading fat books. Now you see larger people staring at thin phones. Many are no doubt chronicling the adventures of their favorite literary character—themselves—updating their Facebook accounts with descriptions of eating Oreos, watching a seagull peck the eye out of a dead fish and spending 15 minutes the prior evening flushing the sand from between their massive glutes. (Wall Street Journal)
Many are no doubt chronicling the adventures of their favorite literary characters (themselves), updating their Facebook accounts with descriptions of eating Oreos, watching a seagull peck the eye out of a dead fish, and spending fifteen minutes the prior evening flushing the sand from between their massive glutes.
[the sentence needs a helping of hyphens, too (see Chapter 86)] Decades of tasting Bresse chicken—cooked in a pig's bladder and served in a cream and egg-yolk sauce—his famed black truffle and foie gras soup, his seared foie gras and puff pastries had clogged Paul Bocuse’s arteries. (Wall Street Journal)
Decades of tasting Bresse chicken (cooked in a pig’s bladder and served in a cream-and-egg-yolk sauce), his famed black-truffle-and-foie-gras soup, his seared foie gras and puff pastries had clogged Paul Bocuse’s arteries.

The following sentence also presents a series, though on a larger scale than in previous examples. (The sentence, in fact, is overcrammed.) A reader can easily begin to lose her bearings soon after the second dash.

Mixing elements of society in a deliberately provocative way, Ackerley invited new friends from the BBC (where he was now working at the Talks Department), his lover du jour—usually a Guardsman or a cheerful scoundrel who might bring along his wife—artists and actors and local toughs, and his surviving family: his eccentric mother (a glamorous former vaudeville star who was a master of the gaudy hat), his aunt Bunny, who had “something of . . . Mae West in her character” and “an extraordinarily infectious chesty laugh,” and his sister, Nancy—bony, regal in mien, unhappy in a sharp, patrician way. (A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E. M. Forster [Farrar, Straus and Giroux], by Wendy Moffat)
Mixing elements of society in a deliberately provocative way, Ackerley invited new friends from the BBC (where he was now working at the Talks Department), his lover du jour (usually a Guardsman or a cheerful scoundrel who might bring along his wife), artists and actors and local toughs, and his surviving family: his eccentric mother (a glamorous former vaudeville star who was a master of the gaudy hat), his aunt Bunny, who had “something of . . . Mae West in her character” and “an extraordinarily infectious chesty laugh,” and his sister, Nancy—bony, regal in mien, unhappy in a sharp, patrician way. OR [with semicolons to separate the elements of the series in the independent clause]: Mixing elements of society in a deliberately provocative way, Ackerley invited new friends from the BBC, where he was now working at the Talks Department; his lover du jour, usually a Guardsman or a cheerful scoundrel who might bring along his wife; artists and actors and local toughs; and his surviving family: his eccentric mother (a glamorous former vaudeville star who was a master of the gaudy hat), his aunt Bunny, who had “something of . . . Mae West in her character” and “an extraordinarily infectious chesty laugh,” and his sister, Nancy—bony, regal in mien, unhappy in a sharp, patrician way. OR: Mixing elements of society in a deliberately provocative way, Ackerley invited new friends from the BBC, where he was now working at the Talks Department; his lover du jour, usually a Guardsman or a cheerful scoundrel who might bring along his wife; artists and actors and local toughs; and his surviving family—his eccentric mother (a glamorous former vaudeville star who was a master of the gaudy hat), his aunt Bunny (who had “something of . . . Mae West in her character” and “an extraordinarily infectious chesty laugh”), and his sister, Nancy (bony, regal in mien, unhappy in a sharp, patrician way). OR [splitting the sentence into two sentences]: Mixing elements of society in a deliberately provocative way, Ackerley invited new friends from the BBC, where he was now working at the Talks Department; his lover du jour, usually a Guardsman or a cheerful scoundrel who might bring along his wife; and artists and actors and local toughs. He also invited his surviving family: his eccentric mother, a glamorous former vaudeville star who was a master of the gaudy hat; his aunt Bunny, who had “something of . . . Mae West in her character” and “an extraordinarily infectious chesty laugh”; and his sister, Nancy—bony, regal in mien, unhappy in a sharp, patrician way.

The next example, though less elaborate than the preceding one (because it doesn’t present a series), is nonetheless slovenly. It includes two consecutive interruptive elements, the second of which is set off with dashes.

The site, laden with steles and oversize statue heads—fragments of monuments to the Hellenistic ruler Antiochus I—has rich potential for any sculptor. (New York Times)

The removal of the dashed-off phrasing would leave the reader with The site, laden with steles and oversize statue heads has rich potential for any sculptor, in which the interruptive participial phrase laden with steles and oversize statue heads is set off with a comma at only one end. The second dash in the original sentence therefore was pressed into service in a double capacity—to serve both as a dash and as a comma. Substituting parentheses for the dashes and inserting a comma following the closing parenthesis will leave the sentence punctuationally tidy.

The site, laden with steles and oversize statue heads (fragments of monuments to the Hellenistic ruler Antiochus I), has rich potential for any sculptor.
Sometimes the weather may be improving: in [the painting] “It Has Stopped,” a man and a woman look out separate windows of a yellow house—or a house implied by yellow lines—their scant clothing suggesting recent sex. (New York Times)

If the dashed-off element is subtracted, house and their grind against each other nonsensically: Sometimes the weather may be improving: in “It Has Stopped,” a man and a woman look out separate windows of a yellow house their scant clothing suggesting recent sex.

Sometimes the weather may be improving: in It Has Stopped, a man and a woman look out separate windows of a yellow house (or a house implied by yellow lines), their scant clothing suggesting recent sex.
Songs from “Old Yellow Moon,” like the gentle waltz of the title track and Matraca Berg’s “Back When We Were Beautiful”—a ballad narrated by a widowed grandmother—muse on the passage of time. (New York Times)
Songs from Old Yellow Moon, like the gentle waltz of the title track and Matraca Berg’s “Back When We Were Beautiful” (a ballad narrated by a widowed grandmother), muse on the passage of time.

Untidiness results as well when an interruptive element in the form of an independent clause is inserted between two other independent clauses.

They don’t label Holly—was she really a prostitute?—they just want to be her. (New York Times)

Here the second dash is both an interruptive-ender and a break between two antithetical independent clauses. The removal of the dashed-off phrasing results in two words—Holly and they—butting up against each other ungrammatically: They don’t label Holly they just want to be her.

They don’t label Holly (was she really a prostitute?); they just want to be her.

In the next example, a dashed-off independent clause is preceded by an independent clause and followed by an adverbial phrase.

No, Paul and his friends are living it up, sometimes responsibly—Paul is an established writer, after all—sometimes not so much. (American Reader)
No, Paul and his friends are living it up, sometimes responsibly (Paul is an established writer, after all), sometimes not so much.

A dashed-off midsentence participial phrase can also spell trouble.

Critics began to speak about the School of Gordon Lish—meaning both the classes and the work itself—probably most perceptively Sven Birkerts, in his article of that title, which appeared in The New Republic soon before the founding of The Quarterly. (New Yorker’s Page-Turner blog)

If the interrupter is excised, we’re left with Critics began to speak about the School of Gordon Lish probably most perceptively Sven Birkerts. . . .

Among the critics who began to speak about the School of Gordon Lish, meaning both the classes and the work itself, the most perceptive was probably Sven Birkerts, in his article titled, appropriately enough, “The School of Gordon Lish,” which appeared in The New Republic soon before the founding of The Quarterly.

A dashed-off appositive phrase directly followed by another appositive phrase can also confound a reader.

Like Pynchon, these figures generally begin as straight arrows—Slothrop the military Wasp; The Crying of Lot 49’s Oedipa Maas coming home from a Tupperware party—insiders forced out by awful visions they never asked to see. (New York’s vulture.com)

If the dashed-off appositive is removed, arrows butts up against insiders.

Like Pynchon, these figures—Slothrop the military Wasp; The Crying of Lot 49’s Oedipa Maas coming home from a Tupperware party—generally begin as straight arrows, insiders forced out by awful visions they never asked to see.

A sentence with a multitasking dash can sometimes leave a reader confused about which noun or nouns constitute the subject.

So the characters’ bearing, as much as their more pronounced actions—and their words—creates the drama. (New Yorker)

Short as the sentence is, it invites misunderstanding. Sensing that the first dash might be functioning as a comma as well, a reader may initially be tempted to attach the dashed-off phrasing and their words to bearing (and thereby construe as much as their more pronounced actions as an interruptive element); but then, jolted by the dissonance between what has seemed to be an additive-compound subject (bearing and words) and the singular verb (creates), she will then realize that she has misread the sentence: the subject is bearing, and the interruptive element is and their words.

So the characters’ bearing, as much as their more pronounced actions (and their words), creates the drama. OR: So the characters’ bearing—as much as their more pronounced actions and their words—creates the drama.
One sort of sentence with a multitasking dash won’t necessarily cause trouble for a reader. That exception is a sentence in which the interruptive element is inserted between two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction, such as and or but.
In broad terms “Room 237” is a nonfiction movie—its human and cinematic subjects are real enough—but it’s more of a personal essay than a traditional documentary, specifically in its truth claims. (New York Times)

With the dashed-off interruptive element removed, the sentence would be entirely readable (In broad terms “Room 237” is a nonfiction movie but it’s more of a personal essay than a traditional documentary, specifically in its truth claims), though a comma after movie would be the perfect little gift to a reader.

  ^^  85 

Punctuating Parentheses
 

Parentheses signal to a reader that the phrasing they enclose is of secondary importance in a sentence. The only trouble they might cause a writer is the trouble of determining whether a punctuation mark should be inserted inside or outside the closing parenthesis. The rules, though, are uncomplicated.
     If an entire freestanding sentence is parenthesized between two other freestanding sentences (or at the end of a paragraph), the terminal punctuation mark of the parenthesized sentence is positioned inside, not outside, the closing parenthesis.

As [Richard] Hell notes, The Voidoids’ subversive aim was to strike a balance between intellectual complexity and jagged punk, a tricky approach perfected in the band’s 1977 debut, Blank Generation. (In Clean Tramp, Hell says he prefers the band’s decent but shaky 1982 follow-up, Destiny Street, for reasons as perverse as many he maintains throughout the book). His writing is equally eccentric and erratic. (The Onion’s A.V. Club)

The parenthesized sentence must end like this: book.)

[John D.] MacDonald had to turn out three or four novels a year to stay afloat. It’s no wonder that, after a decade, he gave it up and turned to the idea of a series character like McGee, betting it would be more lucrative. (He was right—the McGees were a hit from the beginning, and he only had to write one of them a year). What’s so impressive is that in a situation that virtually guaranteed hasty and slapdash work, MacDonald managed to write with discipline and even artistry. (Wall Street Journal) [Bothered by the positioning of only in the parenthesized sentence? See Chapter 22.]

The parenthesized sentence must end like this: year.)
     When two or more consecutive freestanding sentences within a paragraph are parenthesized, no punctuation mark must follow the closing parenthesis.

[a paragraph reproduced in its entirety] The system is beautifully responsive thanks to its Advanced Streaming and Prediction (OK, OK! ASAP) technology, which predicts what you want to download. (Are you hovering over something for a long time? Have you downloaded an episode of the show previously?). It then downloads it in the background so it’s ready to play without the tedious buffering of other set-top boxes. The interface is also elegant and intuitive. (Newsweek) [Troubled by the multiple its in the second-last sentence? See Chapter 35.]

The second of the two consecutive parenthesized sentences must end like this: previously?)
     When a parenthesized sentence-within-a-sentence is positioned at the end of a hosting sentence, the period follows the closing parenthesis.

[Jorie] Graham doesn’t lack a sense of the tragic; but the tragic is treated the same as the injured dog (she has a moral imagination both icy and sentimental.) (New Criterion)

The sentence must end like this: sentimental).

When he was looking for an aromatic bread for a tuna salad sandwich, he was directed to Breads Bakery in the Flatiron district, where the baker Uri Scheft helped engineer an “everything” croissant with the crunchy, aromatic exterior of an everything bagel (Mr. Scheft also makes the best chocolate babka in Manhattan, and other Ashkenazi treats.) (New York Times) [The excerpt needs a hyphen between tuna and salad; see Chapter 86.]

The sentence must end like this: treats). It’s also possible, though, that the writer intended the parenthesized sentence to be a stand-alone sentence. If so, a period must follow bagel, and the period in the parenthesized sentence must remain where it is. Either way, though, the comma before and must vanish.
     There are three other matters to bear in mind about parenthesizing entire sentences within hosting sentences: (1) the phrasing of a parenthesized sentence-within-a-sentence must never end with any punctuation mark unless the parenthesized sentence-within-a-sentence ends with an abbreviation (such as p.m.) that requires a period at its end or unless the parenthesized sentence is interrogative or exclamatory, in which case it requires a question mark or an exclamation point at its end; (2) the first word of the parenthesized sentence-within-a-sentence is capitalized only if it is a word that always requires capitalization; and (3) when a writer parenthesizes two consecutive sentences within a hosting sentence, the result is often unsightly, and the matter of when and when not to capitalize becomes a little more complicated, as the following excerpt illustrates.

Her daughter has had an unusual work history (she struggled for two years as a freelance writer. Then she was hired as a publicist for a film-production company). Her son, though, has been unemployed since the recession.

Notice that in the parenthesized element, only the second of the two-in-a-row parenthesized sentences begins with an uppercased letter. Notice, too, that only the first of the two parenthesized sentences ends with a period.
     A long parenthesized element occasionally includes the equivalent of a sentence fragment followed by a complete sentence. Make sure that the period of the hosting sentence falls outside of the closing parenthesis.

David Hudson’s Hamlet is fittingly morose; his “To be or not to be” speech is heartfelt (though the great “How all occasions” section has been cut, a result of Fortinbras being deleted from the play. It would have gone over well here.) (New York Times) [The noun Fortinbras should be in possessive form because it precedes a gerund; see Chapter 44.]

The sentence must end like this: here). The two grammatically unequal constructions enclosed by the parentheses could be combined to form the equivalent of one complete sentence.

David Hudson’s Hamlet is fittingly morose; his “To be or not to be” speech is heartfelt (though the great “How all occasions” section has been cut, a result of Fortinbras’s being deleted from the play, it would have gone over well here).

Four final guidelines about curvy punctuation:
     First, most parenthesized elements are not the equivalent of complete sentences.

When her husband lost his job (an unexpected turn of events), he became a stay-at-home father.

A comma follows the closing parenthesis in that sentence, because if the parenthetical phrasing were omitted, a comma would need to follow job. But when the parenthesized element is added to the sentence right after job, the adverbial dependent clause (When her husband lost her job) and the parenthesized element now form a single, solid unit—and the comma must be positioned at its end. Even if the parenthesized element is the equivalent of a complete sentence, as in When her husband lost his job (this was an unexpected turn of events), he became a stay-at-home father, the comma still follows the closing parenthesis.
     Second, if a parenthesized element of any sort (a single word, a phrase, a dependent clause, or, as discussed earlier, an independent clause) has been included at the end of the hosting sentence, the period (or other terminal punctuation mark) must be positioned after the closing parenthesis.

Rodarte parlays mohair into a dress so loosely knit as to be virtually see-through (and with matching briefs.) (New York Times)

The sentence must end like this: briefs).

St. Clair McKelway is a New Yorker author of the Golden Age—okay, one of the Golden Ages—whose work, out of print for a long time, is now mostly unknown and overlooked (the temporary condition of most good writing, so no big deal there.) (Introduction, by Adam Gopnik, to Reporting at Wit’s End: Tales from The New Yorker [Bloomsbury], by St. Clair McKelway)

The sentence must end like this: there).

Mr. Remnick conceded that in the past, The New Yorker had been slow to embrace any major changes (for example, not embracing photography in its pages until 1992.) (New York Times)

The sentence must end like this: 1992).

Having also designed various furniture pieces over the past 15 years, he started rethinking the famed, starkly rectilinear furniture designed and built by Minimalist artist Donald Judd, using similar materials and the same box-centric aesthetic while trying to make it more functional and comfortable (though, with apologies to Judd-ites, you could scarcely make that stuff less comfortable.) (Wall Street Journal)

The sentence must end like this: comfortable).
     Third, as with a parenthesized sentence-within-a-sentence, any other parenthesized phrasing must begin with a lowercased word unless the first word is a word always requiring capitalization.

Even if he showed his blind side in that one respect, this was a fine Armani display of realism and beauty (Gosh, a pantsuit unaccompanied by a funny hat!) that was overdue. (New York Times)

The parenthesized element must begin like this: (gosh,    
     Finally, forget about inserting any punctuation mark before an opening parenthesis. The only exception is a sentence in which the items in a series are preceded by parenthesized numerals: The book is (1) brilliant, (2) brief, and (3) brave. (And in such a sentence, a blank space would separate each comma from each opening parenthesis.)

Like James Gandolfini’s Tony Soprano, Crosby Braverman, the California man-child Mr. Shepard plays on “Parenthood,” (53 episodes and counting), is so indelible that, like it or not, everything else Mr. Shepard does registers as a pallid reflection. (New York Times)

The comma after the d in“Parenthood” must disappear.

The I Hate You! leitmotif, which has perfumed most of Sunny’s adult life, did not stop her marrying . . . five times: Said Boromand (“a handsome Iranian lunatic”), Thomas O’Hara, (“a used office furniture salesman and father of my daughter”), George B. Chapman IV (“a handsome Wasp architect and lunatic punk rocker—this is when I got tired of changing my name”), Jonathan Formula Plenn (“an utterly brilliant punk rock lunatic”), and her current spouse. (Wacky Chicks: Life Lessons from Fearlessly Inappropriate and Fabulously Eccentric Women [Simon & Schuster], by Simon Doonan) [The adjectival compound used office furniture needs to be hyphenated as used-office-furniture, and a hyphen is also needed between punk and rock; see Chapter 86.]

The comma after O’Hara needs to pass into oblivion.

While this [steering of my co-workers to a frozen-custard joint] does spark some grumbling among those who prefer frozen desserts in flavors like “birthday cake” and one or two misguided calorie counters, (Hello? You put a mountain of Oreos on that nonfat yogurt!), most of my colleagues concede that this move is the end journey to the sublime. (New York Times)

The comma after counters must deliquesce.

Though she now lives in Wilton, Conn., (where she said she spent a lot of her professional hiatus gardening) with her husband, Tom Hatch, a sculptor, Ms. Phillips was born and raised in New York City. (New York Times)

The comma following the abbreviation Conn. and preceding the opening parenthesis has been mispositioned; the parenthesized dependent clause where she said she spent a lot of her professional hiatus gardening is modifying the place-name, and together the two form a unit. The comma, therefore, needs to be inserted at the end of the unit—after the closing parenthesis.

Though she now lives in Wilton, Connecticut (where she said she spent a lot of her professional hiatus gardening), with her husband, Tom Hatch, a sculptor, Ms. Phillips was born and raised in New York City.
By their very nature, parentheses isolate the material they enclose from the main business of a sentence or a paragraph. For a reader making her way through a paragraph, then, it is a little bewildering to encounter as the subject of a sentence a pronoun whose antecedent is found in a preceding sentence that has been parenthesized. That is what happens in the following paragraph, from a review of the fourth album by the singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten.
“Are We There” is the completion of a process that unfolded over “Epic” and “Tramp,” the two albums that followed her début. “Epic,” from 2010, picked up the pace considerably and put Van Etten in a brisk, more luminous context. Guitars are strummed, there is a full band much of the time, and the songs are in a vein of American rock songwriting that is open-minded with respect to form but is largely disconnected from electronic instruments and syntactical gimmickry. (R.E.M., Lucinda Williams, and Neko Case all fall into this very roomy category.) These are acts that disdain conservative impulses but do represent a kind of traditionalism—the idea that the work can be done with songwriting and live performance. Though these artists can sound dissimilar, you sense that none of them will record a dance album. (New Yorker)

It would be in the reader’s best interest for the writer to remove the parentheses from around the sentence beginning with R.E.M. That sentence would then be out in the open, and the pronoun These at the start of the next sentence would have a strong antecedental foothold.

  ^^  86 

Why not learn the use-hyphens-between-words-that-together-form-an-adjectival-compound-preceding-a-noun rule?
 

That intentionally inelegant title reminds us of a widely neglected use of the hyphen, the least understood of all the punctuation marks. We often write sentences in which two or more words team up to form a phrase that functions like a single-word adjective in front of a noun. In the sentence A twenty-year-old woman lives across the street, for instance, the phrase twenty-year-old serves much the same way as the adjective young does in the sentence A young woman lives across the street. Whenever an adjectival-compound phrase precedes a noun, the writer needs to stitch its words together with hyphens so that a reader instantly recognizes that the words constitute a single unit. It’s best, though, for a writer to keep her adjectival compounds fairly short—between, say, two words and five.
Following are thirteen rudiments of reader-friendly hyphenation. In the excerpts, the adjectival compounds requiring hyphenation (or, in rule 7, not requiring hyphenation) are boldfaced.

1. A NOUN+NOUN combination serving as an adjective and preceding a noun requires a hyphen. Thus the pattern is NOUN-NOUN NOUN.

It [the eraser] can be extended and slotted back into the ferrule for longer life—or, better yet, reversed, providing fresh edges for your precision erasure needs. (Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen [Norton, first edition], by Mary Norris)
your precision-erasure needs
Her [Lena Dunham’s] whole life is a performance art piece where she plays a noxious brat with great skill, and poses herself, either eerily like one of her mother’s dolls, or sexually, like her father’s nudes. (New Republic)    
performance-art piece
Home economics courses were first meant to improve a woman’s lot in life by legitimizing domestic work. (New Republic)
Home-economics courses
Italian-American restaurant cooking is not an endangered species in New York just yet, but enough of its practitioners have closed or slumped into irrelevance to raise concerns about gene pool dilution. (New York Times)
gene-pool dilution.
Yet 2014’s measles revival may also be a tipping point in vaccine exemption laws. (Newsweek)
vaccine-exemption laws.
A chat show appearance to promote the show, in which John Cleese poured his drink over the host and ended up slowly flicking cocktail nibbles at him, added a bizarre twist to the pre-publicity. (Newsweek)
A chat-show appearance
The book club craze may have hit its nadir. (New York Times)
The book-club craze
By comparing decades of personality test results, Dr. Twenge has concluded, over and over again, that younger generations are increasingly entitled, self-obsessed and unprepared for the realities of adult life. (New York Times)
personality-test results
It appears that two can play at the patent infringement game. (New York Times)
the patent-infringement game.
[headline] Disaster Plan Problems Found at U.S. Nuclear Plants (New York Times)
Disaster-Plan Problems
Insurance industry and risk analysis experts arrived at their projections by adding median damage estimates for the worst of the tornadoes so far. (New York Times)
Insurance-industry and risk-analysis experts
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts just bought a stake in a Spanish amusement park complex. (New York Times)
amusement-park complex.
That digression aside, the main point of this chapter remains that the entrapment theory of movie popcorn pricing leaves much to be desired, mainly because almost all (other than brain-dead) moviegoers are aware that popcorn (and other concessions) are higher (on the first few ounces) at movies than elsewhere. (Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies, and Other Pricing Puzzles [Copernicus], by Richard B. McKenzie) [Note that the sentence-ending dependent clause, beginning with that, suffers from faulty predication; one might substitute that prices of popcorn (and of other concession-stand items) are higher. . . . See Chapter 45.]
movie-popcorn pricing

The first rule also applies to a NOUN+GERUND combination preceding a noun.

I made my first big catch as a foundry proofreader in one of the Christmas shopping columns. (Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen [Norton, first edition], by Mary Norris)
Christmas-shopping columns
The canal gave the New York printers an advantage over their competitors in Boston and Philadelphia, which helps explain New York’s preeminence as a book publishing center. (Book Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Future [W. W. Norton], by Jason Epstein)
a book-publishing center.
Washington Heights was then known as a drug trafficking hub. (New York Times)
a drug-trafficking hub.

2. An ADJECTIVE+NOUN combination serving as an adjective and preceding a noun requires a hyphen. Thus the pattern is ADJECTIVE-NOUN NOUN.

A rare book sale at Doyle (April 15) includes a pile of love letters, tenderly preserved, sent by the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo to her secret lover Jose Bartoli, a refugee of the Spanish Civil War living in Mexico. (New Yorker)
A rare-book sale
For instance, they [Chinese men] wonder why they graduate from college in record numbers yet cannot find decent white collar jobs because China’s economy is still addicted to a labor-intensive model. (Time)
white-collar jobs
The legal marijuana business is off to a booming start in Colorado. (Time)
The legal-marijuana business
After a series of lower court decisions, the studios were required by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1948 in the United States v. Paramount to divest themselves of their theater chains. (Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies, and Other Pricing Puzzles [Copernicus], by Richard B. McKenzie) [Style guides, however, typically call for omitting the article the from the names of court cases.]
After a series of lower-court decisions
Several years ago, in preparing to write a biography of my father, an infectious diseases specialist, I began reviewing the personal journals that he had kept for decades. (Wall Street Journal)
an infectious-diseases specialist
Then Tesla would be more reliant on a clean energy loan from the government. (New York Times)
a clean-energy loan
[headline] Scarlett Johansson calls in FBI to hunt naked picture thieves . . . (drudgereport.com)
naked-picture thieves . . .
[headline] Full Album Sales Showed a Little Growth in 2011 (New York Times)
Full-Album Sales
Irina, a children's book illustrator in London, has a problem. (Time)
Irina, a children’s-book illustrator
Now Mr. Zell is once again in the news because of a real estate maneuver. (New York Times)
a real-estate maneuver.
Government, law schools and the profession need to work together to redesign and fortify the grossly deficient legal services system. (New York Times)
legal-services system.
White male unemployment, at 5.1 percent in April, is higher than white female unemployment, at 4.7 percent; black male unemployment, at 10.8 percent, is likewise higher than black female unemployment, at 10.4 percent. (New Republic)
White-male unemployment, at 5.1 percent in April, is higher than white-female unemployment, at 4.7 percent; black-male unemployment, at 10.8 percent, is likewise higher than black-female unemployment, at 10.4 percent.
McKelway’s is a New York still largely middle class and lower middle class in make-up, where the cops and the process servers and fire inspectors came from essentially the same immigrant pool of Irishmen and Italians and Jews as the small time crooks and insurance defrauders and firebugs. (Introduction, by Adam Gopnik, to Reporting at Wit’s End: Tales from The New Yorker [Bloomsbury], by St. Clair McKelway)
small-time crooks

Think of hyphenation as one of many courtesies a writer can extend to her readers. In the following sentence, a hyphen between college (functioning adjectivally) and football will instantly clarify that the writer means all fans of college football and not just football fans who happen to be in college.

You don’t, for example, see many college football fans hitting the pause button in the middle of the BCS championship game in order to announce to the room at large, “Yes, the battle between the Alabama D-line and the Texas O-line is compelling thus far, but is this really the best way for us to spend three and a half hours?” (Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry [Harper], by David Orr)

This second rule also applies to an ADJECTIVE+GERUND combination preceding a noun.

How about a competitive eating champion? (Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry [Harper], by David Orr)
a competitive-eating champion

3. A NOUN+ADJECTIVE combination serving as an adjective and preceding a noun requires a hyphen. Thus the pattern is NOUN-ADJECTIVE NOUN.

I am not thinking of child protective services or of schools or of any civic authority, not even the police; rather, I am thinking of the bonds among people, the presence of the other in ourselves, and the responsiveness around which every community and culture is built, which reveals itself in the commandment we see in the faces of others: do not kill. (New Yorker)
child-protective services
Ms. Gould, who once prided herself on having dodged the kind of day job that had her “shopping the sale rack at Club Monaco for office appropriate outfits,” as she once wrote, has adopted a variation of “dress for success.” (New York Times)
office-appropriate outfits
The findings are presented in a reader friendly format to make them as accessible as possible. (vitalsignscanada.ca)
a reader-friendly format
A risk averse investor prefers certainty to risk, and low risk to high risk. (moneyterms.co.uk)
A risk-averse investor

4. A NOUN+PARTICIPLE combination serving as an adjective and preceding a noun requires a hyphen. Thus the pattern is NOUN-PARTICIPLE NOUN. (The participle can be either a present or a past participle.)

We’ve owned a front loading washing machine for about five years. (Kalamazoo Gazette [Michigan])
a front-loading washing machine
In his first couture show for his label, Giambattista Valli offered white flower embroidered shifts and mini coats. (New York Times)
offered white flower-embroidered shifts
That they look offhand was part of the appeal of a collection of superlight suits in an array of hues like those in a Winsor & Newton field box and of requisitely complex fabrication (enzyme treated leather, anyone?). (New York Times)
enzyme-treated leather

5. A PARTICIPLE+NOUN combination serving as an adjective and preceding a noun requires a hyphen. Thus the pattern is PARTICIPLE-NOUN NOUN. (The participle can be either a present or a past participle.)

He taught in the continuing education program, which meant the class was open to anyone who was accepted and willing to pay for it. (New Yorker’s Page-Turner blog)
the continuing-education program
Roku, a maker of streaming entertainment devices, has thrived even though its products have to compete with similar ones made by Apple (which is usually cited as the world’s most valuable brand). (New Yorker)
streaming-entertainment devices
Spotify, the streaming music service, said on Wednesday that it had grown to 10 million paying subscribers around the world, a long-awaited disclosure as the company faces potential competition from Apple and also prepares for a probable initial public offering. (New York Times)
the streaming-music service
In addition to seasoned design professionals, the list of Recommended Specialists includes top tier students from the Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCAD U), offering clients the possibility of cutting edge design at a modest price point. (huffingtonpost.com) [Note that a hyphen should also unite top and tier (see rule 2).]
cutting-edge design
The excellent Scotch egg is the same price at both restaurants, however, and you can complement it with a crunchy grilled cheese sandwich filled with deposits of melting Vermont Cheddar. (New York)
a crunchy grilled-cheese sandwich
If you bounce a check at a store, you should know by now to expect a bounced check fee not only from your bank but from the store, too. (Morning Call [Allentown, Pennsylvania])
a bounced-check fee
Supachana credits him as the source for many of the restaurant’s quirks and attractions, like the fried chicken drumstick that accompanies, somewhat inscrutably, the Northern Thai staple called kang hung le, a sweet and tangy stew of pork belly and shoulder. (New York)
fried-chicken drumstick

6. Always insert a hyphen between the adverb well and a participle when the two words precede a noun. Thus the pattern is WELL-PARTICIPLE NOUN.

She added that the company had “appropriately extended these well researched play patterns into the digital space.” (New York Times)
well-researched play patterns
Ken Jackson, assistant director at the Ritz and owner of Arkham Comics, is someone many in the community might consider a well known man. (Blytheville Courier News [Arkansas])
a well-known man.
He has a well paid job and we always pay half each when we go out. (Daily Star [U.K.])
a well-paid job

7. Do not insert a hyphen between an adverb ending in ly and an adjective when the two words precede a noun. (CAUTION: Although schoolchildren are often taught that an adverb is easily recognized by its ly ending, many adverbs do not end in ly. What complicates matters further is that some modifiers ending in ly are in fact adjectives. Among them are friendly, lovely, leisurely, scholarly, womanly, sisterly, matronly, queenly, homely, costly, masterly, deadly, lonely, sickly, and ghastly. When an adjective ending in ly is part of an adjectival compound preceding a noun, the compound must be hyphenated, as in a friendly-looking pit bull.)

[the italics have been retained from the source] The wonderful reporters and writers I met in the dimly-lighted corridors were now my colleagues. (Here but Not Here: My Life with William Shawn and The New Yorker [Random House], by Lillian Ross)
the dimly lighted corridors
It’s a tightly-packed, super-competitive jungle in there. (New Yorker’s Page-Turner blog)
a tightly packed, super-competitive jungle
These classics come among alongside an assortment of perfectly-crafted stories from innovative contemporary American writers Laird Hunt, Dawn Raffel, Douglas Glover, and Shelley Jackson, ensuring the journey is replete with unexpected twists and turns, and plenty of food for thought, along the way. (Publishers Weekly)
perfectly crafted stories
Indeed, with its elegantly-written essays and old-fashioned typographical style, it appeared to be a self-conscious attempt to mimic the great New York magazines of the 20s and 30s. (How to Lose Friends and Alienate People [Da Capo], by Toby Young)
its elegantly written essays
Fans of this summer’s hit song “Blurred Lines” may recognize her as one of three scantily-clad young women in the music video. (New York Times)
scantily clad young women
Mr. Nelson offers a fully-formed educational philosophy with a practiced salesman’s confidence. (Wall Street Journal)
a fully formed educational philosophy
Wide-ranging, flexible and broad learning, the kind we encourage in high-school and college, may actually be in tension with the ability to develop finely-honed, controlled, focused expertise in a particular skill, the kind of learning that once routinely took place in human societies. (Wall Street Journal) [Note: The hyphen in high school in this excerpt is also incorrect; high school is hyphenated only when functioning adjectivally, as in high-school graduate. See rule 2.]
finely honed, controlled, focused expertise

8. Insert a hyphen between an adverb not ending in ly and an adjective or a participle when the two words precede a noun—unless the adverb is one of the following, with which a hyphen should not be used: almost, already, altogether, always, even, halfway, just, least, less, never, not, now, often, perhaps, pretty, quite, rather, really, somewhat, still, then, too, and very. Hyphens should be avoided, as well, when the following adverbial phrases precede an adjective or a participle before a noun: all too, as yet, by now, even more, ever more, far from, far more, good enough, less than, more or less, more than, much more, no longer, none too, not altogether, not too, not very, and not yet.

A fast thinking passenger onboard at the time, Scott G. Strand, of Wilsonville immediately made an emergency cell phone call into Clackamas County Dispatch, announcing the explosion and the location of the occurrence in the Willamette. (salem-news.com) [Note that cell and phone should either be hyphenated or be united to form a single word, and a comma must follow Wilsonville.]
A fast-thinking passenger
Aamir was on his way from his Pali Hill home to Yash Raj Studios in Andheri for a shoot when he got stuck in slow moving traffic near Mahim. (Bollywood Life)
slow-moving traffic
Full figured fashions should include more than sweatpants and tee shirts, and some funny looking jeans. (newspotonline.com) [Note that funny (an adjective) and looking (a participle) should also be hyphenated.]
Full-figured fashions should include more than sweatpants and tee shirts and some funny-looking jeans.

9. Often an adjectival-compound phrase modifying a noun consists of more than two words and therefore requires more than one hyphen.

[cartoon caption] “Another desert island cartoon clipping from my uncle.” (New Yorker)
“Another desert-island-cartoon clipping from my uncle.”
On my way out of the house one morning, I grabbed a usage manual to read in the car while I waited for the street cleaner to go by, in the street ballet called alternate side of the street parking, during which New Yorkers who own cars but are too cheap to park them in lots or garages compete for a legal spot. (Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen [Norton, first edition], by Mary Norris)
the street ballet called alternate-side-of-the-street parking
On May 20, 2014, the day the trial was to begin, D’Souza pleaded guilty to the illegal campaign contribution charge (taking the second charge off the table) and professed to take responsibility for his actions. (Vanity Fair)
the illegal-campaign-contribution charge
Even with his $600 a year habit, Mr. Sullivan said he still uses Irish Spring in the shower. (New York Times)
his $600-a-year habit
If [David Foster] Wallace’s statement amounts to anything more than a (sadly) fashionably anti-p.c. complaint about his loss of straight white male privilege, I don’t see it. . . . (Hatchet Jobs: Writings on Contemporary Fiction [The New Press], by Dale Peck)
straight-white-male privilege
The crimes against humanity law took effect in 2008 to conform with Norway’s international legal commitments, said Jon Thorvald Johnsen, a law professor at the University of Oslo. (New York Times)
The crimes-against-humanity law
But for the umpteenth time, the Grammys went with familiarity over risk, bestowing album of the year honors (and several more) on an album that reinforced the values of an older generation suspicious of change. (New York Times)
album-of-the-year honors
As mobile devices supplant television as entertainment vehicles for younger children, media and software companies increasingly see opportunities in the baby learning app market. (New York Times)
the baby-learning-app market.
A recent Saturday gathering of children eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and bouncing to the beat of an African band in a renovated theater was a fitting symbol for the continuing efforts to revive the city’s Market Street corridor. (New York Times)
eating peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches
But Mr. Levine finally sent me to the right man: Lee Zalben, the founder and president of Peanut Butter & Co. in New York City, whose store in Greenwich Village sells a peanut butter and pickle sandwich it calls the Pregnant Lady. (New York Times) [A comma must follow Co., and commas must surround the prepositional phrase in Greenwich Village, because there was only one sandwich shop in business called Peanut Butter & Co.; it lasted for seventeen years. See Chapter 70.]
a peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwich
Roger Clemens, who won the Cy Young award a record seven times, and several players who won baseball’s most valuable player award were among dozens of players named Thursday in the former Senator George Mitchell’s report on his investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs in the sport. (New York Times)
baseball’s most-valuable-player award
In another [case], a garage door opener manufacturer tried to sue a rival company for making a universal door opener. (New York Times)
a garage-door-opener manufacturer
And the everyday low price strategy that Bottom Dollar Food focuses on has long been touted by discount giant Wal-Mart. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
the everyday-low-price strategy
Mall operators now offer emergency evacuation training sessions for staff members. (New York Times)
emergency-evacuation-training sessions
The labor force participation rate, which measures the active portion of available workers not including drop-outs, now stands at 63.2%, a level last seen in August 1978. (Wall Street Journal)
The labor-force-participation rate
The bachelor’s degree completion rate for African-American students is today 21 percent, it [the U.N.C.F.] said, compared to a national average of 30 percent. (New York Times)
The bachelor’s-degree-completion rate
The restaurant that opened in early July seems more of a khakis and polo kind of place, flanked by the Holiday Inn Express next door, the Oliver Bath House down the road and a warehouse across the street. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
a khakis-and-polo kind of place
The company had recently invested in a robotic assembly line for a crushed hazelnut and dark chocolate candy that is popular in Russia. (New York Times)
a crushed-hazelnut-and-dark-chocolate candy
Her seat was no ordinary seat. It was the double chocolate, hot fudge brownie sundae of movie theater seats—a person-and-a-half-wide, motorized, reclining, La-Z-Boy-style chair, upholstered in a glossy red leatherlike material—and it represents one theater chain’s great gamble on the future. (New York Times) [Note that movie and theater also need to be hyphenated (see rule 1), and so do glossy and red.]
It was the double-chocolate, hot-fudge-brownie sundae of movie-theater seats . . . upholstered in a glossy-red leatherlike material

A writer sometimes neglects to insert a hyphen between the first two words in an adjectival compound consisting of three or more words.

The building has an enormous flying saucer-shaped roof. (New York Times)
an enormous flying-saucer-shaped roof.
Mr. [Frederik] Pohl was involved in publishing since he was a teenager, when he served as a literary agent for his science fiction-writing young friends. (New York Times)
his science-fiction-writing young friends.

Similarly, a writer sometimes forgets to insert the final hyphen into a multiple-word adjectival compound.

This three-and-a-half hour concert brings together twelve ensembles and solo musicians—including Cyro Baptista’s Banquet of the Spirits, the pianist Uri Caine, and [John] Zorn’s own Electric Masada—to perform his complete “Book of Angels,” from 2004. (New Yorker)
This three-and-a-half-hour concert
With Speedboat’s republication, Adler earned a new coterie of readers, a twenty-first century version of what was perhaps the book’s original demographic: young people, often employed in creative industries, often living in city apartments, with equal interests in literature, heartbreak, gossip, and the dazzling loneliness inherent to making one’s own way. (New Republic)
a twenty-first-century version
Sean’s skinny 9-year old daughter demanded liposuction. (New York Times)
Sean’s skinny nine-year-old daughter
“I am Nashira Sargas,” says the colony’s six-and-a-half foot leader, also identifying herself as “the blood-sovereign of the Race of Rephaim.” (New York Times)
the colony’s six-and-a-half-foot leader
[The Section is the] nickname for an agglomeration of slick Los Angeles sessioners—guitarist Danny Kortchmar, bassist Leland Sklar, drummer Russ Kunkel, and keyboardist Craig Doerge—whose ubiquity on seventies singer-songwriter albums (by James Taylor, Carole King, Jackson Browne, and Warren Zevon, among others) and denimy, hirsute appearances marked them as the embodiment of that era’s mellowness-versus-cocaine paranoia dialectic. (The Rock Snob’s Dictionary [Broadway Books], by David Kamp and Steven Daly)
that era’s mellowness-versus-cocaine-paranoia dialectic.
Now clean, burly, and middle-aged, he [Steve Earle] inspires a Springsteen-like reverence among fans and critics, both for his story-tellin’ songs and his impassioned political positions, such as his anti-death penalty stance. (The Rock Snob’s Dictionary [Broadway Books], by David Kamp and Steven Daly) [Note that the sentence also suffers from a faulty both . . . and construction; see Chapter 42.]
his anti-death-penalty stance.
To some extent this is an old-school show-business gossip memoir that doesn’t want to waste your time, even as it discusses Egyptian glyphs and the C.I.A. (New York Times)
an old-school show-business-gossip memoir

A writer occasionally neglects to insert two or more hyphens into a longish adjectival compound.

In Circus Raves, thirty-four year old Stephen Holden, who would go on to serve as music and film critic for the New York Times, also compared Born to Run to other great albums. (Runaway Dream: Born to Run and Bruce Springsteen’s American Vision [Bloomsbury], by Louis P. Masur)
thirty-four-year-old Stephen Holden
By contrast, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States is viewed as having perhaps the world’s most vigorous food-borne illness detection system, which may account for much of the continuing product recalls and alerts involving American products. (New York Times)
most vigorous food-borne-illness-detection system
Hey, new parents. I’m sure you are swamped with this whole feeding, changing, trying to sleep, trying to sleep-train, child-proofing and searching-for-child-care rigmarole. (New York Times)
this whole feeding, changing, trying-to-sleep, trying-to-sleep-train, child-proofing, and searching-for-child-care rigmarole.

A reader sometimes encounters a long adjectival compound that in fact needs to be divided into two distinct, independent hyphenated compounds separated by a comma, much as the independent or coordinate adjectives are separated in phrasing such as a rude, demanding customer (see Chapter 63).

That is how it has been as Venus and Serena in her take-no-prisoners-entitled-kid-sister way—came to be the reflection of women’s tennis for a decade and a half. (New York Times) [The sentence also suffers from asymmetrical punctuation; see Chapter 80.]
That is how it has been as Venus and Serena—the latter in her take-no-prisoners, entitled-kid-sister way—came to be the reflection of women’s tennis for a decade and a half.

Furthermore, some long hyphenated adjectival compounds might be displeasing to the eye; they can look cluttered. Ditching the hyphens and instead enclosing the adjectival compound between quotation marks is sometimes a better choice, or the sentence might be rephrased so that the unwieldy phrasing is no longer functioning adjectivally.

Challengeable: He greeted all of his customers with an I-only-work-here-so-keep-your-expectations-low attitude.

Easier on the eye: He greeted all of his customers with an “I only work here, so keep your expectations low” attitude. OR: He greeted all of his customers with an attitude of “I only work here, so keep your expectations low.”

Challengeable: Raw work, unfinished work, needs-some-fixing-but-we’re-not-sure-what-sort work is not only welcome but the very meat of the feast, and a staged reading with the actors in street clothes is as useful as a full-dress performance. (Wall Street Journal)

Easier on the eye: Raw work, unfinished work, work that “needs some fixing but we’re not sure what sort” is not only welcome. . . .

Challengeable: (And that’s not to mention a just-returning-to-the-workforce-after-maternity-leave mom like me.) (Time)

Easier on the eye: (And that’s not to mention a “just returning to the workforce after maternity leave” mom like me.) OR: (And that’s not to mention a mom just returning to the workforce after maternity leave, like me.)

10. A spelled-out multiword number is hyphen-free when it functions as an adjective preceding a noun (two hundred and thirty hours) or when it functions as a complement (The total is now exactly seven hundred and twenty), unless such a number includes a fraction, which requires a hyphen (We sat through six and one-third innings [EXCEPTION: She worked as a manager for five and a half years]), or unless the multiword number includes a number that always requires a hyphen (two hundred and thirty-three hours). But a spelled-out multiword number must be hyphenated when it unites with a noun to form an adjectival compound modifying another noun (a two-hour-and-fifteen-minute movie).

The family emigrated to Cleveland via Ellis Island when Bob [Hope] was four-and-a-half. (New York Review of Books)
when Bob was four and a half.
Synclaire Brands, a company that sells children’s shoes under several licensed brands, has several wedges measuring one-and-three-quarter inches for sale. (New York Times)
measuring one and three-quarters inches
Adding three more part-time associates, at even $9 hour [sic] apiece for one seven and a half hour shift, would have cost the company barely $200 or so. (Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail [Portfolio], by Caitlin Kelly)
one seven-and-a-half-hour shift
The children’s spring collection from Nina stars a hot-pink, rhinestone-accented sandal with a one-and a-half-inch wood heel ($48.95). (New York Times)
a one-and-a-half-inch wood heel

11. Use suspensive hyphens when two or more adjectival compounds preceding a noun have a second word in common—such as the word grade in the phrase fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade students. Suspensive hyphens enable you to avoid the unnecessary repetition of the second word. A blank space must follow a suspensive hyphen—unless a series includes two or more suspensive hyphens, in which case commas and blank spaces must follow the suspensive hyphens (as in first-, second-, and third-generation citizens).

And while older generations separated wants from needs, Mr. Odu says, younger Nigerians from middle and upper class families are more eager to have and be seen with the latest gadget or accessory. (Wall Street Journal)
middle- and upper-class families
For first and second degree burns, cool water is helpful to draw out the heat, soothe and stop the burning process. (Times Leader [Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania])
For first- and second-degree burns
About one in 30 middle and high school students said they smoke the compact, sweet-flavored cigars. (New York Times)
About one in thirty middle- and high-school students
Lakeside Tavern had about 30 full and part-time employees. (Kansas City Star)
thirty full- and part-time employees.
Using data reported by more than 4,000 colleges and universities, the department compiled lists ranking two and four-year colleges and universities in all sectors by the highest and lowest annual tuition and net costs. (El Paso Times)
two- and four-year colleges and universities
All the defense team needed was to invoke certain images, not extrapolated from reality but plucked from second and third rate movies and TV shows, and the jury members’ paranoid imagination did the rest. (iranian.com)
second- and third-rate movies
First, second and third-year students at Tree’s were known as As, Bs and Cs. (The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys [W. W. Norton], by Lilian Pizzichini)
First-, second-, and third-year students

12. Insert hyphens when you’re presenting measurements in phrasing that calls for the preposition by: Print out your final draft on 8½-by-11-inch paper. (There is no blank space before or after the hyphens.)

13. Insert hyphens in inclusive phrasing that uses the preposition to: She has a nine-to-five job. The program is aimed at a sixteen-to-thirty-year-old audience. These sorts of hyphens, which are used to indicate a range or a span (of time, of ages, etc.), are often confused with suspensive hyphens. Suspensive hyphens, however, appear in phrasing that includes the conjunction and (or occasionally or, as in five- or six-year-old students). (An obvious but rare exception is the suspensive hyphen in phrasing such as the mid- to late nineteen-sixties.) The sentence Eight- and eighteen-year-old students have completely different preoccupations concerns only two groups of students: those who are eight years old and those who are eighteen. The sentence The program appeals to eight-to-eighteen-year-old viewers, in contrast, encompasses all viewers between the ages of eight and eighteen (including nine-year-olds, ten-year-olds, and so on). There is no space before or after the hyphens in inclusive phrasing.

Tuesday’s report covered the period from 2008 to 2011 and offered what researchers said was the clearest evidence to date that the obesity epidemic may be turning a corner for 2- to 4-year-old children from low-income families. (New York Times)
for two-to-four-year-old children
(Its viewership in the important 18- to 49-year-old audience bracket, 3.6 million, beat CBS, NBC and ABC combined on Sunday; total viewership was 5.9 million.) (New York Times)
the important 18-to-49-year-old audience bracket
I’m the one who works an octopus-armed 12- to 14-hour day, often seven days a week. (Wall Street Journal)
an octopus-armed twelve-to-fourteen-hour day
Benoît Gauthier, the chef and owner of Le Grand Pan, is able to avoid most foreign diners, not because his cuisine is lacking, but because of his remote location in the far southwestern corner of Paris—a good 10- to 15-minute walk from the closest Metro stop. (New York Times)
a good ten-to-fifteen-minute walk
The spaces will range from 80 to 160 square feet at a cost of $600 to $5,000 a month. Thirty percent of them will be leased for less than one year, while the remainder will have two- to 10-year leases. (New York Times)
two-to-ten-year leases.
Movie theaters are selling “experiences” or “entertainment bundles” in one-and-a-half to three-hour segments. (Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies, and Other Pricing Puzzles [Copernicus], by Richard B. McKenzie)
in one-and-a-half-to-three-hour segments. OR [eliminating the need for hyphens]: in segments ranging from one and a half to three hours.
Around the same time, on July 17 or 18, Mr. Page, without explanation, stopped showing up for his 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift at Lucas Milhaupt, a welding company, said Phillip Malliet, the company’s president. (New York Times)
for his 10 p.m.-to-6 a.m. shift OR [eliminating the need for hyphens]: for his shift from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. at Lucas Milhaupt
A writer must be alert to all of the compounds in a sentence that require hyphenation. The writer of the following sentence gets things right only half of the time.
In particular, as I mentioned before, there has been a persistent effort to pair her [Elizabeth Bishop] with the greater-looking but less-read [Robert] Lowell, a ploy that resembles the old high school date movie tactic of sending the bookish Plain Jane to the prom with the quarterback (when her glasses are slowly removed by the right man, she’s revealed to have been, all along, totally hot!). (Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry [Harper], by David Orr)
the old high-school-date-movie tactic OR: the tactic of old high-school-date movies

A gargantuan sentence will sometimes require a great many hyphens.

The Sell Side swarms with its own forms of algae, otherwise known as consultants, who specialize in systems that stores and Web sites depend on in order to be optimally performing sponges: bank check verification systems; ATMs, cash registers, and currency handling systems; collection services systems; wireless data transmission systems; in-store communications systems; customer-relationship management systems; “decision support” systems (customer satisfaction surveys, and so on); sales forecasting and inventory control systems; vendor assessment systems; labor scheduling systems; business intelligence systems (store traffic counters, for example); data mining and storage systems; in-store video and music systems; scanning technology systems; labeling and printing systems; marketing campaign management systems; gift certificate and gift card systems; price, promotion, and markdown optimization systems; alarms, safes, and hidden-camera security systems; distribution and warehouse systems. (Shoptimism: Why the American Consumer Will Keep On Buying No Matter What [Free Press], by Lee Eisenberg)
The Sell Side swarms with its own forms of algae, otherwise known as consultants, who specialize in systems that stores and Web sites depend on in order to be optimally performing sponges: bank-check-verification systems; ATMs, cash registers, and currency-
handling systems; collection-services systems; wireless-data-transmission systems; in-store-communications systems; customer-relationship-management systems; “decision support” systems (customer-satisfaction surveys, and so on); sales-forecasting and inventory-control systems; vendor-assessment systems; labor-scheduling systems; business-intelligence systems (store-traffic counters, for example); data-mining-and-storage systems; in-store video and music systems; scanning-technology systems; labeling and printing systems; marketing-campaign-management systems; gift-certificate and gift-card systems; price-, promotion-, and markdown-optimization systems; alarms, safes, and hidden-camera security systems; distribution and warehouse systems.
Writers sometimes mistake dependent (or cumulative) adjectives for adjectival compounds and end up hyphenating them. Dependent adjectives, as discussed in Chapter 63, are adjectives like tired and old in the tired old man, or vacant and downstairs in the vacant downstairs apartment. A comma must not separate dependent adjectives, and a hyphen must not unite them. Yet it’s not uncommon to see a hyphen erroneously stuck between the dependent adjectives in phrases such as an infectious pop song and an old wooden shack.

When one of a pair of dependent adjectives happens to be an adjectival compound, writers can get into further punctuational trouble. The sentence The band played an infectious power-pop song needs its hyphen between power and pop, because (1) power pop is the name of a musical subgenre and (2) the name of that musical subgenre is functioning as an adjectival compound in the sentence. But a comma between infectious and power-pop would be dead wrong. Similarly, the phrase hideous low-cut gown needs a hyphen but no comma. A phrase in which there are two dependent adjectival compounds, such as her neon-pink spaghetti-strap top, needs its two hyphens but must be comma-free.

Liebling, as he later admitted, had a hard time adapting his wiseguy newspaper feature style, all short punchy paragraphs and local-color jokes, to the pages of the magazine, and in the mid-thirties he seemed likely to leave, or be pushed out. (Introduction, by Adam Gopnik, to Reporting at Wit’s End: Tales from The New Yorker [Bloomsbury], by St. Clair McKelway)

What Gopnik means is that Liebling had a hard time adapting his wise-guy newspaper-feature style . . . to the pages of the magazine. That is, Liebling had been writing newspaper features of a wise-guy sort, with a wise-guy tone. In Gopnik’s sentence, wise-guy and newspaper feature function as adjectives, and both of them are adjectival compounds and need to be hyphenated before the noun style. It would be wrong, though, to separate the adjectives with a comma, because the two adjectives are not independently and individually modifying style; newspaper-feature is modifying style, and wise-guy is modifying the combined phrasing of newspaper-feature style. Wise-guy and newspaper-feature, in short, are dependent adjectives in the sentence. (A comma is needed, though, between the independent adjectives short and punchy.)

Remember that this chapter has concerned the need to use hyphens in adjectival compounds that precede nouns. When an adjectival compound is used as the complement of a linking verb (also known as an equational verb), however, it won’t be followed by a noun and is typically not hyphenated if it consists of three or more words: The suggestion was off the wall. She definitely seems down to earth. Her acting in her first few movies was over the top. Hannah is well thought of. A two-word adjectival compound that appears in hyphenated form in an authoritative dictionary (such as any of the dictionaries published by Merriam-Webster), though, is hyphenated when it functions as a complement: The last customer of the day was ill-humored and wild-eyed. The new employee is good-looking but high-strung. She’s usually low-key but quick-witted. Whenever you’re in doubt about two-word compounds, consult a reliable dictionary.
The discussion in this chapter has been limited to adjectival compounds, but writers also need to include all of the necessary hyphens in compound nouns that express a range or a span.
However, West Virginia’s [vaccination] rate for 19- to 35-month-olds is the worst in the country, at 84.6 percent. (Newsweek)
19-to-35-month-olds
For 50- to 59-year-olds, the numbers are rising almost identically. (Wall Street Journal)
For 50-to-59-year-olds
About 43 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds use smartphones in their outdoor adventures and 40 percent use iPods, according to a 2013 study by the Outdoor Foundation, a nonprofit creation of the Outdoor Industry Association. (New York Times)
About forty-three percent of 18-to-24-year-olds

Suspensive hyphens are needed in pairs or series of compound nouns that share one or more words at their end.

USHL teams are almost completely made up of 16, 17, and 18 year-olds who have a burning desire to play hockey. (examiner.com)
16-, 17-, and 18-year-olds

  ^^  87 

We need more precise explanations.
 

What does the title of this chapter mean? We already have some precise explanations but need more? Or we need explanations that are more precise than the ones we already have?
     If the writer means the latter, she would be doing readers a favor by uniting the adverb more and the adjective precise with a hyphen to form an adjectival compound: We need more-precise explanations. (Or she could rephrase the sentence: We need explanations that are more precise.)
     The rules are simple enough. Hyphenate the combination of more and an adjective or a participle when you’re making a qualitative statement (She asked for more-persuasive evidence). Leave the combination unhyphenated when you’re making a quantitative statement (She asked for more persuasive evidence).
     Readers sometimes find themselves initially puzzled about whether more is intended to imply quantity or quality.

[about the books J. D. Salinger: The Escape Artist, by Thomas Beller, and My Salinger Year, by Joanna Rakoff] A year after the release of Shane Salerno and David Shields’s scandalous biography [of J. D. Salinger] (along with a much-derided companion docudrama), two more personal and sympathetic takes prove worthy (if minor) correctives. (New York’s vulture.com)

The writer’s sentence inadvertently (and self-contradictingly) states that in addition to the personal and sympathetic works about Salinger produced by Salerno and Shields, two more such works, by other writers, have now arrived. What the writer really means, though, is that the books by Beller and Rakoff are more personal and more sympathetic than the book and the film by Salerno and Shields. More, in this instance, is intended to emphasize quality, not quantity.

. . . two more-personal and more-sympathetic takes prove worthy (if minor) correctives. OR: . . . two new takes, more personal and sympathetic, prove worthy (if minor) correctives.
Aside from Tiffany, other luxury retailers at the mall include Nordstrom, Michael Kors and Hugo Boss. More affordable stores like Gap, The Limited and H&M also are leasing in the two-story shopping center. (New York Times)

It may take some readers a second or two to realize that in the second sentence, the writer does not mean more stores that are affordable but instead means stores whose merchandise is more affordable, so inserting a hyphen between more and affordable would be a reader-friendly gesture.

Of Israeli high school pupils 94% access social media via their cell phones during class, reveals a new study conducted by the University of Haifa. Only 4% reported not using their cell phones at all during class. It was also found that in classes with more permissive teachers, cell phone use was lower than in classes where the teacher imposed strict discipline. (sciencedaily.com)

The intended meaning of the third sentence has nothing to do with the number of permissive teachers; instead, the writer wants to emphasize that cellphone use is lower in classes instructed by teachers who are more permissive.

It was also found that in classes with more-permissive teachers, cellphone use was lower. . . .
There were more luxurious fine-dining restaurants in New York than Corton, which closed this summer after nearly five years in TriBeCa, but very few that could deliver as many high-wire thrills. (New York Times)

The writer intends the first independent clause to mean that in New York, there were fine-dining restaurants more luxurious than Corton. That is, the writer wants to emphasize quality, not quantity.

There were more-luxurious fine-dining restaurants in New York than Corton. . . .
The solution to this millenarian cul-de-sac is to create more creative zombie narratives. (Wall Street Journal)

The context—an essay with the longish title “The Lessons of Zombie-Mania: From TV to CDC Brochures, the Living Dead Are Everywhere. What’s Behind This Apocalyptic Fixation?”—makes it clear that only the qualitative, not the quantitative, interpretation applies here; a hyphen is therefore needed between more and creative.
     Even more patience is expected of a reader wading her way into the following paragraph. The second sentence uses the adjectival more in a quantitative sense, and the third sentence uses the adverbial more twice in a qualitative sense—but without the writer’s having extended the courtesy of inserting hyphens where they would be helpful.

This area needed to have the conflicting street grids of the abutting neighborhoods linked. It needed more schools and public services to support the thousands of new apartments. It needed more pedestrian-friendly avenues and finer-grained architecture, possibly taller than now proposed in places but less monolithic at street level, with subtler and more humane massing of towers so that new buildings would improve the experience of walking along sidewalks and not just add square footage to the blocks. (New York Times)
It needed more-pedestrian-friendly avenues and finer-grained architecture, possibly taller than now proposed in places but less monolithic at street level, with subtler and more-humane massing of towers so that new buildings would improve the experience of walking along sidewalks and not just add square footage to the blocks. OR: It needed avenues that are more pedestrian-friendly, as well as architecture finer-grained and possibly taller than is now proposed in places but less monolithic at street level, with subtler and more-humane massing of towers. . . .
The market for these mobile power sources has grown exponentially in the last two years, with more compact and more powerful options available that allow you to recharge hundreds of times. (New York Times)

If we return the sentence excerpted above to its context (the second paragraph of an article), a reader is likely to conclude that the writer is emphasizing both quality and quantity:
[first paragraph] You undoubtedly know people so smitten with their smartphones and tablets that they experience separation anxiety when asked to put them away, even if it’s just long enough to get through dinner. But that is nothing compared with the angst they feel when their devices’ batteries are getting low. Think tremors and rending of garments.
[second paragraph] If you happen to be one of those people, you might consider joining a 12-step program—or maybe just buying a backup battery for recharging on the go. The market for these mobile power sources has grown exponentially in the last two years, with more compact and more powerful options available that allow you to recharge hundreds of times. Which one is best depends on how much power you want on hand and how much weight you are willing to carry.
     A revision, therefore, must emphasize the quantitative as well as the qualitative.

The market for these mobile power sources has grown exponentially in the last two years. And not only are there more to choose from, but more-compact and more-powerful options allow you to recharge hundreds of times.

The context of the following sentence also suggests that the writer intended the phrases more personalized services and more relevant advertising to be understood in both a qualitative and a quantitative sense.

Google’s expansion can also net more data about consumer behavior, which can be used to create more personalized services and target individuals with more relevant advertising, said Narayanan Shivakumar, a former Google engineering executive. (Wall Street Journal)
Google’s expansion can also net more data about consumer behavior, which can be used to create a greater variety of more-personalized services and target individuals more frequently with advertising even more relevant to them, said Narayanan Shivakumar, a former Google engineering executive.
A writer also needs to bear in mind the distinction between the quantitative and the qualitative when an adjective or a participle is preceded by the adverb most. Any such compound intended to emphasize the qualitative should be hyphenated.
The movies and the most-discerning actors in them showed us charm’s allure—and its menace. (theatlantic.com)
The combination of less and an adjective should not be hyphenated, regardless of whether the noun being modified is singular or plural.
But Mr. Kachka makes the less-flattering point that Giroux was known for the turkey and Jell-O lunches he enjoyed at his desk. (New York Times) [The sentence does, however, need some hyphens; see Chapter 86.]
But Mr. Kachka makes the less flattering point that Giroux was known for the turkey-and-Jell-O lunches he enjoyed at his desk. OR [eliminating the need for any hyphens except for the one in the brand name]: But Mr. Kachka makes the less flattering point that Giroux was known for the lunches of turkey and Jell-O he enjoyed at his desk.
It [a survey by the California Public Interest Research Group] found that 54 percent of reports contained less-serious errors. (San Francisco Chronicle)
It found that fifty-four percent of reports contained less serious errors.

Sentences like the two above will not cause confusion about the distinction between the qualitative and the quantitative if both the writer and the reader understand that only the adjective fewer, and not less, can correctly be used to emphasize countable units (see Chapter 95).

  ^^  88 

This is no way to get from here-there.
 

There is no way you would ever write a sentence like that, instead of This is no way to get from here to there. Nor would you write Here’s a little something from me-you. So it’s time to stop writing sentences like the following.

Richie Ramone, 56, was the Ramones’ drummer from 1982-87. (Wall Street Journal)
From 1990-94, Chicago averaged 900 murders a year. From 2007-11, that figure was 450—unacceptably high, but a dramatic decline. (Wall Street Journal)
More than 48 million Americans are in the food-stamp program—an almost incredible record. That is 15% of the total population compared with the 7.9% participation in food stamps from 1970-2000. (Wall Street Journal)
Former Sen. Bob Kerrey, who led the New School in New York from 2001-10, heads the fundraising arm. (Wall Street Journal)
The nearby chart shows the explosion in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) from 2000-2012. (Wall Street Journal)
During Vanity Fair’s first incarnation, from 1914-36, its contributors had included Dorothy Parker, Edmund Wilson, Robert Benchley, D. H. Lawrence, T. S. Eliot, Colette, Cocteau, Herman J. Mankiewicz . . . the list is endless. (How to Lose Friends and Alienate People [Da Capo], by Toby Young)
First airing on Fox from 1999-2003, the show was then canceled—the first time. (Washington Post)
He served as coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department from 2009-2012. (New Republic)
The subsidiary had $74 billion in sales income from 2009-2012 but paid less than 1% in taxes to Ireland. (Los Angeles Times)
This birthday guy is best recognized for his portrayal of Detective Ed Green on “Law & Order” from 1999-2008. (Chicago Tribune)
Lingle was the state’s first female governor and served from 2002-2010. (Associated Press, in Seattle Times)
Armstrong’s comeback is meant to draw attention to his global campaign to fight cancer, a disease he survived before winning seven straight Tours from 1999-2005. (New York Times)
Dryer months are from June-October. (New York Times)
[photo caption] Robbie Rogers, a midfielder for the Columbus Crew from 2007-2011, revealed Friday that he is gay. (New York Times)
Two months later, she was invited to race for Ironclad Cycling Team from 2010-2013, starting as a Cat 4 racer and working her way up to Cat 1. (Oregonian)

Phrasing that specifies a span of time is not exempt from the requirement that the preposition from be balanced with the preposition to in any sort of phrasing about a span or a range or a crossover from one thing or person to another.
     Often, however, you can easily rewrite such sentences by discarding the preposition from and retaining the hyphen. (In the publishing world, an en dash—a punctuation mark longer than a hyphen but shorter than an em dash—would be used. An em dash is the sort of dash a writer produces with standard word-processing software. The dashes appearing throughout this book are em dashes.)

Graph shows figures from June-November 2001. (New York Times)
Graph shows June-November 2001 figures.

Similarly, much as you would never write This is between you-me, you can’t get away with sentences of the following sort.

Between 1996-2005, for example, the Treasury Department estimates that about half of the taxpayers in the bottom 20% moved into a higher income bracket. (Wall Street Journal)
Between 1996 and 2005, for example. . . .
The Royal Society in London reports that China’s share of scientific research papers published in recognized international journals went from 4.4 percent in the period between 1999-2003 to 10.2 percent in the period between 2004-2008, now just behind the United States. (New York Times)
. . . from 4.4 percent in the period between 1999 and 2003 to 10.2 percent in the period between 2004 and 2008, now just behind the United States.
This [the book Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk] covers the same territory as Clinton Heylin’s From The Velvets To The [sic] Voidoids, with hundreds of first-person accounts of the development of the alternative American music scene between 1967-92. (The Rough Guide to the Velvet Underground [Rough Guides], by Peter Hogan)
. . . between 1967 and 1992.

  ^^  89 

Any friend of Erin’s is a friend of mine.
 

One of the many peculiarities of the English language is a construction that grammarians refer to as the double possessive (or, more formally, the double genitive). We are apt to write a colleague of Sara’s, rather than a colleague of Sara, but we sometimes can’t help feeling a little funny about tacking on that apostrophe and the s. The prepositional phrase of Sara, after all, already seems to be doing the possessive-marking work. The double possessive, though, is both idiomatic and perfectly correct. We would never write No dog of Andrea is ever going to sleep outside instead of No dog of Andrea’s is ever going to sleep outside. (Nor would we ever write a neighbor of her instead of a neighbor of hers.)
     Complicating matters is the fact that, for nouns, the presence or the absence of the apostrophe and the s sometimes makes a big difference in meaning. It’s clear from the phrase a criticism of Heather that Heather is the object of criticism; the phrase a criticism of Heather’s, however, situates Heather as the person expressing the criticism. (The same is true of the distinction between a criticism of her and a criticism of hers.)
     Aside from instances in which the intended meaning dictates that the possessive form of the noun or pronoun not be used, though, a writer mindful of grammar ought to accept the double possessive as one of the cherishable eccentricities of our language.
     Inconsistencies, however, are common—even on two consecutive pages of a single book.

Adams was a personal friend of Woollcott’s. (Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? [Penguin], by Marion Meade)
He was a distant memory of heat and sand, a Horace Mann student who was an acquaintance of her sister. (Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? [Penguin], by Marion Meade)

If there is a pattern to be discerned, it sometimes seems as if the more remote the relationship between the two persons included in the construction, the more reluctant a writer is to use the double possessive. A longtime fan of Michelle Williams doesn’t look the least bit odd, but a dear friend of Michelle Williams does. And, of course, those who contributed money to Bill Clinton’s campaigns were called friends of Bill, not friends of Bill’s.
     The following sentences, therefore, would benefit from an apostrophe and an s following mother, Adrian, Ross, Dupin, Martin, and Spiro, respectively.

She and her two younger brothers bounced around foster homes for two years, before a friend of her mother took them to live with their paternal grandmother in Havana. (New York Times) [The comma must be deleted; see Chapter 73.]
Before long, Vanessa fell in love with a former lover of her brother Adrian—the handsome young painter Duncan Grant. (Ornament and Silence: Essays on Women’s Lives [Knopf], by Kennedy Fraser)
Edmund Wilson, hardly an unqualified fan of Ross (he considered the editor anti-intellectual, which was true, and something of a philistine, which wasn’t), nonetheless hailed that integrity. (Genius in Disguise: Harold Ross of The New Yorker [Carroll & Graf], by Thomas Kunkel)
The American writer Paul Auster, author of “The New York Trilogy” and other novels and memoirs, was a protégé and friend of Mr. Dupin, as well as one of his rare English translators. (New York Times)
The intended target of Manson’s myrmidons that night of Tate’s killing was Doris Day’s son, Terry Melcher, an old sweetheart of Claudia Martin who had become entangled with Manson’s Family ways. (Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams [Doubleday], by Nick Tosches)

One such musician was Alan Wilson, a roommate of Phil Spiro and a fellow blues fanatic. (Wall Street Journal)

  ^^  90 

The Propriety of Punctuational Threesomes
 

We’re accustomed to seeing two consecutive punctuation marks whenever a sentence requires quotation marks, and everybody putting words together in the United States should know that commas and periods always slip themselves inside the closing quotation marks (“like this,” and “like so.”) and that semicolons and colons park themselves outside (“get out”; and “stay out”:).
     Once in a great while, though, a sentence can’t do without three punctuation marks in a row. Such a sentence typically (1) includes a title (such as that of a book, a movie, or a play) ending with a question mark or an exclamation point, (2) appears in a newspaper or a magazine that routinely encloses titles between quotation marks, and (3) either presents the title as a throwaway appositive or offers a throwaway appositive after the title (see Chapters 66-69). In a sentence of that sort, a writer committed to setting off the appositive with commas must punctuate the title by inserting a comma between the question mark or exclamation point and the closing quotation mark. It’s easy, though, for the writer to fumble the punctuation—either by omitting that crucial comma or by mispositioning it.

Its title, “How About Never—Is Never Good for You?” comes from a famous Mankoff cartoon that depicts a businessman on the telephone, dodging a lunch date. (New York Times)
Its title, “How About Never—Is Never Good for You?,” comes from a famous Mankoff cartoon. . . .
That’s precisely what happens to Peter Chelsom’s “Shall We Dance?” a remake of a balsa-light Japanese movie recast with superstars Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez and Susan Sarandon. (Daily News [New York])
That’s precisely what happens to Peter Chelsom’s “Shall We Dance?,” a remake. . . .
Shall We Dance? ”, an American remake of the sweet 1996 Japanese film of the same name, is an ill-fated attempt to translate a wonderful foreign-language film for American audiences—and it falls apart on its own, too. (cnn.com)
“Shall We Dance?,” an American remake. . . .
“Dolly will never go away again” . . . at least not for the next two weekends as Music Theatre of Idaho presents “Hello, Dolly!” the timeless Broadway smash hit musical that became an Oscar-winning movie. (Idaho Press-Tribune)
. . . “Hello, Dolly!,” the timeless Broadway smash-hit musical. . . .
More than three months after coming back from Viet Nam, the stars, singers and dancers of “Hello, Dolly!”, the first Broadway musical to play in a war zone, were still enthralled by the experience. (Daily Item [Sumter, South Carolina])
. . . “Hello, Dolly!,” the first Broadway musical to play in a war zone. . . .
The essential point of Ms. Winterson’s singular and electric new memoir, “Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?” however, is that she didn’t find a boat. (New York Times)
The essential point of Ms. Winterson’s singular and electric new memoir, “Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?,” however, is that she didn’t find a boat.
In places, especially on the opening song, “Are You What You Want to Be?” Mr. Foster seems interested in invoking a less likely influence: Vampire Weekend. (New York Times)
In places, especially on the opening song, “Are You What You Want to Be?,” Mr. Foster seems interested in invoking a less likely influence: Vampire Weekend.

Similarly, when a title enclosed between quotation marks is positioned at the end of an introductory phrase or adverbial dependent clause, writers sometimes can’t bring themselves to furnish a comma to mark the boundary between the introductory element and the independent clause.

Entitled “Tiny Mummies! The True Story of the Ruler of 43rd Street’s Land of the Walking Dead!” the feature was every bit the unrestrained romp of tabloid journalism that Shawn had feared. (J. D. Salinger: A Biography [Random House], by Kenneth Slawenski)
Entitled “Tiny Mummies! The True Story of the Ruler of 43rd Street’s Land of the Walking Dead!,” the feature was every bit the unrestrained romp. . . .
While I was waiting to speak with Hugh Grant yesterday about his new screwball-ish romantic comedy “Did You Hear About the Morgans? ” the woman who did co-star Sarah Jessica Parker’s make-up told him how nice he was and that he would make a very good husband. (Philadelphia Daily News)
While I was waiting to speak with Hugh Grant yesterday about his new screwball-ish romantic comedy, “Did You Hear About the Morgans?,” the woman. . . .

Punctuational threesomes make some writers so uncomfortable that they are reluctant to supply a comma in any other sentential position where it is needed to set off the end of a title, or else they erroneously insert the comma after the title’s closing quotation mark.

That was the subject of a MIXX panel, titled “The Golden Age of Journalism?” moderated by the author Kurt Andersen, who is also the host of the “Studio 360” radio program and podcast. (New York Times)
That was the subject of a MIXX panel, titled “The Golden Age of Journalism?,” moderated by the author Kurt Andersen. . . .
With other main courses, though, we have to face the unpleasant reality that dinner at M. Wells Steakhouse can at times resemble “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, that all this heroic swaggering comes with a certain amount of swaying and weaving and stumbling over the furniture, gastronomically speaking. (New York Times)
. . . we have to face the unpleasant reality that dinner at M. Wells Steakhouse can at times resemble “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” that all this heroic swaggering comes with a certain amount of swaying. . . .

The punctuation of sentences of the sort discussed thus far is, of course, simpler and less cluttered when italics, rather than quotation marks, are used for titles of long, stand-alone works—such as movies, plays, books, and CDs. The italicizing of such titles, as well as of the names of magazines and newspapers, is standard in the book-publishing world. (See side note 2.)
     Sentences including titles that end in question marks and exclamation points aren’t the only sentences in which three-ply punctuation is inevitable. The positioning within a sentence of a direct quotation that ends with such a punctuation mark often dictates that there be three correctly situated marks in a row. If such a quotation is throwaway phrasing or appears at the end of throwaway phrasing (see Chapters 66-67 and 70-73), a comma must follow the question mark or exclamation point.

Zappa used one of Varèse’s characteristically febrile quotes, “The present-day composer refuses to die!” as an epigraph on the sleeves of all his early albums, and spent the last months of his life recording Varèse’s works as he imagined Varèse wanted them to sound, with technologies not available during the composer’s lifetime. (The Rock Snob’s Dictionary [Broadway Books], by David Kamp and Steven Daly)
Zappa used one of Varèse’s characteristically febrile quotes, “The present-day composer refuses to die!,” as an epigraph. . . .
The makers of the apps, whose quizzes ask questions like “Is your friend’s butt cute?” couldn’t be reached for comment. (Wall Street Journal)
The makers of the apps, whose quizzes ask questions like “Is your friend’s butt cute?,” couldn’t be reached for comment.
When David Mamet sent him a batch of cartoons with a letter beginning “Congratulations!” Mr. Mankoff replied that he had taken the liberty of sending him a play. (New York Times)
When David Mamet sent him a batch of cartoons with a letter beginning “Congratulations!,” Mr. Mankoff replied that he had taken the liberty of sending him a play.
It did not occur to her that scenes in which Grayle lays his head on Conrad’s lap while the older man strokes his hair, or the hurried warning “Look out! Someone might come in!” had any homosexual content, and thus she was disconcerted when the theater was inundated with requests for tickets to “the new homosexual play.” (A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E. M. Forster [Farrar, Straus and Giroux], by Wendy Moffat)
It did not occur to her that scenes in which Grayle lays his head on Conrad’s lap while the older man strokes his hair, or the hurried warning “Look out! Someone might come in!,” had any homosexual content, and thus she was disconcerted when the theater was inundated with requests for tickets to “the new homosexual play.”
People can answer questions like “Anyone know of a good Brazilian restaurant in Des Moines?”, because they’ve lived life and developed opinions. (New York Times)
People can answer questions like “Anyone know of a good Brazilian restaurant in Des Moines?,” because they’ve lived life and developed opinions.
Written in English and Spanish, the ads use humor to encourage families to lead a healthier lifestyle; they also mention “We Can!”, an education program of the National Institutes of Health aimed at promoting healthy weight in youth. (New York Times)
. . . they also mention “We Can!,” an education program. . . .
Once I explain those practical details, I get a second question, “What does your wife say?”, which is always directly translatable as, “What the hell is your problem?” (Wall Street Journal) [This sentence also suffers from another punctuational malady; see Chapter 76.]
Once I explain those practical details, I get a second question, “What does your wife say?," which is always directly translatable as "What the hell is your problem?”
If a title or a direct quotation that ends with a question mark or an exclamation point falls at the end of a sentence that in its entirety happens to be posing a question or making an exclamation, a single question mark or exclamation point—the one preceding the closing quotation mark—will signal the end of the sentence.
Message: What do you learn from “Dude, Where’s My Car? ”? (Buffalo News)
Message: What do you learn from “Dude, Where’s My Car?”
Writers affiliated with publishers that routinely and conventionally italicize the titles of movies and books and other long, self-contained works have to keep their minds on their commas, too, when a title ends with a question mark or an exclamation point. The positioning of the title within a sentence will sometimes demand that a comma follow the question mark or exclamation point.
The question posed by the title of [Bill] O’Reilly’s latest book, Who’s Looking Out for You? answers itself: He is. (Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants: The Looting of the News in a Time of Terror [Miramax Books], by James Wolcott)
The question posed by the title of O’Reilly’s latest book, Who’s Looking Out for You?, answers itself: He is.
 
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