A few months ago in a Slack channel for podcasters, one of my friends posted a grammar gripe. He wrote, 

This grammar pet peeve has been bugging me a lot lately because I’ve seen it used in very prominent places: “all of a sudden …” 

It’s supposed to be “all of _the_ sudden,” but simply saying, “suddenly” sounds a whole lot more grown up.

It was interesting because he had it backwards. “All of a sudden” is the right way to say it, but when he heard it that way, apparently it bugged him. I’ve occasionally gotten questions about the phrase over the years, but in the week after my friend raised the issue, I got two or three more questions about these “all of [something] sudden” phrases, so I decided it was time to look into it more deeply than I had when I just gave people simple answers before.

‘All of a Sudden’ Is the Correct Form

First, “all of the sudden” is definitely a phrase you should avoid.

Garner’s Modern English Usage includes an entry on “all of the sudden” and pegs it at stage 1 on the language change index, which means “rejected.” In other words, still totally wrong.

The correct phrase in English is “all of a sudden,” not “all of the sudden.”

The Chicago Manual of Style Q&A section says: “[the] CMOS is silent on the issue, but ‘all of the sudden’ is not idiomatic and normally would be edited to ‘all of a sudden.”

Even if you look at much more informal language, “all of a sudden” is the clear winner. For example, in Mark Davies’ BYU corpus of language used in TV shows since the 1950s, there are more than 5,500 instances of “all of a sudden” and only 133 of “all of the sudden.” 

‘All of the Sudden’ Doesn’t Seem to Be Regional

Next, I wondered whether “all of the sudden” could be a regional saying, since my friend who complained is from Ohio, and another friend who is in the Slack channel and also from Ohio also said he’s an “all of the sudden” kind of guy. But Gabe Doyle of the Motivated Grammar website looked at tweets that used “all of a sudden” and “all of the sudden” and didn’t find any evidence that there’s a regional difference. There doesn’t seem to be a place where people are more likely to say “all of the sudden.”

These ‘…

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

A listener named Paul posted this kindly worded comment on Facebook. He wrote, “Mignon, I love your podcast. I have listened to every single episode. I love your sense of humor, and I love your pleasant speaking voice – except for one thing. Would you please, please, pretty please with sugar on top, stop mispronouncing the word “forward”? You almost always pronounce it “foe word” instead of the correct “fore word.” You have done it for years and years … If this is some regional variation of the word, then I apologize, but I have never heard anyone else pronounce it “foe word” in my life.

Thank you, Paul. You’re right. When I think about it, I do pronounce the word “fo-word,” and I never realized I was doing it. It’s just how I say the word.

The British Don’t Always Pronounce their R’s

I guess my pronunciation is more like the British pronunciation because people with a British accent tend to drop their R’s. I’ll never forget sitting in an intro to biology class with a professor who had a strong British accent, and she told us we needed to “mark our tubes” for an experiment. And I thought she said we had to “mock” our tubes, like make fun of them, and I was super confused, and I wasn’t even close to the only one who thought she’d said that. In fact, so many people were looking at each other and asking, “We’re supposed to mock our tubes?” that she got really annoyed and clarified in an exaggerated American accent, you need to maRk your tubes. 

Anyway, getting back to “forward,” there’s no reason I would tend toward a British pronunciation, so what’s going on? It turns out that even though you may not have heard anyone else pronounce it that way, it’s not a rare pronunciation in the United States. The online Merriam-Webster dictionary includes it as an alternate pronunciation, although the other dictionaries I checked don’t.

The ‘Foward’ Pronunciation Is an Example of Dissimilation

It turns out that it’s actually a well-known linguistic phenomenon called “dissimilation.” In dialects like American English that are rhotic, meaning we pronounce our R’s, people still tend to drop an R if it is in the middle of a word and comes before another syllable that has an R. It’s why you hear “suprise” instead of “surprise,” “advesary” instead of “adversary,” “catepillar” instead of “caterpillar,” and “paticular” instead of “particular.” And for what it’s worth, I pronounce all those words in the dissimulated way—without the first R—so it’s a…

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Jeannie A. from Chicago, Illinois, wrote, “If you’re using the proper noun ‘Google’ as a verb, do you capitalize it?”

If Google executives care about their trademark, they would like you to not use “Google” as a verb since doing so threatens that trademark, but as you know, it’s very common to hear people say, “I Googled it,” to mean they searched for something on Google.

AP style is to capitalize “Google” when you use it as a verb, when you say you Googled something or are Googling something. The Chicago Manual of Style also says to capitalize trademarks such as Google, but notes that although this is what corporations would prefer, it’s not a legally binding rule, and they note that Webster’s includes lowercase entries for both “google” and another company name that has become a verb: “xerox.”

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary lists the verb “google” as lowercase, but notes that it is often capitalized. The Oxford English Dictionary entry shows the verb “Google” capitalized, but says it can also be lowercase. Garner’s Modern English Usage says it can go either way but that it’s more common to keep “Google” capitalized than to write it lowercase.

It’s common to use certain company or product names as verbs, and when you do, it’s usually better to capitalize them.

The bottom line is that you don’t have to capitalize it unless your following AP or Chicago style, but it’s probably a good idea to do it anyway. No matter what you decide, pick one way of doing it and being consistent instead of flipping back and forth between two styles. Be deliberate.

Finally, remember how I said at the beginning that Google executives wouldn’t want you to use “Google” as a verb if they care about their trademark? Well, maybe they don’t care, because a couple of years ago, Nancy Friedman, a corporate naming expert who goes by @fritinancy on Twitter, found an ad for Chromebook computers that deliberately used the product name, Chromebook, as a verb. It read, “If you’re over the old way of doing things, you Chromebook.” And in case you’re curious, they did capitalize “Chromebook.”

That’s your Quick and Dirty Tip: It’s common to use certain company or product names as verbs, and when you do, it’s usually better to capitalize them.

Mignon Fogarty is Grammar Girl and the founder of Quick and Dirty Tips. Check out her New York Times bestseller, “…

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Jeannie A. from Chicago, Illinois, wrote, “If you’re using the proper noun ‘Google’ as a verb, do you capitalize it?”

If Google executives care about their trademark, they would like you to not use “Google” as a verb since doing so threatens that trademark, but as you know, it’s very common to hear people say, “I Googled it,” to mean they searched for something on Google.

AP style is to capitalize “Google” when you use it as a verb, when you say you Googled something or are Googling something. The Chicago Manual of Style also says to capitalize trademarks such as Google, but notes that although this is what corporations would prefer, it’s not a legally binding rule, and they note that Webster’s includes lowercase entries for both “google” and another company name that has become a verb: “xerox.”

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary lists the verb “google” as lowercase, but notes that it is often capitalized. The Oxford English Dictionary entry shows the verb “Google” capitalized, but says it can also be lowercase. Garner’s Modern English Usage says it can go either way but that it’s more common to keep “Google” capitalized than to write it lowercase.

It’s common to use certain company or product names as verbs, and when you do, it’s usually better to capitalize them.

The bottom line is that you don’t have to capitalize it unless you’re following AP or Chicago style, but it’s probably a good idea to do it anyway. No matter what you decide, pick one way of doing it and being consistent instead of flipping back and forth between two styles. Be deliberate.

Finally, remember how I said at the beginning that Google executives wouldn’t want you to use “Google” as a verb if they care about their trademark? Well, maybe they don’t care, because a couple of years ago, Nancy Friedman, a corporate naming expert who goes by @fritinancy on Twitter, found an ad for Chromebook computers that deliberately used the product name, Chromebook, as a verb. It read, “If you’re over the old way of doing things, you Chromebook.” And in case you’re curious, they did capitalize “Chromebook.”

That’s your Quick and Dirty Tip: It’s common to use certain company or product names as verbs, and when you do, it’s usually better to capitalize them.

Mignon Fogarty is Grammar Girl and the founder of Quick and Dirty Tips. Check out her New York Times bestseller, “…

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

A listener named Hernán wrote that he was writing about Word documents and PDF documents or files. He said, “I am struggling to know the proper way to address the name of these items; is it ‘Word document’ or ‘word document’? Is it ‘.pdf’ document with a period, or just ‘pdf,’ or all capital ‘PDF’?” He also asked how to talk about multiple PDF files. In other words, how to make “PDF” plural.

These are great questions. I’ve had to look up the answers myself in the past.

According to the Chicago Manual of Style, the names of computer programs, operating systems, and so on are capitalized and written without quotations. For example, you’d write that you created a Word document (with “Word” capitalized and “document” lowercase).

Chicago also says that you write file formats in all caps, so you would then write that you converted your Word document to a PDF or a PDF file.

The F in “PDF” doesn’t stand for “file.” It stands for “format” in “portable document format” so “PDF file” isn’t redundant.

If you have two, they are PDFs (with “PDF” in all caps and then a lowercase S at the end).

The AP Stylebook is less clear about these kinds of abbreviations, but it does say to use all caps for “JPEG,” “GIF,” “PDF,” and “MP3.” On the other hand, it recommends lowercase for “zip files” and lowercase if you have to quote someone talking about a “.exe” file, for example.

Thanks for the question, Hernán. I hope that helped!

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Mignon Fogarty is Grammar Girl and the founder of Quick and Dirty Tips. Check out her New York Times bestseller, “Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.”

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

A lot of people get confused about when to use hyphens when writing ages, and I think it’s because sometimes an age is a noun, sometimes an age is an adjective that comes before a noun and modifies it, and sometimes an age is an adjective that comes after a noun.

When to Hyphenate Ages

First we’ll talk about when you do hyphenate an age: You do it when the age is acting like a noun and when the age is an adjective that comes before the noun and modifies the noun.

In this example, the age—70-year-old—is used as a noun, and you hyphenate it:

• That 70-year-old with a purple hoodie loves Justin Bieber.

Just as you’d say, “That woman with the purple hoodie loves Justin Bieber,” with “woman” as the noun, the age—70-year-old—can take the place of “woman.” When an age is a noun like that, you hyphenate it.

Here’s an example of an age that comes before the noun it modifies. You hyphenate here too:

• My 8-year-old neighbor wrote a poem about commas for National Grammar Day.

In that example, “8-year-old” is an adjective that describes the noun, “neighbor.” 

When to Not Hyphenate Ages

Now we’ll move on to when you don’t hyphenate ages: When the age is part of an adjective phrase after the noun, you don’t hyphenate it. For example,

• Beyoncé is 37 years old.
• John’s twin sons are nearly 2 years old.

Neither of those ages are hyphenated.

Summary

So to sum up, you hyphenate an age when it’s a noun or when it’s a modifier that comes before a noun. 

The main time you don’t hyphenate an age is when it comes after the noun it modifies. 

Ages are like every other compound modifier that way: you hyphenate them before the noun but not after the noun.

[Note: Chicago style and AP style differ when it comes to ages. Chicago style is to use the word for ages 100 and lower, and AP style is to always use the numeral for ages. Our site uses a modified version of AP style, which is why the example reads “8-year-old” instead of “eight-year-old.”]

Read more about hyphens.

…

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Last week I had lunch with a friend who has a new book coming out. She’s at the stage where her publisher is copy editing her final manuscript, and she told me about a problem she’s been having that I think holds some valuable lessons. We’ll call my friend Helen.

Helen disagrees with her publisher about how some of the numbers should be handled in the manuscript. It’s actually more complicated than that because when she raised the issue with her editor, he actually agreed with her, but then stuck to the style that neither of them liked!

Here’s the story.

Helen has some dialogue in her novel where the characters talk about calling 9-1-1. For my foreign listeners, that is the emergency number in the United States. Her publisher uses The Chicago Manual of Style, as many book publishers do—that’s totally normal—and the general rule in Chicago is that you usually write out numbers in dialogue even when you might use the numerals in narrative text. 

You Often Write Out Numbers in Dialogue

For example, in the Chicago Manual of Style, you write out the words for the numbers one through 100, but use the numeral format for most bigger numbers. (I used the numeral “100” here because our website follows AP style for numbers, which is different.) So you’d use the numerals if you wrote something like “Aardvark only needs 2,400 more miles for a free plane ticket.” But you’d write out the words for 2,400 in dialogue if you wrote something like this:

Squiggly said, “Aardvark can be kind of obsessive. He once counted all his change by laying out two thousand four hundred pennies in rows on the table.”

Following this style, Helen’s copy editor changed her manuscript so the phone number 9-1-1 was spelled out. “He should call nine one one,” with the words “nine one one.” Helen thought this looked ridiculous, and her editor agreed, but then said there was nothing he could do about it because the publisher follows Chicago style.

When Helen and I talked about it at lunch, I thought the whole situation was ridiculous! 

You Can Make Exceptions

The first lesson I want you to learn is that you never have to slavishly follow a style guide when your common sense tells you what you’re writing should be different. Often there are situations that aren’t specifically covered by a style guide, and you should make your own judgement about what is best, maybe guided by similar rules that are covered by the style guide, but you should never feel like you have to force your work into something awkward just so it “fits the rules.” Trust me, the editors at the style guides would want you to use…

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Last week I had lunch with a friend who has a new book coming out. She’s at the stage where her publisher is copy editing her final manuscript, and she told me about a problem she’s been having that I think holds some valuable lessons. We’ll call my friend Helen.

Helen disagrees with her publisher about how some of the numbers should be handled in the manuscript. It’s actually more complicated than that because when she raised the issue with her editor, he actually agreed with her, but then stuck to the style that neither of them liked!

Here’s the story.

Helen has some dialogue in her novel where the characters talk about calling 9-1-1. For my foreign listeners, that is the emergency number in the United States. Her publisher uses The Chicago Manual of Style, as many book publishers do—that’s totally normal—and the general rule in Chicago is that you usually write out numbers in dialogue even when you might use the numerals in narrative text. 

You Often Write Out Numbers in Dialogue

For example, in the Chicago Manual of Style, you write out the words for the numbers one through 100, but use the numeral format for most bigger numbers. (I used the numeral “100” here because our website follows AP style for numbers, which is different.) So you’d use the numerals if you wrote something like “Aardvark only needs 2,400 more miles for a free plane ticket.” But you’d write out the words for 2,400 in dialogue if you wrote something like this:

Squiggly said, “Aardvark can be kind of obsessive. He once counted all his change by laying out two thousand four hundred pennies in rows on the table.”

Following this style, Helen’s copy editor changed her manuscript so the phone number 9-1-1 was spelled out. “He should call nine one one,” with the words “nine one one.” Helen thought this looked ridiculous, and her editor agreed, but then said there was nothing he could do about it because the publisher follows Chicago style.

When Helen and I talked about it at lunch, I thought the whole situation was ridiculous! 

You Can Make Exceptions

The first lesson I want you to learn is that you never have to slavishly follow a style guide when your common sense tells you what you’re writing should be different. Often there are situations that aren’t specifically covered by a style guide, and you should make your own judgement about what is best, maybe guided by similar rules that are covered by the style guide, but you should never feel like you have to force your work into something awkward just so it “fits the rules.” Trust me, the editors at the style guides would want you to use…

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Last week I had lunch with a friend who has a new book coming out. She’s at the stage where her publisher is copy editing her final manuscript, and she told me about a problem she’s been having that I think holds some valuable lessons. We’ll call my friend Helen.

Helen disagrees with her publisher about how some of the numbers should be handled in the manuscript. It’s actually more complicated than that because when she raised the issue with her editor, he actually agreed with her, but then stuck to the style that neither of them liked!

Here’s the story.

Helen has some dialogue in her novel where the characters talk about calling 9-1-1. For my foreign listeners, that is the emergency number in the United States. Her publisher uses The Chicago Manual of Style, as many book publishers do—that’s totally normal—and the general rule in Chicago is that you usually write out numbers in dialogue even when you might use the numerals in narrative text. 

You Often Write Out Numbers in Dialogue

For example, in the Chicago Manual of Style, you write out the words for the numbers one through 100, but use the numeral format for most bigger numbers. (I used the numeral “100” here because our website follows AP style for numbers, which is different.) So you’d use the numerals if you wrote something like “Aardvark only needs 2,400 more miles for a free plane ticket.” But you’d write out the words for 2,400 in dialogue if you wrote something like this:

Squiggly said, “Aardvark can be kind of obsessive. He once counted all his change by laying out two thousand four hundred pennies in rows on the table.”

Following this style, Helen’s copy editor changed her manuscript so the phone number 9-1-1 was spelled out. “He should call nine one one,” with the words “nine one one.” Helen thought this looked ridiculous, and her editor agreed, but then said there was nothing he could do about it because the publisher follows Chicago style.

When Helen and I talked about it at lunch, I thought the whole situation was ridiculous! 

You Can Make Exceptions

The first lesson I want you to learn is that you never have to slavishly follow a style guide when your common sense tells you what you’re writing should be different. Often there are situations that aren’t specifically covered by a style guide, and you should make your own judgement about what is best, maybe guided by similar rules that are covered by the style guide, but you should never feel like you have to force your work into something awkward just so it “fits the rules.” Trust me, the editors at the style guides would want you to use…

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Last week I had lunch with a friend who has a new book coming out. She’s at the stage where her publisher is copy editing her final manuscript, and she told me about a problem she’s been having that I think holds some valuable lessons. We’ll call my friend Helen.

Helen disagrees with her publisher about how some of the numbers should be handled in the manuscript. It’s actually more complicated than that because when she raised the issue with her editor, he actually agreed with her, but then stuck to the style that neither of them liked!

Here’s the story.

Helen has some dialogue in her novel where the characters talk about calling 9-1-1. For my foreign listeners, that is the emergency number in the United States. Her publisher uses The Chicago Manual of Style, as many book publishers do—that’s totally normal—and the general rule in Chicago is that you usually write out numbers in dialogue even when you might use the numerals in narrative text. 

You Often Write Out Numbers in Dialogue

For example, in the Chicago Manual of Style, you write out the words for the numbers one through 100, but use the numeral format for most bigger numbers. (I used the numeral “100” here because our website follows AP style for numbers, which is different.) So you’d use the numerals if you wrote something like “Aardvark only needs 2,400 more miles for a free plane ticket.” But you’d write out the words for 2,400 in dialogue if you wrote something like this:

Squiggly said, “Aardvark can be kind of obsessive. He once counted all his change by laying out two thousand four hundred pennies in rows on the table.”

Following this style, Helen’s copy editor changed her manuscript so the phone number 9-1-1 was spelled out. “He should call nine one one,” with the words “nine one one.” Helen thought this looked ridiculous, and her editor agreed, but then said there was nothing he could do about it because the publisher follows Chicago style.

When Helen and I talked about it at lunch, I thought the whole situation was ridiculous! 

You Can Make Exceptions

The first lesson I want you to learn is that you never have to slavishly follow a style guide when your common sense tells you what you’re writing should be different. Often there are situations that aren’t specifically covered by a style guide, and you should make your own judgement about what is best, maybe guided by similar rules that are covered by the style guide, but you should never feel like you have to force your work into something awkward just so it “fits the rules.” Trust me, the editors at the style guides would want you to use…

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Last week I had lunch with a friend who has a new book coming out. She’s at the stage where her publisher is copy editing her final manuscript, and she told me about a problem she’s been having that I think holds some valuable lessons. We’ll call my friend Helen.

Helen disagrees with her publisher about how some of the numbers should be handled in the manuscript. It’s actually more complicated than that because when she raised the issue with her editor, he actually agreed with her, but then stuck to the style that neither of them liked!

Here’s the story.

Helen has some dialogue in her novel where the characters talk about calling 9-1-1. For my foreign listeners, that is the emergency number in the United States. Her publisher uses The Chicago Manual of Style, as many book publishers do—that’s totally normal—and the general rule in Chicago is that you usually write out numbers in dialogue even when you might use the numerals in narrative text. 

You Often Write Out Numbers in Dialogue

For example, in the Chicago Manual of Style, you write out the words for the numbers one through 100, but use the numeral format for most bigger numbers. (I used the numeral “100” here because our website follows AP style for numbers, which is different.) So you’d use the numerals if you wrote something like “Aardvark only needs 2,400 more miles for a free plane ticket.” But you’d write out the words for 2,400 in dialogue if you wrote something like this:

Squiggly said, “Aardvark can be kind of obsessive. He once counted all his change by laying out two thousand four hundred pennies in rows on the table.”

Following this style, Helen’s copy editor changed her manuscript so the phone number 9-1-1 was spelled out. “He should call nine one one,” with the words “nine one one.” Helen thought this looked ridiculous, and her editor agreed, but then said there was nothing he could do about it because the publisher follows Chicago style.

When Helen and I talked about it at lunch, I thought the whole situation was ridiculous! 

You Can Make Exceptions

The first lesson I want you to learn is that you never have to slavishly follow a style guide when your common sense tells you what you’re writing should be different. Often there are situations that aren’t specifically covered by a style guide, and you should make your own judgement about what is best, maybe guided by similar rules that are covered by the style guide, but you should never feel like you have to force your work into something awkward just so it “fits the rules.” Trust me, the editors at the style guides would want you to use…

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Last week I had lunch with a friend who has a new book coming out. She’s at the stage where her publisher is copy editing her final manuscript, and she told me about a problem she’s been having that I think holds some valuable lessons. We’ll call my friend Helen.

Helen disagrees with her publisher about how some of the numbers should be handled in the manuscript. It’s actually more complicated than that because when she raised the issue with her editor, he actually agreed with her, but then stuck to the style that neither of them liked!

Here’s the story.

Helen has some dialogue in her novel where the characters talk about calling 9-1-1. For my foreign listeners, that is the emergency number in the United States. Her publisher uses The Chicago Manual of Style, as many book publishers do—that’s totally normal—and the general rule in Chicago is that you usually write out numbers in dialogue even when you might use the numerals in narrative text. 

You Often Write Out Numbers in Dialogue

For example, in the Chicago Manual of Style, you write out the words for the numbers one through 100, but use the numeral format for most bigger numbers. (I used the numeral “100” here because our website follows AP style for numbers, which is different.) So you’d use the numerals if you wrote something like “Aardvark only needs 2,400 more miles for a free plane ticket.” But you’d write out the words for 2,400 in dialogue if you wrote something like this:

Squiggly said, “Aardvark can be kind of obsessive. He once counted all his change by laying out two thousand four hundred pennies in rows on the table.”

Following this style, Helen’s copy editor changed her manuscript so the phone number 9-1-1 was spelled out. “He should call nine one one,” with the words “nine one one.” Helen thought this looked ridiculous, and her editor agreed, but then said there was nothing he could do about it because the publisher follows Chicago style.

When Helen and I talked about it at lunch, I thought the whole situation was ridiculous! 

You Can Make Exceptions

The first lesson I want you to learn is that you never have to slavishly follow a style guide when your common sense tells you what you’re writing should be different. Often there are situations that aren’t specifically covered by a style guide, and you should make your own judgement about what is best, maybe guided by similar rules that are covered by the style guide, but you should never feel like you have to force your work into something awkward just so it “fits the rules.” Trust me, the editors at the style guides would want you to use…

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips