Grammar Monkeys

On this day each year, March 4, we celebrate National Grammar Day, a chance to honor grammar in all its glory. But why should grammar get a holiday? Why is it even important at all?

A couple of recent discussions inspired me to think about why grammar is important. Of course it is, or I wouldn’t waste a bunch of time writing about it. But I’ve always thought of it as a given, rather than something needing an explanation.

So when someone on Twitter asked, “How would you convince someone that understanding grammar is important? ‘I will never use it, I know how to spell without it’ ” I had to articulate an answer.

First, spelling doesn’t equal grammar. (It’s important too, though.)

Second, you do use grammar — we all use it, every time we speak or write. Most of us don’t even think about it if we’re speaking our native language. Grammar is why we know Yoda talks funny, why we are able to differentiate “Dog bites man” from “Man bites dog,” and why we can pile up modifiers and clauses and compound predicates and still come away with a sentence that makes perfect sense.

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So we’ve done participles and gerunds, and because @glamAtude asked whether we could talk about appositives, here we go:

An appositive is a word or phrase that follows a noun and gives more information about it.

It can be a single noun:
Her new puppy, Paperboy, came home yesterday.

It can be a noun phrase:
Paperboy, her new puppy, came home yesterday.

It can be a noun phrase plus a prepositional phrase:
Her new puppy, a black-and-white ball of energy, came home yesterday.
Her new puppy, a mutt from the pound, came home yesterday.

And so on. You can take out the appositive and you’ll still have a complete sentence.

Relative clauses are not the same as appositives, though they may convey the same information. Relative clauses begin with a relative pronoun and have a verb in the clause. Appositives are simple phrases, no verb.
Relative clause:
Betty, who is my neighbor, said …
Appositive:
Betty, my neighbor, said …

Usually appositives are set off with commas (one before and one after), because they’re adding extra information about the noun. These are called “non-essential” or “non-restrictive” appositives.

But sometimes an appositive is necessary to set apart or distinguish the noun:
Paul Simon the senator (as opposed to Paul Simon the singer)
Her dog Paperboy (as opposed to her dog Scout)

These are called “essential” or “restrictive” appositives, and are not set off with commas.

A note on agreement: The verb agrees with the main noun, not the appositive.
Truffles (plural), a luxury food (singular), are (plural) …
Paperboy (singular), one of the nicest dogs (plural) at the pound, is (singular) …

Sometimes in journalism we have to — gasp! — do math, because it’s part of the news. We have to get the numbers right, just as we have to get the facts right and the language right. To those who think a journalism or communications degree means you can forget about math, think again: Math is a key part of many news stories, corporate memos, nonprofit reports, etc. And it needs to be done correctly.

So, in the spirit of the upcoming election season and its steady stream of polls, a note on the difference between “percent” and “percentage point.” This is also relevant when talking about tax rates, test scores, and so on.

Percent is a fraction of something. Percentage points are how percents are measured.

They are not the same thing, so if you are comparing two percents or rates, be careful how they are expressed. Here are a few examples:

• Roscoe P. Coltrane and Daisy Duke are running for mayor of Hazzard County. The latest poll shows 46 percent of likely voters choosing Roscoe and 41 percent for Daisy. It looks like Roscoe’s ahead by 5 percentage points (not 5 percent). But the margin of error of the poll is 4 percentage points, which means that either figure could be off by that much in either direction. So Roscoe may be further ahead than the poll indicates, as much as 50 to 37, or Daisy may actually be the one in the lead, with 45 percent to Roscoe’s 42. So in truth, we can’t say either one is ahead when it’s this close. Sometimes you hear the phrase “statistical dead heat” — this is what it means.
• 20 percent of the workers at the candy factory like the green gummy bears best, and 30 percent like the red ones best. The percents are a fraction of the total number of people asked. But when you want to know how many more people like red gummy bears than green ones, it gets tricky because you’re comparing rates, not raw numbers. So it’s not 10 percent more people that like red gummy bears, it’s 50 percent (30 minus 20 is 10, 10 divided by 20 is 0.5, or 50 percent), or you can say the red preference runs 10 percentage points higher than the green.
• In August 2007, unemployment was 4.1 percent. In August 2008, unemployment was 5.1 percent. How much did it go up? Not 1 percent, but 1 percentage point. The percent increase is actually 24.4 percent (5.1 minus 4.1 is 1, 1 divided by 4.1 is 0.244, or 24.4 percent).
• Sweet Valley High’s dropout rate is 6 percent; Ridgemont High’s is 8 percent. How much higher is Ridgemont’s rate? Not 2 percent, but 2 percentage points — or 33 percent — higher (8 minus 6 equals 2, 2 divided by 6 is 0.33, or 33 percent).