If at first you don’t succeed . . ...

I can see my piano in the other room. My metronome, my light, my music, everything I need to practice. What am I waiting for? Like most adult piano students, I took lessons as a kid. But it was tough and I quit. I’ve always regretted that decision, especially when I hear Beethoven’s Sonata Pathétique, Vivaldi’s Winter, or Schumann’s Of Foreign Lands and People. And then there’s Chopin. (If I stick with piano, I’m at least 10 years from playing anything by Chopin.) This music inspires me to put in the time for a weekly 45-minute lesson and 30 minutes of...

I’m in the club . . . now what ?

This week something monumental happened. My request to join the LinkedIn group “Word Nerds” was accepted. (And there was much rejoicing!) I am now part of a group of like-minded people who share my appreciation for the power and subtlety of words Unfortunately — now that I’m in the club — I’m a little disappointed. They let me in, but how did they verify that I was worthy of membership? No one called to ask if I knew the difference between comprise and compose. No email was sent asking me to define a back formation. Didn’t a secret membership committee meet?...

A hyphenation headache

In my last post, I wrote about the em dash. This gentleman-like punctuation mark is used to indicate a pronounced interruption or break in thought. Now, on to the most exasperating and tiresome punctuation mark of all — the hyphen. In general, we use hyphens to avoid ambiguity. Otherwise, how would we be able to tell the difference between a “man-eating shark” and a “man eating shark”? There’s also a big difference between a pickled herring merchant and a pickled-herring merchant. (And we don’t want to go around casting aspersions on herring merchants, as...

Ad ode to the em dash

In Eats Shoots & Leaves: the Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, plucky Lynne Truss describes punctuation as “a courtesy designed to help readers to understand a story without stumbling.” With this in mind, I introduce the most chivalrous punctuation mark of all. Ladies and gentlemen — the Mr. Darcy of punctuation marks — the em dash. Em dashes are used to indicate a pronounced interruption or break in thought. They should be used sparingly, and only when another punctuation mark (such as a comma or colon) will not suffice. While some do not afford the em...