Q. Parenthetical material is usually invisible to the grammar of the rest of the sentence, so should it be “a” or “an” in the phrase “a (appropriate) joke”?
A. Although almost anything can be placed inside them (Is it Friday yet?), parentheses don’t make the words they enclose literally invisible. Readers are still obliged to read what’s inside along with the rest of the text. So write “an (appropriate) joke,” which will spare us from reading “a appropriate joke,” a phrase that, stylistically speaking, would be inappropriate.
Q. Would it be “None of us gets to decide these things” or “None of us get to decide these things”? Thank you.
A. “None” can mean “not one” or “not any,” so both are correct. The first sense favors the singular: “Not one of us gets to decide” (“one” is singular). The second favors the plural: “Not any of us get to decide” (“any” is more often plural than singular). Because your example could go either way, consider the context. If the statement applies to people in general, plural “get” would make the most sense. But if it’s a response to one or more individuals, singular “gets” might become the better choice. For some additional considerations, see CMOS 5.250 (under “none”).
Q. My question is about using a definite article before an attributive noun used to identify someone. For instance, “the photographer Ansel Adams took my picture,” as opposed to “photographer Ansel Adams took my picture.” Do you prefer to use the article? Newspaperese style seems to be to omit it, but I’m a holdout. Thanks for any guidance.
A. The version with the definite article is a bit more formal; the version without it is more common in casual prose and journalism, as you suggest. The latter treats the occupation “photographer” as an informal personal title (i.e., like “Doctor,” but without the honorific capitalization) rather than as a descriptive phrase placed in apposition to the name (see CMOS 8.30). Some of our editors, like you, would prefer to retain the “the” in your example (at least in formal prose), but either version is grammatically sound.
Q. Is it correct to use “with” as a conjunction, as in “The regulator received four complaints this month, with two of them related to anticompetitive behavior”? I don’t do it, as I want to avoid it being read as “along with,” but I see this type of construction quite often.
A. According to Garner’s Modern English Usage (4th ed., 2016), the use of “with” as “a quasi-conjunction to introduce a tag-on idea at the end of a sentence” is increasingly common but still best avoided. Your example sentence could be fixed with the help of a semicolon and the addition of “were”: “The regulator received four complaints this month; two of them were related to anticompetitive behavior.”
Q. Would “Depending on” count as a dangler in “Depending on the weather, the play will be performed outdoors”? If not, why not?
A. We don’t think that’s a true dangler. It is a bit dangly looking; the play itself doesn’t depend on the weather—as a literal reading might suggest.
But consider that the introductory phrase is a sort of idiomatic shorthand for “Depending on how the weather turns out.” Idioms are expressions that are generally understood but don’t necessarily stand up to grammatical analysis. A true dangler is more likely to occur when the participial phrase has a more direct connection to the rest of the sentence:
Acting in the rain, the play showcased the resilience of the performers.
In that sentence, “Acting in the rain” appears (illogically) to modify the play directly rather than the performers. To fix this, rewrite: “Acting in the rain, the play’s performers displayed their resilience.” For more examples, see CMOS 5.115.
Q. “The majority of samples were/was extracted from regular biopsy procedures.” I think I should use “was,” but “were” sounds better to the ear. What is the correct way?
A. Many writers are told to ignore prepositional phrases when deciding on the number of the verb. But this advice doesn’t work in all cases. When the subject is “majority,” and a prepositional phrase with a plural object follows, it’s the object that usually determines the number of the verb. So choose “were.”
But note that “majority” may be either singular or plural even when used alone:
The majority usually wins.
but
The majority were wearing masks.
When in doubt, trust your instincts; if the sense of the sentence suggests a plural verb, use one.
Q. Hello! I understand that when an indefinite pronoun like “everything” is the subject of a clause, it takes a singular verb (per CMOS 5.67). But I’m stumped by the following sentence, whose compound subject is composed of two indefinite pronouns: “Everything we say and everything we do [is/are] built on this idea.” Does it take a singular or a plural verb? The singular sounds better to my ear, but the plural seems like the logical choice.
A. We agree with your assessment. Though it seems logical that two (or more) singular subjects joined by and would take a plural verb, the results won’t always sound right. In the case of indefinite pronouns that take a singular verb, they can remain singular in combination. For example,
Anyone and everyone was there tonight.
That seems right to us—though MS Word’s grammar checker flags was in that sentence as a potential error and suggests were as a correction. In your sentence, you might try “Everything we say and do is built on this idea.” That’s more concise—and more obviously singular. But there’s nothing wrong with your version, which has the advantage of being nicely emphatic.
Q. Which is correct, “in the peninsula” or “on the peninsula”? Why?
A. It’s possibly a bit more logical to refer to someone or something being on a peninsula than in one, on the principle that we tend to live on land masses but in countries, provinces, states, cities, and the like. So, for example, one might refer to someone who lives in Mexico but on the Yucatán Peninsula—or in New York but on Long Island. But if you’re an editor, keep an open mind. Prepositions are notoriously variable; they depend greatly on local usage and personal preference, and usage can change over time.
Q. AP style dictates that blonde (with an e) should be used only as a noun and I believe only for a female subject. Blond should be used as a noun for male subjects and as an adjective for both. I cannot find any reference in CMOS, but Merriam-Webster lists both spellings as variants for both nouns and adjectives. Is that Chicago’s position?
A. First, note that the AP Stylebook updated its advice in 2020, when its entry for “blond, blonde” was replaced with an entry for “blond” under “gender-neutral language.” (Subscribers to the AP Stylebook online can discover this by searching for “blond.”) The new entry continues to advise using blond for the adjective regardless of gender (the feminine e ending is from the French). But it advises against using either blond or blonde as a noun except in a direct quotation, advice that applies equally to brunette (which, however, is rarely spelled brunet).
Though CMOS doesn’t cover this topic, we like AP’s new guidance, which discourages writing that would reduce people to physical characteristics or gender stereotypes (as in a phrase like “the blonde in the front row”).
As for Merriam-Webster, Chicago usually prefers first-listed spellings over any variants; blond is the first-listed spelling for both the adjective and noun forms, so that’s what we’d prefer. The entry for “blond” in Merriam-Webster doesn’t currently (as of June 1, 2021) include a usage warning (cf. “broad,” which Merriam-Webster labels “slang, often offensive” as a synonym for “woman”). But AP’s advice suggests that it is best to be cautious when using either spelling as a noun.
Q. Is this use of the passive voice correct? “The restaurant’s excellent dinners had been being prepared by Chef Bob for many years.”
A. Not quite. Passive voice can be a good way to emphasize the results (excellent dinners) rather than the action that produced them (Chef Bob’s preparation). But as the grammatically redundant “had been being” reveals, there’s no such thing as a passive form of the past-perfect progressive tense—that is, the verb tense that describes an ongoing action that occurred in the past but ended at some definite point (also in the past), whether specified or implied.
To correct the grammar of your example, you’d have to switch to the past-progressive tense:
The restaurant’s excellent dinners were being prepared by Chef Bob for many years.
Or, as the better option, you could use the past-perfect tense alone:
The restaurant’s excellent dinners had been prepared by Chef Bob for many years.
The past-perfect may be the better option, but neither of those choices captures the sense of the past-perfect progressive. To use that, you’ll have to switch to the active voice:
Chef Bob had been preparing the restaurant’s excellent dinners for many years.
For a review of progressive tenses, see CMOS 5.135.