The Grammar Logs
#589

What is the correct usage for notating that you are copying someone on a letter. Should it be cc: (which used to mean carbon copy), or just c: (which means copy). I use the latter because carbon copies don't exist anymore. However, I was recently told by someone that cc: now stands for courtesy copy. Can you clear up this confusion for me? Thank you.

Microsoft Word says that "cc" stands for "courtesy copy," which is a bit of a stretch (sometimes it has very little to do with courtesy). It might even be a stretch to say that it means "carbon copy." It's probably just a way of making something plural, just as "pp" stands for "pages" and "ll" stands for "lines." Be that as it may, you can use the notation "cc" or just "c" or spell it out as "Copies to:" and people will know exactly what you mean.

Authority: The Gregg Reference Manual by William A. Sabin. 9th Edition. McGraw-Hill: New York. 2001. Used with the consent of Glencoe/McGraw-Hill. p. 383.

My question has to do with plurals. In the sentence:

"We appreciate the opportunity to help you meet your company's transportation and logistics needs."

Should logistics be plural?

"Logistics" is a plural noun, but it is also what we call the science of attending to details (particularly in moving military troops, matériel, etc.). You want to make sure, first of all, that transportation and logistics are not redundant in this phrase. But keep the plural form, as changing it to "logistic" makes us wonder how needs can be "logisitc."

What is the proper use of "adaption" versus "adaptation?"

Example: The goal is the overall adaption of our community campaign.

I don't think I had ever seen the word "adaption" used before. Merriam-Webster's says that "adaption" is a variant spelling of "adaptation." Garner's dictionary notes that the noun form "adaptation" is preferred over "adaption," but in the adjective form, the shorter "adaptive" is preferred over "adaptative." If you do a Google search, by the way, you'll see that "adaptation" leads "adaption" by 4.5 million to 69.

From Garner's Modern American Usageby Bryan Garner. Copyright 2003 by Bryan A. Garner. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., www.oup-usa.org, and used with the gracious consent of Oxford University Press.

By permission. From Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, 11th edition © 2003 by Merriam-Webster, Inc. (www.Merriam-Webster.com).

In a comparison using "as . . . as," is it true that, if the comparison is negative, the second "as" changes to "so"? Examples:

• I am as tall as Tim.
• I am not so tall as Tim.

It is true that many writers will use "so . . . as" in negative comparisons, as in your sentence about Tim. In fact, it used to be kind of a requirement — prior to the middle of the last century. In truth, however, "as … as" is used just as often as "so … as" even in negative constructions, and there is no particular difference in formality (although some grammarians continue to insist on the "so … as" negative construction in formal writing.

By permission, From Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage © 1994 by Merriam-Webster, Inc. (www.Merriam-Webster.com). p. 125.

Many people say 'I better' as in 'I better go home'. I would think it's more correct to say 'I had better go home', although the best is probably 'I should go home'. Is this use of 'better' a slang or colloquial saying? MSWord had no grammar problems with 'I better go home' - what do you think?

There's nothing wrong with the idiomatic "I had better [or 'I'd better'] go home." In casual situations, writers and speakers will dispense with the "had" or its contracted form: "I better go home." That should never happen in formal contexts. The omission of the "had" is much more common, apparently, in the U.S. than elsewhere.

Authority: The New Fowler's Modern English Usage edited by R.W. Burchfield. Clarendon Press: Oxford, England. 1996. Used with the permission of Oxford University Press.

I've been told by someone (who claims to be wiser) that the following portion of a sentence I wrote is incorrect:

but memories, like I, will soon grow old.

I have applied the same rule that I would to any other sentence where there are 2 subject pronouns (ie. removed "memories" from the sentence. The result being I would use "I", not "me".). However, he is certain that that rule does not apply in this case due to the use of the word "like", and insists it should be "me".

Can you please clear up this issue, so that I can be sure that the sentence is correct or revise it if I am mistaken? Thank you very much.

Removing "memories" doesn't help us discover the proper pronoun case in this situation. You have a prepositional phrase there, "like me," and you need the object form of the pronoun there as the object of the preposition, "like me." If you had used "such as" instead of "like," you would have used "I," as in "Memories, such as I, will soon grow old." How depressing is this!

Do we use the plural verb or singular verb in the following sentence :

The Musical Festival committee has / have agreed that they will hold the performance in the park.

Usually (but not always) a committee will act as one unit and you will want to use a singular verb to express its actions: "The committee HAS agreed." But then you run into "they," which suggests a plurality of people doing something as individuals. You can't have it both ways, but the "have agreed" seems clumsy (and is probably inaccurate). You can avoid the problem by talking about the "members of the festival committee" and tell us what they did — or come up with a different subject to replace "they."

I'm a content manager and am reviewing a headline for an ad. I'm having trouble explaining what is wrong with the following:

Product X makes life easier. So could winning $5,000.

I don't think it's a matter of tense: they're both present tense. It's a problem in parallel form. You've shifted from a simple present tense to an auxiliary construction. You could say, instead, "Product X could make life easier. So could winning $5,000" or you could write "Produce X makes life easier. So does winning $5,000."

The sentence reads:

They usually did something "different" each day.

Shouldn't "different" be "differently"?

No, "different" works here. It is a post-noun modifier for "something," meaning that they do something each day that they have never done before, that they like variety in their lives. If they did something differently each day, that might mean, for instance, that one day they'll eat breakfast on the porch, the next day in the TV room, the next day in bed, the next day on the roof, etc. In short, we want the adjective "different" to modify the indefinite "something"; the adverb "differently" would modify the verb "did," which is probably not appropriate in this sentence.

What is the difference between "quote" (in the noun sense) and "quotation"? Can "quote" be used in the sense of "quotation," or is it only correct to use it as in "stock quote" or "price quote"? Is it more correct to say, "Here is a quote from my favorite author" or "Here is a quotation from my favorite author"?

Bryan Garner regards the use of "quote" as a noun (meaning "quotation") as a "casualism," but adds that this usage is "likely to gain ground in formal prose" (if only because the word is more efficient). In formal text, where you are being quite careful in your lanuage, use "quotation from my favorite author."

From Garner's Modern American Usageby Bryan Garner. Copyright 2003 by Bryan A. Garner. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., www.oup-usa.org, and used with the gracious consent of Oxford University Press.

Previous Grammar Log

Next Grammar Log

Index of Grammar Logs

Guide to Grammar and Writing