Jesse Ventura hit the airwaves of Washington in recent days. Listening to one of his interviews, I was struck by how articulate a speaker he is, with little hesitation, few ums, likes, and I means. He’s direct, knows what he wants to say, and says it with clarity. Perhaps that’s because, as he says, wrestling taught him to think quickly on his feet, something that carried over to his political career as the Independent governor of Minnesota.

So, being impressed with his speaking style, I grimaced just a bit when he said, “If you allow the third party equal footing, they can be successful.”

The use of they when referring to a single entity such as an organization, corporation, government, or, in this case, a political party is something I hear frequently on the radio, spoken by commentators and reporters as well as by those being interviewed. It’s also a grammatical error I find myself correcting more and more in proofs of articles to be printed in National Geographic, and that’s usually after writer and editor have spent some time on the text.

The Brits, of course, have long used plural verbs with an entity comprised of individuals (“the government have instituted new procedures”), and it could be argued from the modern “notional” approach to grammar that a plural pronoun is acceptable because the single entity is made up of individuals.

I am not convinced by notional grammar in this particular structure, though apparently I don’t always persuade National Geographic editors and writers to follow me down the strict path of structural agreement (see, there’s a degree of wrestling in my work too!).

Here are two examples of pronoun and antecedent not agreeing. The first was corrected before publication in National Geographic; the second was not.

            • The crew was freed. Later, they were stunned when investigators revealed
               that one of their own had betrayed them.

            • That fall, Lishui [a city] applied to add another 13.5 square miles to the
              development zone. The expansion would require an investment of almost
              900 million dollars, most of which would come from bank loans. They planned
              to double the city’s population by 2020.

Jesse seems to be in good company. 

Why is it that in recent years the definite article the has become commonly attached to a description of a well-known person as if he or she were the only such person in the world?

For instance, one no longer says “paintings by cowboy artist Charles M. Russell.” Instead, it’s “paintings by the cowboy artist Charles M. Russell,” no doubt leaving the ghost of Frederic Remington a bit unsettled, not to mention the living, breathing members of an organization called the Cowboy Artists of America. In fact, if one Googles “cowboy artist,” a multitude of modern-day names appears before Remington’s, and still no Charley Russell. He’s obviously not the only cowboy artist of note.

One of the most annoying examples I’ve seen recently of what I consider a misuse of the definite article is in Joan Acocella’s otherwise entertaining and insightful critique of Dancing With the Stars, in the April 14 New Yorker (emphasis below is mine):

    “The new season kicked off last month with twelve stars:
    the comedian and magician Penn Jillette; the tennis
    champion Monica Seles; the rhythm-and-blues singer
    Mario; Jason Taylor, the Miami Dolphin’s defensive end;
    Kristi Yamaguchi, the gold-medal figure skater. . . .”

None of these people is the one and only in a category. There are many tennis champions, and Kristi is a gold-medal figure skater.

Elsewhere in the same New Yorker I came across “married to José Ferrer, the actor” and “Erica Jong, the novelist, essayist, and poet” and then in this week’s issue “by the novelist and short-story writer Mark Poirier.” What’s wrong with “married to actor José Ferrer” or “by novelist and short-story writer Mark Poirier”?

I don’t want you to think I’m beating up on the New Yorker unfairly; it just happens to be what I’ve been reading in the past day or so. I can assure you this construction is used in virtually all publications today, even in National Geographic, although I’ll continue to delete extraneous the’'s if I can.

In addition to being annoyed by this particular word usage, I’m also intrigued with how quickly and universally writers can adopt and advance a new construction. I’m probably one of the few left behind grumbling about abused definite articles.

By the way, I’m rooting for Jason Taylor to win Dancing With the Stars, even though Kristi Yamaguchi let her hair down and danced an amazingly sensuous rumba in this week’s show.

Yikes! I misspelled receive in an email to members of a committee I serve on. Thank goodness they are gardeners and not grammarians, and so far have been too polite to point out my mistake.

But it’s made me ponder the fast-paced world of email, and how the number of messages seems to be expanding exponentially. We write, we read, we respond all at lightning speed. We monitor email close to 24/7, via iPhones, BlackBerries, laptops. There’s little time anymore for thoughtful, well constructed, correctly punctuated and spelled emails. Instead, the pressure is on to respond quickly to those messages in our in boxes before we become overtaken by unread emails. And, of course, we churn out new emails to others, thus keeping them as frantic as we are.

Does it matter that a professional editor, in her haste to conduct personal business and finish a task, misspelled a word? It wasn’t that I didn’t know the correct spelling, and I noticed the mistake myself the next day. Still, it’s troublesome. For years my training and profession has pushed me to be exact and precise. Now years of discipline are being challenged.

I think too of my daughter, who from a very young age was a voracious reader but even now in graduate school is a terrible speller. When she was in eighth grade her English teacher tried to ease her father’s and my concern by suggesting that spell check was the answer. We were skeptical.

I suppose misspelling a word is not worth agonizing over—or angsting, as my colleague Cathy likes to say. It’s not as if anyone were harmed by my mistake. And the email went to only a few, apparently forgiving, people.

Maybe the answer is to slow down—and remember to spell check. Or maybe it’s to move on quickly and don’t sweat the small stuff. That could be a life-changing experience.

With the discoveries in the past several weeks that two recently published memoirs were fakes, there’s been an increased focus in the news on fact-checking, something that magazines do routinely but that appears to be largely absent in book publishing. (See “Gang Memoir, Turning Page, Is Pure Fiction” in the New York Times and “Best-Selling Holocaust Tale Untrue, Author Admits” in the Washington Post.)

Since the 1950s National Geographic has had a rigorous research, or fact-checking, process, with a staff of researchers dedicated to the magazine’s publishing the most accurate, truthful information possible. This is not because we don’t trust our writers and photographers. We do trust them; they are among the world’s best reporters and journalists. But everyone can make a mistake, hear something incorrectly, be misled by a published source (perhaps a book that hasn’t been fact-checked?), or have an editor inadvertently introduce an error.

So our researchers diligently verify all that we publish. Not just the basic facts of names, dates, statistics, and superlatives (should we really say that Antarctica, not the Sahara, is the largest desert on Earth?), but also details of complex scientific research, subtle nuances of language (is it truly “cannibalism” if a nudibranch eats a member of a species other than its own?), identification of places, people, and objects in our photographs. (The next time I write about research, I’ll take a more humorous slant and tell you some of the amazing and amusing statements researchers have tackled.)

Though we sometimes verify a quote by reading it back to the author’s source, more often than not we will send it in writing to the source, often including the surrounding text in order to show the context. We do not change a quote for editorial reasons—in fact, we publish quotes despite sources’ objections if we have sound backup—but we do correct factual errors and delete problematic material.

Because of the depth and thoroughness of our research, there’s usually a learning curve—or should I call it an acceptance curve—for first-time writers at the magazine as they get used to our research. Most come around on subsequent assignments to a full appreciation of the support they get from our staff. After all, our writers and photographers are experienced journalists who care as much about getting the facts right as do the researchers.

Yes, there’s sometimes tension—perhaps when a researcher looks at a statement too literally or an author lets his or her writing style veer toward hyperbole. Yet this is the kind of creative tension that results in a top-quality story. The interaction between researchers and writers today is the most positive I’ve known in many years.

My entire career has been in research at National Geographic, which I’m happy to say continues to value stringent research, even in these days of declining circulation and staff cuts. It’s hard for me to imagine how those memoir book editors could have been hoodwinked. But what concerns me even more is what the public thinks. Does the ordinary person care at all about truth and honesty and accuracy? Are readers disturbed by fabricated memoirs? Or is there such a pervasive cynicism about the press, accompanied by an acceptance of embellishment for the sake of entertainment—or maybe education—that none of this matters? I sincerely hope not, but I wonder.

What do you readers think?

A recent article about semicolons, published in the New York Times, caught my attention, so I wrote a column for our internal news site about the demise of the semicolon and about how we are using fewer in the pages of National Geographic today than we once did. Wow! Did I ever get a strong response from colleagues.

A writer who usually praises my writings on grammar and word usage said, “Fie on anyone who would propose the demise of the semicolon; heresy of the highest order. Writers ought to have all the tools of punctuation at their disposal.” 

An editor wrote: “Frankly, I like semicolons; they let you know there is more to come; they link the logical sequence of set-up, then resolution.”

Notice how cleverly these two correspondents punctuated their thoughts.

Another editor told me she recently asked an author to decrease the number of semicolons in a story because they were slowing down the pace and were too cumbersome. (Ah, at least one person on my side.)

A third editor opined that she is a devotee of the semicolon and finds it elegant, something that she’d have a hard time giving up.

A member of our Detroit advertising office offered this: “My favorite example of incorrect semicolon usage is found within this sentence, however; I have no doubt you'll identify it easily.”

And a marketer in our book division observes: “I was just reading your article on semicolons, and I realized that I use semicolons most often when I'm joining two independent clauses separated by a conjunctive adverb.  Would that qualify as archaic these days?  And if so, would you recommend using a period instead?”

(After reading this last comment, I wondered how many conjunctive adverbs most of us could list. In answer to his question, yes, a period would work, and in some cases a comma would too.)

I’m sorry to have caused angst in some of my colleagues. My advice to everyone is that if you like semicolons and are using them correctly, then, please, continue to use them. As an editor, I would be reluctant to actually remove a semicolon as long as it suits the style of the writing.

On the other hand, having been given permission to do this by William Strunk and E. B. White (page 12 of the illustrated Elements of Style), I may allow someone with a breezy, chatty style to substitute commas for semicolons: He came, he saw, he conquered.

And for those of you scratching your heads over conjunctive adverbs, here’s a list taken from the third edition of Words Into Type: so, therefore, hence, however, nevertheless, moreover, accordingly, besides, also, thus, then, still, otherwise.

As I was decompressing in front of my TV Saturday night—a long way from my weekday copyediting mode—I never expected to be exposed to grammar. But I was—twice. The first time, I was watching Jeopardy!  One of the game categories was Grammar, and amazingly all five questions were easily and quickly answered, including one on the proper form of a noun or pronoun to use in front of a gerund and another asking contestants to complete the correlative conjunction not only/but _____.

Considering how often I find myself correcting these very same constructions in texts we are about to publish, I was amazed at the contestants’ knowledge (at least two of them participated in answering the category of five questions). So for those of you not up on this topic, a noun or pronoun in front of a gerund should be possessive. Most of us have no question about the correct form when using pronouns; it’s the nouns that trip us up. So if in doubt, a good test is to substitute a pronoun for a noun to see what sounds right to your ear.            

            We appreciate your taking the time to write.
            James’s running off at the mouth was not appreciated by his mother.
            The cat’s pouncing on the bed awakened her.
            He disliked Susan’s ruffling his hair whenever she passed by.

As for the correlative conjunction not only/but also, I suspect that I insert also, or its equivalent, more times than not while copyediting text. Here are some examples from recent articles in National Geographic, though I don't remember which ones were right to begin with:   

            . . . shapes not only Indonesia’s landscape but also its beliefs
            . . . head-to-head not only with the authorities but also with his boss
            . . . not only for waterfowl but also for woodcock, snipe, and doves
            . . . ensures not only ecosystem integrity but also social viability

After Jeopardy! I flipped around the channels for a while, resting briefly on a PBS channel showing Bob Dylan performing in the 1960s. No grammar there, but it was, nostalgic, and powerful, to see Joan Baez and Peter, Paul, and Mary on stage with Dylan, singing “Blowing in the Wind” and to remember all the angst and emotions of those Vietnam years. I can take Dylan only in small doses and soon flipped to another station and watched the 1947 film The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.

That’s where the second grammar lesson of the evening happened, as Mrs. Muir, a young widow played by Gene Tierney, corrects the ghost of swashbuckling Captain Daniel Gregg (a young Rex Harrison): “different from, not different than,” she tells him. I wondered, would anyone today, in 2008, know what she was talking about? Maybe it doesn’t matter. Just lean back and enjoy the movie, I told myself.

Shuja, a reader of this blog and the editor of a student-run publication, asks what unique methods and safeguards NGM has to ensure its excellent quality.

I don’t think we have any methods unique to the Geographic. Rather, we do what serious editors everywhere do: We read, read, and read. Sometimes the same copy editor reads all proofs of the same story. Other times copy editors switch off on reading proofs. In the final stages, our articles go through a proofreader. And throughout the process many other eyes—among them the editor in chief, the managing editor, the text editor and researcher for each article—read and reread what is to be published. That’s why it’s almost inexplicable when something slips past all these keen eyes.

In addition to reading and rereading, we also count on our knowledge and experience. We care about proper word usage, and we like to debate correct grammar and punctuation and puzzle out strange constructions (though, I have to admit, none of us is terribly skilled any more at diagramming sentences).

Sometimes, despite our knowledge, the brain just shorts out and misses something that it should know. Just today, a copy editor corrected a sentence that two others of us had read right over: She changed “One out of four Chinese are migrants” to “One out of four Chinese is a migrant.” One can argue that the meaning of this construction implies more than a single person and therefore a plural verb is justified (“notational agreement” is the term used in Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage), but our normal style at National Geographic is to follow the construction of the sentence and use a singular verb with the subject one.

How do we stay together, maintaining consistency with so many staff commenting on copy? Perhaps our most important tool is the National Geographic Style Manual, an in-house guide to editorial style now available to the public electronically. A committee of editors from throughout the National Geographic Society—representing print, television, and electronic media—meets monthly to discuss issues and keep the manual up-to-date, which enables us to maintain consistency among all our many publications and products.

On the NGM staff we have a Copydesk Director, whose responsibility is to ensure uniformity throughout the magazine. This position was established last year—taking the copy editing function out of the research division where it had resided for eons—committing the magazine to an even more intensive scrutiny before it’s sent to the printer. And speaking of the printer, there have been times when someone at the printing plant has spotted a typo.

So, you see, Shuja, it takes a whole editorial village to reach our standards. When on rare occasions we falter, our loyal readers are quick to let us know. Their high expectations encourage us to work harder. Good luck to you in your striving to print an “impeccable issue, devoid of mistakes.”

Because I’ve been researching and copyediting for several decades, I sometimes get cocky and think I know everything there is to know about my craft and how to copyedit, and then POW, I discover something basic that I never imagined, and I’m amazed and humbled.

My most recent POW moment came as a result of a discussion I had with another editor on the magazine’s staff, who asked why Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary  breaks pe-tro-leum one way and pet-ro-chem-i-cal another, especially if in the pronunciation guide both words break after pe.

I had not a clue how to answer this question, and so sent an email off to the nice folk at Merriam-Webster’s Language Research Service. Within a few hours I received the thorough and polite explanation that follows.

“Thank you very much for writing to Merriam-Webster. The raised dots that appear in boldface entry words indicate possible end-of-line divisions, rather than syllable breaks. When we decide where to put these division dots, we take into account such things as morphology in addition to pronunciation. Syllable breaks are only shown within pronunciations. You’ll notice that the break between the first two syllables in ‘petroleum,’ ‘petrodollar,’ and ‘petrochemical’ is the same, even though the division dots appear in different places:

                                                pe• tro• leum \pə-'trō-lē-əm\
                                                pet• ro• chem• i• cal \'pe-trō-'ke-mi-kəl\
                                                pet• ro• dol• lar  \'pe-trō-'dä-lər\

With end-of-line divisions in general, there are acceptable alternatives, but we only show one set of possible divisions for each entry because we don’t have enough room to list them all. You can find more information about end-of-line divisions at http://merriam-webster.com/help/dictnotes/entries.htm (you’ll have to scroll down to get to the relevant section, which is about half-way down the page). You can find more information about syllable breaks in pronunciations in the section on hyphens at http://merriam-webster.com/help/pronguide.htm.”

As grateful as I am for this explanation, it still leaves unanswered my colleague’s question about which breaks to follow. Morphology? What does that mean? My fellow editor would deviate from Webster’s and break all three words after the pe, as they are pronounced.

If there are copyeditors reading this blog, I’d be interested to know what your guidelines are.

As to the word petrochemical in our manuscript, we’re going to recast the sentence or change the spacing to avoid breaking the word.

In my previous blog about the subjunctive, I spoke about those situations in which the writer or speaker must decide whether a statement is an outright presentation of fact (requiring the indicative mood) or a hypothetical statement or one contrary to fact (requiring subjunctive). And, for you die-hard grammarians, I promised a future column about this esoteric subject.

So, here it is.

Other uses for the subjunctive occur in set, idiomatic expressions and with verbs of wishing and demanding. Fortunately these two categories usually take little analysis and are spoken correctly with no thought at all by native speakers.

Idioms displaying the subjunctive include “God forbid,” “heaven help him,” “wish she were here,” “lest I be considered,” “be that as it may.” The verb form in these phrases is subjunctive, formed by using the base word from the infinitive form of the verb. So, for the verb to be, the present subjunctive is be, in contrast to the indicative forms am, are, and is. (The past tense subjunctive for the verb to be is were, although it is past tense not in a temporal sense, but only a modal sense. See how complex this subject can be.)  In regular verbs the subjunctive can be discerned only in the third person singular because the normal “s” ending is dropped: God forbid (subjunctive); God forbids (indicative).

Wishes and demands also take the subjunctive, although the indicative seems to be gaining favor with wishes. “I wish I were more flexible on the dance floor [subjunctive]”; “I wish I was more flexible on the dance floor [indicative].” “The teacher demanded that Lynn close her book immediately and insisted she do the rest of the drawing from memory [both verbs are subjunctive].”

Enough of this tiring explanation. Most of you will use the subjunctive correctly without even thinking. For those debatable instances in which the most formal of writers would instinctively use the subjunctive and less formal writers would just as instinctively opt for a more conversational indicative, you will have good company no matter which style you follow.

When I returned to the office the day after Christmas, I had messages from two readers about perceived errors in the January issue. As director of editorial research and the magazine’s style maven, I’ve dealt with such letters for many years and by-and-large enjoy this chance to communicate with our readers. They care as much as we do about the words in National Geographic, and we should listen to their concerns as well as to share with them how we think. 

Of course it’s easier to answer letters from gentle, polite, thoughtful readers than it is the blasts we occasionally get from what another wordsmith calls the gotcha gang. My Christmas communications represented one of each.

The first was a polite voice mail message left in the Editor’s office a few days before Christmas by a mountain climber, who pointed out that we had the wrong elevation for Annapurna on page 117 of the Polish climbing story in the January issue. The correct figure is 26,502 feet, not 29,502. The gentle reader was, unfortunately, right. A researcher on our staff transposed the 6 to a 9 when inserting the elevation into the text, and none of the rest of us reading proofs noticed that we had consequently made Annapurna higher than Everest. Such a mistake is particularly embarrassing for a geographic publication that prides itself on a rigorous research process.

The second reader was less temperate in tone, calling us to task for a typo on page 142—“you replaced ‘sure’ with ‘sore’ ”—and concluding with, “Seeing such a stupid mistake in an otherwise wonderful publication is extremely disconcerting.” Needless to say, I was also disconcerted until I found the sentence in question and assured myself that it was correct as written, though I could see why the reader had misread it: “He was not sore [sure] the owner didn’t want to sell, because it might have been a family home.” This reader was gracious enough to write back to apologize.

Although we are only human and will sometimes print factual or grammatical errors, we set extremely high standards for ourselves and have many safeguards in place to prevent sloppy or inaccurate writing. Our readers too have high expectations for our magazine, and we try hard not to disappoint them or ourselves. On those rare occasions when we are wrong, we admit it, look for ways to prevent such a mistake from happening again, and move on.

As one of my bosses said after I had let a misspelling slip into print early in my career, we can at least take solace in the fact that no one was harmed by the error.