It's “Daylight Saving Time”

 This week we (OK, most of us) in the United States moved our clocks forward one hour. And then the U.S. Senate advanced legislation to stop doing that. This brought to mind a commonly heard mistake: adding an s at the end of the second word in “Daylight Saving Time.” If you find yourself wondering about that or other time-related grammar questions, check out Grammar Girl’ post and episode here.

Happy Grammar Day!

 

Happy National Grammar Day! (Get it? March Fourth is a homophone for March Fourth!) Instead of sharing with you every grammatical tick that annoys me as it happens, I pledged to limit myself to sharing that no more than once a year. Here are my four grammar pet peeves for 2022:

• When you introduce a list, only use a colon if a complete sentence precedes the list. (“Here’s what you should bring on the campout: a sleeping bag, a tent, and a flashlight.” OR “You should bring a sleeping bag, a tent, and a flashlight.” NOT “You should bring: a sleeping bag, a tent, and a flashlight.”)
• Don't introduce a range that uses an en dash with “from” (“The meeting is 1:00–2:00 p.m. Thursday.” NOT “The meeting is from 1:00–2:00 p.m. Thursday.”)
• A full date requires a comma after the year unless it falls at the end of the sentence. (“They met on October 1, 2021, to discuss whether to sell the company.” NOT They met on October 1, 2021 to discuss whether to sell the company.”)
• Italicize only foreign-derived words that have not yet become common. When in doubt, check a dictionary like Merriam–Webster’s. (You lawyers can use Black’s Law Dictionary as your go-to.) (Italicize expressio unius est exclusio alterius, ipse dixit, and persona miserabilis, but not amicus curiae, chutzpah, de facto, de novo, ex officio, per se, or persona non grata.)
• BONUS TYPOGRAPHIC TIP: Choose between vertical space between paragraphs and indenting each paragraph’s first line. You don't need both.
• SECOND BONUS TYPOGRAPHIC TIP: NEVER use underline, especially for emphasis. God gave us italics for a reason. (There are a few exceptions for using underlines, mostly what lawyers refer to as “redlining” to indicate altered text in exchanging draft documents.)