June Casagrande > Quotes

“As you can see, the hyphen is a nasty, tricky, evil little mark that gets its kicks igniting arguments in newsrooms and trying to make everyone in the English-speaking world look like an idiot - it's the Bill Maher of punctuation.”
― June Casagrande, Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite

“Grammar snobs are a distinct breed from their gentle cousins: word nerds and grammar geeks. The difference is bloodlust.”
― June Casagrande, Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite

“If you want to master the art of the sentence, you must first accept a somewhat unpleasant truth--something a lot of writers would rather deny: The Reader is king. You are his servant. You serve the Reader information. You serve the Reader entertainment. You serve the Reader details of your company's recent merger or details of your experiences in drug rehab. In each case, as a writer you're working for the man (or the woman). Only by knowing your place can you do your job well.”
― June Casagrande, It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Crafting Killer Sentences

“Amateur grammar snobs are a lot like amateur gynecologists--they're everywhere, they're all to eager to offer their services, and they're anything but gentle.”
― June Casagrande, Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite

“If Readers have prejudices, that's the writing world we live in. We must decide how to navigate it. We can't please all the Readers all the time and we shouldn't try. but we don't get to create our Readers in our own image, either. We don't get to tell them what to value or enjoy. We can write in a way true to our own voice and our own ideas of beauty and substance, and we can hope that some readers appreciate it. But, even when we aim to serve the narrowest cross section of Readers, we're still working for the Readers we have. We should be grateful that we have them.”
― June Casagrande, It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Crafting Killer Sentences

“Is that a dangler in your memo or are you just glad to see me?”
― June Casagrande, Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite

“This chapter is dedicated to those other delights of punctuation--exquisite little squiggles, those most delightful dots and dashes, and other tragically under-appreciated tiny tidbits!

Nah. I'm just yankin' your chain.”
― June Casagrande, Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite

“You must now--before God, Jon Stewart, and whoever's sleeping next to you (even if these entities are one and the same)--make a solemn oath.”
― June Casagrande, Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite

“I hope that, by this point, you're feeling a little less intimidated by the meanies, because I've got some bad news: Meanies come in many forms, not just human. They can be not only animal, but also mineral. In rare cases, they can even be vegetable, but we can talk about William F. Buckley some other time.”
― June Casagrande, Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite

“For Whom the Snob Trolls”
― June Casagrande, Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite

“Rumor had it that Professor Jerkwad had a history of holding classes in bars and using the school's senior class as harvesting grounds for a long string of wives who never seemed to stay married to him past age twenty-eight. Rumor also had it that a few years later he was canned from his job mid some rather unpleasant allegations, but we journalists can't succumb to rumor and conjecture when nonspecific innuendo is so much more titillating.”
― June Casagrande, Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite

“He needed to “kill his darlings”—Stephen King’s favorite term for letting go of stuff that just doesn’t work.”
― June Casagrande, It Was The Best Of Sentences, It Was The Worst Of Sentences: A Writer's Guide To Crafting Killer Sentences

“Every long sentence can be broken up into shorter ones, and if you don’t know how—if you don’t see within your long sentences groupings of simple, clear ideas—it will show.”
― June Casagrande, It Was The Best Of Sentences, It Was The Worst Of Sentences: A Writer's Guide To Crafting Killer Sentences

“Whatever you do, don’t let laziness or cowardice dictate your word choices. If you’re not sure whether your character likes sardines or sleeps with guys named Ronaldo or wears a brassiere, well, sorry. You must figure that out before you pen your final draft because otherwise you’re unfairly burdening your Reader: “Geez, I just couldn’t decide what kind of gun she would have, so you figure it out.”
― June Casagrande, It Was The Best Of Sentences, It Was The Worst Of Sentences: A Writer's Guide To Crafting Killer Sentences

“The job of a subordinating conjunction is (drum roll, please) to subordinate. It relegates a clause to a lower grammatical status in the sentence.”
― June Casagrande, It Was The Best Of Sentences, It Was The Worst Of Sentences: A Writer's Guide To Crafting Killer Sentences

“A common comma error occurs when an e-mail or letter greeting is structured: Hey Jane, Hi Pete, Hello everyone, Howdy stranger, Jane, Pete, everyone, and stranger here are direct addresses that should be set off with commas. Right: Hey, Jane. Right: Hi, Pete. Right: Hello, everyone. Right: Howdy, stranger. Note that these greetings follow a different grammatical structure from the classic Dear John, or Dear Sirs, in which the word dear is an adjective and therefore part of the direct address (part of the noun phrase). Unlike hey and hello, dear is not a complete thought. So it makes sense to follow Dear John with a comma, thereby integrating it into the first sentence of the e-mail or letter. But Hey, Jane and Hi, Pete are complete sentences that can be followed by periods or other terminal punctuation.”
― June Casagrande, The Best Punctuation Book, Period: A Comprehensive Guide for Every Writer, Editor, Student, and Businessperson

“Flabby prose, repetitiveness, and statements beleaguering the obvious separate the amateurs from the pros.”
― June Casagrande, It Was The Best Of Sentences, It Was The Worst Of Sentences: A Writer's Guide To Crafting Killer Sentences

“Subordinating conjunctions relegate clauses to a lower grammatical status. Subordination means that what was a whole sentence is whole no more. It’s a mere subordinate clause.”
― June Casagrande, It Was The Best Of Sentences, It Was The Worst Of Sentences: A Writer's Guide To Crafting Killer Sentences

“Just never fall victim to the idea that every little action in your story is critical. It’s not.”
― June Casagrande, It Was The Best Of Sentences, It Was The Worst Of Sentences: A Writer's Guide To Crafting Killer Sentences

“Subordinating conjunctions are a much larger set. They include after, although, as, because, before, if, since, than, though, unless, until, when, and while.”
― June Casagrande, It Was The Best Of Sentences, It Was The Worst Of Sentences: A Writer's Guide To Crafting Killer Sentences

“The Reader’s needs should dictate which information you subordinate. If you subordinate the information about a ten-million-dollar gift, it should be a choice—a result of the power you wield over words.”
― June Casagrande, It Was The Best Of Sentences, It Was The Worst Of Sentences: A Writer's Guide To Crafting Killer Sentences

“Amateur grammar snobs are a lot like amateur gynecologists—they’re everywhere, they’re all too eager to offer their services, and they’re anything but gentle.”
― June Casagrande, Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite

“Feel free to use the following mnemonic device to help you remember: “To lay is to get laid and laid.” (This is meant in the stuffiest grammatical sense and in no way implies the kind of smut a Santa Monica police officer might read into it.) “To lie,” then, works as follows. “Today I lie on the beach.” “Yesterday I lay on the beach.” “At times, I have lain on the beach.” None of those acts puts me in any danger of being arrested for lewd and lascivious behavior. But that’s only because I conjugated the verb correctly. I”
― June Casagrande, Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite

“every rewrite contains the danger of lost meaning or lost information or even the possibility you’ll make the sentence factually incorrect. So while reworking for clarity, the writer must always keep a tight rein on accuracy and meaning.”
― June Casagrande, It Was The Best Of Sentences, It Was The Worst Of Sentences: A Writer's Guide To Crafting Killer Sentences

“subordination is not a bad thing. It’s a tool. It only becomes a bad thing when you subordinate the stuff most interesting to your Reader while elevating less important information.”
― June Casagrande, It Was The Best Of Sentences, It Was The Worst Of Sentences: A Writer's Guide To Crafting Killer Sentences

“The point is, either explain or don’t. But don’t half-ass it.”
― June Casagrande, It Was The Best Of Sentences, It Was The Worst Of Sentences: A Writer's Guide To Crafting Killer Sentences

“These are the questions that a skilled newswriter asks: “How will this affect the Reader? Why should he care?” Such questions lead to an opener like this: The bumpy ride on Main Street isn’t going to get smoother anytime soon.”
― June Casagrande, It Was The Best Of Sentences, It Was The Worst Of Sentences: A Writer's Guide To Crafting Killer Sentences