was she trying for irony?

[cellio]

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation sounds like a great book for grammar nerds, but I am put off somewhat by the 1.5 punctuation errors in the title. (One is debatable and might be excused by context (it refers to a joke containing the phrase); the other is clearly wrong.)

Comments

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

The lack of hyphenation in zero-tolerance seems to be controversial, but ... When I learned copy editing at my university paper (we used the AP stylebook), I seem to remember that the rule was to hyphenate if the words in question were being used as an adjective (as they are here) and not to hyphenate if the words in question were being used as a noun. To wit:

"I have zero tolerance for this approach."

vs.

"The principal's zero-tolerance policy won enthusiastic support from parents."

[cellio]

Yes, I agree with this. The hyphenation is due to adjectival use, not to some inherent property of the phrase. You'll sometimes see effects from people who only learned "hyphens are important", in both noun and verb phrases (e.g. "log-in to the computer").

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

Before I moved to Atlanta, I was working at an energy consultancy outside of Boston. I tried and tried while I was there to convince my boss & my colleagues that consistency of style was important in our publications. They thought I was a bit dotty, but once a copy editor, always a copy editor. It made me cringe a little to see that these people (all experts in their field) were prone to occasional displays of rather shaky grammar and syntax. Nevertheless, what they wrote was never as bad as some of the academic weirdness that my husband runs into at work (i.e., Emory U.).

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Chicago now says that the hyphen for adjectival clauses is optional and declining. It's important for a house style to be consistent, but that's it.

[cellio]

Adjectival hyphens are becoming optional in at least one reputable style guide? How sad. While I can't call any to mind at the moment, I know I've read enough confusing hyphenless sentences to fear the results. (The very best writers can be clear regardless of the applicable grammar/style rules -- it's everyone else I'm worried about.)