What You Did in the Sixth Grade

You sat at your desk, sharpened pencil in hand, and watched as your teacher wrote the rules on comma usage and apostrophes on the blackboard. You dutifully memorized the list of prepositions, and wrote carefully on your wide rule notebook paper that you will never end a sentence with one of those words. These rules have served you well your entire life. However, many of those standards, much like the clothes you wore during adolescence, are out of date. If you don’t stay current, you

look as if showed up to work today sporting a polyester leisure suit.

Don’t take my word for it. Check out the list below with links to sage grammarians.

Two spaces after a period – Stop it now!

Ending a sentence with a preposition – Not the offense it once was, or ever was. Worth taking a look at. (Although my fingers did have a hard time ending a sentence with at. It didn’t get any easier the second time I did it.)

Adding an apostrophe s to a word that ends in s – (ie. James’s book.) This is still hard for me to accept. The extra s appears awkward, and seems as unnecessary as wearing suspenders and a belt.

Capitalization of a salutation, or a complementary close – No change here, but the following is a common mistake:

Best Regards,
John Doe

I figured it was time to clear up the specifics of this rule.

The hard part is being bold enough to change. When do you compensate for others? You want to appear fashion-forward, not ignorant. I’ve seen people get fist-pounding mad about ending a sentence with a prepositions, “Didn’t you go to school? That’s not correct!” This is why it is important to remember your audience. Afraid to end a sentence with a preposition in your peer reviewed case study? Fair enough, but if you’re running an ad campaign targeting the youth of America, keep it casual.

If only the English language had slick ad campaigns with good looking models informing all of us of the latest style changes.

Look, commas have a new cover girl!