by Bill Bryson
Zidane, Zinedine. (1972–) French soccer player.
Ziegfeld, Florenz. (1867–1932) American musical theater producer.
ziggurat.
Zimbabwe. African republic, formerly Rhodesia; capital Harare.
Zinnemann, Fred. (1907–1997) Austrian-born American film director.
Zions BanCorp. Utah-based banking company.
zip code. U.S. postal code.
zloty. Poland’s basic unit of currency; pl. zlotys.
Zoellick, Robert. (1953–) American civil servant, made president of the World Bank in 2007 in succession to Paul Wolfowitz.
zoetrope. Nineteenth-century optical toy.
Zoroaster (Greek)/Zarathustra (Persian). (fl. sixth c. BC) Persian prophet, founder of Zoroastrianism.
Zorrilla y Moral, José. (1817–1893) Spanish poet.
Zsigmond, Vilmos. (1930–) Hungarian-born American cinematographer.
Zubaie, Salam al-. Iraq deputy prime minister, injured in bomb attack in 2007.
zucchini. American name for courgette.
Zukor, Adolph. (1873–1976) Hungarian-born American film producer and studio executive.
zum Beispiel. (Ger.) (Abbr. z.B.) For example.
Zurbriggen, Purmin. (1963–) Swiss skier.
zut alors! (Fr.) Cry of astonishment.
Zvonareva, Vera. (1984–) Russian tennis player.
Zwelithini, Goodwill. (1948–) King, Zulu Nation in South Africa (1968–).
zwieback. A kind of rusk.
Zwingli, Ulrich (or Huldreich). (1484–1531) Swiss religious zealot.
Zworykin, Vladimir. (1889–1982) Russian-born American scientist, one of the inventors of television.
APPENDIX
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Punctuation
The uses of punctuation marks are so numerous and the abuses so varied that the following is offered only as a very general guide to the most common errors. For those who wish to dig more deeply, I recommend the excellent Mind the Stop, by G. V. Carey.
apostrophe. The principal functions of the apostrophe are to indicate omitted letters (don’t, can’t, wouldn’t) and to show the possessive (strictly, the genitive) case (John’s book, the bank’s money, the people’s choice).
Two types of error occur with some frequency and are worth noting. They involve the following:
1. Multiple possessives. This problem can be seen here: “This is a sequel to Jeremy Paul’s and Alan Gibson’s play”(Times). The question is whether both of the apostrophes are necessary, and the answer in this instance is no. Because the reference is to a single play written jointly, only the second-named man needs to be in the possessive. Thus, it should be “Jeremy Paul and Alan Gibson’s play.” If the reference were to two or more plays written separately, both names would have to carry apostrophes. The rule is that when possession is held in common, only the nearer antecedent should be possessive; when possession is separate, each antecedent must be in the possessive.
2. Plural units of measure. Many writers who would never think of omitting the apostrophes in “a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work” often do exactly that when the unit of measure is increased. Consider “Laker gets further thirty days credit” (Times headline); “Mr. Taranto, who had nineteen years service with the company…”(New York Times). The words should appear as days’ and years’. Alternatively, we could insert an of after the time elements (“thirty days of credit,” “nineteen years of service”). One or the other is necessary.
The problem is often aggravated by the inclusion of unnecessary words, as in each of these examples: “The scheme could well be appropriate in twenty-five years time, he said” (Times); “Many diplomats are anxious to settle the job by the end of the session in two weeks time” (Observer); “The government is prepared to part with several hundred acres worth of property” (Time magazine). Each requires an apostrophe. But that need could be obviated by excluding the superfluous wordage. What is “in twenty-five years’ time” if not “in twenty-five years”? What does “several hundred acres’ worth” say that “several hundred acres” does not?
colon. The colon marks a formal introduction or indicates the start of a series. A colon should not separate a verb from its object in simple enumerations. Thus, it would be wrong to say, “The four states bordering Texas are: New Mexico, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana.” The colon should be removed. But it would be correct to say, “Texas is bordered by four states: New Mexico, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana.”
comma. The trend these days is to use the comma as sparingly as form and clarity allow. But there are certain instances in which it should appear but all too often does not. Equally, it has a tendency to crop up with alarming regularity in places where it has no business. It is, in short, the most abused of punctuation marks and one of the worst offenders of any kind in the English language. Essentially the comma’s use is compulsory in three situations and recommended in a fourth.
1. When the information provided is clearly parenthetical. Consider these two sentences, both of which are correctly punctuated: “Mr. Lawson, the energy secretary, was unavailable for comment” “The ambassador, who arrived in Britain two days ago, yesterday met with the prime minister.” In both sentences, the information between the commas is incidental to the main thought. You could remove it and the sentence would still make sense. In the following examples, the writer has failed to set off the parenthetical information. I have provided slashes (the proper name, incidentally, is virgules) to show where the commas should have gone: “British cars/says a survey/are more reliable than their foreign counterparts” (editorial in the Evening Standard); “Operating mainly from the presidential palace at Baabda/southeast of Beirut, Habib negotiated over a sixty-five-day period” (Time magazine); “Mary Chatillon, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Reading Language Disorder Unit/maintains: ‘It would simply appear to be…’”(Time magazine). It should perhaps be noted that failure to put in a comma is particularly common after a parenthesis, as here: “Mr. James Grant, executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)/says…”(Times).
Occasionally the writer recognizes that the sentence contains a parenthetical thought but fails to discern just how much of the information is incidental, as here: “At nine she won a scholarship to Millfield, the private school, for bright children of the rich” (Evening Standard). If we removed what has been presented as parenthetical, the sentence would say: “At nine she won a scholarship to Millfield for bright children.” There should be no comma after school, because the whole of the last statement is parenthetical.
A rarer error is seen here: “But its big worry is the growing evidence that such ostentatious cars, the cheapest costs £55,240, are becoming socially unacceptable” (Times). When the incidental information could stand alone as a sentence, it needs to be set off with stronger punctuation—either dashes or parentheses.
2. When the information is nonrestrictive. The problem here—which is really much the same as that discussed in the previous three paragraphs—is illustrated by this incorrectly punctuated sentence from the Daily Mail: “Cable TV would be socially divisive, the chairman of the BBC George Howard claimed last night.” The writer has failed to understand the distinction between (1) “BBC chairman George Howard claimed last night” and (2) “The chairman of the BBC, George Howard, claimed last night.” In (1), the name George Howard is essential to the sense of the sentence; it defines it. If we removed it, the sentence would say, “BBC chairman claimed last night.” In (2), however, the name is nonrestrictive. In effect it is parenthetical. We could remove it without altering the sense of the sentence: “The chairman of the BBC claimed last night.” When a name or title can be removed, it should be set off with commas. When it cannot be removed, the use of commas is wrong.
Two hypothetical examples may help to clarify the distinction. Both are correctly punctuated. “John Fowles’s novel The Collector was a bestseller” “John Fowles’s first novel, The Colle
ctor, was a bestseller.” In the first example the name of the novel is restrictive because The Collector is only one of several novels by Fowles. In the second example it is nonrestrictive because only one novel can be the author’s first one. We could delete The Collector from the second example without spoiling the sense of the sentence, but not from the first.
When something is the only one of its kind, it should be set off with commas; when it is only one of several, the use of commas is wrong. Thus these two sentences, both from The Times, are incorrect: “When the well-known British firm, Imperial Metal Industries, developed two new types of superconducting wires…” “The writer in the American magazine, Horizon, was aware of this pretentiousness…” The first example would be correct only if Imperial Metal Industries were the only well-known British firm, and the second would be correct only if Horizon were America’s only magazine. The same error in reverse occurs here: “Julie Christie knows that in the week her new film The Return of the Soldier has opened…”(Sunday Times). Since The Return of the Soldier was Julie Christie’s only new film of the week, it should have been set off with commas.
The error frequently occurs when a marriage partner is named: “Mrs. Thatcher and her husband Denis left London yesterday” (Observer). Since Mrs. Thatcher has only one husband, it should be “and her husband, Denis, left London yesterday.”
3. With forms of address. When addressing people, you must use commas around the names or titles of those addressed. “Hit him Jim, hit him” (Sunday Times) should be “Hit him, Jim, hit him.” The television program Good Morning America should really be Good Morning, America. The film I’m All Right Jack should have been I’m All Right, Jack. The lack of a comma or commas is always sloppy and occasionally ambiguous. In 1981, for instance, the Sunday Express illustrated a novel serialization with the heading “I’m choking Mr. Herriot” when what it meant was “I’m choking, Mr. Herriot”—quite another matter.
4. With interpolated words or phrases. Words such as moreover, meanwhile, and nevertheless and phrases such as for instance and for example traditionally have taken commas, but the practice has become increasingly discretionary over the years. In Britain they have been more freely abandoned than in America; Fowler, for instance, seldom uses them. I would recommend using them when they suggest a pause or when ambiguity might result. This is especially true of however. Consider these two sentences: “However hard he tried, he failed” “However, he tried hard, but failed.” To keep from confusing the reader, if only momentarily, it is a good idea to set off however with commas when it is used as an interpolation. Much the same could be said of say: “She should choose a British government stock with [,] say [,] five years to run” (Daily Mail).
dash. Dashes should be used in pairs to enclose parenthetical matter or singly to indicate a sharp break in a sentence (“I can’t see a damn thing in here—ouch!”) or to place emphasis on a point (“There are only two things we can count on—death and taxes”). Dashes are most effective when used sparingly, and there should never be more than one pair in a single sentence. There are two common errors with dashes:
1. Failing to mark the end of a parenthetical comment with a second dash: “The group—it is the largest in its sector, with subsidiaries or associates in eleven countries, says trading has improved in the current year” (Times). Make it “countries—says.”
2. Allowing a word or phrase from the main part of the sentence to become locked within the parenthetical area, as here: “There is another institution which appears to have an even more—shall we say, relaxed—attitude to security” (Times). Removing the words between the dashes would give us an institution with “an even more attitude.” Relaxed belongs to the sentence proper and needs to be put outside the dashes: “There is another institution which appears to have an even more—shall we say?—relaxed attitude to security.” See also PARENTHESES.
ellipsis. An ellipsis (sometimes called an ellipse) is used to indicate that material has been omitted. It consists of three evenly spaced periods (…) and not, as some writers think, a random scattering of them. When an ellipsis occurs at the end of a sentence, a fourth period is often added.
exclamation marks are used to show strong emotion (“Get out!”) or urgency (“Help me!”). They should almost never be used for giving emphasis to a simple statement of fact: “It was bound to happen sometime! A bull got into a china shop here” (cited by Bernstein).
hyphen. Almost nothing can be said with finality about the hyphen. As Fowler says, “Its infinite variety defies description.” Even the word for using a hyphen is contentious: some authorities hyphenate words, but others hyphen them. The principal function of the hyphen is to reduce the chances of ambiguity. Consider, for instance, the distinction between “the twenty-odd members of his cabinet” and “the twenty odd members of his cabinet.” It is sometimes used to indicate pronunciation (de-ice), but not always (coalesce, reissue). Composite adjectives used before a noun are usually given hyphens (“a six-foot-high wall,” “a four-inch rainfall”), but again, not always. Fowler cites “a balance-of-payments deficit” and Gowers “a first-class ticket,” but in expressions such as these, where the words are frequently linked, the hyphens are no more necessary than they would be in “a real estate transaction” or “a post office strike.” When the phrases are used adverbially, the use of hyphens is wrong, as here: “Mr. Conran, who will be fifty-years-old next month…”(Sunday Times). Mr. Conran will be fifty years old next month; he will then be a fifty-year-old man.
In general, hyphens should be dispensed with when they are not necessary. One place where they are not required by sense but frequently occur anyway is with -ly adverbs, as in newly-elected and widely-held. Almost every authority suggests that they should be deleted in such constructions.
parentheses. Parenthetical matter can be thought of as any information so incidental to the main thought that it needs to be separated from the sentence that contains it. It can be set off with dashes, brackets (usually reserved for explanatory insertions in quotations), commas, or, of course, parentheses. It is, in short, an insertion and has no grammatical effect on the sentence in which it appears. It is rather as if the sentence does not even know it is there. Thus this statement from The Times is incorrect: “But that is not how Mrs. Graham (and her father before her) have made a success of the Washington Post.” The verb should be has.
While the parenthetical expression has no grammatical effect on the sentence in which it appears, the sentence does influence the parentheses. Consider this extract from the Los Angeles Times (which, although it uses dashes, could equally have employed parentheses): “One reason for the dearth of Japanese-American politicians is that no Japanese immigrants were allowed to become citizens—and thus could not vote—until 1952.” As written the sentence is telling us that “no Japanese citizens could not vote.” Delete could not.
When a parenthetical comment is part of a larger sentence, the period should appear after the second parenthesis (as here). (But when the entire sentence is parenthetical, as here, the period should appear inside the final parenthesis.)
period (British, full stop). Two common errors are associated with the period, both of which arise from its absence. The first is the run-on sentence—that is, the linking of two complete thoughts by a comma. It is never possible to say whether a run-on sentence is attributable to ignorance on the part of the writer or to whimsy on the part of the typesetter, but the error occurs frequently enough that ignorance must play a part. In each of the following I have indicated with a slash where one sentence should end and the next should begin: “Although GEC handled the initial contract, much of the equipment is American,/the computers and laser printers come from Hewlett Packard” (Guardian); “Confidence is growing that OPEC will resolve its crisis,/however the Treasury is drawing up contingency plans” (Times); “Funds received in this way go towards the cost of electricity and water supply,/industries, shops and communes pay higher rates” (Times).
/> The second lapse arises when a writer tries to say too much in a single sentence, as here: “The measures would include plans to boost investment for self-financing in industry, coupled with schemes to promote investment and saving, alleviate youth unemployment, fight inflation, and lower budget deficits, as well as a new look at the controversial issue of reducing working hours” (Times). If the writer has not lost his readers, he has certainly lost himself. The last lumbering flourish (“as well as a new look…”) is grammatically unconnected to what has gone before; it just hangs there. The sentence is crying out for a period—almost anywhere would do—to give the reader a chance to absorb the wealth of information being provided.
Here is another in which the writer tells us everything but his phone number: “But after they had rejected once more the umpires’ proposals of $5,000 a man for the playoffs and $10,000 for the World Series on a three-year contract and the umpires had turned down a proposal of $3,000 for the playoffs and $7,000 for the World Series on a one-year contract, baseball leaders said the playoffs would begin today and they had umpires to man the games” (New York Times).
There is no quota on periods. When an idea is complicated, break it up and present it in digestible chunks. One idea to a sentence is still the best advice that anyone has ever given on writing.
question mark. The question mark comes at the end of a question. That sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? But it’s astonishing how frequently writers fail to include it. Two random examples: “‘Why travel all the way there when you could watch the whole thing at home,’ he asked” (Times); “The inspector got up to go and stood on Mr. Ellis’s cat, killing it. ‘What else do you expect from these people,’ said the artist” (Standard).
