Showing posts with label grammar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grammar. Show all posts

24 January 2014

Grammarly Blogger Partnership Program disclaimer

Grammarly reached out to me about participating in their Blogger Partnership Program. Ordinarily, I wouldn't be inclined to participate in such a partnership program. However, I decided to participate for two reasons. First, I discussed the idea with a number of trusted friends who offered useful advice. Second, I'm already a Grammarly customer. If I hadn't been, I'd definitely have some reservations about participating.

That being said, please consider this post as my disclaimer to you that I am participating. You will also see a short bit of text at the top of partnership posts. I'm not sure if this will be a one time thing, or if they'll consider additional posts. Either way, I'll get a $50 gift card for participating. They have not directed me to write about anything specific (other than to give suggestions about the short bit of text at the top of the post), and I wouldn't participate if they asked me to do so. So there you have it.

27 August 2013

Grammar check: District of Columbia v. Heller

Footnote one to Justice Scalia's majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), reads as follows:
1There are minor exceptions to all of these prohibitions, none of which is relevant here.
This sounds awkward! It seems like it should read: "There are minor exceptions to all of these prohibitions, none of which are relevant here." None is (or not one)  and none are (or not any) can both be appropriate in certain circumstances. Others suggest that both are appropriate, although the plural sounds more natural.

Rewritten in that context, the footnote would read:
There are minor exceptions to all of these prohibitions, not one of which is relevant here.
Or:
There are minor exceptions to all of these prohibitions, not any of which are relevant here.
Both of these sound awkward.

Justice Scalia is not one to make a grammar mistake, so I go with the presumption that his usage is either correct, or at least preferred. But I'm not really sure why.

Grammar nerds: what say you?