Relexive Pronouns

 

1. A reflexive pronoun is used as a direct object when the object is the same as the subject of the verb: “I cut myself shaving again.”

2. The reflexive pronoun is used as an indirect object when the indirect object is the same as the subject of the verb: “She bought herself a new car.”

3. The reflexive pronoun is used as the object of a preposition when the object refers to the subject of the clause: “My son built our deck by himself.”

Note: The phrase “by + reflexive pronoun” shows that someone did something alone and/or without any help. The same meaning is conveyed when the reflexive pronoun alone is placed at the end of a sentence: “I baked all the cookies myself.”

4. The reflexive pronoun is used to emphasize the person or thing referred to: “The binding itself is worth £50.”

Note: This use of the reflexive pronoun is especially common when the person referred to is famous or powerful: “The Queen herself wrote a note of condolence to her butler.”

The most common errors made with reflexive pronouns are the sort the reader refers to, the use of a reflexive pronoun when the context calls for a plain personal pronoun:

INCORRECT: If you have any questions, you can refer to myself.
CORRECT: If you have any questions, you can refer to me.

The error here is using a reflexive pronoun as the object of a preposition that does not refer to the subject of the clause (you).

Other common errors include the following:

INCORRECT: Jack and myself traveled to Greece this summer.
CORRECT: Jack and I traveled to Greece this summer.

The error is in using the reflexive pronoun as the subject of a verb.

INCORRECT: When you give out the presents, don’t forget Margie and myself.
CORRECT: When you give out the presents, don’t forget Margie and me.

The error here is using reflexive myself as the object of the verb forget.

Although the phrases “myself included” or “including myself”seem to defy the rules they have enjoyed a long history of use by reputable writers.

The Ngram Viewer indicates that “including myself” is far more common than “including me” in printed books.

A Web search for “including me” brings 617,000 results; “including myself” brings 3,890,000 results.

An article by linguist James Harbeck lists fourteen examples of exceptions to the rules. Here are three of them:

You seem like a better version of myself. (object of preposition)

There are two others here besides myself. (object of preposition)

Myself, as director here, will cut the ribbon. (subject of sentence)

Sometimes “including me” is the obvious choice, but in other contexts, a writer may prefer “including myself.” Compare:

Everyone received a lavish gift, including me.

Many scientists, including myself, found the film outrageous in its inaccuracies.

The best advice about the use of reflexive pronouns is to master the rules, but to remain aware that sometimes “nonstandard” myself may be more idiomatic than me.

“If you have any questions, you can refer to myself” is unquestionably nonstandard, but in contexts in which a speaker or writer is espousing an opinion shared by others, “myself included” and “including myself” are established idioms. 

From: Daily Writing Tips

Ten Ways To Form a Compound Noun

 

Compound nouns are of three kinds: open, hyphenated, and closed.

As the names imply, “open compounds” are written as separate words, “hyphenated compounds” are written with one or more hyphens, and “closed compounds” are written as a single word.

Many compounds begin as open, progress to hyphenated, and finish as closed. Because of the modern preference to avoid hyphenating words as much as possible, newly created compounds tend to develop closed forms earlier than they might have in the past. Some compounds written as one word in US usage are hyphenated in British usage.

Compound nouns are formed by combining different parts of speech. This list of ten is not exhaustive.

1. noun + noun
wheeler-dealer
bedroom
shoelace

2. noun + preposition/adverb
hanger-on
voice-over
passerby (Br. passer-by)

3. noun + adjective
attorney general
battle royal
poet laureate

4. noun + verb
airlift
haircut
snowfall

5. adjective + noun
high school
poor loser
redhead

6. adjective + verb
well-being
whitewashing

7. preposition/adverb + noun
off-ramp
onlooker

8. verb + noun
singing lesson
washing machine

9. verb + preposition/adverb
warm-up
know-how
get-together
follow-through

10. word + preposition + word
free-for-all
mother-in-law
word-of-mouth

Most compound nouns form their plurals like any other noun: by adding an s to the end of the word: wheeler-dealers, washing machines, onlookers.

A few, like mother-in-law and hole in one do not place the s at the end, but on the most significant word: mothers-in-law, holes in one.

Some compounds of French origin in which the adjective stands last have more than one acceptable plural (depending upon the dictionary):

attorney generals or attorneys general
court martials or courts martial
film noirs, films noir, or films noirs
runner-ups or runners-up

Because there are no hard and fast rules regarding the writing of compound nouns, stylebooks advise writers to consult a dictionary when in doubt.

From: Daily Writing Tips

Unnecessary Uses of Scare Quotes

 

Rules are made to be broken, but more often they are made to be followed, because violation of those rules, in writing as in any other human endeavor, often leads to unintended consequences. One case is the careless use of quotation marks for emphasis.

Scare quotes, as quotation marks employed for this purpose are called, are often used to call out nonstandard or unusual terms, or merely to introduce a word or phrase. However, although this strategy used to be common, scare quotes have taken on a new role that has largely, at least among careful writers, supplanted the old technique: Now, they are better employed to convey derision, irony, or skepticism.

For example, a writer who describes how “the institute offers workshops in ‘self-awareness therapy’” is widely presumed not to be gently preparing the reader for the appearance of an unfamiliar phrase; more likely, they are calling attention to what they feel is preciously New Age-y terminology.

Meanwhile, the statement “The Pentagon’s strategy of ‘pacification’ certainly did make things quieter in the neighborhood” comments on the evasive military euphemism, while “The ‘new’ model strikes me as less sophisticated than the old one” calls attention to an unjustified adjective.

Here are three types of superfluous usage of scare quotes:

1. The astronomers reported Tuesday that they had combined more than 6,000 observations from three telescopes to detect the system of
"exoplanets."
Exoplanets is a term that has only recently entered the general vocabulary, but neologism is not a criterion for use of scare quotes; simply introduce the word, define it, and move on: “The astronomers reported Tuesday that they had combined more than 6,000 observations from three telescopes to detect the system of exoplanets.” (In the article from which this sentence is taken, a definition of exoplanet follows the statement.)

2. They engaged in listening exercises and musical analysis so as to better understand the "musical DNA" of their favorite songs.
If you use an established term in an unfamiliar but analogous sense, trust readers to make the connection; don’t bracket the term in scare quotes: “They engaged in listening exercises and musical analysis so as to better understand the musical DNA of their favorite songs.”

3. So-called “notification laws” require businesses to notify customers when certain unencrypted customer data is improperly accessed.
Never employ scare quotes around a term introduced by the phrase so-called. Yes, you may want to signal to readers your dissatisfaction with the term, but so-called performs that function, so scare quotes are redundant: “So-called notification laws require businesses to notify customers when certain unencrypted customer data is improperly accessed.”

From: Daily Writing Tips

Who vs. Whom

No doubt about it, the pronoun whom is in its death throes.

If you need a refresher, here’s the difference: Who is the subject form of the pronoun, so it’s the doer of an action, as in “That’s the man who climbed Everest.” (subject of “climbed”). Whom is the object form of the pronoun, so it receives the action, as in “Whom do you like best?” (object of “like”).

Most grammarians agree that English speakers can get along just fine by using who for both subject and object, as we do with the pronoun you:

You light up my life. (subject)
I love you. (object)

An entrenched idiom like “to whom it may concern” will probably stick around for a while longer. Speakers for whom the who/whom distinction comes naturally will continue to use both forms. Even speakers who use who as an object may continue to use whom when it stands immediately after a preposition, but for the most part, the use of who for whom is a non-issue.

The use of whom for who, however, is another matter.

A great many speakers–including professional news reporters–fall into what I call the something-between trap. When something–a subordinate clause or a stock phrase like “in my opinion”–comes between the subject pronoun and its verb, the writer may stumble and use whom instead of who.

Observe the problem in the following examples.

1. The heroine is teen-aged Frenchy Hercules, whom one suspects is the director’s wife,

2. A Chicago man whom police believe is responsible for 11 burglaries to sheds and garages in the village is scheduled to appear in court Sept. 24 on theft charges, authorities said.

3. Fire personnel radioed deputies to stop the driver, whom, according to reports, appeared to have been under the influence of intoxicants.

4. Before we started coming to BBBA, I [had] taken him to numerous pitching and hitting coaches whom in my opinion were out for the money and not the overall improvement of my son’s baseball ability.

In each example, the whom should be who.

If the errors jumped out at you as soon as you read the sentences, you may as well stop reading now. If you’re not quite sure why these uses of whom are incorrect, read on.

Whom is an object form–like him–but in each of these sentences, the whom being used as the subject of a verb. Who is the subject form.

Writers can avoid falling into the something-between trap with whom by taking a close look at all the verbs.

Because whom can only be an object, eliminate all the subjects first. Determine which subject word goes with which verb.

1. The heroine is teen-aged Frenchy Hercules, whom one suspects is the director’s wife.
This sentence contains three verbs: is, suspects, and is.
The subject of the first is is “heroine.”
The subject of suspects is “one.”
The subject of the second is is “who” (not whom).
The in-between trap is “one suspects.”
NOTE: the verb “suspects” is what tripped the writer up. In another context, suspects. could be used transitively: He’s the man whom the detective suspects. In this sentence, suspects has no object.

2. A Chicago man whom police believe is responsible for 11 burglaries to sheds and garages in the village is scheduled to appear in court Sept. 24 on theft charges, authorities said.
This sentence contains four finite verbs: believe, is responsible, is scheduled, and said.
The subject of believe is “police.”
The subject of is responsible is “who” (not whom).
The subject of is scheduled is “A Chicago man.”
The subject of said is “authorities.”
NOTE: The in-between trap is “police believe.” In another context, “believe” could take an object, but not here.

3. Fire personnel radioed deputies to stop the driver, whom, according to reports, appeared to have been under the influence of intoxicants.
This sentence contains two finite verbs: radioed and appeared.
The subject of radioed is “Fire personnel.”
The subject of appeared is “who” (not whom).
The in-between trap is “according to reports.”

4. Before we started coming to BBBA, I [had] taken him to numerous pitching and hitting coaches whom in my opinion were out for the money and not the overall improvement of my son’s baseball ability.
This sentence contains three finite verbs: started, had taken, and were.
The subject of started is “we.”
The subject of had taken is “I.”
The subject of were is “who” (not whom).
The in-between trap is “in my opinion.”

If all this seems like too much grammar to deal with, there’s a second option for avoiding the something-between trap with whom. Stick with who. (Now isn’t that an interesting construction!)

From: Daily Writing Tips

 

Sentence Adverbs

 

From: Daily Writing Tips

Not all adverbs end in -ly, but many do.

Like all adverbs, -ly adverbs are used to add meaning to verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. For example:

Jones deals honestly with all his customers. (adverb modifying the verb deals)

The lecture on adiabatic and isochoric kinetics was mercifully brief. (adverb modifying the adjective brief)

The concert is over. You have arrived unfortunately late. (adverb modifying the adverb late)

Some -ly adverbs can also be used to modify an entire sentence. For example:

Honestly, most television comedies are unbearably vulgar. (adverb modifying entire sentence)

Mercifully, the blast was prevented by the swift arrival of the fire brigade. (adverb modifying entire sentence)

Fortunately, the ship stayed afloat long enough for all the passengers to be rescued. (adverb modifying entire sentence)

In each of these examples, the adverb at the beginning of the sentence is set off by a comma and conveys the attitude of the speaker toward the entire thought being expressed.

Generally speaking (as opposed to more precise classifications in linguistics) adverbs used in this way are called “sentence adverbs.” Here is a list of other adverbs that may be used as sentence adverbs:

actually
apparently
basically
briefly
certainly
clearly
conceivably
confidentially
curiously
evidently
hopefully
ideally
incidentally
interestingly
ironically
naturally
presumably
regrettably
seriously
surprisingly
thankfully
truthfully

Note: Some last-ditch language sticklers reject the right of hopefully to be included in this list. According to these cranky holdouts, the only meaning for hopefully that “careful writers” should recognize is “with hope,” as in “My dog Cash stared hopefully at the treat jar.” They reject the notion that hopefully can also be used to introduce a sentence with the sense of “I hope” or “it is to be hoped,” as in this sentence: “Hopefully, the new millage will pass, and we can expand the library.”

English speakers have been using hopefully as a sentence adverb for eighty years at least—possibly longer. “Careful writers” may continue to avoid its use as they wish, but ridiculing its use by others is bad form.

Between You and I vs. Between You and Me

An ad for a new movie about the Hebrew exodus from Egypt shows Christian Bale as Moses–a character who has received a privileged and educated upbringing–shouting the words, “Something’s coming that is far beyond you and I!”

I noticed because beyond is a preposition and should be followed by the object form me, not the subject form I: “Something’s coming that is far beyond you and me!”

Note: The fact that English did not exist in the time of Moses is not relevant.

A more commonly heard ungrammatical prepositional phrase is “between you and I.” This error is so common that it has its defenders.

On a Slate post, podcast producer Mike Vuolo takes the position that correctness should be determined by what people “actually use.” He admits that “between you and I” contravenes the standard rule about prepositions being followed by me and not I, but claims that there is “a relatively modern theory...which may undermine that rule”:

Noam Chomsky and modern linguists...have a very persuasive theory that holds that in a construction like “between you and I, the entire phrase “you and I” is the object of the preposition and that for the individual elements within it the [grammatical] case becomes arbitrary.

He mentions a quotation from Shakespeare to prove that “between you and I” must be all right.

Note: For one example of "between you and I" in the entire works of Shakespeare, there are numerous examples of between followed by the object form me.

The Bard’s one use of “between you and I” appears in a letter from Bassanio, the merchant from whom Shylock has demanded a pound of flesh:

My bond to the Jew is forfeit; and since in paying it, it is impossible I should live, all debts are cleared between you and I. –The Merchant of Venice, Act III, scene ii.

Shakespeare can teach us a lot about our language, but he’s not a reliable guide to modern standard usage. For example, in Julius Caesar, he has Antony say, “This is the most unkindest cut of all.” The most grammar-challenged modern speaker knows better than to double a superlative.

Vuolo cites an academic paper written by two sociolinguists that identifies and labels three competing permutations of the between prepositional phrase:

1. between you and me, “standard usage”

2. between you and I, “polite usage”
Note: By labeling this form “polite usage,” the authors encourage the false idea that the pronoun I is somehow “nicer” than me.

3. between me and you, “vernacular”

The authors found that “the oldest people studied and those with the most education” tended to use the standard form. Participants “intermediate in age and level of education [less than a Ph.D.] favored” the “polite” version, whereas “youth and the less educated” used “between me and you.”

The fact that "between you and me" was most common among the oldest participants could have something to do with the possibility that grammar was more effectively taught in the public schools in the past than it is now.

As for "youth and the less educated," good for them. They may be erring socially by putting themselves first, but they are using the correct pronoun case.

Language evolves, including pronouns. I and me may eventually change places. Me is an object form, yet many speakers use the compound “Me + x” as a subject: “Me and the children went to the zoo on Sunday.”

The first person pronouns I and me may go the way of second person ye (subject form) and you (object form): first they changed places, and then one of them disappeared altogether.

Vuolo suggests that “between you and I” is far more common on the Web than “between you and me.” This may be true, but I wasn’t able to duplicate his search results.

I did search the three phrases in the Google Ngram Viewer and found that "between you and me" is the clear winner in books–and has been for the past two hundred years.

Time will tell. When persistent enough, nonstandard popular usage eventually makes its way into standard usage. For now, in this decade of the 21st century, "between you and I" is nonstandard usage.

 From: Daily Writing Tips

The Semicolon

 

The semicolon is similar in name and appearance to the colon, but its function is unrelated; it serves as a weak period, as employed here, or as a strong comma, as shown in the next paragraph. In its weak-period guise, it marks the end of one statement and the beginning of another; however, it is appropriate in place of a period only if the second statement is closely related to or dependent on the first one. Note that when a semicolon appears in such a case, no coordinating conjunction (such as and or but) should follow it. (However, when the conjunctive adverb that begins this sentence, or others such as moreover or therefore, follows a semicolon, as occurs earlier in this paragraph, a comma should follow the word.)

A strong-comma semicolon is one used in place of two or more commas when the elements in a run-in list are themselves lists, as in this sentence: “The three most frequent color schemes in flags are red, white, and blue; red and white; and, tied for third place, red, yellow, and green and red, white, and green.” (Note that not all list items must include internal punctuation.)

Many writers are reluctant to use semicolons because they do not understand how to use the punctuation mark correctly or consider it overly formal, but its roles are simple and helpful.

Five Number Problems

 

1. Number Collisions

In the sentence “The day the slain woman was to turn 28, 3,000 gathered at a church to recall her life,” the proximity of her age (assuming it is styled numerically rather than spelled out) and the number of mourners confuses the eye. Readers may assume, before they comprehend the sense of the sentence, that the comma after her age and the following letter space are erroneous and that the digits belong in one figure.

If the numerical style for the age is correct, revise the sentence to read, “The day the slain woman was to turn 28, several thousand people gathered at a church to recall her life.” (This distraction can also occur when a year, a room or building number, or any other numerical designation precedes a figure.)

2. Number Ranges

Do not use the word from preceding a number range in which a dash (or, in this case, as employed often in newspapers and online, a hyphen) appears: “The Korean War lasted from 1950-1953” should read “The Korean War lasted from 1950 to 1953” or “The Korean War lasted 1950-1953.” “The class will be held from 7-10 p.m.” is correctly expressed “The class will be held from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.” (the first p.m. may be elided) or “The class will be held 7-10 p.m.”

3. Number Names

When you employ specialized terms that include combinations of numbers or numbers and letters, be sure you’re typing them correctly. The term in “It’s safe to open your 401K statement again” is correctly rendered 401(k). The designation for a certain nonprofit corporation sometimes incorrectly styled 501c3 or 501(c)3 should appear as 501(c)(3).

4. Numbers with Hyphenation

I’ve written about hyperhyphenation and hypohyphenation before (search this site for “hyphens” for more posts on the topic), but these twin troubles persist, so I will, too: Pay attention when using hyphens in phrases involving numbers. No hyphens are necessary in “The electrified fence is 10-feet-high,” because “10 feet high” is a simple description, not an adjectival phrase describing a noun that follows immediately (“10-foot-high electrified fence” is correct).

One of those extra hyphens can be donated to the phrase “21-year old world record,” which refers not to an old world record consisting of 21 years (is that “old world,” as in “old-world charm”?), but to a world record that is 21 years old.

5. Numbers and Currency

Take care when making references to money: Redundant references such as “The fine was set at $5 million dollars” or “I found $100 bucks in an old shoe box” are common. Be consistent in one article or book about whether you use currency symbols or spell the terms out; the determination should be based on the level of formality (currency terms are usually spelled out in more formal writing) weighed against the frequency of occurrence (numerous and/or technical references to money are best presented with symbols).

Keep in mind, too, that use of the dollar sign is ubiquitous, but the cent sign is rare, so if reference is made separately to dollars and cents, it’s best to spell out both terms: “In 1960, the candy bar cost 5 cents; by the beginning of the twenty-first century, it sold for a dollar.”

Also, avoid using numerals for orders of magnitude. The figure in “The binary star is more than 57,000,000,000,000 miles from Earth” is difficult to read, as is the total in “The budget was 5,666,943,643 dollars.” In the first example, use the term of magnitude: “The binary star is more than 57 trillion miles from Earth.” Use the same approach for the monetary figure, which is unnecessarily precise; multidigit references to currency are often rounded off at two decimals past the degree of magnitude. “The budget was 5.66 billion dollars.”

From: Daily Writing Tips

Coping with Quotations

 

A stock element of effective writing is to employ a quotation by a noted writer or other famous person to illustrate a point. But take care that when you seek to strengthen your work by alluding directly to another’s, you don’t in fact weaken it by committing one of the following errors:

Attributing the Quote to the Wrong Source

The Bible, William Shakespeare, and Mark Twain are sources of many memorable sentiments, but not every one. Some expressions or observations are paraphrases from Scripture, lines from other playwrights, or witticisms that Twain (or Benjamin Franklin, or Abraham Lincoln, or one of the other usual suspects) might wish he had actually thought up. (Sometimes, they are reworkings or inventions of biographers or other commentators.) Before you attribute a quotation, confirm authorship.

If the source is doubtful, signal the lack of certainty by amending your statement of credit, for example, from “The observation of Benjamin Franklin . . .” to “The observation attributed to Benjamin Franklin . . .” or from “As Abraham Lincoln once said . . .” to “As Abraham Lincoln is believed to have said . . . .”

Misquoting the Original Material

Many quotations we take for granted are in fact not verbatim versions of the original statement. Sometimes, casual common use results in slightly altered wording becoming the standard interpretation. (See this list of misquoted quotations.) Again, confirm accuracy before repeating what you think someone wrote or said, or what a not-necessarily-reliable source passed on.

Sometimes, however, the error may be deliberate: At the close of the film version of The Maltese Falcon, private detective Sam Spade’s last line comments on what all the fuss was about: “The stuff that dreams are made of.” This insight is based on a line from Shakespeare’s play The Tempest: “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.” Don’t blame Dashiell Hammett, author of the story the movie was based on; the line, which didn’t appear in the original, was crafted by director/screenwriter John Huston.

It’s a potent phrase, revealing that Spade recognizes the futility of a quest to recover the titular treasure. But it also demonstrates that he is likely well educated enough to (slightly) misquote Shakespeare. To have him proclaim or even mutter, “The stuff that dreams are made on” would sound pretentious; the fact that he made a small error somehow makes his observation more authentic. Alternately, the character’s error might be a conscious decision: The preposition in “made on” implies that the “stuff” is a foundation for building dreams, while “made of” means that the “stuff” is the ingredient -- Spade’s more accurate assessment, in this case.

Mistakenly Crediting Invention

Shakespeare is widely hailed as the inventor of hundreds of words, phrases, and expressions. It is true that he and some of his contemporaries are responsible for enriching the English language by preserving numerous vivid terms, witty turns of phrase, and trenchant observations -- many of which we may use without realizing their origin -- for posterity.

But it is more accurate to think of Shakespeare and other Elizabethan writers not as inventors of new words but as their distributors. We are forever in their debt for recording what they heard spoken on the street, at the market, and in the tavern -- or at court -- or the pithy prose from a speech or a letter, appropriating it for use in a play or a sonnet. It is to the Bard and his colleagues that we owe knowledge and use of words like hobnob, phrases such as “fair play,” and observations the likes of “All that glitters [originally, glisters] is not gold.”

In addition, Shakespearean scholars are revising their estimates of the dates of completion for some of his plays; therefore, a contemporary playwright or other author thought to have quickly borrowed one of his coinages may have actually coined the word himself, and Shakespeare may in fact be the borrower.

Although Shakespeare and others to whom we attribute such gems may have coined some of them, we err in invariably assigning them credit for their invention. It is better to say that someone popularized an existing word, phrase, or expression, which is laudable enough.

From: Daily Writing Tips

12 Signs and Symbols You Should Know

What is the origin of various symbols used in English, and when is the use of each appropriate? Here’s a guide to twelve common signs, including how they developed and in which contexts they are used or avoided.

1. & (Ampersand)

The ampersand was, at least until well into the nineteenth century, treated as the twenty-seventh letter of the alphabet, but its star has fallen, so that now it is used only informally except in registered names of businesses (“Ay, Bee & See Inc.”), which should be written as rendered; a comma preceding it is extraneous.

The symbol comes from the cursive formation of the Latin word et (“and”), and the name is a slurring contraction of “and per se and,” which used to terminate schoolroom recitals of the alphabet: The phrase means “and by itself and”; instead of reciting, “. . . W, X, Y, Z, and,” children said, “. . . W, X, Y, Z, and per se and” to clarify that “and” referred to a list item rather than serving as a conjunction for an item that was left unuttered. The symbol is also seen in &c. (“et cetera”), an alternate form of etc.

American Psychological Association (APA) style allows the ampersand to link author names in an in-text citation (“Laurel & Hardy, 1921”), but other style guides call for using the word and.

2. * (Asterisk)

The asterisk is used to call out a footnote or to refer to an annotation of special terms or conditions, to substitute for letters in profanity (“Oh, s***!”) or a name rendered anonymous (“the subject, M***”), to serve as a low-tech alternative to a typographical bullet, or provide emphasis in place of boldface (“Do *not* go there -- the food is awful.”). It also has many specialized technical usages. Its name is derived from the Greek term asteriskos, meaning “little star,” and it was originally applied to distinguish date of birth from other references to years.

3. @ (At Sign)

Until the age of e-mail, the at sign was restricted mostly to commercial use, in purchase orders and the like, to mean “at the rate of” (“Order 1K widgets @ $2.50 per.”). It’s also used in displays of schedules for competitive sports to identify the event venue. Now it’s ubiquitous in email addresses and in social-networking usage, as well as computer protocols, but outside of those contexts, it is considered inappropriate for all but the most informal writing.

4. ¢ (Cent)

This symbol for cent (from the Latin word centum, meaning “hundred”), unlike its cousin the dollar sign -- it’s also used in many monetary systems other than that of US currency -- is rare except in informal usage or for price tags. When it does appear, unlike the dollar sign, it follows rather than precedes the numeral, though as in the case of the dollar sign, no space intervenes. The equivalent usage in a context where dollar signs are employed is to treat the amount as a decimal portion of a dollar (“$0.99”); for clarity, a zero should always be inserted between the dollar sign and the decimal point.

The sign probably originated to distinguish an ordinary c from one denoting a monetary amount.

5. ° (Degree Sign)

The sign for degrees of arc or degrees of temperature, which started out as a superscripted zero, was chosen for consistency with use of the minute (′) and second marks (″) employed in geometry and geography; those symbols originally stood for the Latin numerals I and II. The degree sign appears in technical contexts, but in general-interest publications, the word degree is generally used.

In references to temperature, the symbol (and the designation of the temperature scale) immediately follows the associated numerical figure (“45°C”). This style is true of many publishing companies, though the US Government and the International Bureau of Weights and Measures prescribe a space between the number and the symbol (“45 °C”), while other publications omit the first letter space but insert another between the symbol and the abbreviation (“45° C”).

6. " (Ditto Sign)

The ditto sign, first attested three thousand years ago, signals that text shown above is to be repeated, as in a list in which the same quantity of various materials is intended to be expressed:

apples 24
bananas "
oranges "

The word ditto, meaning “said,” derives from the Tuscan language, the immediate ancestor of Italian, but was borrowed into English hundreds of years ago. The word, its abbreviation (do.), and the symbol are considered inappropriate for most writing, though the term has often been used in informal spoken and written language to mean “(the same as) what he/she said.” Although the symbol has a distinct character code for online writing, straight or curly close quotation marks are usually employed to produce it.

7. $ (Dollar Sign)

This symbol for the American dollar and many other currencies was first used to refer to the peso, which inspired the American currency system. Various origin stories for the symbol come in and out of fashion, but it’s most likely that it developed from an abbreviation of pesos in which the initial p preceded a superscript s; the tail of the initial was often superimposed on the s. A dollar sign with two vertical lines is a less common variant.

Most books and other formal publications tend to spell out dollars in association with a (spelled-out or numerical) figure, but periodicals usually use the symbol, as do specialized books about finance or business or others with frequent references to money. In international publications, when the symbol is used, for clarity, it is combined with the abbreviation US (“US$1.5 million” or “US $1.5 million”).

The dollar sign is also used as an abbreviated reference to various functions in computer programming and similar contexts.

8. # (Number or Pound Sign, or Hash)

This symbol evolved from the abbreviation for pound, lb. (a literal abbreviation for the Roman word libra, meaning “balance”), in which horizontal lines were superimposed on the vertical lines of the letters, producing something like the tic-tac-toe pattern used today. One of many other names for the sign, octotherp (also spelled octothorp or otherwise), was a jocular coinage by telecommunications engineers in the mid-twentieth century. The symbol is seldom used outside informal or highly technical or otherwise specialized contexts.

9. % (Percent)

The sign for indicating percentage developed in the Middle Ages over the course of hundreds of years, beginning as an abbreviation of percent (from the Latin phrase per centum, meaning “out of a hundred”). Its use is recommended only in technical contexts or in tabular material, where space it at a premium. (Some standards authorities call for a space between a number and this symbol, but most publications and publishers omit the space.)

10. ~ (Tilde)

The tilde is used as a diacritical mark over various letters to indicate a variety of sounds in different languages, but it also appears midline, like a dash (and is sometimes called a swung dash), to denote “approximately (“Last night’s attendance: ~100”). It has technical connotations as well and is even used as a notation for recording sequences of action in juggling. The name, borrowed into English through Portuguese and Spanish from Latin, means “title.”

11. / (Slash, Solidus, Stroke, or Virgule)

During the Middle Ages, this sign of many names, including those listed above, served as a comma; a pair denoted a dash. The double slash was eventually tipped horizontally to become an equal sign and later a dash or hyphen. (The equal sign is still used as a proofreader’s mark to indicate insertion of a hyphen.) The slash -- also called the forward slash to distinguish it from the backslash, which is used only in technical contexts -- is an informal substitute for or.

12. _ (Underscore or Understrike)

This artifact from the era of the typewriter was used on such devices to underline words to indicate emphasis in lieu of italics. As a survival of that function, words are sometimes bracketed by a pair of single underscores in email and other computer contexts to mark a word for emphasis (“That band totally _rocked_ the place.”). Indeed, as I typed this post in Microsoft Word, the program automatically converted rocked to italics. The symbol also appears frequently in email and website addresses and other technical contexts.

 From: Daily Writing Tips