You Don’t Say

A phone conversation with my cousin Susan in Tucson presented this challenge: Is it correct to use couple (to mean two or a few) by itself as an adjective or must it be used with of. In other words, which is correct–a couple drinks or a couple of drinks?

Good question, Susan.

Here’s the answer: It’s up to you. Depending on the situation, you can go either way.

I first checked my Merriam-Websters’ Collegiate (11th Edition), which has a separate entry for couple as an adjective, along with a usage note. According to M-W, using couple by itself as an adjective is “common in speech and writing that is not meant to be formal or elevated.” We can take that to mean that in casual, informal circumstances, there’s nothing wrong with saying or writing a couple drinks.

Three other sources I checked offer different advice. Bryan Garner’s A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, and The Associated Press Stylebook all agree that couple as an adjective without of is poor usage. The Times and AP might be taking that stand because newspaper writing could be considered a more formal type of writing.

The next time I get to Tucson, Susan, let’s grab a couple drinks and talk about it.

In my job as adult literacy adviser for the Los Angeles Unified School District, I read a variety of articles that appear in academic journals and on educational Web sites. Last week I was reading an article about reading assessment that was posted on www.sedl.org (the Web site of the Southwest Educational Developmental Laboratory).

I was amazed to come across this egregious error:

Linguistic knowledge is more than the sum of it’s parts….

It’s? With an apostrophe? Forget linguistic knowledge, let’s talk pronoun knowledge.

It’s is a contraction of it is (It’s time for supper) or it has (It’s been a long time). Its–no apostrophe–is the possessive pronoun (worth its weight in gold). The two words are never interchangeable.

This is a very common mistake and seems to occur mostly when it’s is used as a possessive. Here’s another example I saw a few years ago in the newsletter of a professional organization (I have files full of this stuff!):

The California School of Notary Public seeks to offer it’s notary public course at adult school campuses throughout the state.

And this, from a promotional flyer distributed by the teacher’s union:

UTLA has chosen Telincs Communications as it’s exclusive Internet service provider.

Why does this mistake pop up so frequently? Part of the problem may be that the words sound exactly alike–they’re homophones. The only difference in the spelling of the two words is the apostrophe. Not only that, we’re accustomed to using an apostrophe to indicate possession–the baby’s toy, the cat’s meow.

Misusing it’s and its should be a crime, punishable by 100 lashes with an apostrophe!

In this scary economic climate, I love the idea of receiving a cash-back certificate in the mail. So I was very pleased to receive one from Citibank as part of a credit card protection promotion I had agreed to try out. Citibank will send me up to $15 if I follow some small-print instructions, including this one:

Your mailing envelope must be postmarked by March 31, 2009 and addressed to Redemption Center, Department 111974, P.O. Box 52900, Phoenix, AZ 85072.

There are five commas in that sentence, and the good news is they are all correct. So what’s the problem? There aren’t enough commas. I want to add one more–after the year in the date March 31, 2009.

Conventional comma wisdom calls for a comma before and after the year in a date embedded in text.: Your envelope must be postmarked by March 31, 2009, and addressed to….

Omitting the comma after the year is a common mistake. Here’s part of an email message that was in my inbox this at work this week:

On the evening of Wednesday, October 15, 2008 your voice mailbox will be moved to a new server in order to provide improved service and support.

Can we agree that “on the evening of” is probably too elegant for an email message about a server change? Good. Let’s get to the heart of the matter: the missing comma after the date.

Not a fatal mistake, but in the USA, where the month-day-year style of dates is most commonly used, commas are used both before and after the year. Don’t believe me? Check out the The Chicago Manual of Style, The New York Times Manual of Style and The Gregg Reference Manual.

You won’t be wrong with the comma, but you could cause confusion without it: On October 7, 2008 stocks crashed.

As an employee of the LA Unified School District, I have the opportunity each year to change my health benefits plan. Every fall, a letter arrives from the District informing me that the annual Open Enrollment, as it’s called, begins on November 1.

Here’s how this year’s letter begins:

Each year, the Health Benefits Committee, comprised of representatives from the LAUSD and each bargaining unit, review our benefits plans to determine if they are cost-effective….

Did you notice the subject-verb mistake? Committee is the subject of the sentence. As a collective noun, committee takes a singular verb. That means the verb should be reviews, not review.

OK, mistakes happen, especially when the subject and verb are separated by other words. But what’s the excuse for comprised of representatives? Although it’s a common expression, comprised of is wrong–always. The committee may be made up of representatives, or the committee may comprise representatives, but it’s never going to be comprised of something.

It was a banner week for misusing comprise. Here’s what else came across my desk last week:

From a professional journal for educational administrators:

The CTHSS [Connecticut Technical High School System], comprised of 17 regional locations, serves more than 10,500 students.

From an Internet news service, in an article about LA County Teachers of the Year:

The winning educators, comprised of 10 women and 2 men, teach a range of grades and subjects…. And in the same article, two paragraphs later, ….contestants submitted essays, lesson plans and other materials to judging panels comprised of peers.

Comprise means contain, made up of, or consist of. The nation (contains, is made up of, consists of) 50 states. If you’re conversant with active and passive voice, think of it this way–comprise is best used in the active voice followed by a direct object: The nation comprises 50 states.

At the risk of sounding like Joe Biden in a debate with Sarah Palin, let me repeat: comprised of  is always wrong.