In my recent post about Harriet Tubman and Andrew Jackson, I deliberately made an error  – at least in the minds of some editors:

Many progressives are pleased that the Treasury Department decided to replace President Andrew Jackson’s picture with Harriet Tubman.

What’s the mistake? I didn’t use that of:

Many progressives are pleased that the Treasury Department decided to replace President Andrew Jackson’s picture with that of Harriet Tubman.

Here’s the reason. I hate that of. It’s clumsy, I distrust it, and I refuse to use it. I’ve lived a long life, and I have a sharp eye. I don’t recall seeing the irritating that of very much in the past. I think it’s a recent fetish, and I refuse to sign on.

(Some of you may be thinking that there’s an alternative that bypasses the problem, and you’re right: Many progressives are pleased that the Treasury Department decided to replace President Andrew Jackson’s picture with Harriet Tubman’s. That was actually my first version – but then I wouldn’t have had a jumping-off point for today’s post!)

Back to that of. Here’s a typical example that sets my teeth on edge:

The monthly condo fee in Springside is higher than that of Rosedale.

Here’s an alternative that I like better:

The monthly condo fee in Springside is higher than Rosedale’s.

But some authorities forbid this usage on the grounds that buildings are inanimate and can’t be owners. A pox on them. People use possessives that way all the time:

The building’s exits need to be clearly marked.

If objects can’t be owners, there would be no need for a possessive form of it:

My favorite blouse is missing one of its buttons.

The rules of English usage – as I never tire of saying – are created by the people who actually use the language. Don’t let anyone use a convoluted logical principle to talk you into adopting an awkward construction.

         The Association Fallacy in Formal Logic

Today you’re getting a bonus – two bonuses, in fact. My primary objective is to clear up an apostrophe issue with the word people. You’ll also get a linguistics lesson, and you’ll learn an unusual rule about plurals.

I’m going to begin with a tale from my early days as a college English instructor. A major publisher had just issued the first edition of a comprehensive English handbook that is still in print, many editions and millions of copies later.

And there, in an example box, was a sentence containing the word peoples’. Gack: The apostrophe should have been before the s – people’s. And this in an English handbook!

Nobody – not the author, the editor, or the copyeditor – caught the mistake. It was too late for the publisher to do anything about it: The book had already been printed and distributed. (The mistake was corrected in the next edition.) 

You don’t have to be clairvoyant to figure out how that mistake happened. Apostrophes are usually (and stupidly) taught with a rule that goes like this: “Before the s if it’s singular, after the s if it’s plural, but before the s if it’s a special plural – a plural that doesn’t end with s, such as men, women, children, and people.“

Of course many people (ha!) immediately forget about those special plurals, and that’s how we end up with mistakes like “childrens’ health” and “Dr. Reynold’s office.”

There’s an easier way. Just spell the word or name, and put the apostrophe after the last letter. This trick will work 100% of the time.

Dr. Reynolds – Dr. Reynolds‘ office

children – children‘s health

people – people‘s wishes

But some of you whose knowledge of English is deep and broad are protesting that peoples’ wishes can be correct in some circumstances. You’re right!

Anthropologists use people to signify the members of a nation, community, or ethnic group. A diverse country or region would be inhabited by various peoples. So, for example, you could talk about “the peoples of Australia.”

If you’re a royalty fan, you probably remember a famous story about King George VI (father of the present Queen) and an exchange with some of his subjects during the Blitz. On one of his visits to a bombed-out neighborhood, someone called out, “Thank God for a good king!” His quick-thinking response was, “Thank God for a good people!”

Most of us would have said “Thank God for good people” – but his choice of a good people reinforced the idea of British unity.

Back to peoples. Scientists often use plurals to signify diversity. If you keep goldfish in an aquarium, they’re fish. But if the tank holds several species – angelfish, tetras, and gouramis – they’re fishes.

One topic remains: That lesson in linguistics I promised you.

The Elements of Style by Strunk and White contains this astonishing injunction (which I’m going to debunk in a moment):  “The word people is not to be used with words of number, in place of persons. If of ‘six people’ five went away, how many ‘people’ would be left?”

There’s some linguistic history behind this silly rule. Our word people traces its origin back to the Latin word populum (“the population”). Clearly populum can’t be used with a number. The proper Latin word for an individual is persona. So it makes sense that you can’t talk about “six people.”

Except that you can.

The golden rule for language is that rules are made by the people (persons?) who use that language. If you do a Google search, you’ll discover that professional writers use people with a number all the time. Here’s an example from a March 1 article in the Washington Post:

Six people were shot and wounded — one of them critically — in Southeast Washington on Monday afternoon and early Tuesday, according to D.C. police.

If you check the Oxford English Dictionary, which traces the history of words in English, you’ll discover that writers have been using people with a number as far as Chaucer.

But what about that etymology problem? The answer is that a word’s origin doesn’t determine its meaning: Common usage does. Think of the word manuscript, for example. The original Latin means “written by hand.” But if you submitted a handwritten manuscript to a publisher today, it would be unceremoniously tossed in the trash.

I hope you enjoyed today’s triple lesson (and the nod to royalty!).

    King George VI

Charlie used to have an editor who hated the word because. If because made its way into one of his gardening columns, she would call and ask him to change it. Luckily, after a short period she was promoted to a more important editorial position where she could presumably inflict her misinformation on an even larger group of writers. 

Because is a useful word, and a few minutes with a dictionary or Google could have cleared up that misguided editor’s mistake.

Where did her phobia come from? Very likely she’d had an English instructor who made the sensible observation that because ideas can be confusing. But that doesn’t mean you have to banish because from your writing. The remedy is to double-check the sentence for clarity.

I started thinking about the because problem this week when a confusing sentence popped up in an email I was writing. Oops! Here it is:

Charlie does as much of the palm pruning as he can even though a landscape crew comes every week because workers tend to butcher the trees.

Technically it’s a dangling modifier, sounding as if the crew comes every week because the trees are butchered. Wrong!

After some experimentation I came up with this solution:

Even though a landscape crew comes every week, Charlie does most of the palm pruning  himself. Workers tend to butcher the trees and can’t be trusted to do the job properly.

Here’s some writing advice you might find helpful: When a sentence is fighting all of your attempts to fix it, try rewriting it as two sentences. Often that trick works like magic.

And here’s some advice if you own palm trees: Never cut off a green or yellow leaf – and don’t allow landscape workers to cut off those leaves either. You can learn more here.