Sunday, April 19, 2009

Commonly misused/misspelled words and phrases (Part 82)

Ready for some more more? Here are some rules involving names:


Commas around names
Wrong: Where do you want to go James?
Right: Where do you want to go, James?
Wrong: So Mary what do you propose?
Right: So, Mary, what do you propose?

In dialog, when one character speaks to another and refers to him or her by name, always set off the name with a comma before the name, and—if another clause follows—one after the name.

Capitalizing proper names
Wrong: de Broux is a wonderful fellow.
Right: De Broux is a wonderful fellow.
Right: Patrick de Broux is a wonderful fellow.

Many surnames begin with de, di, da, von, van and other lower-case prefixes. Although the correct spelling of Wernher von Braun is with a lower-case v, when beginning a sentence with the surname, always capitalize the prefix (as in “Von Braun became director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in 1960.”).

More soon!

Mark. 

2 comments:

April said...

Thank you for posting this!! This is one of my biggest pet peeves.

I just love your blog. Keep up the good work. :D

Mark Terence Chapman said...

Thanks, April. I'm glad you enjoy the blog. Let me know if you think of any words and phrases I haven't covered yet.

Mark.