Grammar nazis, help!

[Entropymama]

I'd like to use an article in our local newspaper as an example of writing that could be improved, but I'm not completely sure what rules are being broken. 

 

The headline is "Parents say lower class sizes, question more technology spending".

 

I'd say it should either have quotation marks (Parents say, "Lower class sizes!" Question more technology spending.) or restate it completely (Parents challenge district to lower class sizes, question more technology spending). This is just my gut feeling and I'm not sure what grammar rules are being bent. 

 

Here's another example: "Lakeville Area School District parents spoke about the way some things used to be in the district Monday night during a meeting organized by the Lakeville Parent Forum to discuss a possible fall 2015 operating levy vote."

 

Again, my gut says this is a bad sentence. I would change it to "While attending a meeting organized by the Lakeville Parent Forum on Monday night, parents spoke about the way things used to be in the district. The meeting was called to discuss a possible fall 2015 operating levy vote."

 

But what exactly is wrong with the sentence, grammatically? 

 

 

[Sk8ermaiden]

I don't like that headline, but quotes as you are using are really not done in headlines. It would have to be an actual, direct quote, attributed to someone to use quotation marks. Also, the trickiest part of headline writing, is that it has to fit in the allotted space. The real challenge would be to get kids to come up with a better headline that was the exact same number of characters + spaces as the original, within 3 characters or so. 

 

Space. Inches motivate everything in newspaper writing. If they edit one sentence, it should be roughly the same length as the original, or else they need to edit another sentence to make up the difference. 

 

It is very easy to write well when you're not under newspaper constraints. 

[Sk8ermaiden]

Oh man, this is taking me back...I was a copy editor for years and years...

[Cosmos]

The "say" bothers me a bit. We usually use "say that" followed by an independent clause, such as "Residents say that loud music disrupts the neighborhood." In headline language that would be shortened to "Residents say loud music disruptive" or something, leaving out the "that". You can also use "say to" to indicate a command or request, such as "Parents say to lower class sizes." But I don't like shortening that by leaving out the "to". It makes it seem, as you note, like a direct quote, which I'm sure it isn't.

 

I would prefer something like this:

 

Parents want lower class sizes, question more technology spending

Parents demand lower class sizes, question more technology spending

Parents ask for lower class sizes, question tech spending

 

[Entropymama]

Thanks! I like the idea of challenging them to do better with the same constraints. 

 

I'm also looking, though, for the grammar part of it. I'd love it if someone could tell me in this sentence - "Lakeville Area School District parents spoke about the way some things used to be in the district Monday night during a meeting organized by the Lakeville Parent Forum to discuss a possible fall 2015 operating levy vote." - that it's incorrect because the prepositional phrase 'during a meeting' is in the wrong place. Something like that. 

[Sk8ermaiden]

I want to say it's missing punctuation, but I can't pinpoint where it would be. Looking at it more closely, I don't think it is technically wrong, but just a really terrible sentence. There are a lot of those. It's poorly written, confusing and cumbersome. 

 

The Lakeville Parent Forum held a meeting Monday to discuss the possibility of a fall 2015 operating levy vote; during the meeting, parents spoke about the way things used to be in the district. 

 

[Junie]

I was a copy editor for my college newspaper.  We had a lot of problems like this!

 

IMO, I think that the problem is that the comma should be a semicolon.

 

The headline is: Parents say lower class sizes, question more technology spending

Which reads as: Parents say lower class sizes.  Parents say question more technology spending.  (This makes no sense.)

 

The headline could be: Parents say lower class sizes; question more technology spending

Which reads as: Parents say lower class sizes.  Parents question more technology spending

 

There are other solutions, but I think this is the punctuation problem that you were sensing and couldn't identify.

 

 

I don't know that this is a grammatical problem, so much as a style problem.  What confuses me about a lot of headlines is the use of words that function as multiple parts of speech.  In this case, the word "lower".  My first read-through, I was thinking, "parents say lower class sizes WHERE-IS-THE-VERB?", I had to back up, and realize that, in this headline, "lower" is the verb, not an adjective.

[Entropymama]

I don't know that this is a grammatical problem, so much as a style problem.  What confuses me about a lot of headlines is the use of words that function as multiple parts of speech.  In this case, the word "lower".  My first read-through, I was thinking, "parents say lower class sizes WHERE-IS-THE-VERB?", I had to back up, and realize that, in this headline, "lower" is the verb, not an adjective.

Exactly! 

[Tanaqui]

 

I don't know that this is a grammatical problem, so much as a style problem.  What confuses me about a lot of headlines is the use of words that function as multiple parts of speech.  In this case, the word "lower".  My first read-through, I was thinking, "parents say lower class sizes WHERE-IS-THE-VERB?", I had to back up, and realize that, in this headline, "lower" is the verb, not an adjective.

 

There's a technical term for this, a "garden path sentence". In headlines, they're often called "crash blossoms".

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntactic_ambiguity#In_headlines

 

 

[Space station]

Thanks! I like the idea of challenging them to do better with the same constraints.

 

I'm also looking, though, for the grammar part of it. I'd love it if someone could tell me in this sentence - "Lakeville Area School District parents spoke about the way some things used to be in the district Monday night during a meeting organized by the Lakeville Parent Forum to discuss a possible fall 2015 operating levy vote." - that it's incorrect because the prepositional phrase 'during a meeting' is in the wrong place. Something like that.

I think that the prepositional phrase "in the district Monday night" is misplaced. The way it is written means the parents were talking about the way things were on Monday night, rather rather some time previously. The "on Monday night" should be moved to the beginning of the sentence which would remove the time discrepancy in the sentence.

 

I like this better: On Monday night Lakeville Area School District parents spoke about the way some things used to be in the district ...

[Entropymama]

 

 

There's a technical term for this, a "garden path sentence". In headlines, they're often called "crash blossoms".

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntactic_ambiguity#In_headlines

 

 

 

Thanks!

 

I think that the prepositional phrase "in the district Monday night" is misplaced. The way it is written means the parents were talking about the way things were on Monday night, rather rather some time previously. The "on Monday night" should be moved to the beginning of the sentence which would remove the time discrepancy in the sentence.

 

I like this better: On Monday night Lakeville Area School District parents spoke about the way some things used to be in the district ...

 

That's how I read it, too. I'm getting to the point where my innate understanding of writing and grammar isn't really cutting it if I want to teach the kids. So here's another question.. is Grammar necessary to good writing? I mean, my daughter is currently working on the difference between predicate adjectives and predicate nominatives. She's frustrated and I'm wondering if that's really necessary.