Who changed the grammar rules and why didn't someone (or is it anyone) tell me?

The books I've used for years as reference bibles and guides to good writing and proper grammar.(Photo: Diane Larson)

  I'm so old.
  "HOW OLD ARE YOU?" the imaginary audience in my head shouts.
  I'm so old I think the rules of grammar changed without me even noticing.
  It began in class when we were quizzed on the rules of grammar, sentence structure and punctuation based on the latest Associated Press (AP) Stylebook. It was going well enough until we got to the question that essentially asked which form of singular possessive was correct:
a) Mr. Edwards's
b) Mr. Edward's
c) Mr. Edwards'
  Let's start by ruling out b). That's just wrong. His last name is Edwards. So with smug certainty, I proclaimed a) was right. I was sure of it. It was in my Strunk & White's The Elements of Style. In fact, it's the first rule:
  1. Form the possessive singular of nouns by adding 's
  Follow the rule whatever the final consonant.  Thus write,
  Charles's friend
  Burns's poem
  The witch's malice
  But young Katie kindly corrected me and read from the AP Stylebook that the general rule for forming possessives was to simply add an apostrophe at the end of a proper noun ending in s.
  So, AP says the answer is c).
  At first I thought this was a case of the changing nature of style and punctuation. Patricia T. O'Conner co-writes a blog called Grammarphobia and wrote Woe is I, one of my favorite books on what she calls "better English in plain English."
  In her blog she writes that language naturally evolves over time.
  "Generation after generation, we discard outdated vocabulary, pronunciations, even what have been considered "rules," because they no longer serve as aids to communication -- we no longer recognize the signals because they aren't useful anymore." (Grammarphobia Oct. 26, 2006).
 Some grammar rules I thought were hard and fast can be flexible and squishy.
 But this possessive singular thingy is a conundrum for me because many current grammar guides say the same thing as Strunk & White.  And I double checked my old AP Stylebook (copyright 1980) and discovered that even way back when, AP wanted us to put the apostrophe at the end of a singular possessive ending in s.
  It's not so much that grammar evolved and changed without me; it's a question of style. The AP Stylebook sort of made up its own rules over time.  And I'm not alone in my confusion over why some English teachers tell us one thing and the AP tells us another.
  In June, Danielle Moore wrote in the broadcast and public relations news blog News Generation:
  "I spent over 20 minutes reading articles that slammed the AP Stylebook for this ridiculous change." -- Three months ago, that sentence would have been incorrect and many PR professionals are wishing AP would leave American grammar alone.  The AP Stylebook recently ruled that more than and over may be used interchangeably to indicate numerical value. "More than my dead body," tweeted an outraged @MikeShor, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut.
 Hmm.  Maybe I'm not that old after all. I just have to straddle the old world of high school English and the new world of the AP Stylebook.
  Still, I wondered why this little but important rule had escaped me. I've had that old AP Stylebook on my desk for years. Sitting there. Collecting dust.
  I think it's because I write for the ear and not the eye. In broadcast news, we don't write captions for news photos:  our stories are photos.  Moving pictures. Video. Without video, we would be radio.
  This photojournalism class is all about writing for the eye and taking still photos to accompany that writing.  And writing captions, I'm learning, requires almost a different set of skills.
  Twitter has helped us with brevity and clarity by limiting us to 140 characters.  We joke in broadcasting that "I didn't have time to write it short."  It's not easy to tell a full story in 20 seconds on television or with a caption for a newspaper photo.
  But captions can tell a whole story.  In fact, they follow the AP Stylebook rules for grammar and punctuation and they typically answer the 5 W's and an H (who, what, where, when, why and how).
  I've rarely paid much attention to captions and perhaps that's a sign that they're mostly well done.  It's one more pleasant surprise of this class and another lesson that is enriching me as a journalist.
  But my eyes are open now.  To the different rules prescribed by the AP Stylebook.  To the importance of captions.  Even those that don't tell the whole story but have a style all their own, like this one that accompanied a Washington Post article on the troubled Ohio gubernatorial campaign of Democrat Ed FitzGerald.

I carry the First Amendment with me. Physically







The 22nd edition of the pocket version of the United States Constitution.  (photo: Diane Larson)



 
One Sunday in August, I was part of the audience at a National Press Club Event.  Supreme Court justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsberg were talking about the First Amendment. I wasn’t actually at the event when it happened. That was in April. In Washington.  I was in my car, driving home from Cleveland. The discussion was rebroadcast on radio.  And it was fascinating. 

You’d think as a journalist I would have an almost spiritual appreciation for the First Amendment. Like it’s in me on a molecular level.  Thing is, I rarely give it a second thought while doing my job every day. I happened upon that First Amendment radio discussion the day before I began this photojournalism class at Owens Community College.

  It felt like a timely refresher course. I knew we would study photojournalism law and ethics.  But I was rusty on the particulars. After all, the last time I really studied the First Amendment was in my journalism classes at Bowling Green State University last century!

  So I don’t think about the First Amendment all the time, but I carry it with me. Physically. It’s the pocket version of the United States Constitution, printed in July 2006 under the direction of the Joint Commission on Printing. I don't remember who gave it to me. It's worn and stained by coffee that spilled in an old purse. The purse is long gone. The Constitution is still with me. I suppose I could get this same information on Google on my cell phone now. But I like the way it feels; like the way a real book smells and feels. And I still get my newspaper stories on actual paper.

(photo: Diane Larson)

Anyway, I carry the Constitution with me, tucked in a side pocket of a new purse. When I got home after listening to the Scalia/Ginsberg radio talk, I pulled it out and turned to the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
  45 words. Seems like there should be more words, bigger words for such important freedoms.
  Most of us probably don’t think about those freedoms until they’re put to the test. Until they are hard to defend. Like in Toledo on October 15, 2005.
 I got a phone call that Saturday afternoon to come to work.  North Toledo was exploding in a riot. Tensions were high to begin with because Neo-Nazis were coming to town.  They had a right to be there. It was their First Amendment right. Barely a dozen members of the National Socialist Movement from Virginia were coming. Police were there to protect the group's right to peaceably assemble. Hundreds of counter-protesters were there too. As many feared, it quickly turned into violence with looting, fires and arrests. The Neo-Nazis didn't stick around long after that; clearly it wasn't a peaceable assembly anymore.
  Take the case for flag burning. In 1989, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that burning the American flag was protected free speech. Justice William Brennan, who wrote the majority opinion, said, in effect, you may not like it and you don't have to like it, but it's not illegal.
 "If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable," Brennan said.
 The First Amendment spells out five basic freedoms:  freedom of religion, speech, the press, assembly and to petition the government.
  I'm grateful for those freedoms as a citizen and a journalist.
 This is a young country. Barely a toddler in terms of theory and belief. But the land upon which this more perfect union was formed is ancient. Like the 1.7 billion-year-old Precambrian rock at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. I went there last week. Hiked down three miles. Hiked back up 300 miles (at least it felt like that).
  Our freedoms are not as solid as that rock. They rely on wise interpreters on the Supreme Court. And a wise Congress to keep those freedoms intact. And a free press to keep them honest. Or at least try to.

Yavapai Point at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon  (photo: Diane Larson)