Here’s news that puts my grammar in the right place and one that should warm the cockles of Max Sims’s heart.
To settle my dispute with Max over my use of the phrase “all those journalistic nonsense”—he insists that I should have used “all that journalistic nonsense” instead, arguing that “nonsense” is a singular mass noun that needs the singular article “that”—I sought the opinion of five English grammar mavens who are very much active in their good-grammar advocacies. Four graciously responded to my question, namely (in alphabetical order) Ellie Grossman (“The Grammar Guru” columnist,
The Buffalo News, and author of
The Grammatically Correct Handbook: A Lively and Unorthodox Review of Common English, for the Linguistically Challenged), Richard Lederer (“Looking at Language” syndicated newspaper columnist in the United States and author of
Miracle of Language), Jack Lynch (associate professor of English of Rutgers University-Newark and author of
The Lexicographer’s Dilemma), and Ben Yagoda (journalism professor at the University of Delaware, freelance journalist for
The New York Times and
Newsweek, and author of
When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It).
My question to each of them:May I have your opinion on a dispute on English usage?
It’s about my use in my English-language forum of the stand-alone noun phrase “all those journalistic nonsense” in the passage I am quoting below. A forum member, Max Sims of Australia, insists that I should have used “all that journalistic nonsense” instead.”
Inoculating ourselves against all those journalistic nonsense
How many times have we been taken in by seemingly literally true newspaper headlines and stories that turned out to be seriously misleading if not outright false? These travesties of language and logic are not the sole province of tabloids but of supposedly mainstream media as well, and John Allen Paulos, mathematics professor at Temple University in Philadelphia and author of the best-sellers Innumeracy and A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper, trots out for dispassionate analysis some of the usual suspects: “Thousands to Die After Swine Flu Vaccination,” “Math Formula Links Your Social Security Number to Your Age,” “Otherworldly Properties of Metal Found at Roswell,” and “Roswell UFOs Foretold in Bible.”
Paulos, who also wrote Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up, makes this prescription in ABCNews against all these journalistic tomfoolery masquerading as truth: “Don’t forget to inoculate yourself against the flu and, as much as possible, against nonsense as well.”
My question: Am I mistaken in my use of “all those nonsense” in the context of the above passage?
Their answers:Ellie Grossman: Hi, Joe! Actually, it should be “all that journalistic nonsense.” “Nonsense” is singular. Also, I’ve never seen “jazz” used in the plural sense. It, too, is singular, and the phrase should be “all that jazz.” There’s even a song “And All That Jazz.”
Richard Lederer: It’s “all that nonsense.” “Nonsense” is a singular noun that requires a single demonstrative adjective: “that.”
Jack Lynch: “Nonsense” is what’s called a “mass noun”; it’s always in the singular, like “water” and “stuff.” (The other possibility is "count nouns," which can be singular or plural, like "chair" and "thing.")
Since the noun is always singular, it needs to agree with a singular demonstrative pronoun: “all that journalistic nonsense.”
Ben Yagoda: Hello, Joe. I regret to say I’m with Max on this (and also with your subsequent use of “these journalistic tomfoolery”). As he says, “those” is plural and “nonsense” is a singular collective noun, so they don’t match up. So you would say “this” or “that” instead of “these” or “those.”
I guess the thing that really gets me is that you cite internet posts in your “defense.” On the internet, you could find multiple examples of every conceivable grammatical, usage, spelling, or (of course) factual error, right? Numbers two and three make the same error you do, which merely proves that you are not the only person in the universe who has made this error. Number one (Jose Faur) is interesting because he is doing something else. He is basically saying, “And in proving those beliefs nonsense...” but leaves out the word “beliefs.” Do you see the difference?
Thanks for asking.
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With the weight of the combined opinions of these four grammar mavens, I stand corrected and commend Max Sims for his genial tenacity in insisting on the correct usage for the phrase in question.
