Via this column, we'll explore one grammar rule each week. If you have a grammar question you'd like me to address, please drop me a line at grace.lavigne@prnewswire.com and I'll do my best to answer it.

Chicken Little is the central character in a timeless children's story that almost everyone knows. There are many versions of the folk tale, but most begin with an acorn falling on Chicken Little's head and her resulting belief that the sky is falling.

While she's running around like her head is cut off, the villain of this tale, Foxy Loxy, tells Chicken Little to go his lair and put her feet up. But when she gets there, in her consternation, she can't remember whether she was told to lay down or lie down, illustrating the common dilemma English speakers have when choosing between these two verbs.
 

"Lay" is used when the subject acts on something else, so Chicken Little should lay down her head.

• Whenever Chicken Little gets upset, she lays an egg.
• To calm down, she lays her head on a pillow.

 
"Lie" is used when the subject is doing something to his or herself, so Chicken Little should lie down and catch her breath.

• Lying there, Chicken Little dreams of a place with sound ceilings.
• But if the sky is really falling, there’s no time to lie down.

 
Technically, "lie" means to recline or be situated, and "lay" means to put, place or prepare.

But both actions result in a reclined position. It's a confusing rule because the past tense of "lie" is "lay." To illustrate:

• Chicken Little lies down in Foxy Loxy's lair. (present)
• Chicken Little lay down in Foxy Loxy’s lair yesterday. (past)

In both cases, Chicken Little is acting upon herself.

The past tense of "lay" is "laid." So you could say:

• Chicken Little lays an egg. (present)
• Chicken Little laid an egg yesterday. (past)

In both cases, Chicken Little is acting upon something else (the egg).

Got it? Then you can answer this question: does Chicken Little lay down to lie eggs, or lie down to lay eggs?

ProfNet, a service of PR Newswire, has helped journalists and experts connect since 1992. Writers can search the ProfNet Connect database of more than 50,000 profiles; send a ProfNet query by email to thousands of subscribers around the globe; or get timely experts and story ideas by email.

image via KAZVorpal

Via this column, we'll explore one grammar rule each week. If you have a grammar question you'd like me to address, please drop me a line at grace.lavigne@prnewswire.com and I'll do my best to answer it.

The March Hare, a minor character in Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland," is remembered for his antics at the infamous tea party with the Mad Hatter and the Dormouse, whom Alice stumbles upon during her wanderings down the rabbit hole.

Like all hares and rabbits in early spring, the March Hare is frenzied, or "mad as a March Hare," as the saying goes. This particular hare seems mad about tea; he repeatedly offers Alice a cup and then whisks it away every time she tries to drink. By the end of the party, he has considerably less tea, or fewer cups of tea, illustrating the grammatical adage that "fewer" refers to quantifiable amounts and "less" refers to uncountable amounts.

Here are some other examples:

• The Dormouse (whose name is a play on the French verb "to sleep") is a lazy rodent who has fewer hours in the day because he sleeps so much.
• The Mad Hatter, on the other hand, gets significantly less sleep because he's incessantly singing "The Unbirthday Song," annoying everyone around him.
• There are fewer empty seats at the tea party after Alice sits down, leaving less space at the table for others.
• Hoping they would call her back, Alice has fewer Wonderland characters to meet and less time to meet them after leaving the Hare, Hatter and Dormouse, still at their tea.

Whether or not you're less mad than the March Hare, hopefully you'll make fewer grammatical mistakes if you remember this rule.

ProfNet, a service of PR Newswire, has helped journalists and experts connect since 1992. Writers can search the ProfNet Connect database of more than 50,000 profiles; send a ProfNet query by email to thousands of subscribers around the globe; or get timely experts and story ideas by email.

image via Flickr

Via this column, we'll explore one grammar rule each week. If you have a grammar question you'd like me to address, please drop me a line at grace.lavigne@prnewswire.com and I'll do my best to answer it.

The term "spring forward" is often met with a groan, an eye roll or a deep sigh, because unless you're an overnight worker or an insomniac, you know those two words signify a dismaying fact --  you will lose an hour of your precious sleep on the second Sunday in March every year due to daylight saving time. And unfortunately, that's this Sunday.

In an effort to stay positive, let's consider a mind-blowing upside to this yearly ritual: technically, by the time you've woken up on Sunday, you will have time traveled. Yes! A feat that no human ever thought they could do. And all this time, we've been living out H.G. Wells' dream twice a year.

Plus, this time travel brings us one hour closer to the first day of spring (March 20!). So with this newfound respect for daylight saving as a physics-defying date that ushers us into warmer weather, let's discuss how to reference time zones appropriately in writing.

***

First things first: It's "daylight saving time," not "daylight savings time" -- we're saving daylight, we're not savings daylight.

There are four time zones in the continental U.S.: Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific. Arizona, Hawaii and U.S. territories (Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands) do not recognize daylight saving time.

According to AP Stylebook, when linking the term "daylight saving time" with the name of a specific time zone, use the word "daylight" only, not "daylight saving."

• Eastern Daylight Time (correct)
• Mountain Daylight Time (correct)
• Pacific Daylight Saving Time (wrong)

Lowercase "daylight saving time" or "daylight time" whenever it stands alone. (When referring to a specific time zone, like the three examples above, the term is capitalized because it's a proper noun. Check out Grammar Hammer: Rules of Capitalization for more details on when to capitalize.)

According to federal law, daylight time begins at 2 a.m. on the second Sunday in March and ends at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in November (this year, it will end on Nov. 4).

During the rest of the year (like right now), we're in standard time.

• Eastern Standard Time
• Mountain Standard Time

Abbreviations for time zones on the first mention are acceptable. Include the zone abbreviation after the time only if it's relevant, like if the story involves travel or references TV or radio programs.

• Wake me up at 1:59 a.m. EST so I can witness the miracle!

On Sunday, when we switch to daylight time, we'll include "EDT" after the time instead.

• The first showing of "Bill and Ted 3" will be on Tuesday, Aug. 23, at 8 p.m. EDT.

See you in the future, fellow time travelers!

ProfNet, a service of PR Newswire, has helped journalists and experts connect since 1992. Writers can search the ProfNet Connect database of more than 50,000 profiles; send a ProfNet query by email to thousands of subscribers around the globe; or get timely experts and story ideas by email.

Image via sallykwitt.blogspot.com

Via this column, we'll explore one grammar rule each week. If you have a grammar question you'd like me to address, please drop me a line at grace.lavigne@prnewswire.com and I'll do my best to answer it.

March 4 (this Sunday) is National Grammar Day, since it's the only date that can also be interpreted as a command -- march forth!

When someone says "march forth/fourth," you might not be sure how to interpret it (although context obviously helps) because "fourth" and "forth" are homophonic heterographs (i.e., words that sound the same, but are spelled differently and have different meanings).

Since marching bands are probably the most common (only?) users of the phrase "march forth," let's help them out on National Grammar Day this year by explaining whether they march "further" or "farther" down the field during practice.

Main Rule: "Farther" is related to physical distance, and "further" is related to metaphorical distance.

1. "Farther" references the space between two objects in the real world. Check grammaticality by replacing "farther" with "more miles" or "more feet" or "more inches," for example. It's easy to remember because it has the word "far" in it (not "fur").

• The grand marshal made the high-school band students march farther than ever before -- 10 miles!
• Moving farther away from the group, he checked his plans.
• Maybe it was just his view, but their formation didn't look right, so the drum major moved farther up the grandstand.

2. "Further" references abstract distance (like time, for instance) that isn't tangible.

• The grand marshal pressed the students further because he was planning a secret formation: the squid.
• The further he pushed the complexity of the design, the better the chances of winning the national championships.
• But for now, he was stuck with a bunch of ungrateful teenagers, which drove him further into depression.

3. Note: According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, "further" or "farther" (as adverbs, like the examples shown above) can actually be used interchangeably when relating to either physical or metaphorical distances (although it's preferable to follow the rules). However, when there is no reference to distance, only "further" can be used, so when in doubt, it's safer to use "further."

• The grand marshal would disappear for hours to further refine the plans. ("Further refine" doesn't refer to physical or metaphysical distance.)

4. "Further" can also be a verb that means "to impel" or "to push" or "to drive" and it can never be interchangeable with "farther."

• He figured if the kids could pull this off, it would further his career; someday, he dreamed of being the leader of the president's personal marching band.

5. "Further" can also be used as a sentence modifier. Check grammaticality by replacing it with words like "furthermore" or "additionally."

• The grand marshal spent his nights going over the squid-formation plans step by step. Further, he studied squid shapes online to make sure it was just right.

ProfNet, a service of PR Newswire, has helped journalists and experts connect since 1992. Writers can search the ProfNet Connect database of more than 50,000 profiles; send a ProfNet query by email to thousands of subscribers around the globe; or get timely experts and story ideas by email.

Via this column, we'll explore one grammar rule each week. If you have a grammar question you'd like me to address, please drop me a line at grace.lavigne@prnewswire.com and I'll do my best to answer it.

Jean-Paul Sartre is perhaps the most famous existentialist from the 20th century, and like many French people, he has a hyphenated name. Existentialism (in very broad and vague terms) is the idea that free will determines our existence and consciousness -- so in short, it involves acting broody and mysterious while frequenting cafes. To honor this hyphenated hero of the mind, we'll review four main uses for hyphenation.

1. Hyphens signify compound adjectives. Use hyphens to link the words of a compound adjective that precede a noun if uncertainty might occur otherwise.

• Monsieur Sartre believed that to master outside-the-box thinking, one first had to exist outside the box.
• Sartre wrote some eye-opening essays, but some were definitely eye-closing, too.

Do not use a hyphen if the first word of a compound adjective is an adverb ending in -ly

• His ambiguously written "Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology" is hard to pronounce, let alone understand.

2. Hyphens act as a "stand in" for repeated words. These hyphens can also be referred to as "suspended hyphens."

• Sartre always used to sit in the same chair at the café, sometimes for two-, three- or four-month stretches, simply wondering, "The chicken, or the egg?"
• There are both pro- and anti-Sartre existentialists, but the one thing they can all agree on is wine and unfiltered cigarettes.

3. Hyphens are used to create word breaks at the end of a line of text. Break up words syllabically. If the word is only one-syllable long, don't break it up at all.

Here are two quotes from Sartre:

"For an occurrence to become an adventure, it is necessary and suffi-

cient for one to recount it."

"Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is re-

sponsible for everything he does."

(In the age of computers, most writers will not need to employ this rule regularly, but it doesn't hurt to understand, as the issue still surfaces in newspaper and publishing rooms.)

4. Hyphens indicate special pronunciations, accents, dialects, intonations, etc.

• Spelling out words: After finishing his last paper, Sartre took a final puff from his cigarette, stretched and exclaimed "D-O-N-E!"
• Drawn out intonations: "Stop asking me questions and just re-a-a-a-a-d already," groaned Sartre. "I didn't write 900 pages just for the fun of it."
• Stammering: "C-Camus?" Sartre sputtered. "How dare you compare me to that nitwit!"

ProfNet, a service of PR Newswire, has helped journalists and experts connect since 1992. Writers can search the ProfNet Connect database of more than 50,000 profiles; send a ProfNet query by email to thousands of subscribers around the globe; or get timely experts and story ideas by email.