By Neil Holdway
Over the years my go-to reference for grammar questions has been a book that I have-n't seen on copy desk authorities' recommended lists but that somehow got into my newsroom years ago: "The Gregg Reference Manual." The book was written not for journalists but "for anyone who writes, edits, or prepares material for distribution or publication," it says in its preface. Whomever (not whoever) it was written for, I am grateful for its comprehen-sive yet simply written grammar and style sec-tions.

The book, whose ninth edition was released in 2001, has a business bent, to be sure. Less than half the book is devoted to "Grammar, Us-age, and Style" (notice the editors prefer the comma before "and"), while much of the rest of the book is devoted to style and formatting for letters, memos and resumes; it even has a primer on filing (I hope you'll forgive me if I don't read that part). Nevertheless, the gram-mar section has never failed to answer my Eng-lish stumpers. 

You have two ways to look up your questions in the book. I prefer to start with the index in the back. You should not be afraid to look there first no matter how peculiar your ques-tion is. For example, someone asked me whether the verb after "a majority of x" should be sin-gular or plural. You can't quite find your an-swer by looking up "majority" -- you'll get the handy listing for the difference between "ma-jority" and "plurality" instead -- but you can go to the next logical place: "verbs," then "agreement with subjects." The index won't list page numbers in most cases; it instead takes you to the applicable rule number or numbers, out of the 1,801 total. The book is well-labeled, now in a blue color contrasting the black type, so you can easily flip to the de-sired number. Ours in this case is 1001-1029. 

These rule numbers all fall under the head-ing "Subjects and Verbs." Then subheads divide the rules further, making it easy to scan through them to get to the specific topic. My scan quickly takes me all the way down to rule No. 1025, under the "Fractional Expressions" subhead. The opening sentence makes it clear that this is the rule I'm looking for: "When the subject is an expression such as one-half of, two-thirds of, a part of, a majority of, a percentage of, a portion of, or the rest of:" and then the rule appears in outline form, with a, b and c for three dif-ferent circumstances. 

The book's writing to explain the rule is concise and amply effective, and understandable examples always follow -- indented and now in a different typeface to stand out. For my "major-ity of" question, circumstance "a" is simply stated, "Use a singular verb if a singular noun follows of or is implied." Note the book has italicized "singu-lar verb" and "singular noun" to emphasize the pattern. Rule b, as you might guess, is "Use a plural verb when a plural noun follows of or is implied."

Another question I had to look up is in the same section, and I found the answer simply by scanning and seeing the examples that fit my situation. My question was, do you say "club drugs *are* the No. 1 problem" or "club drugs *is* the No. 1 problem?" Right there in rule No. 1029 are examples illustrating the answer I need: "Bicycles are the only product we make." "The key issue is higher wages" -- again with italicization to emphasize the key words. 

The other approach to finding your answer, besides starting with the index, is to start with the table of contents. It's actually harder now to start from the front of the book than it was in the seventh edition, which is what has been in my newsroom. Using my "major-ity of" example, I can find only "Grammar" in the first Contents page; then I must go to the listed page number to find a more detailed ta-ble of contents for that section. I see "Frac-tional Expressions," but would I have realized that "majority of" is under that topic? It makes sense in hindsight, but it may not be so obvious going in cold. It is good, though, that besides "Grammar" on the first contents page, "Punctuation," "Capitalization" and "Plurals and Possessives" are listed separately, and there's a whole section on "Spelling." In "A Quick Guide to Key Topics By Paragraph Number" on the inside front cover, you will see some issues important to us, such as "Hyphenated words," "Infinitives," "Comma" indented under "Punctuation," and "Words frequently mis-spelled." 

The reference manual is indeed comprehen-sive, and accordingly you must ignore some style listings it has, such as state abbrevia-tions, because you might go by the AP Style-book's or your own list instead. But you'll find loads of handy things: the English plural forms of words ending in "us" (No. 614), the plural of the abbreviation for "Madame," and rules for hyphenating words, for example. Be-ware of the expansive section on "Compound Words," because the editors' preferences -- which seem to be based on what "frequently ap-pears" in business, according to a footnote in at least one spot -- may clash with your pre-ferred style book and/or dictionary. Do note the Glossary of Grammatical Terms, an appendix in the back -- in case you can't quite remember what a dangling gerund is or which is the pres-ent perfect progressive tense of a verb. And also note the Glossary of Computer Terms in the back, which has been expanded in the ninth edi-tion. A guide to proofreaders' marks is even on the inside back cover.

"The Gregg Reference Manual" can answer the tough grammar questions, and it has provided me with authoritative yet readable explanations I can comfortably pass on to the newsroom when discussing our fair language. And the ninth edition comes spiral-bound, so you can leave the book open as you're consulting and typing. Handy, as always. 

Neil Holdway is metro news editor on the copy desk of the Daily Herald, which covers Chicago's west and northwest suburbs.