Grammar Moses: I nearly fell six feet, but I'm still standing

Jackie Goodman's email was succinct: "Nearly falls? Falls nearly?"

Attached was a photo of her Daily Herald Business section. The six-column headline across the top of the section read: "Jobless rate nearly falls to 1969 levels."

Oh, the jobless rate fell all right. There is nothing in the story about it teetering on the edge of anything.

This is a case of a misplaced modifier.

As Jackie and Ray Martin pointed out it fell NEARLY to 1969 levels.

Touche!

'Such as' out of place

Iris Hohe was following the story of a homeless man found dead in Arlington Heights last month, but something confused her.

The lede of the story read: "Authorities said Monday they are still trying to track down next of kin for the homeless man found dead last week in downtown Arlington Heights, and, as such, his identity remains withheld."

"I am pretty old and don't ever remember hearing (as such,)" Iris conceded.

I'm here to tell you, Iris, that "as such" is as popular today as it was in 1800, according to Google's Ngram Viewer. And I know you're not that old.

"As such" is far less popular than, say, "popular" has been throughout the centuries, but it is still quite common.

"Such" acts as a pronoun, though it is gaining popularity as a synonym for "therefore," something that is frowned upon by your better dictionaries and learned grammarians.

In this case, we used it when we should have written "because of that."

Oh, well, I've yet to contribute to a flawless newspaper in roughly 13,000 tries, though we keep working at it.

The traditional use of "such" in this case refers to a noun earlier in the sentence. It helps you to avoid repeating yourself.

"If you are looking for a good deal on a cellphone, you should be aware that those that have been reconditioned must be clearly marked as such."

In this case, "as such" refers to how the phones must be marked.

More regionalisms

• "I moved to Chicago 32 years ago from Cincinnati," writes Nancy Noonan. "While my husband's family routinely 'calls dibs,' I 'finnie' to claim ownership. As an example, 'I finnie the last cookie.' No one other than my sister has a clue what this regionalism means."

Nancy backs up her definition with something she found on the internet that claims Bay Staters (people from Massachusetts) and Ohioans such as she use the term.

• "My husband who grew up in Waterloo, Iowa, will say, for example, Iowa State U is CLEAR across the state," writes Joan Osran.

I'm not sure that one qualifies as a regionalism, Joan.

The benefit of having in-laws from Alaska to Oklahoma - beyond having less pressure to see them on a regular basis - is I get to hear all of the local syntactic quirks they develop. And despite their all having grown up on the North Side of Chicago, they're all enmeshed in their new surroundings and customs.

I'm pretty sure all of them would say, "I'm not coming home for that family reunion. It's clear across the country!"

Fun with apostrophes

If I've said it once, I've said it 1,000 times: Do not insert an apostrophe in a simple plural.

In the case of this garage, one might gather that the bay on the left is the bay of the tuneup and the one on the right is where the brake resides. And never the twain shall meet. Come on, sign makers, you can do better.

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/managing editor of the Daily Herald. Write him at jbau-mann@dailyherald.com. Put Grammar Moses in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.