Writers are sometimes confused about when to attach any, every, and no to one or body as a closed compound and when to treat one of these word pairs as just that: a two-word phrase. Here are guidelines and sample sentences for each combination:

Any Body/Anybody

The two-word alternative, which refers to people’s physical form rather than the complete body-mind package, might be used as an advertising-copy play on anybody, as in “We can get any body into shape,” but that’s rare; it might also appear as a modifier-noun pair that itself modifies another noun: “People with any body type are at risk.” Anybody is the default version when referring to unspecified people: “Is anybody there?”

Any One/Anyone

“Any one brand is as good as the other” points out that each brand has equal merit. “Anyone can see that I’m right” notes that any person, considered one by one among a class of all possible people, would agree.

Every Body/Everybody

When “every body” begins a sentence, the meaning is indistinguishable from when the closed compound is employed: “Every body in the room was tanned” differs only in emphasizing the physical forms of the people, while “Everybody in the room was tanned” focuses on the people who sport bronzed skins. In that case, because the distinction is so slight, the more comprehensive latter form prevails.

However, the phrase form is common in such wordplay-conscious constructions as “The Clothing Corral has attire for every body,” which, as in the previous example using the phrase, is nearly synonymous with its alternative (“The Clothing Corral has attire for everybody”) but calls attention to the corporeal manifestation of people, rather than their entire being, to make a point.

Every One/Everyone

When Tiny Tim declares, “God bless us, every one!” in A Christmas Carol, he’s emphasizing that he wishes blessings bestowed on each individual present. If Charles Dickens were to have declared that all the revelers in the Cratchit household repeated the statement in unison, he would have written something like this: “Everyone affirmed the blessing by repeating it as with one voice.” Everyone means “all of them.”

No One/Noone (or No-One)

“No one” is the only correct form in American English (and is fading in usage in British English), whether one is a pronoun or an adjective: “No one is home”; “There is no one right way to do it.” Noone and no-one are erroneous.

No Body/Nobody

The phrase refers to the lack of the presence of an animal’s living or dead physical form: “No body was lying in the room when I entered it this morning.” The compound means simply “no person,” and usually indicates a class of people whose commonality is their exclusion from another class: “Nobody saw it last night, either.” (Nobody can also be a noun meaning “nonentity, inconsequential person”: “Ever since his last film flopped, he’s been a nobody.”)

Summary

Note that in each case, the two-word phrase consists of a noun preceded by a modifier, and the one-word compound (with the exception of the noun sense of nobody) is a pronoun, a word standing in for a proper or common noun. The commonsense take-away is that use of the phrase forms are exceptional; usually, it’s the pronoun you’re looking for.

Three dots. Dot, dot, dot. What could be simpler? Then why do those dots make so many writers dotty? The rules for use of ellipses are not as simple as they seem. But they are manageable.

First, a definition: An ellipsis (from the Greek word elleipsis — also the source of ellipse, meaning “an oval” — is an elision of words that can be implied to mentally complete a statement; it can also mean “a sudden change of subject.” But the meaning we seek is another one, the grammatically mechanical one: Ellipsis and its plural form, ellipses, also refer to the punctuation marks signaling elision. (That word, from the Latin term elidere, means “omission.”)

Despite the second meaning of ellipsis mentioned above — “a sudden change of subject” — ellipses are not recommended for this function. Ellipses signal, in addition to elision, a faltering or trailing off (in which case they are sometimes called suspension points), but to prepare the reader for an abrupt break or interruption in thought, use an em dash.

The primary function of an ellipsis is to omit one or more inconsequential words from a quotation, as in this version of a sentence from above: “Despite the second meaning of ellipsis mentioned above, . . . ellipses are not recommended for this function.” (Note that punctuation, like the comma in this example, may be retained or introduced to aid comprehension.) Each dot is preceded and followed by a letter space. Word-processing programs have a single-character ellipsis, but this character, or three dots with no letter spaces, looks cramped and ugly; use the period key.

Ellipses should not be introduced at the beginning or end of a quotation; however, if the source material includes ellipses in one or both locations, retain the characters. If an entire sentence is elided, four periods should be inserted between the framing sentences. The first, which immediately follows the last word of the preceding sentence, is the period ending that sentence. The other three, spaced as mentioned above, constitute the ellipsis. Note this example: “Three dots. . . . What could be simpler?”

If a final portion of a sentence is elided, follow the ellipsis with a period after a letter space. The same technique is applied in the case of a comma or a semicolon. This elision of the preceding sentence illustrates: “If a final portion of a sentence is elided, follow the ellipsis with a period . . . . The same technique is applied in the case of a comma or a semicolon.”

If an entire paragraph is elided, end the previous paragraph with an ellipsis following the period ending the final sentence; if, within a multiparagraph quotation, the beginning of a paragraph other than the first one is elided, begin the paragraph starting with the elision with an indented ellipsis.

The two four-dot examples above illustrate the only two cases in which more than three dots should appear in sequence; an ellipsis always consists of three dots, but it may be preceded or followed by a period. A sequence of four or more dots otherwise appearing together is considered an unprofessional-looking error and should be avoided by any serious writer.

An ellipsis may also be employed when a sentence is deliberately incomplete: “Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be . . .’ speech” (though this could also be rendered without ellipsis) or “If I were you . . . ,” when the missing words are not considered necessary to aid in communicating meaning.

Are you a locavore? Probably not — it’s still a fringe movement — but you should know what it means, even if you do not consider yourself a member of the class. A discussion of locavore and six related words follows:

1. Locavore

The term was coined in 2005 by a group of San Franciscans who launched the website Locavore.com to spread the word about the conservationist concept of striving to restrict one’s diet to foods and ingredients produced locally. (Some locavores quantify the range as anywhere within a one-hundred-mile radius, but most are not exact in their limits.)

Locavore is based on other words in which the -vore root appears (the root word is from the Latin term vorare, meaning “to devour”):

2. Carnivore

A carnivore is a person or animal (or a plant) that eats meat; the prefix is from the Latin word for “flesh.” Other words sharing the root are carnal, meaning “of the flesh” and connoting sexual matters, and carnage, which comes from the Latin word carnaticum, meaning “tribute of flesh” and referring originally to the bodies of slain animals or people but now usually referring to slaughter in general.

Interestingly, these words are also etymologically related to carnival, which stems from an Italian term, carnelevare, meaning “removal of meat.” (Carnival referred originally to a celebration before Lent, during a period when Catholics were prohibited from eating meat.)

3. Herbivore

An herbivore is an animal that eats vegetable matter; the Latin root from which the prefix herb- and herb and other words based on it are derived, herba, means plant.” Human herbivores are generally referred to as vegetarians; if they refrain from eating anything derived from animals, from dairy products to gelatin, they are called vegans.

Terms of further refinement are “lacto-ovo vegetarian,” for a person who eschews rather than chews meat but does consume milk and eggs (the root lac- means “milk” — seen in lactate and lactic — and ovo-, the root of oval, refers to eggs) and “lacto-ovo-pesco vegetarian,” or, more simply, pescetarian, for one who eats fish but not meat. (The root pesc-, from the Latin term piscis, means “fish.”)

4. Insectivore

This self-explanatory term (insect is from the Latin term insecare, “to cut into,” and is related to incisive, scissors, and the like) is nearly synonymous with entomophage (from the Latin elements ento-, meaning “insect,” and -phage, meaning “eating”), though the latter term primarily refers to human practitioners.

5. Omnivore

An omnivore is something that eats both meat and plants (and often fish but not necessarily insects); omni- — seen also in omniscient and omnipresent — means “all.”

6. Piscivore

A piscivore, also called an ichthyophage (ichthy means “fish”), eats fish, though, like most other groups classified here, the term refers to the primary type of diet and does not imply exclusivity.

7. Voracious

Voracious, synonymous with ravenous or insatiable, means “having a great appetite” or refers to intense greediness or eagerness. The noun form is voracity.

In the same day, this site received, among readers’ responses to my recent post Courtesy Titles and Honorifics, two diverse email messages: One was a reasonable, well-written support of the writer’s opinion that, as she was taught, because the courtesy title Ms. is an artificial designation that doesn’t abbreviate anything, it should not include a period. The other correspondent wrote, “hey watch out your website looks like a rule book, and we all know rule books are fascist.”

Whether one’s convictions are adept or absurd, however, one must accept the incontrovertible fact that although one is free to write in any style or manner one chooses, this choice has consequences.

Linguistic anarchy is inimical to language, by virtue of the fact that language, as a form of communication, is essential to family, to society, to civilization. Just as abiding by rules of personal and community conduct (the latter extending in scope from the smallest village to the United Nations) helps protect the fragile coexistence of humans, adhering to guidelines for language use enable at least sizeable blocs of humanity to agree on common signals for cooperation (or conflict).

Language evolves, constantly and relentlessly, but precepts and attitudes about it prevail for a time before they slowly respond to changes in usage. Therefore, for example, though one of the correspondents I referred to above is correct that the period following Ms. is not logically justified — and that for that reason, early in the term’s life span, many writers omitted the punctuation — it is now standard, for the sake of consistency, to treat Ms. the same as Mr. and Mrs. One’s gender and gender politics are irrelevant: Those are the facts, ma’am — er, ms.

Do you write simply for pleasure, or to share your thoughts and ideas with a small coterie of readers? Do you self-publish, whether in print or online? Knock yourself out — you are hereby granted a dispensation to write in any fashion that pleases you and anyone who chooses to read your work. You are akin to a homesteader or a survivalist, staking out your own terrain on your own terms — and accepting the terms that go with those terms.

But if your intent is to identify yourself as a professional writer — or if your employment status is predicated on the fact that your writing is intelligible to your colleagues and perhaps even consistent with distributed guidelines — certain standards apply, and your ability to adhere to those standards is inextricably linked to your professional success or survival. If that’s fascist, then I proudly represent the New World Order.

I don’t mean to get all serious on you. I respect the point about the unpunctuated Ms., and for all I know, the comment about the “rule book” may be a goof. But both comments inspire this tip: When it comes to composition, let your unfettered freak flag fly. But if you submit the flag to be unfurled atop a highly visible flagpole, expect it to be redesigned to suit that flagpole — or to be refolded and respectfully returned for you to do with what you wish.

The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, has been widely celebrated as one of the masterworks of English usage. Time magazine listed it as one of the one hundred most influential books written in English since 1923. More than ten million copies of the slim little volume that elucidates good usage, proper composition, and correct form have been sold over the course of the last half-century.

Shred it.

Shred it, that is, after you’ve read it once so that you know what not to do in your writing. Then, buy a copy of Arthur Plotnik’s Spunk and Bite: A Writer’s Guide to Bold, Contemporary Style.

Arthur who? Why should you attend to the advice of someone you’ve never heard of? Well, who had heard of Strunk, a Cornell University English professor, a hundred years ago? And though E. B. White was a famed New Yorker staff writer, as well as author of beloved children’s novels like Charlotte’s Web, he wasn’t considered an authority on language when he was commissioned to update his former teacher’s slight handbook in 1959. If there is any justice in the world, Plotnik will be as much of a household name in fifty years as Strunk & White are now — and with more justification.

Why the adulation? Plotnik, author of several acclaimed books on writing, offers Spunk and Bite as a refreshing alternative to the dry, rigid edicts of the book known informally as Strunk & White. The latter work, he argues authoritatively, stifles creativity and results in sterile prose. In seven example-laden sections, he offers liberating advice in chapters with such titles as “Joltingly Fresh Adverbs,” “The Punchy Trope,” “How to Loot a Thesaurus,” “Intensifiers for the Feeble,” “A License. To Fragment. Sentences,” “Magic in the Names of Things,” and “Edge: Writing at the Nervy Limits.”

Over and over again, Plotnik begs to differ with The Elements of Style, urging writers to know the Strunk & White rules only so they can break them. No anarchist he, however — the advice is generally grounded in a more liberal reading of the principles of English grammar and usage and in the understanding that some of the great literature of our language, from Shakespeare to Joyce to — well, he lauds the style of Martin Amis, Bill Bryson, Jonathan Franzen, Mark Leyner, E. Annie Proulx, Salman Rushdie, and others — have done very well without adhering to Strunk & White’s prissy precepts.

I can’t wholeheartedly embrace Plotnik’s prescriptions; his chapter on alternatives to using quotation marks to signal dialogue, for example, makes me cringe, and he suggests (mysteriously citing support of other recent writing guides) that a comma can precede the last item in a sentence in which semicolons separate other items in the series. (His example: “She tried switching computers; she wrote by hand; she dictated to a recorder, her old one from work, and she prayed to her muse.”) That aberrant final comma, however, renders an otherwise acceptable sentence grotesque.

There’s also an occasional misstep in his advice: He suggests diminishing what he considers an awkward subject-verb delay in “Ibrahim could not, in spite of all his training, knowing that the platoon depended on him, even with the armed and hated enemy in his crosshairs, fire” by revising the sentence to “Ibrahim could not fire, in spite of all his training, knowing that the platoon depended on him, even with the armed and hated enemy in his crosshairs.”

But this fix squanders the sentence’s tension, and it is the bisection of the verb phrase “could not fire,” not the delay between “Ibrahim could not” and “fire,” that mars the sentence. A better revision, one that aptly spotlights the stair-step intensification of the increasingly longer modifying phrases, is “Ibrahim, in spite of all his training, knowing that the platoon depended on him, even with the armed and hated enemy in his crosshairs, could not fire.”

Visitors to this site have similarly improved on my suggested revisions of not-quite-right writing, however, and this quibble and the preceding ones serve only to point out that Plotnik isn’t perfect. But The Elements of Style is out of style, and Spunk and Bite is an engaging antidote to Strunk and White’s black-and-white bludgeoning — a rainbow of writing recipes.