Grammatically Correct: The writer's essential guide to punctuation ...

GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT
BETTER: In 1953, Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norkay
of Nepal became the first men to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
The neighborhood is rough, causing elderly residents to be scared to
go out alone.
Watch out for "ageism"-stereotyping people on the basis of how
many years they've been around. There's no denying that old age
can bring its problems, but do not label all individuals born before
a certain date as helpless or fragile, as though individuality no longer
exists. And childish words such as scared are not typically used to
describe adult reactions.
BETTER: The neighborhood is rough, causing many elderly residents to
be concerned about going out alone.
A survey from the 1930s on attitudes about immigration found that
Americans viewed northern Europeans and Canadians most favorably,
and blacks and Jews least favorably.
On the surface this statement is simply reporting the biased
opinions of others, but there's a bit more to it. Americans, Europeans
and Canadians are simply citizens of various countries; not ethnic
groups. Presumably it was Americans who were white and Christian
who expressed these views, but referring to them just as "Americans"
implies that Americans by definition aren't anything else. Were black
Americans surveyed? The same for northern Europe and Canada:
should one assume the respondents would have welcomed British
or Canadian Jews?
BETTER: A survey from the 1930s on attitudes of white Christian
Americans about immigration found that they viewed people of northern
European descent most favorably, and blacks and Jews least favorably.
Ms. Edwards is a very large woman and moves around with difficulty,
but she sparkles with intelligence and wit.
Attitudes toward overweight people have been described as "the
last safe prejudice": It may be politically incorrect to deride individuals
for their religion or skin color, but obesity makes somebody fair
game. Wording such as the above suggests that there is something
unexpected or contradictory about a person who is overweight also
being bright, as if fat is normally correlated with dimwittedness.
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