Grammar girl here I'm in yon Fog Fog your friendly guide to the English

language we talk about writing history rules and other cool stuff today we're going to talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff.

Today we're going to talk about how to use political words

like President-elect and Laim Duck.

And then I have my favorite kind of hot grammar news

about a German

apostrophe curfuffle. It's hard to miss a United States presidential

election year. You're bombarded with political ads every time you turn on your TV. On social media he did

debates about who should run the country, suddenly outnumber your best friend's

cat picks. Campaign signs have sprouted like dandelions on lawns across your neighborhood.

Well today we're actually going to have a little respite from all that.

Instead of arguing about who deserves your vote we're going to dig into the world of election

terminology. When does a regular Joe or Jane turn into a presumptive nominee? At what magical moment does one candidate earn the title

President-elect? And why on earth do we call outgoing president's lame ducks?

spoiler alert, it has nothing to do with their waddling abilities.

So ever wonder how our beloved yellow snail squiggly becomes presumptive nominee squiggly? Well setting aside he's

clearly not responsible enough to get that far. Let's dig in. Presumptive

nominee is political speak for, we're pretty darn sure this person's going to

win the party's nomination, but we don't want to jinx it.

Still, the term presumptive is important because nothing's a sure thing until

after the party's national convention. And given that presumptive nominee isn't

a title so much as a descriptor, it isn't capitalized.

...