Lynch's Guide to Grammer and Style
by
Lynch
A or An.
Use an in place of a when it precedes a vowel sound, not just a vowel. That means it's " an honor" (the h is silent), but " a UFO" (because it's pronounced yoo eff oh). This confuses people most often with acronyms and other abbreviations: some people think it's wrong to use "an" in front of an abbreviation (like "MRI") because "an" can only go before vowels. Poppycock: the sound is what matters. It's " an MRI," assuming you pronounce it "em ar eye."
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The Above, The Following.
Lists are common in some sorts of writing, introduced by the following and referred to by the above. But you can often make a sentence clearer and punchier with simple pronouns : instead of the above topics, try these topics -- the context makes your subject clear.
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Acronyms with a or an.
See A or An.
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Action Verbs.
Action verbs, as the name reveals, express actions ; contrast them with verbs of being. Think of the difference between "I study" (action verb, even if it's not the most exciting action) and "I am a student" (verb of being). It's often wise to cut down on verbs of being, replacing them (whenever possible) with action verbs; that'll make your writing punchier.
Whatever you do, though, don't confuse action verbs with the active passive voice. Sentences with verbs of being (such as am, is, are, were) aren't necessarily passive sentences, even if they're often weak ones.
See also E-Prime.
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Active Voice.
See Passive Voice.
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Adjectives and Adverbs.
An adjective is a word that pronoun : it answers which one, how many, or what kind. Some examples: "the big one"; " seven books"; "a devoted student."
Adverbs, on the other hand, usually modify verbs, and answer in what manner, to what degree, when, how, how many times, and so forth. Some examples: "He ran quickly "; "I'll do it soon "; "We went twice."
Sometimes adverbs modify adjectives or other adverbs: "She finished very quickly" ( very modifies the adverb quickly, which in turn modifies the verb finished); "The work was clearly inadequate" ( clearly modifies the adjective inadequate, which in turn modifies work).
The best rule for spotting adverbs is to look for -ly. Be careful, however; not all adverbs end in -ly, and not all -ly words are adverbs: soon, twice, and never are adverbs; friendly, ugly, and northerly are adjectives.
Go easy on the adjectives and adverbs. While modifiers are necessary in any sort of writing, make sure your nouns and verbs are clear and are doing most of the work. As Strunk and White put it, "The adjective hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place."
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Affect versus Effect.
Affect with an a is usually a verb; effect with an e is (usually) a noun. When you affect something, you have an effect on it. The usual adjective is effective.
If the usual s leave you curious, here's the rest of the story: affective as an adjective means "relating to or arousing an emotional reaction"; effect as a verb means "to bring about" or "to accomplish," as in "to effect a change."
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Agreement.
One of the fundamental grammar is that the parts of a sentence should agree with each other. It's easier to demonstrate than to define agreement.
Agreement is usually instinctive in native English speakers. In "I has a minute," the verb has doesn't agree with the subject I. We would say "I have." In "John got their briefcase," assuming John got his own briefcase, their should be his. It's obvious.
Only rarely does it get tricky. A plural noun right in front of the singular verb can throw you off. Consider "Any one of the articles are available": the verb are shouldn't agree with articles, but with the subject, one : the sentence should read, "Any one of the articles is available."
A Hypercorrection is always a danger in cases like this. Pay special attention to phrases like you and I, you and she, and so forth.)
See also Media.
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All of.
"All of the --" can usually be rewritten as "All the --," "All --," or "Every --."
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Also.
Avoid beginning sentences with also. There's nothing wrong with it, but it tends to make your writing inelegant.
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Alternate, Alternative.
Alternate (as an adjective) traditionally means going back and forth between two things, as in alternate Mondays (i.e., every other Monday). Alternative means other. Traditionalists prefer an alternative to an alternate plan. ( Real traditionalists insist that alternative can be used only in cases where there are two options.)
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Among versus Between.
The simple rule will rarely fail you: use between for two things, among for more than two.
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And at the Beginning.
See But at the Beginning.
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And/or.
And/or is sometimes necessary in legal documents, but just clutters other writing. One word or the other will almost always do just as well. See Slashes.
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Antecedent.
A technical term in pronoun refers. In a sentence like "She couldn't stand opera, which always sounded like shrieking," the relative pronoun which stands in for the word opera, so opera is the antecedent. In a sentence like "He couldn't say the word titillate without giggling, which always got him in trouble," the word which refers back not to any individual word, but to the whole preceding clause ("He couldn't say the word titillate without giggling") -- the whole thing is the antecedent.
By the way, it's pronounced ant-uh-SEE-dent.
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Anticipate.
To anticipate something is to get ready for it or to do something in advance; this is not the same as expect. If you expect changes, you think they'll be coming soon; if you anticipate changes, you're preparing to deal with them. Blake certainly didn't expect Modernist poetry, but in some ways he anticipated it by doing similar things a century earlier. Anticipate is often improperly used (in a love affair with the longer word) where expect is better.
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Any Way, Shape, or Form.
Blech. Not only a cliche, and therefore bad enough in its own right, but an uncommonly dumb cliche. It's usually inappropriate and much wordier than necessary. Will someone please tell me what's wrong with "in any way"?
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Apostrophe.
The most common way to form a possessive in English is with apostrophe and s : "a hard day's night." After a plural noun ending in s, put just an apostrophe: "two hours' work" (i.e., "the work of two hours"). If a plural doesn't end in s -- children, men, people -- plain old apostrophe-s: "children's," "men's," "people's." It's never "mens'" or "childrens'."
There's also the opposite case: when a singular noun ends in s. That's a little trickier. Most style guides prefer s's : James's house. Plain old s-apostrophe (as in James' house) is common in journalism, but most other publishers prefer James's. It's a matter of house style.
Note that the possessives of It's versus Its.
Apostrophes are sometimes used to make acronyms or other abbreviations plural (another matter of a local house style). My preference: don't use apostrophes to make abbreviations plural -- not "They took their SAT's," but "They took their SATs." The only exception is when having no apostrophe might be confusing: "Two As" is ambiguous; make it "Two A's." Never use apostrophes as quotation marks to set off words or phrases (unless you need a quotation within a quotation).
To refer to a decade, don't use an apostrophe before the s. Refer to the 1960s or the '60s (the apostrophe indicates that "19" has been omitted), not the 1960's or (worse) the '60's.
See also Microsoft Word for tips on distinguishing apostrophes from single quotation marks.
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Apposition.
Two phrases are in apposition when they're logically equivalent and in the same grammatical relation to the rest of the sentence: it's a way of explaining a word or phrase, or giving additional information about it. It's easier to see in examples than in definitions. "I spent the year in my favorite city, Detroit," puts two phrases -- "my favorite city" and "Detroit" -- in apposition; the second phrase explains the first. "I just finished a novel by D. H. Lawrence, the least talented novelist in English" -- the phrase "the least talented novelist in English" is in apposition to "D. H. Lawrence," and gives the writer's opinion of Lawrence. (It happens to be correct, by the way -- you heard it here first.)
Apposition usually requires commas around the appositional phrase: "The winter of '24, the coldest on record, was followed by a warm summer."
Oh, yeah -- don't confuse apposition with opposition. They come from the same Latin root ( pono 'put'), but have nothing else to do with one another.
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Articles.
English has two sorts of articles : the definite article ( the), and indefinite articles ( a and an). They function more or less as British and American usage sometimes differs; wounded Brits end up in hospital, while Yanks are in the hospital. Alas, I don't have any easy rules that are even a little helpful -- all I can suggest is that non-native speakers pay close attention to the actual usage of articles. Sorry.
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Assure, Ensure, Insure.
While ensure and insure aren't quite so clear cut, assure is very different from both. You assure a person that things will go right by making him confident. Never use assure in the sense of "Assure that the wording is correct"; you can only assure somebody that it's correct.
Ensure and insure are sometimes used interchangeably, but it may be better to keep them separate. Insuring is the business of an insurance company, i.e., setting aside resources in case of a loss. Ensure means make sure, as in "Ensure that this is done by Monday."
Brits, by the way -- and for all I know, other Commonwealthers -- sometimes use assurance where we Yanks use insurance (it's life assurance, but auto insurance, in the UK). But it's not for me to pass laws with Transatlantic jurisdictions.
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As to Whether.
Plain old whether often does the trick. See Wasted Words.
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As versus Like.
See Like versus As.
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As Far As.
You need a verb: "As far as such-and-such goes," "As far as such-and-such is concerned." Plain old "As far as such-and-such," widespread though it may be, should be frowned upon.
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As Yet.
Consider using yet. See Wasted Words.
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At This Point, At the Present Time, At This Point in Time.
Never, never, never, never, Wasted Words.
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Audience.
The key to all good writing is understanding your audience. Every time you use language, you engage in a rhetorical activity, and your attention should always be on the effect it will have on your audience.
Think of rules " have no absolute, independent existence; there is no Grammar Corps to track you down for using "whose" when "of which" is more proper, just as Miss Manners employs no shock troops to massacre people who eat their salads with fish forks. You can argue, of course, that the other fork works just as well (or even better), but both the fork and the usage are entirely arbitrary and conventional. Your job as a writer is to have certain effects on your readers, readers who are continuously judging you, consciously or unconsciously. If you want to have the greatest effect, you'll adjust your style to suit the audience, however arbitrary its expectations.
A better analogue might be clothing. A college English paper calls for the rough equivalent of the jacket and tie (ladies, you're on your own here). However useless or ridiculous the tie may be, however outdated its practical value as a garment, certain social situations demand it, and if you go into a job interview wearing a T-shirt and jeans, you only hurt yourself by arguing that the necktie has no sartorial validity. Your job is to figure out what your audience expects. Likewise, if your audience wants you to avoid ending your sentences with prepositions, no amount of argument over historical validity will help.
But just as you shouldn't go under-dressed to a job interview, you shouldn't over-dress either. A white tie and tails will make you look ridiculous at a barbecue, and a pedantic insistence on grammatical bugbears will only lessen your audience's respect for you. There are occasions when ain't is more suitable than is not, and the careful writer will take the time to discover which is the more appropriate.
See Taste.
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Basically.
Almost always useless. Qualifiers such as basically, essentially, totally, &c. rarely add anything to a sentence; they're the written equivalent of "Um." See Wasted Words, and read it twice.
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Basis.
See On a -- Basis.
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Being That.
A dreadfully overused idiom (probably coming from "it being the case that"), favored by those who want to sound more impressive. Avoid it. Use because, since, or something similarly direct.
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Between versus Among.
See Among versus Between.
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Block Quotations.
Short quotations -- say, no more than three or four lines -- usually appear in the text surrounded by house styles prefer block quotations to be single-spaced, others like them double-spaced; that's not something to fret about unless you're writing for publication.
Always be sure to include proper citations in block quotations; the usual route is to put the citation in parentheses after the closing punctuation in the quotation itself.
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Bluntness.
Writing is too often wimpy. Don't be afraid to be blunt. Instead of "There appear to be indications that the product heretofore referred to may be lacking substantial qualitative consummation, suggesting it may be incommensurate with the standards previously established by this department," try "It's bad" or "It doesn't work." Of course you should be sensitive to your reader's feelings -- there's no need to be vicious or crude, and saying "It sucks" won't win you many friends -- but don't go too far in the opposite direction. Call 'em as you see 'em.
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Boldface.
There's no reason to use boldface in an academic paper; spend your time writing, not fiddling with the word processor. See Titles.
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Brackets.
See Interpolation.
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British Spellings.
If you use British spellings, use them consistently. Inconsistent British spellings are an affectation. (Of course other English-speaking countries have their own rules, which usually look to us like a medley of British and American spellings.) Jeremy Smith has assembled a catalogue of words that have different spellings in America and Britain.
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Bugbears.
Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over Windows versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs. Pedantic and vicious debates over knotty matters such as Taste.
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But at the Beginning.
Contrary to what your high school English teacher told you, there is no reason not to begin a sentence with but or and ; in fact, these words often make a sentence more forceful and less formal ; -- but worse things could happen to most writing than becoming less formal.
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Capable.
The phrase is capable of --ing can usually be better rendered as is able to --, or even turned into an active verb with can --. See Wasted Words.
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Capitalization.
It's customary to capitalize:
The first word of a sentence;
The first word in a line of poetry;
The major words in the adjectives derived from proper nouns ( Spanish from Spain, Freudian from Freud);
Personal titles when they come before a name (Mr. Smith, Ms. Jones, Dr. X, Captain Beefheart, Reverend Gary Davis, Grand Vizier Lynch);
All (or most) letters in an abbreviation (NASA, MRI).
It's sometimes tricky to figure out what counts as a proper noun: it's customary to capitalize Renaissance and Romantic when they refer to historical periods, but not when they mean any old rebirth or something related to romance. (Even more confusing, Middle Ages is usually capitalized, but medieval isn't, even though they refer to the same thing, and one is just a Latin translation of the other. Go figure.)
It's common to capitalize President when referring to one President of the United States, but you'd refer to all the presidents (no cap) of the U.S., and the presidents of corporations don't warrant caps unless you're using president as a title. Go figure.
In some clause after a colon gets a cap: "It leads us to one conclusion: Not enough rock bands use horn sections." I don't much like it, but de stilis domorum non est disputandum -- there's no arguing about house styles.
See Titles.
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Centralized.
Use central whenever possible. See Personalized.
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Citation.
The importance of accurate citation cannot be overstated: a paper without proper citations is open to charges of plagiary. It's not simply a matter of having the minimum of five footnotes in your research paper to keep the teacher happy, and it's not simply a matter of avoiding honor-code trouble. Careful citation shows your reader that you've done your homework, and allows him or her to check up on you. It amounts to laying your intellectual cards on the table.
Cite your source for every direct quotation and every borrowed idea. Two standards are common in English papers: that of the MLA Style Guide and that of The Chicago Manual of Style. Either will do. The MLA style calls for a list of "Works Cited" at the end of a paper in standard bibliographical form, alphabetical by author:
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels. Edited by Herbert Davis. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965.
Citations in the text of the paper would then include the author's name (with a year or abbreviated title if more than one work is cited) and page number; for instance:
". . .the most pernicious race of odious little vermin" (Swift 120).
The Chicago style gives a full citation in a footnote (or endnote) on the first quotation in this form:
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, ed. Herbert Davis (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965), p. 120.
Subsequent citations in the text include the page number in parentheses, with an author's name only when necessary:
"Girl threading an invisible Needle with invisible Silk" (p. 92).
Either style is acceptable, but be consistent. For full details see the MLA Style Guide or the Chicago Manual of Style. (Other disciplines, mind you, have their own style guides; psychologists use APA style, and scientists have their own as well. You'll do well to learn the most common standard for your major.)
All citations should appear under the name of the main author, but should include the names of editors, translators, and so on (writers of introductions aren't necessary). Include the city, publisher, and year of publication. For works of prose, give a page number or a range of pages; for works of poetry, give a line number or range of lines.
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Clarity.
Along with Vocabulary -- address clarity.
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Cliches.
"Avoid cliches" is such common advice that it's almost a cliche; itself, but no worse for that. It's stated especially clearly by Pinney :
[Cliches] offer prefabricated phrasing that may be used without effort on your part. They are thus used at the expense of both individuality and precision, since you can't say just what you mean in the mechanical response of a cliche;.
George Orwell's advice is overstated for effect, but it's still good to bear it in mind: "Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print." If you're depending on a stock phrase, you're letting someone else do half your thinking for you.
If you must resort to cliches, though, be especially careful not to muddle them. Remember, for example, that the more widely accepted phrase is "I couldn't care less," not could. A U.S. Senator, trying to reassure his constituents that the budget talks were going well in spite of the apparent chaos, told reporters, "It's always darkest before the storm," rather than "before the dawn " -- he thereby unintentionally suggested that things are going to get worse, not better. Pay attention to every word.
Don't, by the way, confuse these mangled cliches with mixed metaphors -- though a mixed metaphor might result from a botched cliche, they're not the same thing.
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Colon.
A colon marks a pause for explanation, expansion, enumeration, or elaboration. Use a colon to introduce a list: thing one, thing two, and thing three. Use it to pause and explain: this sentence makes the point. Use it to give an example: this, for instance.
There are other uses: the entry on block quotation or a list of bullet points.
See also Capitalization.
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Commas.
Some amateur writers seem to think sprinkling commas every few words is a good rule, but it makes for difficult reading. A few places commas should be avoided :
After the house styles, the comma is preferred before the last item in a list: "the first, second, and third chapters." (This is known as the serial comma or the Oxford comma.) Leaving it out -- "the first, second and third chapters" -- is a habit picked up from journalism. While it saves a teensy bit of space and effort, omitting the final comma runs the risk of suggesting the last two items (in the example above, the second and third chapters) are some sort of special pair. A famous (and perhaps apocryphal?) dedication makes the danger clear: "To my parents, Ayn Rand and God."
Oh, yeah -- go and read the entry on Semicolons for good measure.
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Comma Splices.
See Run-On Sentences.
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Comprise.
Comprise traditionally means comprehend or contain, not constitute. In other words, a zoo comprises animals -- it's not comprised of them (though it is composed of them). Avoid the phrase is comprised of.
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Concrete Language.
Use specific, concrete words instead of vague, general ones wherever possible: instead of "apparent significant financial gains," use "a lot of money" or "large profits." Instead of "Job suffers a series of unfavorable experiences," use "Job's family is killed and his possessions are destroyed." Be precise.
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Conjunctions.
Conjunctions -- the word comes from conjoin, "put together" -- are little words that connect various elements in a sentence. They come in two flavors. You're probably familiar with the coordinating conjunctions : the most common are and, but, or, and nor. Coordinating conjunctions connect two things of the same kind: two independent clauses ("Dylan writes better songs, but Britney Spears sells more records").
Another kind of conjunction, the subordinating conjunction, is a little trickier. It joins entire clauses, but one is principal, the other subordinate ("subordinate" means something like "secondary" or "under the control of"). A subordinating conjunction joins an preposition), if, notwithstanding, since, so (in the sense of "with the result that"), that (as in "I'm surprised that you're here"), until, whenever, whereas, and why (as in "I wonder why he did that").
In preposition ("My love is like a red, red rose," "He works like a madman"), but don't use it before a clause ("She's trying like [should be as if ] there's no tomorrow").
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Considered as, Considered to Be.
Almost always useless. "The section is considered as essential" or "The section is considered to be essential" just add extra syllables to "The section is considered essential." Even better, ask yourself whether the word considered does anything in the sentence -- does it matter who is considering? "The section is essential" is best of all.
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Continual versus Continuous.
Continual means "happening over and over again"; continuous means "happening constantly without stopping." If you're continually on the Internet, it means you keep going on; if you're continuously on the Internet, it means you haven't gone off at all.
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Contractions.
Contractions (such as audience. My own inclination is to be less rather than more formal in most college-level writing, but you'll have to judge that for yourself.
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Could[n't] Care Less.
See Cliches.
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Currently.
What's wrong with now ? Or even leaving it out altogether and letting a present-tense verb do the trick? It is currently not available is the same as It is not available or It is not yet available.
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Daily Basis.
See On a -- Basis.
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Dangling Participle.
A present participle is a verb ending in -ing, and is called dangling when the subject of the -ing verb and the subject of the sentence do not agree. An example is "Rushing to finish the paper, Bob's printer broke." Here the subject is Bob's printer, but the printer isn't doing the rushing. Better would be "While Bob was rushing to finish the paper, his printer broke." (Pay close attention to sentences beginning with When --ing.)
One way to tell whether the participle is dangling is to put the phrase with the participle right after the subject of the sentence: "Bob's printer, rushing to finish the paper, broke" doesn't sound right.
Not all words in -ing are participles: in the sentence "Answering the questions in chapter four is your next assignment," the word answering functions as a noun, not a verb. (These nouns in -ing are called gerunds.)
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Dash.
A dash (publishers call it an "em-dash" because it's the width of the letter m) is used to mark a parenthesis -- like this -- or an interruption. Don't confuse it with a house style.)
There's nothing wrong with a few dashes here and there, but too many of them will make your writing less formal. Using them where other punctuation marks are proper is okay in informal correspondence, but out of place in most other kinds of writing.
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Data.
Though it's nearly a lost cause, purists prefer to keep this a plural noun: "The data are," not "the data is." The (now nearly obsolete) singular is datum. See also Agreement.
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Definite Articles.
See Articles.
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Denotation versus Connotation.
A denotation is a word's literal meaning; a connotation is the suggestions and assocations that go with it. Dictionaries usually give a word's denotations, but are often less useful in revealing connotations; a good writer, though, will be very conscious of the hidden meanings carried by every word. Think, for instance, about the phrases make love, have intercourse, make whoopie, copulate, mate, and screw -- they all have the same literal meaning, but they're not at all interchangeable. See Audience.
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Dependent versus Independent Clauses.
A clause is just a group of words with a subject and a verb, a part of a sentence. Some groups of words can get by on their own without any help: these are called independent. Others can't stand alone; either they don't have their own subject and verb, or they're subordinated to another part of the sentence: these are dependent. (A hint: dependent clauses often begin with words like if, whether, since, and so on; see Conjunctions.) Knowing the difference can help you figure out when to use commas.
For example: in the sentence "Since we've fallen a week behind, we'll skip the second paper," the first part -- "Since we've fallen a week behind" -- is dependent, because it can't be a sentence on its own. The second part -- "We'll skip the second paper" -- does just fine on its own; it's an independent clause. The independent clause can be a sentence without any help from the Since clause.
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Diction.
Diction means simply "word choice." English teachers probably mention it most often when there's a problem with the level of diction. The English language sports many near synonyms, groups of which may share more or less the same Latinate words, and lower diction Germanic, but not always.
And it's not just a matter of high, middle, and low diction; there are many possible registers -- scientific, flowery, bureaucratic, vulgar. The important thing is to be consistent: if you jump at random between levels of diction, you're likely to confuse your audience. And that's a bad thing.
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Dictionaries.
No writer can survive without a good dictionary. I'm fond of the usage questions to a panel of experts who vote on whether they're acceptable. (It's also available for free on-line.) For more serious historical work, there's nothing like the Oxford English Dictionary (or OED, as it's universally known) -- this twenty-volume juggernaut not only provides remarkably comprehensive definitions, but it shows how words have been used throughout their history. Anyone who writes for a living -- or even a hobby -- should get to know the OED.
But although dictionaries are indispensable, you have to know how to use them. Be careful not to accord to them more authority than they claim for themselves: they're works of reference put together by people, not stone tablets engraved by God. The old argument that something is "not a word" because it doesn't appear in "the" dictionary (as if there were only one dictionary), for instance, is downright silly. Any pronounceable combination of letters to which someone assigns a meaning can be called a word; the question is whether it's a good word -- by which, of course, I mean an appropriate word. Many dictionaries list words like ain't or formal writing. Pay close attention to the usage notes -- "Nonstandard," "Slang," "Vulgar" -- and be sure you choose the right word.
Dictionaries are also more concerned with audience.
Avoid, by the way, referring to "Webster's," which has no specific meaning -- any dictionary can use the name. Merriam-Webster, on the other hand, is a specific company that produces well-regarded dictionaries. Besides, dictionary definitions at the beginnings of papers rarely add anything to the discussion. A favorite line from The Simpsons, where Homer wins the First Annual Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence: "Webster's Dictionary defines 'excellence' as 'The quality or condition of being excellent.'"
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Different.
The word different is often redundant, as in several different options or many different participants. Since you can't have several of the same option or many of the same participant, several options and many participants will do nicely.
Note that the phrase "different than" gets under many people's skin. In most cases, "different from " is a little more proper. So "Grunge is different from heavy metal" (but "Classical musicians play different instruments than jazz musicians do"). Brits sometimes use "different to," but that sounds odd to American ears.
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Direct and Indirect Objects.
A direct object is the thing (or person) acted on by a transitive verb. The indirect object is used most often for the recipient in verbs of giving. Examples are clearer than definitions.
"I took the paper" -- the paper is the direct object, because the verb took acts on the paper ; the paper is the thing that was taken. "I called her this morning" -- her is the direct object, because the verb called acts on her ; her is the person who was called.
"I gave him my suggestions" is a bit trickier. Here him is an indirect object, because him isn't the thing that was given ; I gave suggestions, and I gave them to him. Suggestions is the direct object, him the indirect object.
See Transitive versus Intransitive Verbs.
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E-Prime.
E-Prime (or E') -- the "E" stands for "English," and the "prime" means "a slight variation" in mathematical notation -- designates English with all the verbs of being removed. Some writers try to avoid all verbs of being, favoring the more forceful action verbs in their place. So a book written in E-Prime includes no occurrences of to be in any of its forms.
Overuse of verbs of being makes writing lifeless, and no one should object to more action verbs. In fact, beginning writers may profit from the exercise of removing all the verbs of being from their writing, since it forces them to find more forceful means of expression. Inflexibly applying any Passive Voice.
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Each.
A singular noun, which requires a singular verb. Do not write "Each of the chapters have a title"; use "Each of the chapters has a title" or (better) "Each chapter has a title." See also Every.
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Ellipses.
The ellipsis (plural ellipses) is the mark that indicates the omission of quoted material, as in "Brevity is. . . wit" (stolen shamelessly from an episode of house styles prefer the periods to be spaced, thus:
Brevity is. . . wit.
(In electronic communication it's sometimes convenient, even necessary, to run them together, since line-wrap can be unpredictable.) Second, and more important, is the number of periods. The ellipsis itself is three periods (always); it can appear next to other punctuation, including an end-of-sentence period (resulting in four periods). Use four only when the words on either side of the ellipsis make full sentences. You should never use fewer than three or more than four periods, with only a single exception: when entire lines of poetry are omitted in a block quotation, it's a common practice to replace them with a full line of spaced periods.
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Economy.
A distinguishing mark of clear and forceful writing is economy of Wasted Words.
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Effect versus Affect.
See Affect versus Effect.
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E.g. versus i.e.
The abbreviation e.g. is for the Latin exempli gratia, "for example." I.e., Latin id est, means "that is." They're not interchangeable. Both abbreviations should be followed by a comma.
*--*
Emphasis.
A tip: the strongest position in a sentence is often the end, followed by the beginning. Don't waste the beginning or the end of a sentence -- the most important parts -- with transitional words like however, additionally, moreover, therefore, and so on. Instead of " However, the paper was finished on time" or "The paper was finished on time, however," save the beginning and end of your sentences for more important stuff like nouns and verbs. Try "The paper, however, was finished on time."
Dan White gives an example of the power of the close of a sentence:
"I got hit by a car as I was walking to school this morning." After the sentence's initial impact you don't hear a single word. But "As I was walking to school this morning I got hit by a car" carries me out of my apartment, over the bridge, and onto the hood in a sequence that sustains my audience's engagement with today's dent in my morning routine.
Save the end of the sentence for your most important words.
*--*
Equally As.
Don't. Something can be equally important, or it can be as important, but it can't be equally as important.
*--*
Essentially.
See Wasted Words.
*--*
Every.
Every requires a singular verb and singular Sexist Language.
*--*
Every Day versus Everyday.
Keep 'em straight: everyday (one word) is an adjective, and means "normal, quotidian, occurring every day, not out of the ordinary." Other senses should be two words. So: an everyday event happens every day.
*--*
Exists.
Unless you're a professional phenomenologist, you can live quite comfortably without the word exists in your vocabulary. Instead of saying "A problem exists with the system," say " There is a problem with the system" (or, maybe even better, "The system doesn't work").
*--*
Extracts.
See Block Quotations.
*--*
Facet.
The metaphor is often abused. Don't use a facet, the hard polished side of a gem, to stand in for the more general "aspect" unless it's really appropriate.
*--*
The Fact That.
Usually unnecessary. You can often simply drop the fact and go with that alone: instead of "I'm surprised by the fact that the report is incomplete," write "I'm surprised that the report is incomplete." And don't be afraid to rewrite the sentence altogether.
*--*
Farther versus Further.
Though very few people bother with the difference these days, there is a traditional distinction: farther applies to physical distance, further to metaphorical distance. You travel farther, but pursue a topic further. Don't get upset if you can't keep it straight; no one will notice.
*--*
Fewer versus Less.
See Less versus Fewer.
*--*
Finalize.
An ugly, jargony word.
*--*
First, Second, Third.
The jury is still out on whether to use first or firstly, second or secondly, &c. Traditional usage had first, secondly, thirdly, but this is too inconsistent for modern taste. Most guides prefer just plain old first, second, third, and so forth, without the -ly ending.
*--*
First Person.
Grammarians have divided references to people into three categories, to refer to I, you, and he or she. The first person is I, me, my, we, our, and so on. The second person is you and your. The third person is he, she, they, their, his, hers, him, her, and so on. While you need to pay close attention to these when you study a foreign language, most issues of person are instinctive to native English speakers. For the few times when you should pay attention, see Sexist Language and the Indefinite Third Person.
*--*
The Following.
See The Above.
*--*
Fonts.
Don't play with fonts: leave desktop publishing to the desktop publishers. Publishers and professors don't want fancy fonts; they want your writing to look as if it had been typed on a manual typewriter, circa 1958. Don't count on having readers who judge your work based on the typeface. Spend your time writing. And please don't insult your professors' intelligence with gigantic typefaces, narrow margins, and wide line-spacing to make short papers seem longer; despite all appearances to the contrary, we're really not that dumb. See also Justification.
*--*
Footnotes.
See Citation.
*--*
Foreign Words and Phrases.
Foreign words and phrases shouldn't become a bete noire, but, ceteris paribus, English sentences should be in English. Clarity is the sine qua non of good writing, and the overuse of such words just confuses your readers -- satis, superque. Remember, Allzuviel is nicht genug. Besides, there's nothing worse than trying to impress and getting it wrong. When it comes to foreign phrases, chi non fa, non falla. ( Das versteht sich von selbst.)
*--*
Formal Writing.
Many -- most? -- of the Rules.
*--*
Fortuitous.
Fortuitous means "happening by chance," and not necessarily a lucky chance. Don't use it interchangeably with fortunate.
*--*
Fragments.
See Sentence Fragments.
*--*
Functionality.
Functionality is too often a twisted way of saying function. See also Methodology.
*--*
Generalizations.
Since the beginning of time, man has wrestled with the great questions of the universe. Humans have always sought to understand their place in creation. There is no society on earth that has not attempted to reckon with the human condition.
Balderdash. Generalizations like that are sure to sink your writing, because they almost always fall into one of two classes: the obvious and the wrong.
For starters, how do you know what has happened since the beginning of time? -- is your knowledge of early Australopithecus robustus family structure extensive enough to let you compare it to Etruscan social organization? Have you read Incan religious texts alongside Baha'i tracts? Unless you've taken courses in omniscience, I'm guessing the answer's no. In that case, you're saying things you simply don't know, and certainly don't know any better than your audience. So it's either obvious to everyone, or a plain old lie.
Couching vacuous ideas in portentous prose impresses nobody. Simplicity, precision will always win over ringing generalizations: don't think everything you write has to settle the mysteries of the ages in expressions worthy of Shakespeare. In the words of one of my favoritest writers in the whole wide world, Calvin Trillin, "When a man has nothing to say, the worst thing he can do is to say it memorably" ("Speak Softly," in Too Soon to Tell [New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995], p. 123).
*--*
Germanic Diction.
See Latinate versus Germanic Diction.
*--*
Gerund.
See Dangling Participles.
*--*
Grace.
Grace always trumps pedantry. Don't let Rules.
*--*
Grammar.
Grammar, strictly defined, is a comparatively narrow field: most questions native speakers have about a language deal not with grammar but with taste.
Linguists complain that the terms taught in school are inadequate for discussing the way our language really works. It's a fair cop: most of our grammatical categories are imported from Latin grammar, and often don't jibe well with English. Still, in this guide I tend to use the traditional terms, and for two reasons: first, I'm not a linguist, and am not up on the best scientific descriptions of the language; and second, few of my readers were taught the more modern system in school, which means explanations that depended on them would confuse rather than enlighten.
I should point out that this guide isn't intended to be a formal or systematic grammar, just a handy vade mecum (look it up) on effective style. I define grammatical terms only insofar as they're useful in improving usage. If you want real grammar, talk to the linguists, who know what they're talking about in a way I never will. (See Prescriptive versus Descriptive Grammars for further details.)
One more thing -- for the love of Pete, please don't spell it "grammer," unless you put "Kelsey" right in front of it.
*--*
Grammar Checkers.
I have no problem with rules pedantically with no sense of context. I've played with many of them, and have never seen one worth the CD-ROM it's printed on.
A fun experiment is to take some great work of literature and feed it to a grammar checker, and then to see what mincemeat it makes of it. Here are some mindless tips on the first sentence of Milton's Paradise Lost :
"Consider revising. Very long sentences can be difficult to understand."
Avoid contractions like "flow'd" in formal writing ("consider 'flow had'").
Avoid the use of "Man" ("Try 'he or she'").
"One greater Man restore" has subject-verb agreement problems.
"In the Beginning" should be "at first."
"Or if Sion" should be "also if Sion."
Milton's style is judged appropriate for a 98th-grade reading level. (Well, okay, that seems about right. But the rest is silly.)
Maybe someday I'll be pleasantly surprised, but for now, rely on your own knowledge when you Microsoft Word.
*--*
Hopefully.
According to traditionalists, hopefully means in a hopeful way, not I hope. You'll keep them (and me) happy by avoiding hopefully in formal writing ; use I hope, we hope, I would like, or, best of all, leave it out altogether.
*--*
House Style.
Some questions have no "true" answers, only competing standards used in different places. There are of course differences in Punctuation and Spaces.
*--*
Hypercorrection.
Hypercorrection means being so concerned with getting the grammar right that you get it wrong. For instance, we have it drilled into our heads that "Me and him went to the game" is wrong; it should be " He and I went to the game." Too many people end up thinking "He and I" is therefore more proper, and use it in inappropriate places, like "A message came for he and I" -- it should be "A message came for him and me." Agreement.
*--*
Hyphen.
A hyphen separates the two parts of a compound word or the two elements of a range: self-conscious ; pp. 95-97. (Hard-core typography nerds will point out that ranges of numbers are separated by an en-dash, but you needn't worry about it: type a hyphen.) A compound noun used as an Dash, although you can type a dash as two hyphens.
*--*
I.e. versus e.g.
See E.g. versus i.e.
*--*
Impact.
Impact should remain a noun; a proposal can have an impact, but cannot impact anything without degenerating into jargon. The only thing that can be impacted is a wisdom tooth.
*--*
Imperative.
In grammar, an imperative is an order: instead of "You will go " -- the indicative -- the imperative says: " Go." Instead of "You will get the book" -- the indicative -- the imperative says " Get the book."
Though the word imperative is common in business writing, it's big and ugly and intimidating. Go with must or should. Instead of the jargony "It is imperative that the forms be completed on time," try "Be sure to complete the forms on time."
*--*
Imply versus Infer.
A speaker implies something by hinting at it; a listener infers something from what he or she hears. Don't use them interchangeably.
*--*
Important.
A tip: your precise.
*--*
Indefinite Articles.
See Articles.
*--*
Indicative.
See Shall versus Will.
*--*
Individual.
A yucky word. Usually unnecessary; use person or someone. Use individual only when you mean to distinguish an individual from a group or corporation.
*--*
Infinitive.
See Split Infinitive.
*--*
Interesting.
Sentences beginning "It is interesting that" or "It is significant that" are usually as far from interesting as can be. Don't just state that something is interesting: show it.
*--*
In Terms of.
Often useless padding.
*--*
Interpolation.
Just as you might have to omit something from quoted material with pronoun like he or she, without the context of the surrounding sentences, might baffle a reader. Or a word or phrase may need explanation -- say, a passage in a foreign language.
In these cases, it's traditional to add material in [square brackets]. Provide an explanation if the author uses something your audience isn't likely to understand -- "The first words of Joyce's 'Stately, plump Buck Mulligan' are Introibo ad altare dei ['I will go to the altar of God']." You might need to supply a detail not in the original quotation, especially if your reader is likely to be confused: "As Fairbanks notes, 'The death of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia [Mississippi] marked a turning point.'" You might also provide a first name: "It was [George] Eliot's most successful work." Always the question is whether the clarification will help your audience.
If you're changing a single word or a short phrase, especially a pronoun, and the word isn't especially interesting in its own right, it's okay to omit the original and replace it with the bracketed interpolation: you can change "In that year, after much deliberation, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation" to "In [1862], after much deliberation, [Lincoln] issued the Emancipation Proclamation." If you're hesitant to monkey with words in the original that may be important -- and it's wise to be circumspect -- just add the bracketed interpolation after the thing you're explaining: "The sixteenth president [Lincoln] abolished slavery."
You can also use brackets around part of a word to indicate necessary changes in its form. So, for instance, you might write, "In his brilliant Guide to Grammar and Style, Lynch provides sage advice on 'us[ing] brackets around part of a word.'"
Some house styles call for brackets to indicate changes of upper- and lowercase letters at the beginning of a quotation: "[L]ike this." I don't like it -- it clutters a page -- but I don't get to make the call, except in things I edit.
Limit square brackets to quotations of others' words. If you need to clarify something in your own prose, use parentheses (as I do here).
See also Sic.
*--*
Intransitive Verbs.
See Transitive versus Intransitive Verbs.
*--*
Irregardless.
Not a word used in respectable company: somewhere between irrespective and regardless. Use one of these instead.
*--*
Italics.
Use italics for book titles, for foreign words, and for emphasis. Be careful, though, not to rely too much on italics for emphasis; they make your writing look amateurish. Let the words do most of the work.
Note that italics and underscores are the same thing -- typewriters used underscore when italics weren't available -- so use one or the other, but not both, in a paper. Publishers prefer underscores in typescripts; they're easier for typesetters to catch. (This is a question of house style.)
See Fonts.
*--*
It's versus Its.
There's no shortcut; all you can do is memorize the rule. It's with an apostrophe means it is (or, a little less often and a little less formally, it has); its without an apostrophe means belonging to it. An analogue might provide a mnemonic: think of "he's" ("he is" gets an apostrophe) and "his" ("belonging to him" doesn't).
What about its', with the apostrophe after the s ? -- Never, never, never. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Not in this language, you don't. Its, "belonging to it"; it's, it is. That's all.
*--*
Jargon.
Jargon is the bane of too much writing -- not only academic writing but business English suffers from jargon and technobabble. Of course some technical terms are useful and even necessary, but the English language should not be abused with these phrases: sign off on, re, network, parameters, &c.
*--*
Justification.
It's better to leave your papers "ragged right" (or "flush left"): don't play with full justification, which introduces big gaps into the lines. See also Fonts.
*--*
Latinate versus Germanic Diction.
English is an unusual language in that it derives from two main language families, Latinate and Germanic. Its origins are Germanic; in the fourth or fifth century, Indo-European Language Family Tree I've prepared.)
The picture changed some time after 1066, when the Normans -- French speakers -- invaded England. For a few centuries, the peasants continued to speak a Germanic English while the nobles spoke French (a Romance language, derived from Latin). Over time, though, the two vocabularies began to merge; and where Old English speakers and French speakers had only one word each for something, speakers of the new blended English often had two, one based on the Germanic original long used by the peasantry, another based on the French import that had currency in the court. (Later still, a great many words entered the language directly from Latin without stopping along the way at French, and sometimes we have near synonyms from all three origins: kingly [from Germanic konig ], royal [from Latin by way of French roy ], and regal [directly from Latin rex, regis ].)
There's a moral behind this history lesson: even today, a millennium after the Norman Invasion, words often retain diction. If you want a memorable example, compare the connotations of shit (from the Germanic scitan) with those of defecate (from the Latin defaecare).
The practical lesson: you'll sound more blunt, more straightforward, even more forthright, if you draw your words from Germanic roots. An extensively Latinate vocabulary, on the contrary, suggests a more elevated level of diction. Choose your words carefully, then, with constant attention to your audience and the effects you want to have on them.
*--*
Less versus Fewer.
Less means "not as much"; fewer means "not as many." Trust your ear: if you'd use "much," use "less"; if you'd use "many," use "fewer." You earn less money by selling fewer products; you use less oil but eat fewer fries. If you can count them, use fewer.
*--*
Lifestyle.
A yucky vogue word. Look for something precise.
*--*
Like versus As.
In formal writing.
I trust I needn't comment on the barbarous, slack-jawed habit of using like as a verbal crutch: "It was just, like, y'know, like, really weird, like." (Actual sentence overheard on the New York City subway: "He was just like -- and I was all like, whatever." There's a swell taxonomy of what like s are like.) It's bad enough in speech: I encourage people to try to go an entire day without saying "like," and few can manage. If you use it in writing, though, you should be afflicted with plagues and boils. Shame on you.
*--*
Listing.
Don't use listing as a noun where list will do. A phone book is a list of names and numbers, each of which is a listing.
*--*
Literally.
Use the word literally with care, and only where what you are saying is literally true. "We were literally flooded with work" is wrong because the flood is a metaphorical one, not an actual deluge. Don't use literally where really, very, or extremely will do.
*--*
Long Words.
There's nothing inherently wrong with long words, but too many people think a long word is always better than a short one. It doubtless comes from a desire to impress, to sound more authoritative, but it usually ends in Vocabulary.
*--*
Mechanics.
The niggling technical details of writing -- spelling, punctuation, indenting, double spacing, all that sort of thing -- are known as mechanics. Amateur writers often think they're above such picayune matters; pros realize that sloppiness always lowers them in the eyes of their audience.
*--*
Media.
According to the purists, a plural noun: "The media are," not "the media is." The singular is medium. See Data.
*--*
Methodology.
A methodology is the study of, or a system of, methods. Usually you mean method instead of methodology. Like longwordophiles.
*--*
Mixed Metaphor.
In a metaphor, one thing is likened to another -- whether my love to a red, red rose, or the thing that supports a tabletop to a leg. Vivid and thought-provoking metaphors are called "living": when Homer likens the sunlight at dawn to rosy fingers, he invokes an unexpected image. Over time, though, many once-living metaphors become old hat, and by the time they've simply become the usual way to refer to something -- the lip of a jug, the eye of a needle -- they're called "dead." Of course many fall between the two classes.
(A digression: some distinguish metaphor from simile, insisting that a metaphor is implicit, whereas a simile explicitly likens one thing to another with "like" or "as." Others treat simile as a kind of metaphor, one that happens to use "like" or "as." I'm easy.)
A vivid metaphorical imagination is a sign of a good writer; a bad one is a sign of a bad writer. Here's the danger: it's possible to use metaphors badly without knowing you're using metaphors at all, because they're far more common than we realize. The secret is to pay attention to those between living and dead (we might call them "moribund"). If we forget that they're metaphors, they can become hopelessly scrambled. Consider this sentence, a more or less realistic example of business writing:
We were swamped with a shocking barrage of work, and the extra burden had a clear impact on our workflow.
Let's count the metaphors: we have images of a marsh ( swamped), electrocution or striking ( shocking), a military assault ( barrage), weight ( burden), translucency ( clear), a physical impression ( impact), and a river ( flow), all in a mere twenty words. If you can summon up a coherent mental image including all these elements, your imagination's far superior to mine.
That was a made-up example; here's a real one, from The New York Times, 11 June 2001:
Over all, many experts conclude, advanced climate research in the United States is fragmented among an alphabet soup of agencies, strained by inadequate computing power and starved for the basic measurements of real-world conditions that are needed to improve simulations.
Let's see: research is fragmented among soup ( among ?); it is strained (you can strain soup, I suppose, but I'm unsure how to strain research); and it is starved -- not enough soup, I suppose. Or maybe the soup has been strained too thoroughly, leaving people hungry. I dunno.
The moral of the story: pay attention to the literal meaning of figures of speech and your writing will come alive.
Don't, by the way, confuse mixed metaphors with mangled cliches -- though a mixed metaphor might result from a botched cliche, they're not the same thing. If there's no metaphor, there's no mixed metaphor.
*--*
Microsoft Word.
MS Word, in its many versions, is now the most common word processor on both the PC and the Macintosh. It's so widespread, and so meddlesome, that it deserves a special note. The "AutoCorrect" feature, in particular, is a damned nuisance. It was designed by and for people who like high-tech toys, not by and for people who write.
The problems:
Word wants to make the letters that accompany ordinal numbers --
the st in first, the nd in second, the rd in third, and the th in other numbers --
superscripts: not 11th, but 11th. Humbug. Look around: you'll notice that no professionally printed books use superscripts, and neither should you. Besides, most apostrophes, turning them into paired single quotation marks (also known as "inverted commas"), and that's wrong wrong wrong. It doesn't understand that possessives and contractions call for apostrophes, not open single quotation marks, although that problem is hard to spot with the naked eye. More serious, though, is Word's habit of turning initial apostrophes into open single quotation marks. When you refer to decades with an initial apostrophe, it should be '60s, not `60s, but Word doesn't care. Ditto some mostly obsolete words like 'tis : apostrophe, not open single quotation mark as in `tis.
Solutions? For starters, turn off the superscript ordinals; there's no reason for them in the world. (It's under "Tools," at least in the current versions of Word.) You can also turn off the "smart quotes," but if you prefer to keep them, you can force an apostrophe that goes the right way by typing two apostrophes -- one will automatically be open, the other close -- and then deleting the first one.
See also Grammar Checkers for comments on how word processors' attempts to be helpful can get in the way of good writing.
*--*
Modifier.
A modifier simply gives additional information about a word: instead of "bench" -- any old bench -- we get " wooden bench"; instead of "read" -- read how ? -- we get "read quickly." Modifiers are usually adjectives or adverbs.
*--*
Nature.
No offense to the ecologists, but nature is often useless. Decisions of a delicate nature would be better if they were just plain old delicate decisions.
*--*
Nauseous.
Ask an old-timer, and he'll tell you that nauseous means causing nausea, not suffering from it. The word for the latter is nauseated. A decaying carcass is nauseous, and (unless you go for such things) will probably make you nauseated.
*--*
Necessitate.
Ugly business jargon. If you mean require, say require or rework the sentence so that necessitate is not necessitated.
*--*
Network.
Network was very happy when it was just a noun; when you're outside the computer lab, don't force it to serve double duty as a verb. Networking summons up images of yuppies in power ties.
*--*
"Never" and "Always."
Any grammatical or stylistic Audience and read it twice.
*--*
Nor.
Although there are other possibilities, you can't go wrong if you use nor only after the word neither : instead of "Keats did not write novels nor essays," use either "Keats did not write novels or essays" or "Keats wrote neither novels nor essays." (You can, however, say "Keats did not write novels, nor did he write essays.")
*--*
Not un-.
This phrase, as in "The subtleties did not go unnoticed," is often an affectation. Be more direct.
*--*
Noun.
A noun, as the "Schoolhouse Rock" song would have it, is a person, a place, or a thing. Piece o' cake.
Well, a qualified piece o' cake. We have to define thing broadly enough to include things that aren't particularly thingy. Heat is a noun; January is a noun; innovation is a noun; asperity is a noun.
See also Pronoun.
*--*
Numbers.
The high school rule about spelling out numbers less than one hundred (some say ten; it's a question of house style) and writing them as numerals above has enslaved too many people. It's a good start, but here are a few more guidelines.
rewrite the sentence to move the number from the beginning.
Very large round numbers should be spelled out: not 1,000,000,000, but one billion -- an American billion, that is; Britain's billion is often a million million. If ever you need real precision in expressing very large numbers, scientific notation might make sense.
In a series of numbers, either spell them out or use numerals for every member of the list: don't switch in the middle, as in "pages thirty-two, ninety-six, 107, and 235."
Dates should always get numerals: "October 3, 1990."
There's no reason to use both numerals and words for the same number: unless a law firm is paying you enough money to butcher the language with impunity, steer clear of abominations like "two (2)" or "12 (twelve)."
The only time you should mix spelling and numerals is in very large numbers: not 8,600,000, but 8.6 million.
Use numerals for anything difficult to spell out: not four and sixteen seventeenths, thirteen thousand three hundred twenty six, or three point one four one five nine. You can spell out simple fractions like one half or two thirds.
*--*
Obfuscation.
Don't use long words where short ones will do; it makes your writing dense and difficult to understand. Words ending in -ality, -ation, -ize, -ization, -ational, and so forth are often guilty of making sentences more complex than they need to be. Ask yourself if these suffixes can be removed without damaging the sense: if you can use a shorter form, you probably should; if you can take a big scary noun and make it a punchy and powerful verb, you probably should. For instance, "The chairman brought about the organization of the conference" can stand to trade that "brought about the organization of" for "organized" -- "The chairman organized the conference." Much better.
Many of these guidelines -- changing Vocabulary.
*--*
Old English.
Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, is the technical term for the language spoken in England from around 500 to around 1100. (The most famous work written in Old English is Beowulf ; you won't be able to understand a word of it without studying Anglo-Saxon.) Old English (or OE, as it's often abbreviated) was succeeded by Middle English (ME), the language of Chaucer; and ME was succeeded by Modern English (ModE) around 1500. This means Shakespeare wrote in modern English, even though it's loaded with thee 's and doth 's. You'll keep English teachers happy if you reserve the term Old English for truly Old English. See Latinate versus Germanic Diction.
*--*
On a -- Basis.
Often an unnecessarily long way of saying something. "On a daily basis," for instance, could just as easily be "daily," which can be both an Economy.
*--*
Only.
Though it's not necessarily wrong to place the word only nearly anywhere in a sentence -- English is mighty flexible -- try for grace. "We'll only write three papers this semester" might suggest we won't do anything else with these three papers. "We'll write only three big papers this semester" makes the meaning clearer. But if it makes your sentence clumsy or unidiomatic, nix it.
*--*
Oxford Comma.
See Commas.
*--*
Paragraphs.
There's no hard and fast rule for the length of a paragraph: it can be as short as a sentence or as long as it has to be. Just remember that each paragraph should contain only one developed idea. A paragraph often begins with a topic sentence which sets the tone of the paragraph; the rest amplifies, clarifies, or explores the topic sentence. When you change topics, start a new paragraph.
Be sure your paragraphs are organized to help your argument along. Each paragraph should build on what came before, and should lay the ground for whatever comes next. Mastering transitions can make a very big difference in your writing.
A matter of house style : it's customary (at least in America) to indicate new paragraphs in most prose by indenting the first line (three to five spaces), with no skipped lines between paragraphs. Business memos and press releases tend to skip a line and not indent. (As you can see from this guide, most Web browsers use the skip-a-line-and-don't-indent style.) In papers for English classes, don't-skip-but-indent is preferable.
*--*
Parameter.
Use this nasty vogue word, and I'll forgive you only if you're a mathematician, a scientist, or a computer programmer. (Even then, I'll probably forgive you only grudgingly.) The rest of the world can safely do without.
*--*
Parentheses.
Don't bury important ideas in parentheses. Dan White 's example points out the danger of using parentheses for important thoughts:
The American and French Revolutions (which provided the inspiration for Blake's prophetic poetry) were very important to English writers of the 1780s and '90s.
Here the substantial part of the sentence is buried in a parenthesis, while the weaker part (note the word " Emphasis.
Note that sentence-ending periods should go outside the parentheses if the parenthetical remark is part of a larger sentence, but inside the parentheses if it's not embedded in a larger sentence. This is an example of the first (notice the punctuation goes outside, because we're still part of that outer sentence). (This is an example of the second, because we're no longer inside any other sentence; the parenthesis is its own sentence.)
*--*
Participles.
See Dangling Participles.
*--*
Particular.
This particular word, in many particular circumstances, serves no particular purpose. Give particular attention to the particular prospect of cutting it out.
*--*
Passive Voice.
The active voice takes the form of "A does B"; the passive takes the form of "B is done [by A]."
There are two problems with the passive voice. The first is that sentences often become dense and clumsy when they're filled with passive constructions. The more serious danger of the passive voice, though, is that it lets the writer shirk the responsibility of providing a subject for the verb. Dan White gives an example:
"I'm sorry that the paper was poorly written." If you're going to apologize, apologize: "I'm sorry I wrote a bad paper." The active voice forces one to be specific and confident, not wimpy.
And the stakes can be higher when you're talking about atrocities worse than bad papers. This is why nefarious government and corporate spokesmen are so fond of the passive voice: think of the notorious all-purpose excuse, "Mistakes were made." Then think about how much weaseling is going on in a sentence like "It has been found regrettable that the villagers' lives were terminated" -- notice especially how the agency has disappeared altogether. It should make you shudder.
In your own writing, therefore, favor the active voice whenever you can. Instead of the passive "You will be given a guide," try the active "We will give you a guide" -- notice the agent ("We") is still there.
Don't go overboard, though. Some passives are necessary and useful. In scientific writing, for instance, sentences are routinely written in the passive voice; the authors are therefore given less importance, and the facts are made to speak for themselves. Even in non-scientific writing, not all passives can be avoided.
Don't confuse am, is, are, to be, and such with the passive voice, and don't confuse action verbs with the active voice. The real question is whether the subject of the sentence is doing anything, or having something done to it. I have been giving is active, while I have been given is passive.
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Per.
Avoid the businessese habit of using per instead of according to, as in per manufacturers' guidelines. Ick.
*--*
Person.
See First Person.
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Personalized.
Personalized means made personal, and suggests that something was not personal but now is. This isn't what you mean in phrases like personalized attention. Use personal. See Obfuscation.
*--*
Plus.
The use of the word plus where and or with would be better is a bad habit picked up from advertising copy. Try to limit plus to mathematics, and use and or with where they're appropriate.
*--*
Precision.
The guiding principle in all your word choices should be precision, the most important contributor to clarity.
Sometimes this means choosing words a little out of the ordinary: peripatetic might come closer to the mark than wandering, and recondite is sometimes more accurate than obscure. But while a large imply and infer, and making sure the words you choose have exactly the right meaning. For instance, "Hamlet's situation is extremely important in the play" means almost nothing. Try something that expresses a particular idea, like "Hamlet's indecision forces the catastrophe" or "The murder of Hamlet's father brings about the crisis."
Precision can also mean putting your words in just the right order, or using just the right grammatical construction to make your point. Always read your writing as closely as possible, paying attention to every word, and ask yourself whether every word says exactly what you want.
*--*
Prepositions.
Prepositions are usually little words that indicate direction, position, location, and so forth. Some examples: to, with, from, at, in, near, by, beside, and above.
A quick-and-dirty rule of thumb: you can usually recognize a preposition by putting it before the word he. If your ear tells you he should be him, the word might be a preposition. Thus to plus he becomes to him, so to is a preposition. (This doesn't help with verbs of action; show + he becomes show him. Still, it might help in some doubtful cases.)
*--*
Prepositions at the End.
Along with keep the crusty old-timers happy, try to avoid ending written sentences (and clauses) with prepositions, such as to, with, from, at, and in. Instead of writing "The topics we want to write on," where the preposition on ends the clause, consider "The topics on which we want to write." Prepositions should usually go before ( pre-position) the words they modify.
On the other hand -- and it's a big other hand -- old-timers shouldn't always dictate your writing, and you don't deserve your writing license if you elevate this rough guideline into a superstition. Don't let it make your writing clumsy or obscure; if a sentence is more graceful with a final preposition, let it stand. A sentence becomes unnecessarily obscure when it's filled with from whom s and with which es. According to a widely circulated (and often mutated) story, Winston Churchill, reprimanded for ending a sentence with a preposition, put it best: "This is the sort of thing up with which I will not put."
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Prescriptive versus Descriptive Grammars.
The grammar books you're used to are what linguists call prescriptive : that is, they prescribe end sentences with prepositions. (This is presumably why you're reading this guide now: to find out what's "right" and what's "wrong.")
Linguists today are justly dubious about such things, and most spend their time on descriptive grammars: descriptions of how people really speak and write, instead of rules on how they should. They're doing important work, not least by arguing that no language or dialect is inherently better than any other. They've done a signal service in reminding us that Black English is as "legitimate" a dialect as the Queen's English, and that speaking the way Jane Austen writes doesn't make you more righteous than someone who uses y'all. They've also demonstrated that many self-styled "grammar" experts know next to nothing about grammar as it's studied by professionals, and many aren't much better informed about the history of the language. Many prescriptive guides are grievously ill informed.
Fair enough. Sometimes, though, I enjoy picking fights with those linguists, usually amateur, who try to crowd prescription out of the market altogether. The dumber ones make a leap from "No language is inherently better than another" (with which I agree) to "Everything's up for grabs" (with which I don't). The worst are hypocrites who, after attacking the very idea of rules, go on to prescribe their own, usually the opposite of whatever the traditionalists say. These folks have allowed statistics to take the place of judgment, relying on the principle, "Whatever most people say is the best."
These dullards forget that words are used in social situations, and that even if something isn't inherently good or evil, it might still have a good or bad effect on your audience. I happen to know for a fact that God doesn't care whether you split infinitives. But some people do, and that's a simple fact that no statistical table will change. A good descriptivist should tell you that. In fact, my beef with many descriptivists is that they don't describe enough. A really thorough description of a word or usage would take into account not only how many people use it, but in what circumstances and to what effect.
Much can be said against old-fashioned singular they. They're not particularly logical, they don't have much historical justification, and they're difficult even for native speakers to learn. But you don't always get to choose your audience, and some of your readers or hearers will think less of you if you break the "rules." Chalk it up to snobbishness if you like, but it's a fact. To pick an even more politically charged example, Black English is a rich and fascinating dialect with its own sophisticated lexicon and syntax. But using it in certain social situations just hurts the speaker's chances of getting what he or she wants. That's another brute fact -- one with the worst of historical reasons, but a fact still, and wishing it away won't change it.
That doesn't mean the old-fashioned prescriptivists should always be followed slavishly: it means you have to exercise judgment in deciding which rules to apply when. Here's the principle that guides what I write and say whenever traditional ("correct") usage differs from colloquial ("incorrect") usage.
Does the traditional usage, hallowed by prescriptive grammars and style guides, improve the formal settings, I usually opt for the traditional usage.
Some determined iconoclasts consider it pandering to follow any traditional rule they don't like, and do everything they can to flout the old grammar books. I suppose some think wanton infinitive-splitting shows the world what free spirits they are, and some think giving in to "White English" is unmitigated Uncle-Tomism.
Maybe. If rebellion makes you happy, go nuts; I won't stop you. But as I make clear throughout this guide, writing is for me a matter of having an impact on an audience, and my experience, if it's worth anything, is that some usages help you and some hurt you. Think about each one, not in terms of what you're "allowed" to say, but in terms of what your words can do for you. A dogmatic prejudice against the rules is no better than a dogmatic prejudice in their favor.
See my entries on Taste.
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Previous.
Overused. Earlier may be more to the point, and previous is often redundant, as in "Our previous discussion." Unless you mean to distinguish that discussion from another one (such as "the discussion before the one I just mentioned"), leave out previous, since you're not likely to mention discussions you haven't had yet.
*--*
Prior to.
For a less stuffy and bureaucratic tone, replace prior to or prior with before or earlier whenever possible.
*--*
Proofreading.
You should always read over your wrok carefully before handing it to someone esle, looking for typoos, mispelled words, problems with grammar checkers, which usually make your writing worse, not better.)
Remember, though, that proofreading is only one part of the revision process.
*--*
Pronoun.
A pronoun takes the place of a noun: it stands for (Latin pro-) a noun. Pronouns include he, it, her, me, and so forth. Instead of saying "Bob gave Terry a memo Bob wrote, and Terry read the memo," we'd use the nouns Bob, Terry, and memo only once, and let pronouns do the rest: "Bob gave Terry a memo he wrote, and she read it."
There are a few special sorts of pronouns: possessive pronouns, such as my, hers, and its, which mean of something or belonging to something; and relative pronouns, such as whose and which, that connect a relative clause to a sentence: "She read the memo, which mentioned the new system."
*--*
Punctuation and Quotation Marks.
In America, commas and periods go inside quotation marks, while semicolons and colons go outside, regardless of the punctuation in the original quotation. Question marks and exclamation points depend on whether the question or exclamation is part of the quotation, or part of the sentence containing the quotation. Some examples:
See the chapter entitled "The Conclusion, in which Nothing is Concluded." (Periods always go inside.)
The spokesman called it "shocking," and called immediately for a committee. (Commas always go inside.)
Have you read "Araby"? (The question mark is part of the outer sentence, not the quoted part, so it goes outside.)
He asked "How are you?" (The question mark is part of the quoted material, so it goes inside.)
In American usage, all quoted material goes in "double quotation marks"; if you need a quotation inside a quotation, use 'single quotation marks' (also called "inverted commas") inside: "This for quotations, 'this' for quotations inside quotations." Quotations inside quotations are the only place for single quotation marks -- don't use them to highlight individual words.
*--*
Punctuation and Spaces.
The traditional rule, and one especially suited to the Ellipses.
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Quality.
Quality may be the most abused and overused word in business English. The word is a noun, and means a characteristic or a degree of excellence. Don't use quality as an adverb, as in a quality-built product. Perhaps the best advice is: never use quality.
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Quite.
Quite is almost Wasted Words.
*--*
Quotation Marks.
See Punctuation and Quotation Marks.
*--*
Quote.
An old-timer's rule, probably on the way out, but I'm still kinda fond of it: use the word quote as a verb: you quote something, and that something is called a quotation. Your English paper or newspaper article should make good use of quotations, not quotes.
*--*
Re.
Avoid using re where concerning, regarding, or about will do the trick, as in " Re your memo of 13 January;." It makes your writing jargony.
*--*
Recasting Sentences.
When you're faced with a stylistic problem you can't easily solve, it's often wise to scrap the troublesome sentence and start from scratch, perhaps using a completely different construction. For instance, if you're bothered by a problem with his and her -- "Just as a musician has to be a master of his or her instrument, a writer is at his or her best when he or she has mastered his or her linguistic tools" is downright cumbrous -- scrap it all, and use something like "Mastery of words is as important to a writer as mastery of an instrument is to a musician." There's nothing wrong with avoiding such problems; he who fights and runs away lives to fight another &c.
*--*
Redundancy.
Pay attention to redundant words and phrases, as in actual reality and anticipate for the future. See Different.
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Relative Pronouns.
See That versus Which.
*--*
Revision.
The writing process isn't over when you reach the end -- it's hardly begun. Pay attention to a maxim often quoted in composition classes: "There is no writing, only rewriting." And that means much more than simple transitions. I know it pains beginning writers to hear that they have so much work to do, but it's really unavoidable. Not even professional writers get it all right in the first draft, so you should be prepared to put as much energy into revision as you do into the original composition.
A tip: let some time pass between your first draft and your revision. That means you have to start putting things on paper well before the deadline. Don't worry: it needn't be perfect; just write. And then forget about it -- for as long as you can afford. (The Roman poet Horace suggested taking a nine-year break between composition and publication, but few of us have that luxury.) When you come back to it, you'll be able to read your own writing with fresh eyes, and to see things you missed before. It makes all the difference in the world, but you have to start well before your deadline.
Mind you, it's bad faith for me to pontificate on the moral turpitude of the procrastinator: I'm one of the worst offenders. Do as I say, not as &c.
*--*
Rules.
There ain't a rule in the language what can't be broke. The so-called rules of English Prescriptive versus Descriptive Grammars.
Here's how to think about your task in writing. Step one: figure out where your where you want your audience to end up. Step three: take them from one to the other. If you can pull it off, anything goes.
Does that mean all the entries in this guide are superfluous? Not at all. The question is how you can drag your audience from one to the other -- an audience filled with people of widely varied knowledge, backgrounds, and prejudices. You don't get to pick what hangups your readers suffer from: you have to take them as they are. Writing is an inescapably psychological game, since you have to crawl inside your readers' heads and figure out what's likely to have the desired effects on them.
That's where the rules come in: they're attempts to lay out systematically the effect certain usages will have on certain audiences. A rule that says "Don't split an infinitive " can be translated, " If you split an infinitive, then at least part of your audience will think less of you, and you're less likely to win them over." If you break these rules without a good reason -- by which I mean a reason evident to your audience -- you lose your audience. It's that simple.
Rules are tools. Don't think of them as bureaucratic regulations designed to get in your way, and don't think of the chance to bend them as a special treat. Instead, think of them as a collection of techniques that are likely to have the desired effect on your readers.
A corollary: there's no single set of rules. Every style, every genre, has its own guidelines. A Nobel Prize speech demands a different style than an MTV Music Awards speech (to my knowledge, the former has never included the word "dudes," nor the latter the word "ineluctable"). Most of the guidelines I lay down here are appropriate for college English papers, a genre calling for a middling degree of audience constantly in mind, and learn to use the rules -- even the ones you find silly -- to win them over.
The one unbreakable rule: Whatever works works. All that's left for you is to figure out what works. Most of us will spend our lifetimes on that puzzle, and the so-called rules are the closest thing we have to a solution.
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Run-On Sentences.
Just as there's nothing inherently wrong with a Dependent versus Independent Clauses.
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Saxon Words.
See Latinate versus Germanic Diction.
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Second Person.
See First Person.
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Semicolon.
In this century, at least, the semicolon has only two common uses: to separate the items in a list after a colon (as in "The following books will be covered on the midterm: the Odyssey, through book 12; passages from Ovid's Metamorphoses ; and the selections from Chaucer"), and to separate two independent clauses in one sentence (as in "Shakespeare's comedies seem natural; his tragedies seem forced"). The first is obvious enough. For the second use, a simple test is this: if you can use a period and a new sentence, you can use a semicolon. In this second use, the semicolon can always be replaced by a period and a new sentence. In the example, "Shakespeare's comedies seem natural. His tragedies seem forced" is correct, so a semicolon can be used. It's unsafe to use a semicolon anywhere else.
*--*
Sentences.
A sentence should contain one idea, though that can be a complex or compound idea. The most obscure sentences in academic writing are sentences filled to bursting. If your writing lacks clarity, check to see if a long, bad sentence might make two short, good ones.
This isn't to say that all sentences should be short. Long sentences add variety, and some ideas are too complicated to fit into seven words. But don't turn your simple ideas into monstrous sentences, devouring line after line without mercy. One idea, one sentence.
*--*
Sentence Fragments.
A sentence fragment is a group of words passing itself off as a sentence without having a subject and a verb. Like this. Which is a bad habit. Picked up from advertising. Not for formal writing.
*--*
Serial Comma.
See Commas.
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Sexist Language and the Indefinite Third Person.
The movement away from potentially sexist language has been a mixed blessing. It has replaced the obviously exclusionary Workman's Compensation with Worker's Compensation, but it has also replaced waiter or waitress with abominations such as waitperson or, heaven help us, waitron (I feel ill).
Most of the time, a little sensitivity will do the trick. But perhaps the most confusing issue is the use of the third person indefinite pronoun, as in "Each student is responsible for revising his/her/their/one's papers." Which pronoun is correct? This is a delicate question, and there is no one solution.
Each student is singular -- the is instead of are proves it -- so the colloquial their (a plural) doesn't formal writing today.
There is an indefinite third-person pronoun, one, which was once more common than it is now. It helped out in certain situations, but to modern American ears "One should do this" sounds too much like British royalty. It has therefore fallen out of general informal use. There's a place for it in college writing, but its usage can be tricky, and I haven't the time to get into the details here. If you're not confident, I suggest you avoid one.
Some people now advocate a new set of gender-neutral personal pronouns: favorite sets are sie, hir, and hirs ; zie, zir, and zirs ; and ey, em, eir, and eirs. I confess I find such neologisms merely irritating. Besides, readers who haven't yet acquired the secret decoder ring will have no idea what zirs means.
. . . Leaving his and her, or some combination of the two. "Each student is responsible for revising his papers" is the traditional Slashes.)
There are several ways out. I usually opt for his or her, and do what I can to keep the extra words from being intrusive. Some prefer to mix the occasional his or her together with his 's and her 's separately; this cuts down on suggestions of sexism without making your writing clumsy. Another is to use his sometimes, her at other times, although this doesn't feel natural to most writers (yet). Finally, you can avoid the problem altogether and make your subject plural whenever possible: " All students are responsible for revising their papers." (There's nothing wrong with recasting a sentence to dodge a problem.)
Ol' Doc Jack's advice: avoid their with singular subjects in Slashes). His or her is probably the best solution, although you should work to avoid very clumsy sentences.
See Gender-Neutral Pronoun Frequently Asked Questions (GNP FAQ).
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Shall versus Will.
An old distinction, more common in first person -- I and we -- reverses the rule, so "I shall do it" means I'm going to get around to it, while "I will do it" shows a mustering of resolve (let it be so).
A favorite example to clarify the two: "I shall drown, no one will save me!" is a cry of despair, simply predicting imminent death -- both are simple futures. "I will drown, no one shall save me!" is a suicide vow, a declaration that no one had better try to stop me.
I know, it's confusing, but it's nothing to worry about. Just don't throw shall around unless you know what you're doing.
*--*
Sic.
Apart from necessary omissions and ellipses or brackets.
Sometimes, though, you may have to quote something that looks downright wrong. In these cases, it's traditional to signal to your readers that the oddities are really in the original, and not your mistake. The signal is "[ sic ]": square brackets for an interpolation, and the Latin word sic, "thus, this way." (Since it's a foreign word, it's always in italics; since it's a whole word and not an abbreviation, it gets no period.) It amounts to saying, "It really is this way, so don't blame me."
George Eliot was a woman: if someone you quote gets it wrong, as in "George Eliot's late fiction shows major advances over his earlier works," you might signal it thus: "George Eliot's late fiction shows major advances over his [ sic ] earlier works." Old spellings were often variable: if your source spells the name Shakspear, you might point out with a [ sic ] that it really appears that way in the original.
Don't use sic to show off with gotcha s. Too many writers sic sic s on the authors they quote just to show they spotted a trivial error. If your audience is unlikely to be confused, don't draw attention to minor booboos.
*--*
Slashes.
Slashes are far too common, and almost always betray a lazy thinker: by yoking two words together with a slash, the writer tells us the words are related, but he or she doesn't know how. Replace the slash with and or or. In a phrase such as "Gulliver encounters people much bigger/smaller than he is," write "Gulliver encounters people much bigger or smaller than he is." Instead of his/her, write his or her. See And/Or.
*--*
So.
Avoid using "so" as an intensifier, as in "It's so hot," unless there's a that clause (though the word "that" needn't appear in less formal writing): "It's so hot that the asphalt is melting," "It's so hot I'm thinking of moving to Siberia." "So" on its own, where "very" belongs, is a no-no.
*--*
So as to.
Often the word "to" alone will do the trick.
*--*
Spelling Checkers.
The spelling checkers built into most word processors leave a lot to be desired, but they're not all bad. Whereas Owed to the Spelling Checker," check it out now.) Typos are merely venial sins, but if you have any question about the meaning or usage of a word, use a real dictionary, not a spelling checker.
So there's nothing wrong with using a spelling checker to spot slips of the fingers. Just remember that a computerized spelling checker doesn't absolve you from the need to Microsoft Word.
*--*
Split Infinitive.
An infinitive is the form of a verb that comes after to, as in to support or to write. A split infinitive -- a favorite rule, it's probably better to avoid split infinitives whenever possible. Instead of "Matt seems to always do it that way," try "Matt always seems to do it that way."
Adverbs often insinuate themselves between the to and the verb, as in " To boldly go where no man has gone before," or " To always keep a watch on your bag."
Don't let split infinitives become an obsession; there are times when split infinitives are clearer or more Rules.
*--*
Style.
Style means all kinds o' things. At its grandest, it means everything about your way of presenting yourself in words, including house style.
*--*
Subjunctives.
Anyone who's studied a foreign language will be glad that English has almost entirely lost the subjunctive it once had. Grammarians have a hard time defining subjunctive; don't worry if you don't follow.
Unlike the indicative, which indicates that something is true, the subjunctive expresses a wish, a command, or a condition contrary to fact. Archaic English is full of subjunctives, as in "Would that it were" and "Thou shalt not."
The English subjunctive still shows up in a few places, most often in conditions contrary to fact, where we use were instead of is : "If this were any heavier [but it's not -- a condition contrary to fact], I couldn't lift it"; "If she were to say that [but she's not], I'd leave."
Some also classify shall as a subjunctive (see Shall versus Will).
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Taste.
As in "There's no accounting for" ( rules go only so far; after that, all you've got to guide you are preferences.
Me, personally, myself, I'd sooner go to my grave than use "disconnect" as a noun ("There's a big disconnect between what he says and what he does"): I feel so dirty when I have to say it. The word any way, shape, or form." (Ditto phrases like "Me, personally, myself.")
But they're not right or wrong, and certainly not the sort of thing that a grammar guide can settle definitively: there's no authoritative answer. I find them ugly as sin, but your mileage may vary. They're a matter of taste.
I, of course, am convinced I have impeccable taste; and like most people who set up linguistic soapboxes, I sometimes offer opinions on such questions. I like to think I'm rarely perverse or pedantic, and I flatter myself that I have a better ear for style than many. But take my opinions for what they're worth: they're one guy's judgment on what sounds good. And on many issues, that's all you get.
See Style.
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That versus Which.
According to the more quibbling self-styled grammar experts, that is restrictive, while which is not.
Many grammarians insist on a distinction without any historical justification. Many of the best writers in the language couldn't tell you the difference between them, while many of the worst think they know. If the subtle difference between the two confuses you, use whatever sounds right. Other matters are more worthy of your attention.
For the curious, however, the relative pronoun that is restrictive, which means it tells you a necessary piece of information about its antecedent: for example, "The word processor that is used most often is WordPerfect." Here the that phrase answers an important question: which of the many word processors are we talking about? And the answer is the one that is used most often.
Which is non-restrictive: it does not limit the word it refers to. An example is "Penn's ID center, which is called CUPID, has been successful so far." Here that is unnecessary: the which does not tell us which of Penn's many ID centers we're considering; it simply provides an extra piece of information about the plan we're already discussing. "Penn's ID Center" tells us all we really need to know to identify it.
It boils down to this: if you can tell which thing is being discussed without the which or that clause, use which ; if you can't, use that.
There are two rules of thumb you can keep in mind. First, if the phrase needs a comma, you probably mean which. Since "Penn's ID center" calls for a comma, we would not say "Penn's ID Center, that is called CUPID."
Another way to keep them straight is to imagine by the way following every which : "Penn's ID center, which (by the way) is called CUPID. . . ." The which adds a useful, but not grammatically necessary, piece of information. On the other hand, we wouldn't say "The word processor which (by the way) is used most often is WordPerfect," because the word processor on its own isn't enough information -- which word processor?
A paradoxical mnemonic: use that to tell which, and which to tell that.
*--*
Thesis Statements.
The first thing is to know the difference between a topic and a thesis -- they're very different beasts. A topic is the broad area you're investigating; a thesis is a specific claim you're making and defending. Here's a typical topic : "American identity in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf." Here's a typical thesis : "By naming the parents of an imaginary dead child George and Martha -- like the Washingtons -- Albee suggests that their 'child' (America) is similarly stillborn." Note that a thesis statement takes the form of a declarative sentence. If you say, "I want to write about so-and-so," you probably have a topic; if you say, "I want to write that so-and-so is so-and-so," you're probably getting closer to a real thesis.
Another characteristic of theses is that they're controversial -- not in the way debates over welfare or abortion are controversial, but they have to be argumentative. A good test to see whether you're arrived at a worthwhile thesis: if a reasonable person can disagree with it, it's probably on-track; if no one in his or her right mind would argue with it, you're still too vague. No reasonable person would argue with you, for instance, if you said "Literacy is important in Frederick Douglass's Narrative." (A tip: avoid the word " precise and controversial.
Your thesis statement should usually come close to the beginning of your paper, but it doesn't have to be the very first sentence -- or even the very first paragraph, depending on the length of the paper. Sometimes it's wise to start with something else, the better to grab the reader's attention. But you should get to your thesis statement pretty quickly, so your reader knows where you're going.
For more comments along the same lines, see the Getting an A on an English Paper."
*--*
Third Person.
See First Person.
*--*
Thusly.
Ick. Thus is already an adverb; it doesn't need a -ly.
*--*
Titles.
The titles of books and other long works (plays, long poems, operas, &c.) are either italicized or underscored (see Italics); the titles of shorter works (essays, short poems, &c.) appear in quotation marks. For borderline cases, the test is whether it could be published as a book on its own: even if you're reading King Lear in a larger anthology, it's long enough that it could be a book, so it gets italics. Don't fret the occasional necessary judgment call.
In most prepositions : A Tale of Two Cities (preposition of gets no cap), "I Have a Dream" (article a gets no cap). If there's a subtitle, the same rules apply to the subtitle, even if it begins with an article, conjunction, or preposition: Authors and Owners: The Invention of Copyright (conjunction and and preposition of get no caps, but article the is the first word of the subtitle). There are other styles; some publications capitalize only the first word and proper names, and there are different rules for other languages. But it's usually safe to capitalize everything but the articles, conjunctions, and prepositions.
Many guides call for omitting initial articles in titles if the titles follows a possessive: "In his Tale of a Tub, Swift satirizes zealots" (the title is A Tale of a Tub, but "his A " sounds clumsy); "In Ann Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho " (the title is The Mysteries of Udolpho, but the the can go). Another possibility -- and sometimes a better one -- is to leave out the possessive ("his," "her") when it's unnecessary. When readers see "as Twain writes in his Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," there's little chance they'll be confused into thinking Twain wrote it in someone else's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn -- you can leave out the "his" and use the The.
*--*
Totally.
See Wasted Words.
*--*
Transitions.
Writing should flow. Each sentence should follow on the one before it, and each paragraph should pick up where the previous one left off. Try to make the connections between your sentences and paragraphs logical and explicit. The paragraph's topic sentence is a good place for this, and mastery of transitional words and phrases like therefore, however, on the other hand, and so forth is a must. See Paragraphs.
*--*
Transitive versus Intransitive Verbs.
Not as difficult as some people think. A transitive verb takes a direct object : it shows action upon someone or something. Intransitive verbs take no direct object; they need only a subject to make a sentence.
Some transitive verbs: Hit (you hit something or someone ; you don't just hit); climb (you don't just climb ; you climb something); and bring (bring what ?). Intransitive verbs: sleep (you don't sleep something ; you just sleep); and fall (while you can fall down the stairs, you don't fall the stairs).
There are a few things worth noticing. First, just because something grammatically needs a direct object doesn't mean we actually use it. If someone said, I swung the bat and hit, we don't have to ask what he hit; the direct object ball is understood.
Second, many intransitives might look like transitives, as in She walked three hours. Here three hours is not really a direct object; it doesn't say what she walked, but how long (it's actually an adverbial phrase).
Third, many verbs can be both transitive and intransitive: while a word like ran is usually intransitive, it can also be transitive in "He ran the program for two years." Children can play catch, or they can just play. Even sleep, given above as an intransitive, could become transitive if we said He slept the sleep of the righteous.
The only real danger is when you start changing verbs willy-nilly: "We have to think quality" (giving the intransitive think a direct object; you probably mean "think about quality," if you mean anything at all); "I hope you enjoy" (instead of enjoy it).
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Try And.
"Try and" is common enough in speech, but it's out of place in formal prose. Use "try to."
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Underscores.
See Italics.
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Unique.
Unique means "one of a kind." There are no degrees of uniqueness: something is unique, or it is not. If you want a word that admits degrees, use special or unusual.
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Usage.
Usage is a guide on how to use something properly; use means "one or more instances of using something," or "function." Thus the use of a mechanics. Each time you use something, that's one use (the noun), not one usage. Unless you're talking about grammar, you usually mean use rather than usage : don't use the longer word just because it sounds more impressive.
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Utilize and Utilization.
Use is almost always better, whether pronounced yooz as a verb or yoos as a noun. Don't longwordify what would otherwise be clear.
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Verbal.
Verbal means "related to words"; a written agreement is just as verbal as an oral one. People increasingly use it as the opposite of "written," but there's still a band of brave souls who resist it. If you mean something spoken, use oral. Samuel Goldwyn ignored this distinction in his quip, "A verbal agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on."
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Very.
See Wasted Words.
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Vocabulary.
Having a large vocabulary can never hurt, but you should use your energy wisely. Though knowing words like obnubilate, hebetic, and tergiversation can make you the envy of your crossword-puzzle-playing friends, in writing you'll get more mileage out of knowing the Maxwell Nurnberg in the "Additional Reading" section.
Don't use obscure words just because you can; ostentation leads only to Long Words.
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Voice.
Voice is a technical term in Passive Voice for details.
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Wasted Words.
Many words and phrases rarely add anything to a sentence. Avoid these whenever you can. A very short list of some of these offenders: Quite, very, extremely, as it were, moreover, it can be seen that, it has been indicated that, basically, essentially, totally, completely, therefore, it should be remembered that, it should be noted that, thus, it is imperative that, at the present moment in time. These are fine in their place, but they often slither into your writing with the sinister purpose of tempting you into the sin of padding your sentences. See Economy.
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Webster's.
See Dictionaries.
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Which versus That.
See That versus Which.
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Who versus Whom.
While it's possible to memorize a rule for distinguishing who from whom, it's easier to trust your ear. A simple test to see which is proper is to replace who/whom with he/him. If he sounds right, use who ; if him is right, use whom. For example: since he did it and not him did it, use who did it ; since we give something to him and not to he, use to whom. It gets tricky only when the Hypercorrection.
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-Wise.
Ad hoc words like salarywise and timewise, meaning regarding salaries or time, are best avoided. Strunk and White put it well: "The sober writer will abstain from the use of this wild additive."