Archive for the ‘Grammar’ Category

My sort of sister-in-law Jane speaks English as a foreign language. She’s just finished a course that taught her business skills—she learned how to interview for a job, write a resume, give a presentation and speak better English. (Really, there’s nothing wrong with her English.) She told me her instructor advised the class to, “NEVER use the word can. Instead,” she said, “use may.”

Hmmm. Never is an awfully long time and to me always (also a long time!) raises a red flag. The instructor appears to be like one of those annoying grade school teachers we’ve all had, who, when you asked “Can I please go to the washroom?” would say condescendingly, “I don’t know if you can, but you may.” We learned quickly that the fastest way to get permission to go without being humiliated was to say “May I please go to the washroom?”

Traditionally, may is used to ask permission. Can is used to express ability.

May I have a cookie? Yes, you may.

Can you do a push up? Yes! I can do 20 push ups! (We wouldn’t say May you do a push up?)

But in everyday speech, we use can to make a request. We are understood when we say, “Can I have a cookie?” In fact, the meanings of these words do overlap. We use can to indicate ability, possibility, permission and a request. May indicates permission, probability and a request.

According to the Merriam Webster site, “Can and may are most frequently interchangeable in senses denoting possibility; because the possibility of one’s doing something may depend on another’s acquiescence, they have also become interchangeable in the sense denoting permission. The use of can to ask or grant permission has been common since the 19th century and is well established, although some commentators feel may is more appropriate in formal contexts. May is relatively rare in negative constructions (mayn’t is not common); cannot and can’t are usual in such contexts.”

Okay okay, if you’re writing to a stickler prescriptivist, use may when asking permission. After all, if you want something from them it’s best not to annoy them, even if they annoy you. And if I’m in a super formal situation, I might be inclined to prefer may to can when asking permission. But unless I find myself talking to the queen, it’s hard to imagine a situation that formal.

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“It’s a tricky point, when to use simple present and when to use the progressive, especially as simple present rarely refers to present time. The Greenbelt

While the simple present refers to general truths that include the present moment, the present continuous emphasizes action in the present moment.

Here’s how you form it:

I am running.
You/We/They are running.
He/She/It is running.

I am not running.
You/We/They are not running.
He/She/It is not running.

Am I running?
Are you/we/they running?
Is he/she/it running?

While the simple present uses temporal references such as always, frequently, usually, often, or every month, the present continuous is more specific. It uses temporal references such as at the moment, now, today, this week, this month, tomorrow, next week (for future arrangements ), or currently.

The present continuous has three main uses:

1.  Speaking of something happening at the moment of speaking

What are you doing now?

I am calling in response to an brochure I received last week.

I am looking forward to taking on the lead role for the administration of the IOF system. (also I look forward to…)

Mrs Lo is not suffering from a psychiatric impairment arising from the motor vehicle accident.

Whose account are you working on?

2. Expressing actions happening in a period around the present moment especially when you want to emphasize the present moment

He’s spending the summer in Newfoundland.

I can return Lou’s call as soon as I’m finished writing this email. (or …as soon as I finish writing this email.)

I am including revised shipping instructions.

“Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on. “ Samuel Butler

“No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.” W. H. Auden

“Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it… Success is shy – it won’t come out while you’re watching.” Tennessee Williams

“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” George S. Patton

3. Describing future plans and arrangements

We’re having leftovers this evening.

What are you doing tomorrow afternoon?

She isn’t coming on Friday.

Conventional ways to use the present continuous in business writing include

describing current situations and ongoing projects

The Canadian economy is recovering.

We are updating our servers this quarter.

Ted Passmore and Charone Powell are transferring the files to a 30 gig drive, which we will ship to Mantor.

We are presently trying to determine how payroll burden should be applied to overtime hours.

I am writing in reply to your August 6 letter, in which you requested information about Policy 12965. (Extremely formal.)

To serve you better in the future, we are currently upgrading our system.

referring to temporary situations

We are offering a 20% discount this summer.

Able Airplanes is hiring engineers to help them build the six new jets ordered by the Ministry of Defense.

describing trends, developing situations, progress

The number of email users is growing every day.

These buyers are looking for a wide range of products that only a variety merchandise show such as the Canada’s Merchandise and Clearance Expo can provide.

I am in the process of completing the first document for the Windows 7 Menu/Policy project.

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If so, join the club. Lots of people get nervous when they hear terms like ‘present perfect’ or ‘future progressive.’ What does it mean? In case you want to know, here’s an overview of the twelve English verb tenses.

In a series of upcoming articles, I’ll be delving deeper (that was future progressive!) into each of the twelve tenses.

What exactly is a verb tense? When you make a statement, you usually have to indicate if you are referring to a situation that exists now, existed in the past or will exist in the future. You will often need to indicate the duration of the action, event or situation. Is it momentary or enduring? You may also need to clearly show the temporal relationship of actions, events and conditions that comprise a situation you are explaining.

A verb expresses the time of an action, event or condition by changing its form. Verbs are helped in this function by temporal references, auxiliary verbs, and modals.

The following chart shows the subtle differences among the 12 English verb tenses.

The following chart of temporal references from the English Grammar Handbook at the Athabasca University site is helpful for seeing the subtle time differences between the verb tenses. It’s a good way to see at a glance which tense you need to express your idea. Notice that there is some overlap between the tenses.

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I notice many people don’t know how to use verb tenses, so here is the first of a series on the subject. Let’s start with the present tenses. The present tenses refer to action taking place in the present, to a state of being, to an occurrence in the very near future, and to action that occurred in the past and continues into the present.

The simple present (or present simple) is the most basic, most common verb tense.

Here’s how you form the simple present:

I/You/We/They dance.
He/She/It dances.

I/You/We/They do not dance
He/She/It does not dance.

Do I/you/we/they dance?
Does he/she/it dance?

The simple present has three main functions.

1. Expresses facts and generalizations, including rules of nature. You can use the simple present to state a fact without a time reference.

In this case, you are describing or inquiring about a settled state of affairs which includes the present, but where the time reference is not important.

I process fund transfers.

Does your daughter go to school?

The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

CCP populates and maintains the Business Authority Retention table.

“Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I’m not there, I go to work. ” Robert Orben

“Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.” Pablo Picasso

2. Express habits and routines

I do not eat ice cream.

My team meets for lunch on Fridays.

2. Describes your feelings, thoughts and perceptions at the present moment.

I feel tired.

He looks like he had a long night.

I smell the coffee brewing. (Also: I can smell the coffee brewing.)

She hears the phone ringing. (Also: She can hear the phone ringing.)

Additional things to know about the simple present:

Use it to say how often you or others do things. Simple present is used with frequency adverbs such as always, never, often and sometimes. It can also express something a person often forgets or usually does not do.

We always wash the floor on Mondays.

IT backs up the servers daily.

Sometimes she smokes during the day.

My boss often comments on my work.

I often forget my purse.

The simple present has certain conventional uses in business writing. Use it to

Provide factual information about company activities

We teach people how to write clearly.

Gray Hills Region has a two-tier government structure with services provided by the Region and local area municipal governments.

Pencils and Pens Inc. supplies you with the tools you need to run your business.

Write mission statements

We provide quality HR services to attract, develop, motivate and retain a diverse workforce within a supportive work environment. We do this with an emphasis on customer service based on consultation and communication with the campus community.

ALHA represents over 320 nonprofit providers of long-term care and housing services for 65,000 elderly residents across Pennsylvania. The Association is committed to helping its members provide quality care efficiently and effectively for the individuals and families they serve. In an age of impersonal care, ALHA members put people before profits.

Talk about timetables and events scheduled in the past or the future.

The bus to Whistler leaves at 2:45 Monday to Friday.

The course starts at 8:30 am tomorrow.

The AODA regulations come into effect next month.

Provide a summary or abstract at the beginning of a report; define a document’s purpose.

I recommend we purchase the ABC copier.

The test results indicate that no additional hard drive memory is required to resolve the PC performance stability and performance issues.

This document outlines the on-call steps operations staff must take to resolve production problems quickly and effectively.

Do by saying. These verbs are also known as performative verbs.

I quit.

I apologize for being late.

Do you agree?

We guarantee you will be satisfied.

She promises to submit the proposal by Friday.

I enclose a return envelope for your convenience.

Performative verbs–a partial list

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If you’re even a little interested in language, you’ll love The Lexicographer’s Dilemma: The Evolution of “Proper English” from Shakespeare to South Park by Jack Lynch. Here’s an excerpt.

Lynch asks “What is proper English?” and “Who gets to define it?” Turns out the earliest grammar guides coincide with the rise of the middle class in the early 18th century. They weren’t written by aristocrats, but by “middle class writers who wanted to sound like their social superiors….” And it’s not that upper class speech is better—then or now—but that the upper classes hold social and economic power—then and now. If you want to share or influence that power, you need to use the language properly.

His story describes the rise of standard English, and the push and pull between the prescriptivists and the descriptivists. Prescriptivists tout rules. They are the grammar police who pounce on grammar, spelling and pronunciation mistakes. But the thing is, as Lynch points out, these so-called rules are not carved in stone, but are more like “rules of etiquette, made by fallible people, useful only in certain situations, and subject to change.”

Descriptivists are more interested in how language is used and how it changes. And change it does. Consider the influences of technology and globalization on English. Descriptivists remind us that many of the standard rules are not rules at all, but matters of taste and indicators of class. Rules change with time, usage and fashion.

Two things are inevitable: first, that language is a living, breathing thing. Like it or not, it will change. Second, the world that controls social and economic power uses standard English and if you want to have influence in that world, learn to use the rules, whether you agree with them or not.

The best position to be in is to know the rules of standard English and decide whether or not to use them, to be able to fit the language to the purpose and audience. I wouldn’t break a rule, even if I know it’s bunk, when my reader believes it to be true. For example, if I work for Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board and I’m writing a letter to a retired teacher, I’m not going to risk splitting any infinitives or beginning sentences with and or but, even though I KNOW these aren’t valid rules. I’d only risk alienating my reader and I’d come out the loser. Similarly, it would be goofy to use perfect spelling and standard usage in an IM conversation or spell every word out in an SMS message.

This book made me think about how stuck people can get about the rules. Often, when people learn what I do, they bemoan the state of the language—Kids today don’t know how to spell any more—all they do is text message. Isn’t it terrible? Nobody knows how to write! And everyone seems to have grammatical pet peeves. People are always confessing their intolerances. I just smile and nod. I know most of the time these pet peeves are matters of taste—we object to what seems tasteless to us.

I confess that I like change in language—I’m a descriptivist by nature. I’m fascinated by ingenuity, and by how technology and globalization refresh and enrich English. I’m always amazed by how flexible language is. Still, I have an inner prescriptivist, and I have my pet peeves:

Should You Have Any Questions
Why I Hate the Semicolon
What’s Wrong With Comic Sans?

What about you? What are the things that drive you crazy about language?

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We notice that many people mix these words up in speech—and in writing. Just as ungrammatical speaking erodes your credibility, so does ungrammatical writing.

The personal pronoun ‘I’ is always the subject of a sentence, phrase or subordinate clause:

I attended the show. (subject) You wouldn’t say ‘Me attended the show.’

The personal pronoun ‘me’ is used as an object of a sentence, phrase or subordinate clause:

That car belongs to me. (object)

Problems usually arise when personal pronouns are combined with compound word groups. It’s common to hear people say something like

Lorraine went with my family and I to the cottage this weekend.

To test for correctness, strip away all the compound words (in the sentence above ‘my family and’) to see which pronoun is correct. Clearly, it should read

Lorraine went with (my family and) me to the cottage.

Often, business writers use the reflexive pronoun ‘myself,’ in places where the objective case pronoun (me) is required.

Please contact Eddie or myself for more information.

When you remove the compound words ‘Eddie or,’ it’s clear the sentence should read

Please contact (Eddie or) me for more information.

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I tolerate semicolons in some places—academic writing, essays, literature, or journalism. But in business documents, where they have no place, they seriously annoy me. Here’s why:

1. Semicolons are too vague, too wishy washy. All other marks are assertive and clear in how they order and clarify ideas. The semicolon, used as a soft break is more subtle, more intimate. In Semicolon Slut Dorinne Jenette writes

The semicolon is the seal, still warm, of Eros on written language. It signifies union by a grammatical invitation to intimacy; the semicolon is the shared blush of a successful seduction. As with all seductions, the relationships between clauses joined by semicolons are ambiguous; this is not the punctuation of hierarchy, but of nuance.

Okay, who can resist that? And here’s a gorgeous excerpt from Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited:

“’I have been here before,’ I said; I had been there before; first with Sebastian more than twenty years ago on a cloudless day in June, when the ditches were white with fool’s parsley and meadowsweet and the air heavy with all the scents of summer; it was a day of peculiar splendour such as our climate affords once or twice a year, when leaf and flower and bird and sun-lit stone and shadow seem all to proclaim the glory of god; and though I had been there so often, in so many moods, it was to that first visit that my heart returned on this, my latest.”

It’s hard to imagine this passage punctuated with any other mark. Periods would be too abrupt and em dashes too perky. The semicolons give the sentence the soft dreaminess that makes it so magical.

But don’t be seduced. This kind of effect is NOT suited to business writing. Business writers are impatient and purposeful. They’re not reading for pleasure or entertainment—that’s what fiction or poetry is for. Rather, they need you to give them information so they can use it. Most business messages are clear and simple, and writers often feel a strong need to puff them up. Resist!—keep things simple, clear and plain.

2. Semicolons are old fashioned. They make me think of English manors, of lords smoking pipes and wearing smoking jackets for fun. Who wants such stodginess in their writing? Who wants to do business with such bores? Semicolon users long for the good old days, when live was gentler, slower, happier and sepia toned. This is a fantasy. Life was never better, maybe different.

3. Semicolons are not conversational. Who talks with semicolons? Maybe this point reveals my preference for American style writing, which Ian Jack of The Guardian says, “comes closer to the way people speak than British writing.” And in Pause Celebre Trevor Butterworth says that semicolon appears much more commonly in British journalism than in American. Butterworth says American prefer plainness and clarity, and believes that language should do hold up a mirror to the world. He attributes this tendency to generations brought up on the philosophy of Strunk and White and quotes Ben Yagoda saying Struck and White’s “implicit and sometimes explicit goal is a transparent prose, where the writing exists solely  to serve the meaning, and no trace of the author—no mannerisms, no voice, no individual style—should remain.”

Even without the semicolon, personality leaves its mark. With too much personality and too many semicolons, the reader gets distracted from the message. And in business writing, it’s all about the message.

3. People use them to show off. Using semicolons correctly is a bit like giving a secret handshake. If I come across one used correctly, I always tip my hat to the writer—they’re part of the same club as me. But this is snobbery, and the only benefit of being a snob is being able to elevate yourself at someone else’s expense. Good for you if you know how to use them, better if you choose not to. Kurt Vonnegut says it better than I can:

“If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts. But do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.”

(See more Kurt Vonnegut quotes.)

4. Hardly anyone uses them correctly. I read a lot of writing and only 10% of writers it right. (Okay, I made that statistic up, but it feels right.) Beware of Microsoft’s grammar checker—it will direct you to use semicolons in all kinds of embarrassing ways. When you use a semicolon, for your own credibility, use it correctly. If you’re not sure you’re using it correctly, avoid it.

5. They can always be avoided. It’s always gratuitous, never necessary. There is always a way to work around it with either a period, a conjunction or an em dash. The only time you ever need it is when you use it to separate items in a list when any one of the list items contains internal punctuation, such as commas. Even then, you can use a bulleted list and open punctuation.

Final words

“No semicolons. Semicolons indicate relationships that only idiots need defined by punctuation. Besides, they are ugly.”—Richard Hugo

“Let me be plain: the semi-colon is ugly, ugly as a tick on a dog’s belly. I pinch them out of my prose.”—Donald Barthelme

“They are more powerful more imposing more pretentious than a comma but they are a comma all the same. They really have within them deeply within them fundamentally within them the comma nature.”—Gertrude Stein

“I use it. I’ve no feelings about it—it’s just there. People actually get worked up about that kind of shite, do they? I don’t f***ing believe it. They should get a f***ing life or a proper job. They’ve got too much time on their hands, to think about nonsense.”—Irvine Welsh

How about you–love it? Hate it? Or maybe you’re normal and couldn’t care less.

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Do you see the ambiguity in these newspaper headlines?

McDonald’s Fries the Holy Grail for Potato Farmers

Lung Cancer in Women Mushrooms

Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Space Craft

New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group

Real Estate Executive Sold on City Market

Pecan Scab Disease Causing Nuts to Fall Off

Deer and Turkey Hunt for Disabled People

They work because English has so many words that function as both nouns and verbs. When you strip away unnecessary words, such as when you are writing a headline, you can expose this ambiguity. Each headline can be read in two ways. Read an interesting article about this phenomenon in the New York Times by Language Log linguist Ben Zimmer.

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Thanks to my daughter Rachel who just gave me a copy of I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar by Sharon Eliza Nichols. It’s based on the Facebook group of the same name. The group has just short of 420,000 members, who amuse themselves by posting examples of bad grammar and spelling and feel superior by ranting about them. You can check out the flavour of the group here.

Some of the images are pretty funny:

Other zingers in the book include the nursery selling “Fresh Cut Penis $7.99,” the road sign that reads “Dont’t Drink and Drive,” and some college’s “Homecoming Spirt Week” sign.

On one level, it’s fun to mock bad grammar, spelling and punctuation. It feels good to be part of the elite club that knows better. But the thing is, when you get all snobbish and judgmental it’s pretty much certain you will make your own mistakes, which is exactly what happens to Nichols—she’s gone and misspelled ACKNOWLEGMENTS in her book. And on behalf of all the people she humiliates, her mistake gives me a whole lot of pleasure.

Okay, it’s important to use standard grammar and punctuation. I make a living by teaching people how to do it correctly. I care about grammar and find language endlessly fascinating. I know how poor grammar can erode credibility and inhibit communication.  I feel frustrated when I read bad spelling in restaurant menus, on billboards and especially on expensive signage. I always wonder why they didn’t ask someone to proofread before they went to print? Part of my curse is constantly editing the world around me.

But I’ve learned to be tolerant. Sure, if you constantly confuse their/they’re/there or it’s/its I hope someone points it out because people will judge you for being sloppy, lazy and ignorant. But if you mostly get it right and make mistakes once in a while, I’ll assume you were rushed and forgive you. I’ll focus on your overall message, not on the minor mistake.

I’ve also grown more tolerant of mistakes made by writers who speak English as a second language. Consider the courage it would take to speak and write in a foreign language—consider the minefields! If my life circumstances or choices forced me to speak and write in French, Russian or Chinese I know I’d make tons of mistakes. So I feel sad when these signs are mocked—the writers are doing their best and they deserve some credit for that. Still, how hard is it to check a dictionary?

Do you think I’m getting too soft? What’s your stand on poor grammar?

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“You can be a little ungrammatical if you come from the right part of the country.” Robert Frost

I would add that you can also be a little ungrammatical if you come from the right country, one where English isn’t the first language.

If you speak and write English as a second, third or fourth language, it’s unrealistic to expect your grammar to be perfect. English is a notoriously difficult language to master—it’s hard enough for native speakers to be perfect.

It’s true that really bad grammar intrudes on a message and distracts the reader from getting the message. But we need to tolerate small mistakes, especially when the writers are ESL.

We find the ESL learners in our writing courses are often insecure about their grammar—they want to be perfect. They are also the most passionate, enthusiastic learners when we cover grammar. This is great, but grammar isn’t everything. In fact, grammar mistakes are often the least important ones writers make. I will gladly overlook small mistakes such as missing articles if you

• communicate your message clearly so I get it the first time I read it
• get to the point quickly—no rambling
• use a tone that’s friendly, concise and positive
• create a clear structure that allows me to scan your message
• anticipate all my questions and answer them
• use plain language and keep things as simple as possible

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