Archive for the ‘Grammar’ Category
Good Grammar Isn’t Everything
“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
Assure, Ensure or Insure?
Assure: If you assure someone that something is true or will happen, you tell them what is definitely true or will definitely happen, often to make them less worried. “Please assure Matthew that the job will be completed by the deadline.”
Ensure: To ensure that something happens means to make certain it happens. “Her reputation was enough to ensure that she was always welcome.”
Insure: Insure is a financial transaction where you pay money to a company so that if property is lost, stolen or damaged, that company will pay you a sum of money or replace the property. “Insure your baggage before you leave home.”
These words are interrelated in complex and interesting ways. For instance, in American English, ensure is often spelled insure and the two words can be interchanged.
Also, assure and insure are closely related. Fowler’s Modern English Usage explains that in traditional British usage one insures against something and is assured of it. Hence Life Assurance applies to where a definite sum is a certainty on maturity or death, and Term Insurance is where what’s covered is the risk of the insured dying within a specified period, with no benefit payable if he or she survives it. The Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association explains that Assurance companies generally have a British origin, while Insurance is accepted as common Canadian usage in the industry.
Starting a Sentence With And or Because
Q: My English teacher taught me never to begin sentences with ‘because,’ ‘and,’ or ‘but.’ Does this rule still hold, or is it out of date?
A: This has actually never been a rule. It’s possible teachers strongly discourage starting sentences with subordinate conjunctions such as ‘because’ since these words often seduce students into writing fragments-more specifically subordinate clause fragments. These fragments are hard to spot because they contain both a subject and a verb. Some English teachers may have extended this bad advice about starting sentences with subordinate conjunctions to starting with coordinate conjunctions such as ‘and’ or ‘but.’
Incorrect: John stopped seeing Mary. Because he wanted to keep his promises to his wife.
Correct: John stopped seeing Mary because he wanted to keep his promises to his wife.
Correct: Because he wanted to keep his promises to his wife, John stopped seeing Mary.
As long as your sentence is a sentence, and not a sentence fragment, it’s okay to start with ‘and,’ ‘but’ or ‘because.’ And in some circumstances, a sentence fragment is very effective. Teaching students never to begin with a conjunction is pure ignorance or laziness. It disrespects them, confuses them and robs them of stylistic options.
So use your judgment, and when you think it adds value to your message, go ahead and start your sentence with a conjunction.
Firstly, Secondly, Thirdly
One of my readers sent the following email in response to last month’s Help or Assist?:
“Your use of the words ’secondly’ and ‘thirdly’ makes me cringe. Your writing was the last place I expected to see this.”
I did indeed write First of all, Secondly, Thirdly and Finally. But is my reader upset because I used secondly and thirdly (formal, old fashioned?) or because I abandoned parallel structure and didn’t use firstly?
Funny thing is I never use firstly, yet I’m comfortable using secondly and so on. Mainly I do that because I would speak that way. Secondly (ha) because it’s a perverse little nod to something odd and funny I read years ago in Fowler’s Modern English Usage. Fowler has this to say:
“First(ly), secondly, lastly. The preference for first over firstly is one of the harmless pedantries in which those who like oddities because they are odd are free to indulge, provided that they abstain from censuring those who do not share the liking. It is true that the Prayer Book, in enumerating the causes for which matrimony was ordained, introduces them with Firstly, Secondly, Thirdly; it is true that De Quincey labels it ‘your ridiculous and most pedantic neologism of firstly“; but the boot is on the other leg now. It is the pedant that begins his list with first; no one does so by the light of nature; it an artificialism. Idioms grow old like other things, and the idiom-book of a century hence will probably not even mention first, secondly.”
This extract from Webster’s Dictionary of Usage explains that in Fowler’s time, firstly was new and controversial. Thanks to him, it became acceptable usage. But while modern commentators admit that firstly is acceptable, they still prefer first because it is shorter and the more common word. Firstly is rarely used except to begin a list and is more British than American.
Today, it is well established that either first or firstly can be used to begin an enumeration: Our objectives are, first (or firstly), to recover from last year’s slump. Any succeeding items should be introduced by words parallel to the form that is chosen, as in first . . . second . . . third or firstly . . . secondly . . . thirdly.
But Webster’s Usage cites many instances of inconsistency, and concludes with this advice: “…while we do not suggest you be purposely inconsistent, it does appear that consistency in this specific usage has not always had a particularly high regard with good writers.”
I use first because firstly seems antique. I know I’d never say it. But I would say secondly and thirdly, and that’s why I use them in my writing. From now on, though I resolve to use First, Second, Third. Better still, I’ll try to use a numbered list.
Do Verbs Make You Tense?
“God is a verb.” Buckminister Fuller
Verbs are our favourite part of speech. They are action words—the heartbeat of language.
In the business writing we review, we notice that many people overcomplicate or misuse verb tenses. The tense of a verb places the action at a particular time, and it’s important to be precise. To refresh your memory, here’s a review of the main tenses.
Simple Present: expresses daily habits or usual activities. I eat lunch.
Present Perfect: is used to describe an action that started in the past and continues to the present moment, or an action that was finished at some earlier time. I have eaten lunch.
Present Progressive: expresses an activity that is in progress right now.
I am eating lunch.
Simple Past: is used to refer to events that began and ended in the past.
I ate lunch.
Past Perfect: this is a double past tense—expressing an event that happened before another past event. I had already eaten lunch when I saw your invitation.
Past Progressive: expresses an activity that was in progress at a point of time in the past. I was eating lunch when you called.
Simple Future: expresses something that will happen in the future. I will eat lunch.
Future Perfect: expresses an action finished before a specific time in the future. By 2 pm, I will have eaten lunch.
Future Progressive: expresses something that will be in progress at a point of time in the future. I expect to be eating lunch when you call.
Winston Tastes Good Like a Cigarette Should
Like a cigarette should? or As a cigarette should?
The question is, can like be a conjunction? According to strict traditionalists, like is never a conjunction and it is always wrong to use like instead of as or as if.
In 1954, when the Winston commercial came out, many people became aware of the two options. Prescriptivists criticized the ad for its usage, claiming the as or as if construction was more proper. During the campaign’s long run in the media, many criticized the slogan as ungrammatical and claimed it should say, “Winston tastes good as a cigarette should.” The Wikipedia entry on this topic reports that Ogden Nash, in The New Yorker, published a poem that ran “Like goes Madison Avenue, like so goes the nation.” And Walter Cronkite, then hosting The Morning Show, refused to say the line as written and an announcer was used instead.
Then, in the fall of 1961, a small furor enveloped the literary and journalistic communities when Merriam-Webster published its Third New International Dictionary. In the dictionary, the editors refused to condemn the use of like as a conjunction, and cited “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should” as an example of popular colloquial use. After publication of Webster’s Third, The New York Times called the edition “bolshevik,” and the Chicago Daily News wrote that the transgression signified “a general decay in values.”
Winston countered with another ad, featuring a woman with greying hair in a bun who insists that the slogan ought to be “Winston tastes good as a cigarette should” and is shouted down by happy cigarette smokers asking “What do you want — good grammar or good taste?”
Certainly this controversy didn’t hurt cigarette sales. Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point, says that this ungrammatical and provocative use of like instead of as created a minor sensation in 1954 and implies that the phrase itself was responsible for vaulting the brand to second place in the U.S. market. Winston overtook Pall Mall cigarettes as the #1 cigarette in the United States in 1966, while the advertising campaign continued to make an impression on the mass media.
We’re seeing the same kind of controversy today over the commercial: You don’t drive like her so why are you paying the same insurance premiums as her? Read our post about this. We’ll see if grammatical controversy can be as good for car insurance sales as it was for cigarette sales.
You Don't Drive Like Her
Question: Peter Cross, from Taylor Leibow, sent me the following email:
“My mother’s family were very concerned about using correct grammar. Short of knowing (remembering) the rules, I use some guidelines they gave to help me.
“When people say “give it to him and I, they should simply think what it sounds like if you drop out the “him and.” Clearly we wouldn’t say give it to I. Likewise, we shouldn’t say “give it to him and I”.
“A trickier issue for me – There is currently an advertisement on TV that goes something like this: “You don’t drive like her, why should you pay the same insurance premiums she pays.” My “rule” says that if you extend the sentence to say what is understood, correct use of words will become apparent. So, the sentence becomes “You don’t drive like she drives….” According to my rule, the advertisement should say “you don’t drive like she….” To me that clearly sounds awkward and incorrect. Is my rule wrong?”
Answer: This is a great question that raises all kinds of fun grammatical and stylistic controversies. First of all, the advertisement in question is “You don’t drive like her so why are you paying the same insurance premiums as her?” It’s from a commercial for Trafalgar Insurance as part of the Grey Power campaign.
There are two ways to analyze this grammatically: first, by assuming like and as are used as conjunctions, and second, by assuming like and as are used as prepositions.
Like and As as Conjunctions: If these words are conjunctions, they function by joining things that balance, such as two clauses. This means you’d need to extend the idea on both sides of the conjunction, so the sentence in question becomes “You don’t drive like her (drives), so why are you paying the same insurance premiums as her (pays)?” Clearly wrong. If these words are conjunctions, we’d instead use the subject case of the pronoun (she instead of her): You don’t drive like she (drives) so why are you paying the same insurance premiums as she (pays)? But “You don’t drive like she so why are you paying the same insurance premiums as she?” sounds wrong to our ears, even though we can see the grammatical logic.
Like and As as Prepositions: As prepositions, these words show the relationship between things. In this case, we’d choose the object case of the pronoun (her instead of she): You would say “I live beside her” or “I am like her.” By extension, “You don’t drive like her so why are you paying the same insurance premiums as her?” makes sense.
But Can Like and As Actually Be Prepositions? This is the real question and the source of the controversy. For strict traditionalists, as is a conjunction—not a preposition—and the personal pronoun that follows must be the subject of a clause, which isn’t necessarily completed. Thus “No one could be as happy as I (can be happy).” or “I can’t handle stress as well as she (can handle stress).” To most of us, this sounds odd.
Further, strict traditionalists do not consider like to be a conjunction at all, and its appropriateness is still disputed. In some circles it is considered a faux pas to use like instead of as or as if, whereas in other circles (the vast majority of circles) as sounds stilted. Read about the controversy caused by the famous jingle: Winston Tastes Good Like a Cigarette Should.
Other grammarians have argued, however, that these words often function as prepositions, not conjunctions, and have been used that way for centuries by many good writers. In a structure such as “My mother is a lot like her,” we have no trouble recognizing that like functions as a preposition and we need the object form of the pronoun after it. Such usage is now regarded as acceptable in all but the most formal writing.
So what’s right? That depends on whether you want to be understood or get good marks in a test. If your purpose is to make a grammatical point, then use she. I promise you will alienate 98% of your readers. (There I go, making up statistics again.) Using extremely formal grammar might be correct, but it isn’t necessarily right. I say use her—it’s good common usage and it’s understood by all. The thing is to know the rules, and then break them if you have a good reason. Don’t you think making an emotional connection with your audience is an excellent reason to sacrifice grammatical purity?
Eats, Shoots and Leaves
Who would have thought that a book on punctuation could become a bestseller? It happened to Lynne Truss, whose book Eats, Shoots and Leaves shot to the bestseller list first in England, then in North America. If you haven’t read it yet, you should.
I just reread it and enjoyed it so much, I thought I’d share some of my favourite bits.
On being a punctuation stickler
To those who care about punctuation, a sentence such as “Thank God its Friday” (without the apostrophe) rouses feelings not only of despair but of violence. The confusion of the possessive “its” (no apostrophe) with the contractive it’s (with apostrophe) is the unequivocal signal of illiteracy and sets off a simple Pavlovian “kill” response in the average stickler.
On the exclamation mark
In the family of punctuation, where the full stop is daddy and the comma is mummy, and the semi-colon quietly practices the piano with crossed hands, the exclamation mark is the big attention-deficit brother who gets over-excited and breaks things and laughs too loudly.
On overusing commas
Nowadays the fashion is against grammatical fussiness. A passage peppered with commas-which in the past would have indicated painstaking and authoritative editorial attention-smacks simply of no backbone. People who put in all the commas betray themselves as moral weaklings with empty lives and out-of-date reference books.
On the ellipsis
I recently heard of someone studying the ellipsis (or three dots) for a PhD. And, I have to say, I was horrified. The ellipsis is the black hole of the punctuation universe, surely, into which no right-minded person would willingly be sucked for three years, with no guarantee of a job at the end.
Split Infinitives
Q: What is a split infinitive and should I avoid it?
A: An infinitive consists of a verb form preceded by the word to, such as to go, to smile, to dance. Some grammarians argue that we should always keep the parts of the infinitive together – “I immediately went to the bookstore to purchase Toni Morrison’s latest book.” When we insert a modifier between the parts of the infinitive we have a split infinitive, as in the following example: “The company worked hard to substantially increase its profit margin.”
But while we may have been taught never to split infinitives, there really is no convincing argument to support such a rule. The split infinitive rule, like the rule about ending a sentence with a preposition, was introduced in the 19th century to model English grammar more closely after Latin. In Latin, the infinitive is always a single word, so the equivalent English construction was also treated as if it were indivisible.
It is often, however, quite correct to separate the infinitive from the preceding to, especially if trying to do otherwise would destroy the sentence’s meaning or make the sentence clumsy. What, for instance, does the following sentence mean? “The teacher worked hard firmly to establish relations with her students.” In this case, the attempt to avoid splitting the infinitive distorts the meaning and the sentence sounds silly.
Lie or Lay?
Q: What’s the difference between the verbs ‘lie’ and ‘lay’?
A: Lie means ‘to recline or rest on a surface.’ It is an intransitive verb and does not take a direct object: ‘The report lies in the middle of the table.’ Lay means ‘to put or place something.’ It’s a transitive verb and always takes a direct object: ‘She lay the report in the middle of the table.’
Here are two tips for remembering which verb is correct:
1. Ask yourself ‘lay what?’ If there is no answer, use the verb lie.
2. Alternatively, if you can substitute ‘put’ use lay.
Base form lie, lay
Past Tense lay, laid
Past participle lain, laid
Present participle lying, laying
Try some on your own:
1. She was so tired, she laid/lay down on the couch.
2. She was so tired, she lay/laid herself down on the couch.
3. The evidence was laying/lying on the floor.
4. Her grandmother’s letters lay/laid in the bureau drawer.
5. Someone had lain/laid her grandmother’s letters in the bureau drawer.
6. I remembered having laid/lain on that bed when I was a young child.
Answers: 1. lay; 2. laid; 3. lying; 4. lay; 5. laid; 6. lain