Posts Tagged ‘Grammar’

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 People who put in all the commas betray themselves as moral weaklings with empty lives and out-of-date reference books.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.

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.

Q: Which is more correct, ‘They have proved’ or ‘They have proven’?

A: Actually, both forms are correct. Prove is one of many irregular English verbs.

In general, there are three forms of every verb, the infinitive, the past tense and the past participle. The infinitive form of the verb is the version listed in the dictionary. The past tense expresses actions that occurred entirely in the past, and never uses a helping verb. The past participle is always used with a helping verb (either has, have or had to form one of the perfect tenses; or be, am, are, was, were, being or been to form the passive voice).

For regular verbs, the past tense and the past participle are the same and are formed by adding –ed or just –d to the infinitive form. Irregular verbs, like prove, need to be learned.

Regular verb:
Infinitive: I walk to work every day.
Past tense: I walked to work yesterday.
Past participle: I have walked to work before.

Irregular verb:
Infinitive: We usually go skiing in the winter.
Past tense: We went skiing last weekend.
Past participle: We have gone to Whistler once.

If you’re ever in doubt about the standard forms of an irregular verb, check your dictionary. Just look up the infinitive form and you’ll always find the past tense and the past participle.

Just checked all my dictionaries and this works!

Q: Which is correct, ‘If I was’ or ‘If I were’?

A: Well, it depends. Most of the time, if you’re speaking wishfully it’s correct to say ‘If I were.’ The name for this kind of wishful construction is the subjunctive mood. The subjunctive mood always uses the verb were. For example,

I wish I were 25 again. (I’m not 25.)

If she were here, I’d give her a hug. (She’s not here, no hug.)

If it were Tuesday, I’d be in Belgium. (It’s not Tuesday, and you’re in Toronto.)

She acts as though money were scarce. (Money isn’t scarce.)

Note that not all if statements are wishful; sometimes the statement may actually be true. If this is the case, was is the correct verb.

If I was wrong, I apologize. (I may have been wrong.)

If Julie was there, I guess I missed her. (Julie may have been there.)

If it was Tuesday, I must have been in Belgium. (It may have been Tuesday.)

Grammar and spell checkers are handy to have. Just make sure you remember who’s in charge—they are notorious for giving terrible advice. The best way to use them is to have enough grammar knowledge to know when to override them.

Here are two examples of grammar checker advice we’ve been given that will make you cringe:

Before: Your premium is calculated by averaging your results for the last two years and blending these results with the results of the carrier’s pool.
Grammar checker’s suggested rewrite: Averaging your results for the last two years and blending these results with the results of the carrier’s pool calculate your premium.

Before: The future application of the late payment penalty policy should be considered by the Board in the Acme Gas rates application.
Grammar checker’s suggested rewrite: Board in the Acme Gas rates application should consider the future application of the late payment penalty policy.

Here’s the best grammar advice of all and the rule of thumb we follow here at Bruner Business Communication: If in doubt, rewrite. If you suspect that your sentence might be ungrammatical, it probably is. So if a sentence starts to get away from you, simplify it. It’s far better to be simple and correct than complex and ungrammatical.

No matter how good you are at what you do, documents with grammar mistakes will erode your corporate and personal credibility.

Proofreading is challenging for a couple of reasons. First, the mind tends to substitute correct words, “seeing” what was intended or what should be there instead of what is actually there. This tendency accounts for errors such as “She’s form Britain.”

Second, most of us tend to read far too quickly to spot all errors on a line of text. When we read at a normal pace, we fixate on a line of text in three or four places. We can only really see about six characters with each fixation, and everything else is picked up with our peripheral vision, which gets less and less accurate the further it is from the centre.

Here are seven strategies from our one-day Grammar and Proofreading course that will help you improve accuracy:

1. Cultivate a healthy sense of doubt. If there are errors you typically make, always double check for those. In general, it’s a good idea to doubt every word to help you catch every mistake.
2. Proofread very slowly. Remember you can only really see one word at a time, so patiently fix your eyes on every word on the line – twice on the longer words. Remember to really look at the word and resist sliding over it.
3. Proofread aloud. This helps because it both forces you to slow down and lets you hear what you’re reading so you can spot missing or repeated words.
4. Use a spell checker and grammar checker as a first screening, but don’t depend on them!
5. Proofread with a buddy. It’s twice as difficult to proofread something you’ve written yourself.
6. Proofread important documents several times. Have a strategy for each proofread, and create a checklist of things to look for in every read.
7. Spend a half-hour each month reviewing grammar rules.

Like it or not, people judge you when you use bad grammar. Even prostitutes. In the television series Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Belle warns her protégé Bambi that men with bad grammar are bad news.

In Season 2’s Episode 2, Belle and Bambi read an email proposition from a man who has found Belle through her website. “Hey Babby,” he writes. “I seen you’re pictures, and want to meet you.” Belle dismisses him, saying “I’d never go out with this one. He can’t spell. ‘Hey Babby’ and he’s misspelled Baby. The whole tone of it’s wrong.” She’s called away from the computer for a moment, giving Bambi a chance to steal his coordinates. Bambi is new to the game and very eager. Long story short: Bambi takes a chance, meets the guy, it’s a disaster (naturally), and kind-hearted Belle comes to her rescue.

Secret Diaries is a fun show and you can watch Season 2 on TMN. It’s well written, well acted, funny and has great style. Belle’s name is a reference to surrealist Luis Bunuel’s 1967 film Belle de Jour, which stars Catherine Deneuve. It’s worth watching just for the beautiful costumes designed by Yves Saint Laurent.

This isn’t the first time we’ve read about prostitutes using grammar to qualify their dates. In a 2001 newsletter article we wrote about Valerie Scott, a sex trade worker.

Scott began as an exotic dancer. When she needed to earn more money, entertaining clients privately seemed a logical career step. To build up a clientele, she ran a business personal ad in the newspaper: “Attractive petite brunette seeks generous gentleman.” This generated about 90 replies, and most respondents sent business cards with notes or letters attached.

Scott writes, “I threw out the ones with poor grammar, reasoning that they wouldn’t have a good job and so couldn’t afford my service. I was charging $100 to $150 an hour.”

I think Belle charges about 300 pounds/hour—more than Valerie and probably more than you. But that’s missing the point—the moral of the story is that minding your grammar is good for your credibility, your character and…your sex life.

Q: When should I say good and when should I say well?

A. Good question. Good is an adjective and well is an adverb, although well can also be used as an adjective in certain circumstances, such as in describing health.

• This concert is good. (Good is always an adjective.)
• I did well on my test. (Adverb.)

To feel well means to be in good health and to feel good means to be in good spirits.

• She seems to be feeling well today. (Adjective, describing health.)
• The teachers feel good about their new contract. (Adjective, describing emotional state.)