The Glamour of Grammar
delinquency.
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Note: Word
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Note: Word
carried the argument to a moral dimension when a young woman accused the George Clooney character of being an inauthentic human being, a mere “parenthesis” in life. “A parenthesis?” answered a puzzled Clooney. She meant that he was incapable of a commitment to home or to others; he was a digression in the narrative of life, absolutely beside the point. That was my first encounter with a mark of punctuation used as an insult.
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Note: Good metaphor
Language scholars have a word for the sound made by the letter s. They call it a sibilant, which is derived from the Latin word meaning “to hiss.”
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Note: Today I learned
Consider this paragraph from James Wood, author of How Fiction Works: In this book I try to ask some of the essential questions about the art of fiction. Is realism real? How do we define a successful metaphor? What is a character? When do we recognize a brilliant use of detail in fiction? What is point of view, and how does it work? What is imaginative sympathy? Why does fiction move us? These are old questions, some of which have been resuscitated by recent work in academic criticism and literary theory; but I am not sure that academic criticism and literary theory have answered them very well. I hope, then, that this book might be one which asks theoretical questions but answers them practically—or to say it differently, asks a critic’s questions and offers a writer’s answers. That is a nifty paragraph, one I wish I had written myself. It has the basic structure required of classic paragraphs: a sharply drawn topic sentence at the start; by my count, eight examples of questions; a complicating turn in the middle (about the inadequacy of criticism and theory); and a resounding conclusion that gives me confidence that this author knows what he’s talking about.
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Note: An example of a good paragraph
• During revision and proofreading, pay special attention to sentences in which subject and verb are separated.
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Note: Important
If you run into a problem that involves gender universals and/or number agreement, these questions may help you find a good solution: • Am I writing formal or informal English? • Can I find a way to be inclusive in my language but also aesthetically pleasing? • If I’m stuck between two choices, can I come up with a third way? • Can I show it to another person to see if he or she feels included or excluded? • How can I avoid sexist language and the gooey trap of political correctness?
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Note: Important on gender pronouns
simple AHD definition of mood: “A set of verb forms or inflections used to indicate the speaker’s attitude toward the factuality or likelihood of the action or condition expressed. In English the indicative mood is used to make factual statements, the subjunctive mood to indicate doubt or unlikelihood, and the imperative mood to express a command.”
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Note: Moods of verbs
Use active and passive verbs in combination—and with a purpose.
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Note: Chapter
I’ll be someplace else. Not to get too philosophical, but this suggests the distinction between Being and Becoming.
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Note: Estoy and soy in Spanish
Letters represent sounds. Words are built from letters. A group of words makes a phrase. Add a subject and verb, and you have a clause. If that clause expresses a complete thought, we call it a sentence. But if that clause expresses an incomplete thought, it is called subordinate or dependent, and we have to attach it to a main clause or it will not be considered Standard English. One complete sentence, or even a fragment or a word, can serve as a paragraph. More often, though, several sentences join together in a paragraph to develop a thesis or idea. And several paragraphs, sometimes many, are required to write an essay, report, or chapter for a book. What an amazing process.
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Note: What a beautiful way to describe the base of writing
But the Webster’s team was doing nothing more or less than taking note of the way people actually used the language. These lexicographers were members of the descriptive school because they described the language used in spoken and written English.
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Meanwhile, “grammar” had percolated into Scottish English (as “gramarye”), where an “l” was substituted for an “r” and the word eventually became “glamour,” used to mean specifically knowledge of magic and spells.
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Meanwhile, “grammar” had percolated into Scottish English (as “gramarye”), where an “l” was substituted for an “r” and the word eventually became “glamour,” used to mean specifically knowledge of magic and spells. Even though the association between grammar and glamour is surprising, it’s not hard to find a trail of connections leading to modern usage.
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Read dictionaries for fun and learning.
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locutions.
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According to the traditional guidelines, from is used when the comparison is between two persons or things: My book is different from yours. Different than is more acceptably used… where the object of comparison is expressed by a full clause: The campus is different than it was 20 years ago.”
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We know that the spelling of a word is arbitrary, a social agreement based on precedent and convention. British spellers prefer programme, centre, cheque, and humour to the conventional American spellings.
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The letters l and r are called liquid consonants because they roll off the tongue. You can hear and feel the flow in a phrase like “roll out the barrel,” as opposed to the friction and vibration caused by “shuck and jive.” Browse through the dictionary under the letters l and r and make a list of the most “liquid” words you can find.
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• The words a, an, and the are called articles. A and an are indefinite articles, often used before nouns that “denote a single but unspecified person or thing.” The is the definite article, used before nouns that “denote specified persons or things.”
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• A is used before consonant sounds; an before vowel sounds.
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thesaurus, a word from the Greek that means “treasury.”
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thesaurus, a word from the Greek that means “treasury.” What a lovely and useful concept: a book that is a treasure chest of words.
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The same word can cross-dress as different parts of speech,
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The same word can cross-dress as different parts of speech, its meaning made through the context.
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function of a part of speech, such as the adverb, can be carried out not just by a single word but also by a phrase, a long phrase, even a clause.
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two of the most important are the coining of a word from a proper noun (the result being an eponym) and the blending of two words to create a third.
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• The portmanteau or blend: Octomom became a tabloid word to describe the mother of octuplets, while Ian Fleming gave us the mischievous James Bond title Octopussy.
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• Eponym: The word boycott is named after Charles C. Boycott. When the British land agent evicted some tenants, he and his family “found themselves isolated—without servants, farmhands, service in stores, or mail delivery,” according to the AHD.
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• The compound or kenning: This is a kind of metaphor, common in Old English poetry, in which two words are combined to form a third word that may make little or no reference to the two original elements. According to author Simon Winchester’s study of the OED, there are “50 words in Old English that signify the sea,” including such combinations as whale-way, drowning-flood, and waters-strife. Modern compounds include firearm, highball, and outgoing. Examples of classic slang are listed in The Little Hiptionary: the bee’s knees, the cat’s pajamas, fix his wagon, fly by the seat of your pants, heavens to betsy, peace out, spend a penny (go to the bathroom in the days of pay toilets), spill the beans. Just remember that the outgoing mail may be delivered by an outgoing male.
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• Front clipping or back clipping: The blend of taximeter and cab gave us the word taxicab, which was then clipped at the front and at the back to give us the shortened versions cab and taxi. (By metaphorical extension, a taxi dancer is a professional dancer hired for a partner dance for a fee, just as taxis are hired to provide short rides.)
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• Acronyms: Many words are formed from the first letters of a phrase. John H. Cover invented the Taser, a “high-voltage stun gun,” its name an acronym drawn from one of his favorite boyhood adventure stories: Tom A. Swift and His Electric Rifle.
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We can trace these effects back to 1066 when the Norman invasion of England brought with it longer words of French and Latin origin, words that would be added to the shorter Anglo-Saxon lexicon
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exsanguinate
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Our children are like library books, with a due date unknown. These lives stopped at the start of their stories. But their stories live on… in friends who can tell them.
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There are lots of lessons to learn here: When a story is powerful, keep the language spare. In English, spare language depends on short words, short sentences, and short paragraphs at the points of highest emotion. If that strategy works for you, give thanks to the Angles and the Saxons for what was preserved under Norman domination.
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English has a history, of course, and one of its pivotal moments came in AD 1066 when the Normans conquered England and brought with them from France their language and culture. As a result, we often have two words for the same thing: a short word from an Anglo-Saxon root, and a longer word from a French and Latin root: as in lively and vivacious.
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• Writers can emphasize certain words and influence the reader’s pace by making good selections from the stocks of short and long words.
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• Don’t use foreign words or phrases just to show off, but if a foreign word or phrase captures something special, use it.
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• The judicious use of foreign words can reflect the growing ethnic diversity of American culture. • If you do use a foreign word or phrase, make sure you translate it unless its meaning is clear from the context. • During revision, check with someone who knows the foreign language to make sure you’ve got it right. • One great way to live inside your own language is to study a foreign language.
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• If you do use a foreign word or phrase, make sure you translate it unless its meaning is clear from the context.
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The Brits leave their full stops and commas outside of quotation marks, while we Yanks tuck them inside.
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To build suspense, writers slow down the pace of the story. The best way to do this is with a series of short sentences. The more periods—the more full stops—the slower the reader will go.
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• From now on think of the period as a full stop, and begin to look at the place right before the full stop as a hot spot, a point of emphasis.
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The silence of the theater behind him ended with a curious snapping sound, followed by the heavy roaring of a rising crowd and the interlaced clatter of many voices. The matinee was over. The short sentence—four words framed by two full stops—brings the action to a close.
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• The more periods, the more stops, and the slower the pace of the work for the reader. Why would you want to set a slow pace? To create suspense; to keep the reader hanging (Oh, by the way, Plant High School won the big game.) To explain step by step To magnify an emotion
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• The serial comma can help you organize a series of words, phrases, or clauses.
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• Fight to the death (or at least to the pain) for the serial comma.
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14 Use the semicolon as a “swinging gate.”
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• The semicolon, long the subject of neglect and ridicule, may be making a comeback. • It offers the writer choices other than the comma, period, or dash. • Think of the semicolon as a “swinging gate,” a tool that can connect and separate at the same time. • A long passage with lots of commas may confuse the reader. Consider the semicolon a mark that offers the reader a visual clue as to how a passage is organized.
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• The semicolon, long the subject of neglect and ridicule, may be making a comeback. • It offers the writer choices other than the comma, period, or dash. • Think of the semicolon as a “swinging gate,” a tool that can connect and separate at the same time.
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• A long passage with lots of commas may confuse the reader. Consider the semicolon a mark that offers the reader a visual clue as to how a passage is organized.
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Embrace the three amigos: colon, dash, and parentheses.
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There are more mundane uses of the colon: to separate a title from a subtitle, to separate hours from minutes in a time stamp (10:41 a.m.), to mark the salutation of a letter or a message.
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the colon can be used to highlight or emphasize a word or phrase: “a hot date for the Homecoming Dance”; it can introduce a quotation, a statement, a question, almost serving as a trumpet flourish in a Shakespeare play; and it can signal to the reader the beginning of a list, even a very long one.
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My reading reminded me that the dash has two important uses: (1) a pair of dashes can be used—like these two—to embed one sentence or important thought in another; and (2) a dash can be used for emphasis in sharp moments when you want to end a sentence with a snap—like this.
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• The colon can be used to introduce a statement or a quotation, to signal the beginning of a long list, and to highlight a word or a phrase at the end of a sentence: like this.
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• Do not use the dash because you have not mastered other forms of punctuation, such as the colon or semicolon.
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• Use two dashes to embed one interesting or important thought within another. • Use a single dash to highlight an element at the end of a sentence.
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• In general, limit the number of reader interruptions caused by the roadblock of parentheses. Strive, instead, for steady advance.
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• To form a possessive singular, add an ’s: “Sadie’s ring.”
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• To form a possessive plural, in most cases, add an apostrophe after the s: “The Puritans’ journey.”
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• If the plural of a noun does not end in s, add an ’s to form the possessive: “The children’s field trip.”
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• If a proper noun (a name) ends in an s, add an ’s in most cases, but let your ear guide you through the tough ones: “Archimedes’ experiment.”
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Dialogue is by definition a form of narrative, a taut bowstring of action within a story experienced directly by the reader.
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• Do not include any language inside quotation marks that is not part of a direct quotation, unless you signal a deletion with ellipses or an insertion with brackets.
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constructions. • Quotation marks can be used to highlight a word, perhaps because it represents slang, dialect, or other unexpected usage. But take care: overuse can render this strategy ineffective.
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• Punctuate quotations this way: Periods and commas go inside closing quotation marks. Colons and semicolons go outside. Question marks and exclamation points go inside if they punctuate the quotation but outside if they apply to the whole sentence.
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aphorism
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A popular aphorism reminds us that it’s about the journey, not the destination. With narrative, that slogan rings false. It’s about the journey and the destination, the payoff, the solution to the mystery, the answer to the question.
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A popular aphorism reminds us that it’s about the journey, not the destination. With narrative, that slogan rings false. It’s about the journey and the destination, the payoff, the solution to the mystery, the answer to the question. “Would he make it?” That question will drive me for most of three hundred pages to find out.
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• The best stories are formed around a question that the story answers for the reader: Who did it? Guilty or not guilty? Will she win the money? Will he get the girl?
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inviting a response or a continuing conversation.
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know the answer in advance. • Questions often imagine another person, inviting a response or a continuing conversation.
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• Questions often imagine another person, inviting a response or a continuing conversation.
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• If you want to be considered a serious writer, never, ever use emoticons in e-mail messages. The occasional exclamation point is fine.
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• The more serious the story, the fewer exclamation points will be appropriate. • The less serious the story, the more liberty you can take with !!!!!!!!
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• The most practical use of exclaimers is after a quotation or a bit of dialogue that expresses excitement or intense emotion: “The Russians are coming!”
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The ellipsis remains among the most underappreciated and versatile tools of punctuation. The singular is ellipsis, the plural ellipses. Derived from the Greek word meaning “to fall short,” an ellipsis is usually represented by three dots, with a space before and after each ellipsis mark or point (…).
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Like a photographer who crops a photo to omit extraneous images and improve composition, a writer has an ethical obligation to “ellip” (don’t bother looking; I made that up) responsibly, that is, to omit words or sentences in such a way that the spirit and meaning of the original text are not altered.
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The use of ellipses, in partnership with other marks of punctuation, turns out to be a powerful tool of narrative, a strategy that can communicate an urgent or suspenseful message and reflect back on the creativity of the writer.
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Where an ellipsis can take the place of words and sentences, the hyphen steps in for letters.
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name. The Greek word for “four letters” is tetragrammaton (notice the hint of that magical word grammar hiding in the middle). The sacred four letters are sometimes represented as YHWH, giving us the name Yahweh; sometimes as JHVH, giving us Jehovah.
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• Ellipses can help characterize the nature of speech in a direct quotation or a bit of dialogue.
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• Ellipses can help slow down the text, signaling suspense or delay. • Creative authors can, in special cases, play with the form of ellipses to produce special effects.
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When we first learned about the uppercase (a reference to where typesetters stored those capital letters),
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They quote Sigmund Freud from Totem and Taboo: “A human being’s name is a principal component in his person, perhaps a piece of his soul.”
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• Capitals are called uppercase letters because typesetters would store them in the “upper case.” Small letters were kept in the “lower case.”
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• Capitals have a variety of effects on the reader, and full capitals may suggest that the writer is shouting.
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• Capitalize the names of people, places, holidays, historical periods and events, official documents, trade names, official titles, and geographical places. Such names fall into the category of “proper nouns.”
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You should also feel free to break them, with one proviso: first you must learn them. Once mastered, these “rules” become “tools” and their violation becomes strategic.
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problem into a language lesson. Here’s the simplest way to remember the difference: lie means “to recline”; lay means “to place.”
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Here’s the simplest way to remember the difference: lie means “to recline”; lay means “to place.” As in “I lay the cushions on the floor so I can lie in comfort.” (You can use the vowel sounds as a memory aid: lie / recline; lay / place.)
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Another useful grammar tool is the distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs. The word transitive derives from the Latin and means “to go across” or “to pass over.” Thus, a transitive verb is one in which the meaning passes over from the verb to a direct object. Verbs such as hit and pummel almost always take an object.
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Lie means “to recline” and is intransitive. It takes no object. Lay means “to place” and is transitive. It takes an object.
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The greater the distance between subject and verb, the more likely the writer will make a mistake, or even worse, confuse the reader.
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agita. I once learned that these “collective” nouns have a plural sense (you can’t, for example, have “a gaggle of goose”) but take a singular verb.
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once learned that these “collective” nouns have a plural sense (you can’t, for example, have “a gaggle of goose”) but take a singular verb. Now I’m not so sure.
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When using collective nouns and subjects such as couple, everyone, everything, all, anybody, I need to be sure about whether the sense of the word is singular or plural. If I cannot, I try a different wording.
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I am now ready to offer another possible remedy, the usage that is becoming more common, even if it is condemned by some as blasphemous: A politician can kiss
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“Don’t use masculine pronouns—he, his, him—when you want to refer generically to a human being.” The authors argue that you should not write: “A politician can kiss privacy goodbye when he runs for office.” Three remedies are offered: Reword the sentence: Campaigning for office robs a politician of privacy. Express in the plural: Politicians can kiss privacy goodbye when they run for office. Offer optional pronouns: A politician can kiss privacy goodbye when he or she runs for office.
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I am now ready to offer another possible remedy, the usage that is becoming more common, even if it is condemned by some as blasphemous: A politician can kiss privacy good-bye when they run for office.
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Place modifiers where they belong.
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One of the trickiest hiders is the misplaced modifier —aka the dangler.
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When a verb functions like an adjective, we call it a participle,
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When a verb functions like an adjective, we call it a participle, which can act in either the present or the past. A
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When a verb functions like an adjective, we call it a participle, which can act in either the present or the past. A present participle looks like this: “The house, crumbling from old age, was condemned by the city.”
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A past participle looks like this: “Condemned by the city, the house was crumbling from old age.”
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Consider these alternatives: “Condemned by the city, the old house was torn down by the demolition crew.” Or, if you prefer the active voice: “A demolition crew tore down an old and crumbling house condemned by the city.” In both cases, I have taken the modifier (the past participle) and placed it right next to its soul mate.
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• Verbs cross-dressing as adjectives are called participles and can work in the present: “He jumped to the top of the fence, catching the ball in the web of his glove”; or in the past: “He marched to his room, caught in the web of lies he told his mother.” • Beware of participial
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• Verbs cross-dressing as adjectives are called participles and can work in the present: “He jumped to the top of the fence, catching the ball in the web of his glove”; or in the past: “He marched to his room, caught in the web of lies he told his mother.”
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• Beware of participial phrases that dangle at the beginning or end of a sentence. Double-check to make sure that the participle modifies the intended word.
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• Put things next to each other that belong together.
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Help the reader learn what is “essential” and “nonessential.”
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Let’s begin with the punctuation requirements: • A nonrestrictive clause requires a comma or commas. • A restrictive clause requires no comma. But what is being restricted? The meaning.
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Let’s examine this sentence: “The soccer player who knows how to score goals is often a fan favorite.” And this one: “The soccer player, who knows how to score goals, is often a fan favorite.” Without commas, this is a generalization about soccer players: that those who score goals tend to be fan favorites. With commas, the focus is on one particular player, one fan favorite who happens to be a prolific goal scorer.
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This helps me to remember: If the phrase is not essential, then a comma or commas are essential.
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A word, phrase, or clause can be in apposition to another, which just means that it sits next to it, offering more information about
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A word, phrase, or clause can be in apposition to another, which just means that it sits next to it, offering more information about it.
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Words in apposition can be either essential to the meaning of the sentence or nonessential. If they are not essential, they need to be kept in a frame set off by commas.
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Words in apposition can be either essential to the meaning of the sentence or nonessential. If they are not essential, they need to be kept in a frame set off by commas. If the words are essential, no commas are required.
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whoever, I, you, we, he, she, it, they.
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• These pronouns are used as subjects: who, whoever, I, you, we, he, she, it, they.
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• These are used as objects: whom, whomever, me, us, him, her, it, them.
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• Who is used in the subject position, but as an object whom is the right choice, at least in more formal speech and writing. • Your ear will guide you
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• Who is used in the subject position, but as an object whom is the right choice, at least in more formal speech and writing.
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Add to this the interrogative mood, in which the speaker asks a question, and we’ve covered most of the territory.
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The most common pattern of subjunctive statements comes with adverbial clauses, especially ones beginning with “if.” “If I were you, I would leave town this minute.” But I’m not you, so, because it is contrary to fact, the sentence requires the subjunctive forms “were” and “would.”
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Verb forms like could, would, and should are part of the subjunctive posse because each describes the world with a degree of uncertainty: “We could go to that party, but should we?”
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Verb forms like could, would, and should are part of the subjunctive posse because each describes the world with a degree of uncertainty:
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The grammatical term mood describes verb forms that help indicate the factual or uncertain nature of the action described in the sentence.
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The subjunctive mood helps the writer make statements that may be contrary to fact.
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The subjunctive mood helps the writer make statements that may be contrary to fact. “If I were a wizard, I’d spin all the straw into gold myself.”
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The sources for this negative ambiguity include: • failure to account for words that sound alike • times when one word can be used as more than one part of speech • placing words next to each other in a way that confuses their meanings • inattention to the connotations of words • prepositions that change the meaning of verbs • needless repetition • words that can be abstract or concrete depending on context • failure to account for changes in the meaning of a word over time
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“It’s like rain on your wedding day, it’s a free ride when you’ve already paid, it’s the good advice that you just didn’t take.” Life can be a bitch, no doubt about it, Alanis. An old man can win the lottery and die the next day. You can find a blackfly in your Chardonnay. And maybe if you’re looking for a knife, you might stumble into a room that contains ten thousand spoons, but, girl, what the heck are you doing looking for a knife in a spoon factory anyway?
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• Every time you use literally, double-check it to make sure you don’t mean figuratively. • Don’t use the word ironic when you mean coincidental.
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The simple sentence is not as simple as it looks; the complex sentence helps connect unequal ideas; the compound sentence creates a balance of thought and meaning.
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PART FOUR Meaning
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reader. The simple sentence is not as simple as it looks; the complex sentence helps connect unequal ideas; the compound sentence
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them for effect.
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Join subjects and verbs, or separate them for effect.
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But to clear the path, I’ll follow an axiom of comprehensibility that requires stickum between subject and verb, a revision that would look more like this:
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Any time I can derive greater meaning from fewer words, I do.
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ostentatious
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the right-branching sentence.
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To determine the direction of the branches, you first identify the subject and verb of the main clause. So a sentence can branch to the right: Or to the left: Or from the middle: These—and many other variations—are all correct, but each version offers a different effect.
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The right-branching sentence, for example, helps the writer make meaning early, which allows an infinite number of modifying elements to be added: A tornado ripped through St. Petersburg Thursday, tearing roofs off houses, shattering windows in downtown skyscrapers, snapping power lines and tree limbs, and sending children and teachers scurrying for cover from an elementary-school playground. This sentence could go on and on effectively, all because the meaning comes early (“A tornado ripped”) while all other elements branch to the right.
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A left-branching sentence works, by definition, in the opposite direction. Subordinate elements pile up on the front end, with the main meaning arriving—at times in dramatic form—near the end, as in my prose summary of the first lines of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales: When April comes with its sweet showers and pierces the dry days of March and soaks every root with such sweet liqueur that flowers jump up; when the sweet west wind has breathed upon the tender shoots in every wood and field, and the young sun has run its course halfway across the sign of the Ram, and small birds sing and sleep all night with eyes wide open—as Nature excites their little hearts—that’s when English folks bust out to go on pilgrimages. When this happens, when that happens, when the other thing happens, then off we go to Canterbury.
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• In most cases, are subjects and verbs joined together, or do I tear them apart? • If subjects and verbs are separated, what comes in between them, and why? • How often do subjects and verbs come together near the beginning of the sentence? • Are there opportunities for me to revise to bring subject and verb closer together? • If I’ve separated subject and verb, is the interruption a happy one?
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detritus,
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fervor
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Active verbs. Concrete nouns.
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“The first virtue, the touchstone of a masculine style,” he explained to his Cambridge University students in 1915, “is its use of the active verb and the concrete noun.”
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By definition, an active verb describes an action performed by the subject of a clause:
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It turns out writers have in their word closet supercharged active verbs: shred, snatch, grimace, dissect, inoculate; and mild-mannered ones: go, get, have, move, own.
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hearse,
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George Orwell argues persuasively that the corrupt and powerful often use the passive to avoid responsibility for actions: “The report has been studied, and it must now be admitted that mistakes were made.” If
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George Orwell argues persuasively that the corrupt and powerful often use the passive to avoid responsibility for actions: “The report has been studied, and it must now be admitted that mistakes were made.”
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In other words, the passive voice lets me hide, if I want to, the agent of action.
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In other words, when you want to place the receiver of action in the limelight, the passive voice is for you.
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• Active sentences tend to be shorter and more direct than passive ones.
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• Caution: Just because some to be words appear in a sentence does not mean that the verbs are passive (that is, not active). Passive forms always need a form of to be as a helper; progressive forms of the active voice also use to be.
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whimpered.
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than actions, forms of to be have been mischaracterized as weaker than active constructions.
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• Because they express relationships rather than actions, forms of to be have been mischaracterized as weaker than active constructions.
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• Vary the three types of verbs—active, passive, and linking—and use each for its intended purpose.
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Switch tenses, but only for strategic reasons.
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In most cases, I force myself, and my students, to stick to one tense, either the present or, more often, the historical past. This is not to say that I’m incapable of switching tenses to create a specific effect.
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So that sounds to me like a kind of language tool: If you write a narrative in the present tense and want to create some suspense, step away from the story line and address the reader in the past tense. It’s also possible to shift from the historical past to the present to make a particular scene stand out from the rest. But you must do this with a purpose and a plan.
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Compared to the reality created by the historical past, a passage in the present can seem gauzy and unreal, a dream vision rather than a vicarious experience.
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For most narratives and reports, prefer the historical past tense. Make it your workhorse.
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For most narratives and reports, prefer the historical past tense. Make it your workhorse. • On rare occasions, use the present tense
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On rare occasions, use the present tense to give a sense of you-are-here immediacy to the reader. • If you shift tenses, do it for a purpose, not just to show off.
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“crotchets”
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Of infinitive splitting, Henry Fowler wrote in 1926: “No other grammatical issue has so divided English speakers.” So if you face the temptation to mischievously split an infinitive, I say succumb to it.
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The problem for me is that and and but are lumped together as correlative conjunctions, that is, words that join other words together to create a relationship of balance. What exists on one side of the conjunction should equal what is on the other: the devil and the deep blue sea; Sonny and Cher; faith, hope, and love.
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Here are the five basic sentence structures:
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- The intentional fragment. This expresses meaning without a subject and verb: “What a woman!” The reader provides the missing words that are understood: “I think she is a great woman.”
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- The simple sentence. This is a complete thought expressed in one clause: “Rome has fallen to the barbarians.” But a simple sentence can have more than one subject or verb: “Like a freight train, the fullback rumbled, tumbled, and stumbled into the end zone.”
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- The complex sentence. This includes one independent clause and any number of dependent clauses: “Where there is no justice, there can be no peace.” That last clause can stand alone as a sentence, but the first one needs help.
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- The compound sentence. This sentence requires more than one independent clause linked in a variety of ways: “Madonna was once the holy name of the Blessed Virgin Mary, but then came along a young Italian girl singer from suburban Detroit.” Either clause could stand alone. They can be linked with a comma and a conjunction, or with a semicolon.
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- The compound-complex sentence. This adds one or more subordinate clauses to a compound sentence,
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The more straightforward and informational the writing, the more simple sentences you are likely to find. The more stylish and scholarly the writing, the greater the variety you are likely to discover.
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That fragment—serving as word, sentence, and paragraph—hits the reader like a shotgun blast.
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T. S. Eliot argued that the poet was always in search of the object that correlated to a feeling or emotion the poet wanted to express, hence the literary jargon “objective correlative.”
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The verbless sentence is a device for enlivening the written word by approximating it to the spoken. There is nothing new about it. Tacitus, for one, was much given to it. What is new is its vogue with English journalists and other writers, and it may be worth while to attempt some analysis of the purposes it is intended to serve. Among those purposes, Gowers lists (with examples): a transition, an afterthought, a dramatic climax, a sharp comment, a picture, an aggressive opinion—in general, the creation of a livelier, more staccato style.
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[“The author, in his work, ought to be like God in the universe: present in everything, visible in nothing.”—RPC]
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The intentional fragment or verbless sentence can work for you and the reader, but only if you use it as a purposeful strategy. It can: • shock the reader. • provide a moment of relief. • create an inventory of significant details. • intensify the meaning. • modulate a voice toward informality. • focus the reader on a key point.
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Use the complex sentence to connect unequal ideas.
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A complex sentence is a wonderful tool for combining two thoughts by giving one of them more weight: “As public concern over high gas prices and climate change continues to grow, so too will the demand for alternative energy solutions.”
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If the complex sentence conveys unequal ideas, then we need a sentence structure to communicate equal ones, and that structure is called compound: “You will provide the information, or I will kill your entire family.” That bit of dialogue from a thousand different action movies works because of the balance imposed by the sentence structure: do this, or I will do that.
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• The punctuation of a complex sentence depends on the position of the subordinate clause. That advice seems abstract, but the application is quite easy. If the weaker clause comes first, use a comma to separate it from the main clause. (As I just did.) You will usually not need a comma if the weaker clause comes at the end of the sentence.
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• Equal clauses need stronger connectors than a comma. Tie one clause to another with a semicolon or with a comma plus a conjunction such as and or but.
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• The unintentional fragment, when the writer forgets to include a subject or a verb, or when the reader gets a wobbly dependent clause, not a clause that can stand by itself: “After her prom dress got caught in the door of the limousine.”
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• The run-on sentence, when independent clauses flow one after the other without any separation by punctuation or conjunction:
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(If the two clauses are short enough, they can coexist without connectors: “She leaned over to kiss him and he heard the rip.”) • The comma splice, when independent
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(If the two clauses are short enough, they can coexist without connectors: “She leaned over to kiss him and he heard the rip.”)
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• The comma splice, when independent clauses are separated only by a comma, which is not strong enough to do the job:
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Even tyrants can learn to use the active voice and master rhetorical strategies such as emphatic word order.
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Social groups on the margins often express themselves in forms of nonstandard English, including slang.
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Strong writers master Standard English but also take advantage of opportunities to use nonstandard varieties to create special effects.
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Because the level of language is often tied to region or social class, the writer must take care that characterizations of speech do not cross the line into stereotype.
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In England, at least since the time of Chaucer (about 1380), the standard dialect was the one spoken in and around London, the center of politics and culture. (Think, now, of the language of the BBC.)
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I learned long ago the hard lesson that there is nothing inherent in a dialect that makes it, in linguistic terms, superior or inferior to another. And yet when we hear or read dialect, it may provoke a powerful response based on our prejudices. Foreign languages and accents provide useful case studies. When I hear British English, I think culture. When I hear French, I think romance. When I hear Italian, I think passion. When I hear German, I think dictator.
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give you no problem.” So remember that trinity of techniques: sound, vocabulary, and syntax.
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So remember that trinity of techniques: sound, vocabulary, and syntax.
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• Each of us speaks in a dialect, a variety of English influenced by social class, ethnicity, and region.
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In most societies, one dialect, called a koine, is privileged and becomes the standard, with other variants considered to be somehow deficient.
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“There is not… a single transitive verb in respectable or even in scientific language that expresses the idea of the slang verb fuck.”
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Remember to consider the alternatives: metaphors, euphemisms, or hyperbole in place of the most offensive forms.
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The Beat author Jack Kerouac, who died here in St. Petersburg, once said: “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who never yawn, or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn.”
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but the word burn is a metaphor, an implied comparison, a close cousin to the simile, which is a more overt comparison, as in “like comets” or “like meteorites.”
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A simile uses like or as: “The moon, like Cupid’s bow.” A metaphor does not need like or as: “The moon’s silver bow.”
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The language of comparison becomes less literary and more useful when it turns into analogy, an understanding of what is less known by holding it next to something that is more known.
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As soon as you use associative language, you begin using figures of speech. If you say this talk is dry and dull, you’re using figures associating it with bread and breadknives. There are two main kinds of association, analogy and identity, two things that are like each other and two things that are each other. You can say with Burns, “My love’s like a red, red rose,” or you can say with Shakespeare: Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament And only herald to the gaudy spring. One produces the figure of speech called the simile; the other produces the figure called metaphor.
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In other words, the metaphor asserts more power than the simile because the author closes the distance between the two elements of comparison. Being a light to the world is more powerful than being like a light to the world.
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My teachers always warned me: “Be careful with whom you associate.” That lesson applies to figurative language as well. Compare and contrast to your heart’s content, but always do so with caution and proportion.
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The simile, metaphor, and analogy are all figures of speech—that is, figurative language—that attempt to express a difficult truth through comparisons.
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The simile does this by direct comparison, using the word like or as: “His words hurt like a hundred paper cuts.”
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The metaphor identifies the two elements without using like or as: “That Roman orgy of a caucus was no place to select a presidential candidate.”
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• The analogy tends to be more explanatory, helping you to understand, say, distance and difficulty by comparison and contrast: “The path into the city was only the length of two football fields, but the roadside bombs would make the distance seem quite a bit longer.”
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even though I could not yet understand its meaning, I knew it was a great work of art because when I read it aloud, the sound of it moved me. The classical word to describe this effect in writing is euphony.
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Excess of alliteration is the form of this fault which constantly besets young versifiers, and even poets of reputation are not always free of the charge of having carried this dangerous ornament too far…. But properly applied this ornament in prose, as well as in verse, may be delightful.
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the technique for making words echo sounds is called onomatopoeia, Greek for “coiner of names.” The AHD offers murmur and buzz as examples.
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Once more the leaden bells tolled in mourning, loved ones recited the names of the dead at ground zero, and a wounded but resilient America paused yesterday to remember the calamitous day when terrorist explosions rumbled like summer thunder and people fell from the sky. That sentence opens a story by Robert D. McFadden of the New York Times, and I invite you to read it again, aloud this time. Go ahead, please. Read it aloud. I’ll wait.
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(The poet would point out the repetition of those short u sounds, a device called assonance.)
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Words have denotations and connotations, a distinction with a hundred applications for those trying to create or derive meaning. A word denotes its direct, literal meaning; in the case of knelt, the act of bending one’s knee. A word connotes meaning indirectly through common associations, so with kneel, we may think of prayer, liturgy, mourning, or giving homage.
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It is often a battle of connotations that fuels political and cultural wars.
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Bennett quotes art historian Lord Kenneth Clark: “To be naked is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel in that condition. The word ‘nude,’ on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone. The vague image it projects into the mind is not of a huddled, defenseless body, but of a balanced
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Bennett quotes art historian Lord Kenneth Clark: “To be naked is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel in that condition. The word ‘nude,’ on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone. The vague image it projects into the mind is not of a huddled, defenseless body, but of a balanced, prosperous, and confident body.”
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Bennett agrees: “Nude confers power; naked implies helplessness.”
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The denotation of a word conveys its literal meaning.
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The connotation of a word describes the associations attached to the literal meaning over time.
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To gain full understanding, readers often need to move from top to bottom (abstract to concrete) or from bottom to top (concrete to abstract).
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Abstractions denote categories of ideas: pirate wealth, venial sin, gay fashion. Concrete words exemplify those abstractions: pieces of eight, a dirty magazine shoplifted from a newsstand, a mauve tie with matching pocket hanky.
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If you offer a reader an abstraction, anticipate the reader’s inevitable desire: “I wish she could give me an example of that.” If you begin with a concrete case, many readers will want to follow you up the ladder, reaching for a higher meaning.
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further. It is not just detail that distinguishes good writing, it is detail that individualizes. I call it “particularity.” Once you’re used to spotting
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It is not just detail that distinguishes good writing, it is detail that individualizes. I call it “particularity.” Once you’re used to spotting it—and spotting its absence—you will have one of the best possible means of improving your writing markedly. (from Stein on Writing)
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There’s a language tool hiding not far beneath the surface: To persuade the reader that your general propositions are true, follow them with specific, particular evidence. In addition to proving your case, it will make your writing move, move, move, daddio.
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The particular separates the character from the crowd.
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Good writing moves: from concrete to abstract, from particular to general, from showing to telling. It can move from top to bottom, from bottom to top, or back and forth, up and down.
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Strictly speaking, an acronym is a type of abbreviation in which the first letters in the words of a phrase combine to form a neologism, that is, a new word you can pronounce.
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“The test of a true acronym is often assumed to be that it should be pronounceable as a word within the normal patterns of English.”
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On the flip side, acronyms can also serve a subversive function, as when soldiers in World War II created fubar to express their frustration that military matters and strategies always seemed “fucked up beyond all recognition.”
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Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph, sending his first formal message, 1844: WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT?
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comes.” And perhaps the most famous short poem in the history of American literature, by William Carlos Williams: “So much depends / upon / a red wheel / barrow / glazed with rain / water / beside the white / chickens.” All easily fit within the 140-character limit.
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When we see a great magician in action, we can be struck with awe and delight at the illusion. But even the naive know that the trick is an illusion, that turning a fierce tiger into a beautiful lady is the product of a set of strategic steps, the marriage of art and engineering. But before those steps can take effect, they must work in the service of the magician’s imagination.
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