Sunday Funnies: Contractions Are Weird

 

Granny Grammarian: The “Self”-Aware Writer

by Granny Grammarian

Primum Verbum Specta: First, look at the verb.

So many issues of grammar can be resolved with this simple rule coined by extraordinarius latinus magistra Penelope Cipelone. Find the verb; then find the subject of that verb; then figure out what that subject is doing to the other elements in the sentence to make sure they all fall into their proper place.

A recent poll of writers (and readers who care about such things) listed the grammatical nails-on-a-chalkboard errors they loathe the most. Some went so far to say they would hurl a book into the trash can (dustbin, if you’re English) when they found such errors. I couldn’t help noticing how many of those mistakes were a simple case of ignoring the verb.

I’ll start with one of my own pet grammatical peeves: myself. 

No, I don’t mean me personally; I’m speaking of the usage of the reflexive pronoun to refer to the subject of the verb. 

I did it myself.

I love myself. 

I myself do not like liver and onions.

A reflexive pronoun cannot be the subject of a predicate; only a nominative (a.k.a. subjective) pronoun (I, we, you, he, she, it, they) can do that—or do anything, for that matter. You can’t make another person the receptor or initiator of your actions using that person’s reflexive pronoun. Consider the wrongness of these statements:

I did it yourself.

I love himself.

I themselves do not like liver and onions.

If you aren’t shuddering or chortling at those, you might need this lesson. I’m taking it for granted you’re all smart enough to know better. 

However, how do you respond to these?

When you finish the form, you can give it to myself or drop it in the box.

Please notify myself of your intentions in an email to my office.

Myself and my colleagues will be happy to take your comments at the conclusion.

If that didn’t bother you, you don’t understand the concept of looking at the verb first, the subject second, and then the affected elements of the rest of the sentence. If someone else is the subject of that verb, that person must be referenced with an objective pronoun (me, us, you, him, her, it, them). No one else can give anything to yourself; they can only give it to you. No one else can notify yourself; they can, however, notify you. More significantly, yourself can’t perform a verb (see nominative pronoun above); only you can do that.

A look at the verb in each of the examples above would make it clear which pronoun should be used. For the verb “can give” in the first sentence, the subject is “you”; the proper grammar is “you can give it to me.” In the second example, the understood subject of the imperative form of the verb “notify” is the nominative pronoun “you”; therefore, once again, the proper grammar is “you can notify me.” The verb in the third example is “will be.” “Myself” cannot be the subject of that verb, so you must use the nominative pronoun “I”: “I will be happy…” The etiquette of English dictates the sentence should read, “My colleagues and I will be happy…”

Now that you are “self”-aware, be certain not to use these errors in official correspondence with your editors or agent. You never know who’s also “self”-aware.

And remember: primum verbum specta.

Motivational Monday: The Em Dash

[Link] Teaching Creativity & Structure in Writing

by Laurisa Reyes

When it comes to writing well, two things are essential: creativity and structure. These work side by side to construct any piece of good writing, be it a poem, a story, an essay, or an instruction manual.

Let’s begin with structure. Structure isn’t so much the shape or the organization of the writing as it is the rules that govern how we write. It includes spelling, grammar, punctuation, syntax, as well as things like thesis statements, plot progression, argumentation methods, poetic patterns, and so forth. Structure is HOW words are put together and HOW they function within a sentence, a paragraph, stanza, or so on. Without structure, things simply don’t make a lot of sense. Also, the rules that form the structure of writing apply the same to everyone.

Creativity, on the other hand, is the freedom to sculpt language the way an artist sculpts a work of art. Every individual creates his/her own style of expression and language patterns. Each person is capable of tapping into his/her imagination to craft a unique written work. The possibilities are truly endless. New songs, poems, stories, news articles, and books are brought into existence by the thousands every single day. In fact, it is practically impossible for two people to write the same story or poem — unless they intentionally copy each other.

In order to write well, which means to express one’s ideas in a way that they can effectively communicate those ideas to others, kids need both the rules that govern good writing and the freedom to explore their own imaginations. To focus solely on spelling and grammar and such is boring and can discourage the budding writer who may struggle to learn those concepts.

Likewise, to allow unfettered freedom without also teaching structure gives kids a false sense of confidence and dooms them to mediocrity in a world where employers and college professors expect quality writing skills.

Read the full article: https://www.goread.com/buzz/lwreyes/article/teaching-creativity-structure-in-writing/

Nugget #97 -- Evolving Language

Words and grammar change. And we as 

writers should welcome and understand that 

change. Or at least that's what I believe.

#MotivationalMonday (Mind your commas)

Lack of comma sense ignites debate after ruling in $10M suit
By Patrick Whittle

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - It all came down to a missing comma, and not just any one. And it's reignited a longstanding debate over whether the punctuation is necessary.

A federal appeals court decided this week to keep alive a lawsuit by dairy drivers seeking more than $10 million in an overtime pay dispute.

It concerned Maine's overtime law, which doesn't apply to the "canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of" foods.

There's no Oxford, or serial, comma in the "packing for shipment or distribution" part. The drivers said the words referred to the single activity of packing, which the drivers don't do. The defendant, Oakhurst Dairy, said the words referenced two different activities and drivers fall within the exemption.

Circuit Judge David Barron wrote: "For want of a comma, we have this case."

The court sided with the drivers.

"Comma sense ain't so common," Jeffrey Neil Young, an attorney for the drivers, said Friday.

Read the full article: http://www.wthitv.com/story/34939772/lack-of-comma-sense-ignites-debate-after-ruling-in-10m-suit

Arthurian Grammar -- A Primer

By I.A. Watson

A particuilar pet peeve of mine is bad Thorspeak. People often tangle their ‘ye’s and ‘thee’s and suchlike. So here’s the guide:

Second Person Singular – ‘Thou’ or ‘Thee’
Second Person Plural - ‘Ye’ or “You’
(all of these become “you” in modern English)

Use ‘thou’ and ‘ye’ as the subject, and ‘thee’ and ‘you’ otherwise, the same way you’d use ‘I’ and ‘me’ or ‘he’ and ‘him’

e.g:
“Thou art cowardly. I shall defeat thee.”
“Ye asked for it. You must receive it.”

This distinction has been lost in modern English, which means that the King James Bible actually offers some nuances that modern English translations miss, such as:

“If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?” (John 3.12)

This is actually important sometimes in conveying meaning, as with John 3.7, “You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’” where modern English has no distinguishing word to denote that the original language signified that Jesus was speaking ‘“you’ in the plural sense each time.

With ‘thy’ and ‘thine’ (= ‘your’), use ‘thy’ as the subject and ‘thine’ with the object for the second person singular, e.g. “Thy horse is lame. The fault is thine.” It’s the second person equivalent of ‘me’ and ‘mine’ or ‘him’ and ‘his’. The exception is when the following word begins with a vowel, when ‘thine’ should always be used; e.g. “Watch thy shield guard. Hold up thine arm more.”

The plurals are the same as the modern forms: “Your horses are lame. The fault is yours.”

With ‘-est’ and ‘-eth’ suffixes, any word that ends in ‘-est’ is second person singular, e.g. “Thou hopest for it. Ye all hope for it.” Any word ending in ‘-eth’ is third person singular, e.g. “He hopest for it. You all hope for it.” Simple short words can drop the ‘e’ from either suffix, as in “I do, thou dost (doest), he doth (doeth)” and can sometimes contract the root word also, as in “I have, thou hast (havest), he hath (haveth).” These contractions do not have apostrophes in them.

Note that the plural never has those suffixes. The modern usage was the same for them even in medieval-speak. It was always “We have”, never “We hast”.

There are also exceptions. This is grammar, after all. It’s not allowed to be simple. So the past tense of  “Thou dost,” is “Thou didst”, according to the rules, but the past tense of  “He dost” is also “He didst,” not “He dideth.” And so on.

As for ‘ye’ as in “Ye old castle,” that is a different word entirely from the ‘ye’ meaning ‘you’ mentioned above. It is a remnant from the archaic letter thorn – þ – which was replaced in Middle English with the digraph ‘th’. So the original spelling of ‘the’ was ‘þe’, pronounced as best we can tell somewhere between “ye” and “the”; hence the antique use of ‘ye’ as an alternative spelling for ‘the’ when it is the definite article. So technically you could say “Ye failed to go to ye old castle” and be using two different words both spelled ‘ye’ in the same sentence.

Hope that cleared it all up.

I.A. Watson has just received the Pulp Ark Award for Best Author 2016. His most recent work appears in SHERLOCK HOLMES: CONSULTING DETECTIVE volume 8, currently shortlisted for Best Short Story in the Pulp Factory Awards and in the Pulp Ark Best Anthology winner LEGENDS OF NEW PULP FICTION. His new novels, HOLMES AND HOUDINI and LABOURS OF HERCULES are both due out in the next three months. A full list of his publications is available at http://www.chillwater.org.uk/writing/iawatsonhome.htm

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #322 -- Reflections on the Author as a Young Man

What were you like at school? Were you good at English?

I guess, yeah, I was pretty strong at English and writing during school, but even then, I wasn't interested in writing. Or in thinking onto paper much, for that matter.

Grammar and structure, on the other hand, have always been important to me. I was one of those kids who went around correcting people's grammar and reciting ad naseum sayings my mom had told me (such as "you and I, don't put yourself first" -- which caused no end of confusion regarding "I" and "me").

My storytelling grew out of not my proficiency in English and grammar though, but instead from my ability to play with my action figures all wrong. Han Solo was never Han Solo, nor was the giant Mazinga Shogun Warrior robot a metallic hero. Nope. Han became an evil wizard and the robot his obedient golem, and the Jawa and his Fisher Price sidekicks were the heroes who had to save Leia and Luke from bad guys.

I told all kinds of stories. I just didn't do it on paper.

When did I make the move to stories on paper? Let's save that one for another day, shall we?

[Link] 10 Grammar Mistakes People Love To Correct (That Aren't Actually Wrong)

by Lauren Davis

Are you the sort of person who just loves correcting other people's grammar? Are you sure that you're doing it right? Some things that people have been taught are rules of English grammar are really not rules at all—and some of them are flat-out wrong.

There's actually a word for this phenomenon: hypercorrection. It's what happens when people learn that something that isn't a rule is a rule.

Now there are plenty of reasons for people to learn about proper English grammar; it can make you a more confident communicator and help you understand the way the language has evolved. But sometimes, when people correct other folks' grammar in a non-education, non-copyediting situation, they're not being helpful; they're asserting their perceived linguistic superiority. And while some who proudly wear the badge of "grammar Nazi" or "grammar police" see themselves as defenders of the language, they're not really enforcing grammatical rules; they're reinforcing personal peeves.

I am by no means a grammar expert; I just enjoy reading about grammar. These non-rules are backed up by various grammarians and linguists. You can also feel free to correct my grammar. I figure that if I write a post about grammar, karma dictates that it will contain no fewer than a dozen typographical and grammatical errors.

Read the rest of the article: http://io9.com/10-grammar-mistakes-people-love-to-correct-that-arent-1646176479

Editor's Note: I'm okay with all but two of these, and hate to see the editing standards change to reflect common usage in those two cases. "That vs. who" for personal pronouns, and "over vs. more than" for quantity. This is another nail in the coffin of usage that will on continue to get worse as we "adapt" to the point that we eventually start adding words from 'leet speak' as accepted usage for journalism. It's a sad day, and I can't believe the AP Style Guide has succumbed and fallen. Sigh.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now (#249) -- The Best Passive Voice Lesson EVER!

What's one of the easiest edits a writer can make to his or

her work to improve his or her chances of getting published?

Changing most of your passive voice sentences to active voice will strengthen your writing immeasurably. What do I mean by that? The screen-cap below sums it up better than any grammar book ever.

For example:
The dog was groomed (by Zombies) yesterday. -- insertion works, therefore passive

Zombies groomed (by Zombies) the dog yesterday. -- active, there insertion doesn't work

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now (#223) -- Technical Proficiency in Genre Writing

As a genre (particularly pulp) writer, how important do you feel strong technical and grammatical skills are to your writing? Do you feel there is or should be a different minimum standard for pulp writers, compared to other forms of writing and literature? 

Regardless of the genre in which I write, I believe that strong technical and grammatical skills are not just important but essential to my writing. My grammar and storytelling skills are things that define me and my work to readers, both new and former, so I want to use excellence as the defining characteristic.

However, as in any writing venture or genre, the ability to tell a compelling story with strong characters is always more important than mere technical proficiency. But, for you lazy writers out there, that fact doesn't excuse you from the hard work of becoming more technically proficient at grammar and structure and storytelling.

In the old days, pulp was coming hard and fast, and because of that, some lesser quality was to be expected, but even then low quality storytelling was never the goal -- it was just a byproduct of the publishing schedule and cheap pay. Today, however, we don't have that kind of excuse. With the prices charged for both indie and best-seller trade paperbacks and ebooks, readers expect a quality product from indies to rival the best-sellers. Maybe they're spoiled, but it's okay. They demand more of us as writers, and we should live up to those demands.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now (#203) -- Grammar Nits

Do you have a grammar nitpick that is particularly annoying to you?

Oh yeah. Boy, do I!

That and which are NOT interchangeable. I don't care how malleable and postmodern you are with the rules of the English language. They mean different things. Period.

For the official word on the difference, listen to Writers Digest.

If the sentence doesn’t need the clause that the word in question is connecting, use which. If it does, use that. (Pretty easy to remember, isn’t it?) Let me explain with a couple of examples.

    Our office, which has two lunchrooms, is located in Cincinnati.
    Our office that has two lunchrooms is located in Cincinnati.

These sentences are not the same. The first sentence tells us that you have just one office, and it’s located in Cincinnati. The clause which has two lunchrooms gives us additional information, but it doesn’t change the meaning of the sentence. Remove the clause and the location of our one office would still be clear: Our office is located in Cincinnati.

The second sentence suggests that we have multiple offices, but the office with two lunchrooms is located in Cincinnati. The phrase that has two lunchrooms is known as a restrictive clause because another part of the sentence (our office) depends on it. You can’t remove that clause without changing the meaning of the sentence.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now (#60) -- Biggest Editing Peeve

What's your biggest editing/proofreading peeve?

A few of them are really annoying, such as the overuse of "of" with another preposition, for example. But the one that really drives me up the wall is the misuse of THAT and WHICH.

For the curious, however, the relative pronoun that is restrictive, which means it tells you a necessary piece of information about its antecedent: for example, “The word processor that is used most often is WordPerfect.” Here the that phrase answers an important question: which of the many word processors are we talking about? And the answer is the one that is used most often.

Which is non-restrictive: it does not limit the word it refers to. An example is “Penn's ID center, which is called CUPID, has been successful so far.” Here that is unnecessary: the which does not tell us which of Penn's many ID centers we're considering; it simply provides an extra piece of information about the plan we're already discussing. “Penn's ID Center” tells us all we really need to know to identify it.

It boils down to this: if you can tell which thing is being discussed without the which or that clause, use which; if you can't, use that.

There are two rules of thumb you can keep in mind. First, if the phrase needs a comma, you probably mean which. Since “Penn's ID center” calls for a comma, we would not say “Penn's ID Center, that is called CUPID.”

Another way to keep them straight is to imagine by the way following every which: “Penn's ID center, which (by the way) is called CUPID. . . .” The which adds a useful, but not grammatically necessary, piece of information. On the other hand, we wouldn't say “The word processor which (by the way) is used most often is WordPerfect,” because the word processor on its own isn't enough information — which word processor?

 From: http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/t.html#that