grammar despair

8/12/2019 Grammar Despair

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Q ickS 7/eso/o s oSM e , @ D O I3 e O r

V o l u m e l i n t h e E v e y y Q a m m a r S e r i e s


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Gr a mma r espairQuick, Simple Solutions to Problems LikeDo I Say Him and Me, or He and I?

By Carolyn Henderson

Copyright 2012 by Carolyn HendersonAll Rights Reserved

Also by Carolyn HendersonLife Is a Gift e-book)

The Jane Austen Driving School e-book)Coming in 2013

P u n c tu a ti o n P r o bl e m s L et s Solve Them


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on t n t sIntroduction 1WORDS THAT SOUND THE SAME BUT ARESPELLED AND USED) DIFFERENTLY 6It s and Its 9You re and Your 12They re, Their, There 14Well and Will 19Then and Than 23Two, To, Too 27Are and Our 34WRITING MECHANICS 36Who, That, and Which 37Who and Whom 41Formal versus Informal Writing 46Varying Your Sentence Structure 51What Is a Sentence? 56Paragraphs Matter 68Capitalize the Word I 75How Do You Capitalize a Title? 76General Rules for Capitalizing 79Is It a Sin to End a Sentence with a Preposition? 82Is It a Sin to Begin a Sentence with a Conjunction? 86Overuse of Would, Can, and Could 88Must, Should, and Ought 90


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Passive Construction -- a Powerful Tool 92THINGS W E DIDN T W OR RY A BO UT 150YEARS AG O 97Moving Forward with Intention and Other Non-Communicative Phrases 99Gender Issues 101Do I Use Mrs., Miss, or Ms.? 107OnlineWritingand KeyWords SearchEngineOptimization) 110OnlineWriting - SimpleGraphicDesign Ideas 114Blogging 116How to W rite a Decent E mail 118How to Write a T han k You N ote 127Do I Say HimandMe or He and I ? 130Thank You 136


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ToMy MotherThedaughter ofPolish immigrants who never everletmeget awaywithsaying Herand meare goingto the movies

Thanks Mom This isyour legacy.

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n t rodu t ion

This is sort of a grammar book.I say sort o f because it s more important to me thatyou get your questionansweredquicklyand get backto your writing, than that you be assaulted byrestrictive clauses, prepositional phrases, and theaccusative versus the subjective case.For this reason, I have done my best to keep grammarterms to a minimum, and to explain them in such away that you don t have to be an aviddiagrammer ofsentences in order to grasp what we re talking about.In other words, this is a book for people who want towrite - and sovmd reasonably intelligent doing so - asopposed to studygrammar Mostof us manage tospeak with some degree of educated awareness andas long as you don t make nopractice to use nodouble negatives or participate in a similarbutcheringof our verbal heritage, you should be able to answermanyof your dilemmas by simply asking yourself,Does it sound right?Themoreyou read- well written,decently editedmaterial - and the more you surrovind yourselfbypeople whospeakconventionally respectable English,the more success you will have in expressingyourselfverbally.The purposeof grammar, pimctuation, and spellingisnot to make people feel dumb because they don t

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know what a dangling participle is much lesswhetheror not they want to use one Nor is it to keepEnglish teachers employed Grammar punctuationand spelling are tools that enable us to understand oneanother better because there is a consistency of howthings are done Like this sentence purportedly setbefore a group of students by a nameless Englishteacher who told them to punctuate it:Woman without her man is nothingAs the story goes most of the men wrote this:Woman without her man is nothingWhile most the women wrote this

Woman without her man is nothingWhether or not the demographic breakdown of this istrue the sentenceillustrates a point:where you putpunctuation is important and something as small as acomma can change the entire meaning of a sentenceSpelling likewise is more useful than it is frustrating:Ycant we al spel stuffoneticly? It wood b ezerWhile this plaintive question seems logical in aperfect world where phonetic spelling ruled wewould still stumble upon differences necessitatingrules The aforementioned sentence could also bespelled phonetically like this:


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i kant wee ol spel stuffonetuMe? It wud be eseur.Grammar, while it seems picky and pedantic (and itis, sometimes; grammarians are as renowned forarguingwith eachother as they arepointingout thesyntactic foibles of others), serves a similar function -it provides a sense ofcontinuity and order thatenables us to collectively understand certain rules,with the ultimate goal ofmaking communicationeasier.I have chosen to focus on issues that come up againand again, in the interestsofkeeping things short,sweet, and easy to understand, and I m sure that I vemissed something, somewhere. If that s the case, andthere is a writing question that repeatedlyassaultsyou, please let me know. Youcan reachme via theContact Form at Steve Henderson Fine Art online(www.stevehendersonfineart.com), whichI co-ownwith my husband, Steve Henderson, the oneresponsiblefor the fine art.I have loosely ordered this book into sections:Words That S ou nd th e Same but Are Spelled andUsed) Differently - when you mention the concept ofgrammar issues, theseparticularproblemwordscome hurling toward you from all directions. Theyare generally accompaniedby groans ofmentalanguish.Writing Mechanics - a random assortmentofwriting issues, ranging from abstract concepts such ashow to vary your sentence structure to the more


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concrete, as in whether or not you will get in troublefor ending your sentences with a preposition.Things We Didn t Worry about 150 Years Ago ~blogging, e-mailing, offending people by callingthemMrs. insteadof Ms. We ll look at contemporarywriting issues that Jane Austen didn t have to dreamof worrying about.T h e H im a n d M e a n d H e a n d I D i l e m m a - Thisdeserves to be in a category all its own.You probably noticed that there s nothing aboutpunctuation in the table of contents, for the excellentreason that this is a separate book of its own. WhenI ve got it done, I ll do my best to let you know. Ifyou follow us on the Steve Henderson Fine rtFacebook or sign up for ovir free weekly e-mailnewsletter, Start Your Week with Steve atwww.SteveHendersonFineArt.com, you won t missout. I post everything of interest in these two places.)Again the purpose of this bookis to answeryourquestion as quickly as possible without inundatingourselves in the density of grammar Feelfreetojumpthrough chapters and read what interests or perplexesyou; if I feel that you need to read one chapter beforeunderstanding another one, I ll let you know.Keep this in mind:It is possibleto write well without knowing thenuances o f grammar.


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It is also possible to know all of the nuances ofgrammar and be unable to write well.Of the two ll take Option 1.With that in mind let s get started.


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WORDS THAT SOUND THE SAME BUTARE SPELLED (ANDUSED)DIFFERENTLYThe first section of this book deals with words that wefrequently confusebecause, even though theymeansomethingvery specific, they sound pretty much thesame when we say them aloud, and they don t lookthat different when we write them outOfficially, these are called homonyms, with theprefix homo me ning same, and nyms me ningnames - same names.Unofficially, they reirritating.Learninghow to use these wordscorrectlyinvolvestwo steps1) Identifying the differences in usage andmeaning between the words - if you don t knowthere s a problem, you can t solve it - and2) Memorizing which word does what There is noshortcut to this. hile I try to provide a dittyhere andthere, the ultimate driving it into your brain - andyour default way of thinking - will take concentratedpractice, eitherbymemorizing theditty, or focusingon the word itself andmemorizing its function.Yearsago, I could never remember how to spell theword license, which I varied in spelling aslicense, licence, lisence, and lisense. Theyalllookedright to me, and since this was long before


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spell-checkand its squiggly red underlines,mycomputer wasn t helping me out.So I focused on the word - spelling it aloud, writing itdown, staring at it, spelling it aloud again untilfinally, license lookedand felt right;Admittedly,however, I still stop and consciously consider theword- 30years later. It s simply a difficult wordform

Youhaveyour owndifficultwords and phrases-whichis probably whyyou re reading thisbook Ihopeto be a part in the successful conquering of yourperson l wordandphr se challenges, but I can t dothe hardest part: practicing. Pick one word, oneproblem, and focus on it.How long will this take?As long as it takes.In the back of our minds we all hear the voices thatproclaim, Facts are not storedin your long-termmemory untiltheyh ve been studied three times Orseven Or 15 Or 23

There is no official number because there is noofficial brain. The only certainty is that truly learningsomething takes time and practice,and howmuchtime and practicedependsupon the individual. Youare not dumber than everyone else; your brain is notfuzzier than everyone else s; you are not inferior; andthe case is not hopeless.


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Give yourself a break by recognizing that you are anindividual with strengths in certain areas andweaknesses in others n what works for someoneelse will not work the same for you. There s no usespending energy- which you ll need to grasp theconcepts you re having trouble with - beratingyourself


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t s a n d t s

Life s in the small things, they say, and punctuationmarks, like the apostrophe in the word, It s, aresmall indeed. But that doesn t mean that they re notimportant.When I was younger, and we wrote more essays andletters and memos and assignments by hand, youcould eclipse this problemby hovering the apostrophesomewhere over the word and making the symbolreally small ~ so that it could either be an apostrophe,or an accidental splotch from the pen. Not so on thecomputer.

But it s really not complicatedwhen you realize thatone of the purposes of the apostrophe is to tell us thatthere used to be letters in that spot, and they re notanymore. In other words, the word It s that we retalking about is an abbreviation:It s means, I t is.We dropped the second i, shoved the s upagainst the t, and inserted the apostrophe ~ ~ totell the reader that there used to be a letter there, inthis case, the second i.That s the only time you use it s with an apostrophe~ to say it is in abbreviated form. You use its,without the apostrophe, for everything else ~generally, to describe possession:


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I hate that dogI don t know what itsproblem isThat book has all its pages ripped out.The vacuum? Its majorproblem is that it s (it is) notworking.Here's where the confusion comes in:

Apostrophes are baffling things, and most of the tune,we use themto showpossession, as in The dog stail, or The sewing machine s needle. These soxmdsomuchmorenatural than The tail of the dog, orThe needle of the sewing machine, but that sbasically whatapossessiveapostrophe,which is whatwecallthethingwhen it s telling us that somethingbelongs to somebody else, is doing.Suffice it to say thatmanypeoplevaguely knowthatthey re supposed to use an apostrophe when theywant to describe something as belonging to someoneor something (possession), and whenthey use its inthemarmer ofthe three sample sentences above theyfeel this urgency to add the apostrophe:1hate that dogI don t know what it sproblem isNo. NO. NO

Remember that it s with an apostropheALWAYSmeans it is, and you wouldn t say.

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I hate that dog I don t knowwhat it isproblem is,would you?Then don t use the apostrophe. To put it in moreofficial grammatical terms, you don t use apostrophesto showpossession whenyou re usingwhatwe call apronoun, as in its, his, her, your, their, or our.To encapsulate:It s alwaysmeans it is. If you can replacetheword It s in your sentence with it is, then use theapostrophe. Otherwise, use its , withouttheapostrophe.And now for your valid question: how can Ir emember which one is which?

Look at the apostrophe in it s.It s kind of tiny, isn t it? It almost looks like theleftover dot from the i that used to be there, doesn tit?Well, let s pretendthat it is indeedthat dot, and allthat is left from the i of is that used to be there isthat little apostrophe. This is a remindertoyou thatthe apostrophe is usedto showanabbreviation - likeit s for it is ~ alerting us that there used to be aletter there that no longer is - kind of like the shoefrom the Wicked Witch of the East, peeking out fromunderneath the house, in the 1939 movie, The WizardofOz,alertingus that there used to be a ft ll fledgedwitch flying around.

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o u r ea n d o u r

Once you ve got it s and its down, it s a smallstep to conquer your and you re, because theprinciple is the same:You re is an abbreviation that means You are,and the apostrophe is placed between the u and the r to tell the reader that there used to be a letterthere, in this case the a of are.Use you re, with the apostrophe, in any sentencewhere you can replace the one word with the twowords, you are.You re (you are) odd.You re you are) going to be late toyour meeting.In all other cases, use your:That s yourproblem, not mine.Is this your coffee?Ifyou re you are) noteatingyour doughnut may Ihave it?

Let s see. Is there some ditty or irritating rhyme thatwe can use to remember this?

You re. Little tiny line. Youswine. Youate the a.12


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Such hate when you abbreviate. ouate the a.Okay, so this isn t Shakespeare, andby all means feelfree to make up your own dumb ditty to remindyourselfof the difference between thesetwowordsI have foimd that, in making up dumb ditties formnemonic purposes, the dumberthey are, the easierthey are to remember, which is the purposebehindwhy we create them in the first place.


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They re Their ThereIfyou ve got It s and Its, and You re and Your underyour belt, you shouldn t have too much trouble withThey re, Their, and There, even though there s anextra w o r d tossed in.

Let s start with the easiest first; They re.It means they are.That s it for this one, and the only time you usethey re withthe apostrophe is whenyouwantto saythey are.They re (theyare) going to the store.I m not sure ifthey re (theyare) comingIt sfrustrating because they re they are) always late.Their is apossessivepronoun along the linesof My, Your, His, Her, or Our; it is used in front of anoun - a person, place, or thing - to tell us that theobject in question belongs to a particular set ofpeople:Where is t he ir h o us e ?

Theeasiestway to figure out whether or not youshouldbe usingTheir in the sentence is to replace itw ith H is or Her and see it still makes sense:

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Where is their (his/her) house?What is their (his/her) opinion on the matter?With this in mind, look at these misuses ofTheir and see how replacing His or Her makes theerror more obvious:

Incorrect; Their (His/Her) are six cats in thekitchen. (There are six cats in the kitchen.)Incorrect: The book is on the table over their(his/her). (The book is on the table over there.)Incorrect: Their (His/Her) going to be latefor dinner.(They re - They are - going to be late for dinner.)If the whole his/her thing makes sense, but you can tremember the spellingof their, maybe this dittywill help:Mom andDad aren t fair.They say I have to share.I m not their only heir.Okay, I know it s long, but it is catchy and it rhymesand everything The main point, however, is that theword heir, as in their only heir, is spelled liketheir without the t. So when you re talking abouttheir heir, or their bear, or their glare, you usethe their that s spelled like heir.

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Once you recognize and understand that Their andThey re havepretty specific, limiteduses, you reclose to the end. Basically, everything else uses theword There

You don t need to worry that There is sometimescalled a demonstrative adverb, signifyingplace {He sover there), or other times a controversiallydefinedpronoun {Thereare a lot ofproblems with thispaper). All you need to know is that, ifyou re nottrying to say they are (They re), and you can treasonably replacethe wordwith his/her (Their),then you probably need the word There.If you can answerthe question Where? (which isspelledjust like there except it begins with a winstead of a t ) you re probably looking at thewordThere:

I see him over where? I see him over therePut the book where? Put the book there

Also, you ll use there in there is, there are,constructions - ifyou speak Spanish, theseconstructionsare similar to hay as in Hay tresgatos en la sala, - in French, it s il y a - ily atrois chats en sale :

There are three cats in the room

There is a marshmallowon top ofmycookie.16


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There wears a lot of hats, which is why peoplemisuse it so much

Want to practice?1) There/Their/They re going to be late if they don tget here soon.2) I don t understand there/their/they re negativeattitude

3) There/Their/They re are too many cats in thiskitchen

4) Will you be there/their/they re by 3 p.m.?5) There/Their/They re books are on the coffee table.6) There/Their/They re always leavingthere/their/they re books over there/their/they re onthe bathroom floor

nswe r s

1) They re (They are) going to be late if they don tget here soon.2) I don t understand their (his/her) negative attitude.3) There are too many cats in the kitchen. (NeitherThey are or His/Her makes sense)4) Will you be there (where?) by 3 p.m.?

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5) Their His/Her) books are on the coffee table.6) They re They are) always leaving their his/her)books over there where?) on the bathroom floor.


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e ll nd ill

One of the biggest hurdles about understanding thesetwo words is grasping that they are pronovinceddifferently:Well rhymes with Swell ~ and generally,whenyou're feeling swell, you're doing well.Will rhymeswith Swill, a repulsive waterygruelthat I have no intention of eating for diimer tonight.Well is never used as a verb ~ (a verb is an actionword describing something that you are doing) ~ soyou NEVER say:Theywell eat something. IncorrectI well see you tomorrow. NoHe well be by this afternoon after 2. ArgghhIf you can't graspwhat a verb is, then thinkof it thisway: If you canuse won't in the sentence, then youcan use will, only for the opposite meaning:He won't be by in the morning. He will be by in themorningTheywon't eat turkey. Theywill eat turkey.W on t he r e a d that book? Will he r e a d that book?

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Ifyou can use won't, you can use will, notwel l Swell

Will, with an i, puts whateverwe're doing intothe future:

I will eat (later).You will see him tomorrow

Will we be in time to catch the bus?

In the three sentences above, eat, see, and be,are all verbs, describing something that they, I, or heare oing Weadd theword will,' withan i, to putthat something they're doing into the future.Use will any timeyouare talking aboutsomethingthatyou,yourmother, yourPersian cat, yourneighbor, or the garbagetruck, are doing in thefuture:

Oh my I will die. Tomorrow.Will also expresses a strong intention~ usingourwill or determination ~ but the difference betweenthis and expressing the futuretense is shadyand hazyat times, and quite bluntly, doesn't really matterbecause you're using the same word:I will (have a very strong determination to) return.I will (simple statement ofthefuture) return.


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I mention this only because of the word shall,which in contemporary American English, isn't sucha big deal anymore, but in some rule books, lingersaround Don't worry about it. You probably don t useit because it doesn t sound natural; you ve lived thislong without needing it, but if you insist, this is thepedantic policy;Use shall with I or we to express future activity; usewill with I or we to express determination;I shall eat cookies with mymilk (see? It soimds stuffyand stiff Even I don t talk or write this way.)I will return, and nothing will stop me (I amexpressing my determination ~ my exertionof mywill ~ more so than announcing something I will doin the future.)Flip flop it aroundwith all of the other pronovms withhe, she, they, it, and one, use will to expresssomething in the future tense, and shall to expressdetermination;

They will eat cookieswith their milk (simplestatement of something that will happen in the future)Theyshall return, (determination; an order; acommand)If this doesn't make sense, don t worry about it.Nobody else does. About the only time we hear

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shall used contemporaneously is in a sentence likeShall we dance? or Shall I get you a cup of tea?In both cases, you couldjust as easily say, Wouldyou like to dance? and Would you like another cupo f tea?

As for well, rememberthe ditty at the beginning:Well rhymeswith Swell ~ and generally, whenyou re feeling swell, you re domg well. Welldescribes a senseof, well,well beingor completion.You look well.

The meat is well done.

I was well intentioned, but I still messed uTo fully confirmthat well belongsthere, and notwill, replace the well with won t ~ as we didearlier in this chapter ~ and see if it makes sense:You look won t. Huh?

Themeat is won t done. (Too much wine beforedinner, perhaps?)I was won t intentioned, but I still messedu That sfor sure.

Ifwon t doesn t make sense in the sentence, then willw o n t either.


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h en nd h n

Then rhymes with When, and it has to do witht ime:

I went to the grocery store; then (when? afterwards) /stopped by the library.Back then (when? 10 years ago), gasoline wascheaper.Afteryouwashthe dishes then(when? after youwash the dishes) you can text to your heart's content.Then is also a feature of If Then sentences, as in.Ifyou have themoney then when? onceyouhavethemoney) you can buy the shoes.Ifyou don't believe me then when? right now, if youdon't believe me) look it upfor yourself.If you can reasonably ask, and answer, the when?question, then (look it's an if/then sentence) you'reprobably looking at the word Then.Than is generally used when we're comparingsomething:

I have more books than you do.

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Try to slip the when? question in for Than and seei f it makes sense:

I have more books than (when? time doesn t comeinto this) Jo.Your latte is much stronger than mine. We arecomparing twocoffees, yoursandmine not talkingabout when anythingwill happen.Areyou sure that eggplant is moreflavorful thanzucchini?

Generally, than as a comparison word will beaccompanied by specific comparison words likemore or less, or bywordsthat imply this; taller,bigger,stronger, smellier, angrier, leaner.Andof course because nothing in life is simple therea re sen tences like this one:

Otherthanmy bicycle I don t have anyform oftransportationFrustratingly, thisdoes notneatly compare somethingas more or less, but it most certainly does not answerthe word when ~Other (when?this sentence has nothingto dowithtime thanmy bicycle I don t have anyform oftransportation


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Rememberingthat then, which rhymeswithwhen, is used as a time marker, we choose thanfor the above sentence by process of elimination:Since we can t reasonably ask, or answer, the questionwhen? in the bicycle sentence, then we use then.Andwhy did we use then after theword sentencein the sentence above, by the way? You ll notice thatwe started with the word Since, which is sort of likeif, which gives us a variation of the if/thens e n t e n e

Whycan t it be simpler? you ask Well from whatI ve heard, the entire computer world is based upontwo digits, 0 and 1,whichtheoretically implies thatanything to dowiththe computer is all very simpleindeed.

Hah.

Asyouknow the English language consists of a lotmore than two words.

So enoughof that. Yes, it s complicated; yes, it sfrustrating; yes, you llmakemistakes; no, the worldwon t implode because of thosemistakes; andyes, itwill get easier the more you do it.Before we leave then and than, let s talk about aproblem somepeople havewith then, especiallywhen they re explaining something chronologically:

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When you make cookies firstyou cream the butterand the sugar. Thenyou the eggs. Thenafter thatyouput in the vanilla. Thenyou stir in the siftedflourn once that s mixed in then you chocolate

chips n then walnuts.Bit of an overload there wouldn t you say?When you make cookies first you cream the butterand the sugar then add the eggs and vanilla. Afterthat you stir in thesiftedflour chocolate chips andwalnuts one after the other.Be aware when you re writing of using and re-usingthe same word ~ likethen ~ and see if there is a waythat you can break things up slip in alternative termsor even list out the steps or bullet point them.The purpose ofwriting is to convey information or amessage and you don t want irritating little things ~liketheoveruse of a word ~ to get in theway andblock people mentally from grasping thatmessage


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Two, To, TooMore homonyms.I put the easiest one first - the number two - and ifyou have trouble remembering that the numeral 2 hasa w in the middle, try this:Twoo Whoo Twoo Whoo

Owls hoot in twos

You'll notice the w twice in the authenticatedspelling of anowl's hoot Twoo Whoo Thiswayyouknow that the number two is spelled with a w,and you use this form of the word anyplacewhereyou want to use the numeral 2.Unless you're texting, you never write, I want 2 go 2the store, or I want one 2 and if you do get intothis habit from texting, be aware. Be very, veryaware. Bad habits don't take long to become defaultbehavior.

Now, let's look at to with one o.Use this in two main ways (no pun intended):First, use to with an action word/verb to create whatwe call an infinitive (please don't panic about theterm - all it means is that you put to in front of averb);


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TosleepToponderTo die

To wonder

In Spanish, infinitivesgenerally end in -ar (hablar), -er {comer), and -ir (vivir) and they are the base formof the verb beforeyou attach it to I, you, he/she/it,we, or they: I sleep, he ponders, they die, wewonder.

We don t notice this much in English because ourverbslookprettymuchthe sameafter everything buthe/she/it, whenwe add s to the end.Officially, theprocess of adding specific endings to verbsdependingwho is doing them-1 you,he/she/it, we, they ~ iscalled conjugating.Youuse the infinitive all the timewithoutthinkingabout it, and imlessyou ve studiedSpanish,French,Italian, or Portuguese, you ve probably made it finethrough life without knowing what an infinitive is.But for the purpose ofunderstanding to, we ll talkabout infinitives, just for bit:1need to see the book before I buy it.The dog wants to gofor a walk right now

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Please don tforget to pay the newspaper delivererbeforeyou leavefor worAs an aside, notice that in each of the sentencesabove, the infinitive follows a conjugated verb -need/to see, wants/to go, do not forget/to pay.Rarely do we soliloquize, To be or not to be,but occasionally, because this is English and there areno rules that apply to everything, it does happen.Now, for the second major use of to with one o -let s think birthday presents:To: Alexander Ignatius PhilippeFrom: Gwendolyn Rosemary Grace MariePlease note that both words, to, and from, haveone o. As long as you remember that a gift goesto someone and is from someone else, then thisrandom observation may jog your memory.In our birthday gift example, to is used as what wecall apreposition, which is essentiallya place word,because it identifies where an item s place is - underthe table, over the rainbow, by the chair, in the pot, atthe movies. To is one of these place words,although of course) when you use it, it looks slightlydifferent -

I m going to the store.

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Next week we 'II travel to Tahiti.Give the book to the woman.

They spoke to the administrator about the excessivefees.Loosely, you could append the question wordswhere? or who to? before the to in the abovesentences and make sense:

I m going (where?) to the store.Next weekwe 'II travel (where?) to Tahiti.Give the book (where?) to the woman.Theyspoke (who to?) to the administrator...Any timeyou use to as a preposition/place word,remember birthday presents - to: Bob, from: Jane -and remember that both to and from have oneo

Nowall that's left is too, whichalso has twomajorfunctions:

1) To mean also -1 want to go, too Shouldshedrop by the store too?You might have noticed that in the first sentence, Iused a comma before too, and in the second, I didnot, and since the structure ofeach is pretty much the30


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same, you re probably wondering when you resupposed to use the comma,and whennot.You may or may not be delighted- and probablywill not be surprised - to learn that there is no hardand fast rule about using a comma before too whenit s used as also. Some people - certain high schoolEnglish teachers, say- are insistentabout the commabeforehand, while others - contemporary newspaperstylebookscometomind- areall for eliminatingevery comma that isn t 100 percent necessary.Bottom hne - it s your choice, influenced by whetheror not you are following a particular seriesof styleguidelines.Now, for the second use of too;2) To imply excess: hiscar costs toomuch It s toobad that he arrived late. There are too many cats onthe porch.Maybe this absurd sentencewill help:/ know it seems too difficult to learn the differencebetween these two - oh, I mean three - terms.Oh, and how about this one:I wan t a tattoo too

(Notice how the too of tattoo is spelledthe sameas the too of too [also] - so as long as you31


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remember how to spell tattoo, this sentence will beremarkably helpfulWhy don t we practice a bit?1 1 want two/to/too leam two/to/too drive.2) He ll be meeting us at two/to/too o clock.3) Are you meeting us at the restaurant two/to/too?4) I, two/to/too, am irritated with her.5) It s a longway two/to/too Tipperary, whereverTipperary is.6) Two/To/Too doughnuts are enoughfor me.7) Please give this book two/to/too the librarian.8) This is two/to/too good two/to/too be true.A n s w e r s :

1) I want to leam to drive. (Two infinitives, tolearn, and to drive. )2) He ll be meeting us at two o clock. (The number2.)3) Are youmeetingus at the restauranttoo? (Also.)4) I, too (also), am irritated with her.


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5) It's a long way to Tipperary. ( To used as apreposition, describing where? )6) Two (2) doughnuts are enough for me.7) Pleasegive this bookto (where?) the librarian.8) This is too (use ofexcess) good to be (infinitive)t r ue

To and too, especially can be difficult to grasp,and the best way to remember them is to use whateverprocess ofelimination works for you:If it doesn't form an infinitive {to eat, to wonder, tostare at) or function as a preposition/place word {the store, to Bobfrom Margie, to Siberia), then it's too

O r

If it doesn t mean also /want it too He s coming,too) or show excess {That's too bad. They're too tiredtonight) then it s to.

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A re a n d Our

As with Then and Than the first step indifferentiating the distinction between these twowords is recognizingthat they are pronounceddifferently:Are sounds like the letter R. If you drag out thesound long enough you sound like a pirate.Our sounds like hour. Andmost importantly itlooks the same except for the h of hour.With that last sentence in mind think on this:Ourhourofpowerdraws near. Areyou comingOur is the possessivepronoun of the word we. Inthispossessive form wesay ourhouse hisdogher cookie their car your problem. Use our

whenyouwantto express that something belongs tous. In the case ofour mnemonic sentence we refer toOur hour ofpower.Whose hour ofpower?Our hour ofpower.Are is a verb form of to be Other forms of tobe are is am were was and been.He is coming.


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lam enraged. heywere in thefront room and he was in thekitchen

You are here; they are there; we are out oftownIn the case of our hour ofpower sentence, are youcoming? is used as this form of to be.You never use are to say something belongs to you,as in, Are hour ofpower, and ifyou remember topronounce are likea pirateandnot rhyme it withhour, you ll remember to put our there.Our is never used as a verb, as in, Our youcoming? Never. Never.

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Who That a n d W h i c hI like to put the least complicated option first:Use who when you re talking about people:He is the man who married my daughter,As opposed to,He is the creature that married my daughter.Asyoucan sense using that when you re talkingabout people is vaguely insulting.Regardless of howmuch you love animals theyarenot people, and thereby do not achieve who-ness -That s the dog that bit the cat that scratched the handofthe manwhofed them bothNow, that and which.There s a short, relaxed answer that will cause manygrammarians to undergo apoplectic fits and there s alonger one.Let s start with the shorter, easier one first:The Englishlanguage is changing, and the differencebetween that and which is shifting as well, to thepointthat thewordsare becoming transposable:This is the book that I was tellingyou about.

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This is the bookwhichI was tellingyou about.Technically, that is correct, but if you use which,most people won t care (those who do will be thesame people who insist upon answering the question,Who is it? with It is I ).Now, for the longer, more complicated answer:Use that whenwhat you re talking about can t beremovedfromthe sentence (in Grammar Speak,whenyou are introducing an essential, or restrictiveclause).Use which whenwhat you re talkingabout can beremoved from the sentence (GS: when you reintroducing a non-restrictive clause). enerally thewords introduced by which are set offby commas.The bicycle that was in the corner was broken.

The bicycle, which was in the corner, was broken.Oh great. They look the same.But they re not, really. The first sentence describes aparticular bicycle - the one that was in the comer asopposed to the one that was on the sidewalk - andironically, answers thequestion whichbicycle?(the one that was in the comer).The second sentence tells us extra information aboutthe bicycle - not only was it broken, but it was in thecorner. This extra information is set off by commas.


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Do you see why I offered the easy explanation first?Let s try a couple more:h painting that I boughtyesterday looksperfect onmywall.h painting, whichI boughtyesterday, looks perfecton my wallThe first sentence describes a particular painting -one I bought yesterday as opposed to two weeks ago.This information is so important that it helps definethe painting- if I leave it out, you won t knowwhichpaintingI m talkingabout: the one I boughtyesterday, theone I boughttwoweeksago, or the oneI received as a gift at Christmas. The clause, that Iboughtyesterday, is essential to the description ofthe painting, whichis whyit is calledan essentialc l a u s e .

The second sentence, however, gives bonusinformation about the painting that you may or maynot be interested in 1 bought it yesterday. The mainthing I want you to know is that it looks great on myw a l l .

Thepainting looksperfect on mywall.Let s go back to the first sentence:Thepainting that I bought yesterday looksgreat onmy wall


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Ifyou want to replace that with which, the world,and the painting, won t come crashing down:h painting whichI boughtyesterday looksgreat onmy wall.However, in the second sentence, ifyou switch thewhich for that - it doesn t work as well:h painting, that I boughtyesterday, looksgreat onmy wallWhat we can take away from this, then, is that whenwe separate some information off by commas, we usewhich, not that. If the information is notseparated by commas,it will probablyofficiallyrequire that, but ifwe slip in which and it soundsokay to our reasonably educated ears, then we reokay.


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ho nd hom

The bad news about these two words is that manypeople misuse them.The goodnews is that, increasingly, more andmorepeople - other thandiehard grammarians - don t c reIf you re goingto makea mistake, it is lessof one touse who or whoever in place of whom, orwhomever, than the other way aroimd.L i k e this:She doesn t know who he was asking.Whomever called h a d the oddest voiceBoth of the above sentences are incorrect, and shouldb e written a s such;

She doesn t know whom he was asking.Whoever called h a d the odde st voiceWhile the first incorrect sentence limps passably by,the second sentence sounds stilted and stiff, as if thefootman were trying to speak like the butler but wasdoing so with a Cockney accent. It s better off to justadmit thatyou re the footmanandyou re steppinginfor the butler - by using who or whoeverincorrectly - than it is to randomly toss whom orwhomever in with your eyes closed and hope thatyou ll sound like you knowwhat you re doing

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So when do you use the things?Use who or whoever wherever you canjuggle thesentence around and replace the word with I, he, she,they, or we - in Grammar Speak, the subject formofa pronounUse whom or whomever where you would useme, him, her, them, or us, the object form of thepronoun(I don t offer you or it because these words arethe samewhether youuse themas a subject or anobject.)Like thisWho is on thephone? (He is on the phone.)To whom does this belong? (This does belongtohim.)This is the author about whom I raved. (This is theauthor; I raved about her.)This is who wrote the bad check (He wrote the badcheck.)

Thejuggling thing is awkward I know Tryto keepas many of the words as you can, regardless of theirorder,and slip in the he/him,she/her, I/meoptionsand see which one sounds bestGenerally, if there is a verb - an action word like eat,sleep, read, think, or a deceptively action word like is,

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are, has, does - hanging around without acorresponding subject word that is doing whatever theaction is, then who or whoever will fit in:I saw who ate the lastpiece ofcake.In the sentence above, I is the subject word doingthe action saw 1 saw - but other than who,there s no other subject option for ate.Didn t she tell you who called last night?She goeswith didn t tell. Who goeswithcal led.

Now let s make a minor change and see what adifference it makes:Didn t she tellyou whom she called last night?Well, now the verb called has a noxm she, to gowith it, and whom is kicking around on its own. Ifyou do the switching words roimd thing, you ll get, she called him/her/us as opposed to she calledhe/she/we, so you ll slip whom into the sentence asopposed to who.If this givesyou a headache, I sympathize. And if youwrote the sentence l ike this,Didn t she tell you who she called last night?many people, includingyour software grammarcheck, won t notice or ceire.

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There is a reason why the difference between whoand whom is becoming negligible, in the samewaythat we no longer distinguish between the informalthee and thou and the informal ye and you.If language neverchanged, Shakespeare s Englishwould be considered wildly modem.Let s practice:1) She will give the package to whoever/whomeverarrives first

2) Our boss, who/whom is late as usual, told us all tobe early.3) The four girls, one of who/whom wasmy sister,w en t to th e m o v i e s

4) Who/Whom goes there?5) Who/Whom is it?6) Is it she who/whom you invited?7) Is it she who/whom invited you?A n s w e r s :

1) She will give the package to whoever arrives first.( Arrives is an action word verb thatneeds a subjectlike She arrives first, so whoever fits)


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2) Our boss, who is late as usual, told us all to beearly. (Another action word/verb- is - needing asubject word - He is late as usual )3) The four girls, one ofwhomwas my sister, went tothe movies. ( One is the subject word accompanyingwas - you would also say, one of them asopposed to one of they )4) Whogoes there? (He goes there. Who functionsas the subject word for the action word/verb goes )5) Who is it? (Sameas above. Words like is, are,was, were, has, and had are verbs that manypeoplemissbecausethey don t see the action part out them)6) Is it she whom you invited? (You invited her. Usewhom when you can juggle the words rovm andfit in her/him/them/me/us)7) Is it shewho invitedyou? (She invitedyou. Usewho when you can juggle the words rovin and fitin she/he/they/I/we)I wish that there were a ditty or an easy answer that Icould give you, but short of taking time to learn thedifference between the nominative case (the subject,like I/she/he/we/they - this is when you use who orwhoever ) and the accusative (the object, likeme/her/him/us/them - this is when you use whomor whomever ), there is no easy answer.


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Formal versus Informal WritingGenerally, writing is thought to be more formal thanspeech.Whilewe may say, What s up? or How s itgoing? ifwe were writing the same question, even inan e-mail, we would be more likely to phrase it,How are you?However, even when we speak, we adjust the level ofform lity depending uponto whom weare spe king(formalspeech) orwhowe are speaking to (informalspeech):So, where re we goin to? whichwemight ask afamily member or best friend, turns into,Where are we going? whenwe re talking to ourboss

In the same way, writing varies in its level ofform lity depending uponwhatyouare writing andto whom it is addressed Where once a note card to afriendor a memopredominated as examples ofinformal writing, nothing todaybeatsout textmg,which has to be the ultimate (so far) in relaxedcommunicat ion:C u soonOn the opposite spectrum is the PhD dissertation,whichnot only aboimds in pedantic,prescriptivestyle, but requires specific, xmyielding adherence to


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guidelines on punctuation, footnotes, bibliographicreferences, and even line spacing and depth of thefirst-line indent. (To make it worse, there is no agreedupon guideline for these dissertations, this beingbased upon the whim of the individualuniversitybody conferring the degree.)And then there s everything in between.Which means - and this shouldn t surprise us - thatthere is no one rule for formal writing and one rulefor informal, because there is no universal statute asto which is which, and what makes one formal andone informal, and when we use either.But w e can u s e o ur common s e n s e

If you arewritinga business letter, it will probably beformal; if you are writinga personal letter, it will beless so

If you arewritingan e-mail to the CEOof yourcompany, it will be formal; ifyou are writing to afriend, it will be less so.Ifyou are writing a paper for your English class,it will be formal; if you are writing a story for a child,it will or will not be less so (Beatrix Potter schildren s books come to mind; anyone who useswords like soporific or sentences like, Heimploredhim to exert himself, is not emphasizingcasual).T h e circumstances dictate th e action


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Here are some things to keep in mind about formalwriting;1)Stay in the third person - he, she, it - as opposedto using you - The potato is not necessarily thehorrible vegetable it is accused of being, as opposedto, The potato isn t as bad as you think it is.2) Write out words as opposed to usingcontractions ~ Itwill be done by tomorrow,instead of, It'll be done tomorrow.3) Forgo abbreviations - Use photograph insteadof photo, or pic, television instead ofTV,although digital versatile disc (DVD)wouldhavemany people stumped. If, as in this latter case, theabbreviation is so ommon that no ody recognizeswhat it stands for, then use the abbreviation.4) Watch slang or informalisms - kick butt,smart ass, wicked5) Avoid colloquial words - Use going to insteadof gonna, children instead of kids, maninstead of guy. You don t have to get weird aboutthis - as in employing wordsmith instead ofwriter, or pedagogue instead of teacher. Usey ou r common sense

6) Don't order your reader around with what wecall the Imperative Voice Eat your broccoli,Pay the telephone bill, or Quickki king the dog.Rather, It is important for people to eat their

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broccoli, The telephone bill must be paid, and, Itis unnecessary to kick the dog.7) Use complete sentences as opposed to fragments- Not in my house becomes, This does not happenin my house.The longeryour sentences (provided that they arecorrectly punctuated), the more formal they soimd,but you can still be form l andconcise at the samet i m e

What we re effectively talking about here is tone, andanybody who has raised a teenager(or beenone)knows that something as simple as the word yescan be infused with all sorts of emotion and meaning,depending uponbody l ngu ge eyerolling, andvoicel evel

Similarly, yourwriting adopts a tone- ranging fromlanguidly casualto starchedly stiffnecked, dependingupon word choice and placement, sentenceconstruction, and intimacy.Use yovir bestjudgment. Readyourworkaloud- ifyouwouldnot speakto the readerwiththe level ofinformality that you re hearing, then you mostcertainlywould not vmte to them in that manner.If you are going to err (and you will, because you rehuman), it is better to do so on the side ofbeing moreformal than less. It s better to be called haughty thaninsolent, especiallywhen the personmaking thatobservation has the power to hire or fire you.

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By the way, in case you werewondering, this book iswritten in an informal, yet reserved tone.You,myreaders,are not my buddiesor pals, and I do my bestto not address you as if we were. Neither, however,are you on the hiring committee, so I do not have tokeep you at arm s length.You notice that I use you, which is found in moreinformal writing. I do not,however employ wanna,gotta, or even got to, which is how I wouldexpressmyself arovmd the dinnertable withmychildren

One ofmy favorite writers for tone (and content,actually) is C.S. Levws whose landmark book. MereChristianity, puts in written form a series of radiotalks that the author gave during the German blitzbombingofLondon duringWorldWar II. Lewis wasaskedto provide a sequence ofwarm friendly,encouraging talks to a people whowere,mildlyputting it, scared.Later,Lewistransposed these talks intowritten form,keepingthe samewarm, friendly tone. Whilethiswon t work for a PhD dissertation, it does translatewell into blogs, certain informational articles, andletters Atthevery least it s delightful to read Try it.

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Varying Your Sentence StructureWithout recognizing it, you can easily fall intoa repetitive pattern of formulating your sentences:The dog is an interesting creature. It is man s bestfriend. The dog waitsfor its master. It is not like acat. A cat is not as friendly as a dog. Manypeopleprefer dogs over cats. Dogs are friendlier.This extreme example ~ of short, elementarysentences creating something that looks like a second-grader s first essay ~ is to emphasize the point:All of these sentences are structured the same way,which in grammarian-speakis subject/predicate, ormore colloquially, Somebody/What Somebody Is orDid:

The dog somebody /w an interesting creature whatsomebody is or did).It somebody)/w man s bestfriend what somebody isor did).Thedog somebody)/watofor its master whatsomebody is or did).A c ollection of these sentences, one after the other,written in the same marmer, sounds stilted, boring,and childish, but solving the problem is relativelyeasy. First, consider using joining words, officially


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calledconjunctions: and,but, or, for,nor, so, yet (bythe way, ifyou say these seven words in the sameorder, over and over again, you ll eventuallymemorize them. When you want to memorizesomething,do it in the same order, every time, andmake it easier on yourself):A dog is an interesting creature and man s bestfriend.The dogwaitsfor itsmaster but the cat livesforitself.Dogsarefriendlier than cats, and manypeoplepreferdogs over cats.This is a greatstartto addmore interest to yourwriting. Now, take the next step, and considerbeginning a sentence with a word or words likeafter, because, with, eventhough, despite -- and you ll enter a new dimension: ecausea dog isfriendlier than a cat,manypeopleprefer owning a dog.Youcanalso achieve complexity, and interest, bycombiningelements from a series of simple sentencesintoone longer, moredensephrase:Man s bestfriend, thefriendly and eager dog livestoplease its master. Unlike the cat, which seems cool

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and aloof, the dog jumps up andfollows its masterwherever that master goes.D o e s n t that s o u n d better?

Of course, you can take this too far:Because it is a hallmark ofthe nature ofthe species tobefriendly and open members ofthe caninefamilyexhibit a strong pre-disposition toward agregariousness that leads to their beingpreferred -overwhelmingly - to cats, by the humanswho m kethese sort o fdecisions.This sentence - while it is grammatically correct and ppropri tely punctu ted ~ is too much forthesubject matter. Your goal, in varying your sentencestructure, is the same goal you ve always had: to getyour message across clearly and openly. Asupercilious, artificially intellectualized writing style -- laden with multi-syllabic words and dense structure~ is just as bad as the opposite,a series of painfullyshort, woefully elementary phrases that chop chopchop their way into the reader s brain.How do you know when you are erring either way,you ask? Try this:1 Read your work aloud. See how it sounds. Isthere a sing/song cadence that alerts you to theoverused subject/predicate structure? Or are you

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stumbling over words because they are too long, toomany, too complicated?2) Give your work to someone else to read. Do theyget what you re trying to say? Are they interestedenough to read throughto the end? Is there anythingglaring that jumps out at them? Be aware - it s verydifficult to watch someone else read the productofyour hard work ~ but if your message isn t gettingthrough, you really want to know.)3) Develop an innate, interior sense of goodwriting by reading a lot of it yourself. Good writersare avid readers, and they are impatient with badwriting. It bothers them. Here s another thingofwhich to be aware; just because a bookis at the top ofthe best seller list does not ensure that it is wellwritten. More than once,I have attempted a bookrecommended by someone in their mid-teens ~ manyof these tomes have been made into movies, extolledfor their story and their writing. I can t read them.They drive me nuts. Style,tone, subject matter,characterization ~ there is a marked dumbing downinquality. Ifyou find that you are getting impatient witha book theproblem does notnecessarily liewithyouPleasedon t panic about this. Remember ~ always~that you have something to say, and your goal is towrite it in such a way that people grasp the message.The more you do this, the easier it will become.While it seems overwhelming at first,just move


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forward ~ steadily slowly persistently ~ and youwill progress.As an added bonus you may find that the more youfocus on improving your writing the better you speakas well. The time you spend analyzing and critiquingyour writtenwords is time well spent because as youpractice slowing down and reviewing your wordsbefore you set them down on paper you begin to dothe same thing before you blurt them out ofyourmouth

I was especially gratifiedto see this starting to happenin my own life because I literally speak as I thinkwhich tends to be disastrous more than it doesbeneficial. Hours and hours of editing and reviewingwhat I type spills over in my daily speech and thereis a micro-second s pause before what is bom in mybrain emerges into somebody else s ears.


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Wha t Is a Sen tence?Life holds many deep questions, and while Irecognize that the one in the title may not be one youhave pondered as you view the heavens and wonderwhy you are here, it is a difficult question to address,simply because, like everything else in life, theanswer isn t simple. Let s try, though.In the last chapter on Varying Your SentenceStructure, we talked about the concept ofsubject/predicate, or Somebody/What Somebody Is orD i d

In order for a sentence to qualify as a sentence, itneeds a subject - Somebody, and a predicate - WhatSomebody Is or Did. Here are some examples ofsen tences :

Bob somebody)fell down the stairs what Bobdid .Eddiethe ugly cat somebody) sleeps on theporch allday what Eddie does, which, frankly, isn t much ofanything).Cake and cookies somebody, in this case, something)are on the table what something is doing - being onthe table).Anna, her brother, her brother s uncle, her brother suncle s dog and the dog s puppies somebody, a lot


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of them) slept under theporch Tuesdaynight (whatsomebodies did).Algernon (somebody) ran down the stairs, trippedover a bicycle in the middleofthe sidewalk, flewthrough the air, smashed into a tree, and broke hisarm (what somebody,quite unfortvinately, did).You ll notice that, in all of these examples.Somebody comes first, and what they did, second.I m sure it won t surprise you to learn that it isn talways that simple.Willyou stop by thepost office onyour way backfi om work?So who s the Somebody in this sentence, whichhappens to be in question form? To findout, let schange it from a question to a statement:You willstop by thepost office onyour way back

from work.Now you can see that the Somebody is You andwhat you did is will stop by the post office on yourway back from work. ^^at s confusing is that whenyou lookat the sentence in its questionform, theSomebody- you - is squeezed between Will andstop. How fhistrating.But once you realize this, and you re faced with aquestion, you can put it back in its statementform and

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see if you can identifythe Somebody andWhatSomebody Did:fF jy didn t the cupcakes turn out?The cupcakes (Somebody) didn t turn outwhyl(What Somebody Did).Although the question sounds awkward in statementform, the key thing is that we ve discoveredSomebody and What Somebody Did, and we realizewe have a complete sentence.Sentencesquickly get really complicated -For manyyears after theflood, the trees along thebankshivered and shook every time there was a windwhistling through their leaves and theflowers turnedpale, all ofthe color disappearingfrom theirblossoms

But we don t have to panic about it. Start with thesimple stuff and work your way to more difficult. Inthe caseof the above sentence, there are a coupleSomebodies - the trees ( alongthe bank givesus amore specific definition ofjust which trees we retalking about) and the flowers.What the trees did was shiver and shake; theflowers turned pale. All of the rest of the words adddetail anddimension - which is extremely frustratingwhen we re trying to figure out the function of the

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words in the sentence, but most gratifying whenwe re reading or speaking. Can you imagine howmind numbingly boring it would be if every sentencewe spoke was along the lines ofWilliam married Kate. It was a nice wedding. TheQueenwaspleased. Everybody cheered.We already discussed this in Varying Your SentenceStructure. It s important to not sound like, or writelike, eight-year-olds.Now that we ve talked a bit about what a sentence is,let s discuss non-sentences, which are generallycalled fragments. Becausethey are missing either asubject- Somebody or predicate - WhatSomebodyDid, fragments are incomplete sentences, potentialsentences, if you will:Bob. Somebody. Nothing else.)Ate the entire cake. What Somebody ~ Bob, maybe?~ Did, but we don t know who Somebody is.)Aftersixp.m. We see no Somebody, nor WhatSomebody Did. This is called a phrase a collectionof related words that has no subject and no predicate.)While these are more obvious examples, fragmentsare not always easy to spot ofcourse):Ifyou eat the entire chocolate cake

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So what s the problem? You is Somebody and eatthe entire cake is What SomebodyDid. That wouldbe true it weren t for the unfortunate addition ofthat little word, If, which turns what wouldotherwisebe a complete sentence into something wecall an insubordinate clause. Others words to look outfor in this vein are after, before, while, when,and other relatives, which set up a sentence, but don tquite complete it.Don t worry about what it s called - just try torecognize it when you see one:fterI arrivedat theairport. Thisclause ismissingboth a Somebody, andWhatDid Somebody Do? Ifwe want to turn it into a proper sentence, we will needto add those elements. Like this, for example:AfterI arrived at the airport, the baggage carousel(Somebody) brokedown (What Somebody Did).Here s anotherclause,withouta Somebody and WhatSomebody Did: henyou calledme last night.Now let s fix it: henyou called me last night, I (Somebody) sotired (What Somebody Did) that I couldn t thinkstraight enough to answeryour questions.

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Another one:

Three hours before the moviestarted. (Whathappened? What did Somebody Do?)Three hours before the movie started, two cats omebody^ entered the theater (What omebodyDid) and ate all thepopcorn in the concessionstand(more ofWhat SomebodyDid).Thehard part about these clausesis that they look liketheyare talking abouta omebodyanda omebodyDoing Something, as in Threehours before themoviestarted:

The movie is Somebody and started is WhatSomebody Did, you say.Well, true, but there s the Three hours before partthat messes everythingup and turns what would be acomplete sentence into a clause.If you use your commonsense,you can see that thesefragments don t expresscomplete thoughts, andweare left dangling, frustrated from a lack ofinformation

I said at the beginning of the chapter that sentenceswerecomplicated things,and they are, andmost ofour problemswith sentence structure and that dreadedconcept of

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punctuationarise from writing incomplete sentences, and puttingthem together the wrong way.But before you panic, think about this: you can speak,and probably quite well. Unless you are one of thoserare terse persons who conserve words as if they wereair bubbles under water ~Ate great meal.Tired. Must sleep.Good book Recommend it.you tend to naturally speak in complete sentenceswithoutthinking about it. And if you can speakincomplete sentences, then you can write them as well.The examples above look like Tweets or textmessages, and now that we ve introduced the subject,this is as good a time as any to discuss what Twitter,and other social media, are doing to our languageskills

Checkout Twitter- but not too long you ve honestlygot better things to do - and notice how manyfragments and non-sentences there are. Given thelimited number of characters youare allowed it onlymakes sensethat you ll rapidly start dropping things:first, articles the, a, an), then pronouns I, he, we).

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prepositions of, after, behind , and then a rapidlyescalating series of words that add depth to ourwriting and impact to our speaking, so that what startso u t like this:

By the timeyou read this, I will have been in Hawaiifor six hours, lazing in the sun, sipping tea, andgenerally wishingyou were here but beingglad that m n o t there.

T u r n s into this:

In Hawaii sipping tea wish u were hereWhile it s understandable given the limitation ofTweets, it s also dangerous, in that it trains us to bebrusque, clipped, and abbreviated,and ifwe write thisway too much, it starts to sound normal. Just keep aneye on it, okay?Now before we leave this chapter, I want tointroduce a few examples that sort of look likesentences, but really aren t:He bought.

We reviewed.A m a n d a val ues.

Using our criteria of subject/Somebody andpredicate/WhatSomebodyDoes, it initially looks likethese should be sentences, although something inside

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our brain tells us that they don t sound right. Weshould listen to our brain

Yes, he is Somebody and bought is whatSomebodyDid, but it doesn t tell the whole story:what did he buy?We are Somebody and reviewed is What WeDid, but what did we review? And as for Amanda,wha t does she value?

In Grammar Speak, bought, reviewed, andvalues are considered transitive verbs Transitiveverbs are those that are not completeunless they havewhat is calleda direct object, whichbasically answersthe What?questionthat keeps comingup:He boughta pet snake ( Snake is the directobject,answering the question, What did he buy? ) ereviewed the documents. ( Documents is thedirect object, answering the question, What did wereview?

Amanda values honest, hardworkingpeople. (WhatdoesAmandavalue?People- direct object.As anaside, and ifyou re ready for this, honest andhardworking tell us more about- or modify- theword people. In the World ofGrammar these arecalled adjectives.)

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Verbs that do not require an answer to What? arecalled intransitive verbs:

TimothyElliot travels.They laughed.I slept.Despitethese being very short sentences they areindeed sentences because the question What? doesnot come into factor. Timothy Elliot - Somebodytravels - What Somebody Does. The informationis complete as is the sentence and nothing needs tobe added

They - Somebody laughed- WhatSomebody Did. Somebody slept ^NhaX Somebody Did.And because nothing in life or the English languageis simple somewords can be both transitive-requiringa directobject or an answer to the questionWhat? - and intransitive - able to stand alone and notrequiring a direct object:We ate

We ate cookies

They read.They read books.

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Guinevere drives

Guinevere drives a blue carAte, read, and drives are examples ofverbs that

are both transitive and intransitive

While thismay seemoverwhelming, it s really not,because - in the sameway thatyounaturally speak incomplete sentences, you also regularly answer theWhat? question when you are faced with a transitiveverb. Ifyou re not sure, strip the whole sentencedownto its undies - its basic subject/Somebody andpredicate/What Somebody Does or Did, and see if itstill makes sense:

Every third hursday thesweetlittle old ladywholives down thestreetfrom my parents purchases.Who s Somebody? Well it s not Thursday, third orotherwise, and while she may be sweet, little, and old,ultimately we re talkmgabout lady. The who thatfollows thiswordalerts us thatwe re introducing adependent clause - who lives down the street frommy parents - that doesn t stand up on its own.

So what does the lady dolPurchases

What does she purchase?

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That What? question tells us that we ve got atransitive verb, hanging around on the comer byitself, ready to cause trouble because it doesn t have adirectobjectto give it a senseof purpose andcompletion. All we have to do to fix the problem istell the reader what the sweet little old ladypurchases:Everythird Thursday the sweetlittleold ladywholives down the streetfrom myparents purchases newsheetsfor her bed.What an expensive habit. espitethisbeingthe longest chapter in the bookwe ve only breathedlightlyon the subjectof what is,or is not, a sentence, simply because there are somanyvariables. Evenwhenyou knowall thegrammar, and the appropriate terms, there arearguments astowhether suchandso is a validsentence, and why or why not.Again, listen to your ear - it s highly likely that younaturally speak in complete sentences.And follow this up by reading as much qualityliterarywork as you can - keeping in mind that not allnewspapers or publishedbooksnecessarily adherestrongly to correctwriting andpunctuation technique- and you will start to absorb, through mentalosmosis, what feels and looks right.

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Paragraphs MatterHave you ever seen a facsimile of the Declaration ofIndependence?The handwriting itself, while gorgeous, is difficult forthe 21st century eye to decipher, but what makes itworse is that there are loooooooooonnnnnnnimggggglines,stacked one uponthe other, with nary a bre kIt s easy to get lost, mid-line, and not find your wayback again.Now,pick up a newspaper and glance through thefront page. It s pretty likely that no more than threesentences go by before someone hit the paragraphindentkey, and sometimes, there s only one sentence.There are two principle reasons why we useparagraphs:1 To cluster like ideas together in a unit.2 To break up blocks of text so that they are easyto r e d

Depending upon what you are writing, you willprobably need no more than five sentences in aparagraph, and depending upon how you arepublishing your work, you may use less.Newspapers break sentences into paragraphs on afairly frequent basis because their columns are


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narrow, and five sentences worth o f copy may resultin a 6-8 inch column of unbroken type. The eyecraves white space in the midst of black type, and if itcan t find it, it skips elsewhere ~ to a photo, say.In a book with columns 3-5 inches wide t ho se s am efive sentences don t look nearly as imposing. Whatwith the indentations at the beginning of eachparagraphand the varied extra white space at the endof each sentence, there s enough visual breakup tokeep the reader from feeling overwhelmed. By theway, it s not mandatory to indentthe first line of aparagraph; you ll noticethat I don t. You can alsoidentify a paragraph by skipping a line.)So if you re writing a letter to a client talking about anew product that you have just developed, your nicewide piece of paper means that you have pleasantlywide colunans, and only need to break for paragraphswhen you introduce a new topic: e r C l i e n t :

Last month a t Steve Henderson Fine Art, we launchedour line ofsigned, limited edition prints, and everymonth we a d d to the collection. Prints are limited toruns of200; they are hand-signed and numberedindividually by the artist; and are accompanied by acertificate o fauthenticity.Printed on archival qualitypaper with archivalquality nks the prints are affordably priced and are

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available in a selection ofsizes. We offer themunframedso that you may take them toyourfavorite professionalframer or mattedandframedfrom our studio. Shipping with either option isfree.Whether you are lookingfor a landscape a coastalscene still life or a figurative work we have the rightprint in the right size for the right price for yourwalls.

SincerelyIn the letterabove I broke from the first paragraph ~introducing the prints and describing their limited run- to the second which focuses on the physicalattributes of the printsthemselves. If my letter hadbeen introducing bothlimited edition prints andopenedition posters I may have chosen to fiise paragraphs1 and 2 together and broken for the separate topic ofthe openedition posters afterthe sentence Shippmgis free -We are also excitedto introduce a growingselectionofSteve sworksas posters which you maypurchasewith or without inspirational sayings.Sometimes it s easy to determine that you re talkingabout a new topic but other times it s not. As withmany aspectsofwriting the English language whento break for a paragraph is sometimes an arbitrarydecision and what you think is right may not be ~


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and frequently isn t - in accordance with yourextremely inflexible, pedantic English instructor.Just remember ~ always remember ~ that the primarypurpose behind things likepunctuation andbreakingfor paragraphs and correctspellingis CLARITY. Youwant your message to get through. You want yourmessageto be clearlyand easilyaccessible to yourreader You also want it to be laid out in such afashion that your reader s eye is not strainedas hereads your words ~ a graphic design element,incidentally, that was totally unimportant togrammarians of the 19thcentury whopropoundedsome of the rules that we, 150 years later, stillstruggle with.Dopeople understand whatyou re saying? Do theparagraph breaks make sense ~ topic wise ~ withoutbeingtoo frequent (every singlesolitary sentence isits ownparagraph) or too few (bigblackblockofprint)? As longas you areout of high school andcollegeessayclasses,you are less interested ingetting an A for fulfil ng an individual instructor sarbitrary requirements as you are conveying to yourreader ~ clearly and easily ~ your message.

Before we leave this chapter, let s talk aboutconversation and paragraphs, and you ll be happy toknow that there s a h ard a nd fast rule that you canfollow o n this one:

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Whenpeopletalk, changeparagraphs every time youchange speakers:I don t understand thisparagraph thing, shemoaned

I know he replied. It can befrustrating.So you getfrustrated, too?Sometimes butI keep at it as I do with anything.Nothingworthdoingwellcomeseasily but the more

youpractice, the better you getThat s a relief.

You can look back at the five lines and start withshe, then he, she, he, she, and becauseeach person receives a different line, you don t haveto keep saying, she said, he replied, and sheagonized.Ofcourse, if someone ismaking a longspeech, thenyour arbitrary rules of breaking into paragraphs basedupon subject matter, applies:

I don t understand thisparagraph thing, shemoanedI know he replied. It can befrustrating.I havefound, however that the more I practicesomething, the better I get at it. And once I do attain a


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levelofmastery, Ifind myselfwanting to learn moreand more

The second and third lines are spoken by the sameperson, he, and you llnoticethat after thewordfrustrating at the end of the second line, there is noquotation mark Atthe beginning of the third line Ihave found, however, there is a quotation mark.Quick rule here:Start and end quotes with quotation marks:I am sofrustrated, she said. This is reallydifficultIf the samepersonstarts anotherparagraphand is stillspeaking leave off the quotation markat the endofthe paragraph break:I am sofrustrated.This is really difficult.The reader understands that the same person isspeaking, withoutthe necessity of irritating repetition:I am sofrustrated, she said.This is really difficult, she said.Does this seem overwhelming? Please don t let it beso ~ always remember that the ultimate purpose

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behind the various rules is clarity of communication,andwhenclarity isn t an issue anymore, thingschange. That s why we no longer use the wordsthee and thou to differentiate the informal youfromthe orm l ye and you - at somepoint, itdidn t matter to most people anymore, and weeventually ~ as a people ~ dropped it.


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Capitalize theWord IThis is a short chapter, and ifyou re over the age of40, you probably don t need it, but in these days oftexting, we ve got a problemwith the word I.You know what i think?Later in the day i will be by with the papers.He and i will look into th is la terWhen you re texting, it s a pain to figure out how tocapitalize a word in the middle of the sentence, sopeopledon t. I understand that. It takesme 10minutes to composea text to my daughterswhichtheyanswerback in 30 seconds Whatwereu doing?ive been waiting for your answer.Texting is one thing. Everythingelse is another.Always, always, always capitalize I when you aretalking about yourself:I am a slow texter

Ifyou send me thepapers, I will read themTomorrow I willpick up some ice-cream.Always

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How Do You Capitalize a Title?Songs, books, movies, chapter headings ~ we usetitles all the time, and there are specific rules forcapitalizing them.First, and easiest ~ always capitalize the first word:How do you capitalize a title?And the last word:

How do you capitalize a Title?Third, capitalize everything that isn t1) an article (the, a, an)2) a preposition (of, with, by, near, over, under,around, beneath ~ basically a place word that defineswhere something is)3) the word to - which can be used as apreposition (see number 2) or the beginning ofwhatis called the infinitive formof a verb (to eat, to see, topl y to run to capitalize) ~ for allpractical purposesjust remember not to capitalize the word to4) a conjunction (and, but, or, for, nor, so, yet ~ wechattedabout these in the chapteron VaryingYourSentence Structure)


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How Do You Capitalize a Title?or, to choose something more complicated:The Man, the omanan Errant Boy in the Sand,and a Little Girl Who Wanted to Stand behind theWardrobe Door but Didn t Know How To

The first word, The, is capitalized. All of the other the s are not. Neither are the two other articles, a,and an .

Also uncapitalizedare and and but because theyare prepositions (and, but, or, for, nor, so yet).The same goes for the preposition placementwords,in, to, and behind, but not the last to, becauseit is the last word o f the title.

Long prepositions, like behind, above, below,underneath, may be capitalized for no other reasonthan that they have so many letters in them ~ it soptional, with the general rule being that if theyconsist of four or fewer letters, you keep themlowercase, but if they have five or more letters, youmay capitalize them, or not. There s some sense ofrelief in knowing that you ve got some choice in themat t e rWithin the body of a work, you identify a title byeither placing it within quotes: The Title Is inbetween Quotes, or italicizing it. Again, your


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preference unlessthe placeyou arewriting for hasspecific style recommendations m ny newspapersfor some odd reason do not italicize titles athrowback perhaps to the days when it was difficultto typeset m italics. How long has that been? Thirtyyears?


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capitalizing the first word of each sentence orfi-agment makes it easier to determine when each oneof those sentences or fragments begins.2) In the previous Just capitalize sentence, you llnotice that I capitalized the J of just, which wasthe first word in a quotation. Treat a quotation,even if it s in the bodyof the sentence, as a separatesentence of its own, and capitalize the first word in it.Then,withinthe quotation, remember to capitalizethe begirming of each sentence.3) People s names - first, last, middle. If it s theirname, capitalize it.4) Names of continents, countries, streets, towns,states: North America, France, Sixth Avenue, WallaWalla, Idaho. These are specific names, as if theplaceswerepeople. ordslikemeadow countryside,river,mountain, unlessattached to a specific name(TheBlue RibbonRiver) are not capitalized, the sameway that you don t capitalize boy, woman, man,police officer, writer, artist.5) Days of the week and months of the year.Holidays ~ Christmas, New Year, Halloween.6)Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr., Father (as in a priest) ~ ifit s a title before their name, capitalize it, becausetechnically it s part of their name. President BobMcFaddian, but Bob McFaddian, president. The firstone is capitalizedbecause it forms part ofBob sname; the second is not, because it describes who Bobis. Confusing? I know.

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There are more, but if you can remember these ~especially number one, and number three would benice as well, you should get by.e e cummings ~ the poet famous, or infamous, foreschewing capitalization and punctuation ~ aside,capitalizing is simply a tool to help us break down allthat print matter and keep it from rurming all together.When something is capitalized, we're basicallysaying, Stop This is important because this is thebeginning of a sentence. Or it's a person'sname, likeCarolynHenderson, and she matters because she isuniqueand one ofa kind. Or becauseshe's Polish,which describes her as a descendent from a specificplace, in this case Poland,which isn't just anycountry but a very unique one, separate from, say,France or Thailand or IcelandSometimes you may slip in a word that doesn't needto be capitalized, again, like president, as in, ThePresident of the knitting group got up to speak. Youdon't need to capitalize this, because president isn'tpart of the person's name, as in, PresidentBartholomew Williams handed the gavel to his vicepresident, Guinevere Jameson, but ifyouaccidentally do so, the walls probably won't comecrashing down.The same goes for a word like river, as in, TheRiver was running high this morning. There's noreason to capitalize river in this case because it'snot naming a specific river, as in, The ColumbiaRiver that separates Washington and Oregon, but ifyou do so, dreadfiil things will probably not happen.

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Is t a S in to nd a Sen tence wi th aPreposition?N o

Look up, ending a sentencewith a preposition onthe Internet sometime andyouwill overwhelminglycome to the conclusion that this rule isn t really a ruleat all. While it is true that, in Latin, ending a sentencewitha preposition is a huge no no we don t speakLatin

However, because so many of us have been told, fromthe cradle, Neverend a sentence witha preposition,(by the way, always be skeptical of sentences thatbeing with never ), we recoil when we see sentencesli ke t hi s in written form:

Who were you talking to?She told me wh at the movie i s a bo ut

The d o c t o r is in

He left because he was tired ofbeingput down.I m not sure what they are looking atWe don t think twice when people speak thesesentences, and only the most grammaticallyrepressedmentally change them to.

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Towhom were you talking?About the movie s plot, she told meIn the doctor is

Ofbeingput down he was tired.At what they are looking, I am not sure.Even when we re dealing with the difference betweeninformal speech and more formalwriting, these rewrites sound stilted and unnatural, with the possibleexception of the first one.One of the observations our Spanish-speaking friendsmakeaboutEnglish is thatwe tack prepositions ontosimplewords to create totally newmeanings.Consider all of the prepositions that you can add tothe end of the word look, all ofwhich, effectively,create new words:Look up (as a word, in the dictionary)Look into (the matter)

Look t

Look over

Look roun

Look out8


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All of these informal, composite words can bereplaced by more formal synonyms- Look up/find aword; look into/research the matter; look at/observethe sunset; look over/review the facts; lookaroimd/reconnoiter the landscape; look out(for)/beware (of) bears. Sometimes the more formalsynonym soimds better, but just as often it doesn t,not quite capturing the nuances of the colloquialism.I ll take a look around, has a totally differentfeeling than, I will perform reconnaissanceactivities

One of themajor arguments againstendinga sentencewith a preposition - other than that we re all toldnever to do so - is that it weakens the sentence,substitutinga more powerfiil,descriptive verb with anall purposeword tacked anemically onto apreposition.Well, sometimes this is true, and sometimes it isn t.h t other stories willyou thinkup?Whether you put think up at the end of the sentenceor in themiddle ( You think up some interestingstories, ),in formalwritingyou d probablywant toconsider a stronger, more descriptive way ofexpressing yourself:


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Whatother imaginative stories willyou create? Thissort of says the same thing, but more circumspectly. Italso sounds more formal

I carmot, however, argue with come up with, whichhas the dubious distinction of not one but twoprepositions at its end:What other stories will you come up with?So, think up, is weak; create, works; but comeupwith, - double BAD PrepositionNoNo - is asurprisingly good choice.It s your call. Just be aware of three things:1)Whenyou end a sentence with a preposition,people will be sure to let you know.2) There is no official rule of grammar concerningending a sentence with a preposition.3) If, however, you find that youmake a regularhabitof endingsentences with prepositions, be awareofthis - while you re not breaking a rule, you may betoo heavily dependingupon informal, colloquialspeech,weakening your writingby not seeking outsingle word, descriptive alternatives.

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Is It a Sin to Begin a Sentence with aConjunction?You know, with all the truly awful things that we arecapable ofdoing to cause angst and damage in otherpeople's lives, it s really too bad that we feelinordinatelyanxious about something like this.No, it s not a sin to begin a sentence with aconjunction,unless, or course, you are writing for areally uptight English teacher.Do I pick on these people?Oh well, too bad. Too many adults have badmemories of blood-red v^itten ss y offerings, rippedto shredsand splatteredwithexclamatory notes like,FRAGMENT or NEVER begin a sentence with aconjunction with the result that they go through lifesaying, I can t write. I don't know what a noun is. Idon t know how to write.The good English teachers ~ the ones who care aboutcontent as much, or more, than technique and realizehow easy it is to squash a budding writer's enthusiasm~ don't do this, and thankfully, goodEnglish teachersexist. But so do bad ones, and ifyou were unfortunateenough to have one, it 's time to get his or her voiceout of yourhead and redpen off of your deskand getback to expressing yourselfagain.But I digress.

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We were talking about whether or not you can begin asentence with a conjunction ~ and, but, or, for, nor,so, yet ~ which is what I did in the paragraph above.And the answer is, yes, you can.But it s not something you want to do all the time.Or even jfrequently.Beginning a sentence with a preposition is a, StopI m making a point, here, move, and you reserve itfor times when you want the reader to, well, stop, andlook at the point you're trying to make.If you do it too much, you lose any impact youinitiallymade by overuse, and the reader no longerstops and pays especial attention to what you aresaying.Somepeople say that it is acceptable to begin asentencewith a preposition in only informalv^iting,and that formal prose ~ as in a dissertation orbusiness letter or academic treatise ~ requires that werefrain from doing so.But even in these types of writing, the technique ofStop This is important achieved throughbeginning a sentencewith a prepositionapplies.Just be aware that some people may frown upon this(the head of the dissertationcommittee comes tomind), and think twice before you do so.

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Overuse ofWould Can and CouldSome people just have trouble being assertive.Making a simple, declarative sentence is difficult forthem, to the point that they will not write,I want the chocolate cookieBut ratherI would like the chocolate cookieSubconsciously, they are telling themselves thatwould softensthe demand, but in reality, it weakensthe sentence, and when a series of woulds, cans,and coulds splatters throughtheprose, thingsgetreally irritating, really fast:I wouldprefer arriving tomorrow but I could seeabout looking into a trainfor this afternoon. I cancallyou ifyouwould wantme to or I couldtextyou ifyou wouldn t want to be interruptedbythephone.Oh,please. Assertyourself. It s not rude.ReallyI prefer arriving tomorrow but will look into thisafternoon s train times I willcall or textyouwith mydecisionNot only doyou comeacross as confident, you havealso eliminated 21 extra words fi-om the sentence

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I m not saying to never use would, can, orcould, but when you do, double check and see ifthey can be left out.And by the way, there s a difference between canand will, with the former sounding hesitant unlesswe re using it solidly to say, I am able to.I have found this distinction especially helpful inasking questions and getting decent responses:Can youopen the picklejar? implies,especiallywhen I m addressing a strapping, muscular male, thatI doubt his ability to conquer the lid.Will you please openthe picklejar? askshim tohelp the little ladyout,withoutimpugning in anyway, shape,or formhis strengthand grip.

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Must, Should and OughtThere is a dreadful children s religious ditty thatasseverates

Everybodyought to go to SundaySchool, SundaySchool, Sunday SchoolThe menand thewomen and the boysand thegirls -EVERY O Y ought to go to SundaySchool.Ifyou havespentyour lifetime tryingto forget thistune, and I have slipped it back into the grooves ofyour brain, I apologize. If you have never heard thetune to this song, then I highly recommend that youNOT look it up and listen to it on YouTube.Youcan t say I didn t give you fair warning.So why is this song so repugnant?The word ought, - along with its cousins shouldand must - is one youwant to watch using,becausepeople- likeyour readers- not only do not like beingtold what to do, they also do not like beingmade tofeel that somehow they are subordinate, inferior, andmorally/intellectually/physically/emotionally substandard

Must, should, and ought send subtlemessagesthat the reader needs to (another for