Saturday, June 6: Mississippi Mud
ENGLISH COMP-LICATIONS
by John M. Floyd
A month ago my CB column discussed what I consider to be the ten most irritating grammar errors. As a followup, I’d like to cover some ways that might help us (they certainly help me) avoid other easy-to-make mistakes in grammar and word usage.
The key, I think, is to have a way to remember the so-called rules without having to remember details involving terms like predicate nominatives and subjective pronouns and direct objects and unreferenced modifiers. Just writing those things makes my head hurt. (I didn’t like those classes in high school or college, and I’d rather be forced to watch “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” again with my eyes taped open than to have to conjugate a verb.)
Hopefully Helpful Hints
Anyhow, here are some “rules” that I use to try to remember what’s right and wrong:
Who/whom. If who/whom can be replaced in a sentence by he or she, it’s who. If who/whom can be replaced by him or her, it’s whom. Simple as that.
“I didn’t know who was at the door.” (I didn’t know he was at the door.)
“Whom can we nominate for the position?” (We can nominate her.)
NOTE: I try not to use “whom” in dialogue unless the speaker is an extremely constipated English professor.Convince/persuade. Convince involves thought; persuade involves action.
“She convinced him he was wrong; she persuaded him to take her to the movies.”If I was/if I were. Use were if the conditions are contrary to fact. “If I were a rich man” is correct since I’m not a rich man. “If I was awake I probably heard it” is correct since I might or might not have been awake.
A/an. When choosing “a” or “an,” pronunciation — not spelling — is what matters. Forget whether it precedes a vowel or a consonant. Examples: An hour and a half, a European vacation, an honorable person, a historic site, an SASE.
canceled/cancelled. If you’re ending a verb with -ed or -er or -ing, double a single final constant if the stress is on the final syllable. Correct: canceled, traveled, pedaled, permitted, patrolled, excelled. Exceptions: transferred and kidnapped.
Data is/data are. Despite what the purists say, words like data and media are usually singular. (Data is a collective noun, like information.) As an old computer guy, I think it’s hilarious when someone says something like “The data are correct.”
That/which. That is a defining pronoun — it tells the reader what you’re talking about. Which is a descriptive pronoun, used in parenthetical phrases set off by commas. “The Board of Aldermen approved a program that will provide funds for the library extension. The program, which has been long been anticipated, will begin this summer.”
I/me. In phrases like “for you and me,” the rule we learned in school still serves us well: Split it up into “for you” and “for me” to reassure yourself that “me” should be used instead of “I.” (I cheated a bit here — this one was also listed as one of the ten errors in my other column.)
May/might. This one’s a little iffy, because they sometimes mean the same thing. Often, though, may means “allowed to” and might means “maybe.” “Bob may go to the meeting” (his boss gave him permission). “Bob might go to the meeting” (he hasn’t decided yet).
Farther/further. Farther usually indicates distance — its first three letters will remind you of that. Further indicates depth or extent. “We’ll have no further discussion about how much farther we need to travel.”
Principal/principle Remember, in school they told you the principal was your pal. He probably wasn’t, but it’s a good spelling rule.
Since we’re talking about word choice, here are a few common words I try not to use in dialogue: perhaps, frequently, individual, facilitate, periodically, peruse, matriculate, frankly, and (as I mentioned before) whom. They’re all good and acceptable words, I just don’t think they ring true in conversations between most characters — but that of course depends on the characters. A lot of this is personal preference anyhow, since my uncouth friends and I don’t usually speak that way ourselves. (It’s been said that if you ever hear someone use “frankly” in a sentence, the next thing that comes out of his mouth will be probably be a lie.) And while we’re on the subject of words to avoid, here are a few you should probably never use at all, anytime, anywhere: preregister, preventative, utilize, irregardless, doubtlessly, orientate, and alright.
Unimplicated Co-conspirators
Information on some of the above came from The Elephants of Style (Pat Walsh), Woe Is I (Patricia T. O’Conner), the article “Watch Words” (which had no byline) in Byline Magazine, Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies (June Casagrande), Lapsing Into a Comma (Pat Walsh), and a bunch of really boring Internet sites.
Frankly, I peruse and utilize them frequently. Oh, alright, at least periodically . . .
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Wow, you just answered what I needed to remember. Many thanks!
English but not constipated, I’ve no problem with who/whom. Who is subject, whom is object. That’s all.
But with canceled (and company), it depends where you’re sitting. English English doubles the consonant, whatever the pronunciation. Consonant+vowel+consonant at the end of the verb, you double the final consonant.
Be careful with may/might. it’s not as simple as that. Because might doubles as the past of may as well: Bob’s boss said he might go to the meeting (permission)
Was/were. Can of worms, especially for us English, who are not so devoted to the subjunctive as you. However the sentence, If I was awake…. doesn’t make much sense. Surely you know if you had been awake?
“Had I been awake, I would have heard it.”
“If she was awake, she probably heard it.”
It works in the third person, but not in the first.
I’m writing this while listening to Barack Obama who is just around the corner from us, in Lower Normandy. Half a mile from our house, there is a German gun emplacement. Half a mile in the other direction there is a small war cemetery. And I’m wondering why I’m worrying about grammar on the 6th of June. I should be thinking of my dad. And of people like Dick Stodghill, for example.
God bless them.
Good points, Neil. But the thing I most agree with you on is your mention of June 6th. We should all be thinking of folks who were there that day, and yes, of friends like Dick Stodghill.
God bless them indeed.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Who should be thanking whom? (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
I join in proposing a toast to Dick Stodghill.
Let me make a quick observation (on grammar, not on 6/6) that I forgot to include earlier: this and any discussion of “rules” will always trigger disagreement. I always defer to JLW on this stuff, and even he and I have different preferences on several things, like data is/data are, snuck/sneaked, a historic site/an historic site, etc. I think the answer sometimes lies in just using what you feel comfortable with. Unless you’re writing an academic paper or you commit a serious error like its/it’s, grammar rules can be pretty flexible and violations are, like mosquitoes, bearable if you don’t run into too many at one time.
One thing that bothered me for years was blonde/blond. I thought blonde was feminine and blond was masculine: Her hair’s blonde, his is blond. Then I came to accept, more from reading than anything, that blonde is a noun and blond is an adjective: The blonde has blond hair. Again, though, this is a matter of opinion, and, as JLW has said, can fall under the category of variant spelling of the same word.
As someone who hated this kind of thing in school, I now find it fascinating.
A week or so ago I exchanged stories with a London writer for critiquing. I liked his story, but I pointed out he started 2 or 3 sentences “Me and James…”
He thanked me politely, but said he thought using “James and I…” sounded affected. Gee, I thought it merely sounded correct.
The difference between British English and American English continues to fascinate me. Contra-intuitively, some of the “proper English” battles many Americans are still fighting, the British seem to have given up on. I will still go through linguistic contortions to avoid a sentence like “Everyone has the right to their own opinion,” but cultured British writers don’t seem to care. And I’ve run across that same grating “Me and James” construction Leigh mentions, not just in dialogue (where it would be acceptable) but in otherwise literate first-person narrative. One British practice I invariably follow, though, is the use of a plural-appropriate verb to go with a technically singular noun that obviously represents a plural. Why say, “The Lakers are playing the Magic in the NBA finals,” but “The Magic is playing the Lakers in the NBA finals”? American writers always do that, but a British writer never would.
Jon,
I’m not sure about *cultured* British writers, but most English writers would instinctively follow Eric Partridge and Kingsley Amis and recast the sentence more simply and logically. To avoid the loaded ‘his’ or ‘her’ options, we would write ‘Everyone has the right to an opinion.’
As for the Lakers and the Magic, it’s true I would never write sentences like that, because I wouldn’t know what I was talking about.