Guide to Grammar and Style -- A
From the Guide to Grammar and Style by Jack Lynch.
Comments are welcome.
Use an in
place of a when it precedes a vowel sound, not just
a vowel. That means it's "an honor" (the h is
silent), but "a UFO" (because it's pronounced yoo eff
oh). This confuses people most often with acronyms and other
abbreviations: some people think it's wrong to use "an" in front
of an abbreviation (like "MRI") because "an" can only go before
vowels. Poppycock: the sound is what matters. It's
"an MRI," assuming you pronounce it "em ar eye."
Lists are
common in some sorts of writing, introduced by the
following and referred to by the above. But you can
often make a sentence clearer and punchier with simple pronouns: instead of the above
topics, try these topics -- the context makes your
subject clear.
Action verbs, as the
name reveals, express actions; contrast them with verbs of
being. Think of the difference between "I study" (action
verb, even if it's not the most exciting action) and "I am a
student" (verb of being). It's often wise to cut down on verbs
of being, replacing them (whenever possible) with action verbs;
that'll make your writing punchier.
Whatever you do, though, don't confuse action verbs with the
active voice, which is the opposite of the passive voice. Sentences with verbs of
being (such as am, is, are, were)
aren't necessarily passive sentences, even if they're
often weak ones.
See also E-Prime.
Acronyms with a or an.
See A or An.
Active Voice.
See Passive
Voice.
An
adjective is a word that modifies a noun or a pronoun: it answers which
one, how many, or what kind. Some examples:
"the big one"; "seven books"; "a devoted
student."
Adverbs, on the other hand, usually modify verbs, and
answer in what manner, to what degree, when,
how, how many times, and so forth. Some examples:
"He ran quickly"; "I'll do it soon"; "We went
twice."
Sometimes adverbs modify adjectives or other adverbs: "She
finished very quickly" (very modifies the adverb
quickly, which in turn modifies the verb finished);
"The work was clearly inadequate" (clearly modifies
the adjective inadequate, which in turn modifies
work).
The best rule for spotting adverbs is to look for -ly. Be
careful, however; not all adverbs end in -ly, and not all
-ly words are adverbs: soon, twice, and
never are adverbs; friendly, ugly, and
northerly are adjectives.
Go easy on the adjectives and adverbs. While modifiers are
necessary in any sort of writing, make sure your nouns and verbs
are clear and are doing most of the work. As Strunk and White put it, "The
adjective hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate
noun out of a tight place."
Affect with an a is usually a verb; effect
with an e is (usually) a noun. When you affect
something, you have an effect on it. The usual adjective is effective.
If the usuals leave you curious, here's the rest of the
story: affective as a verb means "relating to or arousing
an emotional reaction"; effect as a verb means "to bring
about" or "to accomplish," as in "to effect a change."
One of the
fundamental rules of grammar is that the parts of a sentence
should agree with each other. It's easier to demonstrate
than to define agreement.
Agreement is usually instinctive in native English speakers. In
"I has a minute," the verb has doesn't agree with the
subject I. We would say "I have." In "John got
their briefcase," assuming John got his own briefcase,
their should be his. It's obvious.
Only rarely does it get tricky. A plural noun right in front of
the singular verb can throw you off. Consider "Any one of the
articles are available": the verb are shouldn't agree with
articles, but with the subject, one: the sentence
should read, "Any one of the articles is available."
A preposition or a verb that
governs two pronouns can also cause
problems. In "He wanted you and I for the team," the word
I should be me: he wanted you and he wanted
me, so he wanted you and me. (Hypercorrection is always a
danger in cases like this. Pay special attention to phrases like
you and I, you and she, and so forth.)
See also Each, Every, Data,
and Media.
"All of the ----" can usually
be rewritten as "All the ----,"
"All ----," or "Every ----."
Avoid beginning sentences with
also. There's nothing wrong with it, but it tends
to make your writing inelegant.
Alternate (as an adjective)
traditionally means going back and forth between two things, as
in alternate Mondays (i.e., every other Monday).
Alternative means other. Traditionalists prefer an
alternative to an alternate plan. (Real
traditionalists insist that alternative can be used only
in cases where there are two options.)
The
simple rule will rarely fail you: use between for two
things, among for more than two.
And at the Beginning.
See But at
the Beginning.
And/or is sometimes
necessary in legal documents, but just clutters other writing.
One word or the other will almost always do just as well. See Slashes.
A technical term in
grammar for the word or phrase to
which a relative pronoun refers. In
a sentence like "She couldn't stand opera, which always sounded
like shrieking," the relative pronoun which stands in for
the word opera, so opera is the antecedent. In a
sentence like "He couldn't say the word titillate without
giggling, which always got him in trouble," the word which
refers back not to any individual word, but to the whole
preceding clause ("He couldn't say the word titillate
without giggling") -- the whole thing is the antecedent.
By the way, it's pronounced ant-uh-SEE-dent. [Entry added 11 July 1999]
To
anticipate something is to get ready for it or to do
something in advance; this is not the same as expect. If
you expect changes, you think they'll be coming soon; if
you anticipate changes, you're preparing to deal with
them. Blake certainly didn't expect Modernist poetry, but
in some ways he anticipated it by doing similar things a
century earlier. Anticipate is often improperly used (in a
love affair with the longer word) where
expect is better.
The most common
way to form a possessive in English is with apostrophe and
s: "a hard day's night." After a plural noun ending in
s, put just an apostrophe: "two hours' work" (i.e., "the
work of two hours"). If a singular noun ends in s, most
style guides prefer s's: James's house. Plain old
s apostrophe (as in James' house) is common in journalism,
but most other publishers prefer James's.
Note that the possessives of pronouns don't get apostrophes:
theirs, not their's; hers, not her's;
its, not it's. See It's
versus Its.
Apostrophes are sometimes used to make acronyms or other
abbreviations plural. This is a matter of a local house style. My preference: don't use
apostrophes to make abbreviations plural -- not "They took their
SAT's," but "They took their SATs." The only exception is when
having no apostrophe might be confusing: "Two As" is ambiguous;
make it "Two A's." Never use apostrophes as quotation
marks to set off words or phrases (unless you need a quotation
within a quotation).
To refer to a decade, don't use an apostrophe before the
s. Refer to the 1960s or the '60s, not the
1960's or (worse) the '60's.
Two phrases are in
apposition when they're logically equivalent and in the
same grammatical relation to the rest of the sentence: it's a way
of explaining a word or phrase, or giving additional information
about it. It's easier to see in examples than in definitions.
"I spent the year in my favorite city, Detroit," puts two phrases
-- "my favorite city" and "Detroit" -- in apposition; the second
phrase explains the first. "I just finished a novel by D. H.
Lawrence, the least talented novelist in English" -- the phrase
"the least talented novelist in English" is in apposition to "D.
H. Lawrence," and gives the writer's opinion of Lawrence. (It
happens to be correct, by the way -- you heard it here first.)
Apposition usually requires commas
around the appositional phrase: "The winter of '24, the coldest
on record, was followed by a warm summer."
Oh, yeah -- don't confuse apposition with
opposition. They come from the same Latin root
(pono 'put'), but have nothing else to do with one
another. [Entry added 11 July 1999]
English has two sorts
of articles: the definite article (the), and
indefinite articles (a and an). They
function more or less as adjectives. The
usage of definite and indefinite articles is one of the hardest
things for speakers of other languages to master, because it's
often entirely arbitrary -- why are you in town but in
the city? And British and
American usage sometimes differs; wounded Brits end up in
hospital, while Yanks are in the hospital. Alas, I
don't have any easy rules that are even a little helpful -- all I
can suggest is that non-native speakers pay close attention to
the actual usage of articles. Sorry.
While
ensure and insure aren't quite so clear cut,
assure is very different from both. You assure a
person that things will go right by making him confident. Never use assure in the sense of
"Assure that the wording is correct"; you can only assure
somebody that it's correct.
Ensure and insure are sometimes used
interchangeably, but it may be better to keep them separate.
Insuring is the business of an insurance company, i.e.,
setting aside resources in case of a loss. Ensure means
make sure, as in "Ensure that this is done by Monday."
Brits, by the way -- and for all I
know, other Commonwealthers -- sometimes use assurance
where we Yanks use insurance (it's life assurance,
but auto insurance, in the UK). But it's not for me to
pass laws with Transatlantic jurisdictions. [Entry revised 6 September 1999]
Plain old
whether often does the trick. See Wasted Words.
As versus Like.
See Like
versus As.
Consider using yet.
See Wasted Words.
Never, never, never, never, never. See Currently and Wasted Words.
The key to all good
writing is understanding your audience. Every time you
use language, you engage in a rhetorical activity, and
your attention should always be on the effect it will have on
your audience.
Think of grammar and style as analogous to, say, table manners.
Grammatical "rules" have no absolute, independent existence;
there is no Grammar Corps to track you down for using "whose"
when "of which" is more proper, just as Miss Manners employs no
shock troops to massacre people who eat their salads with fish
forks. You can argue, of course, that the other fork works just
as well (or even better), but both the fork and the usage are
entirely arbitrary and conventional. Your job as a writer is to
have certain effects on your readers, readers who are
continuously judging you, consciously or unconsciously. If you
want to have the greatest effect, you'll adjust your style to
suit the audience, however arbitrary its expectations.
A better analogue might be clothing. A college English paper
calls for the rough equivalent of the jacket and tie (ladies,
you're on your own here). However useless or ridiculous the tie
may be, however outdated its practical value as a garment,
certain social situations demand it, and if you go into a job
interview wearing a T-shirt and jeans, you only hurt yourself by
arguing that the necktie has no sartorial validity. Your job is
to figure out what your audience expects. Likewise, if your
audience wants you to avoid ending your sentences with prepositions, no amount of argument
over historical validity will help.
But just as you shouldn't go under-dressed to a job interview,
you shouldn't over-dress either. A white tie and tails will make
you look ridiculous at a barbecue, and a pedantic insistence on
grammatical bugbears will only
lessen your audience's respect for you. There are occasions when
ain't is more suitable than is not, and the careful
writer will take the time to discover which is the more
appropriate.
See Diction and Formal Writing.