Guide to Grammar and Style -- C

From the Guide to Grammar and Style by Jack Lynch.
Comments are welcome.

Capable.

The phrase is capable of ----ing can usually be better rendered as is able to ----, or even turned into an active verb with can ----. See Wasted Words.

Capitalization.

It's customary to capitalize: It's sometimes tricky to figure out what counts as a proper noun: it's customary to capitalize Renaissance and Romantic when they refer to historical periods, but not when they mean any old rebirth or something related to romance. (Even more confusing, Middle Ages is usually capitalized, but medieval isn't, even though they refer to the same thing, and one is just a Latin translation of the other. Go figure.)

It's common to capitalize President when referring to one President of the United States, but you'd refer to all the presidents (no cap) of the U.S., and the presidents of corporations don't warrant caps unless you're using president as a title. Go figure.

In some house styles, the first word of an independent clause after a colon gets a cap: "It leads us to one conclusion: Not enough rock bands use horn sections." I don't much like it, but de stilis domi non est disputandum -- there's no arguing about house styles.

See House Styles and Titles. [Entry revised 14 August 1999]

Centralized.

Use central whenever possible. See Personalized.

Citation.

The importance of accurate citation cannot be overstated: a paper without proper citations is open to charges of plagiary. It's not simply a matter of having the minimum of five footnotes in your research paper to keep the teacher happy, and it's not simply a matter of avoiding honor-code trouble. Careful citation shows your reader that you've done your homework, and allows him or her to check up on you. It amounts to laying your intellectual cards on the table.

Cite your source for every direct quotation and every borrowed idea. Two standards are common in English papers: that of the MLA Style Guide and that of The Chicago Manual of Style. Either will do. The MLA style calls for a list of "Works Cited" at the end of a paper in standard bibliographical form, alphabetical by author:

Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels. Edited by Herbert Davis. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965.
Citations in the text of the paper would then include the author's name (with a year or abbreviated title if more than one work is cited) and page number; for instance:

". . . the most pernicious race of odious little vermin" (Swift 120).
The Chicago style gives a full citation in a footnote (or endnote) on the first quotation in this form:

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, ed. Herbert Davis (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965), p. 120.
Subsequent citations in the text include the page number in parentheses, with an author's name only when necessary:

"Girl threading an invisible Needle with invisible Silk" (p. 92).
Either style is acceptable, but be consistent. For full details see the MLA Style Guide or the Chicago Manual of Style. (Other disciplines, mind you, have their own style guides; psychologists use APA style, and scientists have their own as well. You'll do well to learn the most common standard for your major.)

All citations should appear under the name of the main author, but should include the names of editors, translators, and so on (writers of introductions aren't necessary). Include the city, publisher, and year of publication. For works of prose, give a page number or a range of pages; for works of poetry, give a line number or range of lines.

Clarity.

Along with grace, one of the paramount writer's virtues. Your job is to make yourself clear to your reader. Let nothing get in the way. Many of the entries in this guide -- especially Audience, Precision, Obfuscation, and Vocabulary -- address clarity.

Clichés.

"Avoid clichés" is such common advice that it's almost a cliché itself, but no worse for that. It's stated especially clearly by Pinney:
[Clichés] offer prefabricated phrasing that may be used without effort on your part. They are thus used at the expense of both individuality and precision, since you can't say just what you mean in the mechanical response of a cliché.
Be especially careful, though, not to muddle your clichés when you do use them. Remember, for example, that the more widely accepted phrase is "I couldn't care less," not could. A U.S. Senator, trying to reassure his constituents that the budget talks were going well in spite of the apparent chaos, told reporters, "It's always darkest before the storm," rather than "before the dawn," suggesting that things are going to get worse, not better. Pay attention to every word. (Don't, by the way, confuse these mangled clichés with mixed metaphors -- though a mixed metaphor might result from a botched cliché, they're not the same thing.)

Commas.

Some amateur writers seem to think sprinkling commas every few words is a good rule, but it makes for difficult reading. A few places commas should be avoided: In most house styles, the comma is preferred before the last item in a list: "the first, second, and third chapters." (This is known as the serial comma or the Oxford comma.) Leaving it out -- "the first, second and third chapters" -- is a habit picked up from journalism. While it saves a teensy bit of space and effort, omitting the final comma runs the risk of suggesting the last two items (in the example above, the second and third chapters) are some sort of special pair. A famous (and perhaps apocryphal?) dedication makes the danger clear: "To my parents, Ayn Rand and God."

Oh, yeah -- go and read the entry on Semicolons for good measure.

Comma Splices.

See Run-On Sentences.

Comprise.

Comprise traditionally means comprehend or contain, not constitute. In other words, a zoo comprises animals -- it's not comprised of them (though it is composed of them). Avoid the phrase is comprised of.

Concrete Language.

Use specific, concrete words instead of vague, general ones wherever possible: instead of "apparent significant financial gains," use "a lot of money" or "large profits." Instead of "Job suffers a series of unfavorable experiences," use "Job's family is killed and his possessions are destroyed." Be precise.

Conjunctions.

Conjunctions -- the word comes from conjoin, "put together" -- are little words that connect various elements in a sentence. The most common are and, but, and or. Other conjunctions can join entire clauses, such as because, although, after, since, as if, and notwithstanding.

In formal writing, avoid using like as a conjunction -- it's fine as a preposition ("My love is like a red, red rose," "He works like a madman"), but don't use it before a clause ("She's trying like [should be as if] there's no tomorrow").

Considered as, Considered to Be.

Almost always useless. "The section is considered as essential" or "The section is considered to be essential" just add extra syllables to "The section is considered essential." Even better, ask yourself whether the word considered does anything in the sentence -- does it matter who is considering? "The section is essential" is best of all.

Continual versus Continuous.

Continual means "happening over and over again"; continuous means "happening constantly without stopping." If you're continually on the Internet, it means you keep going on; if you're continuously on the Internet, it means you haven't gone off at all.

Contractions.

Contractions (such as it's, they're, aren't, don't) aren't wrong, but they're less formal than the expanded forms (it is, they are, are not, do not). Whether you use them, then, depends on context -- which is to say, on audience. My own inclination is to be less rather than more formal in most college-level writing, but you'll have to judge that for yourself.

Currently.

What's wrong with now? Or even leaving it out altogether and letting a present-tense verb do the trick? It is currently not available is the same as It is not available or It is not yet available.