Guide to Grammar and Style -- M
From the Guide to Grammar and Style by Jack Lynch.
Comments are welcome.
According to the purists, a
plural noun: "The media are," not "the media is."
The singular is medium. See Agreement and Data.
A
methodology is the study of, or a system of,
methods. Usually you mean method instead of
methodology. Like functionality, methodology
is a favorite of longwordophiles.
A vivid
metaphorical imagination is one of the best signs of a good
writer. We use more metaphors than we realize, and if we don't
pay attention, they become hopelessly scrambled. The sentence
"We were swamped with a shocking barrage of work, and the
extra burden had a clear impact on our workflow" suggests images
of a marsh (swamped), electrocution or striking
(shocking), a military assault (barrage), weight
(burden), translucency (clear), a physical
impression (impact), and a river (flow). If you
can summon up a clear mental image including all these elements,
you have a better imagination than I have.
Pay attention to the literal meaning of figures of speech and
your writing will come alive. (Don't, by the way, confuse mixed
metaphors with mangled clichés
-- though a mixed metaphor might result from a botched
cliché, they're not the same thing.)
A modifier simply gives
additional information about a word: instead of "bench" -- any
old bench -- we get "wooden bench"; instead of "read" --
read how? -- we get "read quickly." Modifiers are
usually adjectives or adverbs.