Arlene Miller's Blog, page 39

Rebel Without a Clause: Letting Go of Grammar Rigidity and Finding My Four Guiding Principles

It is my pleasure to present this guest post by author and editor Audrey Kalman. See her bio following the post.

 

By Audrey Kalman

If you’re interested in grammar, you may remember the book Eats Shoots & Leaves.  Or you may have heard the phrase “let’s eat Grandma” followed by the admonition that “commas save lives!” Both serve as examples of the necessity of commas to convey meaning. Grammar—or, more specifically, its misuse—can have real consequences.

 

This may be one reason why some people get so exercised over grammatical errors. I know, because I used to be one of them. I still enjoy a good tussle over use of the Oxford comma. However, as a lifelong writer, my views on grammar have evolved.

 

I was appropriately rigid as a young writer because everyone told me I had to learn the rules before I could break them. I rebelled in early adulthood, thinking—if not always saying—who are you to tell me I have to follow the rules?

 

Now I’ve settled into a more harmonious relationship with grammar and wordsmithing. I’m less afraid to push the boundaries or break the rules in service of a greater good, such as maintaining the voice of a character or supporting the style of a piece. When I feel uncertain about usage or sentence structure, I consult experts such as The Chicago Manual of Style, The AP Style Guide, or Arlene Miller.

 

In general, I leave the grammar rules to the grammarians. But over the years I have come up with a few guiding principles for writers of any kind—whether novelists, memoirists, or casual emailers.

 

1) Be humble. Be prepared to question yourself and listen to what others say about your writing—grammar and style included. This is not the same as blindly accepting criticism. On a grammatical issue, if someone says you’re wrong and you believe you’re right, go to a neutral third party for arbitration. If the criticism involves a matter of personal taste rather than something that can be resolved by objective analysis, then follow your heart and your voice. For example, I’ve had my fiction criticized as “wordy.” I listened, reviewed the criticized pieces, and in some cases decided that I was content with them as written. Shakespeare, William Faulkner, and Thomas Wolfe were wordy too. Readers who want Hemingway should read Hemingway, not criticize non-Hemingways for not being Hemingway.

 

2) Be yourself. Too many people try to make themselves sound the way they think they ought to sound. In the process, they end up sounding stilted, artificial, and often simply unreadable. One of the hardest things to do is find your voice as a writer, which you won’t do by making yourself sound like someone else.

 

3) Read and imitate. Wait—didn’t I just say you can’t find your voice by imitation? True. You can, however, learn to write well by imitating. I didn’t learn to write by taking a class. I learned by plagiarizing my favorite childhood novels. Eventually I stopped imitating other writers and started becoming confident in the way I wrote. Similarly, I didn’t learn grammar by diagramming sentences, but rather by reading lots and lots of well-written sentences. The one drawback to this method—which I think of as “natural grammar acquisition”—is that even now, as a professional editor, I sometimes have no idea why something is right. Then I scurry to the experts to find the rules supporting my intuitions.

 

4) Know thy audience. Once upon a time, in my rigid writing days, I would have been horrified by texting and emojis. Even now, I use punctuation and complete words in most of my texts, which makes my kids laugh. Still, I appreciate the evolution of language. Language is living and it should be joyful. Of course, that doesn’t mean using emojis in journal articles or LOLing in term papers. Thus the dictum know your audience. As with all social constructs, you’ll do better if you know the basic rules of grammar and style and understand where, when, and how it’s appropriate to break them.

 

So there you have my four principles. Take ‘em or leave ‘em. Follow ‘em or break ‘em. The one thing I can promise if you decide to break them is that the consequences won’t be as dire as cannibalism perpetrated against your relatives.

 

Bio

Audrey Kalman writes literary fiction with a dark edge, often about what goes awry when human connection is missing from our lives. She is the author of two novels—What Remains Unsaid and Dance of Souls—and a forthcoming book of short stories, all available on Amazon. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in a number of print and online journals, and she is at work on another novel. Connect on Twitter, Facebook, or via her website.

 

 
Grammar Diva News

(Temporary cover only)

My new book, To Comma or Not To Comma will  be out later this summer (I am hoping August). It will likely be available for preorder on Kindle.

Spoke to a class of would-be entrepreneurs in their teens at the SBDC (Small Business Development Center) Boot Camp about the importance of good writing skills for anyone who wants to start a business.  I will be speaking to another such group this coming week at College of Marin.

A Tribute: Fathers and Father’s Day

There are more than 70 million fathers in the United States, and Sunday, June 17 is their day this year: the third Sunday in June. Economists estimate that Americans spend more than $1 billion each year on Father’s Day gifts.

Mother’s Day came into being first. Then, much later on, came Father’s Day. For more information about Mother’s Day, click here. Or here. Or here.

There are two stories of how, why, and when the first Father’s Day was celebrated:

The first Father’s Day was celebrated in Washington state on June 19, 1910.  Sonora Smart Dodd, one of six children raised by a widower, was listening to a Mother’s Day sermon at church in 1909 when she thought of the idea of a day to celebrate fathers. She felt mothers were getting all the attention with their special day.
The other story took place in Fairmont, West Virginia, on July 5, 1908 when Grace Golden Clayton suggested to the minister of the local Methodist church that they hold services to celebrate fathers after a deadly mine explosion killed 361 men.

The idea of a Father’s Day did not meet with same enthusiasm as Mother’s Day. As one florist  said, “fathers haven’t the same sentimental appeal that mothers have.”

And it did take a while for Father’s Day to come into its own. While Father’s Day was celebrated in communities across the country, it still wasn’t a national celebration.

In 1916, President Wilson marked the day by using telegraph signals in Washington D.C. to unfurl a flag in Spokane. 

William Jennings Bryant was one of its staunchest proponents. And in 1924 President Calvin  Coolidge recommended that Father’s Day become a national holiday.

But no official action was taken.

 In 1966 Lyndon B. Johnson,with an executive order, designated the third Sunday in June as the official day to celebrate Father’s Day. Finally, in 1972, during the Nixon administration, Father’s Day was officially recognized as a national holiday.

Apparently, some men still aren’t down with Father’s Day.  As one historian writes, they “scoffed at the holiday’s sentimental attempts to domesticate manliness with flowers and gift-giving . . . often paid for by the father himself.”

During the 1920s a movement arose to combine Mother’s Day and Father’s Day into a single Day, Parent’s Day. But then came the Great Depression, and struggling businesses wanted the sales that both separate holidays could bring them. When World War II started, advertisers argued that Father’s Day was a good way to honor our troops and support the war effort. 

In some  countries, particularly in Europe and Latin America, fathers are honored on St. Joseph’s Day, a traditional Catholic holiday on March 19.

Here are some other countries’ days for celebrating fathers:

March 19 – Bolivia, Honduras, Italy, Lichtenstein, Portugal, Spain
May 8 – South Korea
Second Sunday in June– Austria, Ecuador, Belgium
Third Sunday in June – Antigua, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Greece, Guyana, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Netherlands, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Saint Vincent, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Trinidad, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, Zimbabwe
June 23 – Nicaragua, Poland, Uganda
Second Sunday in July – Uruguay
Last Sunday in July – Dominican Republic
Second Sunday in August – Brazil
August 8 – Taiwan, China
August 24 – Argentina
First Sunday in September– Australia, New Zealand
New Moon of September – Nepal
First Sunday in October – Luxembourg
Second Sunday in November– Estonia, Finland, Norway, Sweden
December 5 – Thailand





Enjoy these quotes about fathers:
It doesn’t matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.  Anne Sexton

I wasn’t anything special as a father. But I loved them and they knew it. Sammy Davis, Jr.

Until you have a son of your own… you will never know the joy, the love beyond feeling that resonates in the heart of a father as he looks upon his son. Kent Nerburn

He who does not teach his son his duties is equally guilty with the son who neglects them. Confucius

One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters. George Herbert

Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad, and that’s why I call you dad, because you are so special to me. You taught me the game and you taught me how to play it right. Wade Boggs

Being a father has been, without a doubt, my greatest source of achievement, pride and inspiration. Fatherhood has taught me about unconditional love, reinforced the importance of giving back and taught me how to be a better person. Naveen Jain

It is a wise father that knows his own child. William Shakespeare

I have a Father’s Day every day. Dennis Banks

Thank you so much to the following websites. Check them out for more information!

Brainy Quote

 Quoteland      

Father’s Day 2018

A Brief History of Father’s Day

Need some summer reading? A grammar book, perhaps?  Novel? Self-publishing guide? Check out my book page!

The Order of Adjectives

Adjectives describe, or modify, nouns: big, soft, blue, lovely, horrible, pretty, English, cotton, round, seven . . . all adjectives.

Most of the time, we use one adjective to describe a noun:

blue dress
lovely flower
five pencils
young boy

Often, we use two consecutive adjectives to describe a noun:

Beautiful blue dress
lovely pink flower
five yellow pencils
young British boy

Occasionally we use three or more adjectives to describe a noun:

Beautiful new blue dress
lovely tiny pink flower
five big yellow pencils
tall young British boy

(Yes, sometimes you do need commas between some of them! Refer to the blog post about commas with adjectives.)

You probably don’t even notice, but adjectives follow a specific order in speaking and writing. If you put them in a different order, your sentence will sound weird. Native speakers put the adjectives in this order naturally. Here is the order:

quantity or number: three, five, a dozen
quality or opinion: beautiful, terrible, gloomy, crazy
size: big, small, enormous, tiny
age: old, young, five-year-old
shape: oval, triangular, round
color: blue, pink, orange, silver
proper adjective: American, Indian, Japanese
purpose or qualifier (often forms part of the noun itself): writing (pad), shredding (machine).

Some examples:

I have three cups.

I have three beautiful cups.

I have three beautiful tiny cups.

I have three beautiful tiny hundred-year-old cups.

I have three beautiful tiny hundred-year-old round cups.

I have three beautiful tiny hundred-year-old round multi-colored cups.

I have three beautiful tiny hundred-year-old round multi-colored German cups.

I have three beautiful tiny old round multi-colored German drinking cups.

These just don’t sound right:

I have beautiful three cups.

I have three hundred-year-old round tiny cups.

I have three beautiful multicolored German hundred-year-old tiny cups.

So there is one thing in grammar you really don’t even have to think about!

You might be interested in another blog post about adjectives:

A Few Things About Adjectives

Click here to check out my grammar books!

Grammar Diva News

I will be speaking to the Entrepreneur Book Camp for students thinking of starting a business on June 12 and again on June 26. These bootcamps are sponsored by the Small Business Development Center.

Working on my new punctuation book, To Comma or Not to Comma, which should be out in July or August.

Coming attractions: Online courses in grammar and business writing.

 

Weekend Ramble: The Book or the Movie?

Have you ever read a great book and thought it should be made into a movie? I certainly have.

Have you ever seen a movie and thought, “Wow, that would make a great book!” I didn’t think so.

You have probably read a book and then seen the movie and said, “The book was way better than the movie.”

However, you probably haven’t said, “Wow, the movie was so much better than the book.” Have you?

So would you rather read the book before seeing a movie? Or see the movie and then read the book? Or read the book and not want to even ruin it by seeing the movie? Or see the movie, and the heck with the book because you don’t read? (I didn’t think that last one applied to most of you.) 

I don’t usually remember much about the books I read or the movies I see after I have read or seen them. One of my quirks. However, I can recall two movies that seemed as good—or almost as good—as the book: The Martian and A Man Called Ove. I thought The Martian movie helped explain some of the details I really couldn’t understand in the book. As far as A Man Called Ove—well, the book is great, the movie is great, and if you haven’t seen and read it, you should. I should add to this list The Help, which I thought was a great book and a great movie.

What other movies were as good as—or almost as good as—the book? 

One real failure of a movie I remember is One for the Money, based on the fun Janet Evanovich mystery.  You probably didn’t see it because I suspect hardly anyone did. This series of books is up to about 26 now. When the movie came out, the book series was already in the teens somewhere, so I (mistakenly) figured that the movie would be a compilation of the books. But it was actually just the first book. The problem (besides the awful casting, in my opinion) was that since the first book, some of the characters had taken on much better roles in the books. Major disappointment. 

I am on the side of reading the book first. Why?

A book causes the reader to imagine what the words are describing. That is the whole purpose of a book, especially a novel.

If we think a book would make a good movie, we might wonder Who would be cast in the movie? How would certain aspects of the book be handled? What would special effects or stunts look like? What would the setting look like? 

When you see the movie after reading the book, you might wonder why parts were left out; you may agree or disagree with the casting.  You may think it was great and pretty much like the book. Sometimes we are disappointed when the movie veers too far away from the book because we loved the book and wished that the movie had remained true to the book. I cannot think of a movie that veered too much from the book where people thought the movie was better. Can you?

If you don’t like a book, the buck stops there. You probably won’t see the movie. So when you do see a movie adapted from a book, you probably enjoyed the book—if you read it—and therefore you probably will think the book was better than the movie. Logical?

When you read a book, you might think it would make a great movie, but of course, no one watches a movie and says how it would make a great book, do they? That is why I think it is best to read the book first. Who wants to know the ending of the book before you read it? I probably wouldn’t bother to read the book if I saw  the movie first. However, even if you know the ending because you read the book, you still want to see the movie. 

Many times we see a movie without realizing it is also a book. Often it takes years for the movie to be made after the book is published and then optioned as a movie.Then, if we enjoyed the movie, we might go back and read the book—I guess. 

I just read a book and had no idea it was a movie. DUH ! Ready Player One. I saw that the book was on the bestseller list, so I read it. I should have suspected something was up because it was on the bestseller list in 2018 and was published in 2011. So, obviously, the movie caused a resurgence of the book. Many people, contrary to my situation, saw the movie and had no idea that is was ever a book. Maybe those people, when they found out there was a book, wanted to read it. If I find out about a movie I want to see and then discover there is a book, I may very well rush to read the book before I see the movie. But not always. 

To each his own. (Now, how are they going to make that saying politically correct? To each, his or her own? That isn’t quite right either.)

Well, you get the point. I would love to hear your opinions and examples on this topic!

I know. I know. Some people much prefer when I talk about grammar, which I usually do. Here are a couple of old grammar posts you might like:

Apostrophe Catastrophes

Sometimes Me Is Correct and I Is Wrong

If you haven’t already checked out my books, click!

A Dozen Fun Facts About Words and the Language

Where would we be without words? Well, it would be very quiet, and there would be no books to read. So words are good things. And they are fun things, too, as these 12 fun facts will prove!

1  If you are a poet, you already know this: no words rhyme with silver, month, orange, or purple.

2. There are only two words — actually now three — that end in -gry: hungry, angry, and our new word hangry. Hangry is, of course, hungry AND angry at the same time.

3. The shortest complete sentence in the English language is Go. Since it is a command, the subject is implied and is (you). 

4. Ever wonder what that little dot over the lowercase i is? Does is even have a name? Of course it does. Everything has a name. It is called a tittle, and I would suppose that the little dot over the lowercase j is called the same thing!

5. A sentence that contains a single word (like the aforementioned Go.) is called a monepic sentence.

6. Attention, math people: If you wrote out every number in the standard English counting system (one, two, three, four) in alphabetical order, no matter how high you counted, the first number would always be eight. The second would always be eight billion.

7. The most common word used in English language conversation is  . . .(wait for it) . . . I. How’s that for ego?

8. The most common adjective used in the English language is good.

9. The most commonly used noun is one you wouldn’t guess . . . time.

10. The word (can we really call it a word?) lol was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2011 (seems like just yesterday).

11. In English the word happy is used three times more often than sad (I guess that is good news — notice how I used the most commonly used adjective there). 

and

12. The random symbol or series of symbols we used to represent letters in swear words (sh*t, for example) is called a grawlix.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend, and remember to buy some books! (Mine included!)

 

 

More Mispronounced Words: Part 3 – L Through R

Here we go with Part 3 of commonly mispronounced words: L through R  Here are Part 1 and Part 2 if you didn’t read them.

Liable – This word has three syllables and in legal terms means obligated. Libel has two syllables and is a defamatory statement.

Library – An oldie but goodie! It is a little hard to put in that first R , But it isn’t liberry.

Mauve – This is a purplish color and it does not rhyme with stove. The au is  pronounced like the o in odd and like the au in slaughter.

Meme – Invented by a British scientist in 1976, it rhymes with seem, and is not pronounced mee-mee, may-may or mem. 

Mischievous – This is my pet peeve of mispronunciation. It is neither spelled nor pronounced as  mis-CHEE-vee-us . The word has three syllables. There is no I  in the last syllable, and the accent is on the first syllable. So many people pronounce this incorrectly and tell me I am wrong when I tell them so. Rachel Maddow pronounced it wrong on her show this past week, and I almost blew a gasket.
 

Niche – It comes from the French. Some people (wrongly) go for a French sound and say ni-chay. Others go for a super Anglican pronunciation and say nitch. The preferred pronunciation is  neesh in most dictionaries. However, nitch has become so common, it is preferred by other dictionaries. 

Often – Pronouncing the t is officially a no-no, according to Merriam-Webster. 

Nuclear  – Another oldie but goodie. At least four presidents (Bush, Clinton, Carter and Eisenhower) have messed it up and said nucular. Switching the adjacent sounds is a linguistic phenomenon called metathesis. 

Prelude – The first syllable doesn’t sound like pray . The correct pronunciation is prel-yood.

Pronunciation – I think this is a weird one. The verb is to pronounce. However, when it becomes a noun, the o gets left out.

Regime –  Doesn’t sound like RUH-geem. The correct pronunciation is RAY-geem.
 
Want to brush up on your grammar? Check out my books on AMAZON OR GOODREADS.
 
 
 

A Special Mother’s Day Post

 
Motherhood: All love begins and ends there – Robert Browning, English poet, 1812–1889

Whether it’s Mother’s Day, Mothers Day, or Mothers’ Day (it appears to be Mother’s Day), welcome to our annual Mother’s Day post.

Some facts about Mother’s Day:

Mother’s Day is celebrated on various days and in many parts of the world—most commonly in the months of March or May. For example, in Egypt, Mother’s Day is celebrated on March 21, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere.
 In the United States, the celebration of Mother’s Day began in the early 20th century.
In 1908, the U.S. Congress rejected a proposal to make Mother’s Day an official holiday.
By the early 1920s, Hallmark Cards and other companies had started selling Mother’s Day cards.
By 1925, carnations had become associated with Mother’s Day, and the American War Mothers raised money by selling carnations. Wearing a colored carnation meant that a person’s mother was living. A white carnation indicated that a person’s mother was deceased.
In 2015, 26.4 was the average age in the United States for first-time mothers.
In its early days, people observed Mother’s Day by going to church and writing letters to their mothers.
More people purchase fresh flowers and plants for Mother’s Day than for any other holiday except Christmas and Chanukah.
In 2018, the National Retail Federation (NRF) estimates that U.S. consumers will spend $23.1 billion celebrating Mother’s Day.
 Each shopper will spend an average of $180 on Mom.
Most consumers will give cards (77%) and flowers (69%) to their mothers or take her out to eat (55%) in 2018, but more money will be spent on jewelry ($4.6 billion) than any other category, according to the Retail Foundation.
According to the Insure.com 2017 Mother’s Day Index, the various tasks moms perform at home would be worth $67,619 (up from $65,523 in 2016) a year in the professional world.

Thank you to these websites for this information:

Wikipedia

CNN Fun Facts

 

Some Mother’s Day quotes:

Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be President, but they don’t want them to become politicians in the process. John F. Kennedy 1917-1963

By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, American author

Mothers are the most instinctive philosophers. Harriet Beecher Stowe, American novelist, 1811-1896

Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same – and most mothers kiss and scold together. Pearl S. Buck, American novelist 1892 – 1973

Teenage boys, goaded by their surging hormones, run in packs like the primal horde. They have only a brief season of exhilarating liberty between control by their mothers and control by their wives. Camille Pagia, American academic and social critics, 1947-

This is the reason why mothers are more devoted to their children than fathers: it is that they suffer more in giving them birth and are more certain that they are their own. Aristotle, 384 BC – 322 BC

Tired mothers find that spanking takes less time than reasoning and penetrates sooner to the seat of the memory. William Durant American historian and writer, William Durant, 1885-1981

We are all conceived in close prison; in our mothers wombs, we are close prisoners all; when we are born, we are born but to the liberty of the house; prisoners still, though within larger walls; and then all our life is but a going out to the place of execution, to death. John Donne, English poet 1572 – 1632

Take motherhood: nobody ever thought of putting it on a moral pedestal until some brash feminists pointed out, about a century ago, that the pay is lousy and the career ladder nonexistent. Barbara Ehrenreich, American author and political activist 1941 –

Thank you, Greatest Quotations!

Happy Mother’s Day from The Grammar Diva

 

 

 

 

 

Adjective, Adjective, Comma

There are many, many, many, many, many (we will talk about that one later in this post) comma rules. Several years ago, when I was teaching, I noticed that in the Common Core standards for the grade I was teaching, the use of the “comma between two adjectives before the same noun” was one of the very few rules spelled out. I had never considered that particular comma rule very significant — but I guess I was wrong, at least as far as the educational powers-that-be were concerned.

 

What do we mean by two adjectives before a noun? 

Bright blue dress

Old torn shirt

Ambitious intelligent person

Cozy crowded room

New striped shirt

 

Sometimes you put a comma between the two adjectives, and sometimes you don’t. What is the rule?

If both adjectives describe the noun, use a comma between the adjectives. But if the first adjective describes the second adjective — or the idea of both the second adjective and the noun together — do not use a comma. 

Bright blue dress

Old, torn shirt

Ambitious, intelligent person

Cozy, crowded room

New striped shirt

 

How can you tell? If it isn’t obvious, the best way to check is 1) See if you can put “and” between the two adjectives. 2) You can even remake the sentence for purposes of testing out the adjectives by making them a clause at the end of the sentence:

Bright and blue dress
That dress, which  is bright and blue…

That doesn’t really make sense. The dress is blue, and the blue is bright. Bright is really describing the type of blue, not really just the dress. So, no comma here.

Old and torn shirt
My shirt, which is old and torn.

That one makes sense with the and, so you would use a comma. One more…

Ambitious and intelligent person
We need to hire someone who is ambitious and intelligent.

That one makes sense with and, so use a comma.

 Here are a few other things concerning this comma rule:

1 If the sentence already contains the word and, of course you use no commas. We need to hire a hardworking and ambitious employee.

2. The same rules apply if there are more than two adjectives:

The ambitious, personable, intelligent person we hired hasn’t really worked out well.

The torn, bright blue dress can’t be fixed.

It was a cold, dark, rainy night.

It was a navy blue striped dress. I wouldn’t put any commas here. The navy blue is really describing the stripes or the striped dress, not just the dress.

3. Of course there is NEVER a comma between the final adjective and the following noun: It was a dark, rainy, cold, night. (NO)

 

What about “Starry, Starry Night”? What about the first sentence of this blog post? What about adjectives that are repeated for effect?  Well, you learn (at least I do) something new every day. I just googled “Starry Starry Night”. Well, the painting by Van Gogh is actually called The Starry Night. However, the song by Don McLean is “Starry Starry Night.” And I found it both with and without the comma between the two starrys.

In formal writing we really wouldn’t repeat a n adjective. But in most creative types of writing, we might. I guess whether or not you want to use commas between the adjectives depends on the effect you want it to have. I would say all bets are off with that one. 

Grammar Diva News

Speaking of commas, my next book will be To Comma or Not to Comma: The Best Little Punctuation Book Ever – out some time this summer!

Girls of a Feather is available now on Kindle for just 99 cents for the month of May. It will be up on Amazon as a paperback in a day or two, and it will be available on other e-readers in the next week or two.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Breaking the Rules Part 2

Last week we talked about some grammar “rules” that can now be “broken,” including beginning sentences with conjunctions, ending sentences with prepositions, splitting infinitives, and using they as a singular pronoun. Today we will talk about three more of those “rules.”

1.Using em dashes instead of quotations marks. Yup. Some authors are using em dashes in their dialog rather than quotation marks. So there is no more “he said,” or “she said.” Just dashes and something someone said. 

—I didn’t say that.

—Yes, you did. I heard it.

—I would never say anything like that.

—Well, you did, and I can prove it.

I haven’t personally read any books  with this method of doing dialog, but I know that the author Roddy Doyle does. I have not read him, but he does dialog that way in his 2017 novel, Smile.

2. Using run-on sentences. Before we continue, let’s clear up exactly what a run-on sentence is. Many people think a run-on sentence is simply a really long sentence. They are not the same. Sometimes a run-on sentence may indeed be a very long sentence, but there are long sentences that are not run ons, and there are short run ons. A run-on sentence is one that actually contains more than one complete sentence, but there is no period or semicolon—or conjunction. Usually a run on is put together with a comma, which cannot be used by itself to separate two sentences. A sentence can be long enough to go around the equator, but if it has enough semicolons and conjunctions, it could be a legitimate sentence—although obviously a poorly written one. 

Here is a run-on, even though it is short: Don’t worry, be happy.

Here is a legitimate sentence, although rambling and not a good one: I got up early and then went out to have breakfast, and then I played some tennis with some friends before getting some errands done, after which I took a short nap, and then I sat out in the sun reading until dinner time, and then I picked up a friend and we went out dancing. 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . . Charles Dickens used run ons, as did Faulkner (or was it Hemingway? I can never keep them straight, and I don’t like either one). I am sure many contemporary authors do as well. Is it okay?

Frankly, I see no reason to use run-on sentences. What is wrong with using a period or semicolon instead of the comma? Or maybe putting a conjunction in? I think one possible situation in which one might want to use a run-on sentence is for pacing, particularly in dialog. Using commas between a few consecutive sentences someone says could be used to indicate that they are running on and on without stopping. I guess you could even have such a situation in narration. 

To my eye, run-on sentences are even worse than sentence fragments. Fragments seem to have a place in some types of writing, particularly promotional. Run-on sentences, to me, just seem, well, wrong. Certainly run ons (and fragments) don’t belong in formal or academic writing. But then, I am sure there are exceptions to that idea too.

The worst thing, of course, is when a reader catches a writer using a run-on sentence in a situation where the writer obviously simply didn’t know his or her mistake. 

3. Using who instead of whom. Many people never use whom at all. And it is probably preferable to never  use whom than to use it where who should be used. That just sounds weird: Whom are you? (Nope. Wrong time to try to use whom.) I have heard that by 2025, whom will be gone, so that is good news for those who don’t know the difference. It is bad news for those of us who do know the difference and are grammar snobs because we do.

What is the difference? Who is a subjective pronoun like I or he or we. Whom is an objective pronoun like me or her or us. Who is thus used for subjects, and whom for objects. You can figure out if you have a subject or an object on your hands by finding all the verbs in the sentence in question. Locate the subject for each verb. If it looks like who(m) must be the subject because you can’t find any other subject for the verb, then use who. Also, you use whom after prepositions such as for (whom), with (whom), to (whom), etc.

 

Grammar Diva News

Now available on Kindle at a special introductory price of 99 cents: Get your summer reading ready! (Available on all other e-readers in about a week. Available on Amazon in paperback in a couple of weeks.)

 

 

 

Breaking the Rules Part 1

Grammar rules. Are there really any rules at all, or are there just guidelines and standards? Depends whom you ask. If you ask a grammar prescriptivist, they will tell you that there are rules — and please don’t break them. If you ask a grammar descriptivist, they will tell you there are standards, but when people begin to break a certain standard, then a new standard is born. 

I lean toward prescriptivism.

This week and next, I will talk about some “rules” that are now becoming outdated, or modified, or allowed, or whatever you would like to call it.

Remember Star Trek’s famous quote? To boldly go where no man has gone before (or something like that). Well, that is a split infinitive. An infinitive is a verb with to in front of it. Here the infinitive is to go . But as you see, the adverb boldly has boldly been stuck in there, splitting the infinitive. That used to be a no-no for some reason, but no longer. You don’t need to say To go boldly where no man has gone before OR Boldly to go where no man has gone before. Split to your heart’s content. 
Where are you at? Well, I would not recommend that you say that, but that question is an example of ending a sentence with a preposition. Prepositions are those little words like at, with, of, to, from, over, under. …there are lots of them. You can end a sentence with one, but in that example, you don’t need the at  at all, so why put it there? Generally, we want to put a preposition at the end of a question beginning with whom : Whom are you going with? Whom are you giving that to? Whom are you waiting for?  To some of us, it sounds a little awkward or stilted or overly formal to say With whom are you going? To whom are you giving that? For whom are you waiting? So in those cases, it is fine to end with the preposition if you like. However, Where are you at? Where are you going to? No. Your sentence is fine and complete without that ending preposition.
So, as you see, I have started this sentence (and some others here) with a conjunction! Oh, no! Can we do that now? The coordinating conjunctions we are talking about here are and, but, so, yet, and maybe or  We certainly start our sentences with conjunctions in conversation. I start some sentences with conjunctions in my books. Starting sentences with conjunctions is never necessary, but in informal writing, it is okay to do it — just don’t get carried away. 
So there. I have just written a sentence fragment. So there is not a sentence. Neither is For one day only . These are fragments — not complete sentences. You see them all the time in promotional writing, and of course in conversation. Here’s what I think about using fragments: You can break a rule as long as you know you are breaking it. So, if you know what a fragment is and you decide to use one for effect, go ahead. However, if you mean to write a sentence and you use a fragment because you don’t know the difference, that is a different story. If you are writing dialog, you will likely use fragments. If you are writing some type of promotional literature or ads, you will probably use fragments. If you are writing creative nonfiction, you may use fragments. If you are writing a formal letter or essay, trying to get into college or trying to get a job — well, I wouldn’t. Teachers sometimes mistakenly tell students not to start sentences with the word because. Of course, you can start a sentence with because. However, sometimes students will end the sentence and put a period before the sentence is complete, thus writing a fragment by mistake: Because the movie is playing so late. That is a fragment. Because the movie is playing so late, I don’t think I will be able to go. That is a sentence.
If anyone wants a piece of pizza, they can take one. Okay, let’s delve into this landmine. Anyone is a pronoun. Pronouns can be either singular or plural, just like nouns. And just like nouns, singular pronouns take singular verbs; plural pronouns take plural verbs. Wants is singular ( he wants, they want ). So, we can assume anyone is also singular. Anyone, someone, no one, something, everything, everyone, everybody, someone, something, and somebody (among other such pronouns) are all singular. Moving along in that sentence, we see the word they . They refers to the same person as anyone , right? But they is plural, right? And if they  and anyone  refer to the same person/people, they should agree (both singular or both plural), right?  Well, yes. So what are your choices, since the English language does not (yet) have a non-gender-specific third person pronoun (except it, which refers to things). If everyone assembled is female, you use she . If everyone is male, you use he . But what if such is not the case?  Your choices used to include these: If anyone wants a pice of pizza, he or she can take one. If anyone wants a piece of pizza, he can take one (now unacceptable). If anyone wants a piece of pizza, he/she? (s)he? What? The best solution is to just rewrite the sentence to avoid the issue altogether, which is usually very easy to do: Anyone who wants a piece of pizza can take one. Take a piece of pizza!  However, if rewriting doesn’t strike your fancy, you can now use they as a singular. But I wouldn’t personally do it.

Grammar Diva News

Tomorrow, Saturday, April 21, is the Redwood Writers Conference “From Pen to Published.” I will be attending and will be a coach for editing and publishing.

Going on sale on Amazon and Kindle (and likely elsewhere) next week. Special Kindle price while you stock up on your beach reading:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have begun work on my next book, which will be out sometime this summer:

To Comma or Not to Comma? The Best Little Punctuation Book Ever! 

(not the real cover- just playing!)