Arlene Miller's Blog, page 55

What Are YOU Afraid Of?

Phobia. We all know what it means: fear. 

Yes, It’s For Real!

When I taught 7th grade English, I taught Greek and Latin roots, and phobia was among those roots. The class would make all the words they could think of with the root. The most common phobia words that most of us know are claustrophobia (fear of enclosed spaces), arachnophobia (fear of spiders),  agoraphobia (fear of the marketplace: fear of going out in public), and hydrophobia (fear of water).

However, there are thousands of phobias for all things imaginable and other things unimaginable (a later post!). Here are some phobias for those of you afraid of  creep, crawly things and animals: 

acrophobia  —  insects that cause itching

agrizoophobia —  wild animals

ailurophobia — cats (there are at least three other words for this fear including felinophobia, of course)    

alektorophobia — chickens

apiphobia — bees (there are other words for this phobia)

bufonophobia — toads

chiroptophobia — bats

cynophobia — dogs

doraphobia — animal fur or skin

entomophobia — insects

equinophobia — horses

herpetophobia — reptiles

ichthyophobia — fish

isopterophobia — termites

katsaridaphobia — cockroaches

lutraphobia — otters

mottephobia — moths

musophobia — mice (there are a few other names too )

myrmecophobia — ants

ophidiophobia — snakes (also snakephobia!)

ornithophobia — birds

ostraconophobia — shellfish ( no, not ostriches)

pediculophobia — lice (and ped means child…..hmmmmmm)

ranidaphobia — frogs

scoleciphobia — worms

selachophobia — sharks

spheksophobia — wasps (that’s my phobia!)

teniophobia – tapeworms

taurophobia — bulls

zemmiphobia — the great mole rat

zoophobia — animals

 

As Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” That would be phobophobia!

 

Thanks to phobialist.com!

 

 

Shall We? Will We? Should We?

Is there a difference between shall and will? Both of these words help to make a verb future tense, for example, I go (present) versus I will go (future). So does it matter if you use shall or will?

Shall sounds pretty stilted these days — even to a conservative grammarian like me  — and it is rarely used any longer. It is very formal. However, if you do want to use it, here are the “rules”:

1. Shall is used with first person (I and we):

I shall go to Europe next summer.

2. Will is used with second (you) and third person (he, she, they):

Did you say you will go to Europe next summer? They will go with you.

However, when  determination or threat is implied in the statement or question, the opposite is done:

3. Will is used with first person:

I will go to Europe this summer regardless of how many hours I have to work to make the money!

4. Shall is used with second and third person:

You shall clean your room today! Your sister shall do her chores before she goes out.

5. Although Shall is pretty much outdated for the above uses, it is used for expressions such as Shall we dance? or Shall we go? These expressions imply a suggestion that we do something. You just wouldn’t say Will we dance? or Will we go? to mean the same thing.

6. Should and would are the same as shall and will. However, I would just forget entirely about these usages. We simply don’t talk this way anymore: 

I should like to go to Europe next summer. Uncommon these days.

I would like to go to Europe next summer. Much better.

7. We do — and should– use should when we mean that something is necessary or desirable:

You should do your homework every night (for first, second, and third person).

8. Also use should to imply a condition or something that might happen in an “if clause”:

If I should be lucky enough to win the money, I will go to Europe.

9. Use would to indicate actions that are usual, or customary:

When I was a child, every summer we would go to Europe.

10. Also use would in an “if clause” that implies willingness.

If he would get a job, he could afford to travel more.

It is pretty much instinctive among native English speakers to use the could and should correctly. And don’t worry about using shall. It sounds a bit too formal for this world. Even for me — I say “it is I,” but I still don’t say . . .

I shall sign off now!

I will post a link when my interview is broadcast on public radio. (or I shall??)

 

 

 

 

Manspreading May Cause Butt Dialing

……………….Manspreading!…………………

Manspreading? Butt dialing? These are real words? Well, yes . . . and no.

The Oxford Dictionary has added 1000 new words to its online dictionary in the latest quarterly update.  Many of these words are slang, such as manspreading and butt dialing.  When words become commonly used, the Oxford Dictionary adds them. Although you now may wonder if such words are now considered esoteric and high falutin — after all, we are talking about the Oxford Dictionary —  think again. The Oxford Dictionary adds words that are in common usage in the English language. However, there is also the Oxford English Dictionary, “the definitive record of the English language.” Although that dictionary is also updated with new words, 500 in the latest update, it is the more formal dictionary. However, both dictionaries are published by the Oxford University Press.

The Oxford Dictionary  – Contains informal and slang words that are common enough to be included.

The Oxford English Dictionary  – Contains new words, but not those considered slang.

Here are some of the highlights of new words added to the Oxford Dictionary:

Manspreading – This word was coined by commuters and refers to men on public transportation who sit with their legs wide apart, thus taking up more than one seat so no one can sit in the surrounding seats.

Butt dialing – Accidentally calling someone with your cell phone in a rear pocket (possibly while you are manspreading).

Awesomesauce – Great or wonderful. I have heard this word only on an insurance commercial. I am surprised it is even slang.

Beer o’clock and wine o’clock – No, I didn’t make this up. I think you probably decide what times these really are. 

Cat cafe – I had never heard of this before my daughter happened to tell me about it a few days ago. Imagine a Starbucks combined with a cat shelter. Yes, this is where customers come to play with cats who live at the cafe.

Brain fart – This one had been around a while and is a temporary loss of mental capacity

Bruh – Used to refer to a male friend and often used as a form of address.

Cakeage –  Like corkage for wine, a charge made by a restaurant for serving a cake they have not supplied.

Hangry – Just like it sounds, being irritable and angry because one is hungry.

Fat-shame – To humiliate someone by making fun of their size. (Now, that’s bullying!)

Fur baby – A pet cat, dog, or other furry animal.

Mx – A title used before a person’s name that does not specify gender.

Rage-quit- To become frustrated with some activity, commonly a video game, and quit in anger.

Rando – A person whom one doesn’t know who is likely acting suspicious or weird.

Redditor – A registered user of the website Reddit.

Snackable – Online content that is easily read and digested.

Swatting – Making a hoax call to  emergency services to bring a large number of armed police officers to a particular address.

Weak sauce – Something of poor quality. This must be the opposite of awesome sauce.

I was going to make you wait until next week, but I won’t! Here are some of the 500 new words that have been added to the fancier Oxford English Dictionary in the its recent update:

autotune
Blu-ray
comedogenic
comedy of errors
crowdfunding
declutter
go-for-it (adjective)
half-ass (adjective)
hardwire (adjective)
hot mess
jeggings (jean leggings)
netbook
photobomb
retweet
sexting
staycation
tan line
twerk
-uber (as a prefix)
wuss

 

Grammar Diva News:

Speaking to the Sausalito Rotary next week

Being interviewed onSeptember 4 on KCRB public radio for the show A Novel Idea – don’t know when it will air.

Contributor to this article: Teachers Net Gazette

Oh, and Saturday, September 5 is my birthday. Just saying . . .

Are You a Slasher/Or Not?

The slash (/) did not make an appearance in the grammar book I used when I taught 7th grade English. The slash doesn’t make an appearance in any of the grammar books I have written. The slash does not make an appearance in the books I edit. However, some people apparently do use the slash, whether correctly or not, and whether appropriately or way too much. And the slash has  uses in many different fields, as well as many different names besides slash.

Sometimes the slash in writing means or. The slash should not be used where the word or could not be used in its place. For example

           The pass/fail option was tried at the school last year.

I would prefer to simply use the word or rather than the slash.  The above example is clear, but not all uses of the slash to mean or are quite as straightforward. And after all, or is only two letters!

Some writers use he/she, his/her, and him/her. I do not like that construction and would advise writers to use he or she instead. Better yet, rewrite the sentence to avoid needing the singular pronoun to indicate both genders. Although it is also acceptable to use they as a singular, I don’t like that either.

2. Sometimes the slash is used to replace the word and when joining two nouns. By replacing and with a slash, you suggest that both nouns are equally important. For example
          
          The mother/executive has very little free time. (This sentence means someone who is both a mother  and an executive, and both nouns are equally important.)

Using and instead of the slash here could be misleading and cause the reader to think we are talking about two different people, a mother and an executive (well, except for the use of the singular verb!). However, you can write the sentence without the slash by writing something like, “A mother who is also an executive has very little time.”

Obviously, I wouldn’t use a slash to mean and.

3. Slashes are commonly used in the  phrase and/or, indicating that the two options are not mutually exclusive. For example
          When you come to the potluck, bring a bottle of wine and/or an appetizer.     

I wouldn’t do this either. Why not just write it out? “When you come to the potluck, you can bring a bottle of wine or an appetizer. If you want, you can bring both!”

Notice there is no space between the slash and the letters on either side of it.

Here are some other uses of slashes:

1.Slashes are used in web addresses (URLs): http://www.bigwords101.com/blog

2. Slashes are used to indicate a line break if you are quoting a poem or song lyrics. When using slashes in this way, you do include spaces before and after the slashes. This use of the slash is acceptable and proper in any type of writing.

          Ring around the rosy / Pocketful of posies / Ashes ashes / We all fall down

3. Another use of the slash is to replace a hyphen or  dash to make a connection between words or phrases. For example

          The fantasy/fairy tale genre of books

4. Sometimes a slash is used in a two-letter expression such as w/0, meaning without. Another example is n/a meaning not applicable. Even the one-letter expression with is sometimes written as w/. This use of the slash would not be acceptable in formal writing, but could be used in a memo or in a chart or illustration.

5. This use of the slash may be antiquated, since proofs are not what they used to be before everything was computerized — however,  a proofreader marks changes in the margin and  separates the comments with a slash. 

6. Editors use slashes when marking a manuscript by putting a slash through an uppercase letter that should be lowercase.

7. In math, slashes are used to indicate division; they are also used in fractions, such as 3/4.

8. In bowling a slash is used to indicate a spare.

9. Slashes are used in dates, but not in formal writing. For example, 8-30-15 to indicate August 30th, 2015.

In addition to a multitude of uses, slashes have many other names:

The slash used by the proofreader is called a separatrix.
The slash used when quoting poetry is thinner and is called a virgule.
Fraction bar
Solidus
Stroke (when reading the mark aloud)

For more information about other uses and names for the slash, check out Wikipedia.

To sum up, the slash has very few uses in writing. Something can always be done to avoid using slashes. Some writers never use them. Some writers apparently use them liberally instead of dashes and who-knows-what else! But grammar books rarely talk about them because they really have little use in writing.

Grammar Diva News:

I will next be taking my show on the road to Sausalito to speak to the Rotarians next month.

The ebooks for The Best Little Grammar Book Ever! and Correct Me If I’m Wrong are still on “back-to-school sale” for just $3.99 each on Kindle. Get them before the price goes back up! All my books are also available as PDFs. And if you are interested in using the The Best Little Grammar Workbook Ever for your school or organization, please contact me!

 

Grammar Meets Social Media

This post is a reprint of a guest post I wrote for social media expert and strategist, Frances Caballo. Enjoy and share. . .

“It’s just a Tweet—fewer than 140 characters. Too short to even think about grammar.”

“It’s just Facebook—they’re my friends [all 2749 of them]. They’ll understand what I mean.”

Did you know that the top two things that disqualify a potential date are bad teeth and—yup— bad grammar? And when questioned, people say they would be very reluctant to do business with a company whose website contains typos and incorrect grammar.

How you write and speak are two of the important ways you present yourself to the world. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. And once you make an impression online, it doesn’t get thrown in the trash or shredded. The Internet has a way of being forever.

Do you need to be a grammar pro to use social media? Of course not. But there are several things you should be careful about getting right. They are common mistakes that will stick out like a sore thumb in your social media posts. I mentioned Twitter and Facebook, but if you use LinkedIn, correct writing counts even more, as it is a professional site. And many people, including authors, use all social media for business, even if it crosses over into the personal. Even your personal Facebook page reflects you as a writer or any other type of professional you might be.

Here are some things you really need to get right:

Proofread your posts, no matter how short they are. If your best proofreading is done after you hit Send or Post (like me), you will have to learn to do it a little sooner. We all make silly typing mistakes. I know that proofing your own writing is boring, believe me. I don’t like doing it, but then when I, writing about grammar, send out a post with mistakes in it, imagine how embarrassed I am! It doesn’t take long, so just get in the habit of proofing whatever you Tweet or post.


Don’t confuse its and it’s, whether you have made a grammatical error or a typing one. It’s is a contraction meaning it is . ALL contractions have apostrophes, and it’s is no exception. Its is possessive. No possessive pronouns have apostrophes ( hers, ours, yours, theirs ).


Ditto your and you’re. Use you’re when you mean you are . It is a contraction, and all contractions have apostrophes. Your is possessive.


Be careful with your past participles. These are the verb forms you use with has or have . We have all seen or heard people use have went, have took, have wrote . These are incorrect. It is have gone, have taken , and have written . Also note have brought (not brung) and have swum, rung , and drunk —not have swam , have rang, or have drank . And there are many more of these irregular verbs, so look them up if you are unsure.


If you have two sentences, please put a period between them. If you like semicolons and your sentences are closely related, use a semicolon. If you are using a conjunction like and or but , you can use a comma. What I am telling you is don’t use a comma alone to separate sentences. Here is an example:


Check out this article, I think you will like it. WRONG
Check out this article. I think you will like it. RIGHT
Check out this article; I think you will like it. RIGHT
Check out this article, because I think you will like it. RIGHT


Please don’t use apostrophes in your plain old plural words. You didn’t post photo’s . You posted photos . Apostrophes are for possessives and contractions, not plurals. The only time you need an apostrophe in a plural is when not using one would be confusing: I got all A‘s on my report card (without the apostrophe, the word looks like as ).


Be careful with I versus me , him versus her, and who versus whom (which is tricky). I, he, she, who, we , and they are used for sentence subjects. Me, him, her, whom, us, and them are used for objects, which are generally after the verb or after a preposition like between, to, for , or with . And if there are two people and you are one of them, put yourself last. Here are some examples:


Me and him went out. WRONG
He and I went out. RIGHT
He gave it to him and I. WRONG
He gave it to him and me. (Hint: Take one of the people out and say the sentence: He gave it to him. He gave it to me. ) RIGHT
Between you and I. WRONG
Between you and me. RIGHT
Who are you going with? WRONG
Whom are you going with. RIGHT

Okay, who and whom are tricky. Here are a couple of hints: (1) Answer the question in that last example. Use him or he. If you would use him, you need to use whom: I am going with him. (2) Find the verbs in the sentence. Find the subject of each verb. If your who or whom is not the subject of any of the verbs, use whom. If it is a subject, use who. Or you can refer to a blog post I wrote about who and whom. 

If you pay attention to those seven guidelines, will your posts be grammatically perfect? Maybe, maybe not. But you will be avoiding the most common mistakes that I see online and the ones that will get you noticed—and not in a good way.

So happy posting! The great impression you give through your writing will pay off. And don’t forget to make your website grammatically pleasing too!

Grammar Diva News and Notes:

This past month I spoke at the Cloverdale Rotary, and next month I will be speaking at the Sausalito Rotary. Seems the Rotarians like my  talk! They even told me I could be a stand-up comedian, so I will be working on a grammar comedy routine (maybe).

The Best Grammar Workbook Ever!  has been selling well, likely because school has just started. Thank you to all who have purchased the book. In addition to print copies and PDF copies (which are available on this site), the book is now available on Kindle, Nook, iBooks, Kobo, Smashwords, etc. 

The next book I will be releasing is 50 Shades of Grammar, hopefully by the end of 2015.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Message from One Hero to Another by Jeff Deck, Typo Hunter

Jeff Deck, Hero

Let me say this up front: you can be a hero. I’d like to play the role of Splinter or Yoda here and kick you in the right direction.

First, though, what does “hero” even mean?

In 2008, Philadelphia Weekly called me an “American hero.” The New Yorker pondered whether I was a “literary folk hero.”

I hadn’t saved anyone from a raging river or fiery car wreck. I hadn’t passed any bold piece of progressive legislation. I’d just driven around the United States with a couple of friends on a quest to fix typos in public signage. (The journey culminated in a book, The Great Typo Hunt.)

Certainly I was playing at being a hero. I’d been writing mock-bombastic blog entries to chronicle my typo-hunting adventures. And in New Mexico, I picked up a cowboy hat that closely resembled the fedora worn by one of my favorite movie heroes, Indiana Jones. 

I had what you might call heroic aspirations. I thought my mission might make a difference. Maybe not as grand a difference as keeping the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail out of the hands of the Nazis. But, you know, a difference. Maybe I could help improve people’s spelling and grammar, and inspire them to proofread their work.

That’s not really being a hero, though, is it?

Or might heroism be easier to reach than we even realize? Let’s turn to a typo-hunter’s most constant friend: the dictionary.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary (and leaving aside definitions regarding mythology, protagonists, and sandwiches), a hero is:

A person noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life.


A person noted for special achievement in a particular field.

Definition 1 conveys that classic sense of service and sacrifice. But definition 2 is interesting: special achievement in a particular field. That sounds like something any of us could achieve if we worked hard enough at it.

Let’s call striving for that “special achievement” purpose. We don’t want to lose the important idea of service to others in definition 1, though. So let’s combine them.

Here’s a working definition for a hero: someone noted for both extraordinary purpose and service. 

So. You don’t have to dash into a burning building to be a hero. You don’t even have to be able to dash at all. That’s a relief. You just need to dedicate yourself to something great, and to help others as well. All of us can achieve those things. All of us.

What’s your purpose, then? Maybe it’s typo-hunting. If you’re reading this blog, chances are your purpose is something language-related. You’re an English teacher. Or a copy editor. Or a technical writer.

Or maybe your purpose isn’t your day job, after all. You could be fixated on a creative goal: fiction, jazz composition, charcoal drawing. Me, I’ve taken my hero obsession into novel writing, where my fictional counterparts struggle against impossible odds to achieve great things.

Whatever your purpose is, follow it with commitment and persistence. Put in your 10,000 hours of deliberate practice, as Malcolm Gladwell advises. If you’re devoting consistent time and effort to your purpose, you can count yourself a hero.

Just don’t forget about the service side as well. The two sides of heroism should balance out. A hero focused on purpose without service risks becoming a villain. (Conversely, a hero focused on service without purpose risks becoming a martyr instead.)

This is more than just rhetoric. Consider how one side feeds the other. You can be of greater service to others only with greater skills at your disposal. And you can achieve greater things only with a greater network of friends and supporters. 

For example, if you’re a freelance editor, let’s say you offer to clean up the copy on a local nonprofit’s website pro bono. You might just be opening the doors to new clients (friends and colleagues of the people who work at that nonprofit). As your business increases, you become a master of line editing and a virtuoso of typo-hunting. Suddenly you’re asked to join a panel of experts to help shape the next edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. And the heroic cycle continues. 

If you’re a fiction writer, helping other people in the author community (by giving feedback, spreading word about their books, etc.) doesn’t just benefit them. It also benefits you, by increasing your reputation as an author who genuinely cares about other authors. When you eventually need a favor yourself—more reviews of your work, say, or a place to crash in Seattle during your book tour—you’ll be more likely to find the help you need. 

(And that help might not even be from the same people you helped originally. Crowds form around those with a mindset of generosity, as Wharton professor Adam Grant’s research suggests.)

Then, once you’ve reached a higher level of skill and status as an author, your power to help others increases. Your enthusiastic blurb on somebody else’s book cover carries far more influence. Your free local workshop on fiction writing becomes a huge help for all who attend, because you’ve been there and you know what you’re talking about. And the heroic cycle continues.

I mean, Indiana Jones wasn’t in it just for the glory. He wanted to get those artifacts into museums.

So yeah, maybe I wasn’t exactly a hero during the Great Typo Hunt. But I’d like to think I was headed in the right direction.

These days my mission is to become a hero in the world of indie novels. I decided to stop relying on the approval of the traditional publishing establishment and strike out on my own. My sci-fi gaming adventure novel Player Choice came out earlier this year. And starting in September, I’m releasing a serialized horror novel, The Pseudo-Chronicles of Mark Huntley, in four parts.

Both stories feature a main character trying to accomplish something daunting in the face of vast forces of indifference and opposition. The parallels to indie authorship itself have not been lost on me. So far I think you can count my total novel sales on all your fingers and only some of your toes.

But I’ve been learning a lot along the way. I’ve been thinking a lot about purpose and service. I’ve decided that right now is pretty much the best time there is to reach for heroism.

I hope you’ll have the same realization. If you need further inspiration for becoming a hero in your field or area of passion, please drop me a line at jeffdeck@jeffdeck.com. I’d love to hear about your challenges and aspirations.

You can also consider subscribing to my e-newsletter for a weekly dose of heroic musing (not to mention updates about geeky books).

I’ll leave you with this quote from musician and writer Gerard Way: “Heroes are ordinary people who make themselves extraordinary.” Keep at it!

Jeff Deck is a writer and editor who lives in Maine. His speculative fiction includes the sci-fi gaming adventure Player Choice and the forthcoming serialized horror novel The Pseudo-Chronicles of Mark Huntley. He is also the co-author of The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time (with Benjamin D. Herson).

Note from The Grammar Diva: I first heard about the Great Typo Hunt right after it happened and the book came out. I was obviously enthralled with the whole idea! When Jeff and his co-author Benjamin Herson were on their book tour, I went to see them at Borders (boo-boo, miss it) in San Francisco at the Stonestown mall. I wanted to be them! At least they are now my Facebook friends, and I have this wonderful blog post — and Jeff was kind enough to write the blurb that is on the front cover of my new workbook.

Plugs from The Grammar Diva: The Best Little Grammar Book Ever and Correct Me If I’m Wrong are now on sale for back to school on Kindle. They are each $3.99 instead of their usual $8.99 for a limited time. And The Best Grammar Workbook Ever is now available as an ebook from Kindle, Kobo, Smashwords, and very soon ibooks and Nook — and all the others.

 

It’s Back to School Time! (already?)

You can always tell when it’s Back to School time—Target puts out the aisles and aisles of notebooks, markers, pencils, and folders where lawn furniture was the week before. But wait! Summer is only half over. True. We used to go back to school after Labor Day, somewhere at the beginning of September. Now, teachers are returning to work as early as next week! And students return a few days later. So much for that “teachers have three months off in the summer” remark! School gets out at the beginning of June. Most teachers stay a few days to a few weeks after school ends to get things in order. And most are probably back in their classrooms already getting things in order for school to begin. There are copies to be made, lessons to be planned, and furniture to be put back into place after summer floor waxing. So much for the three months, which is pretty much down to two months now. But I do not need to go back this year, so I digress . . .

Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Common Core, Technology . . . what about grammar? Is grammar taught anymore? Oh, sometimes.  I don’t think you find too much grammar being taught in high school (most of the time). What about  elementary school and middle school?? I think it varies with the teacher. Some teachers probably don’t really feel comfortable with their own knowledge of grammar; it tends to be one of those things that you forget and don’t think about unless you use it all the time.  More importantly, some teachers feel their students will be bored with grammar, so they keep it light-handed (I didn’t, of course). There is the school of thought that grammar should be taught along with the literature and not as its own subject. I disagree with that and think that is like hiding the broccoli in the mashed potatoes so the kids will eat it.

The Common Core standards are full of grammar even though, as an English teacher,  I never heard the grammar mentioned. It was always about “critical thinking,” which is important, but so are writing skills, of which grammar is an important part. And the Common Core grammar expectations are very high, much higher than the grammar skills of the students I have seen.

And there is no G (for grammar) in STEM, the new acronym for what is important in education (and the E doesn’t stand for English, either). STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.  Many of us would like to see that changed to STEAM: the A stands for the Arts. No doubt about it: that is where education is heading. It’s all about technology. After all, that is where the jobs are, particularly in my part of the country.

BUT . . .  and there is a big BUT here. Years ago, when I was a technical writer, they liked to hire writers. They said that it was easier to teach the technical things to those who knew how to write than to teach the technical folks how to write. It seems that the tide has turned and more technical people are being hired. This may be because there are more technically trained  people to choose from now. And let’s face it: technical knowledge has always proven to be more lucrative than writing.

However, there have been multiple articles recently on the value of a liberal arts education—yes, even for technical jobs. A liberal education teaches one how to think, how to problem solve, and makes one a well-rounded employee. In  fact, there is a new book (which I own but cannot talk about because I haven’t yet read it) called In Defense of a Liberal Education. Its author, Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post columnist and CNN personality, “expounds on the virtues of a liberal education, ” according to the book jacket.

A couple of years ago I taught a grammar and business writing workshop to a group of accountants. When I asked them how much of their job required writing, they replied “about 90 percent.” Most of us need to write.

Technology is not taking away our need to write either. The content has simply switched from print to online, while it has increased exponentially in volume. Websites, promotional materials, social media . . . online is where a company’s and an employee’s reputation is often built. Writing is a reflection of who you are. We know that people do not like to do business with a website riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. 

Colleges are still complaining about the number of students who enter needing remedial English courses, and companies are still complaining about employees’ lack of writing ability. 

How about STELM: Science, technology, engineering, language, and mathematics. We don’t even care if the L is silent.

If you are a teacher or student returning to school soon, have a good year! 

If you have purchased one of my grammar books, thank you! And, if you like, a review on Amazon is always appreciated!

By the way, The Best Grammar Workbook ever is now available in PDF form from this site and also will be up on Kindle as an interactive e-book hopefully this week! Other e-book readers very soon!

 

 

 

The Meeting in the Mens Room?

 
Before we go any farther, let me say that this is not a post discussing whether or not there should be an apostrophe in mens (in the title of this post) or whether said apostrophe should be before or after the s. No one can seem to decide whether that usage is a singular or plural possessive, or whether it is possessive at all, but there certainly has been a lot of discussion about it. It seems that most people have decided to just leave the apostrophe out. Does that room belong to one man or many men? We’ll let that question hang . . .

On to the topic at hand. If you heard about the meeting in the mens room, we could be confused, especially if you tell someone that or send a memo with that wording. Is the meeting really in the mens room? (Well, that is what the sentence says.) Or did you hear about some meeting while you were in the mens room? (More likely.)

Usually we understand what is being said or read even when the words are a little jumbled, but not always, so it is best to avoid what are generally  known as “misplaced modifiers.”

What are modifiers? Anything — a word, a phrase, or a clause that describes something in the sentence. Adjectives and adverbs are words that are modifiers. Phrases are also sometimes modifiers; they serve as adjectives or adverbs in a sentence, telling what kind, to what extent, how, or how many. 

Most of the time, when we talk about things being “misplaced” in a sentence, we are talking about participial phrases, hence the term dangling participle. We aren’t talking about participles here, though. This post is about misplaced prepositional phrases.  But back to participles for a moment . . .

Participles are called “dangling” when they don’t modify anything at all in the sentence. They are called “misplaced” when they modify something in the sentence, but are placed so that they appear to modify something else. Here are a couple of examples:

Freshly cleaned and pressed, I picked up my shirts from the dry cleaner. Freshly cleaned and pressed is misplaced; it refers to the shirts, but it is placed so that it modifies I. (I was freshly cleaned and pressed?)

While still in diapers, my mother remarried.  While still in diapers is dangling. It looks as if it modifies mother. It obviously isn’t intended to. It modifies something (likely I) that isn’t in the sentence at all.

Now, for this post, back to prepositions. Let’s review. Prepositions always come in little phrases. The phrase always begins with the preposition, is followed often by an article (a, an, the), and ends with a noun or pronoun, which is the object of the preposition. Prepositions tell what kind, when, or where. Here are some prepositional phrases:

in the house

beyond the horizon

out the door

under the table

across the street

with blue stripes (no article in this one, but the object has an adjective before it)

Now if you put this prepositional phrase someplace in the sentence where it is not clear what it modifies or where it seems to modify the wrong word, it is misplaced. Take the example at the beginning of this post:

I heard about the meeting in the men’s room. This sentence would probably be understood, especially if it were said, as opposed to written. However, there are ways to write it more clearly:

While I was in the mens room, I heard about the meeting.

In the mens room, I heard about the meeting (leaving the prepositional phrase intact).

Here are some other sentences with misplaced prepositional phrases:

1. My boss said on Tuesday I was being evaluated. Did he say it on Tuesday, or are you being evaluated on Tuesday? Hard to know. Rewrite the sentence to make it clearer:

My boss said that I was being evaluated on Tuesday. 

On Tuesday my boss told me I was going to be evaluated.

2. I read a book about the killer bees in the library. Were the killer bees in the library? Rewrite the sentence to make it clearer.

In the library I read a book about killer bees.

3. I heard about the hurricane at Starbucks. Unless hurricane is a new coffee drink, you  might want to rewrite this one too!

I heard about the hurricane while I was at Starbucks.

At Starbucks I heard about the hurricane.

Drinking my latte at Starbucks, I heard about the hurricane.

4. Did you find the old baby clothes worn by your little sister in the trunk? Who’s in the trunk? Rewrite to clear this up:

In that trunk did you find the old baby clothes worn by your little sister? (Careful you don’t rewrite it as Did you find the old baby clothes in the trunk worn by your little sister?)

It is very easy to put modifiers someplace in the sentence where they will be either ambiguous or simply misleading. Be careful — and proofread! 

-The Grammar Diva-

p.s.  Thank you for making July my best book sales month ever!

 

Irregular? We’re Talking Verbs Here!

You’ve heard of angry birds. Well, how about angry verbs????

Have you ever heard a perfectly well-educated person say, “I have went . . .” Most likely you have, and so have I. I liken it to the squeaking of chalk on a blackboard (do they even have those anymore?).

Other verbs are similarly misused: I have wrote, we have swam, the bell has rang,  the water has froze, and so on.

The issue here is irregular verb forms. Verbs have three forms: base form, past tense, and past participle. Regular verbs, which the majority of verbs are, add an -ed to the end to form the past tense and part participle forms.  But many, many verbs are not regular.

Here are a few regular verbs:

Base                 Past                   Past Participle

walk                    walked                (have) walked

play                    played                  (have) played

study                  studied                (have) studied

Like the word study, words that end in y generally change the y to an i and add the -ed. These verbs are still considered regular.

What are these forms used for? They are used to make different tenses. This post isn’t about tenses; however, there are six main tenses (and then another six companion tenses, but that is another blog post). However, these three verb forms are the only ones used in making different tenses.

Of course, the present tense is the verb in its base form: I walk

The past tense uses that second form: I walked

The past participle is the form of the verb you would use with have, has or had. These are yet other tenses: He has walked, I have walked, we had walked.

Although this post isn’t technically about tenses, let’s clear up the difference between I walked (past tense) and I have walked (present perfect tense). They are not interchangeable even though they are both in the past.

You wouldn’t say, “I have walked to the store yesterday.” You would say, “I walked to the store yesterday.”

What is the difference? The past tense (walked) is used for something that you did, and now it’s finished. The present perfect tense (have walked) is used for something that began in the past but may be continuing in the present. For example: “I have played tennis for ten years” implies that you are still playing. “I played tennis for ten years” implies you may no longer be playing. 

So back to the forms. Regular verbs are easy. But there are so many verbs that do not follow the regular pattern.

Some verbs do not change at all in the three forms. They are always the same: Burst, cost, and set are three of these verbs. There is no bursted, costed, or setted. Others are put  and let.

Example: I am setting the table. Last night I set the table. Every night this week, I have set the table.

Here are some of the trickiest irregular verbs:

begin, began, have begun

bring, brought, have brought

choose, chose, have chosen

drink, drank, have drunk

freeze, froze, have frozen

go, went, have gone

lend, lent, have lent

ring, rang, have rung

rise, rose, have risen

run, ran, have run

shrink, shrank, have shrunk

speak, spoke, have spoken

steal, stole, have stolen

swim, swam, have swum

take, took, have taken (there is no tooken!)

write, wrote, have written

Then, of course, there are the really crazy ones, the craziest of which are lie and lay.They are two separate verbs. Here are their forms:

Base                Past             Past Participle

lie                       lay                    have lain

lay                     laid                    have laid

So lay is actually pretty regular, as verbs go.

The moral of the story? If you are unsure of a verb form, just look it up! My new workbook does have a section about irregular verbs. You can also find your answer in a dictionary (online or paper), and in some grammar books.

Please share this post with your friends!

 

 

 

From Journalist to Novelist: Guest post by Sheri Graves

 

Sheri Graves

I always knew I would be a writer, even as a child. I didn’t know if I could make a living at it, but I knew it’s what I wanted to do. I felt so strongly about it that, at about age 10, I launched my own newspaper based on interviews of pilots and observations of the day-to-day workings at Reid’s Hillview Airport, which was next door to our ranch in San Jose. It was hand printed on NCR paper and I sold it at the airport for 25 cents per copy.

We moved to Sonoma County in 1959, and I started attending Santa Rosa High School. I took journalism in my junior and senior years, serving two semesters as the editor of the school newspaper. Seven months after graduation, I was a “copy boy” at The Press Democrat and 14 months later was promoted to the position of reporter. After more than 42 years at the newspaper, I retired in 2004.

Just as I always knew I would be a writer, I always knew I’d write a novel someday. But, after so many years of writing and editing nonfiction at a newspaper, making the transition to fiction proved difficult. My first try at novel writ ing was a disaster. When it was finished, I read it through from beginning to end. I could think of only three words to describe my work: stink, stank, stunk.

That first effort had started out with good ideas literally ripped from newspaper headlines and massaged into “what-if” scenarios. I had developed good characters and good plots, but I knew the novel didn’t work. I shoved the project aside.

I wasn’t ready to give up, though I waited a while to try again. In the interim, I must have read 50 novels in the genre I wanted to write. I didn’t want to do anything derivative and vowed to come up with new ideas, new plots, new characters. I ripped more articles from newspapers, did research, and interviewed experts. I was more pragmatic the second time around. I did an outline and kept expanding it until it became an intricate web of different plots.

I like complicated novels, those with a number of interweaving plotlines crisscrossing each other until they come together in a satisfying conclusion that ties up all loose ends. I like novels with colorful characters, crisp dialogue, twists and turns, unexpected events, suspense, and tension. And, my favorite novels have humor and satire— something to make me laugh out loud. Finally,  my idea of a great novel is to leave the reader wanting more.

That’s what I wanted to write. I knew the first draft of my second attempt at novel writing wasn’t good enough, but it had possibilities. For the second draft, I killed two storylines. Then, I reached into stink-stank-stunk and pulled three characters from it. I dropped them into my new novel and threaded them through the existing plots, fleshing them out and giving them purpose. More rewrites followed. I let my novel rest for a while, read it through from beginning to end, and realized it still wasn’t good enough. I killed another storyline that wasn’t working. More rewrites ensued.

Friends and family, highly respected for their literacy and writing skills, gave me critical evaluations. Partial and full rewrites continued to within a week of submitting the manuscript for publication.

I finally self-published through Amazon’s CreateSpace. The paperback version of my novel, Deep Doo-Doo, came out in October 2014. The ebook for Kindle became available in December 2014. A few months later, Deep Doo-Doo won the 2015 National Indie Excellence® Award for Crime Fiction.

The point of my story is this: If you want to write a novel and you have confidence in your writing skill and talent, you should at least give it a shot. And don’t jump off a cliff just because it doesn’t work out right away. Keep at it. There is a learning curve to everything, and your novel-writing learning curves may be much shorter than mine.

I’m now working on the second novel of the trilogy introduced by Deep Doo-Doo. For more information, see my website: www.sherigraves.com.

 

Sheri Graves
Writer, Editor, Writing Coach

Sheri Graves has been writing for publication for more than five decades.
Her 40+ years with The (Santa Rosa, California) Press Democrat
included 29+ as a reporter and 14 as a copy editor. She retired in
December 2004, one month shy of her 43rd anniversary with the paper.

Graves won numerous awards for journalism and writing
excellence, including first place prizes from the Press Club of San
Francisco, the California and National Newspaper Publishers
Associations, and California Medical Association.

In “retirement,” Graves is a freelance writer and editor who has done contract work for Internet companies and nonprofit organizations. Graves also edited two anthologies for Senior Authors of Santa Rosa, an independent memoir writing group that hired her in 2013 to be the class instructor and writing coach.

Her debut novel, Deep Doo-Doo, won the 2015 Crime Fiction prize in
the National Indie Excellence Awards competition. The book is available
 at www.Amazon.com. Graves has three other books in the works:

* You Are the Write Stuff, a how-to on memoir writing.
* Turkey in the Straw, a  follow-up to Deep Doo-Doo.
* Pig in a Poke, a  follow-up to Turkey in the Straw.

The Grammar Diva says: Sheri and I met when we both did a mini book festival at the Sonoma County Library’s main branch in Santa Rosa several months ago. We exchanged books and she asked me to come speak to her senior memoir-writing group. It was a fun experience with a group of people who knew more about grammar than any audience I have spoken to! I then read her book, Deep Doo-Doo and loved it! Great characters, interwoven plots, humor, and crime all rolled into one. I recommend it!

Next week’s post: Let’s talk about those annoying irregular verbs!