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Grammar Tip of the Week
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Ruth
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Mar 02, 2015 04:34PM
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Double Adverbs
"Several adverbs not ending in -ly -- especially doubtless, fast, ill, much, seldom, thus -- have nonword counterparts ending in -ly. Using doubtlessly, fastly, etc. is poor style. The terms with the superfluous -ly reveal an ignorance of idiom."
source: Garner's Modern American Usage
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antithesis
In rhetoric, "the placement of contrasting or opposing ideas in a parallel construction (The prodigal robs his heir, as the miser robs himself). Examples:
Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar)
To err is human, to forgive divine. (Alexander Pope)
Taste consists in the power of judging, genius in the power of execution. Taste appreciates; genius creates. (George Campbell)"
source: Garner's Modern American Usage
If to define is devine then misuse is abuse.
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epistrophe
"The emphatic repetition of a sound, word, or phrase at the end of successive clauses, verses, or sentences (e.g. Charity beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things). One of the best-known examples of epistrophe in American rhetoric is in the concluding sentence of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: 'and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.'"
source: Garner's Modern American Usage
Regarding up-talking, what sayeth Garner?Up-talking is the habitual ending of sentences with a high pitch instead of lower. This often sounds like the up-talker is asking a string of questions or knows nothing about what he is speaking or asking permission for something. Some salesmen use this technique for throwing the conversation to the other speaker.
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The Irish talk like that, and the Scots.
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Sun., March 8
forbid, forbade, forbidden
"The past tense is forbade (rhyming with glad) -- e.g. '[Locke] sharply distinguished the respective spheres of Church and State and forbade each from meddling in the other.' Clifford Orwin, 'Civility,' American Scholar. Forbid is sometimes wrongly used as a past-tense form... In fact, the slack usage is so common that some dictionaries now list forbid as an alternative."
Source: Garner's Modern American Usage
Kenneth P. wrote: "The Irish talk like that, and the Scots."I love to hear the Irish and Scots accent but I was wondering if Garner's American Usage comments on the American phenomemon.
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mood
"The characteristic of a verb's form that shows the speaker's attitude, and expresses whether the action or state it denotes is a fact, command, possibility, or wish.
declarative mood The normal mood of a verb, in contrast to the imperative, interrogative and subjunctive moods.
imperative mood The mood used to express a command, or to instruct, incite, or encourage. Imperatives are typically uninflected verbs used to state something firmly (Start now), but they are tempered when trying to be polite or show respect (Bring that file here, please).
indicative mood The mood used to express an idea as objective fact.
interrogative mood The mood used to show that something is a question. Some grammarians consider this not to be a separate mood in English; they classify it as indicative.
optative mood A mood that expresses a desire or hope. Languages such as classical Greek have optative verb forms, but in English the subjunctive is used in expressions such as Heaven help him!
subjunctive mood The mood that expresses an action or state not as a reality, but as a mental conception. The subjunctive mood is not often used in modern English apart from a few expressions such as if I were you."
source: Garner's Modern American Usage
Newengland wrote: "Mon., March 9mood
"The characteristic of a verb's form that shows the speaker's attitude, and expresses whether the action or state it denotes is a fact, command, possibility, or wish.
declara..."
Thank you N E. That is very interesting to keep in the back of mind. I had little realization "mood" or "attitude" was considered in the structural culture of (American) speech so prominently well detailed by an authority. I had heard whisperings, still, this may be a well kept secret talent of poetry writers. The order of words and phrases can force emphases into modifying the design of a thought and is often done by omission, repetition and misspelling rather than by strict conformity.
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offhand, offhanded
"Although offhand (not offhanded) is the standard adjective, offhandedly is the standard adverb."
Don't you just love curveballs?
source: Garner's Modern American Usage
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Spelling Lesson of the Day
"Judgment is the preferred form in American English and in British legal texts, even as far back as the 19th century. Judgement is prevalent in British nonlegal texts and was thought by H.W. Fowler to be the better form."
source: Garner's Modern American Usage
Comment: Weird how the Brits split their spelling between legalese and vernacular.
Newengland wrote: "Comment: Weird how the Brits split their spelling between legalese and vernacular."In general, we don't. There is specialist vocabulary, as with any profession, but I think this is the only word where we use different spellings in different domains.
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Sat., March 14
plum vs. plumb
"As well as being the name of a fruit and of the reddish-purple color of that fruit, plum is used figuratively as an adjective meaning 'desirable,' especially to describe a job (a plum ambassadorship). Plumb as an adjective describes something that is truly vertical (plumb line). Writers sometimes commit a malapropism by misusing plumb for plum...
"The adjective plumb, 'perfectly straight, vertical,' by dialectal extension of the 'perfectly straight sense,' has come to mean 'entirely, wholly' (I'm plumb tired). But some writers confuse the spelling by associating it somehow with fruit -- e.g.: Shelley, a 13-week-old spring spaniel, looks plum-tired (read plumb-tired) during an obedience class...
"Plumb is also a verb meaning 'to measure depth, esp. of water.' The confusion with plum occasionally persists with this sense as well -- e.g.: 'Her poetry is insightful in a way you might expect from someone who plums the depths (read plumbs the depths) of emotions and the mind.'"
source: Garner's Modern American Usage
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plumbline plumline plummed plumbob > neither in the Goodreads spell check but plumbed is. Neither is Goodreads, a brand name by now, for that matter. An interesting relative is "aplomb" meaning true or correct in a general sense. His hat and tie were aplomb with his thin smile.
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corporal vs. corporeal
"These terms have undergone differentiation. Corporal = of or affecting the body (corporal punishment). Corporeal = having a physical material body; substantial. E.g.: 'Actual people aren't images, but substantial, physical, corporeal beings with souls.' Larry Woiwode...."
source: Garner's Modern American Usage
Related: people sometimes confuse corporal punishment (beating etc) with capital punishment (execution)!
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cleave
"(1) to divide or separate, split; or (2) to adhere to firmly. In other words, it has opposite meanings (see CONTRONYMS.) In sense 1, cleave yields the past tense cleft (or, less good, clove) and the past participle cleft (or, again less good, cleaved). The past-participle adjective is cloven. Hence, "He cleft the Devil's cloven hoof with a cleaver." In sense 2, the verb is inflected cleave > cleaved > cleaved. Hence: "Antoinette's tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth, and she said nothing." Wayne Thomas Batson..."
source: Garner's Modern American Usage
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Plural Nouns Ending in -f
"Some words change in the plural from a final -f to -ves, but others simply become -fs. Following are the main ones that change:
beef, beeves (fattened cattle)
calf, calves
elf, elves
half, halves
hoof, hooves
knife, knives
leaf, leaves
life, lives
loaf, loaves
scarf, scarves
self, selves
sheaf, sheaves
shelf, shelves
staff, staves (in music)
thief, thieves
wharf, wharves
wife, wives
wolf, wolves
And these are the ones that preferably don't change:
beef, beefs (types of meat or complaints)
dwarf, dwarfs
handkerchief, handkerchiefs
kerchief, kerchiefs
oaf, oafs
proof, proofs
roof, roofs
staff, staffs (except in music)
Note, however, that the plural of still life is still lifes."
source: Garner's Modern American Usage
Is "still life" a compound word noun? I would hyphenate it because "still" as an adjective can also mean dead. My dictionary hyphenates "still-life" if it is a picture or an artist.Is this a transition word? How long are words left as transition words until they are no longer hyphenated or spelling adapted to be one word? Someone once told me 40 years but how would you know? Is this true?
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;-)
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rarely ever
"Though old, the phrase rarely ever is literally nonsensical -- as many idioms are, of course. But this one is easily corrected to rarely, rarely if ever, or rarely or never -- e.g.: 'Norv Turner is a conservative, low-key, play-them-one-game-at-a-time coach who rarely ever [read rarely] gushes.' Bill Free."
source: Garner's Modern American Usage
pet peave: SIGN or SIGNAGE (there is a very little wiggle room)A <<< sign >>> is a command, gesture, object, placard, or A PHYSICAL OBJECT OR A MOTION that contains or conveys a fact, information, revelation or directions
<<< signage >>> is in singular or aggregate any of those command(s), gesture(s), facts(s), information, or revelation, etc. BUT HAS NO SPECIFIC PHYSICAL PROPERTIES.
examples:
I followed the signage to my destination.
The signs directed me to my destination.
I received a sign from heaven.
The cop was making hand signs.
The factory was making signs.
The highway department designed the signage.
The signage was painted onto the signs.
The signs were mounted on posts.
Signage was painted on the walls.
The signage informed us.
There were signs with directions on them.
The location had a sign in front of it.
The sign read this is the place.
The signage led us to this place.
There were "no-parking" signs along the street.
The street had no traffic signage.
There were "stop" signs at each intersection.
There was signage along the route.
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Sunday, March 22
ipso facto
"Ipso facto (= by the fact or act itself; by its very nature) is sometimes replaceable by a more direct wording, such as necessarily or in itself... but the Latinism is sometimes undeniably useful -- e.g.: 'H.L. Mencken, who began his career as a police reporter in Baltimore, wrote that he quickly encountered what he called the 'police mentality': Every person accused or suspected of a crime is ipso facto guilty of that offense.' Jack Wardlaw, 'Reacting to a Harmful TV Story,' Times Picayune (New Orleans)... The phrase need not be italicized."
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minutia
"(= a trivial detail; a trifling matter) is the singular of the plural minutiae. Though much less common than the plural, minutia is hardly unknown. Unfortunately, it is almost always misused for the plural..."
source: Garner's Modern American Usage
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O; Oh
"Although the distinction isn't always observed, there is one: O denotes either a wish or a classically stylized address (Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem -- Psalm 147), while Oh expresses a range of emotions from sorrow to pain to shock to longing to momentary hesitation (Oh! You frightened me!) (Oh? You want me to get that?). O is always capitalized, comes just before a noun, and is usually not followed by any punctuation -- e.g. 'O Dionysus, it would be so humiliating to have a seizure now!'
"Oh may be lowercase if it occurs in mid sentence and is always set off by commas inside a sentence (I was just thing that, oh, I miss my home.)"
source: Garner's Modern American Usage
Doug wrote: "I almost always don't ..."
Doug wrote: "pet peave: SIGN or SIGNAGE (there is a very little wiggle room)
A >> is a command, gesture, object, placard, or A PHYSICAL OBJECT OR A MOTION that contains or conveys a fact, information, revelat..."
Doug wrote: "I almost always don't ..."
Thank you for explaining this. I always hear "signage" at work, and while I don't use it myself, I always thought it was a dumb word that business people invented to make themselves sound more clever (because God knows that's what we do all day).
Anyways, now I realize I have been listening to the incorrect use of "signage".
Doug wrote: "pet peave: SIGN or SIGNAGE (there is a very little wiggle room)
A >> is a command, gesture, object, placard, or A PHYSICAL OBJECT OR A MOTION that contains or conveys a fact, information, revelat..."
Doug wrote: "I almost always don't ..."
Thank you for explaining this. I always hear "signage" at work, and while I don't use it myself, I always thought it was a dumb word that business people invented to make themselves sound more clever (because God knows that's what we do all day).
Anyways, now I realize I have been listening to the incorrect use of "signage".
S. Thomas wrote: "Doug wrote: "I almost always don't ..."Doug wrote: "pet peave: SIGN or SIGNAGE (there is a very little wiggle room)
A >> is a command, gesture, object, placard, or A PHYSICAL OBJECT OR A MOTION..."
You're welcome. I'm glad to shed some lightage.
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catenative verb
"A transitive verb that can take a verbal as its object (I like to write) (I like writing)."
"transitive, adj. (of a verb) requiring a direct object to complete the idea of showing what action the subject exerts."
source: Garner's Modern American Usage
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We'll never flop this to rest, will we?
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verbal (n.) "1. a nonfinite verb (e.g. a gerund, infinitive, present participle, or past participle) -- so called because it does not carry a tense marker or signal person, number, or mood, and may never appear as the sole item in a verb phrase. As a nonfinite verb, a verbal makes no assertion. 2. In some grammatical systems, a word or phrase that occupies a position typically occupied by a verb."
source: Garner's Modern American Usage
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Like a gerund. "Writing is my thing." Here writing is a verbal, not a verb, because it functions as a noun.
To write is worthwhile. Again, infinitive (verbal), but the only real verb in the sentence -- "is."
Writing furiously, I tried to finish before the bell. The participial phrase "writing furiously" looks like a verb but it's a verbal -- functioning as an adjective phrase modifying "I."
I hope I got that right.
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impactful (adj.), is barbarous jargon dating from the mid -1970s. Unlike other adjectives ending in -ful, it cannot be idiomatically rendered in the phrase full of [+ quality], as in beautiful (= full of beauty), regretful (=full of regret), scornful (=full of scorn), and spiteful (=full of spite). If impact truly denotes a quality, it does so only in its newfangled uses as a verb (it impacts us all) and as an adjective (the mechanic's tool known as an impact driver).
"Whatever its future may be, impactful is, for now, a word to be scorned. Among its established replacements are influential and powerful..."
source: Garner's Modern American Usage
On Wikipedia, I found the following: While the absolute construction is not particularly common in modern English and is generally more often seen in writing than in speech, it may be spoken as one of several fixed expressions:[4]
[1] Barring bad weather, we plan to go to the beach tomorrow.
[2] All things considered, it's not a bad idea.
I agree that #2 contains an absolute construction (all things considered), but isn't #1 (barring bad weather) simply a participle phrase? I thought there always had to be a noun or pronoun (in the subjective case) attached to the participle to form an absolute construction.
Language & Grammar
Books mentioned in this topic
Nakamura Reality (other topics)Garner's Modern American Usage (other topics)
Garner's Modern American Usage (other topics)
Garner's Modern American Usage (other topics)
Garner's Modern American Usage (other topics)
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