Poll Results 57

This was the question:

How many errors are in this sentence? "The paramedic, who tried to staunch the flow of blood rushed patient to the hospital."

One	16 (11%)
Two	81 (56%)
Three	42 (29%)
None	5 (3%)

So 29% of you are correct. Here are the three errors:

1) To staunch should be to stanch. These two words are confused all the time. Staunch is an adjective meaning firm, as in I am a staunch believer in good spelling. Stanch is a verb that means to stop the flow, as in I stanched the flow of blood coming from my head.
2) You can't have just one comma. You need either two (the second one would be after blood) or none, depending on the context.
3) The word the is missing before patient.

Sorry I haven't been posting lately. I was in Italy. I highly recommend Pompeii!

Writer Mag Column 10: Long Sentences/Fragments

Aim to be average: Avoid overly long sentences and sentence fragments

No writer wants to be average. As far as your sentence length, though, average is better most of the time. The long and the short of it is this: If you stuff in too many things, you’ve got an overly long sentence. Readers shy away from such sentences because they hate getting lost amid clauses and commas. On the other hand, if you leave out a subject, verb and/or object, you’re stuck with a fragment. Incomplete sentences may annoy readers if you use this device too often. Neither kind of sentence is ideal--usually.

Let’s look at long sentences first. Marcel Proust is famous for writing long, unintelligible--I mean, artful--sentences. He even wrote a 958-word behemoth once. Congratulations to him, but too bad for readers. Back in Proust’s day, e-mail and TV didn’t exist to distract the public, so I guess readers were a hardier bunch. And copy editors must have been scarce. Nowadays, though, most readers won’t stand for such windiness. They just don’t have a very long attention span.

Proust’s enormous sentence is an anomaly, but long sentences certainly haven’t disappeared. These days, plenty of meandering sentences roam through manuscripts. Here are some ways to tell if your sentence is too long:

1. You read your sentence but can’t remember what happened at the beginning of it.

2. The sentence contains more than 20 words.

3. The grammar-checker in your word-processing program underlines your entire sentence with a long squiggle, and the squiggle goes on for several lines.

4. Your sentence contains too many “which,” “that” and “who” clauses; an overabundance of commas and semicolons; at least a few cases of “and” or “but”; and multiple pairs of em dashes or parentheses.

The best way to tame your inner Proust is to figure out what you’re trying to say. Pinpoint what your main idea is. This is often difficult because you’ve probably crammed two or three main points into your long sentence. Once you remember the sentence’s main idea, you must cut out all of your detours. You’ll then have to strategically place these leftovers somewhere else. You can create new sentences out of some of these parts. Other parts you may have to squeeze in somewhere nearby. You may even need to delete some of your leftover crumbs, so don’t become too attached to every word you create. Once you’ve allotted everything to its proper location, make sure all of your new sentences fit together seamlessly.

You’re aiming for medium-sized sentences--around 20 words long on average. Average length means minuscule by Proust’s standards. Although Proust was able to cram in 10 or more ideas into each sentence, today’s readers can’t process that many ideas simultaneously.

Let’s do a little test to see how many ideas are too many for one sentence:

One idea: The actress went to an audition. (Fine.)

Two ideas: Although the actress went to the audition, she didn’t get the part. (Still fine.)

Three ideas: Although the actress went to the audition, which lasted one hour, she didn’t get the part. (Still fine, but getting to be a little long.)

Four ideas: Although the actress went to the audition, which lasted one hour, she didn’t get the part, which was for a woman who was stranded on a desert island. (Eek! That’s too unwieldy for most readers.)

Five ideas: Let’s not even go there.

If you wanted to impart all the information in the four-idea sentence, you’d have to break it into two sentences. One option would be this: Although the actress went to the one-hour audition, she didn’t get the part. She would have been playing a woman stranded on a desert island. Or you could eliminate one of the ideas, as here: The actress auditioned for but didn’t get the part of the woman stranded on a desert island.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, we find sentence fragments. Also known as incomplete sentences. Hey, do you think Proust ever wrote one of those? Nah. Bet not. Incomplete sentences are missing something. Often the subject.

Fragments can be a good device to use when you want to highlight something dramatic. For example, you might write, “The lurking man was carrying something in a knapsack. A head.” This fragment says, “Wow! Look at me. I’m special.”

Fragments do indeed call attention to themselves, but please use your head. If you overdo them, you’ll annoy your readers, and then nothing you write will seem special anymore. You may even confuse readers if you stick in a fragment that doesn’t clearly relate to the surrounding sentences.

So now we know that we don’t want sentences that are too long or too short. But by no means am I suggesting that every sentence be the same length. A string of medium-sized sentences would anesthetize readers. I am suggesting, though, that you use long sentences and fragments sparingly. Use just enough to keep your readers interested. Vary the rhythm.

No Criminal Sentences today, but I invite you to e-mail me egregious examples of overly long sentences or fragments that seem to come out of nowhere. Send candidates to curiouscase@hotmail.com, and we’ll post the best one in each category.

Poll Results 56

This was the question:

Which do you prefer?

Your savings is $0.50. 38 (51%)
Your savings are $0.50. 36 (48%)

That's pretty close. That's not unexpected because both are allowed.

Question: Where does "also" go?

A great question from Mary:

Please weigh in on the recent trend of using the AP Stylebook as an excuse to rail against any use of split infinitives and even "split" verb phrases. Often the changes these folks insist on making render the sentence clunky, formal, and grating, at least to my ears.

What do you think? For example, they change the perfectly fine

"The techniques are also used to fight cancer." to "The techniques also are used to fight cancer."

I agree that the "also" sounds better in the first sentence. The AP Stylebook advises "In general, avoid awkward constructions that split infinitive forms of a verb or compound forms.... Occasionally, however, a split is not awkward and is necessary to convey meaning." An example it doesn't like: "There stood the wagon that we had early last autumn left by the barn." Of course it prefers "There stood the wagon that we had left by the barn early last autumn."

The listing in the AP Stylebook doesn't specifically use "also," but I know I have read newspaper sentences that use "also" in an awkward manner. I guess we can just call it a style, and if you don't like it and don't work for a newspaper, you can put your "also" wherever seems natural.

Two links to Grammar Girl episodes that touch on these subjects:

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/splitting-verbs.aspx
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/split-infinitives.aspx

Criminal Sentence 288: How Many Lawyers?

From a book I'm reading:

"[I] looked through the lawyer's directory until I found a number, and made the call."

If there really were something called a lawyer's directory, only one name would be in it because the apostrophe tells us so: lawyer's.

So I think we need to put the apostrophe in the right place: lawyers'.

Writer Mag Column 9: Using the Wrong Word

Under the Whether: Fix embarrassing word errors

I’ve seen some very sick sentences lately. One in particular made me wince in pain and laugh at the same time. Back in May, I was unlucky enough to suffer from a painful ear infection. Aside from going to the doc multiple times and being dosed with various antibiotics, I went to a medical Web site to learn more about my unfortunate condition. This is when I learned the painful truth of my illness: “If the infection builds up, the eardrum may rupture to allow the puss to flow out.”

Oh, I see. A cat is to blame for my ruptured eardrum. When I read this error, I was in too much pain to inform the site about it, but now that I’m healed perhaps I should tell them that one of their sentences is gravely ill. I wouldn’t be surprised if I encountered more sick sentences on this Web site. And I hate to tell you this, but many of your sentences undoubtedly suffer from this illness, too.

Our language is beautiful but a pain in the eardrum as well. Too many words sound alike, confusing the unready. English contains pairs and trios such as “principal”/“principle,” “hanger”/“hangar” and “palate”/“pallet”/“palette.” The list is interminable; the possibilities for word mix-ups, endless.

As a copy editor, I’ve met many sentences that are at death’s door, and I callously laugh at their plight. Word errors are funny—as long as someone else has goofed. It’s great to put your readers at ease with a joke or two, but if they’re smiling at what you wrote in all seriousness, that’s not good.

Word errors are a real problem because they slip in unnoticed and are extremely hard to catch—even if you’re a seasoned writer who proofreads closely. Even copy editors aren’t immune: I once wrote “chocolate moose” when referring to a luscious brown dessert. I can excuse myself because I was only eight, but if you write for a living, there is no excuse.

If you’ve ever written “discreet” instead of “discrete,” it’s really not your fault, though. You can blame your brain, which sometimes takes a little vacation. You’re writing quickly so your ideas don’t evaporate. You’re paying attention to plot and dialogue. You’re thinking about that luscious brown dessert you promised yourself—if you write enough. You’re completely unaware that you thanked an editor for “pouring” over your manuscript or that you described a queen sitting on her “thrown.”

As a diligent writer, you must “pore” over your work carefully. (You can “pour” while you pore, but please make sure it’s something liquid.) As a wordsmith, you must protect your “throne.” (If you sit on a “thrown,” your subjects will throw you off it immediately.) As a writing professional, you must stand up for correct writing “principles.” (You can stand up for a school “principal” if one is in trouble.)

Now that you know about this devastating illness, you can work towards a cure. You’re probably already taking some basic precautions. You look words up in the dictionary, and you use Spell Check on every piece. Forgive me for this blunt warning, butt pleas dew knot re-lie on Spell Check too fined yore miss-takes! Spell Check misses a lot.

Frankly, the only way to catch word errors is to turn into a suspicious hypochondriac. Not very relaxing, but it gets the job done. When you proofread yourself, imagine it’s a worst-case scenario. Suspect it’s wrong and it might be. Start thinking like a proofreader. Pair up similar-sounding words in your brain, and when you come across one of the words, do a double take to ensure you’ve written the right one. For me, alarms go off with these words: “it’s” and “its,” “compliment” and “complement,” “affect” and “effect,” “conscience” and “conscious,” “hoard” and “horde,” and my favorite—“public” and that other word without the “l.”

Even when my brain is ready to catch mistakes, I still need to do more. It is so difficult to find lurking word errors that I have to resort to a robotic chant to catch them. I can’t just read the words as if I were a regular person relaxing with a book. I have to say each word aloud in a monotone, syllable by syllable. This slow, ridiculous reading prevents my brain from skimming over the words. You should try it too, but not in front of a first date or anyone you want to impress.

Word errors will embarrass you and will make you shriek in pain and horror if you discover them after they’ve been printed. No one wants to write sick sentences, so consider following my unconventional advice. Your writing will undoubtedly become cleaner, and you’re chant mite even help yew fined sum other errors, two!

Here are some amusing Criminal Sentences for you to fix:

Criminal Sentence 1: “The patient’s body becomes tense as she steals herself to endure the dental procedure.”

Criminal Sentence 2: “Often the words are out before we can reign them in.”

Criminal Sentence 3: “All parents must make sure there kids are taking the right shoes.”

Criminal Sentence 4: “I hear lots of people complaining about the economy and how it’s effecting them.”

Criminal Sentence 5: “The writer would like to thank the many who leant their time, wisdom, and patience to the improvement of this book.”

Please send your answers to curiouscase@hotmail.com. The doctor will be in and ready to examine your sentences.

Answers

Criminal Sentence 1: “The patient’s body becomes tense as she steels herself to endure the dental procedure.”

Criminal Sentence 2: “Often the words are out before we can rein them in.”

Criminal Sentence 3: “All parents must make sure their kids are taking the right shoes.”

Criminal Sentence 4: “I hear lots of people complaining about the economy and how it’s affecting them.”

Criminal Sentence 5: “The writer would like to thank the many who lent their time, wisdom, and patience to the improvement of this book.”

Criminal Sentence 287: Two Misplaced Modifiers

Two lovely sentences from the same book:

1) "Mr. Sanders has friends in the building he was visiting that night."
2) "I went to the files in the corner of my office that Detective Carruthers had given me..."

Both of these have the same problem: misplaced modifier.

1) Was he visiting the friends or the building? Not the building, as suggested here. Friends. "That night, Mr. Sanders was visiting friends in the building."
2) Did the detective give me the files or the office? Not the office, as suggested here. Files. "I went to the corner of my office to get the files that Detective C had given me..."

If you have two nouns that a clause could modify, be sure you put the modifying clause next to the right noun.

Criminal Sentence 286: Have Patient's

Every Tuesday I volunteer at a hospital, and once again I cringed at a sign they've posted outside the little kitchen area:

"For the safety of the patient's, staff only."

That tries my patient's!

Poll Results 55

Here was the question:

How many punctuation marks are missing in this sentence? "Thank you Arizona for supporting your home town theatre."

One	17 (14%)
Two	72 (61%)
Three	19 (16%)
None	10 (8%)

Congrats to 61% of you. You need commas around "Arizona." In addition, "home town" is one word with no space.

Criminal Sentence 285: Double After

The first paragraph of a newspaper article:

"Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hospitalized Thursday after becoming ill in her office at the court after treatment for an iron deficiency."

I'm not so sure that I like two cases of "after" in this sentence, and there are too many prepositional phrases:

after becoming ill
in her office
at the court
after treatment
for an iron deficiency

I know that newspaper reporters want to cram in all the facts in the first sentence, but this is a bit much. Let's break it up:

"Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hospitalized Thursday after becoming ill in her office at the court. She had just undergone treatment for an iron deficiency."

Criminal Sentence 284: Who's humiliated?

From a book I finished yesterday:

"Red in the face and shaking in the limbs, I supposed he wanted nothing more than to flee this humiliation..."

Who is red in the face here? Not the "I" of the sentence. The "he" is the one with the red face and shaking limbs. You'll have to rearrange the sentence to fix this misplaced modifier:

"Red in the face and shaking in the limbs, he seemed to want nothing more than to flee this humiliation..."

Criminal Sentence 283: Council/counsel

From a book I'm reading:

"I kept my council."

When you are keeping your opinion to yourself, you keep your "counsel." A "council" is a group of people such as the student council.

Criminal Sentence 282: What an affect/effect!

From a book I'm reading:

"... if I don't affect some change in the nature of things, I shall be quite ruined..."

Affect/effect is one of those pairs that trips people up.

Affect as a verb means to influence, as in Her sleepiness did not affect the outcome.
Affect as a noun is a psychiatric term that refers to someone's demeanor, as in He had flat affect.
Effect as a verb often goes with "change," as in If you want to effect change, you must...
Effect as a noun often goes with "cause," as in Cause and effect: The effect of the chocolate was immediate.

Poll Results 54

Here was the question:

Would you shop at a place with this sign? "We beat all competitor's prices."
Yes. I don't see an error. 8 (8%)
No. I refuse to shop at places that use apostrophe errors. 21 (22%)
Yes. But I wish the shop would fix the error. 66 (69%)

"All competitor's" is not possible. "All" suggests more than one; "competitor's" suggests one. The store should change its sign to "all competitors'."

New Guest-Written Grammar Girl Episode: "Comprise" v "Compose"

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/comprise-versus-compose.aspx

Criminal Sentence 281: A little bit of wordiness

From a Web site:

"It gives us a little bit of optimism."

No grammatical problems here, but it's just too wordy for my taste. Eight words here when four would do:

"We are slightly optimistic."

Try your best to cut words. Your readers will thank you!

Writer Mag Column 8: Subject-Verb Agreement

Follow the Yellow Brick Road…: Take the Correct Steps to Fix Problems with Subject-Verb Agreement

Life used to be simpler: no Facebook, no YouTube, no MySpace. Nowadays, though, everybody uses these and other distractions to avoid working. Perhaps even some writers are guilty of this. Nah, not you… Well, even if you don’t use the Internet to avoid figuring out your next plot point, you do need to be aware of some dangerous distractions for writers: certain words or phrases that cause you to make mistakes with your subject-verb agreement. We writers need to watch out for this distracting stuff. If we don’t, our credibility might be shot.

Let’s review the basics for a minute. I know that you know this already, but please bear with me: Even the best writers are occasionally careless with their subjects and verbs. A singular subject agrees with a singular verb, and a plural subject agrees with a plural verb. A singular subject involves a single item (e.g., “the tornado”) or a lone person (e.g., “the Wicked Witch”). A plural subject involves more than one item or person, such as “some incorrect sentences” or “the unhappy copy editors.”

Your subject-verb agreement is most likely fine when the subject lies close to the verb, as it is here: “The Wicked Witch of the West is melting.” The singular subject “witch” pairs up with the singular verb “is melting.” Obviously. I’m certain, though, that you sometimes commit a ghastly grammar goof when the subject is far from the verb. When you are in a hurry or are trying to cram too much into one sentence, careless errors strike.

Writers need to concentrate and stay on the yellow brick road. You can’t get on the correct path, though, unless you’re aware of the three main distractions that come between the subject and the verb. Prepositional phrases; the word “and”; and “that,” “which” and “who” clauses are the sneaky things that distract you and make you use the wrong verb.

Let’s tackle the most common troublemaker first: a prepositional phrase. Writers sometimes get confused because they mistakenly think that the last word of such a phrase is the subject. As the Wizard himself said, “Ignore the man behind the curtain.” You too must temporarily ignore a prepositional phrase when it follows the main word of your subject. Let’s dissect this Criminal Sentence, which I found in a book:

The meaning of these words aren’t known.

And the correctness of grammar aren’t known, either. In this bad sentence, the prepositional phrase “of these words” is in the way, and it apparently stunned the writer into confusion. If you just take it out for a minute, you can clearly see that the subject, “the meaning,” is singular. Therefore, the verb should be “isn’t” instead of “aren’t.”

“Who,” “which” and “that” clauses are sneaky distractions that interfere in the same way as prepositional phrases, but not when they’re alone. For example, it’s very unlikely that a native English speaker would make a mistake like this:

The Wicked Witch, who was having tea with her sisters, like monkeys.

Hang on and we’ll discuss these clauses in a minute.

The pesky word “and” causes some problems with subject-verb agreement. As we all know, the word “and” joins two (or more) items together. Logically, a compound subject, such as “Dorothy and Toto,” takes a plural verb. Sometimes, though, writers mess up even this seemingly simple kind of sentence. Take, for example, this Criminal Sentence, which I heard while on hold to make a doctor’s appointment:

Your patience and consideration is very much appreciated.

I did not appreciate that at all, and my patience was as sore as my throat. Amnesiac writers forget about the first part of their subject, so they use the wrong verb. The person who wrote this beauty certainly suffered some memory loss, because he or she forgot that “patience” and “consideration” are two separate things. Mr. or Ms. Careless should have used “are” instead.

Now back to those devious “who,” “which” and “that” clauses. They’re not problematic by themselves, but they do cause a problem when a sentence contains one of them along with a prepositional phrase or an “and.” Take this Criminal Sentence, which contains two distracting “who” clauses and an “and”:

The defendant, who was going on trial for murder, and her attorney, who was just out of law school, was late to court.

When your sentence is too long, as it is here, too much stuff is in the way and you make an error. Again, forget the man behind the curtain. The compound subject hidden amidst all the verbiage is “the defendant and her attorney,” so the verb should be “were.”

Now we must click our heels together and concentrate on how to fix these common errors, which make readers question your integrity. If you haven’t been getting regular agreement checkups, please promise to get on the right track immediately. It’s actually quite easy to stay on the yellow brick road. Simply find your subject and circle just the word (or words) that form the subject—and ignore everything else. Then, underline the verb and check if subject and verb match. If they don’t, berate yourself for a few minutes and then fix the problem.

These circles and underlines might seem tedious, but please mark up your pages until you learn to ignore all of these distractions. Both you and your readers will feel much better if you examine your work thoroughly and get rid of careless errors.

Here are three Criminal Sentences to help you practice:

Criminal Sentence 1: The use of cell phones and pagers are prohibited.

Criminal Sentence 2: The safety and well-being of neighborhoods surrounding the airport has become a serious concern.

Criminal Sentence 3: The problem with these sandwiches, which my son fixed for me, are that they contain mustard.

Please fix these sick sentences before the Wicked Witch gets you. Send your corrections to curiouscase@hotmail.com and I’ll let you know if you made it back to Kansas or not.

Answers:

Criminal Sentence 1: The use of cell phones and pagers is prohibited.

Criminal Sentence 2: The safety and well-being of neighborhoods surrounding the airport have become serious concerns.

Criminal Sentence 3: The problem with these sandwiches, which my son fixed for me, is that they contain mustard.

Reader Question

A reader wanted to know if this sentence contained correct grammar:

"Playing music games requires an intense focus on the separate elements of a song..."

He was mostly interested in knowing if "requires" was the correct verb. The answer is yes.

Here are some other examples:

Singing in the shower is fun.
Singing songs in the shower is fun.

It becomes plural if you have an "and":
Singing and dancing in the shower are fun.

Criminal Sentence 280: Hyphen or Em Dash

From a Web site about foods with too much sugar:

"Granola bars. Often deemed a healthful snack, some are tricky-a 1-ounce serving of a granola bar with oats, fruit, and nuts has 11 grams of added sugar."

This sentence is confusing: "tricky-a" makes no sense. It would make sense, though, to use a double hyphen (which turns into an em dash in Word): "some are tricky--a 1-ounce serving..."

Criminal Sentence 279: Before or After Math?

Seen on ESPN2:

"The after math of the Serena meltdown"

I thought this was an interesting error. "Aftermath" is a compound word with no space; "after math" might mean after a math class.

You can do better than that, ESPN2!

Poll Results 53

This was the question:

Which sentence uses the correct punctuation?
Do you think we should call her "Bubby?" 40 (31%)
Do you think we should call her "Bubby"? 87 (68%)

Congrats to 68% of you.
When the item in quotation marks is a question in itself, then the question mark goes inside the quotation marks. as here: He asked, "Did you arrive on time?"
When the item in quotation marks is part of a larger question, then the question mark goes outside the quotation marks. as in the correct answer.

Criminal Sentence 278: Former vs Formal

From a Web site:

"I ran into my formal teacher."

She meant "former teacher," I believe, unless her teacher was not informal. :)

"Former" means "previous."
"Formal" means "not informal."

I suppose they are easy to confuse, so watch out.

Criminal Sentence 277: Bad Quality

Heard on the US Open telecast:

"The quality of second serves aren’t good."

And the quality of the sentence ISN'T good.

Ignore the prepositional phrase when you are thinking about subject-verb agreement. In this case, you would be concerned only with "The quality ..." It's clear that it matches up with "isn't," not "aren't."

Watch out for those pesky prepositional phrases!

Criminal Sentence 276: An Interesting Flasher

Only I read signs in elevators, but I got rewarded yesterday:

"When flashing, help is on the way."

Someone named help will be flashing? Cool!

This gem was next to the emergency light, which I imagine is the thing that will be flashing. The sign writer should have written this:

"When the light is flashing, help is on the way."

Criminal Sentence 275: Shaped

From a book I read:

"He squeezed the rock and felt that it was oval-shaped..."

This has two problems: it's wordy and it has an incorrect hyphen.

First, you don't need to say something is circle shaped or square shaped or oval shaped. Those words describe shapes.

Second, When a compound adjective follows a noun, you don't need the hyphen. Only when two or more words link together to describe a noun before the noun do you use a hyphen:

The ten-foot-high fence was in the way. (hyphens join the words that describe "fence")
The fence was ten feet high. (no hyphens because the words come after "fence")

This sentence would have been better like this:

"He squeezed the rock and felt that it was oval..."

Poll Results 52

This was the question:

Is the punctuation of this correct? "Careful, the drink you are about to enjoy is very hot."
Yes 58 (59%)
No 39 (40%)

Commas are tricky. In this case, 59% of you were correct. You use a comma after an interjection such as "careful." You could also use an exclamation point:

"Careful!"

Guest-Written Grammar Girl Episode: Groucho and Grammar

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/funny-misplaced-modifiers.aspx

Writer Mag Column 7: 5 Common Punctuation Mistakes

Five Scoops of Punctuation, Please: Avoid these common punctuation mistakes

Incorrect punctuation marks don’t bother the average person, but you’re not average. You’re a writer, and you know that if you abuse commas, em dashes, hyphens, quotation marks and apostrophes, your readers will moan and lament, screech aloud and vent—and if you annoy them enough, they might even throw your carefully plotted novel across the room. You ask, “All because of a misplaced apostrophe or an extra comma?” Yep, I’ve done it. (But I’m extra fussy.)

I can see how you might be careless with punctuation. I understand that it’s hard to remember what you learned in grade school. If you’re rusty, here are five scoops on five common punctuation errors. Not as yummy as ice cream, I know, but good for your sentence health.

Commas

Commas are complicated. Periods are easy (at least for men). Bottom line: You shouldn’t use commas instead of periods, that’s called a comma splice. Did you notice that comma splice I just used? How naughty of me.

As we all learned in first grade, you use a period to end a sentence. That’s pretty much all it’s good for. OK, you’re right: you do use periods in abbreviations and prices, but if you’re looking for information about periods in a style guide, you won’t have much to read. On the other hand, you can find entire books dedicated to all the rules about commas. Go ahead and buy one if you want a challenge. And don’t forget to read it.

These Criminal Sentences illustrate the comma splice problem:

Criminal Sentence 1 (From a flyer posted to my front door): “My name is Mickey, I painted the outside of a house in your neighborhood.”

Criminal Sentence 2 (From a Web site): “Loading, please wait…”

As far as the first sentence, Mickey may paint well, but because I’m a fussy grammarian, I could never hire him.

The second sentence leads me to another common comma problem. You’re supposed to use commas after salutations, as in “Hello, Bonnie.” Criminal Sentence 2 seems to address someone named Loading. This oddly named fellow has been instructed to wait, as in “Bonnie, please wait.”

“Loading. Please wait.” These are two separate ideas, and they need to be separated with a period, not a comma.

Em Dashes

Em dashes—those long lines that are paired up in this sentence—point your readers a certain way. If em dashes could talk, they would loudly alert readers, “Wait a second. I have something important to add here—something I can’t wait to tell you!” If you misuse them—or overuse them—your readers will get frustrated and annoyed. They won’t like being pointed at incorrectly or jabbed at so often.

Writers use these arrow-like punctuation marks to point out something abruptly—in the middle of a sentence or at the end. (You certainly can’t start a sentence with an em dash. That would be weird.) No matter where your em dashes appear, you can do a quick check to see if you’ve used them correctly. Just temporarily delete your abrupt aside. After all, it’s not crucial to the sentence’s core meaning, and you can put it back later.

Your em dashes are right if the sentence still makes sense when you delete the em dashes and everything between them: “I lost my scarf—now where could I have put it?—at the mall.” This sentence makes perfect sense without the intervening question. You could certainly complain, “I lost my scarf at the mall.” If you have a lone em dash at the end of the sentence, do the same thing; if the sentence still makes sense when you take away the em dash and the aside, you may proceed.

The uninitiated often use em dashes in place of periods, as in this incorrect sentence I’m writing now—they seem to think they can just separate sentences with an em dash and readers won’t mind—however, it’s not correct to do that. (Readers do mind.) Incidentally, as we’ve already seen, somebody once invented something that denotes the end of a sentence, and that thing is called a period. He’s a nifty guy. Keep him in mind every twenty words or so.

Some writers mistakenly use an em dash in a sentence like this one—annoying me to no end. (Hint: That was an incorrect em dash just now.) Guess what? There’s been another neat invention, and this one indicates a short pause in a sentence. That’s our friend the comma. We’ve already met him, and he likes being invited over often.

Em dashes like to be social, too, but not as much as commas or most other punctuation marks. Some writers, though—myself included—are partial to em dashes and use them as often as possible. (I admit that I should curb my liking for em dashes.) We don’t want readers complaining to themselves—or to others—that we’re pointing at them too much. It gets old after a while. So hold back if you’re an overuser.
Well, how many Auntie Ems are too many? Dorothy had only one, but you can have probably two or three every page or so—unless you’re feeling wicked and want to risk being squished by that falling house.

Here’s a test of your em dash strength:

In which sentence are em dashes used incorrectly?

1. I spent $1,000—can you believe it?—on shoes.

2. From shoes to scarves to hats—we have it all.

3. Don’t come around here anymore—unless you’re coming to pay back the money you owe me.

4. If you see her—or hear from her—please let me know.

Hyphens

Hyphens smooth things over for readers. They may be little, but they can make sentences more readable in a big way. By linking two or more words to describe something, hyphens prevent misunderstandings. If you wrote this sentence, for example, you could confuse your readers:

“The lion taunting zookeeper was arrested for animal cruelty.”

The sentence appears to be about a lion but is in fact about a wayward zookeeper. A little hyphen helps the sentence a lot:

“The lion-taunting zookeeper was arrested for animal cruelty.”

The hyphen links up the two words to make a compound.

Some writers put hyphens in the wrong places. You can’t create a hyphenated compound after the noun unless the word itself is always hyphenated. Notice this incorrect sentence:

“The inspection was poor-quality.”

You don’t need to link together the words “poor” and “quality” because it’s clear that they both refer to “inspection.” On the other hand, you do need a hyphen in this case:

“The poor-quality inspection cost the homeowner lots of money.”

Without the hyphen, the sentence might at first seem to be about “the poor.”

Now it’s your turn to be the hyphen police. Please take these two sentences into custody; once you fix them, you can release them on their own recognizance:

Criminal Sentence 3: The crazy haired copyeditor saw a punctuation mistake.

Criminal Sentence 4: My 18th century ring was stolen.

Quotation Marks

Here’s a short rant on overused quotation marks. If you’re trying to emphasize something, you “don’t need” to put it in quotation “marks.” Nine times out of ten, you use quotation marks to quote speech. Hence their name. They’re not called “highlight marks” or “colloquial expression” marks. If you want to highlight something, find a more natural way to do so.

One legitimate reason to use quotation marks around something that is not quoted speech is for cases when you want to be sarcastic or deceptive. So if your character is a teenager who told her mom that someone was a “friend,” in quotation marks, you’re informing readers that he wasn’t just a friend. He was a boyfriend and the character didn’t want her mom to find out.

Don’t do what these criminals did or I’ll have to “come after you”:

Criminal Sentence 5: How do you “get over” a mistake that cost another person’s life?

Criminal Sentence 6: Come in for your “free” sandwich.

Apostrophes

I get a little bent out of shape about those little bent things called apostrophes. My husband rolls his eyes whenever I whine about misplaced punctuation, but I have to wince when I see sock’s for sale at the swap meet. You’re sock’s irritate me. Don’t they irritate you, too? If they don’t, I’d like to change that.

Merchants mess up apostrophes simply because punctuation is unimportant to them. Prices and inventory are what matter. Fine. I’ll just have to avoid fresh produce from now on. Writers, on the other hand, should be able to handle these little punctuation marks.

Our apostrophe pals serve two main purposes: to indicate possession and to create a contraction. Let’s start with possession. I’m sure you’re aware that an apostrophe attaches to a noun—not to an adjective or a verb. The tricky part is to pay attention to whether the noun is singular or plural. Use an apostrophe plus an “s” to indicate a singular person or thing is possessing something. For example, if you’re writing about the rolling eyes of my husband, you should write “my husband’s rolling eyes” (and then later “my husband’s tired eyes”).

When you have a plural person or thing, use an “s” plus an apostrophe (or an “s” plus an apostrophe “s” if you like that style). You couldn’t write “my husbands’ rolling eyes,” though, because that would be illegal. On the other hand, if the husbands of more copy editors become impatient, it would be OK to write “the husbands’ rolling eyes” or “our husbands’ tired eyes.” An easy way to check if you’ve placed the apostrophe correctly is to temporarily rearrange the phrase by using an “of”: “the punctuation of the sentence” (“the sentence’s punctuation”); “the punctuation of the sentences” (“the sentences’ punctuation”).

Now on to contractions—just try to breathe. It’ll all be over very soon. Unlike labor contractions, contractions of words are short. “We’ll” is a shortened “we will”; “he’ll” is the contraction of “he will.” These words mean something totally different without the apostrophe. The contraction you should be most wary of is “it’s,” short for “it is.” The young and the careless always confuse “it’s” (contraction) with “its” (possessive adjective). Please be old and careful, and remember that possessive adjectives, such as “your,” “hers” and “their,” never use an apostrophe.

The best way to avoid apostrophe errors with contractions is to avoid contractions altogether. Well, I guess that won’t work. The next best way is to just stop and double-check yourself by spelling out the contracted words. For example, if your sentence is “Let’s check our apostrophes,” you know you’re right because you can say, “Let us check.” If your sentence is “My mom never let’s me eat ice cream,” you know you’re wrong because you can’t say, “My mom never let us me.”

Please fix the poor, sick apostrophes in these three Criminal Sentences:

Criminal Sentence 7: “I lived in my parent’s house when I was a child.”

Criminal Sentence 8: “It take’s dedication and lots of practice.”

Criminal Sentence 9: “Lets make 2009 an active and healthy year!”

Now that you’ve read and learned all about these friendly and useful punctuation marks, give yourself a round of applause. Next, I think you should indulge in a real scoop of ice cream—as long as you promise to use commas, em dashes, hyphens, quotation marks and apostrophes correctly.

P.S. Write me at curiouscase@hotmail.com with the answers to today’s questions, and tell me what flavor of ice cream you like best. I like peanut butter and chocolate.

Answers

Commas

Criminal Sentence 1: “My name is Mickey. I painted the outside of a house in your neighborhood.”

Criminal Sentence 2: “Loading. Please wait…”

Em Dashes

Em dashes are used incorrectly in Sentence 2: “From shoes to scarves to hats—we have it all.” You can’t say only “From shoes to scarves to hats.” You need to use a comma instead of the em dash: “From shoes to scarves to hats, we have it all.” Another option is to turn things around: “We have it all—from shoes to scarves to hats.” “We have it all” could stand by itself.

Hyphens

Criminal Sentence 3: The crazy-haired copyeditor saw a punctuation mistake.

Criminal Sentence 4: My 18th-century ring was stolen.

Quotation Marks

Criminal Sentence 5: How do you get over a mistake that cost another person’s life?

Criminal Sentence 6: Come in for your free sandwich. (Quotation marks around “free” suggest that the sandwich isn’t really free.)

Apostrophes

Criminal Sentence 7: “I lived in my parents’ house when I was a child.”

Criminal Sentence 8: “It takes dedication and lots of practice.”

Criminal Sentence 9: “Let’s make 2009 an active and healthy year!”

Criminal Sentence 274: Agreement Problems

Two sentences from an online article:

1) "Their secret: thin crust, half the cheese, and extra vegetables."
2) "The restaurant boasts about their perfect-sized lunch combos as if super-sized individual pizzas and high-calorie 'side' salads are a good thing."

Both of these sentences suffer from the same problem: the number of items don't match.

Sentence 1: "their secret" is singular, whereas what comes after the verb is plural (three things are listed).
Sentence 2: "a good thing" is singular, whereas what comes before the verb is plural.

Both nouns (secret/thing) should be plural to match the other side of the equation.

Criminal Sentence 273: An Extra Fatty Sentence

From an online article about fatty pizzas:

"Fare from the sea is one of the best ways to go, but sprinkled over a bed of starchy dough and fatty cheese and you've got a different story altogether."

This sentence has a number of problems. First, it is way too long. I suggest breaking it up after "to go." Now we can see that the rest of the sentence is missing a correct subject. There is no clear word that goes with "sprinkled." We know from the context that the writer meant "seafood," but it's missing. In addition, two cases of "and" might be confusing. Here is a better way to express this idea:

"Fare from the sea is one of the best ways to go. However, you've got a different story altogether when you sprinkle seafood over a bed of starchy dough and fatty cheese."

Avoid fatty pizzas and fatty sentences, please.

Criminal Sentence 272: Odd Splling

The title is misspelled on purpose because of this typo in a book:

"This book was set in Minion, a typefce produced by..."

Proofreading is important, even on the unimportant pages that describe the book's typeface.

Poll Results 51

Here was the question:
Which sentence is correct?

You should eat vegetables everyday. 26 (22%)
Go online any time. 7 (5%)
She doesn't like any body. 1 (0%)
He doesn't eat anything white. 77 (65%)
I eat every thing. 6 (5%)

Congrats to 65% of you.

"Everyday" is an adjective that means ordinary; "every day" means each day.
"Any time" is usually used in a negative sentence: "I don't have any time." "Anytime" means "whenever you want."
"Any body" is usually used in a negative sentence: "He saw three bodies fall, but I didn't see any body." "Anybody" is used like "nobody" and "everybody."
"Every thing" means each thing; "everything" is most often used as one word.

If you're unsure about any of these, look them up for the full treatment.

Criminal Sentence 271: Looking for the Correct Subject

Overheard on Project Runway:

"Looking at the judges’ expressions, they are stone cold."

I feel stone cold about this sentence. Who is looking at the judges' expressions? Not "they," which refers back to the noun "judges." The actual subject--"I"--is missing. Let's add it:

"Looking at the judges’ expressions, I wasn't pleased to see that they were stone cold."

Always make sure you clearly state who is doing what, or else you will be eliminated.

Criminal Sentence 270: A Couple

From an article about a baseball game:

"'They hit a couple balls that didn't carry.'"

This is definitely a colloquial statement. The strictly correct way to put this would be "a couple of," or even "two." Many people leave out the "of" in informal speech. I guess that's fine, but avoid "a couple" and then a noun in formal essays.

Criminal Sentence 269: Your Body Type

From an ad in the paper:

"Find out what body type your are."

My body type is the proofreading type. Is yours that type too?

Criminal Sentence 268: Me, Me, Me

From an article about a taxi driver who donated his kidney to a woman he drove to dialysis (and who was prompted by a higher power to do so):

"The Phoenix taxi driver said [that] he was a man of faith and that a higher power wanted him to step in."'By then, me and the good Lord already had a talk.'"

He did a good deed, but me don't like his statement. "I" is the correct pronoun here: "The good Lord and I..."

And I added the missing "that," which makes the sentence completely parallel.

Poll Results 50

Here was the question:

Do you think that professional writers who have written multiple books should know the difference between “principal” and “principle”?

Yes, and they should never confuse the two words in their books. 39 (60%)
Yes, but we should forgive them if they confuse the two words in their books. 5 (7%)
No, and they are not responsible for confusing the two words in their books. 0 (0%)
Maybe, but the copyeditor should catch any word errors. 20 (31%)

I asked this because I recently read two books about the craft of writing and both misused "principle" instead of "principal." The errors were hard to ignore, and I groaned aloud--loudly.

Criminal Sentence 267: Migrating Jewelry

From a column in my local paper:

"It seems that since moving here from another state that all of my sterling silver jewelry tarnishes very quickly."

There are actually two errors here. The first is the repetition of the word "that." You need just one.

The second mistake is a misplaced modifier, because this sentence suggests that the jewelry moved here from another state. Obviously, the jewelry moved here but a person brought it. The sentence would be better like this:

"It seems since I moved here from another state that all of my sterling silver jewelry tarnishes very quickly."

Writer Mag Column 6: Weak subjects

Don’t lose your subjects--help missing people find their way back into your sentences

Singer Paula Cole once asked in a song, “Where have all the cowboys gone?” As for me, I want to know, “Where have all the human subjects in our sentences gone?” Not as catchy, but just as important. So many people are missing from writers’ sentences that I decided to join the Missing Subjects Taskforce--a group who is tired of people-free sentences. We’re tired of asking ourselves, “Where have all the people gone?”

When the subject of your sentence is not a person but a thing, such as “the discovery” or “the bag of M&Ms,” the Missing Subjects Taskforce must put out an APB--that’s an All Persons Bulletin--on your sentence. The taskforce needs to find these missing people because we want active writing that shows people performing actions; we don’t want passive writing.

Passive writing pops up everywhere. Some might call this style of writing formal or academic writing, or even business writing. I just call it bad writing. Passive writing allows writers to lop off their subjects by using:

Vague “-ing” words. I’ll talk about those shortly.

Nominalizations, which I covered in my last article.

Passive voice, which we’ll go over in a minute.

Unless you’re writing about guillotines, you are not allowed to lop off your subjects.

Vague “-ing” Words

You know you have a vague “-ing” word when your word ends in “-ing,” but the reader doesn’t know who the subject is. Take this Criminal Sentence:

“When using any driving directions or map, it’s a good idea to do a reality check and make sure the road still exists.”

Where have all the drivers gone? Perhaps they zoomed off into oblivion. Let’s try to get them back safely. The vague “-ing” word in this sentence is “using,” in the phrase “when using.” It’s vague because the sentence never says who is using. Sure, you’re allowed to start a sentence like this, but a person must show up after the comma. Here, an “it” surfaces instead, making this a classic misplaced modifier and causing groans everywhere. Aside from the bad grammar, the sentence fails to state the implied subject: “you.” It would be better--and more grammatical--to write “When you’re using ...” Or you could say, “When using any driving directions or map, you ...”

You probably need some practice with vague “-ing” words. Here are two Criminal Sentences for you to populate:

Criminal Sentence 1: It’s important to be specific when writing sentences.

Criminal Sentence 2: Writing vague sentences is prohibited.

Nominalizations

I’ve already complained about nominalizations, which allow writers to omit man, woman and child. Remember that sentences filled with nominalizations, such as “the discussion of” and “an appearance by,” tend to leave out all the people. Learn what nominalizations are, and then ban them from your writing.

Passive Voice

Not many people make an appearance with passive voice, either. In a passive-voice sentence, we often don’t know who did what because no person is there to do it. As you may remember from school, a passive-voice sentence turns the object of the sentence into the subject. Let’s compare an active-voice and a passive-voice sentence. Take this normal thought (normal in my house, at least): “I ate the whole bag of M&Ms.” This is an active sentence. I, the subject, did something to the candy, the object. (What did I do to the candy? I scarfed it down.)

If we turn the sentence around and make it passive voice--oh, how it pains me to do so--we start with the candy: “The whole bag of M&Ms was eaten by me.” If you don’t want to claim responsibility, you can omit the “by me” and no one will be the wiser: “The whole bag of M&Ms got eaten.” Perhaps if you don’t state who ate the candy, then it has no calories.

These three Criminal Sentences contain passive voice and are sorely lacking people. Rewrite them so that a person appears.

Criminal Sentence 3: The table was set.

Criminal Sentence 4: The coffee is being made as we speak.

Criminal Sentence 5: Too many sentences are written in passive voice.

All Three at Once!

And now for the most terrible sentence that appears in this column. This poor sentence suffers from all three passive-writing problems simultaneously. Imagine the horror! A local politician wrote this sentence and my local paper printed it:

“Making the decision to put these vital projects on the November ballot was not taken lightly.”

“Making” is the vague -ing word, “decision” is the nominalization, and “was not taken” is the passive voice. Let’s list all the ways that this sentence is bad:

1. “Making” does not refer to any particular person, and it leaves me asking, “Who?”

2. Instead of a human, a nominalization (“decision”) appears.

3. The passive-voice verb, “was not taken,” is bad, vague, boring.

4. On top of it all, the sentence makes no sense. You can’t write, “Making the decision … was not taken lightly.”

Let’s try to ascertain who is hiding behind all the nonsensical verbiage in the politician’s Criminal Sentence. Ah, it’s the writer himself. Let’s help him take responsibility for his actions. Because he’s writing about his own decision-making process, he is the decider. He is the “I” that has been missing all along. He might want to use the verb “to decide”:

“After researching the issues for hours, I decided to put these vital projects on the November ballot.”

Politicians tend to avoid using “I” and other clear subjects so that they can deflect responsibility. On the other hand, you, a writer, should not be afraid to state who is doing what. You must state who is doing the action, except if you’re purposely withholding that information in a mystery, for example. You must be responsible for your sentences, and one way to be responsible is to ensure you’re stating who is doing what. When a person is involved, I always advocate including the person in the sentence.

Please find all the missing persons in the five Criminal Sentences that have assaulted your senses in this column, and send your rewrites to curiouscase@hotmail.com. I’m sure all these lonely souls will be happier once they’re found. And, if you help them return home, we’ll welcome you onto the Missing Subjects Taskforce. If, however, you keep refusing to name names, we just might bang on your door and demand that you identify the people you’ve been hiding.

Criminal Sentence 266: Royally Bad Sentence

From a book about the craft of writing:

"Often the words are out before we can reign them in."

"Reign" refers to leading, as in "The queen reigned for 50 years." "La reine" is queen in French, in case you wanted to know.

"Rein" refers to an animal harness, as in "Santa hooked up the reins to the reindeer."

I was disappointed to see a writing book abuse this word.

Criminal Sentence 265: Role-ing My Eyes

From a newspaper article about school enrollment:

“We can’t withdraw students from our roles until after the 10th day.”

Notice how I said, "enrollment," not something like "enrolement." That's because lists of students at schools are called "rolls," not "roles." "Roles" refers to parts in a play or movie, for example.

Criminal Sentence 264: Speling Problem

A teaser from Yahoo! this morning:

"What really killed Mozart?

After years of guesswork, researchers believe they now know the answer.
An 18th-cenury 'epidemic'"

I've heard of penury, but not cenury. Guess they forgot to check their spelling.

And what did off the composer?

"Strep throat may have killed Mozart: study"

Poll Results 49

Here was the question:

How many hours a week do you devote to improving your grammar/writing?
1-5 23 (44%)
6-10 5 (9%)
I spend all my free time on grammar/writing. 4 (7%)

I guess you already figured out that I'm with the 7%.

Criminal Sentence 263: High and Low

From a Web site:

"Low and behold"

"Lo" is a seldom-used interjection. It often pairs up in the phrase "lo and behold."

"Low " is an adjective meaning not high, among other things.

Grammar Girl Episode: Distracting Predicate Nouns

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/were-versus-was.aspx

Reader Question: Prepositional Phrases

Here's an excellent question from a reader named John:

"I have trained myself out of passive voice--mostly--and now find that trains of prepositional phrases is my favorite way of turning a six word thought into a 12 word sentence. The easiest way out of this is noun pairs (in the center of the town becomes in the town center). Often that doesn't sound quite right in the sentence, and I know that recasting the sentence is what is really needed. Suggestions?"

John is right that prepositional phrases can unnecessarily lengthen a sentence:

"The shoes of the man fell off" is a lot wordier than "The man's shoes fell off."

Therefore, I do suggest that you replace prepositional phrases where it makes sense. As for recasting the sentence, that is another good idea that can help you shorten, shorten, shorten. For example, "The meaning of his words was lost when the train blew past him" is pretty wordy. You can take the essence of your idea and recast it: "The train drowned out his words."

When you're first learning to cut prepositional phrases, you can simply search for "of" in your word-processing program. Then you can determine which cases of "of" are wordy and then cut, cut, cut.

Criminal Sentence 262: Naughty Medicare representative

A simplified version of a real sentence from a book I read:

"He discussed his belief that unnecessary procedures were being done at the hospital with a Medicare representative in Stockton, CA."

This sentence is not grammatical because it is trying to squeeze in too much information. There are simply too many prepositional phrases: "at the hospital," "with a Medicare representative" and "in Stockton, CA." The sentence makes it sound as if the Medicare representative was participating in the unnecessary procedures.

Common sense tells me that the "He" of this sentence discussed something with a Medicare representative and that they were in Stockton at the time.Let's try to have the sentence state that:

"He was in Stockton, CA, when he told a Medicare representative that he felt unnecessary procedures were being done at the hospital."

Not the most perfect sentence but a vast improvement over the original.

Criminal Sentence 261: Apostrophe Un-Happy

From a nursery ad:

"10’000’s of trees"

First of all, I would think it's thousands of trees, not ten thousands of trees. Second, you don't use an apostrophe to pluralize a number. It is true that you can use an apostrophe to pluralize something if ambiguity would result, as in "I got all A's." If you had no apostrophe, it would look like "As." However, there's no ambiguity with this number, so no apostrophe.

Poll Results 48

This was the question:

Which sentence is correct?

I had an adverse reaction to the carob. 62 (79%)
What's the affect of eating too much chocolate? 6 (7%)
I have a big horde of chocolate. 6 (7%)
She took a peak at the candy. 4 (5%)

Congrats to 79% of you.The phrase "adverse reaction" is sometimes mistaken for "averse reaction," which is incorrect.
In sentence 2, "affect" should be "effect."
In sentence 3, "horde" should be "hoard."
In sentence 4, "peak" should be "peek."

Many words sound the same, so check the dictionary if you're not sure of the spelling.

Criminal Sentence 260: Nonsensical FAQ

From a writing contest FAQ page:

"How large of print is allowed?"

This wasn't written by an ESL student as far as I know. Could this be considered a careless error? I don't know. What's the right way to express this thought?

"What is the biggest font size allowed?"

Writer Mag Column 5: Wordiness

Healthful food doesn’t have fillers--and neither should your writing

Emulsifiers, preservatives, thickening agents and fillers. Don’t those sound delicious? Well, no. You don’t want to fill your body with these unhealthful items. Neither do you want to fill your writing with wordy phrases, unfocused fillers and rambling blather. Food companies increase the shelf life of their products by adding all these substances. Many writers are equally guilty of increasing the width of their prose by adding unneeded words and phrases.

This Criminal Sentence, written by someone I’ll call Mr. Lazy, illustrates what I mean:

“Due to the vast knowledge of building retail structures, the company was able to quickly and accurately identify the necessary steps to ensure complete satisfaction and overall success.”

I took this from something I edited recently, and I felt very full after reading a whole page of sentences like this. Although my eyes read a lot of words, my brain didn’t detect much substance. The sentence is so vague as to be meaningless. It is pure fluff and filler. This depresses me, because nine out of 10 nutritionists--I mean, copy editors--will tell you that such sentences are as prevalent as the fillers in processed food. It’s time to crack down on such flabby writing. You are no longer allowed to be like Mr. Lazy. You must become Mr. or Ms. Succinct. Throw away those old recipe books that you’ve been following. It’s time to create some nouveau cuisine: substantial sentences that actually say something concrete.

Before we can cook up some better sentences, we need to learn what ingredients are bad for our sentences’ health. We want to avoid three levels of wordiness.

Wordy phrases come first. Lots of phrases might qualify for this list. Loyal readers may remember that I covered quite a few wordy phrases in my previous article, “A bunch of has-beens.” They include “it is/was,” “there is/are/were,” “is/are able to,” “has/have/had the capability to” and “has/have/had the ability to.” Be sure to memorize this list and avoid using these fatty fillers. Here’s a short stack of some other thickening agents that you should remove from your pantries because these empty calories add little to your work:

1. “The fact that,” found in phrases such as “due to the fact that” and “in spite of the fact that.” Despite the fact that you might want to use the words “the fact that” in your sentence, I recommend that you don’t. Examine this Criminal Sentence, taken from a book about a prison camp: “Adding to our pile of misery was the fact that we also weren’t in a permanent camp.” Seventeen words. Let’s be more succinct: “Not being in a permanent camp added to our pile of misery.” Twelve words there.

2. “On a … basis” and “in a … manner.” These are longwinded ways to avoid using an adverb. Take this Criminal Sentence: “He trips in a clumsy manner on an ongoing basis.” Why not just save words and say, “He trips clumsily every day”? We don’t need to be afraid of adverbs. Adverbs are our friends! Used sparingly, they add a bit of spice.

3. “Each and every.” Each and every time I see this phrase, it grates on my nerves! “Each” means “every,” so there’s no need to repeat yourself, repeat yourself. Pick one, please.

4. “The reason is because” and “the reason is that.” “The reason” and “because” are identical twins that mean the same thing, so you don’t need to say both together. The reason I say this is because it’s wordy. “The reason is that” is also a bad filler. Take this Criminal Sentence: “The reason that she doesn’t like okra is that it’s slimy.” Although I don’t mind the slime, I do mind this wordy sentence. Let’s just use the word “because” somewhere else in the sentence: “She doesn’t like okra because it’s slimy.”

5. “And,” “also,” “in addition” and “too.” I often see more than one of these in the same sentence. This is redundant in addition to being redundant, too.

Wordy sentence structure constitutes the second level of wordiness. The main culprits here are passive voice and nominalizations, covered in Chapters 1 and 2 of The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier by yours truly. I’ll be tackling passive voice in my next column, so here I’m going to focus on nominalizations, which lead to wordy, soporific sentences.

You likely use nominalizations all the time without knowing what they are. When you create a nominalization, you nominalize, which means you turn a verb or an adjective into a noun. Take this nine-word Criminal Sentence: “She made a careful selection of the fabric’s color.” In this sentence, the writer for some reason changed the verb “to select” into the noun “selection.” There’s nothing grammatically wrong with the sentence, but it’s just too wordy for my taste. Compare it to this improved sentence, which doesn’t use a nominalization: “She carefully selected the fabric’s color.” Six words instead of nine. The usage of (hint, hint) nominalizations by everyone must stop! Nominalizations and passive voice are two of the main wordy sentence structures. Learn what they are and avoid them.

The last level of wordiness is what I call the “BS factor.” Mr. Lazy, the creator of that awful Criminal Sentence up front, fell prey to the BS factor. I can see why he fell into this trap. I remember BS-ing my way through a school essay that had to be at least 1,000 words. My ideas weren’t fully formed, so I tried to make myself sound knowledgeable by fluffing things up. (I fluffed grammatically, of course.) Just as I did all those years ago, Mr. Lazy was trying to puff up the importance of whatever was he was saying, he didn’t know what to say, and he was trying to fill space. Unfortunately, many writers are like Mr. Lazy and the high school me: They drone on without saying much.

How did Mr. Lazy and all these filler-happy writers get this way? Well, we can perhaps blame our high school and college English teachers. Rather than teaching students to produce clear and meaningful sentences, they promoted grammar rules and a word minimum. I’m all in favor of grammar rules, but I think a self-imposed word maximum would help all of us write more succinctly. The best writing teacher I ever had assigned us one-paragraph essays. Having little space to say a lot sure helped me focus.

Now it’s time for that nouveau recipe you’ve been waiting for. Following these simple rules will ensure that you’ll write things short and sweet:

1. Never use the thickening agents/wordy phrases listed earlier.

2. Avoid passive voice, nominalizations and other weak sentence structures. Read my article on getting rid of weak verbs. If you follow the instructions there, you’ll become less wordy and your sentences will be more substantive. Read The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier if you want to learn even more.

3. Focus your thoughts and know what you want to say. Use specific facts, specific nouns and specific verbs. Don’t make general statements that anyone could make. This is hard, so you may have to work at it.

4. Realize--and admit--that your writing is wordy. You’re allowed to write down unfocused ideas and to ramble a bit in a rough draft. But your final version must be much more concise. Put aside your draft for a while and then cut it down--perhaps way down. Examine every phrase and shorten, shorten, shorten.

I don’t have any Criminal Sentences or Paragraphs for you to rewrite today, but I would like you to examine your own writing critically. Find something you’ve written recently and see if you can follow the new recipe. If you want to send the before and after versions to me at curiouscase@hotmail.com, I would love to see them. Unlike most nutritionists, I will certainly allow you to use plenty of shortening.

Criminal Sentence 259: How Many Parents Do You Have?

From a blog I read:

"I lived in my parent's house."

I don't know if this person is a child of a single parent, but I'm guessing not. He would have said "my mom's house" or "my dad's house." Therefore, I think he was fortunate to live in his parents' house--that's s apostrophe, not apostrophe s.

Criminal Sentence 258: Concerns about agreement

From my community newspaper:

"Over the past 18 months, the safety and well-being of neighborhoods surrounding the airport has become a serious concern."

I have a serious concern about this: there is more than one concern in the sentence:

the safety of neighborhoods
the well-being of neighborhoods

Therefore, we need to pluralize everything:

the verb "has become" (should be "have become")
"a serious concern" (should be "serious concerns")

Here's the rewrite:

"Over the past 18 months, the safety and well-being of neighborhoods surrounding the airport have become serious concerns."

Criminal Sentence 257: A sentence at it's worst

From an ad in my community newspaper:

"Assisted living at it’s best"

I doubt it.

It's (It is) best if you learn how to use "its."

Poll Results 47

This was the question:

Which sentence is not wordy?
Due to the fact that it's snowing outside, I am not able to wear sandals. 2 (2%)
He has the ability to write well. 20 (24%)
Using a flashlight, I searched the basement. 52 (63%)
I always proofread myself on a continuous basis. 8 (9%)

Congrats to 63% of you. The following phrases in the other sentences are wordy:

Due to the fact that
am not able to
has the ability to
on a continuous basis (and always means the same thing)

Now for the better phrases:

because
cannot
can
continually

Try to use one word instead of several.

Criminal Sentence 256: The Worst Sentence of the Year

Today's example is so awful that I'm naming it the worst sentence of the year. It appeared in today's paper. Here is the background: A woman who was eight months pregnant was killed and another woman pretended the baby was hers. She was arrested for kidnapping. The medical examiner performed an autopsy on the woman who was pregnant, and the police are investigating the murder. Now here's what the reporter told us:

"The missing fetus was discovered during an autopsy."

This is the most ridiculous sentence! It claims that during the autopsy the fetus was found, when we know that the missing baby was found at the home of the woman pretending to be the mom. The baby was still missing after the autopsy was done.

The sentence was supposed to say that during the autopsy, the medical examiner discovered that there had been a fetus and that it was now missing.

I'm glad the baby, now in protective services, has been found unharmed, but I am dismayed at the reporter's lack of brains.

End of rant.

Criminal Sentence 255: There, their, they're

From a sign at my gym's child care area:

"All parents must make sure there kids are taking the right shoes."

"Their is" a problem with that "there," which is one of three words that sound alike:

1) "their," as in not "mine" or "yours"
2) "there," as in not "here"
3) "they're," a contraction of "they are"

Careless writers forget which one is which. If you tend to make this mistake, I suggest that when you use one of these words, you say to yourself, "Ding! I've just used a word that sounds like another word. Maybe I should double-check myself!"

Thank "ewe" "four" double-checking "yore" self. English contains many pairs and trios of similar-sounding words, so "bee" careful with your spelling!

Criminal Sentence 254: Yucky Shake

From a sign at a fast food restaurant:

"Burger and Peach Shake: $2.99"

My first reaction to this as I drove by was ewwww. A shake made with burgers? Of course I knew that the sign meant it cost $2.99 for two items--a shake and a burger. This is a classic ambiguous sentence (or partial sentence). It would have been better to advertise like this:

"Peach Shake and a Burger: $2.99"

Criminal Sentence 253: With a passion for grammar

From something I edited:

"With a passion for cooking, it is no surprise that she named her organization and productivity consulting firm after a cooking term."

As you should all know by now, this sentence contains a misplaced modifier. "It" doesn't have a passion for cooking! The lady does! Let's reword it:

"It is no surprise that Mary, who has a passion for cooking, named her organization and productivity consulting firm after a cooking term."

Poll Results 46

This was the question:

What's wrong with this? "Cronkite's influence was said to rival presidents."

Misplaced modifier 16 (21%)
Subject-verb agreement 10 (13%)
Faulty comparison 45 (60%)
Wrong word 3 (4%)

Congratulations to 60% of you. You can't compare "influence" to "presidents." You need to compare "influence" to "influence." You can do this in several ways, some of which sound better than others:

1) Cronkite's influence was said to rival the influence of presidents. (repetitive)
2) Cronkite's influence was said to rival that of presidents. (fuddy-duddy, perhaps)
3) Cronkite's influence was said to rival presidents'. (not good)
4) It was said that Cronkite had as much influence as presidents did. (aah, much better)

Criminal Sentence 252: Headline Capitalization

A headline from something I recently edited:

"What can Airbags do for you?"

There are three schools of thought about head style. You can capitalize the first letter of all words all the time (that's easy enough to remember), you can capitalize the first letter of everything except words like "and," "of" and "the," or you can capitalize just the first word and any proper names.
This headline here follows none of these styles, so I deem it a criminal.
Some publications/offices have a style guide that tells employees which way to go. I prefer the cap everything style, mostly because then I don't have to struggle to remember which words need caps and which don't.
Does your publication/office have a style preference for heads?

Criminal Sentence 251: Coincidentally...

Seen in a magazine:

"Coincidently, ..."

Coincidentally, there is something called a dictionary...

Criminal Sentence 250: Ambiguous Besides

From something I edited:

"Besides these kinds of adventures are best shared with friends."

I had to read this sentence twice before I got it. I thought at first that "Besides these kinds of adventures" went together. Nope.

The sentence would be clearer with a comma:

"Besides, these kinds of adventures are best shared with friends."

Criminal Sentence 249: Looking for Kanga

Seen on a sign at the side of the road:

"Wanted: Roomate"

Anyone seen Kanga?

Poll Results 45

This was the question:

Do novels written in the present tense instead of past tense bother you?

Yes 18 (36%)
No 31 (63%)

As for me, present-tense books bother me. I find such books hard to stick with unless the story is so compelling that I can overlook the present tense.

Criminal Sentence 248: Quite an Effect

From a blog I read:

"I hear lots of people complaining about the economy and how it’s effecting them."

I hear lots of spelling whizzes complaining about how the spelling is "affecting," not "effecting," them.

Most of the time, "affect" is used as a verb. "Effect," as in "the cause and effect of something," is usually used as a noun. Check the dictionary if you're not sure which one is right for your particular sentence.

Guest-Written Grammar Girl Episode: Using "Which" to Begin a Sentence

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/start-sentence-with-which.aspx

Writer Mag Column 4: Imaginative Verbs

A bunch of “has-beens”: Use imaginative verbs, not the same old ones

Imagine you’re a fashion designer. You’ve spent months designing your outfits and making them the best you can. When Fashion Week comes around, you don’t want to find that your models are wearing the same old dresses as everyone else. Nor do you want them to walk down the runway in a dull manner. Plod, plod, plod. Rather, you want your models to strut and pose memorably. Pirouette, sashay, manage to stay upright while wearing incredibly high heels.

Now imagine you’re a writer. Oh, wait a minute; you already are. You’ve spent months designing your sentences and making them the best you can. When publication time comes around, you don’t want to discover that your sentences are wearing the same old verbs and that they’re walking through your sentences in a dull manner.

In sentences--and in fashion--you want to avoid the “has-beens”: you know, the verbs “to have” and “to be” and their equally dull friends “to get,” “to do” and “to use.” If you chop out your weak verbs and instead take advantage of descriptive verbs that entice and intrigue your readers, they will ask for more, not turn away out of boredom.

A sentence with a weak verb tends to be a weak sentence. We’re not talking grammar here; rather, we’re talking about style. Don’t automatically think you’ve written a good sentence just because it’s grammatically correct. Lots of bad sentences are grammatically correct. Some of these bad sentences might even be yours, especially if they contain one of the has-beens.

The most famous bad sentence of all time contains a has-been: “It was a dark and stormy night.” Although I can’t complain about the grammar of this sentence, it does display the unimaginative “it was” construction. Snore. In the same vein, “Once upon a time, there was …” will not win any awards, no matter how imaginative the fairy tale that follows. Again, the sentence is perfectly grammatical, but it displays the unimaginative “there was” construction. “It is,” “it was,” “there is,” “there was” and “there were” should all go the way of polyester: to the recycle bin.

Alas, these common constructions are not the only ones you’ll need to throw away. So I’m going to lay down a few rules for you designers who are searching for the most innovative ways to create your masterpieces; i.e., sentences:

1. Please, no more “it is”/“it was”/“there is”/“there was”/“there were.” There are more imaginative ways to express yourself. Of course, it is harder than it looks to come up with imaginative verbs. There is  a trick that you can use: It is called trying to be more specific.

Let’s say, for example, that you’ve written a weak sentence like this: “There was a woman who was good at writing.” First, shame on you for using two “to be” verbs in one sentence. Second, fix it! You have to focus on the woman and decide some specifics. Be creative, not vague. What color hair does this lady have? What body type is she? Is she wearing something noteworthy? You could start your sentence with “The talented purple-haired writer” and then use a specific, interesting verb to finish off the thought. Go ahead and try out this technique here, and then try it each time you compose a sentence.

2. Eliminate most cases of passive voice, a writing style where you place the object of the sentence into the subject position.

Another snore. A prodigious amount of passive writing is written by writers, and it has to stop. I’m sure that a whole article about this topic can be written by me. The editors will be contacted shortly and you will be notified of the publication date soon. Was all that passive voice caught by you? Go for active voice most of the time. You’ll thereby reduce how often you use “is,” “was” and “were.”

3. Avoid the following phrases, all of which contain the verbs “to be” and “to have”: “is/are able to,” “has/have/had the capability to” and “has/have/had the ability to.”

Modern sentences don’t need all that extra padding. The words “can” or “could” work just fine in all these cases. I think you can; I think you can.

4. Go through your manuscript and eliminate everyday verbs wherever possible.

You can search and replace on the computer, or circle and replace on paper. Personally, I like to circle weak verbs furiously with a red pen, but you can do whatever fits into your revision process. No matter how you learn the location of your weak verbs, your goal is to--I mean, you should aim to--find sentences that seem too general because of a blah verb and then improve them. It is likely that you can cut at least half of the “has-beens.”

Please follow these useful rules diligently. I understand that you can’t cut out every “to be” and “to have” verb. We say them all the time, and they come to our heads unbidden. So, OK--these verbs are allowed sometimes. You may use run-of-the-mill verbs in your rough draft, but your final, polished version must keep readers engaged with specific, active verbs.

But beware: You want to dress your sentences appropriately; don’t overdress them with fancy verbs that don’t fit. Add a bit of flair that suits the occasion.

It is practice time. This Criminal Paragraph needs help. It is bland, and there are too many to be and other uninteresting verbs that add no substance. I know that you have the ability to fix it. Decide what kind of person the paragraph refers to; pay attention to the mood that pervades the scene; get specific. Send your rewrites to curiouscase@hotmail.com, and I’ll make sure your designs are up to snuff.

Criminal Paragraph

It was a dark and cloudy morning when Penelope got out of bed and saw that it was time for her to get ready to walk in the runway show. There were going to be a lot of outfits that she would have to wear during the 30-minute show, and it would be necessary for her to put them on fast. Although she knew that she had the ability to do what was required, she thought that it was not going to be fun. She was an experienced model but there were rumors that there were going to be a few fresh-faced models at the show. Perhaps it was time for 30-year-old Penelope to do another job. There had always been that thought that she could work in her cousin’s pastry shop.

As you’ve learned in this fashion tutorial, a weak outfit (sentence) will not lure buyers (readers). So, when you design your outfits (sentences), please be more imaginative about how you dress your models (verbs). Remember that dark and stormy nights are such has-beens. Today, it is a bright and sunny day!

Criminal Sentence 247: Admitting You Have Typos

The last line of a post from a blog I read daily:

"Sorry, for the brief report and any and all typos and errors today, but I'm really trying to run out the door"

Two punctuation errors in that sentence (first comma not needed, and period missing). And there were several other mistakes, including "hollar" instead of "holler."

Which scenario is better? Being late arriving because you fixed your own typos, or being on time and having typos?

Criminal Sentence 246: Buried in Bad Grammar

From a book about an ancient pot that was smuggled out of Italy and then broken:

"Buried in documents from his legal files, I found another reference to the 15 fragments."

The question here is "What is buried in his legal files?" Is it "I" or perhaps the reference? Unless the "I" of this sentence is chest deep in paperwork, I believe it's the reference that is buried.

Don't steal ancient pottery, and don't write misplaced modifiers!

Criminal Sentence 245: Three for One

I had to get new tires yesterday and, being myself, I couldn't help but copy down the text of a large sign in the showroom:

"Underinflated Tires can decrease fuel mileage by 10%, that can add up to hundreds of dollars a year"

I had to sit next to this sign for 45 minutes! What horror! What torture! (OK, I'm exaggerating just slightly.)

Three errors:

1) No need to capitalize "Tires" unless you're talking about a proper name. Is some naughty person named Underinflated Tires going around and decreasing fuel mileage?
2) A comma between two sentences is called a comma splice. Comma splices are no-nos. There's a new invention the sign writer hasn't heard about: a period. A period ends a sentence.
3) What, a period is missing at the end of this sentence? Yikes!

Poll Results 44

Here was the question:

In which sentence are em dashes used incorrectly?

I spent $1,000--can you believe it?--at the mall. 11 (14%)
I love you--Do you love me too?--I hope so. 32 (42%)
Don't come around here anymore--unless you're coming to pay back the money you owe me. 20 (26%)
If you see her--or hear from her--please let me know. 7 (9%)
Beats me. I don't know how to use em dashes. 6 (7%)

Congrats to 42% of you. You can't use em dashes like periods, as they are in the second sentence. Em dashes indicate you're adding a quick aside. You can use a pair of em dashes around an aside in the middle of a sentence, as in the first and fourth examples, or you can use an em dash to add an aside at the end, as in the third example. One way to tell if you're using an em dash correctly is to to remove the em dash(es) and the aside. If the sentence still makes sense, then the em dash(es) is/are OK.

You can see em dashes everywhere. Notice in novels how they are used.

Criminal Sentence 244: I Have an Aversion to That!

From a book I read:

"It’s no wonder that Nick isn’t adverse to a little risk."

I am averse--not adverse--to that sentence. In other words, I have an aversion to that misspelling. "Adverse" means "antagonistic," whereas "averse" means "having a feeling of distaste." These are commonly confused words, so if you make this kind of mistake, you'll have to memorize how to use them. You can usually use "to" after "averse," so remember "averse to." You can usually use a noun after "adverse," as in "adverse circumstances."

Guest-Written Grammar Girl Episode: Rhetorical/Tag Questions

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/rhetorical-questions-question-mark.aspx

Criminal Sentence 243: Who's the First Lady?

From a book I read:

"As First Lady, the agents acted as my protectors."

Now that's odd: how can agents be the First Lady? Well, they can't. This is just another misplaced modifier.

What is the writing world coming to?

Criminal Sentence 242: Funny Mustache

From a book I am reading:

"All I had was a vague recollection of a man with slicked-down hair and a little Latin mustache who was always cheerful."

Wow, a cheerful mustache. That's entertaining prose. Again, as usual, I am pointing out a misplaced modifier. The clause "who was always cheerful" doesn't belong next to "mustache"; it belongs with "a man." Just move "cheerful" before "man" and your problem is solved:

"All I had was a vague recollection of an always cheerful man with slicked-down hair and a little Latin mustache."

Criminal Sentence 241: Groaning Outloud

From an LA Times article about tennis:

"He has focused on the simple principal of moving aggressively forward."

I groaned audibly when I read this sentence. There's just no excuse for this elementary error in the LA Times.

"Principal" should be "principle." A simple principal would mean either a simpleton who is leading a school or an uncomplicated part of a loan that is not interest. A "principle" is a tenet or law.

Poll Results 43

This was the question:

What's wrong with this? "As one of our Loyal Customers, we would like to say thanks."

Incorrect grammar 7 (8%)
Incorrect punctuation 3 (3%)
Incorrect capitalization 12 (14%)
Two of the above 62 (73%)

Congrats to 73% of you. Loyal Customers does not need to be capitalized, and the "we" in this sentence is not one of our loyal customers; an unmentioned "you" is. Here is how I would rewrite this:

"Thank you for being a loyal customer."

Writer Mag Column 3: Dangling modifiers

“Spot the loony": Dangling modifiers can be unintentionally funny

As a child in London, I was exposed to the crazy humor of Monty Python's Flying Circus. One of my favorite skits was "Spot the Looney" (spelled the British way), in which a news anchor exhorted viewers to examine various video clips and then locate the people who were nuts. As expected, most of the people in the skits were loonies. Now that I'm all grown up, I get to spot the loony almost every day—except that these loonies aren't people; they're sentences that contain dangling modifiers.

I remember a long-ago day when I first got to play this new version of "Spot the Loony." I read this sentence: "Freshly painted, the visitors to the museum enjoyed the reopened exhibit." An amusing thought that the visitors were freshly painted, but unlikely. What is likely, unfortunately, is that you've written similar dangling modifiers—lots of them. You've also probably read your fair share of unbalanced and loony sentences written by others. They're so common that if I want to find one, I just have to read something. The last eight or so novels I devoured—some from bestselling authors—contained at least one egregious dangler (also known as a misplaced modifier). Reading the work of famous writers, it's hard to believe that so many misplaced modifiers slip through (hint, hint).

Think back to your own childhood, during which you learned how to form grammatical sentences. All those years ago, you parsed sentences such as "The unbalanced man is waving his arms" and "Waving his arms, the unbalanced man disrupted traffic." You also learned about modifiers, which come in many forms, from a simple adjective (like "unbalanced") to more complicated phrases (like "freshly painted") and clauses (like "waving his arms"). "Unbalanced" modifies the noun "man," and the clause "waving his arms" modifies "the unbalanced man." We cannot play "Spot the Loony" in these sentences because they are grammatical. But don't worry; you'll get to play the game very soon.

A modifier becomes misplaced, and loony, when it describes the wrong word or phrase. Take this loony sentence: "Waving his arms, traffic was disrupted by the unbalanced man." The traffic wasn't waving its arms; traffic doesn't even have arms! Pick a modifier—any modifier—and it can dangle in a loony manner. Most dangling modifiers dangle at the beginning of a sentence—as with "freshly painted" in our first example. Let's see about these two modifiers: "paying attention to their sentence structure" and "as a diligent writer." Can you spot the loony?

First is this doozy:

"Paying attention to their sentence structure, it is important that writers don't create dangling modifiers."

Yikes! "It" is not what's paying attention; writers should be:

"Paying attention to their sentence structure, writers should double-check what comes after the introductory word, phrase or clause, because that's what the modifier describes."

Second comes this crazy sentence:

"As a diligent writer, there are several ways to avoid dangling your modifiers."

In this sentence, "there" is not a diligent writer; we're talking about a person who should be diligent:

"As a diligent writer, you must be careful not to inadvertently paint any museum visitors."

Paying attention … writers. Check. Modifier and modify-ee match. As a diligent writer … you. Check.

Honestly, though, it doesn't matter where the modifier is or what its exact components are. You just have to worry about catching it. And that's the hard part, because when you're accidentally writing a dangling modifier, it seems right. You know what you mean, but it comes out all wrong on the page. Misplaced modifiers creep into your prose when you're not paying attention. If you've been staring out the window instead of watching your modifiers, you need to do something about it. You need to imagine you're on a British TV show from the 1970s and play "Spot the Loony."

The way to play the updated version of this game is to pay attention to words, phrases and clauses at the beginning of your sentences. You need to train yourself to notice these. At first you may want to simply circle them—or you can underline them, highlight them, decorate them with glitter. However you want to make them stand out is fine with me. Just spot them. One clue to keep in mind is that a modifier at the beginning of a sentence is usually followed by a comma. Once you've found a modifier at the beginning of a sentence and you've found a comma, you need to ask yourself, "What does this modifier describe?" The answer to that question must be the next thing that appears in the sentence; the item being modified follows the comma. You need to question everything that follows your circles, highlights or glitter. Does the right word come after your modifier? It does? Yippee! Your credibility is intact.

And what's a writer without credibility? You don't want readers to laugh at your confused sentence structure or to think you're imprecise. Dangling modifiers, like this one I found recently, can be hilarious: "Growing from a pile of sticks and mud, we found several stands of large mushrooms." How great would it be if people could grow from sticks and mud? Next time you're writing science fiction, go ahead and use that line. Otherwise, watch your grammar.

So how do you rewrite loonies that you've spotted? Sometimes, it's just a matter of placing the correct subject after the modifier and the comma. Other times, you'll have to rewrite the whole sentence and change the sentence structure. Let's rewrite the mushroom sentence. What's growing from a pile of sticks and mud? Well, we've already determined that "we" are not; "several stands of large mushrooms" are. You could move this subject after the comma: "Growing from a pile of sticks and mud, several stands of large mushrooms were visible." We could also change the sentence structure: "We found several stands of large mushrooms growing from a pile of sticks and mud."

Now it's time to "Spot the Loony" in earnest with 10 crazy Criminal Sentences. Dangling modifiers are so common—and so loony—that you need lots of practice. Send your rewrites to me at curiouscase@hotmail.com, and I'll confirm your status as a professional loony-spotter. Here are the loonies:

Criminal Sentence 1: "After working all day, the ground was approaching level."

Criminal Sentence 2: "At age 90, it is likely the judge will retire soon."

Criminal Sentence 3: "As a new mom, it's hard to get up every two to three hours."

Criminal Sentence 4: "Sitting in the vinyl chair of a waiting room, the settling dust of my family's collapse seemed unimportant."

Criminal Sentence 5: "If convicted, that gamble could cost her 16 to 22 years in prison."

Criminal Sentence 6: "Fool or not, in this crisis I miss him bitterly." (Hint: Spoken by a woman who has just called her husband a fool.)

Criminal Sentence 7: "Once unconscious, he hit her head on the floor."

Criminal Sentence 8: "Benefiting from early detection through a doctor-ordered MRI, the cancer is not life-threatening."

Criminal Sentence 9: "While traveling West in 1851, American Indians attacked her family."

Criminal Sentence 10: "Before pureeing, this combination makes a fine filling for turnovers."

Once you become used to noticing modifiers at the beginning of sentences, you can spot the loony whenever you're reading. Then you'll be a pro and can invite all your friends to play the game. And, if you feel like it, you can watch the original "Spot the Looney" skit on the Internet. You're guaranteed to laugh, as I do when I read dangling modifiers.

Criminal Sentence 240: Writing "Differently"

From a book I finished recently:

"I looked at every teenager walking down the road differently."

So the kids were walking differently? Were they members of Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks, that famous British comedy skit from the 70s?

This is an example of a misplaced modifier. In this case, the word "differently" is misplaced. It seems to modify "walking," but it truly modifies "looked." The speaker has started looking at teenagers differently.

Fixing it is fairly easy: just move the word "differently" so that it modifies "looked":

"I looked differently at every teenager walking down the road."

Ah...

And please be careful that your adverbs clearly modify what they're supposed to, especially if you have more than one verb or adjective in your sentence.

Criminal Sentence 239: A Plethora of Errors

The text of a notice stuck to my door yesterday:

"Hi, allow Me to introduce Myself. My name is XYZ, I painted the outside of a house in Your neighborhood. If You would like to stop by and take a look at it You can pass by XYZ address. Also if You want a free estimate please call Me at either one of the numbers above and You can verify that I Am indeed the CHEAPEST yet PROFESSIONAL Painter in the Valley."

Definitely not as professional as I would like. The list of errors is quite long here:

1) You don't need to capitalize pronouns other than I. Nor do you need to capitalize the words "Am" or "Painter."
2) There are two comma splices here: "Hi, allow me..." and "My name is XYZ, I painted..." Periods would be better than commas.
3) You don't need all caps to make something stand out.
4) "cheapest yet professional" makes no sense. "Cheapest and most professional" would sound more professional.