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.

Criminal Sentence 238: Apples to Oranges

From today's paper, about shoulder surgery for pitchers:

"Unlike muscles in the rotator cuff, which can be strengthened and regrown, surgery is the only way to repair a labrum tear."

So, surgery is unlike muscles in the rotator cuff? Ah, no. I think we need to redo this whole sentence to avoid a comparison mistake:

"Muscles in the rotator cuff can be strengthened and regrown; on the other hand, a labrum tear can be repaired only by surgery."

Although this new sentence is in passive voice, it is much better than the original.

Poll Results 42

This was the question:

Have you been published?
Yes. My work is available now. 8 (22%)
Almost. I'm under contract now. 0 (0%)
No, but I am trying. 14 (40%)
No. I am not a writer. 13 (37%)

Good luck to those who are trying to get published!

Grammar Girl Episode: Subject-Complement Agreement

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/subject-complement-agreement.aspx

Criminal Sentence 237: Errors: Just Beat It

A double error in an article about the death of Michael Jackson:

"Upon arriving at the hospital at approximately 1:14 p.m., a team of doctors, including emergency phsyicians and cardiologists, attempted to resuscitate him for a period of one hour and they were unsuccessful."

Very sad, but let's focus on this sentence.

1) "Upon arriving at the hospital at approx. 1:14"--I don't think a team of doctors arrived; they were already there waiting to treat the patient. So this is a misplaced modifier. It would be better to say, "When Jackson arrived at the hospital..."

2) That's an interesting way to spell physicians: "phsyicians."

Criminal Sentence 236: To or Too

Seen on the side of an electrician's truck:

"No job to small"

to/too/two: different spellings and different meanings!

It's "to" bad the electrician didn't check his spelling before he printed his sign!

Criminal Sentence 235: Falling Leaves

From a post in the comments section of a blog for writers:

"That releaves a lot of stress."

The dictionary releaves a lot of spelling mistakes.

Criminal Sentence 234: Who and That

From today's newspaper:

"This is a boy that went from obscurity to mega-fame in a very short space of time and who had to open himself up very, very quickly."

This is a very confused sentence. It uses both a "that" clause and a "who" clause to refer back to "boy." Traditionally, you use "who" clauses to refer to people and "that" clauses to refer to things. You are allowed, however, to use "that" clauses to refer to people if you want, but I don't think it's OK to use one of each in the same sentence. Pick "who" or "that" and then stick with it, please. I personally prefer "who."

Poll Results 41

This was the question:

What's wrong with this? "The actor is on a two month-long hiatus."

Unneeded hyphen 42 (43%)
Missing hyphen 51 (53%)
Nothing 3 (3%)

Congrats to 53% of you. A hyphen is missing in the compound adjective "two-month-long," which modifies "hiatus." Whenever you join up words to modify something, you use hyphens, as in "The soon-to-be-eaten chocolate looked yummy." If you put the words after the noun, however, then you don't need hyphens: The chocolate that was soon to be eaten looked yummy.

Criminal Sentence 233: Serves You Wrong

From a book I read:

"The thick bed of rotted leaves and soft earth served to muffle her footsteps."

There's nothing grammatically wrong with this sentence, but I feel that you can usually cut out the phrase "serve to" because it is useless. Why not just say, "The thick bed of rotted leaves and soft earth muffled her footsteps" and save two words?

Writer Mag Column 2: How to achieve parallel structure in your sentences

Writing in a parallel universe: How to achieve parallel structure in your sentences

Writers work hard every day to churn out the best possible prose, and it's nice to receive some recognition. If you hope to win a Pulitzer, a National Book Award or perhaps just a positive review on Amazon, you first must compete for and win the Sentence Synchronization Award. This soon-to-be-coveted honor goes to writers who practice perfect parallelism within each sentence.

Non-parallel sentences like "Roger has graying hair, a calm voice and never seems to hurry" will get you nowhere. In fact, they can damage your credibility. At best, readers will giggle at your misshapen sentences; at worst, they'll believe you incompetent and will stop reading your work. Nobody wants that, so I'm hoping that all of you are up for this event.

To achieve parallelism, you must make the parts of your sentences perform like those synchronized swimmers at the Olympics, who line themselves up exactly and do the same actions simultaneously. The swimmers train, train, train so that they can be synchronized, synchronized, synchronized. That is what writers must do, too. You must train yourself in the art of making sentences parallel.

Making sure elements of a sentence are parallel is a bit like making sure a subject agrees with a verb—only it's harder. Subject-verb agreement involves matching only one subject with one verb; parallelism, on the other hand, can involve multiple elements. You must undergo a tough four-step training program to compete for a Sentence Synchronization Award. Fear not; as your dedicated coach, I will be with you every step of the way.

Step 1 is to practice identifying sentences that contain like elements. A simple sentence like this won't concern those in training because it doesn't contain elements that need to be parallel: "The swimmers were beautifully synchronized." On the other hand, complex sentences that contain more than one like element must be parallel: "The swimmers had to jump into the water, swim upside down and point their toes." The like elements in this sentence are "jump into the water," "swim upside down" and "point their toes." The swimmers had to verb, verb, verb.

Moving on to Step 2, you will learn about what I call the base word, which changes with each sentence. The base word is the word that matches up with each element in the sentence. Looking back at the swimmers sentence, trainees will notice that the elements "jump," "swim" and "point" all fit nicely with the word "to," which is the base word in this sentence. It's tricky to notice a potential parallelism problem, so contestants should set aside time to practice identifying base words in sentences. Then repeat—as in, actually write down repeatedly—the base word in each sentence. Practice repeating yourself like this: "The synchronized swimmers enjoy jumping into the water, enjoy being upside down and enjoy pointing their toes." Quick, identify the base word! This exercise might not yield pretty sentences, but it is an intermediary step that if repeated enough will lead you toward the gold—I mean, award.

In Step 3, competition hopefuls will make sure that all of the elements that go with the base word are equal, at the same level, parallel. For example, this sentence is not parallel: "The swimmers decided to get out of the pool and that they needed a bite to eat." Although the infinitive "to get" and the "that" clause both go with the base word "decided," these two elements do not match each other. You need two infinitives or two "that" clauses, not one of each. If you want to try out for the event, pick one of these methods and reword this sentence now. Be sure that the parts of speech match up.

As the final training step, you will test your parallelism skills by writing normal, complex sentences. Then you'll need to ensure that the sentences are parallel in both ways: elements are parallel with the base word and elements are parallel with each other. The catch is that this time you won't repeat the base word. You'll have to jump straight into the pool without a life jacket.

Be reassured, however, that when you get to Step 4, you'll have had so much practice matching base words to elements and matching elements with elements that it will be easy for you to spot unparallel sentences. Take this ungrammatical sentence, for example: "The synchronized swimmers were agile, precise and eventually got used to their nose pinchers." What? (Negative buzz sound from the judge--me.) Not parallel: adjective ("agile"), adjective ("precise"), adverb-verb ("eventually got"). If you write a sentence like this, you will definitely not win the award. Please rewrite it now.

Use these four steps as you work to correct these Criminal Sentences:

Criminal Sentence 1: "She was smart, decisive and had sound judgment."

Criminal Sentence 2: "The sadist chopped off fingers, toes and gouged out eyes."

Criminal Sentence 3: "At the top of the trail you'll want to stop for a drink, some snacks and to take
in the incredible view."

Criminal Sentence 4: "The agency spied on other countries, conducted sabotage and assassinations."

Criminal Sentence 5: "The athlete has competed in seven races, won six medals and has a chance to compete for the world record."

E-mail your rewrites to me at curiouscase@hotmail.com. As a bonus, fix the sentence featuring Roger at the beginning of this article.

Practice the four steps diligently, and rest assured that if I proudly bestow the Sentence Synchronization Award on you, you won't have to wear that pinched-nose thingy as proof that you won. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating; i.e., perfectly crafted, perfectly parallel sentences that I hope will win you plenty of accolades.

---------------------------
Sentence rewrites:
Note: You can rewrite these sentences in other ways, too.

Criminal Sentence 1:
"She was smart and decisive, and she had sound judgment, too."

Criminal Sentence 2:
"The sadist chopped off fingers, hacked away toes and gouged out eyes."

Criminal Sentence 3:
"At the top of the trail you'll want to stop for some refreshments and to take in the incredible view."

Criminal Sentence 4:
"The agency spied on other countries, conducted sabotage and carried out assassinations."

Criminal Sentence 5:
"The athlete has competed in seven races, has won six medals and has a chance to compete for the world record."

Shrimp Spelling

So I was in the store yesterday and saw some large shrimp for sale. There were two kinds of shrimp sitting next to each other, so when the lady asked me which one I wanted, I clarified by saying, "The one whose name is spelled wrong." Instead of flashing me a dirty look, as do most clerks if I point out a mistake in my perky voice, she looked stunned and embarrassed. Colossal shrimp had been spelled "Collasal." As soon as I had my shrimp in hand, she came around to the front of the display case and removed the sign so she could get it fixed. Very good job, Shrimp Lady!
I enjoyed eating those shrimp, which were collasally delicious!

Criminal Sentence 232: To Become Grammatical

From a Web site:

"To become a published writer, there must be a market for your work."

This is a misplaced modifier: "to become a published writer" does not go with "there"; if you've read this blog for a while, you will know what I mean. If you don't know what I mean, please read the blog.

How would you rewrite it?

Criminal Sentence 231: A Date with Nuttiness

Seen on a sign outside a drugstore:

"Father’s Day is June 21th."

Just had to laugh at that one.

Poll Results 40

Here was the question:

What's wrong with this? "The city's too laid back for Type As like me."

Unneeded apostrophe 3 (3%)
Missing apostrophe 43 (56%)
Faulty comparison 4 (5%)
Incorrect capitalization 26 (34%)

I was looking for the missing apostrophe in Type A's. Otherwise, it looks like As. As for the capitalization of Type A, my dictionary says it can be type A or Type A.

Criminal Sentence 230: A Bad Start

The first sentence of a book I finished yesterday:

"The day that Ryan Evans's world changed forever began as any other day he'd spent in the hot desert might have begun."

This is not an auspicious way to begin a book. Way too wordy and dull. I had a bad feeling about this book because of this sentence, and it proved true that it wasn't written very well.

A first sentence should grab a reader, but this grabbed me the wrong way.

"That" or "Who" after a Person

A reader of my new "Watch Your Language" column on writermag.com asked me this:

"What I noticed a lot lately and bugs me is that people will use "that" when they should use "who." For example, "The man that sells ice cream on the corner retired." I always believed "who" should be used when talking about people, but since I see and hear "that" used so much, I started to doubt myself. Am I correct?"

This is a good question. My grammar sources tell me that Shakespeare and the Bible, for example, use "that" after a person. So although it isn't incorrect to use "that" after a person, it's more common to use "who," and I prefer "who."

Stick with "who" after a person, but it's OK to use "that" if you really must.

Criminal Sentence 229: Ambiguous or Ungrammatical?

From a newspaper:

"A backpack with a laptop and a vaccination card also was recovered."

At first glance, this sentence seems ungrammatical; it appears that the subject is a compound subject: "a backpack with a laptop and a vaccination card." Those are two things. So when we see the verb "was," we do a double take. Then we consider that the backpack could have contained two items: a laptop and a vaccination card. It's possible, so the "was" could be grammatical.

If the backpack really did contain two items, here's a clearer way to write this sentence:

"Also recovered was a backpack that contained both a laptop and a vaccination card."

Criminal Sentence 228: Sheep in Strange Clothing

Seen on a TV show about fashion:

"Shear top"

Hmmm. A top to wear while shearing a sheep, perhaps? Or maybe a top to wear to reduce wind shear?

Nope, a "sheer" top, a top that is light and perhaps easy to see through. Aah, that's better.

You may shear a sheep in a sheer top, but it's sheer nonsense to wear a shear top.

Poll Results 39

This was the question:

What's wrong with this? “How I work with my clients and my expectations for and of my clients are completely different from every single other agent out there.”

Problem with subject-verb agreement 15 (18%)

Incorrect word choice 11 (13%)

Faulty comparison 41 (50%)

Misplaced modifier 14 (17%)

50% of you are right. You can't compare "how I work with my clients and my expectations for and of my clients" with "every single other agent out there."

Criminal Sentence 227: "It Was" a Problem

From a book I read recently (about Avignon, France):

"It was in December 1360 that the threat once again descended on Avignon."

This is an example of wordy writing. Can you tell me what three words you can cut?

Grammar Girl Episode: Principal vs. Principle

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/principal-versus-principle.aspx

Writer Mag Column 1: Take Care of Your “Who” and “That” Clauses

Save the Orphans: Take Care of Your “Who” and “That” Clauses

A nasty epidemic is sweeping the world and is producing lonely orphans. No, it’s not swine flu; it’s a plague that has seeped into everyone’s writing and won’t go away. Even The Elements of Style, written some 90 years ago, complains about it (Rule 20). I’m talking about orphaned “who” and “that” clauses. They’ve been cruelly separated from their parents and they need to find a way back home.

Never heard of this epidemic? Well, pick up any book or newspaper and you’ll find these poor orphans sprinkled among otherwise decent prose. New York Times-bestselling authors are not immune—and, unfortunately, neither are you. So you must become a careful writer, because only you can cure this plague. You must take action now. Help reunite these orphans with the correct family members before the children become lost forever, left to languish in print and ridiculed by ornery copy editors like me.

I’ve plucked some orphaned “who” and “that” clauses from various books and papers I’ve read—and cursed—recently. It’s a good idea for you to examine the following five Criminal Sentences so that you can A) learn about this problem, which devastates a writer’s credibility; and B) laugh at the ridiculous sentences your fellow writers have wrought:

Criminal Sentence 1 (from a book): “Cattle and sheep are gone that the farmers thought were on safe ground.”

Criminal Sentence 2 (from a newspaper): “Paul Rudd stars as a man about to be married who needs to find a best man.”

Criminal Sentence 3 (from a book): “Seeds were being sown in the young man’s mind that were soon to grow into a virulent hatred of the place.”

Criminal Sentence 4 (from a book): “All the job required was a guy who didn't mind sitting in a tree who liked to shoot things.”

Criminal Sentence 5 (from a book): “The student submitted a piece for class discussion that was shockingly incoherent.”

Are these sentences shockingly incoherent or what? Yes, they exude badness, but unfortunately such jumbled and imprecise sentences abound.

You know that an orphan is crying out for her mama when the word right before the “who” or “that” clause does not match up. These five orphans are screaming loudly for their mothers because they’ve been placed right next to scary strangers (in other words, each “who” or “that” clause is next to something that it doesn’t truly modify):

Criminal Sentence 1: “gone that the farmers thought were on safe ground.”

Criminal Sentence 2: “married who needs to find a best man.”

Criminal Sentence 3: “mind that were soon to grow into a virulent hatred of the place.”

Criminal Sentence 4: “tree who liked to shoot things.”

Criminal Sentence 5: “discussion that was shockingly incoherent.”

These orphans are scared and alone. Let’s reunite them with their anguished families, who have been longing to be close to them (in other words, please place each “who” or “that” clause right next to what it modifies):

Criminal Sentence 1: “cattle and sheep that the farmers thought were on safe ground.”

Criminal Sentence 2: “a man who needs to find a best man.”

Criminal Sentence 3: “seeds that were soon to grow into a virulent hatred of the place.”

Criminal Sentence 4: “a guy who liked to shoot things.”

Criminal Sentence 5: “a piece that was shockingly incoherent.”

We did it! Almost. All we have to do is rewrite the sentences. Some are easy; you simply need to rearrange the clauses within each sentence. Some are medium hard; you must reword your sentences to make the syntax correct. Others are super hard because too much is crammed in; you’ll probably have to make each of these bad sentences two sentences. As official coordinator of orphan reunitings, I’ll help you with the first two, but you’ll need to practice on the other three yourself:

Criminal Sentence 1: “Cattle and sheep that the farmers thought were on safe ground are gone.” (I just rearranged the clauses.)

Criminal Sentence 2: “Paul Rudd stars as a man who needs to find a best man in time for his upcoming wedding.” (I had to reword the sentence to make the syntax correct.)

I’m confident you can help the remaining three orphans get back home. Just give it a try and then e-mail them to the world headquarters of Orphan Reunitings International (curiouscase@hotmail.com). I’ll be happy to check the paperwork.

Now that you are aware of the orphan plague, I’m counting on you to help me combat it. I need you to take two separate but equal actions:

1) Spread the word. Share this important sentence-health information with all of your writer colleagues. The more people know about this plague, the easier it will be to contain.

2) Ensure that you don’t contribute to the epidemic. When you write a “who” or “that” clause, say aloud (if you’re alone), “Hey! I’ve written a ‘who’ or ‘that’ clause!” Train yourself to notice these clauses—circle them if you have to—and check that everything matches up. It’s even OK to become incensed with other writers’ orphaned “who” and “that” clauses. As a writer, you probably read a lot, too. Noticing others’ errors may help you avoid making them yourself.

If you neglect your “who” and “that” clauses, you’ll get in trouble with your readers (and with any testy copy editors who are lurking nearby). You want your readers to love you, not ridicule you. Let’s keep things all in the family.

Criminal Sentence 226: Lean on Me

The first sentence of an introduction to a book I finished:

"The writer would like to thank the many who leant their time, wisdom, and patience to the improvement of this book."

Obviously this sentence has not been improved enough! I find two ways to improve it:

1) Spell "lent" correctly!
2) Avoid the nominalization: "the improvement of." Why not just save words and say, "...patience to improve this book."

Criminal Sentence 225: The Eyes Have It

From a book I finished last week:

"The man watched him and the girl with slow eyes."

This sentence displays another pesky prepositional phrase: "with slow eyes." Currently, it's next to "the girl," but does the girl have slow eyes? Nope, from the context of the paragraph, the man watched her slowly. So it should be:

"With slow eyes, the man watched him and the girl."

Criminal Sentence 224: Puzzling Headline

A New York Times print headline:

"Plane vanishes carrying 228; cause puzzle"

That cause a puzzle with me. The subject is "Plane," so the verb after the semicolon should be singular, as is "vanishes."

Perhaps the headline writer was so traumatized by the terrible news that his or her grammar flew away, too.

Poll Results 38

This was the question:
What's wrong with this, which I saw on a sign today? "Bathroom use are for customers only"
Spelling 2 (2%)
Passive voice 0 (0%)
Subject-verb agreement 63 (68%)
Punctuation 1 (1%)
Two of the above 26 (28%)

This was a bit tricky on purpose. "Two of the above" is correct. The subject does not agree with the verb, and a period is missing at the end of the sentence.

Shame on the sign writer!

Grammar Girl Episode: All Right vs Alright

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/all-right-versus-alright.aspx

Criminal Sentence 223: Nay on Lay

From an article in today's paper (about the death of a 150-year-old saguaro cactus):

" 'It's laying on Mother Earth,' said Todd Willard, a Tonto National Forest wildlife biologist."

Sorry, Todd, but I need to lay your statement in the trash.

To recline=to lie
To put something down=to lay down

I hate to admit that "lay down" to mean recline is very common in speech, so it's probably standard now. I want to complain about it anyway.

Criminal Sentence 222: Placing Prepositional Phrases "Without Difficulty"

From the latest novel by a New York Times bestselling author:

"We found the address he gave me without difficulty."

I'm glad it wasn't difficult to give out the address. Or was it not difficult to find the address? Oops. The finding, not the giving, turned out to be easy. Let's reword:

"It wasn't hard to find the address he gave me."

Or perhaps this is better:

"It wasn't hard to find the address he had given me."

When you have a prepositional phrase, be sure to place it correctly!

Criminal Sentence 221: Debate over Prepositions

Today's big headline:

"Debate begins over Obama's court pick"

There is no debate, though, that this syntax is messed up.

What does the "over" phrase describe? Not "begins." Let's just move it next to what it does modify, "debate."

"Debate over Obama's court pick begins"

Poll Results 37

Here was the question:

How did you hear about this site?

Through my book's Amazon page 1 (1%)
Because I heard about it on a "Grammar Girl" show 42 (76%)
By looking for grammar/writing resources on the Internet 7 (12%)
By word of mouth 5 (9%)

Thanks, Grammar Girl!

Criminal Sentence 220: Desperate for a Dictionary

From something I edited yesterday:

"Seventy separate facilities, many of which are individually operated, were on numerous desperate systems and technologies."

I had to laugh at that one.

"Disparate" = different
"Desperate" = really in need of something, like a dictionary

Criminal Sentence 219: I Wish You Wouldn't

From an interview with a pitcher:

"I wish I wouldn’t have started."

This is a case where the speaker made the verb tense more complicated than necessary. Why do you need two auxiliary (or helping) verbs: "wouldn't" and "have"? I dunno. You don't.

The sentence needs just one:

"I wish I hadn't started."

You can imagine yourself saying, "I wish you hadn't done that." You wouldn't say, "I wish you wouldn't have done that."

I hear this tense problem in other sentences, such as this:

"If she would have listened, I would not have put her in time out."

You need to change the first verb:

"If she had listened, I would not have put her in time out."

Criminal Sentence 218: Don't Put the Cart (Pronoun) before the Horse (Noun)

From a book I read recently:

"If it’s available, make sure to order Armagnac."

This is a common mistake: using a pronoun before you've mentioned what the noun is. A pronoun refers back to a noun that you've already mentioned, so if you haven't mentioned the noun yet, it confuses the reader. To solve this problem, just switch the pronoun and noun around:

"If Armagnac’s available, make sure to order it."

Criminal Sentence 217: Obama Has Had a Term at Notre Dame?

From a newspaper:

"The president faces one of the noisiest controversies of his term at the University of Notre Dame."

This sentence suggests that Obama has had a term--in other words, served in some position of importance--at Notre Dame. Definitely not the case. The prepositional phrase "at the University of Notre Dame" is misplaced and accidentally joins up with what came before: "his term." So let's rearrange:

"While at the University of Notre Dame to give the commencement speech, the president faces one of the noisiest controversies of his term."

Be careful where you place your prepositional phrases; they get misplaced a lot!

Poll Results 36

What do you think of what a sportscaster said to another? "Thanks for efforting that report."

Sounds fine to me. 2 (2%)

Makes me cringe. 83 (97%)

That "verbification" definitely made me cringe. "Effort" is a noun only; "make an effort" would be the verb to use in this case.

As Grammar Girl has said, "Don't verbify me, bro!"

Criminal Sentence 216: Odd Apostrophe

I was reading a book and came across this odd apostrophe:

"$250,000’ worth of poker chips"

Now if we wanted to spell this out (with a smaller dollar number for simplicity's sake), an apostrophe is warranted:

"ten dollars' worth of poker chips"

Just as you would do here:

"one dollar's worth of poker chips"

I've never seen an apostrophe used this way and I don't think it's allowed, though my style guides are silent on the matter.

If you come across such a situation, I would suggest not using an apostrophe after a dollar sign. In the $250K example, it would be awkward to spell out the number and then use an apostrophe, so you would have to reword the sentence somehow.

Criminal Sentence 215: Puss in Boots and in Ears?

I've been dealing with a painful ear infection and ruptured eardrum, so I did some reading online. Found this lovely sentence:

"If the infection builds up, the eardrum may rupture to allow the puss to flow out."

This seems to have happened to me, except for the part about the cat.

"Pus": icky stuff
"Puss": fluffy animal

Criminal Sentence 214: "Nemesis": Singular or Plural?

Said by a baseball announcer:

"Their nemesis have been the opposing pitchers."

If the words were "nemesi" (singular) and "nemesis" (plural), this would have some chance of being correct. However, the singular is "nemesis" and the plural is "nemeses." The subject ("nemesis") is singular, so the sentence should be as follows:

"Their nemesis has been the opposing pitchers."

The sentence would sound even better if we made the object ("pitchers") singular:

"Their nemesis has been the pitching of the opposition." (or "the opposition's pitching")

Poll Results 35

This was the question:

What is the problem here? We shot a signal flair in the air.

Grammar 22 (20%)

Spelling 84 (79%)

Punctuation 0 (0%)

I found a very similar sentence in a book. 79% of you are right that the spelling in this sentence is off. "Flair" means panache; "flare" means a light signal.

Watch "yore" spelling, "pleas."

Dumb Criminal Commits a Misspelling

http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/2009/05/09/20090509ODDwrongaddress.html

Grammar Girl Episode: Using "For" to Mean "Because"

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/because-or-for.aspx

Criminal Sentence 213: Some Consonants Should Be Doubled

From the CNN crawl:

"White House is 'disapointed' with Manny Ramirez."

I am disapointed, too, especially with that "speling."

Criminal Sentence 212: Eyes on the "Prise"

From a sign in a coffee shop:

"Long prised for its tantalizing unpredictability, this coffee..."

That sentence is not "prized" for its correctness.

"Prized" means valued or recognized; "prised" means used as a lever.

How to Use Past Perfect

A reader asked whether this sentence is correct:

I took another look at the questions that had spurred me to mention education in the first place.

He wanted to know if "had spurred" was in the correct tense.

Yes, that is correct, and it's called past perfect. You get a past perfect tense when you add the word "had" to a past participle (a past participle is something such as spoken or broken). Past perfect indicates something that happened before another event in the past.

In this sentence, there are two past actions: "I took another look" and "questions had spurred me." The use of "had" indicates that this action came before the other one, so first, the questions spurred him, and then he took another look.

Here's another example:

I had just opened the door when the phone rang.

Here, the two past events are I opened the door, and the phone rang. First comes the action with the helping verb had: I had opened the door; then the phone rang.

Grammar Question

Ashley has this question:

Is the following sentence grammatically correct?

"One of the unexpected outcomes of this training program has been the positive rewards that our students have accrued midway through the program."

I think it is incorrect, because "positive rewards" are clearly plural, as the author uses the word "have" later in the sentence. And of course, I think it is wrong because the sentence starts out singular ("one of the unexpected....").

Thanks for the question, Ashley. I agree that the sentence sounds awkward, but the subject ("one") does agree with the verb ("has been"). It's tricky because the sentence contains a mix of singular and plural.

Overall it's a bad sentence that should be rewritten. It would be better to state what positive rewards you're talking about because at the moment this sentence is too vague. I'll just make up a reward as I rewrite (just for fun, I'm imagining that the training program is for budding archaeologists):

"Our students are midway through the training program and have unexpectedly learned how to deal with raging sandstorms as they dig for fossils in the desert."

This is probably not the reward that the writer was talking about, but you can tell that the rewritten sentence sounds a lot more specific, and there's no question about subject-verb agreement.

If you have a problematic sentence, just rewrite it! And be more specific while you're at it!

Criminal Sentence 211: A Couple Minutes to Think about Apostrophes

From a book I just read about hostages in Colombia:

"If a rescue attempt came, we’d have a couple minutes head start."

An apostrophe is missing after the word "minutes." This is a tricky use of apostrophes, but if you imagine the sentence says "a minute," wouldn't you automatically say "a minute's head start"? Yes, so in the plural it should be minutes'.

Sometimes you can avoid an apostrophe by using "of" instead, but it doesn't work here.You would have to reword:

"a two-minute head start"

It does work here:

I have ten years' experience.
I have ten years of experience.

Poll Results 34

This was the question:

What's wrong with this? "This book is dedicated to my wife whose love and support have made it possible."

Grammar 31 (32%)

Spelling 2 (2%)

Punctuation 63 (65%)

65% of you are correct. This sentence would be better with a comma after "wife"; otherwise, it suggests that the person has more than one wife and the author is thanking the one who provided love and support.

Grammar Girl Episode: Troublesome Contractions

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-odd-contractions.aspx

Criminal Sentence 210: Capable of Being Wordy

From the wordy files:

"The company is capable of..."

It doesn't matter what the company "is capable of" doing; the writer has succeeded in being wordy.

"Is/are capable of" means "can," so let's use that one word instead of the other three:

"The company can..."

Criminal Sentence 209: Needed: A Good Home for my "Who" Clause

From today's newspaper (in the movie-summary section):

"Paul Rudd stars as a man about to be married who needs to find a best man."

The writing world is filled with orphan clauses, mostly "who" and "that" clauses that need to match up with the noun they modify. In my book I talk about a trick to help you avoid this kind of misplaced modifier:

1. Find a "who" or "that" clause.
2. Look to the immediate left. If the word directly before "who" or "that" is the noun that the clause modifies, bingo.
3. Otherwise, you need to rewrite.

Take the steps as we look at the "who" clause in today's criminal sentence.

1. Find the "who" clause: who needs to find a best man."
2. Look to the left. "Married" does not go with "who."
3. Rewrite.

Many writers, especially published ones, don't seem to know about this problem, which causes confusing sentences, or at minimum imprecise ones. Do me a favor and forward this post to at least one writer who would benefit from this knowledge.

Criminal Sentence 208: Working Hard or Hardly Paying Attention

From a book I read lately (the man was grading some bumpy ground):

"After working all day, the ground was approaching level."

Both the sentence and the ground are bumpy here. By now you should know that this is a misplaced modifier. The ground was not working all day.

I'm still waiting to read a book that contains no misplaced modifiers. Seems like an impossible wish.