Do You Know These People?

In 30 years of teaching writing, I’ve learned from my godchildren (above).  Do you work with any types like them?

From left:

Norine, second-born: languorous, smart, but so independent that, at age 4, a teacher thought she was learning-disabled.  Refuses to learn a bit more than she chooses.  To teach a Norine, you wait until she is motivated and let her ask the questions. 

Eddie, the youngest:  Deeply empathic; wildly athletic; dyslexic.  Understands time as “now” or “the other day.” Declines to organize anything more ambitious than a sandwich.  Will write “at gunpoint,” but only if the writing expresses his own ideas. (His idea of a great argument is that, in Julius Caesar, Brutus was an alcoholic.)  To teach him writing, I stimulate his imagination, seat him at my Mac, and then use the Mac’s text to speech so he can hear all the errors.  Likes to listen. Generous and popular.

Bill, the oldest: Introverted; pianist; smart. Took a long time to enjoy reading, but now tells his brother, “You’ve got to read so you’ll have something to say.” Passionate about music. Talks little but thinks first.  As a child, he would not write, and words seemed to come easier when his were hands busy.  Liked to be timed so he could "beat the clock."  Excellent leader of outdoor activities. A high school English teacher called him "smart, serious, and independent."

Rosaleen, third-born:  Verbally precocious, meticulous.  A social learner.  At age three, would greet me by criticizing my clothing.  Through high school, came to my house where she wrote every assignment.  Bored when she was not conversing, she made me listen to every version of each sentence she wrote.  Once she tied me down for nine solid hours until she was happy with a paper on The Great Gatsby.  You have to beg her to stop editing.  Turn it in already!

Do you recognize any of these types at your workplace?  In your family?

Education Is the New Oil

Finance expert Niall Ferguson thinks (as I do) that better education in China may help explain China's new economic power.

On Dec. 7, 2010, the NY Times reported that Shanghai students outscored the rest of the world in reading, math, and science. US students ranked 17th to 23rd worldwide.

All children are born thinking outside the box. (They haven't seen the box.) Like Shanghai, we could educate for discipline and skill. And in the great American tradition, we could nurture creativity and inventive scope: music, art, and writing.

Education is the best investment. Communication can win what armies only botch.

Websites for Learning English

There are hundreds of websites that help (or claim to help) people learn English as a Foreign Language. Recently I reviewed some of them. I sought the ones with the most free resources, the fewest ads, and the easiest navigation.

1. World English/ ***** very few ads; a menu of hundreds of activities, exercises, and tests. This one offers hundreds of free quizzes.

2. Rong-Chang.com **** includes many free lessons and is easy to navigate. Dr. Ron Lee limits ads to one band across the page. Despite the .com, his site is generous with free tutorials, most of which he wrote himself.

3. ESL Mania * So heavy with ads that I couldn't navigate to free material.

4. a4esl.org ** This nonprofit site has little new to offer except a large variety of two-language quizzes (Czech-English, French-English, etc.) created by volunteers.

5. 1-language.com ** Offers, for example, 40 units of free audio English instruction if you have Adobe Macromedia Flash Player. My Mac has it, but I still could not coax sound from my computer.

6. English for Internet ** http://www.study.com/ voluntary $20 contrib, or voluntary $1/month subscription. Calls itself "a free place to study world languages: real teachers, real classmates, real time." Requires you download an .exe file. Good luck.

Special Categories

7. VOA News/Special English *****  Listen to a news story while you see the text. News stories are written in a basic-English vocabulary, easy to understand and imitate. Excellent practice!

8. Cambridge Dictionary for nonnative speakers of English: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ I don't know how many free lookups this site offers. But it tells you whether a noun is count or uncount, and it distinguishes among British, Australian, and US English.

9. Macmillan Dictionary lets you toggle between British and U.S. English: http://macmillandictionary.com

Thanks, Ekaterina of Indore, India

If you read the comment to my  post "Websites for Learning English," you will see links to four sites.

Thanks, Ekaterina of Indore, India! You remind me of a crucial factor: Some English sites use British English. The sites you graciously mentioned use British spelling and pronunciation.

The first site, englishtips.org, has a free daily "English tip." Today's was an excellent discussion of "scope out." Englishtips.org is primarily a blog that reviews and rates ESL books and materials.

The second site is the general site of Open Learning, a British open university; it offers audio in that it allows you to download a "speaker" application. The accent will be British. I clicked on Languages but could not find any EFL lessons.

The third site, functionalenglish.in, is a blog about teaching English worldwide with a link to Ekaterina’s 4QL site.

Readability by arc 90 - A Cool Tool

Here is a safe, simple tool that transforms a crowded web page into a beautifully readable one.

http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/

At that website, select your settings and drag the Readability button into your browser's toolbar. That's it.

Now open a web page shrieking with content, ads, color, and animation, all competing for attention. Mouse up to "readability" and click.

Goodbye Barnum & Bailey. Hello Easy Reader.

Introductions: Layout Matters

Have you ever tried to introduce a manual or an online course? Too often, readers skip introductions. Here is one that most people can read quickly:

Congratulations! You are in the Acme Focus Group’s (AFG's) Course for Group Leaders.

From this online course (and this workbook) you can expect:

Content tailored by expert leaders of focus groups
A chance to work at your own pace
A course facilitator to answer your questions
Best of all: In 8 weeks or less, you’ll be ready to lead focus groups with confidence.

Here’s how the course works:
All course content is organized into modules. Each module appears in a folder that you will see whenever you log on to Whiteboard. These folders contain links to:

Slide shows
Word documents
Video clips
A Discussion Board where you can type in (“post”) questions or comments
Practice tests so you can check what you’ve learned
Opportunities to go back and review any time

Flesch Kincaid Grade Level: 6th grade, 2nd month


A draft version of that introduction required more reading effort:

When the Acme Marketing team in Houston began training leaders of focus groups, the training was done in-person at a 3-day workshop. What the Acme team quickly discovered was that it was difficult for people to get away from their normal office duties for that length of time. It was expensive to train small groups of people and to offer trainings outside of Houston. It was at that moment the Acme On-line Group Leader Training Course began to take shape!

Staying true to the practice of the Acme team to consult with experts, this on-line training course was developed in collaboration with expert Acme group leaders who provided feedback about the content and structure of the course, the learning activities, and this workbook.

Trainees enrolled in the course have 8 weeks to work at their own pace to learn the Acme Focus Groups (AFG) content and skills to effectively run the focus-group program. As an on-line learner, you make your own “class schedule.” You have a course facilitator to answer your questions, and you have this workbook to guide your learning.

Here’s how the on-line course is set up. All the course content and activities are organized into “modules.” The content of each module is described below. Within Whiteboard, there are Module Folders with links to slide shows, Word document, and video clips to help you learn the course content. As part of each module, there is a “Discussion Board” where you can type in (“post”) questions or comments. There are practice test questions to help you know whether or not you are learning the AFG principles and strategies. If you discover you are answering these questions incorrectly, you can review the course content another time.
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 8th grade, 9th month

Word (Windows) 2007: Grammar Check & Readability

Many of you already know this technique; but if you don't, here is how to use Word 2007 (Windows) to grammar-check your document and report on its readability:


1. Click on the icon at the extreme upper left of your screen (the Office icon).

2. A window will open, and at the bottom you should click on Word options.

3. Another window will open; in the left column, click Proofreading.

4. The resulting window will have many choices with checkboxes next to them.
Probably you will need to check "Show readability statistics."

5. You will see a drop-down menu that lets you tell Word to review not
just Grammar but "Grammar & Style."

6. Then you can select specific style features that Word should flag, such as the comma in a series of three or more, and the number of spaces after a sentence-final period.

7. Click OK, and get back to your document.

8. Now, go to the "Review" tab, and at the left of the resulting toolbar you will see "Spelling and Grammar." Click on it.

9. After you have made a decision about each spelling or grammar issue, you will see a window with the word count, sentence count, etc. At the bottom will be

Flesch Reading Ease. This statistic is on a scale of 0 to 100; 70 is excellent, 60 is good, 50 is usually acceptable at the grad level.

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. A reading of, say, 12.2 means 12th grade second month. 15.5 means junior year of college, 5th month.

Names of Companies

Companies (like people) are sensitive about their own names.

When a company incorporates, it names itself. That name may or may not include a comma. And you may need a comma to separate the corporate name from the rest of the sentence.

For example, a company could call itself Software Inc.
It could just as easily choose Software, Inc. or Software Incorporated or Software, Incorporated. If you want to type the company name correctly, copy it off the company stationery, or search it on the Internet.

Incidentally, the same is true of the ampersand (&). Some companies use it and some emphatically do not. One firm calls itself Canel and Canel, another Jones & Jones. Many three-name firms seem to use the ampersand but omit the comma before it: Riskin, Howard & Beame.

However, if the firm name ends in “Inc.” and you use that name in a sentence, guidebooks tell you to add a comma. For example, I would write
Weber & Pike, Inc., filed a suit on behalf of General Cereals.

The extra comma also appears after other abbreviations in a similar spot:

Jones Harmon Wilder, P.C., [professional corporation] is a new law firm in town.
Lee Penfelder, Ph.D., announces the opening of a new office.

Writing Numbers So People Understand

Compare these two versions of the same financial data:

a. Durables spending dropped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $486 billion from $501 billion in January, while spending on nondurables went up moderately to a rate of $1.17 trillion last month from $1.16 trillion in January.

b. In January 2006, Americans bought durable goods at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $501 billion; in February, that rate dropped to $486 billion. Yet in the same period, spending on nondurables rose from $1.16 trillion to $1.17 trillion.

The b version is easier for most people to decode. Yet the a version represents the accepted style in newspapers. (Check a financial page and see.)

When you compare numbers, your readers will grasp them better if the time range precedes the numbers and if each comparison runs from older to newer. (Of course, if you have multiple comparisons, display them in a table or chart.)

The b version could well begin with a topic sentence that states the important result. One such sentence might be, “The US is spending less on durable goods.” The content of that topic sentence will depend on what most concerns the readers.

Or online at writingsems.com

In the header of this blog, I included a sentence fragment. I wrote
"…Rosemary Camilleri teaches writing to your people, at your site. Or online at http://writingsems.com."

That last group of words is not a sentence. It's acceptable in advertising (sometimes) in order to drive home a point. But fragments are not a good habit.

You have seen other fragments:

1. Whatever the carpenter specified in the contract.

#1 above is called a subordinate clause. (Clauses are meaningful word groups that contain at least a subject and its verb.)

Subordinate clauses begin with certain conjunctions (and conjunction-like words or phrases). Here are most of them:

The List
after, before, since, until, although, how, so that, when (whenever), as, if, that, which, where (wherever), in order that, though, whether, as if, as though, once, what (whatever), while, because, provided, given, unless, why, who (whoever), whom

If you have written a clause, and it begins with one of those words, you cannot correctly end it with a period. It is only a subordinate clause:

2. Although Ali drives a gray car
is a subordinate clause. To be correct, it must be joined by an independent clause:

3. Although Ali drives a gray car, he also owns a red one.
4. Ali owns a red car, although he drives a gray car.

5. Because Ali drives a gray car, I sometimes forget that he owns a red one.
6. I sometimes forget that Ali owns a red car because he drives a gray one.

When the "because" clause shifts to the end, do you notice what happens to the comma?

Power Verbs

Perhaps you already practice correct grammar and punctuation. You want to escalate your writing skills. May I suggest you enlarge your vocabulary of verbs?

I try to use the most precise verb for what I mean. So, in whatever I must read anyway, I notice verbs — especially ones I would not readily use. I jot them down. By learning them in context, I absorb their usage and nuances.

The most precise verb is the best:

Not great: Joe Bloggs will focus on arrival policy.

Better: Joe Bloggs will specify how a new policy will encourage employees to arrive on time.

These sentences contain vivid, precise verbs:

Bank of America's reserves dwindled.
If the policy lapses, the insurer need not renew it.
Behind every obstacle there lurks an opportunity.
Unfortunately, I dithered for two days; and finally, Lee rescinded his offer.

Strategic Writing

Here is what a military analyst wrote about the U.S. forces in Iraq in 2003:

A. During the advance on Baghdad, senior Marine and Army field commanders had many significant interdependent variables to contemplate in addition to the capability and intent of the Iraqi forces before them. In order to maintain both the velocity and operational tempo of their highly mobile forces located across a wide battlespace, the subject of fuel was an ever-present consideration. Much time, energy, and continuous analysis was put into determining when, or if, a culminating point would be reached due to this vital resource.

Here is what that expert could have written:

B. While US field commanders advanced on Baghdad, they worried not only about what Iraqi forces could do and intended. They also had to move their highly mobile forces across a wide battlespace; so they worried constantly about fuel. They continuously analyzed supply and use variables to learn when their fuel would run out.

The A version sound impressive, but the B version communicates. Impressing someone may be a tactic; but communicating clearly is a strategy for long-term success.

Writing the B version requires a few skills you did not learn in college. You can learn these skills from Dr. Rosemary Camilleri in a course called Clear Sentences. Choose to learn online, at http://camsems.com, or in a workshop.

Questions? Contact me, Rosemary, at rosemary@camsems.com.

Best regards,

Rosemary

Corporate Thank-you Notes

A gracious note of thanks can distinguish you from your competition. But how many ways can you say “thanks” before the clichés pall? Here are four ideas for corporate thank-you notes.

1. If you don't have any firsthand knowledge about the individual you are thanking, you can

* Discover something about them or their work OR
* Thank them by describing in some detail
- the gift or what they did for you AND/OR
- the impact it had on you and your work group

The secret to describing in detail is using vivid verbs. Describe the gift or favor, and/or how it helped you, as vividly as you can. For example, instead of writing, "Thank you for filling our order promptly," you might write:

“We received our order only 48 hours after we e-mailed it to you. Even more importantly, because we had the display components, we could assemble the project on time and present it to our clients at their annual convention. We impressed them; and you have impressed us. Thank you.”

Notice those verbs: assemble, present, impress.

2. If you are a salesperson who must thank a potential client after every sales call, you need not resort to remarks about the weather or generic compliments. Enliven the note by alluding to something that happened while you met with this person.

Dear Lee:

It was a pleasure to meet you Wednesday. I’m still marveling at how you conversed so easily in Spanish with the waiter at Lucy’s El Adobe.

Thank you for giving me the chance to show you our line of parts for the RX-2. I appreciate your needs for continuity and I’m looking forward to demonstrating that we at Acme can....

3. A handwritten thank-you note is a mark of personal favor.
Always use the finest paper. (You can order note cards embossed with your name or initials at a department store or stationery store.) Write with a good pen, either a fountain pen or one of the better roller-balls, and use blue ink to distinguish your writing from printed copy. Put a heavily lined grid under the stationery to keep your lines straight. And write legibly.

4. If you are an executive, or you write for an executive, you may wish to use executive stationery for business thank-you letters. U.S. executive stationery is 7.5” x 10” (19 cm x 25.4 cm); the inside address appears at the end of the letter; and it is well-suited to thanking business associates for personal or social favors.

Examples of thank-you notes can be found on websites and in books:

Letitia Baldrige's Complete Guide to Executive Manners (1985) NY: Rawson Associates, pp. 120-127

Webster’s Guide to Business Correspondence 2nd ed. (1996) Springfield, MA: Merriam Webster. pp. 300-305.

Online classes in writing

In early 2009, I begin offering my first all-online writing classes at a new site, http://www.camsems.com.

WriteWell-1 is an introduction to academic writing for graduate and advanced undergrad students, especially in the helping professions.

Its sequel is WriteWell-2: Coherence and Persuasion (C&P). C&P is also a standalone class for any writer who wants to construct paragraphs that are lean, precise, and persuasive. The third class will be WriteWell-3: The Clear Sentence. More classes will follow.

I never realized how an online class could enrich learning. Students will be interacting most of the time, they receive my immediate feedback, and they can query me privately any time. Best of all, they can learn at their own pace, whenever their schedule permits.

For about $150, students will have access to a class for 60 days. Query privileges extend, as my students know, for life.

When a Noun Becomes a Verb: The New American Presidency

Arguably the most difficult, but perhaps the most powerful, lesson I teach is the lesson about clarifying a sentence. To clarify a single sentence, we list the actions it mentions, and we try to turn more of them into verbs. But why? How does a change differ from He changed x?

A vivid example of that difference appears in the American presidency today. President-Elect Barack Obama promised "change"--as a noun. Many Americans voted for "change" as a noun.

But when an action lives in a noun, each hearer of that noun supplies (or fails to supply) the doer of the change and the entities that are changed.

A few Americans assumed that Mr. Obama would change what they expected. Like presidents-elect before him, he would change the executive branch to a panel of his political supporters.

But Mr. Obama is changing something deeper. Already, in his political appointments, he is changing the way a president "runs" the executive branch. He is changing the presidency from an executive branch that answers "How can I implement my politics smoothly?" to an executive branch that answers "How can we best benefit America and the world?"

Change as a noun becomes change as a verb. Let's watch Mr. Obama and his very diverse team change the world.

Mr. Obama's Speech: A More Perfect Union

On March 18, 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama made a speech that is already a piece of rhetorical history. I urge you to read it. You can access it, in video and in print, at

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/18/obama-race-speech-read-th_n_92077.html

The audio-and-video of the speech is available at the American Rhetoric Society
americanrhetoric.com. It will be remembered by the ages.

Against Plagiarism

Plagiarism is passing off someone else's ideas or materials as your own, or failing to credit their owner properly.  Can you identify plagiarism in words and pictures?  To find out, take a ten-minute online quiz designed by  Ted Frick at Indiana University in Bloomington:

http://www.indiana.edu/~tedfrick/plagiarism/index2.html

Zotero

Do you write research papers with more than three references? If so, you probably use or need software that manages your bibliography (or, as we call it in APA style, your reference list).

There is a free software package called Zotero. To quote the Zotero.org web page,

"Zotero (zoh TAIR oh) is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work—in the web browser itself. Zotero requires Firefox 2.0 or 3.0, Netscape Navigator 9.0, or Flock 0.9.1 for Windows, Mac, or Linux."

It might be worth trying.

If It's Removable, Put It Between Commas

A bank official replied to a prospective client, and with the reply enclosed an annual report.  Unfortunately, the official wrote this sentence:

I am enclosing an annual report that shows we are debt-free.

The dependent clause "that shows we are debt-free" is not separated by a comma.  That lack of separation implies that the clause is essential to describe which annual report is being sent. Are there others? Those reports may tell a different financial story!

Conclusion: if the descriptive word(s) are removable (redundant), then use a comma or a pair of commas to set them apart from the sentence.  To imply the bank's integrity, the bank official could have written this sentence:

I am enclosing an annual report, which shows we are debt-free.

Personally, I would have gone on to make the sentence even more precise:

I am enclosing our latest annual report, which shows that we are debt-free.

Unnecessary Colons

A colon announces that something--a series, a restatement, or an explanatory equivalent--will follow and end the sentence. However, do not use a colon when the final word itself implies that something will follow.

Wrong - The Valeria Line is carried in: department stores, men's stores, and on Valeria's own Web site.

Right - The Valeria line is carried in department stores, men's stores, and on Valeria's own Web site.

Wrong - The two files were: created separately, named differently, but backed up on the same hard disk.

Right - The two files were created separately, named differently, but backed up on the same hard disk.

Singulars and Plurals

We all know that when a subject (noun or pronoun) is singular, its verb sometimes takes a special ending.  For example, Dave watches football games.  

When the subject is plural, its verb must match or "agree with" it.  For example, Dave's friends watch football games. 

If writers break this agreement rule, they are judged unskilled.  

But sometimes it isn't clear whether the subject noun is singular or plural.  In one such exception, the subject is called a collective noun.  Take "family."  It looks singular.  But if the writer means the family as separate individuals, the correct verb may not end in -s:  The family watch different TV programs in each of their three living rooms.

Other collective nouns are "team," "staff," and "herd."  

In the world of subject-verb agreement, another exception is those plural-looking words that express a singular concept:

The last 12 months has been particularly ugly.

Hear how Yahoo! Groups has changed the lives of others.

The woods is the last place they would go.

 

Finally, there are the idiomatic pronouns that seem plural in meaning but are used as singulars:   Everybody is waiting.   Everyone is at home.  

Every person is different.  All people are different. 

I have this many pencils.  

In language, custom trumps logic. 

Health Care, Health-care, or Healthcare?

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003) says that health care is two words when used as a noun.  It is hyphenated when used as an adjective (as in health-care providers). 

In U.S. English, hyphenating a multiple-word adjective is standard practice unless the dictionary rules otherwise. 

However, many U.S. writers, including corporate writers, have started using healthcare as one word.  For example, one of my early clients was the Metropolitan Chicago Healthcare Council.  Another (now functioning under another name) was called Healthcare Compare. 

U.S. dictionaries are compiled by lexicographers who survey how we write and speak in both public and private discourse.  As a result,  in the next edition (2013), Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary may well list healthcare.  To write the adjective healthcare now is, perhaps, to be ahead of your time. To write the phrase health-care providers is safe.

Business Writing and Proofreading

"Today, Hyatt Hotels & Resorts ® specialize in deluxe hotels with meeting facilities and special services for the business traveler, operates in hotels in major and secondary cities, airport locations, and leading resort areas throughout the world."

That "sentence" should make its writer blush.  But it is typical of the errors that creep into electronic text today.   Someone changes one part of a sentence and fails to reengineer the entire sentence correctly.  

In order to catch those errors before they tarnish the corporate image, firms are offering my workshops to their writers.  And we are nearly all writers because e-mail is the lifeblood of business. 

Grammar & Proofreading

or 

The Impeccable Page

taught by Rosemary Camilleri     CSeminar@uic.edu

The Noun Assumes; the Verb Explains

The following sentence puzzled me:

"The investment account should have been [cashed in] second, given a long-term tax rate versus the traditional income tax liability."

That sentence advises a retiree when to draw from her investment account.  But that advice gets an "explanation" that fails to explain.  The "given that..." phrase assumes that every reader instantly knows which is greater: "long-term tax rate" or "traditional income tax liability."    

If the noun "tax" became a verb, the new sentence would explain the writer's rationale:

The investment account should have been cashed in second, because the U.S. government taxes long-term investment gains at a lower rate than it taxes other income. 

Simple English on the Web

There are many educational websites that instruct users in correct English.  The simplest, most user-friendly site I know is the updated one at

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/

All too many English websites are written in the wordy, pompously humorous style that has afflicted us (English educators) for generations.  The OWL site cuts through the clever rhetoric and goes right to the essentials.  It includes a section for learners of English as a foreign language.  It even covers the social aspects of academic writing, including e-mail etiquette for professors and students. 

The Whodunit Rule?

People who sign up for my writing classes often expect English Composition. But my classes (except those with Grammar in their titles) present principles that come from modern linguistic research. One such principle (the DAD Rule) will remain in my repertoire, but with a slight tweak that arises from a 2008 study at the University of Chicago.

If you have taken my class titled The Clear Sentence, you know that humans best understand sentences (out of context) when the sentences present a Doer before its Action, and then, if applicable, a Done-To. (I replace "Assessments were done" with "Dr. Jones assessed the patient.") However, a study will soon appear in the journal of the National Academy of Sciences and suggest that, while people preferred Doers first, most of them chose the Done-To next, and then the Action.  They chose this information order to arrange situations whether they believed their arrangement would affect the final presentation order or not. 

The researchers, a team that involves veteran psycholinguist Susan Goldin-Meadow, wanted to see whether the word order in the participant's native language governed the participant's preference for arranging concepts. So their study included participants from English and Chinese, languages that arrange words usually in SVO or subject, verb, and object order.  But the study also included native speakers of Turkish, which follows an SOV order.  

I have long taught this principle of sentence clarity as the DAD Rule: Doer, Action, Done-To. What stands the test of research is this principle: 

When you seek clarity within a sentence, name the Doer in the grammatical subject.  And do so often.   

Perhaps I should call it the Whodunit Rule.  

Taking Minutes of Meetings - distance learning

Rosemary Camilleri offers a distance-learning course (coaching style) in Taking Minutes of Meetings.

You tell me what kind of meeting you wish to record. I tailor a short manual to your needs, and we use telephone and Internet to interact. I share tips and techniques with you, answer your questions, and go over your draft minutes with you until your first two meetings are successfully recorded.

Minute taking is a skill in high demand. It is not taught at U. S. schools and colleges. I've been doing it for decades, and I will share my skills with you.

Don't Break Up Your Breakup

English contains many two-part verbs: they mean something special when a preposition or adverb follows. For example, We will break up that large rock.

When we turn that two-part verb into a noun (the breakup) or an adjective (the breakup process), we write it as either hyphenated or as one word. A good dictionary shows which.

Verb: It runs on. Noun: That's a run-on. Adjective: a run-on sentence

Verb: I am paid up. Noun: [not a noun] Adjective: a paid-up account

Verb: I put it on. Noun: It's a put-on, a joke. Adjective: a put-on accent

Verb: I pick it up. Noun: An 8:00 pickup Adjective: a pickup game

Verb: I'll take off. Noun: The plane's takeoff Adjective: a takeoff delay

Verb: You set it up. Noun: Directions for setup Adjective: a setup deadline

Verb: Look out! Noun: He's our lookout. Adjective: the lookout perch

Verb: Pay off the loan. Noun: Here's the payoff. Adjective: the payoff amount
Verb: I run away. Noun: He's a runaway. Adjective: runaway inflation

Pronounce English Correctly

Here's a website (or do you write Web site?) that will pronounce English words for you:

www.howjsay.com

Type in the word and click on "submit."
Wait until the word turns up in pink, and hear it pronounced by a dignified, rather British voice.

I went to howjsay.com for pronunciations of two words that trouble me: kilometer and forte.
For kilometer, the voice gave me both pronunciations: accent on -o- and accent accent on kil-.

For forte, I learned that the word has one syllable only when we use it about a sword blade. Forte is a French word, and in French it has one syllable. Nevertheless, I suppose that two syllables prevail because English speakers have been saying for-tay to distinguish forte from fort.

Taking Minutes of Meetings

Why are these people smiling? They've just completed my three-hour class called Taking Minutes of Meetings. They shared experiences of recording minutes in all types of meetings.
They learned
How to write and use an agenda
How to deal tactfully with unreasonable demands
What to write down and what to ignore
How to partner with the meeting's chair for excellent results
How to format, check, amend, and file minutes

They saw a movie of a formal meeting and followed the minutes as they watched.

Respectfully submitted,
Rosemary Camilleri

Hi, Bob,

When I write an e-mail that is not a response, I begin my message with a salutation. Often that salutation is Hi plus the name of my addressee: Hi, Bob or Hi, Friends. But few writers today use the comma after Hi, even though that comma is grammatically correct.

Grammar books tell us that when we use someone's name or a group name in direct address, we should place commas around it:

Hi, Jim, how are you?
Good evening, Madam.
But, Bob, you never told me about your brother.

I am tempted to stop using the comma in salutations, just because so many people suspect that it is an error. (For the same reason, I have stopped using i.e. and replaced it with that is. So many people think erroneously that i.e. means for example.)

What do you think about commas in e-mail salutations?

Words to Avoid

Recently, I gave a grammar test to one of my classes.  The test maker included questions about using the correct pronoun in sentences such as

a. Either the editor or the reporters will correct (his, her, or their?) mistake.

and the correct verb form in

b. Either the Thompsons or their lawyer (is or are?) attending the celebration. 

Now, in both types of sentence, there are rules that govern the correct choice.  You could take the time to memorize and practice those rules.  But, really, why bother?  These difficult grammatical situations can be avoided.  

In fact, here are some of the words I avoid:

1. Lie, lay, sit, and set.  I use sit to describe a person or animal resting fleshy portions of the anatomy on a surface. For the other words and uses, I employ an appropriate synonym such as recline, place, put, and the verb seat.   

2. Affect and effect used as verbs.  Instead of Factor X affects outcome Y, I use a more precise verb, such as X improves Y or Factor X erodes the quality of Y.  Instead of Acme effects changes, I use a more precise expression, such as Acme updates its policy on such and such.  Affect as a noun means emotionality.  Effect as a noun means result.  

3. Comprise and compose.  The two words are often used synonymously.  That synonymy is criticized by certain experts and defended by others, as you will discover if you look up comprise in a good dictionary.  I say, just bypass the problem and use include or make up, or if necessary, consist of.  The U.S. is made up of 50 states.  Fifty states make up the U.S. 

As to the sentence above with doubtful pronouns, grammar gurus say it is correct to write, Either the editor or the reporters will correct their mistake.  But it is often acceptable to avoid the pronoun entirely: Either the editor or the reporters will correct the mistake.  

As to the sentence with a compound subject and hence a doubtful verb--yes, the grammar books favor Either the Thompsons or their lawyer is attending the celebration. But there are other options: Either the Thompsons are attending the celebration, or their lawyer is.  If the celebration is old information, I prefer

The celebration will be attended by either the Thompsons or their lawyer.

The Power of Verbs

Here is how a firm explained its products:

Ecotechnology solutions and services, including greenhouse gas emissions reduction in the high pressure natural gas transportation industry in developing countries;
Renewable energy utilizing wood and ag waste biomass as an alternative to fossil fueled combustion for steam generation;
Renewable energy utilizing algae biomass to sequester carbon monoxide for bio diesel and bio ethanol and other fine chemical products, feedstocks; and
Carbon credit generation from the above mentioned solutions and services.

If the firm's work had been described in phrases with verbs, the difference would have grabbed readers' attention:

We solve problems and serve industry through ecotechnology: for example, we reduce emissions of greenhouse gas in developing countries as they transport natural gas under high pressure.
We save fossil fuels when we generate steam by burning renewable biomass such as the waste from wood and agricultural products.
We use renewable algae biomass to sequester carbon monoxide for companies that make cattle feed and fine chemicals such as bio diesel and bio ethanol.
From all these services, we generate carbon credits.

Quickly: Write 500 Words about X

It's that time of year: students are dreading the writing of a 25-minute essay as part of their SAT exams.  When the examiners present a statement, how do you generate two dozen intelligent sentences about it? 

I myself am a motormouth; I can talk about anything almost endlessly.  So for those of you less congenitally verbose, here are two suggestions.

First, take the given statement, and quickly generate one or two mirror-images or opposites. Writing about each one will take up multiple sentences. If the statement is, "No one accomplishes anything important without persistence," then you add "Many people accomplish important things when they do persist" and "Many people accomplish trivial things when they give up quickly."  You should also consider the opposite: whether anyone has accomplished something important quickly and easily.  

Second, come into the exam room knowing seven stories that you can tweak to illustrate most situations. Glean these stories from your experience, from history, or from fiction--those novels and plays assigned in your English class. If you want to index these seven stories, I recommend generating them around either the traditional Seven Deadly Sins or the Seven Virtues:

Stories that illustrate the effects of Pride, Envy, Hatred, Greed, Lust (careful on this one), Sloth, and Gluttony.

Stories that illustrate the effects of Faith, Hope, Charity, Justice, Fortitude (persistence), Prudence and Temperance (look it up).  

These stories are easy to remember and will fill up your exam page.  

They may also make you an even more interesting person. 

Special English as Global English

Since 1959, the Voice of America (VOA) has been broadcasting in a simple version of American English called Special English. Via the Internet, you can now get transcripts of these VOA broadcasts, follow along, and learn English.

Special English may be the Global English I have been seeking: a simple, international "dialect" that is easy to understand and easy to learn. Special English broadcasts are available to hear via radio and via RealPlayer and MP3 downloads. To experience Special English, go to

http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/about_our_website.cfm

These Special English broadcasts and transcripts are a free way of learning American English. Now if only the Voice of America would provide software to translate business e-mails into Special English before these e-mails are sent around the world!

Dangers of Describing: the Noun Clump

When writers describe something, they often use an adjective, and adjectives precede nouns:

It is a cold day. He is buying a bigger truck.

But English does not always identify adjectives: elsewhere, "cold" could be a noun, as in "She has a cold."
Thus a noun phrase (noun plus adjectives preceding it) could grow:

Headline: Deactivated gun ban--this headline could mean a deactivated ban on guns, or a ban on deactivated guns.

"I am selling a vegetarian mother and baby book" could mean a vegetarian mother and a baby book.

A brand new brown women’s leather handbag--What is brown here?

In clarifying these noun phrases, writers have two tools: adding hyphens and/or working backward. For example, "Deactivated gun ban" could have simply become "Deactivated-gun ban" or "Ban on deactivated guns."

The book sentence would have been clearer if it had read, "I am selling a baby book for vegetarian mothers."
or possibly "a vegetarian mother-and-baby book."

As to the handbag, why not write, "a brand-new women's handbag in brown leather"? (Or is "women's" even necessary when the noun is handbag?) Note the power of the word "leather." It carries a hint for you e-Bayers: the last word in the description will get the emphasis.

Count and Noncount Nouns

On educational TV, I heard this sentence: “Women have been trying to go through childbirth with little or no drugs.”

Little . . . drugs? At first, that didn’t sound right.

Adjectives such as “little” and “much” normally describe noncount (also called uncountable) nouns. Noncount nouns name substances that do not typically come in units, substances such as flour, grass, or advice.

But the noun drug is a count noun: we can have a drug, two drugs, few drugs, or many drugs. We don’t normally say little drugs or much drugs.

The doctor who spoke on educational TV did not mean that women wanted to replace six or seven drugs with one or two. Instead, the doctor meant that women were choosing no drugs or only low doses. Thus the doctor treated drugs as a noncount noun. She could have said, “Women have been trying to go through childbirth with either no drugs or smaller doses.”

The lesson here is that English treats nouns differently, depending on whether they describe countable or uncountable things:

Count nouns
A car, one car, the car, few cars, fewer cars, many cars, more cars
An item, one item, the item, few items, fewer items, many items, more items

Noncount nouns
Advice, little advice, less advice, much advice, more advice
Flour, little flour, less flour, much flour, more flour
Grass, little grass, less grass, much grass, more grass

If we must segment an uncountable substance, we build a phrase such as “one piece of advice” or “one species of grass” or add a clause such as “a flour that many bakers use.”

If you are unsure whether a noun is count or noncount, consult an international dictionary of English such as Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary. Every noun there is identified with a C for countable or U for uncountable.

A College Grammar Course Online

If you go to

www.ccc.commnet.edu/sensen/index.html

you will find the home page of a college-level online course that teaches English sentence structure.

Learn the parts of a sentence and how you can make them work to express your ideas.

This free course, called Sentence Sense, is designed for use with Netscape, but also works on other browser and hardware configurations. It requires Javascript.

Dangling Modifiers

Can you tell why English teachers criticize the following sentences for their dangling modifiers?

1. Calling themselves a "creative hub," each photo page displays a variety of HTML codes needed to post it elsewhere.

2. Once used only in space, consumers can now install photo voltaic cells to generate their own electricity.

3. Unlike Demetrios Island, goats have been Stratos’s only source of income.

4. Using a phenomenological approach, the participants completed an audiotaped, unstructured, nondirective interview.

When a sentence begins with a dangling modifier, and no comma follows the modifier, that sentence can baffle readers:

5. When searching through the console log node TZ9a6 was found to be missing.

There is / There are

Logic does not always govern grammar.

For example, which sentence sounds correct: There is more than one way to use these trails.
OR There are more than one way to use these trails.

Native speakers of English vote for the first: There is. Yet logically the subject of is/are is the nominative more. You would think that more would be plural, especially in the phrase more than one.

For this example, I am grateful to my collegiate godson, Bill Egan. He it was who, at age four, presented me with my favorite example of how idiosyncratically English treats its pronouns. Counting a number of objects and holding up two fingers, he said, "I have two--these many." Logically, his grammar would seem correct: if the substantive many is more than one, you would think it should be described by "these," not the standard "this."

The good news: my Microsoft grammar checker will catch There are more than one way. The bad news: It will not catch I have these many toys. (Granted, an advanced speaker might intend these and many to describe the noun independently. "I give unto you these many privileges.")

How do foreigners ever learn our language?

Lord Kinnock Speaks

Recently, the British Council studied how, where, to whom, and by whom English was being taught. The study, published elegantly and presented on the Internet, included a preface by The Right Honourable Lord Neil Kinnock, Chair of the British Council. In his foreword, Lord Kinnock wrote the following sentence:

"The anticipation of possible shifts in demand provided by this study gives all interests and organisations which seek to nourish the learning and use of English with a basis for planning to meet the eventualities of what could be a very different operating environment in a decade's time."

The study results suggest that fewer people, worldwide, are turning to Britain for instruction in English.

I wonder why.

[This blog post is dedicated to Dr. Carlo Graziani.]

AutoSummarize: I'm Unimpressed

In its Tools menu, Microsoft Word offers a function called AutoSummarize. I tested this function and it does not impress me.

I tried AutoSummarize on four documents: one business letter and four well-written essays. In one feature, AutoSummarize lets me choose the length of the summary. For example, it would yellow-highlight either 25% or 10% of the document. But neither 25% nor 10% summaries seemed to contain the essence of the document.

True, in one case, AutoSummarize selected the final sentence of the first paragraph, which is the essay's traditional place for a point sentence. But in the three other cases, AutoSummarize ignored the first paragraph, even where the document's point sentence was there.

I cannot recommend AutoSummarize as a quick way to shorten your reading time. Instead, I recommend that writers have an agenda as they read or skim a document. I suggest that the reading emphasize the document's key locations: the introduction, its point sentence, its subtitles, the first sentences of sections and paragraphs, and conclusion.
(Flesch Reading Ease: 43. Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 10.9.)

Brians Errors

His name is Paul Brians.

His collection of common errors and confusables in English is at
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html#errors

Visit that site, and I predict that it will explain at least one mystery that has tickled your brain. Do you ever wonder whether you should write "among the three children" or "between the three children"? Yes, you could consult your dictionary. But if you go to Brians Errors, you stand a good chance of wasting glorious minutes among hundreds of other linguistic questions.

Now here is mine. I wonder why Paul Brians did not title the page "Brians's Errors."

Protect Yourself

More evidence is accumulating: e-mails risk insulting people. Books are being written; blogs are taking up the refrain. If you want to protect yourself, make every e-mail exude cordial good will.

Start with a salutation: Hi Jedediah, or Hi Friends, or Dear Bashemi, or even Dear Mr. Wolfe.

Close with cordiality: Thanks again, Take care, Best wishes, Best regards, or even Sincerely.

Never write an e-mail while you are angry, and if you do, save it as a draft and review it the next morning.
Consider phoning instead.
If you must send an e-mail with a negative evaluation, lard it with good wishes and include whatever praise you can.
If someone has hurt you, and you must reply, start by thanking them for their input.

Sound more cordial than you feel. Remember, an e-mail message does not automatically convey the goodness of your personality. An e-mail appears on the receipient's screen like an inkblot. He or she projects emotionality onto the words. And even "please" can be an insult if recipients take it that way.

Cultivate cordiality. It could save your career.

Scrambled Spelling: Does It Matter?

Almost everyone has seen the following so-called discovery about English:

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.

This so-called discovery has primarily been used by spammers to evade software that detects words that signal spam.

As an excuse for misspelling English, it is invalid.

First, all the words shorter than four letters must be spelled correctly.

Second, the message must be simple and contain familiar words. The message above further compensates for its misspellings because the message's content is echoed in the message's form.

Third, and most importantly, you will notice that these misspellings are carefully structured. For example, "Aoccdrnig" keeps far more of the basic structure of the word than, say "Anircocdg" would have. "Rscheearch" is a very disciplined misspelling compared to "rrhcscaeeh."

Finally, no one who wishes to be taken seriously scrambles letters or misspells words deliberately. Correct spelling is still a mark of both courtesy and prestige.

Here's what I think would be really interesting research: Just which misspellings are easier to overlook? The ones that retain the silhouette of the word? The ones that keep three to five final letters in their appropriate spaces, as "rscheearch" does? Or the ones that never move a letter more than two spaces, as "Aoccdrnig" does? In short, how DO we recognize a word? And do our recognition patterns depend on our individual learning styles?

Electronic References: DOI

APA has dropped the requirement that electronic references include the database (such as OVID or PsycInfo).

The source of this new guideline is http://www.apastyle.org/elecmedia.html:

"With the exception of hard-to-find books and other documents of limited circulation delivered by electronic databases, the database name is no longer a necessary element of the reference. This change is made in the interest of simplifying reference format."

The APA has published (in PDF format only) a 24-page "booklet" on electronic references (copyright 2007) that is available for $11.95. I have purchased it. It doesn't say too much that is new except to suggest what are called Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs).

APA has added a recommended element to an electronic reference: the DOI or Digital Object Identifier. I have tried to learn whether RefWorks automatically inserts the DOI, and I believe that it does. In any case, I quote below from the APA web site:

"Direct readers as closely as possible to the source you used. Along with this general principle, consider these guidelines for citing sources:

"1. All content on the Internet is prone to being moved, restructured, or deleted, resulting in broken hyperlinks and nonworking URLs in the reference list. In an attempt to resolve this problem, many scholarly publishers have begun assigning a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to journal articles and other documents.

"A DOI is a unique alphanumeric string assigned by a registration agency to identify content and provide a persistent link to its location on the Internet. When a DOI is available, include the DOI instead of the URL in the reference. Publishers who follow best practices will publish the DOI prominently on the first page of an article. Because the DOI string can be long, it is safest to copy and paste whenever possible. Provide the alphanumeric string for the DOI exactly as published in the article. When your article is published and made available electronically, the DOI will be activated as a link to the content you are referencing.

"The DOI may be hidden under a button labeled 'Article,' 'Cross- Ref,' 'PubMed,' or another full-text vendor name. Readers who wish to look up the source can then link to either the actual article, if they have authorized access, or an abstract and an opportunity to purchase a copy of the item.

"If the link is not live or if the DOI is referenced in a print publication, the reader can simply enter the DOI into the 'DOI resolver' search field provided by the registration agency CrossRef.org and be directed to the article or a link to purchase it."

Adjectives Again

In one of the blogs I follow, I read this item:
“A report in the Gloucester Citizen,” writes John Gray, “about a traffic accident said that ‘Mr Brown died of multiple and fatal injuries.’ I suppose you can die of nonfatal injuries?"

Then I wondered: What if the newspaper had written, “Mr. Brown died of multiple fatal injuries.” Would that sentence mean that two or more of his injuries were such as to cause death? I suppose that situation is possible.

But the newspaper could have written simply, “Mr. Brown died of multiple injuries.” If he died of them, they were fatal.

By the way, the Gloucester Citizen, a U.K. paper, evidently follows the British habit of leaving out the period after “Mr.” Hmmm. That dropped period is a thrifty idea that never caught on here in the colonies.

Short Before Long

"None of the ingestions resulted in more than moderate clinical effects or death."

So reads the final sentence of an abstract in the journal Human Clinical Toxicology. That sentence illustrates the pitfalls of writing a series whose first item consists of many words. Readers are not sure where the "trunk" of the sentence ends. Is the trunk of the sentence "None of the ingestions resulted in more than"?

If so, then ingesting the substance never caused more than death.

Is the trunk of the sentence "None of the ingestions resulted in more than moderate"? If so, then ingesting the substance never caused more than moderate death.

Is the trunk of the sentence "None of the ingestions resulted in"? If so, then ingesting the substance never resulted in death or in more than moderate clinical effects--which would have been a good way to write the sentence.

When a series ends a sentence, it is wise to order that series from short item(s) to long.

Merriam-Webster on "They" as Genderless Pronoun

As one of you pointed out (see Anonymous comment to my post "A Pronoun Must Match Its Antecedent"), we do sometimes use "they" to refer to an organization.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition, includes the following in a note at the entry for "they":

"usage They, their, them, theselves: English lacks a common-gender third person singular pronoun that can be used to refer to indefinite pronouns (as everyone, anyone, someone). Writers and speakers have supplied this lack by using the plural pronoun" [There follow several examples from Shakespeare, Auden, Thackeray, and G. B. Shaw].


"The use of they, their, them, and themselves as pronouns of indefinite gender and indefinite number is well established in speech and writing, even in literary and formal contexts. This gives you the option of using the plural pronouns where you think they sound best, and of using the singular pronouns (as he, she, he or she, and their inflected forms) where you think they sound best."

Shall I write, "The client called; they want you to call back"? Well, only if I wish to conceal the gender and identity of the caller. Otherwise, I would write, "The client called; it was Sheila Marston, and she wants you to call back."

Commas and Adjectives: A Long, Loose, Red Shirt

When should you put a comma between two adjectives? In general, the comma is correct if you could use an "and" between the adjectives.

Try out that rule in the following sentences:
He saw a bright chrome car-door handle.
There were fierce local gun battles.
It had been a long, hot, humid day.

Sometimes a noun phrase uses several adjectives, and some take a comma while some do not. For example, take the sentence, "He brought a worn, faded, loose red polo shirt."
We say, "He brought a worn and faded red polo shirt."
Or "He brought a faded and loose red polo shirt."
We could even reverse those two adjectives: He brought a loose and faded red polo shirt.

But we never say, “It was a red and polo shirt” or “...a polo red shirt.”

The Plural of Mouse

Microsoft publishes a Manual of Style for Technical Publications (that is its title). In its latest (third) edition, on page 17, the manual tells us that the plural of mouse is not mice, but mouse devices.

(We are here referring not to the small mammal, but to the movable control module on a computer.)

So imagine my surprise when I was browsing Microsoft's sales site, at
microsoft.com/mac/otherproducts/otherproducts.aspx?pid=otherproducts,
and found the following:

"Learn more about Mac-compatible mice."

Ah well, it is easy to promulgate a rule; it's hard to enforce it always.

Americans Are Not the Only People

Now let me be clear: I support the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. They do great work.

But when I went to their home page today, I saw the following sentence:
"In April 2002, 4.2 million people were working part-time who wanted full-time work."

That sentence reminded me again that we Americans are still (still!) ethnocentric. The sentence said nothing about which people were working part-time. Does this statistic (4.2 million) refer to Americans? If so, let's say so.

I try (I sometimes fail) to remember that the word "people" is not synonymous with the word "Americans." If I cite a statistic, I try to mention the population from which it is drawn.

In fact, my friend Angie from South America reminds me that even "Americans" is often a misnomer. The Americas include Central and South America, Mexico, and Canada. If I want to be precise (and globally aware) I should use "U. S. residents" when in fact I mean only that group.

The words I use reflect (help shape?) my consciousness; and it's past time for my consciousness to encompass the world.

Botched Sentences

Every day on the Web, I read sentences that force me to edit before I can understand.

First, there is the "one...they" confusion. "One" is singular, but "they" is plural. A Ph.D. takes that confusion even further when he writes, "The level of autonomy and independence that one achieves influences both the range of a person’s ability to adapt to his environment and their level of self-respect." If "one achieves," and one is a person with "his environment," how can we write of "their level of self-respect"?

Another gem: The new head of a research facility is said to "have duel French and English citizenship." I know that England and France are politically at odds theses days, but has it come to "duel citizenship"? I think the writer meant "dual."

I could go on, but I'll conclude with a badly written sentence whose unnecessary noun actions and passive verbs leave it so fuzzy that readers could miss the grammar error. "While occasional references to Islam as being etymologically linked to 'peace' is often made by Muslims, a comprehensive peace education curriculum is generally absent."

Stripped to its bare subject-and-verb structure, that sentence says "...references...is often made by Muslims." To rewrite this sentence, I would use the Doer-Action Rule, well known to my students. "While Muslims occasionally mention that Arabic etymology links the word 'Islam' to 'peace,' their schools generally do not teach peace comprehensively."

A Pronoun Must Match Its Antecedent

What's an antecedent? It's the noun to which the pronoun refers. If I use "they," readers should instantly know which plural noun I mean. If I use "that" as a pronoun, readers should be confident that I refer to a thing, not a person.

Can you find the pronoun-related errors in these sentences?

1. One can say what they wish.
2. Please identify the person that witnessed the accident.
3. The needle is quickly withdrawn and pressure is applied to it for 20 minutes.
4. The physical signs of stress, abuse, and neglect are serious, and it is often felt for years.
5. The client called yesterday, and they want an appointment.
You ask, What if the client is an organization? Well, let's think about that situation. Could an organization phone you? Probably it was a person who phoned, in which case you would want to say "he" or "she" wants an appointment, right?
However, you do raise an interesting related question. Do I want to refer to an organization as "it" or "they"? In British English, at least in the press, writers use "they," as in "Barclays Bank reported that they will..." U.S. writers usually write, "Ford reported that it will..." At least, that pattern has been my impression.

Affect versus Effect

The movie that affected Ann
had no effect on Ed.

If you can remember that sentence, you can solve about 90% of the affect-effect confusions you face in business writing.
In that sentence, "Ann" begins with "a" as does "affected," which is a verb.

"Ed" begins with "e" as does "effect," which is a noun.

This mnemonic rule is reversed only in relatively rare uses of the words. For example, if you deal in psychology, you use the noun "affect" to mean visible emotion: "He showed little affect."

In rather stilted English, a person could write, "The judge ordered the company to economize, so the company effected many cost-saving measures." This rather rare verb "effected" means "carried out" or "implemented."

Words to Watch

1. As of March 2007, Arkansas is clamping down on misspellings of the state's possessive form. They now insist on Arkansas's First Lady, Arkansas's interests, and Arkansas's pride in its scenic beauty. These correct spellings are consistent with the general rule that all singular nouns, when they become possessive, add apostrophe and "s."

2. In the Embarrassing Mistakes File, here is another entry. Website makers tout their database by writing:
"This page attempts to collect the largest sources of quotations and related items (proverbs, sayings, maxims, amorphisms, slogans, clichés, etc.)."
But there is no such thing as an amorphism, as their spell checker would have told them. They meant aphorism.

3. Another embarrassing error appears because writers failed to think about what a word meant: "If you look at your day and see all the tolerations you put up with, no wonder you leave stressed."

Those writers might have benefited from a good thesaurus and dictionary. They probably meant "and see all the annoyances you tolerate…."

4. Finally, there is the person who wrote, "After the accident, my car was a total right off." This person meant "a total write-off."

U.S. Army Professional Writing Collection

Surfing the Web, I stumbled upon our Army's collection of scholarly articles at www.army.mil/professionalwriting/. One article was entitled "Breaking the Tether of Fuel." Its first sentences required me to read them twice before I pieced together their (rather simple) meaning. Whatever happened to clear and frequent active verbs? Whatever happened to putting the old information in the sentence's beginning?

Here is what I read:
During the advance on Baghdad, senior Marine and Army field commanders had many significant interdependent variables to contemplate in addition to the capability and intent of the Iraqi forces before them. In order to maintain both the velocity and operational tempo of their highly mobile forces located across a wide battlespace, the subject of fuel was an ever-present consideration. Much time, energy, and continuous analysis was put into determining when, or if, a culminating point would be reached due to this vital resource. (Flesch Reading Ease 18.7, grade level 12.0)

Here is what some military pundit could have written:
While US field commanders advanced on Baghdad, they worried not only about what Iraqi forces could do and intended. They had to move their highly mobile forces across a wide battlespace; so they worried constantly about fuel. They continuously analyzed supply and use variables to learn when their fuel would run out.

In my opinion, the longer a general must spend decoding flowery language, the less time she has to think strategically, learn about her people, and achieve every soldier's dream: unemployment. (My writing in this post has a Flesch Reading Ease of 49.4 and a grade level of 9.9.)

Dyslexia

You know the first-grader who doesn't seem to understand phonics? The fifth grader who avoids reading and whose handwriting looks like insect tracks? The adult who says, "I brought the things over there, and I saw how they had the stuff so that's where I told him to put it"?

Any of these people might be dyslexic. I've been reading about dyslexia for years, and working with two dyslexic children about whom I care deeply. I've benefited from talks with a brilliant scientist friend who himself has an unusual cognitive style. Here's what I've found.

The best book on dyslexia is probably Overcoming Dyslexia (2003) by Sally Shaywitz, MD. The subtitle is "a new and complete science-based program for reading problems at any level."

Shaywitz's book builds, I think, on the linguistic science in Why Our Children Can't Read And What We Can Do About It (1997) by Diane McGuinness, Ph.D. McGuinness constructs an elaborate foundation of detailed linguistic analysis of English, which leads up to a section of "practical solutions." These solutions are consistent with the later ones that Shaywitz presents. The solutions are ways of teaching reading that concentrate on linking sounds with the wide variety of letters or syllables that represent them. This linking process is what daunts people with dyslexia.

Shaywitz emphasizes the other mental strengths that surround the dyslexic person's phonemic weakness. This emphasis on developing compensatory cognitive strengths is broadened in another good book, The Myth of Laziness by Mel Levine, MD.

In short, for the poor reader (at any age), there is now understanding--and help.

Noodlebib to Create Bibliography

Noodlebib (at Noodletools.com) is a good choice of software for someone who must write term papers for elementary school, high school, or even college.
Months ago, I told you I'd subscribed to Noodlebib, software for creating bibliographies in APA or MLA style. My sister the librarian had to show me how to use it, but once she did, I became a fan.
Noodlebib, available at noodletools.com, is easy to use (I *could* have figured it out myself). After you select APA or MLA and the kind of source you want to record (book, article, etc.), Noodlebib offers and explains meaningful alternatives. It opens a questionnaire that solicits all the information that it will need. Before you close the questionnaire, it even checks for errors. Noodlebib is filled with help features that are easy to access.
I paid $6 per year to have the notecard feature. (Without that feature, Noodlebib is free.) I wasn't able to use notecards in my Safari (Mac) browser, but when I queried Noodletools, they responded promptly that I just needed to upload Firefox, which I did. So the support for Noodletools wins my praise.

Breaks and Brakes; Breach, Breech; and Broach, Brooch

Commentator Julie is correct: a car does not use breaks to stop, it uses brakes.

Unless you read that cars have brakes, your spellchecker and your habits will not help you.

A related and embarrassing misspelling is breach for breech. Breeches, the noun, was the old word for pants. (Personally, I suspect they were called breeches because they broke or separated into two legs.) The breech is also where a gun breaks into two parts for loading. Breech today refers to that part of the body upon which one sits; in a breech delivery, that part of the baby's anatomy appears first.

On the other hand, breach is a break, violation, or gap; there can be a breach of trust. And breach can be a verb: They will not breach the contract. (The past tense is breached.)

Unfortunately, breach is often confused with broach. To broach is to open or break into. One can broach a subject or broach a keg of liquid. From this word we may have gotten the woman's pin-held jewelry, the brooch: it pierced or broke into the dress.

Yes, friends, good proofreading requires a dictionary. And a dictionary can bring out the sleuth in anyone.

Proofread, Please

Your spell checker will not question the following errors:

1. X is non-complaint with rules.

2. The problem did not phase him.

3. I spent the evening pouring over books.

4. The appeal strikes a cord in Americans.

5. And, my favorite, here is an error that still lurks on a Web page designed to tell us how to write:
"...working at Coors purposes."
(Possibly the writer envisioned two people trying to collaborate while drinking beer?)

For those of you who are wondering, the corrections are
1. compliant
2. faze
3. poring
4. chord
5. cross

They Used the Wrong Word

I gleaned these malapropisms from correspondence or websites. No spell checker will catch these:

"…without further adieu."
"Please review the attached daft proposal."
"We will give you a program you can sue."
"A deep-seeded desire for national sovereignty"
From the Research Channel, which should know better: “Barbara Cochran: Wither broadcast news?”
"Make sure the message of the e-card or e-mail that you are sending is apropos to the environment in which you know the recipient."

Finally, I found my horrifying favorite on a web page that advises people about business writing:

"Further, in the absence of adequate communication, colleagues would find themselves working at Coors purposes and perhaps pursuing opposing goals." http://business.clayton.edu/arjomand/business/writing.html

Writing Can Deceive You

You can be deceived by the use of punctuation and/or by the writer’s choice of a noun over a verb.

For example, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) protects you. Supposedly your clinic can’t tell your insurance company (or others) what your diagnosis is.

But look at how HIPAA is explained to you by a clinic:

“You have a right to inspect and copy your protected health information. Under federal law, however, you may not inspect or copy the following records, psychotherapy notes, information compiled in reasonable anticipation of, or use in, a civil, criminal, or administrative action or proceeding, and protected health information that is subject to law that prohibits access to protected health information.”

That last sentence hinders understanding. Look what happens when it gains a colon and a couple of semicolons:

“Under federal law, however, you may not inspect or copy the following records: psychotherapy notes; information compiled in reasonable anticipation of, or use in, a civil, criminal, or administrative action or proceeding; and protected health information that is subject to law that prohibits access to protected health information.”

Earlier, the same document also uses a noun-action “disclosure” instead of “we disclose X.” Look at how the noun-action shields the clinic:

“We may use or disclose your protected health information in the following situations without your authorization. These situations include … research … national security …. Under the law, we must make disclosures to you and when required by the Secretary of the Dept. of HHS to investigate or determine our compliance with the requirements of Section 164.500."

In the sentence above, “we must make disclosures to you” means what? “Disclosures” is a noun. It allows the writer to hide what the clinic must disclose to me. “Hello, we disclosed some information. Goodbye.”

If the clinic's policy statement had used verbs, the sentence could have read, “we must disclose to you that we told Agency X that …." Then English grammar would have implied that the clinic would disclose more information. “Hello, we told the National Security Administration that you ….”

This and That

The start of a sentence should remind the reader of a term from the previous sentence. That "reminder" word or phrase must be specific; vague reminders leave readers confused. One reminder word is "this" in the two-sentence example below:

(1) The family assessment guide takes longer to administer, yet the interview style allows its completion in separate blocks of time. (2) We utilized this, since the respondents could be available only sporadically.

The second sentence begins, "We utilized this." Clearly "this" must refer to an earlier term. But which one?

I avoid using "this," "these," "that," or "those" (in their demonstrative sense) without adding a noun or noun phrase. For example, the second sentence in the example should begin "This assessment guide . . . " or "This family-assessment guide . . . "

Words such as "this" and "these" are like children under ten. They shouldn't be allowed out by themselves.

Flesch Reading Ease: 67.4 (ideal is 70)
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 6.5

Plain English in Government

In 2006, the Associated Press gave national coverage to Washington State, which wants its employees to speak and write to the public in plain English.

Washington State has paid to send over 2,000 of them to plain-English classes. They learn to avoid legal jargon, acronyms, and pompous language.

The state believes that plain English will get its messages across to citizens and save costly time and misunderstandings. It has simplified the words and organization of its administrative laws. Its Department of Revenue has rewritten a tax letter more clearly and gained $800,000.

So what is plain English?

The AP article does not explain precisely how to simplify "gov-speak." But the U.S. government has an office of Plain English, with a helpful site at http://www.plainlanguage.gov/. President Clinton mandated plain English, as did the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) and the NIH (National Institutes of Health; see http://execsec.od.nih.gov/plainlang/index.html).

Linguists have found new ways to simplify and streamline documents. Those are the ones that I teach.

But anyone can start writing plainer English. Write to others as you wish they would write to you. And you can stop worrying about sentences that end with a preposition.

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 8.8
Flesch Reading Ease 53.2 (ideal is 70).

Soldier of Peace

"But I want my sons to know that to challenge your country when it is wrong, to demand that it become more than it is, is as great an act of patriotism as the bravery of any soldier."
--from an essay "The Shoes of Dr. King" by Rosemary Bray McNatt

About author Rosemary Bray McNatt:

The Rev. Rosemary Bray McNatt is a Unitarian Universalist minister serving the Fourth Universalist Society in New York City. A former editor of "The New York Times Book Review," Rosemary is a widely anthologized writer whose work has appeared in a variety of magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, Ms., Glamour, Essence, Redbook, and The Village Voice. She is the author of several books, including the biography for children Martin Luther King, a memoir, Unafraid of the Dark, and the forthcoming Beloved One: Prayers for Black Children.

She is a contributing editor to UU World, the magazine of the Unitarian Universalist Association, and chair of the Board of Trustees of Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, Calif., one of the continent’s two Unitarian Universalist seminaries. She and her husband Robert have two young sons.

Assume and Condescend

No one wants to assume or to condescend to readers. But those errors may actually arise from poor advice in business writing.

Probably you have heard the advice that "ASSUME makes an ASS of YOU and ME."

As a result, some writers believe that they should never use the phrase "I assume that...". Not true.

When I announce what I assume, I am no longer assuming it. Feel free to write out your assumptions and label them as such. That way, if the assumptions are false or incomplete, someone can correct them. The discussion can proceed intelligently.

Another example of poor advice comes from one of the CRISP workbooks for writers, called Better Business Writing. On its pages 24 and 40, it labels as condescending the phrases "of course," and "as you can see." Yet they are the opposite. These phrases acknowledge the writer's previous knowledge--a gesture that is not at all condescending. If you eliminate such phrases you actually do risk condescending.

Don't buy instruction that just repeats folklore.

Shorter Sentences?

For years, I've taught that clear sentences can be long. They just need short subject-verb units.

I still believe those propositions are true.

But when I read from a computer screen, I want short sentences. I prefer they be in short
paragraphs.

Am I alone?

I was told in grad school that the average sentence is 21 words long. That statistic applied to English
sentences written for an adult. If this post had longer (average 21 words) sentences, would you read it as easily?

(In the post above, the average sentence length is 9.44 words.)

Flesch Reading Ease 79.1 (70 is ideal.)
Flesch Grade Level: 4.2

Oops. My bad.

In a recent post, I wrote the following:

ostentatious or ingratiating - These adjectives mean "subservient." I switched to "subservient" because today, more people know or can deduce what "subservient" means.

Yikes. I wrote "ostentatious" when I meant "obsequious."

I need to follow my own advice and proofread two or three times. For this correction, my thanks go to keen editor Julie Landry (landrywriter@yahoo.com).

Science Should Not Confuse You

Most people want to understand global warming. To that end, a government agency wrote a website that answered frequently asked questions.

Here is one question, with its answer.

Is the hydrological cycle (evaporation and precipitation) changing?
Overall, land precipitation for the globe has increased by about 2% since 1900, however, precipitation changes have been spatially variable over the last century. Instrumental records show that there has been a general increase in precipitation of about 0.5-1.0%/decade over land in northern mid-high latitudes, except in parts of eastern Russia. However, a decrease of about -0.3%/decade in precipitation has occurred during the 20th century over land in sub-tropical latitudes, though this trend has weakened in recent decades. Due to the difficulty in measuring precipitation, it has been important to constrain these observations by analyzing other, related variables. The measured changes in precipitation are consistent with observed changes in streamflow, lake levels, and soil moisture (where data are available and have been analyzed).
Flesch Reading Ease 13.8 (ideal is 70)

To translate that answer, I used the principles of clear sentences.

Is the hydrological cycle (evaporation and precipitation) changing?
Globally, land precipitation has increased by about 2% since 1900. However, in that time, precipitation changes have varied spatially. For example, over most land in northern mid-high latitudes, precipitation has increased about 0.5% to 1.0% per decade. (The exceptions were parts of eastern Russia.) At the same time, over land in subtropical latitudes, precipitation has decreased by 0.3% per decade. (This trend toward decrease has weakened in recent decades.) Because precipitation is hard to measure, scientists checked these figures against observed changes in streamflow, lake levels, and soil moisture. Where scientists have gleaned and analyzed those data, the results confirmed their precipitation numbers. In general, precipitation seems to be increasing in some northern latitudes and decreasing slightly in subtropical areas.
Flesch Reading Ease 30.5 (ideal is 70)

Dr. Danielle S. Allen

Dr. Danielle S. Allen, currently of the University of Chicago, writes about "rhetoric," usually known as manipulative or persuasive language. She redefines it as "the art of talking to strangers as equals" and "the art of generating trust."

"Properly understood, rhetoric is not a list of stylistic rules but an outline of the radical commitment to other citizens that is needed for a just democratic politics."

These quotes are from Dr. Allen's 2004 book _Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown versus Board of Education_. In that book she draws deeply not only from Greek and Renaissance classics, but from the splendid tradition of African American social thought, translating that thought into a program by which all Americans might come together as what she calls "political friends."

We need your program, Dr. Allen. I'm listening. And thank you.

Writing for Science and Engineering

Today, scientists and engineers know they must communicate well. They are not content with yesterday's rambling discussions or Power Point templates. To help each other, scientists from top U.S. schools such as Georgia Tech, Pitt, Vermont, and Virginia Tech have collaborated on this site:

http://www.writing.eng.vt.edu/index.html

The site explains, step by step, how to handle the many facets of science writing: audiences, formats, style, slides, posters, references, etc. It includes guidelines, examples, and interactive exercises.

Some of its didactic pages are poorly formatted (as vast blocks of text). However, the links bring you to examples of every science genre, from the memo and letter to the slide presentation or the poster. Links also lead to excellent articles about the latest in designing information for scientists and engineers, including a better slide design than the defaults offered by Power Point.

Want to skip the theory and go to the skills? Proceed directly to the "exercises" page:
http://www.writing.eng.vt.edu/exercises/index.html

A "However" Sandwich

Too often I see sentences mispunctuated like these:

1. WRONG He arrived at the auditorium 14 minutes after the start of the meeting, however, he found a seat and listened attentively.

2. WRONG He arrived at the auditorium 14 minutes after the start of the meeting, however he found a seat and listened attentively.

Each of these sentences consists of an independent clause, then the conjunction “however,” and then another independent clause.

When “however” is sandwiched between two independent clauses, it requires a semicolon either before or after it.

Why?

In the following passage, from (House & Garden magazine, March 1991, p. 28), notice the second sentence:

3. “My work is like a diary,” Picasso told me, and I have taken him up on this. One has to tread carefully, however. Diaries are nonetheless interesting for embroidering upon the truth. --John Richardson

The second sentence ends, quite correctly, with “however.” “However” is one of the conjunctions that may either begin or end its clause.

If “however” appears between two independent clauses, the reader needs to know whether it ends the first clause or begins the second one. This information is provided by the semicolon:

4. He arrived at the auditorium 14 minutes after the start of the meeting; however, he found a seat and listened attentively.

Of course, it is also correct to split that sentence into two:

5. He arrived at the auditorium 14 minutes after the start of the meeting. However, he found a seat and listened attentively.

Numbers about Words

180,000 - Word entries in Britain's classic Oxford English Dictionary
15.7 million - Citations (showing words used in printed sources) on which is based the U.S. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (11th edition)
50,000 - Words in a vocabulary that would enable one to read the New York Times
350 to 500 - Words per minute that the average person (presumably U.S. English speaker) can read
100 to 175 - Words per minute the average U.S. English speaker can speak
70 - Desirable readability score as tested by Flesch Reading Ease (available in Microsoft Word)

sources: Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary; The Business of Listening by K.G. Nichols (1956); www.ukoln.ac/uk/nof/suport/help/papers/writing-web