Wow…. folks, pay attention to your verb tenses when you write. Please, for the love of all that’s good and pure (and for the sake of my sanity). Here’s a hint: plural verb tenses go with multiple subjects. Singular verb tenses go with single subjects. And if I used any words here that you don’t understand, the dictionary’s always a good reference point.
The rule of thumb taught in grammar school was simple – use ‘a’ before words beginning with consonants and ‘an’ before words beginning with vowels. Simple, no?
Well, here’s one – ‘an’ before words beginning with ‘h’ (e.g. ‘an historian’). I’ve never really know what to do with this one. It’s always kind of bugged me, since it violates the basic rule I was taught as a younster but it also made a kind of sense, especially when you read the two words aloud.
Likewise, you run into similar situations with acronyms and abbreviations. Try following the rule and see what you get. Need an example? Here you go: “I just back from a SF convention.” Now, following the law of the land, this is grammatically correct. ‘SF’ begins with a consonant; therefore, you must lead with ‘a’. Or do you? If you read that phrase aloud, you run into a minor awkwardness – ‘SF’ is pronounced with a leading vowel sound. ‘Ess-eff.’
Jack Lynch has this to say about the subject:
Use an in place of a when it precedes a vowel sound, not just a vowel. That means it’s “an honor” (the h is silent), but “a UFO” (because it’s pronounced yoo eff oh). This confuses people most often with acronyms and other abbreviations: some people think it’s wrong to use “an” in front of an abbreviation (like “MRI”) because “an” can only go before vowels. Poppycock: the sound is what matters. It’s “an MRI,” assuming you pronounce it “em ar eye.”
Sound advice, and a rule of thumb that I’ve leaned toward for a little while. I know that not everyone does – I’ve seen an equal number of people writer ‘a SF convention’ as ‘an SF convention’.
Of course, the other problem is when people read acronyms as the full word. Instead of reading ‘an SF convention,’ some people read ‘an science fiction convention,’ returning the sentence back to grammatical awkwardness. I think it is probable, though, that far fewer folks do this than those who read the acronym as the acronym.
What about you? How do you handle acronymns and abbreviations in your writing, and how do you read them?
One of the things that a musician must learn to do is how to make their music sing. It’s one thing to be able to play the notes and master the rhythm; it’s an entirely different thing to make it sound musical. There are tempos to be followed, crescendos and decrescendos to give the music its own brand of vibrancy, staccatos to give it that extra pizzaz, and dozens of other musical elements that, when included into the performance of the music, give the song a life of its own.
That was one of the most difficult things for me as a fledgling piano player to master. For a long while all I could see were those notes on the page. My fingers were having a difficult enough time just finding all the right keys, let alone giving them personality. But that is what the master piano player, the teacher, is for, to push the student beyond their capabilities and stretch to accomplish new heights of musical expression. The teacher shows the student how the formulaic rhythm of the piece can be more than the sum of its parts, more than just technique. When the performer pours his heart and soul into the composition, suddenly you find that it has a life of its own. The technique of playing has found the artistry of expression, and a new creature springs to life from the fingers of musician at the keyboard.
As in music so it is in writing. Composing stories and tales involves much more than mere technique. I’ve always been something of a grammar Nazi, a strictly regimented enforcer of the ‘rules’ of the English language. In high school I devoured grammar and spelling books to the point where my classmates hated having me proofread any of their work. Invariably, I would return their manuscripts, covered in red ink where I found spelling, grammar, and syntax errors, and they would groan as they worked to revise them.
At the time I thought that was enough to become a good writer, if I had so chosen. Yet, now I am learning that technique alone is not enough to produce an interesting and captivating story. There is an art to writing, something that should be blatantly obvious to anyone who has read a novel or short story. But it is something that is not readily seen or understood until one takes on the challenge of creating a story of their own. It becomes apparent in short order just how difficult it is to weave that level of artistry into a story – to select that just-right word or phrase, to establish that perfect setting, to weave that stunning character profile – that refuses to let the reader put the book down and simply walk away. It requires practice and effort to create something so sublime, and often it takes a master teacher to help guide the fledgling writer along as they seek to better their craft.
One of the things that I have loved so much about networking with other writers is this ability to share and compare notes, to share some of the scraps of our writing in hopes of gaining honest, constructive criticism. This criticism is sometimes hard to swallow – none of us like to be told that our work is less than perfect – but it is invaluable in the longrun to becoming better writers and authors. It is a risk to share these things that are so dear to our hearts, but it is, I believe, a risk worth taking.
Here’s to helping one another along to becoming masterful artists in the art of wordcraft.
Tags: artistry, english, grammar, music, Piano, Writing, writing-technique
I have at points in my life been called the Grammar Nazi. In high school my peers always hated it when I would proofread their assignments because I would almost always return them covered in red ink.1 Needless to say it bugs me when I see people using incorrect grammar, poor spelling, or mixing up one word for another in their common usage of the language, especially when many of these people are ones who write for a living and should, in theory, know better. Here are a few of my top picks for common writing errors:
Anyway, enough of my ranting. Just a couple of pet peeves that crop of frequently and bug me until I have to sound off about them. I’m sure I’ll end up having more of these later.
Does anyone else, when they see the word ‘cliche’ (no accent over the ‘e’, even though it should be spelled ‘cliché’) just want to pronouce it like ‘clique’?
Tags: english, Humor, knee-jerk-reactions
You are a GRAMMAR GOD!
If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!
How grammatically sound are you?
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