Ok, people, the phrase is “worse comes to worst,” not “worst comes to worst.” It’s a progression of bad to even more bad. If you start at ‘worst,’ it can’t really get any more bad from there. It’s already the worst it can possibly be. Let’s get it right, ok?
Posts Tagged ‘grammar’
He/She/It vs. They/Them
November 30, 2007 – 11:37 am
Irregular Webcomic has a funny strip up today that’s doubly amusing for writers. I’ve always known that using ‘they’ or ‘them’ as a pronoun to refer back to an (indeterminate) individual is technically bad grammar, but as is pointed out in the notes that follow the strip, doing so is the best of the options available to the English language and, as such, is becoming more and more accepted in the common vernacular. The only other ‘best’ option is to coin a new term to refer back to an individual of unknown gender, but that route leaves a lot to be desired. I’ve actually read a couple of fantasy short stories where someone used zie in this manner, and I ended up having to re-read sections two and three times until I figured out what they were trying to accomplish. I originally thought they were creating a new set of words exclusively for their story’s setting and only later learned of the movement to coin a gender-indefinite pronoun. It’s just always made more sense to me use ‘they’ or ‘them’ for this purpose, particularly because culture itself has driven the change. It’s effective and concise and everyone knows immediately what you mean.
Gotta love that head of a multiverse-spanning supernatural organisation.
Care Less or More?
October 29, 2007 – 1:56 pm
Ack! People, people – it’s “I couldn’t care less,” not “I could care less.” The former states that there is no more care to be given, that you really don’t care at all and that you can’t possible care any less than you do because you are already completely devoid of care. The latter says that there is still some care there, that it is possible to care less than you currently do by saying that you could care less. See the difference?
Yeah, yeah, losing battle, yada yada. I’ll shut up now.
Verbs!
October 2, 2007 – 1:35 pm
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.
Like the British
February 7, 2007 – 2:27 pm
I’ve apparently become somewhat enamored with some bits of British grammar – it’s been slowly-but-surely taking over my writing. For instance, I’ve noticed that instead of using the word ‘whining’, it’s become ‘whinging’. ‘Humor’ becomes ‘humour’, ‘theater’ gets a slight rearrangement and becomes ‘theatre’. Of course, my spellchecker hates all these spellings, but I think they look more refined and elegant. There’s a certain classiness to them that appeals to me, and frankly, sometimes I think the British spellings make more sense. If nothing else, they do occasionally help distinguish nuances of word definitions.
Now if I could just figure out how to imitate that dern British accent and pick up some more slang.
Inter-what?
October 26, 2006 – 9:43 am
Ok, this is silly, I know, but it annoys me just the same. What’s with this phenomenon I keep seeing around on various blogs of calling the Internet these cutesy little names? Some examples – ‘interweeb’, ‘interweb’, ‘intraweb’, ‘intarweb’, and even ‘intramebby thingamajiggy’.1 I get the joke. I ken the hacker origins and the chuckle-behind-your-hand kind of teasing these phrases imply. But I guess it still just sort of bugs me. In my mind it’s a very mild form of 1337-speak.2 I think what really annoys me about the practice is how sloppy it comes across to me. Call the thing what it is. Name it and move on. It undermines your message because then I have to stop and figure out what the heck you just said. Quit toying with the name, quit calling it something stupid because doing so makes you look stupid. And I know you’re smarter than that.
Yes, apparently I’ve become an old fart.
‘A’ Acronym?
July 26, 2006 – 6:26 pm
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?
Technique Begets Artistry
July 19, 2006 – 2:14 pm
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.
Things Writers Really Ought to Know
May 12, 2006 – 3:26 pm
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:
- It’s ‘whining’, folks, not ‘whinging’. – Whining is what you do when you want to sound like a typical teenager. Whinging is when you throw something at high speeds at someone.
- Know the difference between ‘loose’ and ‘lose’. – You have a loose tooth, but you lose a tooth.
- Not an actual word. – Contrary to popular belief, ‘irregardless’ is not a real word. It is, in actuality, a hybrid of irrespective and regardless. People use this word all the time, and it makes me cringe every time.
- Possession. – Just because a word ends in ’s’ does not necessarily mean that it has to have an apostrophe. Two times when you use ’s – when the word is a contraction of two words, or when you are showing ownership.
- Your, you’re, their, there… – A couple of words in the English language seem to have everyone completely baffled. Your and you’re are one set of these. Same with their and there, and the same with to, too, and two. If you haven’t learned the difference between these by now and you’re looking at making writing a living, I’d recommend you pick up a grammar book somewhere and take a quick refresher. Believe me, you’ll be glad you did. Your writing will look cleaner, more professional, and you won’t look like a total hack who has no clue about how the English language works.
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.
- It wouldn’t have been that bad if they simply could have figured out how to spell and use correct grammar.[back]