May 20, 2013

*While vs. Though or Although

Here’s a word I change a lot when I’m editing: “while.” I see it used like this often: “While pedaling along the beachfront sidewalk is delightful, so too is stopping for a snowcone at the beachfront snack bar.”

A myth out there alleges that this is an outright error. The idea is that “while” means “during,” so you can’t use it to mean “though” or
“although.” Not true.

while. conjunction:

1. … on the other hand … whereas

2. … in spite of the fact that, although (while respected, he is not liked)

3 … similarly and at the same time that (while the book will be welcomed by scholars, it will make an immediate appeal to the general reader)

That’s Merriam-Webster’s take on “while.” So clearly, it’s correct to use it as in the example sentence above. But is it a good idea? That’s a different question.

Whenever “while” comes before an action, especially an action expressed as an “ing” verb, it sounds like you’re using the other definition of “while”: “during the time that.” So “while pedaling” sounds like you mean “during the time that you’re pedaling.” And in this sentence, it’s going to be a long time until the reader gets your real meaning “while pedaling is …” When we get to the verb, "is," we can see that "while" was meant as “although.”

In my book, any “while” that can lead the reader astray should probably be replaced. “Although pedaling along the beachfront sidewalk is delightful, so too is stopping for a snowcone.”

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May 13, 2013

*Reader Mail: Can 'Won' Mean 'Beat'?

Recently, a reader of my column wrote to ask about "won" vs. "beat." He wanted to know whether “John won his opponent" can be used to mean "John beat his opponent."

He added:

Also, isn't "won" also referencing ownership? Jon won the trophy.  I hope you have the time to respond as I have a bet with my wife on the correct use.

After a few minutes of staring at my computer screen like a dog stares at a TV test pattern, here's what I replied:

Hi, Robert.

Are you saying you've heard folks say "John won his opponent" to mean he defeated his opponent? That's a new one on me.

As a transitive verb, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary definitions of win include to get, to gain, to attain, and to be successful in. In none of those usages does it seem that a person could logically follow (unless, of course, the person is the prize: Achilles won Briseis). The only times a human seems an appropriate object of that transitive verb is in definitions like to win someone over and to gain someone's support or sympathy -- neither of which equates to defeat.

So, unless I'm missing something, the Ravens didn't win the Patriots.

Does "win" mean "ownership"? Not necessarily. Some definitions include enough elbow room for that, others don't seem to. You don't really own an argument you won, do you?

Anyway, I hope that helps (and I hope your wife doesn't hate me now!).

- June

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May 6, 2013

A Flock of Birds Flies or a Flock of Birds Fly?

Subject-verb agreement is usually pretty easy. But even the most grammar-savvy people can get confounded by sentences like these:

A team of rivals was/were meeting the statehouse.

A bunch of whiners is/are affecting morale.

A flock of birds fly/flies by every day.

Everyone knows that a team was meeting but rivals were meeting. Everyone knows that a bunch is affecting but whiners are affecting. And everyone knows that a flock flies but birds fly.

But when noun phrase contains a singular noun and a plural noun, things can get pretty confusing. How do you know which noun should govern the verb?

Actually, the answer is easier than most would guess. You just take your pick. It’s up to you.

When your subject is a noun phrase with more than one noun, like “a team of rivals,” either one can "do" something. That is, either noun can get a verb. So choosing the verb depends only on which one of the nouns most seems to you like the one performing the action of the verb.

If you think the focus is more on the individual rivals than the whole team, you can write “A team of rivals were.” If you think it's more about the team, you can write “A  team of rivals was.”

There really is no right or wrong way. And your own ear is by far your best guide.

However, I have a way of looking at these structures that may help.

Every noun phrase -- a team of rivals, a bunch of whiners, a flock of birds -- has a head noun. Now, recall that a prepositional phrase is a preposition like “of” plus its object, which is always a noun or pronoun.  The "of rivals" and "of whiners" are prepositional phrases within the larger noun phrase.

The job of a prepositional phrases is to *modify.* They act sort of like adjectives or adverbs, depending on where they’re placed and what they point to. In a team of rivals, a bunch of whiners, and a flock of birds, the “of” phrases are all modifying nouns (team, bunch, and flock). So they’re really functioning like adjectives of those nouns. That’s how we know that team, bunch, and flock are the head nouns in their respective noun phrases.

Now, there’s no rule that says that the head noun gets the verb. There’s no reason nouns in the prepositional phrases can’t be doing some action. But I give head nouns a little more authority. As a default, I figure the head noun should get first stab at governing the verb. Only if it sounds funny do I make the verb agree with the object of the preposition.

So how would I write our three example sentences? Let’s see …

a team of rivals were (I feel that the rivals here are more important than the team.)

a bunch of whiners are (Ditto. Whiners seem to rule this noun phrase.)

a flock of birds flies (Here, I think the emphasis is on the whole flock.)

But if you disagree, your opinion is as valid as mine.

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April 29, 2013

*The Optional Subjunctive

A sentence I heard on the radio recently was a perfect example of how you don’t have to use the subjunctive if you don’t want to. Unfortunately, I forgot it. But it was something like: “It’s crucial that he goes to college.”

One letter, the “s” at the end of “goes,” makes that sentence not subjunctive, even though saying “it’s crucial” is a classic indicator of a sentence in the subjunctive mood. Had the speaker said, “It’s crucial that he go,” that would have been subjunctive. But because he said “goes,” it was not.

One of the most interesting things about the subjunctive is that, of all the books that discuss and explain it, I don’t know of any that say you must or even should use it. All the discussion out there is about how to use it and when to use it, conspicuously absent of words like “should.” Books and experts just sort of talk about the subjunctive as if it’s required, without ever saying that it is.

So you can’t, technically, say it’s wrong to opt for “It's crucial he goes” over the more proper subjunctive “It's crucial he go.”

Personally, I’d prefer the subjunctive in this case. Here, long form, is how to use the subjunctive. The short version goes as follows:

The subjunctive occurs in statements contrary to fact: wishes, suppositions, demands, commands, and statements of necessity like “it’s crucial that.”

In those sentences, you can just use the base form of the verb, like “go,” instead of an inflected form, like “goes.”

In the past tense, the subjunctive applies only to the verb “be.” Its form is “were.” So in the past tense, be can become was, as in “I was going.” But if you put this as a statement contrary to fact, like a wish, you’d use the subjunctive “were”: I wish I were going.

Or not. It’s up to you.

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April 22, 2013

A Kinda Corny Trick for Remembering Affect vs. Effect

I have a little trick for remembering the difference between “affect” and “effect.” It’s a little corny/childish, so I don’t broadcast it. But, truth be told, I sometimes use it to get myself out of a momentary brain cramps. So I might as well ’fess up.

As I’ve discussed here before, “affect” is usually a verb and “effect” is usually a noun. So you would say “I’m affected by coffee because caffeine has a strong effect on me.” That “affect” is a verb --  it’s an action coffee is performing -- and that “effect” is a noun -- a thing.

If you’re having one of “those moments,” which I sometimes do, you can forget which is which. The confusion is compounded by the fact that “affect” can sometimes be a noun meaning a person’s emotional state. Also, “effect” can be a verb. Ever hear someone talk about wanting to “effect positive change”? That’s the verb form of “effect.” It means “to bring about” and is a distinct word from the verb “affect.”

But those uses are rare compared to the main definitions of “affect” and “effect.” So it’s safe to say that “affect” is almost always a verb and “effect” is almost always a noun.

Here’s how I remember that whenever my brain seizes up: I think of the term “side effect.” That, to me, is clearly a noun -- a thing. And I note that the “e” in “side” prompts me to write “e” in “effect.” So that reminds me that the noun form is the one that begins with “e.”

I suspect that, for some people, that’s not at all helpful. Only if you think of the first "e" as a prompt for the second does this make any sense at all. But it works for me.

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April 15, 2013

*Predominately vs Predominantly

Here’s a word that caught my eye while I was editing a feature article a while back: predominately.

The context was something like “Brazil is a predominately Portuguese-speaking country.” I didn’t notice the spelling of predominately until my second read.  And spell-checker didn’t take notice either.

I quietly congratulated myself for catching the error, changed it to predominantly and continued reading the piece. But a few minutes later, I got the urge to check a dictionary. To my surprise, it was in both Webster’s New World College Dictionary (the dictionary required by the style guide I was using that day) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (which is the one I use when I’m editing in Chicago style). Both list predominately as a variant of predominantly.

I understand that the dictionaries’ job is to document usage, but the weird thing was I don’t think I’d ever seen predominately before. Unless this spelling had been slipping unnoticed under my nose for years, I had only ever seen predominantly.

Not that it mattered. In editing, we always use to the dictionary’s preferred forms and never the variants. So predominantly was the right choice for the article.

But the whole thing was pretty surprising – not just that a spelling I’d never noticed before warranted listing in the dictionary, but because it’s a strange one.

Adverbs often derive from adjectives: smart/smartly, nice/nicely, true/truly. So the adverb predominantly makes sense as a form of the adjective predominant. But predominate is a verb, and verbs don’t usually spin off adverb forms: walk/walkly, know/knowly, keep/keeply, dominate/dominately.

Chalk this one up as another example of our ever-surprising language.

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April 8, 2013

*Past Forms of 'Wake'

Here’s another item from the “People are annoying me so you need to tell them to stop” mailbag.

<<Something that drives me crazy is the word “awake.” I hear newscasters saying, “I was woked up.” He "woked me up." "I was waked up," "wokened up." Could you please do an article on proper usage of the word? Articles in newspapers are always using it incorrectly too, so it isn't just young people who have their words autocorrected. It's adults who are intelligent but must have been absent on the days when they had spelling and grammar. Thanks for your help....>>

I understand what this person was asking. She wanted me to write a column about a usage problem she’s noticed. But requests of this nature always rub my journalistic sensibilities the wrong way. As a former news reporter, I’m pretty invested in the idea that the news media’s job is to inform readers, not to exploit their attentions by telling them how they should talk in order to stop bugging one person.

On the other hand, a good topic is a good topic. And though I’ve never heard anyone say they were woked, I agree that past tenses and past participles of wake and awaken are tricky.

According to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, “wake” gives you a number of past-tense forms to choose from.

For the simple past tense, Merriam-Webster’s prefers “woke.” But it also recognizes “waked.”

Yesterday I woke.

Yesterday I waked.

And, yes, you can use “up” if you want to with any of these, according to Webster’s.

Yesterday I woke up.

Yesterday I waked up.

As for the past participles, Webster’s allows three forms. (Remember that past participles the ones that work with forms of “have.”) For wake, the preferred past participle is “woken.” But they also allow “waked” and “woke.”

In the past I have woken.

In the past I have waked.

In the past I have woke.

In the past I have woken up.

In the past I have waked up.

In the past I have woke up.

So two of our correspondent’s examples are, in fact, wrong. There is no woked. But it’s not wrong to say “I was waked up.”

This form is a little different from our other examples because it’s passive. But passive participles are identical in form to past participles. (Pete had eaten the cake. The cake was eaten by Pete.) So that means that, yes, you can say “I was waked up” if you like.

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April 1, 2013

*Wretched Retching

The other night, a character in a book I’m reading got sick. As told in the story, “He wretched” long after his stomach was empty.

Oops. What the writer should have written -- or, more  precisely, what the copy editor should have caught -- was that wretched should have been retched.

The disheartening thing about this error is that it appeared almost 300 pages into an otherwise very well copy edited book.

Whoever was copy editing this book knew what she or he was doing. Yet even a team of professional editors with great skills aren’t immune to letting typos slip by. That’s troubling because it means that, no matter how hard you try to make a written work perfect, there are no guarantees.

Plus, some typos are particularly easy to make.  Wretch and retch are among them.

According to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, a wretch is a person. Specifically:

1 : a miserable person : one who is profoundly unhappy or in great misfortune

2 : a base, despicable, or vile person

It’s one of those words you hear a lot in old-timey dialogue, especially British. For example, in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, a character refers to juries as “vulgar grovelling wretches.” And of course, the term “poor wretch” comes up in pretty much every piece of fiction with a Dickensian tone.

From wretch, comes the adjective wretched. But it’s not pronounced like the verb retched. Wretched has two syllables, RETCH-id. And it means:

1. deeply afflicted, dejected, or distressed in body or mind

2. extremely or deplorably bad or distressing <was in wretched health> <a wretched accident>

3.  being or appearing mean, miserable, or contemptible <dressed in wretched old clothes>

The verb retch is simpler.  It means only 1. to vomit, 2. to make an effort to vomit.

There’s no trick to keeping them straight, other than just being on your guard. Which, somewhere around page 300 in a 900-page novel, is no small feat.

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March 25, 2013

*All Told

All told is written that way and not “all tolled.”

There’s a good chance you knew that already. I knew it for years, right up until I stumbled across some bad information on the subject, which led to a series of unfortunate events.

For years I knew the term as “all told.” Again, that’s correct. I considered “all told” a close cousin of “when all is said and done.” That’s not exactly right, but it’s a good way to think of it because it equates the telling in “told” with the saying in “said.” Both words refer to talking.

Then, some years ago, I came across a wrong bit of information. I read, I don’t remember where, that “all told” is wrong and that it should be “all tolled.”

I wrote a column about it before I realized it wasn’t true. A writer friend of mine who read the column repeated its incorrect message in a book. Only by sheer luck did we realize the error before the book went to press.

To get this right, remember that it’s about telling – when all has been told. But for a historical understanding of the term, well, that’s not exactly how it works.

“One archaic meaning of ‘tell’ is ‘to count,’” says Garner’s Modern American Usage. “Hence the idiom is ‘all told’ -- ‘All told there were 14 casualties’ -- which dates from the mid-19th century. Some people write ‘all tolled,’ perhaps because ‘toll’ can mean ‘to announce with a bell or other signal.’ But this is an error.

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March 18, 2013

*Which Tuesday Is Next Tuesday?

Here are two words that make a lot of mischief: next and last.

We will be there next Tuesday.

The event took place last March.

If you’re speaking on a Wednesday, does “next Tuesday” mean six days in the future? That is, the Tuesday nearest on the horizon? If so,  what if you’re speaking on a Monday? What, then, does “next Tuesday” mean? One day from now or eight days from now?

As for “last March,” people often use it to mean the most recent March. Others use it to mean the March prior to that.

So what’s right? Well, it doesn’t seem there is a right. The situation is a mess.

“In ‘next’ I think I detect the handiwork of the same folks who decided that Sunday should be not only the first day of the week but also half of the week end,” writes Barbara Wallraff in Word Court.

Wallraff has a helpful take on the matter, though I think mine, which I’ll get to later, is even more helpful. Here’s Wallraff on structures like "next Thursday."

“The  ‘next’ in the phrase typically [refers] to next week. Never, not even on Wednesday, is ‘next Thursday’ tomorrow.”

Basically, she argues, “next” usually means in the following week.

This problem doesn't bother me because I just adhere to some common newspaper guidelines. In a newspaper, there is no next Tuesday or last March. The Tuesday following the publication date is just Tuesday. The Tuesday after that is identified by the date -- not the day of the week. “Performances will take place on Tuesday and on May 21.” We would write it that way even if those two performances are exactly a week apart.

Same idea for last. An event that occurred in a March less than 12 months ago occurred not “last March” but just "in March.” If it happened the March prior, it happened “March 2012” or whatever year applies.

“The political showdown that occurred in March was reminiscent of the events of March 2012.”

An event that will occur in the coming March is not “next March.” It’s just March. “The president is scheduled to visit the Middle East in March.” If it’s more than 12 months away, you mention the year. “The president is scheduled to visit the Middle East in March 2015.”

Dropping “next” and “last” altogether seems the only surefire way to make your meaning clear.

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