For a much better handle on English usage, let’s go further back this time to the basics of English composition. Let’s review the uses of the so-called repeated action words and sequence words, those simple but powerful grammar devices for giving greater cohesion and clarity to writing.

Repeated action reference words. These words become standard equipment very early among English-language learners: “so,” “that,” “these,” “those,” “such,” “too,” “does,” “do,” and “did,” “the same,” “likewise,” “either” and “neither,” and “not.” What they do is to represent or point back to ideas, elements, events, or situations presented or described earlier in the composition. We must always keep in mind, though, that these reference words shouldn’t be used by themselves alone; they should be judiciously combined with important words or phrases previously used in the sentence or paragraph.

Let’s now review how these repeated action reference words work:

“So.” A statement might look like this in its full-blown form: “Everybody is learning how to use the personal computer. You should also be learning how to use the personal computer yourself.” By using “so” as a repeated action reference word, that repetitious statement can be made more concise and forceful: “Everybody is learning how to use the personal computer; so should you.”

“That.” Take a look at this overwrought statement: “He has been in turns a farmer, bus driver, newspaperman, communication specialist, and entrepreneur. The shaping of his unique world view by having been all of these things is what he considers the story of his life.” See how the reference word “that” makes short shrift of the repetitious statement and gives the sentence more drama: “The shaping of his unique world view by having been in turns a farmer, bus driver, newspaperman, communication specialist, and entrepreneur—that he considers as the story of his life.”

“These” and “those.” These two reference words efficiently emphasize enumerative sequences: “Coffee, toast, orange marmalade, and fried eggs—these are the only things I take for breakfast.” “A villa in Palermo, a castle in Austria, a resort house in Capri, a townhouse in Athens—all those the marauding government official had to give up when he was convicted of plunder.”

“It.” This familiar, all-purpose pronoun can be used as a reference word for inanimate things or concepts previously mentioned in a composition: “He ran for public office thrice and lost each time; it was the worst humiliation of his life.”

“Such.” This word is a highly emphatic recapitulating device: “She bought five books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, three by Isabel Allende, and one by Pablo Coelho all at once—such was her fascination with Latin-American literature.”

“Too.” An excellent word for avoiding a repetition of similar attributes: “The woman’s vagabond lover was convicted of the grisly crime; the woman, too, got convicted.”

“Does,” “do,” “did.” These repeated action reference words eliminate the need to restate previously mentioned actions: “The groom loves riding horses; so does his bride.” “Not a few people want an intelligent president; so do we.” “She left right after midnight; so did I.”

“The same” and “likewise.”  These two work in practically the same way: “We ordered six cases of champagne yesterday; we want double of the same today.” “Our team worked overtime on New Year’s Eve; their team did likewise.”

“Either” and “neither.” These words efficiently recapitulate the acceptance or rejection of two previously mentioned choices: “Between the astral blue or apple-red sedan, either will do.” “Hong Kong or Singapore at this time of year? I want neither.”

“Not.” Negation of a statement can be done very efficiently by this repeated action reference word: “Most think that going to Baguio City at this time of year is great; not me.”

Sequence words. As we all know, “the former” and “the latter” are the two most common reference words for concisely showing the order of two previously mentioned elements, situations, and events. Both words imply a certain relation between those elements, situations, or events: “Christmas Day and New Year’s Day came and went, the former with a burst of piety and generosity, the latter with a bang and expectations of better things to come.” The reference word “former,” of course, refers to “Christmas Day,” and the reference word “latter,” to “New Year’s Day.”

We can see that repeated action reference words and sequence words not only tie up sentences and paragraphs neatly together, but also help emphasize the ideas being put forth in the composition. For beginning writers, this is as good a start as any towards concise, emphatic writing.
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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, January 9, 2004 issue © 2004 by The Manila Times. All rights reserved. This essay subsequently appeared as Chapter 55 of the author’s book Give Your English the Winning Edge © 2004 by Jose A. Carillo. All rights reserved.

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Most of us hate the icky feeling of seeing or hearing the same word over and over again in the same statement, as in this case: “This cellular phone comes in three colors. The first of the colors is gray, the second of the colors is beige, and the third of the colors is blue.” Some writers or speakers who come up with such constructions wrongly assume that by repeating the phrase “of the colors” three times in a row to reinforce the phrase “in three colors” in the first sentence, they are making themselves crystal clear. On the contrary, they just make themselves boringly repetitive.

A good way to avoid this construction bind is to use the reference word strategy. This is the active effort of preventing the needless recurrence of certain words or phrases in our prose by methodically using more concise words or phrases in their place. These replacements, called reference words, are not the kind we usually hunt for in dictionaries or thesauruses. Reference words are those that we can figure out logically from the relationships of the phrases in the sentence itself, or those that we can readily deduce from their contexts.

One of these reference word strategies is the noun omission technique, where we avoid the recurrent use of a noun by using the following words in its place: (1) “one,” “another,” and “the other” for three singular count nouns in consecutive order; and (2) the nouns “some,” “others,” and “the others” (or “the rest”) in place of the plural count adjectives “some,” “other,” and “the other” that we normally use right before plural count nouns to modify them. After the noun omission process, however, we must keep in mind that these words become pronouns and cease to work as adjectives.

Of course, the technique of using “one,” “another,” and “the other” in place of three singular count nouns in consecutive order should already be second nature to us. Thus, we know that the repetitive statement at the beginning of this column can take this more concise, more forceful form: “This cellular phone comes in three colors. One is gray, another is beige, and the other is blue.” We should also be very familiar with the technique of organizing our sentences when only two singular count nouns in consecutive order are involved. All we have to do is use “one” and “the other” in tandem: “This cellular phone comes in two colors. One is gray; the other is blue.”

While we are at it, we might as well answer this question: What happens if there are more than three singular count nouns in consecutive order—say, if there are four or six of them? As most of us already know, we simply use the already familiar numerical order technique: “This cellular phone comes in four colors. The first is gray, the second is beige, the third is blue, and the fourth [or last] is green.” Or we can use a serial numbering sequence: “This cellular phone comes in six colors. Color number 1 is gray, 2 is beige, 3 is blue, 4 is green, 5 is pink, and 6 is maroon.” It’s really all that simple.

Things are only a little bit different when we deal with three or more plural count nouns in consecutive order. For instance, if we didn’t use noun omission as a reference word strategy, we might come up with a longwinded sentence like this: “Some of the presidential aspirants are credible, other presidential aspirants are obviously unqualified, and other presidential aspirants are simply nuisance candidates.” Using the noun omission technique, we can boil down the sentence to this more concise and more elegant form: “Some of the presidential aspirants are credible, others are obviously unqualified, and the rest are simply nuisance candidates.”

We can also use elliptical construction to make the sentence even more concise, this time by eliminating the repetitive verb “are” after the first noun clause: “Some of the presidential aspirants are credible, others obviously unqualified, and the rest simply nuisance candidates.” In a sense, noun omission as reference word strategy is another form of elliptical sentence construction, which, we will remember, is the grammar technique of eliminating certain obvious elements in a sentence in a way that doesn’t distort its meaning.

Some caveats when using noun omission for three or more plural count nouns in consecutive order: (1) Never use the word “another” instead of “other” before a plural count noun; thus, this sentence is grammatically wrong: “Some of the presidential aspirants are credible, another presidential aspirants are obviously unqualified.” (The correct way: “Some of the presidential aspirants are credible; other presidential aspirants are obviously unqualified.”); (2) The phrases “the rest” and “the rest of the” are inviolate; they cannot be shortened to “rest” or “rest of them”; thus, this sentence is unacceptable: “Some of the presidential aspirants are credible, others are obviously unqualified, and rest are simply nuisance candidates.” (The correct way: “Some of the presidential aspirants are credible, other presidential aspirants are obviously unqualified, and the rest are simply nuisance candidates.”).

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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, January 12, 2004 issue © 2004 by The Manila Times. All rights reserved. This essay subsequently appeared as Chapter 54 of the author’s book Give Your English the Winning Edge © 2004 by Jose A. Carillo. All rights reserved.

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