Jose Carillo's Forum

USE AND MISUSE

The Use and Misuse section is open to all Forum members for discussing anything related to English grammar and usage. It invites and encourages questions and in-depth discussions about any aspect of English, from vocabulary and syntax to sentence structure and idiomatic expressions. It is, of course, also the perfect place for relating interesting experiences or encounters with English use and misuse at work, in school, or in the mass media.


“3rd place winner” isn't the same as “3rd runner up”

An American book author whom I’ll identify here only as Bill V. sent me this e-mail last September 20, 2011: 

Dear Mr. Carillo,

I would like to submit to you a topic for your Forum. I am now living in the Philippines with my son and fiancée.

I see this happening all over. I also witness that it is a common error among teachers, who are supposed to be teaching the children of the Philippines.
  
What I am talking about is the difference between “3rd place winner” and “3rd runner up.”  I see it in all the Miss Fiesta contests all over the country. Now I see the same English teachers saying it about the Miss Universe contest. They are saying the Philippines “took 3rd place.”  I try to explain that Miss Philippines was “3rd runner up” and that means “4th place.”  
     
Thank you for reading this and God bless.  Keep up the good work.

Sincerely, 
Bill

My response to Bill’s feedback:

The following comparative ranking chart should help clarify matters for everyone:

COMPARATIVE RANKING CHART

Rank Beauty Contest High School College
First Place Miss Universe Valedictorian Summa cum laude
Second Place First Runner-up  Salutatorian Magna cum laude
Third Place Second Runner-up First Honorable Mention Cum laude
Fourth Place Third Runner-up Second Honorable Mention First Honors
Fifth Place Fourth Runner-up Third Honorable Mention Second Honors

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The proper usage of exclamation marks

Question by Miss Mae, Forum member (August 31, 2011):

Since we are already talking about punctuation marks, may I also ask about exclamation marks? There are times when I find myself unsure on whether to use them. Also, is it proper to use exclamation marks consecutively? (Example: Thank you! I’ve just received it!)

My reply to Miss Mae:

When in doubt about using an exclamation mark, don’t use it. There’s nothing improper in using exclamation marks on consecutive statements, but never use multiple exclamation marks to end a sentence, no matter how intense you intend the statement to be. The habitual use of multiple exclamation marks is often a mark of a highly excitable or juvenile-minded person.

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Is there a rule for using “didn’t” or “did not” in compositions?

Question by Miss Mae, Forum member (September 13, 2011):

Is there a “rule” that favors spelling out didn't in certain compositions?

My reply to Miss Mae:

No, there’s no rule that favors spelling out the negative verb form “didn’t” in certain compositions. The choice on whether or not to spell it out simply depends on the tone intended by the writer or speaker—the uncontracted “did not” for a formal tone or mood and the contracted “didn’t” for an informal or casual one. 

In fiction, conversations obviously will favor using the contracted “didn’t” as this reflects the natural way people speak; indeed, a conversation will sound stilted or unauthentic if the characters spoke using the uncontracted “did not.” About the only time a character may be expected to use the uncontracted “did not” is when he or she is emphasizing or vehemently stating a point, as in “I certainly did not invite that creep to the party!” Also, in fiction, foreigners grappling with English will often be portrayed speaking with uncontracted “did nots.”

Academic writing is normally expected to avoid using “didn’t” as a matter of form. In journalistic reporting, it is obligatory to use the contracted “didn’t” in quoted statements if, in fact, the speaker uttered it that way; a reporter isn’t at liberty to change it to the uncontracted “did not” in the news story.

Follow-through question from Miss Mae (September 14, 2011):

What if it is the content for a website, Sir? And happens not to be a part of a quote, too?

My reply to Miss Mae:

Whatever the medium, it’s a judgment call—and often a matter of personal style—whether to use the spelled out “did not” or the contracted “didn’t.” You might have noticed that I favor contractions in my postings in this Forum as well as in my English-usage columns in The Manila Times. I just feel that using contractions makes my postings and columns more conversational and friendly rather than academic-sounding, which is the last thing I would want them to sound like.

Another follow-up question from Miss Mae (September 15, 2011):

Last question (pertaining to this matter, at least): Is it a “fault” to use contracted and uncontracted versions of dodoes, and did alternately?

My reply to Miss Mae:

I would think that it’s a sign of inconsistency, something that’s to be avoided if you are a professional writer doing nonfiction writing such as journalism and literary criticism. In fiction writing, however, there’s a lot of room for variation in using contracted and uncontracted versions of “do,” “does,” and “did.” Obviously, this is because different characters with different personalities will have their own styles of speaking, from extremely formal to excruciatingly formal. To make those characters speak consistently in only one way might make them not believable.

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Is it OK to strand a direct object at the end of the main clause?

Question e-mailed by Swapna Dasgupta (September 6, 2011):

Dear Jose,

I came across your article on an old webpage of The Manila Times. Thanks for enlightening the readers. 

Please help me understand the following sentence published on a website: 

“GM has brought out of retirement Bob Lutz, one of Detroit’s most colourful if sometimes controversial executives, to advise it senior management team.”

In this sentence, the placement of the object (“Bob Lutz”) has been delayed to insert information at its end. Is it permissible in English grammar? If so, will it affect the readability?

Thanks.

Swapna Dasgupta

My reply to Swapna:

Let’s closely examine and read that sentence aloud:

“GM has brought out of retirement Bob Lutz, one of Detroit’s most colourful if sometimes controversial executives, to advise its senior management team.”

This sentence pattern delays the verb’s direct object and strands it at the tail end of the main clause so it can be modified by an appositive (as in this case) or by a phrase or relative clause. As we can see, this pattern grammatically fractures the main clause and makes the sentence sound so awful. I don’t think it’s advisable to use this pattern, but the reality is that some news reporters and editors tend to use it not just occasionally these days for immediacy’s sake. It’s actually just another manifestation of the general tendency of news journalism in English to forcibly combine and compress too much information and too many details of the news story in the lead sentence, often making it so convoluted and so confusing to read.

But the bigger question here is this: Can’t news reporters and editors avoid such awful-sounding sentences when they really need to fracture the main clause and strand its operative verb? I think they can by using a verb or phrasal verb that’s more congenial to such disruptions of the natural grammatical order. In that particular sentence, for instance, it’s the phrasal verb “brought out of retirement” that causes the problem. See how the phrasal verb “taken out of retirement” works better grammatically and structurally for that sentence pattern: 

“GM has taken Bob Lutz, one of Detroit’s most colourful if sometimes controversial executives, out of retirement to advise its senior management team.”

In this form, the verb “has taken” is able to fully act on its direct object “Bob Lutz”—unlike “has brought out of retirement,” the verb phrase “has taken” doesn’t “hang”—and is properly modified later by the adverbial phrase “out of retirement” after the obligatory appositive had done its job of modifying “Bob Lutz.”

But an even better and trouble-free way, regardless of the verb or phrasal verb used, is to use the passive voice construction for such sentences:

“Bob Lutz, one of Detroit’s most colourful if sometimes controversial executives, was brought out of retirementby GM to advise its senior management team.”

“Bob Lutz, one of Detroit’s most colourful if sometimes controversial executives, was taken out of retirementby GM to advise its senior management team.”

I know that some journalists will stand firm on using the active voice even in this particular case, but I think this is one of those rare instances when the passive voice obviously outperforms the active voice in clarity and readability.

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Are writers at liberty to position parentheticals where they want to?

Further question about parentheticals from Miss Mae, Forum member (August 29, 2011):

If parentheticals can behave as either modifiers, intensifiers, interrupters, or interjections, does this give liberty to writers to place parentheticals where they want to?

My reply to Miss Mae:

Positioning parentheticals in a sentence is done on a case to case basis, based on functionality, logic, and clarity.

When a parenthetical is used as a modifier, it obviously should be positioned right after the word or phrase it modifies, as in this example:

“Alicia, a popular cheerleader in high school, doesn’t want to have the same extracurricular involvement in college.”

In that sentence, “a popular cheerleader in high school” is an appositive that functions as a parenthetical because it’s inserted in the passage as an amplifying or explanatory phrase.

That sentence, of course, can also be constructed this way:

A popular cheerleader in high school, Alicia doesn’t want to have the same extracurricular involvement in college.”

In that front-end position, though, “a popular cheerleader in high school” isn’t a parenthetical because it’s not an inserted element in the sentence. It’s simply a front-end adjective phrase. 

Positioning is even more crucial in the case of an interrupter as a parenthetical:

“The scholarly Joanna—of all people!—wants to be college cheerleader.”

Obviously, that interrupter doesn’t work—it doesn’t do the interruption job—when placed at the tail end of the sentence:

“The scholarly Joanna wants to be college cheerleader—of all people!

When a parenthetical is an intensifier, it obviously should immediately follow the noun being intensified, as in the following example:

“George—our very own George!—got the state scholarship!”

In the case of an interjection, the parenthetical expression should break into the idea being expressed, as in the following example:

“Our longtime partner—alas!—has abandoned us!”

It doesn’t serve its purpose positioned at the tail end of the statement:
“Our longtime partner has abandoned us, alas!

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The proper usage of exclamation marks

Question by Miss Mae, Forum member (August 31, 2011):

Since we are already talking about punctuation marks, may I also ask about exclamation marks? There are times when I find myself unsure on whether to use them. Also, is it proper to use exclamation marks consecutively? (Example: Thank you! I’ve just received it!)

My reply to Miss Mae:

When in doubt about using an exclamation mark, don’t use it. There’s nothing improper in using exclamation marks on consecutive statements, but never use multiple exclamation marks to end a sentence, no matter how intense you intend the statement to be. The habitual use of multiple exclamation marks is often a mark of a highly excitable or juvenile-minded person.

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Using commas or double dashes for punctuating parentheticals

Question by Miss Mae, Forum member (August 24, 2011):

Sir, in your discussion about parenthesis (Part I – “A unified approach to the proper use of punctuation in English”, Part II – “A unified approach to the proper use of punctuation in English”, Part III – “A unified approach to the proper use of punctuation in English”), I had deduced that I should only use double dashes if the parenthetical folds another sentence into a sentence or if a stronger break is needed. You also mentioned that “parentheticals enclosed by parentheses need not to be complete sentences.” Do you mean to say that parentheticals enclosed by commas or double dashes have to? Also, if parentheticals can behave as either modifiers, intensifiers, interrupters, or interjections, does it mean liberty for writers to place parentheticals where they want to?

My reply to Miss Mae:

Yes, parentheticals enclosed by parentheses need not be complete sentences. For instance, “The hospital nurse told her manager that she was sick (a lie) and stayed at a hospital for two days (a half-truth because she actually worked there part-time).” Here, of course, “a lie” is a noun phrase and “a half-truth because she actually worked part-time” is a sentence fragment.

Parentheticals enclosed by commas or double dashes likewise need not be complete sentences. Those enclosed by commas are often appositives, as in “The lady legislator, a tough-talking critic of government excess, called the government press official a spoiled brat,” or adjective phrases, as in “The French poet, legendary for his revolutionary poetry in his late teens, abandoned poetry altogether by the time he was 21.”

When the syntax of appositives and adjective phrases becomes more complicated than simple phrases, it becomes advisable to set them off with double dashes to avoid confusing the reader, as in the following example: “The lady legislator—a tough-talking critic of government excess who won’t abide official insolence in any form—called the government press official a spoiled brat during a committee hearing.” Using double dashes to set off such parentheticals makes them more emphatic. However, even just setting off such complicated parentheticals with a pair of commas often will still do: “The lady legislator, a tough-talking critic of government excess who won’t abide official insolence in any form, called the government press official a spoiled brat during a committee hearing.”

When the parenthetical is a complete sentence, however, it becomes grammatically mandatory to use a pair of double dashes, as in this example: “The lady legislator—she is a tough-talking critic of government excess who won’t abide official insolence in any form—called the government press official a spoiled brat during a committee hearing.” To use only a pair of commas to set off complete-sentence parentheticals results in a run-on or fused sentence of the comma-splice variety: “The lady legislator, she is a tough-talking critic of government excess who won’t abide official insolence in any form, called the government press official a spoiled brat during a committee hearing.”

One question remains, of course: Will parenthesis do for such complete-sentence parentheticals? The answer is not very well from the standpoint of syntax, as we can see in this construction: “The lady legislator (she is a tough-talking critic of government excess who won’t abide official insolence in any form) called the government press official a spoiled brat during a committee hearing.” It will be much better to convert the parenthetical sentence into an adjective phrase, as follows: “The lady legislator (a tough-talking critic of government excess who won’t abide official insolence in any form) called the government press official a spoiled brat during a committee hearing.”

Take note, though, that using parenthesis to set off such parentheticals diminishes their importance to the statement, making them sound simply as an aside that the writer or speaker doesn’t really consider important. It’s much better to use a pair of commas—but remember, they are not as good as double dashes—to set them off from the sentence: “The lady legislator, a tough-talking critic of government excess who won’t abide official insolence in any form, called the government press official a spoiled brat during a committee hearing.”

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Deconstructing some perplexing sentence patterns

Questions by hairstyler, Forum member (August 26, 2011):

Dear Mr. Carillo,

I don’t understand the sentence pattern below;  please help me solve it. Thanks a million.

(1) “An ounce of wisdom is worth more than a ton of cleverness is the first and highest rule of all deeds and words, the more necessary to be followed the higher and more numerous your post.”

I don’t understand the reason why the above sentence has two “is” simultaneously and the subordinate clause doesn’t have a verb. Is it a special structure? Please explain.

(2) “For guesses and doubts about the extent of his talents arouse more veneration than accurate knowledge of them, be they ever so great.”

I studied the “more ... than...” structure sometime ago, but I don’t know if a noun applied between the “more ... than” is correct.  Please explain if inversion occurs in the subordinate clause.

(3) “No one must know the extent of a wise person’s abilities, lest he be disappointed.”

I don’t understand why the subordinate clause above uses the verb “be” after the noun “he.”

Thanks a million.

My reply to hairstyler:

(1)
I’m not surprised that you find the following sentence difficult to understand:

An ounce of wisdom is worth more than a ton of cleverness is the first and highest rule of all deeds and words, the more necessary to be followed the higher and more numerous your post.

It’s because it has an abstruse construction that makes it almost a fused or run-on sentence, and one that’s made more confusing by inadequate punctuation. This also explains why, as you pointed out, that sentence appears to be using the linking verb “is” simultaneously for no grammatically valid reason.

The first step to unraveling that sentence grammatically is to recognize that its first clause, “an ounce of wisdom is worth more than a ton of cleverness,” is meant to be some rule being quoted verbatim. As such, that whole clause should be set off by a pair of quotation marks to make it a grammatically legitimate part of that sentence, as follows:

“An ounce of wisdom is worth more than a ton of cleverness” is the first and highest rule of all deeds and words, the more necessary to be followed the higher and more numerous your post.

We can see that when that quoted statement is set off by the pair of quotation marks, it becomes a noun form that serves as the subject of the main clause whose predicate is “the first and highest rule of all deeds and words.” In short, from a sentence structure standpoint, there’s actually only one linking verb “is” in that main clause—the one that links that quoted statement to the predicate of the main clause. Structurally, the other “is” doesn’t count because it’s integral to the quoted statement that’s functioning as the grammatical subject of that clause.

Now, these words that follow the first clause of that sentence in question may look like a subordinate clause but it really isn’t: “the more necessary to be followed the higher and more numerous your post. It’s actually a coordinate clause of the first clause, and together they form a compound sentence that normally would read as follows:

“An ounce of wisdom is worth more than a ton of cleverness” is the first and highest rule of all deeds and words, and the higher and more numerous your posts, the more it will be necessary to follow that rule.”

However, not only was the second coordinate clause inverted but it was also reduced or ellipted—some words were dropped from it, including the coordinating conjunction “and” and the linking verb form “to be”—to make the statement more concise and punchy, as follows:

“An ounce of wisdom is worth more than a ton of cleverness” is the first and highest rule of all deeds and words, [and] the more necessary [it has to be] to be followed the higher and more numerous your posts.”

(2)
Yes, a noun applied between the comparative “more ... than” is grammatically correct, as in the case of “veneration” in this sentence you presented: 

For guesses and doubts about the extent of his talents arouse more veneration than accurate knowledge of them, be they ever so great.

The comparison being made is, of course, between two subjects, “veneration” and “accurate knowledge of (the extent of his talents).” But I don’t think inversion has been done to that sentence. What happened is simply that the adverbial modifier “be they ever so great” was moved to the tail end of the sentence for great impact. The normal position of that adverbial modifier is as follows:

For guesses and doubts about the extent of his talents, be they ever so great, arouse more veneration than accurate knowledge of them.

(3)
Regarding the use of the verb “be” after the noun “he” in the following sentence:

“No one must know the extent of a wise person's abilities, lest he be disappointed.”

The word “lest” is being used in that sentence as a subordinating conjunction that means “so as to prevent any possibility, and “lest” is a subordinating conjunction that requires that particular clause to be in the subjunctive mood, which in turn is a form that requires the linking verb “is” to always take the subjunctive form “be” regardless of whether the subject is singular or plural (“The proper use of the English subjunctive”).

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“When is less more and when is more less?”

Question by Miss Mae, Forum member (August 15, 2011):

When is less more and when is more less in constructing sentences in English? When could writers just hope that their readers understand?

My reply to Miss Mae:

Sentences are just a tool of language; they need only as many words as needed to clearly and succinctly communicate an idea. Less than that is lacking, and more is superfluous; only when there’s prior and complete understanding between writer and reader can it be otherwise. At its core, writing is simply a sharing of mutually understood visual codes.

No, writers should never just hope that their readers will understand. They should always make an effort to be understood in as few words as possible. Using more words than needed often just engenders befuddlement rather than understanding.

Rejoinder of Miss Mae (August 16, 2011):

But when the subjects involved already knew what both of them are talking about, would it be okay to omit some words or phrases for brevity?

My reply to Miss Mae’s rejoinder:

It would be okay to omit some words or phrases for brevity, of course, but only when you are writing to an exclusive, one-on-one private audience—like your lover, sorority sister, or gang mate. In such situations, you can mutually develop and share codes as intimate, cryptic, or secretive as you want them to be. This will allow you to lop off entire phrases or clauses from your messages and still get yourself understood. But when writing for mass audiences like newspaper and magazine readers, you obviously can’t do that. You need to write full-bodied, grammatically and semantically correct sentences that can convey not only the basic information you want to share but also its various nuances. It will be dangerous to unilaterally drop words and phrases from your sentences on the assumption that your readers already know them beforehand. You will not only fail to communicate but also be perceived as a scatterbrain when you do that.

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Which is correct: “Does absence (make, makes) heart grow fonder men?”

Question by Sky, Forum member (August 3, 2011):

Which one is correct?

1. “Does absence make heart grow fonder men?”
2. “Does absence makes heart grow fonder men?”

Response of melvinhate, Forum member (August 3, 2011):

“Does absence make man’s heart ponders?”
“Does absence make men’s hearts ponder?”

Sir Joe [probably] has better and detailed explanation. I also want to be corrected.

My response to Sky’s and melvinhate’s postings:

Both of Sky’s sentence constructions as well as both of melvinhate’s are grammatically wrong. Sky’s use of the comparative adjective “fonder” is correct, but the syntax of both of his sentences is faulty. On the other hand, melvinhate misuses the verb “ponder” in both of his sentences. The adjective “fonder,” of course, means “more indulgent or more affectionate” towards something—it’s the correct sense here--while the verb “ponder” means “to think about or reflect on,” which is semantically off the mark in that sentence.

The correct construction for that interrogative sentence is “Does absence make men’s hearts fonder?” This is actually the contemporary idiomatic expression “Absence makes men’s hearts fonder” in question form. That idiomatic expression is, in turn, an 18th century variation of a line from the poem “Elegies” by the Roman poet Sextus Propertius ((50–45 BC - circa 15 BC) that translates into English as follows:

“Always toward absent lovers love’s tide stronger flows.”

Rejoinder of Sky (August 6, 2011):

Why do we say “does absence make” and not “does absence makes”?

Rejoinder of melvinhate (August 6, 2011):

Thank you for the correction....
Thank you for sharing....

My response to Sky’s question:

In English, it’s the helping verb and not the main verb that takes the tense, and in sentences in the interrogative form, the helping verb takes the frontline position, as in “Does absence make men’s hearts fonder?” Here, the helping verb is “does”—the present tense form of the verb—and the main verb is “make”—the bare infinitive form of “to make” that has shed off the “to.” This is the prescribed form in English for interrogative or question-form sentences in the present tense. Of course, the helping verb here can also take the two other simple tenses—the past tense (“Did absence make those men’s hearts fonder?”), the future tense (“Will absence make those men’s hearts fonder?”)—and in every case, the main verb “make” remains in its bare infinitive form.

In the present perfect tense and past perfect tense, however, the helping verb and the main verb behave differently. The helping verb takes the perfect tense—“has,” “have,” or “had”—and the main verb takes the past participle form. That sentence you presented will then take the following forms—present perfect tense (“Has absence made those men’s hearts fonder?”) and past perfect tense (“Had absence made those men’s hearts fonder?”).

In the progressive tense, the main verb takes the progressive form and the helping verb takes the simple tense, as in the following examples—the past progressive tense (“Was absence making those men’s hearts fonder?”), the present progressive tense (“Is absence making those men’s hearts fonder?”), and the future progressive tense (“Will absence be making those men’s hearts fonder?”).

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Should the conjunctions be always set off by commas?

Question by Miss Mae, Forum member (August 10, 2011):

I thought conjunctions should be set off by commas. Why is the sentence below from a news article in the BusinessMirror.com website an exception?

“A brief inquest hearing into Duggan’s death will take place tomorrow, though it will likely be several months before a full hearing is convened.”

My reply to Miss Mae:

No, it’s incorrect to think that conjunctions should, as a rule, be set off by commas. They require punctuation only on a case-to-case and situational basis, and some of them don’t need to be punctuated at all. You will recall that there are two kinds of conjunctions: the seven coordinating conjunctions (“for,” “as,” “nor,” “but,” “or,” “yet,” and “so”) and the subordinating conjunctions such as “because” and “even if” (there are actually at least 32 of them, so I won’t be enumerating them here). In addition to these two types of conjunctions, of course, there are also the conjunctive adverbs such as “however” and “nevertheless” (the most commonly used of them total 37), which provide stronger transitions than coordinating conjunctions and need to be punctuated differently.

It will take a very long discussion to describe the punctuation requirements of the various conjunctions and conjunctive adverbs, so I suggest that you refer to my book Give Your English the Winning Edge for more comprehensive instruction. Section 2, “Combining and Linking Our Ideas,” devotes four chapters on how the conjunctions and conjunctive adverbs work and on the proper way to punctuate them.

Now let’s take a close look at the conjunction used by the sentence you quoted from the Associated Press wire story that was carried by the Business Mirror:

“A brief inquest hearing into Duggan’s death will take place tomorrow, though it will likely be several months before a full hearing is convened.”

This sentence construction isn’t an exception to the rule at all. Here, the subordinating conjunction “though” is used in the sense of “even if,” marking the clause “it will likely be several months before a full hearing is convened” as subordinate to the main clause “a brief inquest hearing into Duggan’s death will take place tomorrow.” It correctly uses a comma at the end of the main clause, right before “though,” to set off the entire subordinate clause (including the subordinator “though”). This is done to provide a grammatical pause—a transition of sorts in the interest of clarity—between the main clause and the subordinate clause. Strictly speaking, though, that complex sentence can get by without that comma, but in the absence of that comma, there’s the clear danger of the reader missing that transition and getting confused in the process. 

It’s also revealing and instructive how the subordinating conjunction “although”—a longer variant of “though”—can do a better, clearer job in such transition situations even in the absence of the comma:

“A brief inquest hearing into Duggan’s death will take place tomorrow although it will likely be several months before a full hearing is convened.”

(For greater clarity, though, I personally prefer using a comma before “although” even in such sentences.)   

My point here is that in complex sentences, the decision to use or not to use the comma to set off the subordinate clause from the main clause will depend on the specific subordinating conjunction used, on the grammatical construction of the subordinate clause, and on the personal style of the writer. 

Now let me go back to that idea of yours that “though” should be set off by commas. It actually happens in an altogether different grammatical situation where “though” is used not as a conjunction but as an adverb in the sense of “however” or “nevertheless,” as in the following sentence:

“For the sake of their children, though, she is valiantly putting up with her husband’s insensitivity to her needs.” 

Now that’s a grammatical situation where using a pair of commas to set off “though” is truly warranted—but I must reiterate that this usage is adverbial rather conjunctive!

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The positioning of modifying phrases isn’t just a matter of style

Questions e-mailed by Miss Mae, Forum member (July 27, 2011): 

Dear Mr. Carillo,

I came upon this article this morning and wondered if the sentence construction was right.

“Qatar, buoyed by a successful bid to host the 2022 soccer World Cup, is interested in staging the start of the 2016 Tour de France.”

It was from the headline of a report expressing that country’s intention to host the 2016 Tour de France (“Qatar interested in hosting 2016 Tour de France start”). I am not a sports fanatic, but I would like to understand if the placement of modifiers/modifying phrases in a sentence is just a matter of style. 

Also, in a grammatical query I asked you last February 6, you preferred the subject “I” to be stated after the phrase “in fact.”

My placement of “in fact”:
“I, in fact, am not sure till now of the proper usage of the auxiliary verbs ‘has,’ ‘have,’ and ‘had.’”

Your placement of “in fact”:
In fact, I am not sure till now of the proper usage of the auxiliary verbs ‘has,’ ‘have,’ and ‘had.’”

I still do not understand why you did that and would really appreciate if you could address my confusion.

Respectfully,
Miss Mae

My reply to Miss Mae:

The placement of modifiers or modifying phrases in a sentence can be a matter of style, but the overriding consideration is the grammatical functionality of the placement. So long as the intended modification is clear and unmistakable, the writer can exercise some latitude in positioning the modifier or modifying phrase. The thing to avoid, though, is positioning a modifier or modifying phrase in such a way that makes it a misplaced modifier, a dangler, or a squinter (When footloose modifiers wreak havoc on news and feature stories).

Let’s take a close look at the sentence you presented:

“Qatar, buoyed by a successful bid to host the 2022 soccer World Cup, is interested in staging the start of the 2016 Tour de France.” 

This positioning of the participial phrase “buoyed by a successful bid to host the 2022 soccer World Cup” is preferred by many newspapers and news service agencies. Its grammatical virtue is that it identifies the subject of the sentence right away for the reader. This is a big plus in day-to-day news journalism, where immediacy in the delivery and understanding of information is routinely given high priority.

In less hurried circumstances, though, particularly in the case of feature articles in weekly or monthly magazines, this other placement of that modifying phrase is likely or more often favored:

Buoyed by a successful bid to host the 2022 soccer World Cup, Qatar is interested in staging the start of the 2016 Tour de France.”

This positioning of the modifying phrase gives the sentence what many editors call a “featurized” treatment or flavor. In fact, it’s often a good indicator of whether the story we are reading is a feature article instead of just straight news. We will also notice that when a feature article has a lead sentence written in this manner, the rest of the article will be told in sentences that often depart from the usual “subject + verb + predicate” construction expected from straight news—the better to deliver the featurized flavor of the story.

This positioning for the modifying phrase has a major drawback, though. It buries the subject—“delays” is perhaps a better word—so many words later in the sentence. In the sentence you presented, in particular, the frontline use of the phrase “buoyed by a successful bid to host the 2022 soccer World Cup” delays the delivery of the subject by as many as 12 words. This makes it longer and more difficult for nonnative speakers of English to understand what the sentence is all about, and the longer the modifying phrase is, the harder it will be for those readers to understand it. Of course, this shouldn’t be a problem for readers with a good grounding of how the English language works, but you see, mass-circulation newspapers and magazines always keep in mind the level of understanding of their average reader. They call this specific level of understanding the “readability index,” and I remember from my newspapering days so many years ago that the typical mass-circulation English-language newspaper tailors its news and feature stories to be understood by a 15-year-old, high-school level reader at the minimum. 

Now, regarding your question about the positioning of the adverbial phrase “in fact” in the following sentences:

Here’s how you positioned “in fact”:
“I, in fact, am not sure till now of the proper usage of the auxiliary verbs ‘has,’ ‘have,’ and ‘had.’”

Here’s how I repositioned it:
In fact, I am not sure till now of the proper usage of the auxiliary verbs ‘has,’ ‘have,’ and ‘had.’”

Both positions of “in fact” in the sentences above are grammatically acceptable, but the two sentences yield different meanings. By positioning “in fact” after the pronoun “I,” your sentence emphasizes the truthfulness of your being the person who’s not sure about the matter at hand. I don’t think this is the sense you intended for that sentence. Rather, you meant to affirm the truthfulness of your not being sure about the matter at hand, and this sense clearly comes through when “in fact” precedes the whole statement you want to affirm, as follows:“In fact, I am not sure till now of the proper usage of the auxiliary verbs ‘has,’ ‘have,’ and ‘had.’” In other words, “in fact” should modify that whole statement rather than just the first-person “I” that’s making the affirmation.
 
By the way, let me answer this question that you asked in an earlier e-mail: “What does ‘categorically deny’ mean?”

To “categorically deny” something is to deny it in an absolute and unqualified way. It’s to declare emphatically—often with a sense of outrage and righteousness—that an accusation is false and without any basis in fact.

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Dealing with awkward sounding and wordy, overstated sentences

Question by jeanne, Forum member (July 7, 2011):

Hello Joe and everyone,

Is it just me or are these two sentences really awkward?

1. “We can ship to almost any address in the world.”

(*I feel like it should be “. . . any address around the world.”)

2. “We guarantee that we have, to the best of our abilities, determined the accuracy of the information presented in our listings. There is no money back guarantee for GAMSAT products.”

*Wouldn’t it be better to write instead, “We guarantee that we have determined, to the best of our abilities, that information presented in our listings are accurate”?

Since “our” here pertains to the shipping company (collective), shouldn’t “to the best of our abilities” be phrased as “to the best of our ability” instead?  

I could be wrong, so I would really appreciate your comments.

My reply to jeanne:

I think the first sentence, “We can ship to almost any address in the world,” is grammatically airtight. I can hardly discern a difference between that sentence and your suggested version that uses “around” instead of “in,” We can ship to almost any address around the world.”

As to the second sentence, yours is a decidedly better construction. The original version doesn’t read very well because it ill-advisedly breaks the verb phrase “we have determined” with the adverbial phrase “to the best of our abilities.” Your version got rid of that break nicely. Both the original sentence and your improved version are wordy overstatements, though, and it hardly makes a difference whether “best of our abilities” or “best of our ability” is used. 

I would simplify and make that sentence more concise, as follows:

“We guarantee the accuracy of the information presented in our listings.”

That’s 11 words vs. 20 words of the original, or a savings of 9 words (45%).

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The case of the sentence whose subject is nowhere to be found

Question sent by e-mail by Neyo (July 1, 2011):

Hi, Joe!

I am an avid follower of your blog/forums and I find them very helpful in my job in a publishing.

My question is: Is the sentence below grammatically correct?

“Divided into quarters to correspond with the grading periods of school year, each quarter opens with pictorial summary (grades 1 – 3) and highlights (grades 4 – 6), which is a listing of what the pupils expect to learn in about two and a half months.”

I found it grammatically incorrect. Let us look at the part of the sentence that the modifier “divided into quarters to …” refers to. Obviously, it is the quarter (”each quarter”). If this is so, and if we remove the extension of the modifier, we read thus: “Divided into quarters…, each quarter opens….” This is an awkward construction, if not absurd for this purpose. (A quarter divided into quarters?) Now, using the same construction, and using “series” instead of “quarter” as a subject, we read thus: “Divided into quarters…, each series opens...”

Our chief editor, however, thinks otherwise. To him, there is no dangling modifier here. As he is a linguistics major, he even used the term exospheric referencing (ellipsed subject) used in linguistics, whatever that means.

Is this a situation of a dangling modifier or only an error in style? And is there an application of ellipsed subject here? (Note: “exophoric referencing” in the field of linguistics.) Is an ellipsed subject (if there is any) a rule in constructing a modifier?

Please help me convince my boss that there is an error in that sentence. 

Thanks.

My reply to Neyo:

You asked if the following sentence is grammatically correct and whether it contains a dangling modifier:

““Divided into quarters to correspond with the grading periods of school year, each quarter opens with pictorial summary (grades 1 – 3) and highlights (grades 4 – 6), which is a listing of what the pupils expect to learn in about two and a half months.”

Offhand I’ll tell you that it’s a very badly constructed sentence, one with the following very serious grammatical flaws:

1. It has no subject either in the main clause or in the modifying participial phrase. Semantically, the noun “quarter” as used in the participial phrase and in the main clause itself can’t be the subject of that sentence. The sentence has therefore ended up saying so many things about nothing in particular. Indeed, unless some title or heading right before that sentence makes it clear what the subject is, I would consider that whole sentence itself as a meaningless statement.

2. That sentence having no subject, the modifying participial phrase up front has also ended up as a dangling modifier, unable to logically modify any noun in the main clause. As you said, because of the false use of the noun “quarter” as subject of that sentence, we have the grammatical anomaly of each “quarter” dividing itself up into “quarters,” a process that, when pursued to its logical conclusion, would yield a total of 16 divisions for whatever it is that the sentence is talking about.

3. Also semantically doomed as a dangling modifying phrase is the relative clause at the tail end of that sentence—“which is a listing of what the pupils expect to learn in about two and a half months.” This is because that relative clause doesn’t have a clear antecedent subject to modify in the main clause. The head noun of that relative clause, “listing,” has no clear syntactic relation to any of the nouns in the main clause, namely “quarter,” “pictorial summary,” and “highlights.”

4. The sentence also has three instances of missing articles (“the” twice, “a” once) and one instance of a missing modal (“can”), which to me are indicative of less than thorough copyediting.

You say that your chief editor considers that sentence grammatically correct. I think he is sorely mistaken and should reconsider his position. My feeling is that if someone has to defend a doubtful sentence construction by taking recourse to such abstruse linguistic terms as “exospheric referencing” and “ellipsed subject,” he must have painted himself into an indefensible position. The fact is that the sentence in question is meant to be read and interpreted not by linguistics majors but by elementary school teachers and pupils, so where’s the wisdom in writing it in a confusing way? And what’s the point in further confusing them with linguistic jargon and justifications that none of them will understand?

In fairness to your chief editor, though, I must say that you must have misheard him when you quoted him as using the term “exospheric referencing.”  The word “exospheric” is a scientific term that means being located in “the outer fringe region of the atmosphere of the earth or a celestial body” (Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary). He must have said “exophoric reference,” a linguistics term used to describe generics or abstracts without ever identifying them, meaning that rather than introduce a specific concept, the writer refers to it by a generic word like “everything,” as in “Everything in my life is in shambles” for the opening of an essay. (Click this link for a layman’s discussion of “exophora” in the About.com website.) In any case, after looking very closely at the sentence in question, I simply can’t fathom precisely what word was used as “exophoric reference” in that sentence. And even if assuming that the “exophoric reference” was indeed clear in your chief editor’s mind, isn’t it foolhardy to expect nonlinguists to understand “exophoric reference” the way he has invoked it?

You say that your chief editor also used the alternative term “ellipsed subject.”  By definition, an “ellipsis” is a grammatical device in sentence construction in which, after a certain word or phrase is mentioned in a sentence, that word or phrase is omitted when it has to be repeated later in the sentence. Ellipsis is meant to avoid needless repetition, to streamline sentences, and to make them easier to articulate, as in this ellipsed sentence: “Their older son is now a college graduate, the younger still in high school.” (The words “son” and “is” were ellipsed or omitted from this full sentence: “Their older son is now a college graduate, the younger son is still in high school.”) This being the case, I’m still wondering what subject or words your chief editor thinks were “ellipsed” from that sentence in question.

I realize that this critique of mine has gotten unduly long, so let me end it now by offering the following rewrite whose grammatical correctness won’t have to be defended by resorting to some linguistic mumbo-jumbo:

“Divided into quarters to correspond to the grading periods of the school year, each book in the series opens with a pictorial summary (for Grades 1 – 3) or highlights in text (for Grades 4 – 6) showing what the pupils can expect to learn in about two-and-a-half months.”

This time it’s unmistakable that the subject of the sentence are the books (or manuals or workbooks or pamphlets) in the series to be published, that the subject being modified by the participial phrase is “each book in the series,” and that “the pictorial summary” and “highlights in text” don’t really list but show “what the pupils can expect to learn in about two-and-a-half months.” It’s now in grammatically and semantically airtight English that I’m sure everybody will find easy to understand.

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Some perplexing aspects of noun usage in English

Questions from English Maiden, new Forum member (June 15, 2011):

Hi, Joe!

I’m a new member of your Forum, and I’m hoping you can help me with my confusion about the English language.

Can you tell me what the differences, if any, between these sentences are:
A1. We are the masters of our own DESTINY.
A2. We are the masters of our own DESTINIES.

B1. People with diabetes can still have A NORMAL SEX LIFE.
B2. People with diabetes can still have NORMAL SEX LIVES.

Is there a difference in meaning between the sentences in each set? Or are the sentences completely the same? My confusion lies in what form of noun to use: the plural or the singular. I personally think that the plural forms of the nouns in sentences A1 and B1 are the correct ones to use. What do you think? I'll look forward to your answers.

My reply to English Maiden:

Welcome to the Forum, English Maiden!

First, let’s consider the word “destiny,” which could either be a countable noun or noncountable noun depending on its usage. It’s countable when it denotes what will happen to somebody in the future, particularly outcomes that he or she can’t change or avoid. On the other hand, it’s noncountable when it refers to the unknowable entity that’s believed to have the power to control events.

Now, in Sentences A1 and A2, “destiny” is obviously being used in the countable sense since it refers to the individual destinies of the people who comprise the plural pronoun “we.” Sentence A1, which pluralizes the count noun “destiny” into “destinies,” is therefore the correct sentence construction: “We are the masters of our own destinies.” Sentence A2, “We are the masters of our own destiny,” is grammatically and semantically wrong.

Let’s tackle the term “sex life” next. Obviously, the noun “life” is being used in the context of “human activities,” so it’s definitely a countable noun. This is in contrast to the use of “life” as a noncountable noun in the sense of the animating and shaping force in living things. The term “sex life,” then, is a countable noun that should be pluralized to “sex lives” when it refers to the individual sexual activities of the people who comprise the plural pronoun “we.”

Based on this grammatical analysis, Sentence B2 is the preferable sentence construction: “People with diabetes can still have normal sex lives.”  I say preferable because Sentence B1 is also grammatically and semantically correct: “People with diabetes can still have a normal sex life.” Unlike the noun “destiny,” which is a countable noun that pertains solely to a particular individual, “sex life” can also be construed as a plural collective noun that pertains to people in general.     

What this is telling us, English Maiden, is that whether a countable or noncountable noun will be plural or singular also depends on the nature and attributes of the noun itself and not just on its grammatical usage in the sentence.

Rejoinder from English Maiden (June 17, 2011):

Thanks for quickly responding to my post. I appreciate all your answers. I am still a tad confused, though. No, I’m still confused. I’ve encountered the following sentences, and I'm wondering if the singular nouns in them could also or should be in the plural:

1. Should women take their husband’s last name? (Would it also be correct to write “Should women take their husbands' last names?”?)
2. Good liars are often skilled at staring into their questioner’s eyes. (Wouldn’t it be better to change questioner’s eyes to questioners’ eyes to make it agree to the main subject of the sentence “good liars”?)

I don’t know if I’m just complicating things here, but I’m really confused. I hope you still respond. Thank you in advance!

My reply to English Maiden’s rejoinder (June 18, 2011):

No, you are not complicating things, English Maiden. You are dealing here with some truly perplexing aspects of English grammar that need explication from the standpoint of logic—not just of semantics—to be thoroughly understood. 

In Item 1, both sentence constructions are not advisable. In modern monogamous societies, as we know, it’s highly unlikely for a woman to have more than one husband. The sentence “Should women take their husbands’ last names?” is therefore notionally untenable, so it’s more semantically appropriate to use the singular form for both the noun “women” and the noun “husband,” as in the following construction: “Should a woman take her husband’s last name?”

On the other hand, the sentence “Should women take their husband’s last name?” would be notionally possible in Muslim and other polygamous societies where a man could have one or several wives. In other words, a number of women can actually share the same husband. Asking the question “Should women take their husband’s last name?” therefore makes sense both grammatically and semantically. In monogamous societies, though, only the notionally singular sentence in Item 1 above would make sense semantically: “Should a woman take her husband’s last name?”

In the sentence constructions in Item 2, there’s no grammatical or logical need to make the operative subject, “good liars,” agree in number with the object of the preposition “into” (which in this case is either “their questioner’s eyes” or “their questioners’ eyes”). An object of the preposition is independent grammatically from the subject of a sentence, so it can take any number—whether singular or plural—irrespective of the number of the subject. We must keep in mind that the subject-verb agreement rule applies only to the relationship between a subject and its operative verb. This being the case, both versions of the sentence you presented are grammatically and semantically correct as general statements:

“Good liars are often skilled at staring into their questioner’s eyes.”
“Good liars are often skilled at staring into their questioners’ eyes.”

RELATED POSTING IN THE FORUM:
The Proper Use of “Amount” and “Number”

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Which is correct: “endorsement of/endorsement from a medical society”?

Question by Jeanne, Forum member (June 23, 2011):

Hi everyone!

I would like to ask which of the following phrases is grammatically correct:

—endorsement of a medical society; or,
—endorsement from a medical society.

I thought that the first one is correct, but someone told me it should be the latter.   I wonder what makes the difference.

Looking forward to your helpful responses.

My reply to Jeanne:

Both phrases are grammatically correct but they differ in usage and meaning. When “endorsement of a medical society” is used, it means that the medical society is the recipient of the endorsement from some entity, as in this sentence: “Endorsement of a medical society by the government is subject to prior review by its duly designated health agency.” On the other hand, when “endorsement from a medical society” is used, it means that the medical society is the giver or source of the endorsement to some entity, as in this sentence: “An endorsement from a medical society is needed to authorize a doctor to participate in the international health conference.” An equivalent phrase that yields this “giver” or “source” sense is “endorsement by a medical society,” as in this alternative sentence construction to the preceding example: “An endorsement by a medical society is needed to authorize a doctor to participate in the international health conference.”

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A clarion call for simplicity in written communication

A friend, Charlie Agatep of the PR and advertising agency Agatep Associates in the Philippines, is sharing with Forum members the following e-mail he sent to the agency’s writers:

Dear All,

We’ve always said that Euro RSCG Agatep* is a university. We create a community of learning among our employees and our clients. We strive to do better tomorrow than we are doing today.

As part of our learning, I’d like to quote writer William Zinsser on the value of simplicity in written communication. He said:

“Clutter is the disease of... writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.

“Our national tendency is to inflate and thereby sound important. The airline pilot who announces that he is presently anticipating experiencing considerable precipitation wouldn’t think of saying... ‘it may rain.’

“BUT THE SECRET OF GOOD WRITING IS TO STRIP EVERY SENTENCE TO ITS CLEANEST COMPONENTS. EVERY WORD THAT SERVES NO FUNCTION, EVERY LONG WORD THAT COULD BE A SHORT WORD, EVERY ADVERB THAT CARRIES THE SAME MEANING THAT’S ALREADY IN THE VERB, EVERY PASSIVE CONSTRUCTION THAT LEAVES THE READER UNSURE OF WHO IS DOING WHAT... THESE ARE THE THOUSAND AND ONE ADULTERANTS THAT WEAKEN THE STRENGTH OF A SENTENCE.

“Simplify, simplify. Thoreau said it, as we are so often reminded, and no American writer more consistently practiced what he preached. In his book, Walden, Thoreau said:

“‘I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not,  when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.’”

Zinsser continues:

“Writers must therefore constantly ask: what am I trying to say? Surprisingly they don’t know. Then they must look at what they have written and ask: have I said it? Is it clear to someone encountering the subject for the first time?

“Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it is because it is hard.”

Thank you for your precious time.

Charlie A. Agatep

-------
*Euro RSCG Agatep PR (Agatep Associates Inc.) is an integrated marketing communications company specializing in strategic PR solutions for building, enhancing, and protecting corporate identity and brand reputation. It is part of the international PR network of the Paris-based Havas Group, a leading public communications company with operations in the USA, Europe, Middle East, and Asia Pacific.—Joe Carillo

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The use of the expression “way back”

Feedback from Menie, Forum member (June 7, 2011):

I often see the phrase “Way back in 19xx...”  and I cringe because I think the writer should have just said “In 19xx...”  For me, a person who uses “way back” in this manner sounds verbose.  And, for some reason, I always associate this term with people who were one generation older than me, those who grew up and were educated during the American time.  

The following sentence from “Rotting fish due to fish-kills: another food for thought” By Dr. Flor Lacanilao is what set me thinking about this:

“Way back in 1961-1964, when there were no fishpens in the Lake, the annual catch of small fishers there was 80,000-82,000 tons.”

Does the use of “way back” here give any added value, or should the writer have said “From 1961 to 1964, when there were...”?

My reply to Menie:

The idiomatic expression “from way back” means “from far in the past” or “from a much earlier time.” It’s a rhetorical device to convey a long sweep of time between the present and some point in the past—a sense that may not come through as clearly if the writer or speaker simply used a particular date or numeric time frame. Figurative expressions like “from way back” certainly gives added value to exposition—I’d call it flavor—by counteracting the numerical blandness and tedium of matter-of-fact phrasing like “From 1961 to 1964…”

I don’t think it’s verbose to use “from way back” in exposition, but I agree with you that this expression does associate its users with people older than the reader or listener. Its users may not necessarily be people “who grew up and were educated during the American time”—any time frame for their growing up and education actually will apply to that usage—but by using that expression, they are often deliberately but subtly asserting their primacy over their reader or listener by virtue of their being older. That, to me, is a semantic bonus that goes with the use of “from way back” in personal narratives instead of just plain numeric chronology.

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Do you need the IELTS to work or study in the US and Canada?

Question by zabi, new Forum member (June 2, 2011):

Is IELTS, the English exam, really needed for you to work or study in US, Canada, UK, Australia, and etc.? Or is there any other way? I am planning to learn English online, then to take IELTS exam if it is really needed by those countries.

My reply to zabi’s question:

IELTS, the acronym for the English Language Testing System, is an English-proficiency exam primarily designed for those who wish to work or study in the United Kingdom and the British Commonwealth countries, including Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It’s the preferred exam for those destinations, but some of the British Commonwealth countries are now also using or about to use United States-based English proficiency tests. In particular, for student visa purposes, Australia now also uses the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and will also be using the Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic) later in 2011.

To be sure of the English-proficiency test you need to review for, check with the company or school in the foreign country of your choice.

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