Tag Archives: grammar

Mechanics

Did you “use to” or “used to”??

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One strength of the English language its flexibility. We have lots of ways of rewording things. For example, we can use simple past tense (I went to the store), or we can use a two-word “paraphrastic” past tense, usually for emphasis or negation these days (I did go to the store, or I didn’t go to the store.).

The Store (By Guinness). I didn't use to go to this store.Notice, though, that in English, when we use a paraphrastic tense, only ONE verb carries the tense: “I did go to the store,” not “I did went to the store” (or, to get crazy with it, “I did wanted went to the store.”). Naturally, in forming past tense questions, we also split the past marker off: “Did you go to the store?” not “Did you went to the store?”

That’s very, very simple and straightforward, right?

Of course not! Ha! Ridiculous! This is English. How can it be simple?

What happens when you introduce another type of paraphrastic in there? Specifically, I’ve come across this issue more than once with the verb phrase “used to.” Obviously, in simple past, we can say, “I used to go to the store.” (And equally obviously, never “I used to went to the store.”)

“Used to” is already extra tricky because vocally (where you’d usually hear this colloquialism), “used to” and “use to” are pronounced almost identically, so many speakers aren’t sure what the correct form is in the first place. (It’s “used to.”)

But what happens when we get crazy with the paraphrastic past, emphatic or negative?

“I did use to have a job, you know.” vs. “I did used to have a job, you know.”
“I didn’t use to worry about these things.” vs. “I didn’t used to worry about these things.”
“Did you use to visit often?” vs. “Did you used to visit often?”

While “use to” often looks wrong in this context because the simple form is correctly “used to,” I’m of the opinion that you shouldn’t have two tense markers in the same verb. Just like you wouldn’t say “I did/didn’t went to the store,” I don’t think you should say “I did/didn’t used to go to the store.”

And of course, in very formal writing, you should never have used either 😉 .

Want to get technical? Of course! Here’s a usage note on “used to” from the Oxford American Dictionary to back up my theory (emphasis original):

1 The construction used to is standard, but difficulties arise with the formation of negatives and questions. Traditionally, used to behaves as a modal verb, so that questions and negatives are formed without the auxiliary verb do, as in it used not to be like that and used she to come here? In modern English, this question form is now regarded as very formal or awkwardly old-fashioned, and the use with do is broadly accepted as standard, as in did she use to come here? Negative constructions with do, on the other hand (as in it didn’t use to be like that), although common, are informal and are not generally accepted. 

2 There is sometimes confusion over whether to use the form used to or use to, which has arisen largely because the pronunciation is the same in both cases. Except in negatives and questions, the correct form is used to: we used to go to the movies all the time (not we use to go to the movies). However, in negatives and questions using the auxiliary verb do, the correct form is use to, because the form of the verb required is the infinitive: I didn’t use to like mushrooms (not I didn’t used to like mushrooms). See also utilize (usage).

And, of course, for the negative, you could always rephrase with “never” (if that’s what you mean).

What do you think? Did you use to think that? 😉

Photo by Miguel Ángel Díaz Rey via Flickr & CC license

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Mechanics

Secret sauce: those stinking participial phrases

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This entry is part 13 of 16 in the series Spilling the secret sauce

Okay, so participial phrases at the beginning of sentences have become one of my pet peeves. I don’t mind them when they’re well done, but unless you’re pretty handy with a clause, you might want to avoid them. This might seem like just one of those silly arbitrary rules that are just made up to help us prove we’ve read up on the latest so-called rules for writing, which will change in another ten years.

But present participial phrases are not just a magical hoop editors want us to jump through to prove that we’re familiar with industry bywords. It’s mainly an issue of grammar (and to a lesser extent, style, but that’s because they’re overused). Complaining about strictures against present participial phrases is almost like complaining about commas. There are correct places and times for using commas, and incorrect ones, and I suspect that most of the time, if we carefully look at a book, we’ll see that most of the commas are used right and perhaps not as often as we thought.

I really came to understand this by reading the posts on present participial phrases at EditTorrent, a blog by two editors. But if you don’t feel like clicking through, I’m happy to summarize the anti-present participial phrase arguments.

First, to clarify, these are not gerunds. Gerunds are typically not a problem. Gerunds are the -ing form (present participle) of the verb used as a noun:

I enjoy writing.
Writing is fun.

For the most part, this isn’t going to be a problem in a sentence, since they’re on the rare side. (I.e. beginning each sentence with a gerund would also be a problem, especially in the midst of too many present participial phrases, but the occasional correct usage of a gerund isn’t going to hurt anybody.)

What we’re talking about here are present participial phrases:

Running to the door, I called out my son’s name.
Writing out the prescription, the doctor didn’t bother looking up.

I think you can probably see how this is already becoming a problem.

Now that we’ve got that straight, on to the primary argument: Present participial phrases are, to put it mildly, evil.

The vast majority of the time in amateur usage, these phrases appear too often, are often misused, create other grammatical problems, don’t reflect how real people think—and I’m just getting started.

A: Present participial phrases are overused, especially by amateur writers.

Not to say that any of us here are amateurs, but too many present participial phrases are a mark of an amateur. Frankly, more than one per page (YES, per page) jumps out at me. Three on a page don’t just jump; they scream. People who aren’t really aware of this grammatical construct can inadvertently begin almost every other sentence with a present participial phrase. Seriously. I’ve critiqued *good* writers who still almost made my eyes bleed. This happens exceedingly rarely in the published books I read.

Important note: this standard seems to be very different for UK & Canadian publishers. Whatevs. TMMV.

B: Present participial phrases are frequently misused.

The grammatical construct of a present participial phrase at the beginning of the sentence ALWAYS means that the action in that phrase and the action in the main part of the sentence are simultaneous. Always. (There’s sometimes a bit more leeway when the present participial phrase appears after the main part of the sentence, though technically speaking there shouldn’t be.)

So, these would be not only grammatically incorrect, but physically impossible:

Chomping down on her food, she stuck her tongue out. (Ouch.)
Sneezing, he sang an aria.

However, there are lots of things you can do simultaneously:

Smiling, she walked down the aisle.

An important note here is that reading is a very linear activity—we read one word and then the next—and these phrases can make it easy to misunderstand or just slow us down as we try to figure out the order of the actions and picture them. This is so important it could warrant its own letter, but I don’t think I really need to explain this more.

C: Present participial phrases frequently cause misplaced modifiers.

The action or state described in a present participial phrase must ALWAYS describe/be done by the subject of the sentence. If not, you get a misplaced/dangling modifier:

Running to the car, the cat darted between his ankles.

The only grammatically correct way to understand this sentence is that the CAT was running to the car. At best, this sentence is ambiguous—we really can’t assume that it means the man was running. If I want to say the man was running to the car and the cat darted between his ankles, I’d be much safer to say THAT.

Walking down the street, a bat bit the man on the thumb.

Grammatically speaking, this sentence says a bat was walking down the street and bit a man on the thumb. Paraphrased from a famously bad police report.

D: If we’re supposed to be writing in our character’s thoughts and minds, present participial phrases would appear sparingly at best.

People rarely think that way. Really, think about how you think. Okay, generally we think in pictures, but when you do use words, is that how your thoughts go? If we’re seeking to replicate our characters’ voices and internal thoughts, then, would they use them?

Varying sentence structure isn’t a good enough reason for these either. As editor/author Alicia Rasley points out, varying sentences isn’t an end to itself: it’s an intermediate goal to create a smooth read.

Since these constructions do stick out if used incorrectly or awkwardly or too frequently, and so many first drafts contain so many present participial phrases that you can’t construe their usage as actually varying the default sentence structure anyway. Again, important enough to get its own letter, but I don’t want to beat you over the head with this.

To conclude:

Okay, maybe present participial phrases aren’t exactly evil, but just like commas, but we have to be VERY careful about how we use them (or we’ll end up with something ungrammatical or bizarre) and very judicious about when we use them.

In my opinion (formed by the careful tutelage of the editors I mentioned above), the best use of a participial phrase is for something that describes the state of the subject of the sentence, NOT an action:

Hoping she wasn’t too late, she dashed into the room.

Her emotional state in this sentence is one of hoping.

Yes, sometimes published and unpublished authors use present participial phrases. I invite you to find a book published in your target market or by your target publisher, flip to any page and count the number of sentences that begin with present participial phrases. I was amazed when I did this: books that were decades old or only a few months both yielded very few.

What do you think? How often do you really use present participial phrases? What did you find when you opened a book in your target market? Come share!

Photo by Bird Eye

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Mechanics

Fix-It Friday Answers: Dangling & Misplaced Modifiers

A couple weeks ago, we looked at misplaced modifiers\. One of my favorite examples allegedly comes from a medical transcription (but I’ve also seen it credited to a fifpolice blotter):

A man was bitten by a bat walking down the street on his thumb.

Modifiers—adjectives, adverbs, prepositional phrases, even participial phrases—should usually come as close to the word they’re modifying as they can. While we can (eventually) figure out the man was bitten on his thumb, that sentence says he was “walking down the street on his thumb.” (In fact, it says the bat was walking down the street on his thumb. The bat’s? The man’s? The world may never know!)

So we looked at some examples of dangling & misplaced modifiers—but sometimes it’s a heck of a lot easeire to learn with the answers, right?

There are multiple correct answers to all these.

Sensing her brother was about to pounce, he bent his knees, ready to jump at her.

The Problem: Okay, this was was a little ambiguous because we used pronouns. There are only supposed to be two people involved in this sentence, “her” and “her brother.” Here’s what I was going for:

Sensing her brother was about to pounce is supposed to be modifying “her.” What is she doing? Sensing (something). If she’s doing the sensing in the first clause, she’s supposed to be the subject of the second clause.

Instead (what I intended), the next clause is he bent his knees. Suddenly the brother is the subject of the sentence. Was he the one sensing he was about to pounce on her? Of course not.

The Fix: when we rephrase this, we need to make her the subject of the sentence, or get rid of the first clause altogether. Possibilities:

  • Sensing her brother was about to pounce, she braced herself. He bent his knees, ready to jump at her.
  • He bent his knees, ready to jump at her. (Doing away with the first clause altogether. If we’re in his POV, this version is more appropriate.)

(Now, if you thought “he” was a third party, that might be a different story.)

He couldn’t believe she was standing there after their conversation yesterday doing the dishes on the sidewalk.

The Problem: The way this is phrased, their conversation took place yesterday (okay). The conversation might have been yesterday while she was doing dishes on the sidewalk. Or she might be standing there doing dishes on the sidewalk today. Either way, dishes on the sidewalk?

The Fix: First, we have to decide how things actually happened. Here are some possible scenarios:

  • He couldn’t believe she was standing there on the sidewalk after their conversation while doing the dishes yesterday. (The time and place of each conversation are now clear: the conversation was during doing dishes yesterday, and now she’s standing on the sidewalk.) (Yesterday could also come a little earlier in the sentence.)
  • After their conversation yesterday while doing dishes, he couldn’t believe she was standing there on the sidewalk.

Now, if she’s actually doing dishes on the sidewalk . . .

The “while” is a big helper, too! But if you stick it in the original sentence—oy! He couldn’t believe she was standing there after their conversation yesterday while doing the dishes on the sidewalk. It clears up the ambiguity, but I don’t think that’s the meaning we want—their conversation was yesterday while they were on the sidewalk, doing dishes?

At the age of seven, his father told him the truth.

The Problem: Remember that modifiers generally come closest to what they’re modifying—and at the beginning of a sentence, this is always the case. Grammatically speaking, this construction actually says the father was seven years old when he told him (the son) the truth. A bit young for fatherhood, eh?

Yes, a reader can figure out that we mean the son was seven here, but sensitive readers and grammarians will be pulled out of the story. Plus, do you want someone to have to “figure out” your meaning?

The Fix is pretty straightforward.

  • His father told him the truth when he was seven.

Now, someone who is purposefully trying to misread your sentence might take that as ambiguous or misplaced, but it’s now closest to “him.” And honestly, if someone is purposefully trying to misread your writing, they’re probably not the best person for the job of a critique partner or editor?

Running from the scene, the horror clung to his mind.

The Problem: Again, it’s that initial first element. It modifies the subject of the sentence. The subject here is “the horror,” so this construction means the horror was running from the scene.

This story definitely has my attention . . .

The Fix: as always, is to move the elements around to get the modifier closest to what it’s modifying. This means either moving it or changing the subject of the sentence:

  • The horror clung to his mind as he ran from the scene.
  • Running from the scene, he tamped down the horror still clinging to his mind.

“As mayor of Park City, people often ask me . . . “

(I forget the rest of the sentence, but that was an actual commercial. Agh!)

The Problem: This construction, once again, makes mayor of Park City = people. And yes, humans are mayors of Park City, but usually not collectively and simultaneously.

The Fix: Move! those! modifiers!

  • People often ask me as mayor of Park City . . .
  • As mayor of Park City, I’m often asked . . .

Note that the second solution is (gasp!) passive voice. While it’s usually something to be avoided we want to avoid, passive voice does have an actual, grammatical function and a useful place in the language.

“At 26 ounces, you’ll find yourself drinking more.”

(Another actual commercial)

The Problem: At 26 ounces, you’ll have more problems than how much to drink. That’s taking the dieting a bit far, don’t you think?

The Fix:

  • With a 26 ounce capacity, this cup will help you drink more. (I’m sorry, is this the problem or the solution?)
  • You’ll find yourself drinking more with this 26-ounce cup.

“One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. (How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.)”

Thank you, Groucho.

The Problem: This is obviously quite intentional. If you want to set up a joke this way, go for it!

The Fix ruins the joke, but here you go:

  • One morning while still in my pajamas, I shot an elephant.

We tiptoed over the ice in our heavy boots, which had begun to crack.

The Problem: Finally we’re moving away from the initial modifiers to the final ones. These can still be tricky! Here, which had begun to crack comes closest to our heavy boots. It’s not much of a stretch to say they’re both part of the prepositional phrase—which means that the boots are the only candidates for cracking.

While that’s a problem, it’s probably not the right problem for the writer.

The Fix: Move that modifier! Here we can collapse the phrase into a single word, maybe a hyphenation:

  • We tiptoed over the cracking ice in our heavy boots.
  • We tiptoed over the now-cracking ice in our heavy boots.
  • (A most interesting option) Our heavy boots tiptoed over the ice. A sharp creak ripped through the air. A fissure zigzagged through the solid white below us.

If you’ve got a problem with the last one, I suggest studying up on metonymy. And if that doesn’t help, you’d probably enjoy Dr. Seuss’s story about haunted pants, “What Was I Afraid Of?”

“McCance was found shot to death by her family Monday afternoon at her southern Wake County home.”

(Actual news article.)

The Problem: Um, not sure what the problem was, but whatever it was, her family shot her to death over it.

Possibly that’s what they meant. Probably it isn’t.

The Fix:

    McCance was found by her family Monday afternoon, shot to death at her southern Wake County home.
  • Shot to death, McCance was found by her family Monday afternoon at her southern Wake County home.
  • McCance’s family found her Monday afternoon, shot to death at her southern Wake County home.

There are lots more.

“Nearly six months after taking office, Gov. Beverly Perdue’s political honeymoon is over.”

(Actual news article.)

The Problem: The initial element, nearly six months after taking office, modifies the subject of the sentence—but the tricky thing here is that good ol’ Bev is not the subject of the sentence—her political honeymoon is.

The Fix: drop that possessive and make sure the governor is the subject of the sentence, or rephrase.

  • Nearly six months after taking office, Gov. Beverly Perdue has passed her political honeymoon.
  • Nearly six months after she took office, Gov. Beverly Perdue’s political honeymoon is over.

Why does the second one work? That little change from “taking” to “she took.” The “taking” is clearly dependent on the subject of the sentence (originally her political honeymoon), while “she took” has its own subject.

“As a parent, the so-called “Halo killer” may have you nervously watching your kids as they jab at their joysticks.”

(Actual news article.)

The Problem: the so-called “Halo killer” is now a parent.

Also, two as’s in the same sentence?

The Fix: Do we need “as a parent” at all?

  • The so-called “Halo killer” may have parents nervously watching their kids as they jab at their joysticks. (May introduce other ambiguity problems.)
  • The so-called “Halo killer” may have you nervously watching your kids as they jab at their joysticks.

“After grounding her grandson, Allen Gann, from playing games the night before for not doing his chores, he sat down and played a full day’s worth, including Resident Evil, Smackdown vs. Raw and Midnight Club 2.”

(Same article as the previous.)

The Problem: This one is so convoluted that it may be a little hard to see the problem. (Were it not for the other dangling modifier from the same example, I’d say the reporter just got a little lost in this sentence.)

Okay. Let’s simplify this a little by taking out some of the modifiers that are getting in the way of the problem. The first clause of the sentence begins After grounding her grandson, Allen Gann. Allen Gann = grandson, so we’ll drop the appositive, and the prepositional phrases we’ll ignore for right now:

After grounding her grandson . . . , he sat down and played.

This goes back to the same problem as #1. Unless there’s some other “he” here (Grandpa?) who sat down and played after grounding the female third person POV character’s grandson, we’re all messed up.

The Fix: Make grandma the subject of the sentence, or make the grandson the subject of the initial dependent clause:

  • After grounding her grandson, Allen Gann, from playing games the night before for not doing his chores, Grandma didn’t notice when he sat down and played a full day’s worth, including Resident Evil, Smackdown vs. Raw and Midnight Club 2.
  • After being grounding (by his grandmother) from playing games the night before for not doing his chores, Allen Gann sat down and played a full day’s worth, including Resident Evil, Smackdown vs. Raw and Midnight Club 2.
  • Realistically, the best fix is to break this unwieldy thing down! Grandma grounded her grandson, Allen Gann, from playing games (because he failed to do his chores). However, the following day, Gann sat down and played a full day’s worth, including Resident Evil, Smackdown vs. Raw and Midnight Club 2.

Much better!

Work better on paper? Download the original worksheet as a PDF and print! Can’t get enough? Lots more examples to play with!

Photo credits: tools—HomeSpot HQ, dirty dishes—Teresia;elephant—Roger; video games—w?odi

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Mechanics

Fix-It Friday! Misplaced and Dangling Modifiers

Inspired by a discussion on one of my writing mailing lists, I’ve been thinking about misplaced modifiers. One of my favorite examples allegedly comes from a medical transcription (but I’ve also seen it credited to a police blotter):

A man was bitten by a bat walking down the street on his thumb.

If you don’t get the joke, it’s about to become a lot less funny. Modifiers—adjectives, adverbs, prepositional phrases, even participial phrases—should usually come as close to the word they’re modifying as they can. While we can (eventually) figure out the man was bitten on his thumb, that sentence says he was “walking down the street on his thumb.” (In fact, it says the bat was walking down the street on his thumb. The bat’s? The man’s? The world may never know!)

Gonna fix it?A friend mentioned that in school, he had to do an entire worksheet of fixing these sentences, and ever since then, he’s been very sensitive to them. Dude, I thought, is that all it takes? That might be pretty useful!

For each of the following, look at the “modifying” elements to figure out why they are WRONG. Feel free to share your fixes or your favorite dangling modifier examples in the comments! (And feel free to laugh, too—they’re supposed to be comical. Sometimes.)

1. Sensing her brother was about to pounce, he bent his knees, ready to jump at her.

2. He couldn’t believe she was standing there after their conversation yesterday doing the dishes on the sidewalk.

3. At the age of seven, his father told him the truth.

4. Running from the scene, the horror clung to his mind.

5. “As mayor of Park City, people often ask me, ‘[I forget the rest of the sentence, but that was an actual commercial. Agh!]'”

6. “At 26 ounces, you’ll find yourself drinking more.” (Another actual commercial)

7. “One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. (How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.)”

8. We tiptoed over the ice in our heavy boots, which had begun to crack.

9. “McCance was found shot to death by her family Monday afternoon at her southern Wake County home.” (Actual news article.)

10. “Nearly six months after taking office, Gov. Beverly Perdue’s political honeymoon is over.” (Actual news article.)

11. “As a parent, the so-called “Halo killer” may have you nervously watching your kids as they jab at their joysticks.” (Actual news article.)

12. “After grounding her grandson, Allen Gann, from playing games the night before for not doing his chores, he sat down and played a full day’s worth, including Resident Evil, Smackdown vs. Raw and Midnight Club 2.” (Same article as the previous.)

Work better on paper? Download the worksheet as a PDF and print! Can’t get enough? Lots more examples to play with!

Photo by Ricky Bragante

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Mechanics

Kill the participles!

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More about burying clues in (non)mysteries next week!

Okay, so participial phrases at the beginning of sentences have become one of my pet peeves. I don’t mind them when they’re well done, but unless you’re pretty handy with a clause, you might want to avoid them. This might seem like just one of those silly arbitrary rules that are just made up to help us prove we’ve read up on the latest so-called rules for writing, which will change in another ten years.

But present participial phrases are not just a magical hoop editors want us to jump through to prove that we’re familiar with industry bywords. It’s mainly an issue of grammar (and to a lesser extent, style, but that’s because they’re overused). Complaining about strictures against present participial phrases is almost like complaining about commas. There are correct places and times for using commas, and incorrect ones, and I suspect that most of the time, if we carefully look at a book, we’ll see that most of the commas are used right and perhaps not as often as we thought.

I really came to understand this by reading the posts on present participial phrases at EditTorrent, a blog by two editors. But if you don’t feel like clicking through, I’m happy to summarize the anti-present participial phrase arguments.

First, to clarify, these are not gerunds. Gerunds are typically not a problem. Gerunds are the -ing form (present participle) of the verb used as a noun:

I enjoy writing.
Writing is fun.

For the most part, this isn’t going to be a problem in a sentence, since they’re on the rare side. (I.e. beginning each sentence with a gerund would also be a problem, especially in the midst of too many present participial phrases, but the occasional correct usage of a gerund isn’t going to hurt anybody.)

What we’re talking about here are present participial phrases:

Running to the door, I called out my son’s name.
Writing out the prescription, the doctor didn’t bother looking up.

I think you can probably see how this is already becoming a problem.

Now that we’ve got that straight, on to the primary argument: Present participial phrases are, to put it mildly, evil.

The vast majority of the time in amateur usage, these phrases appear too often, are often misused, create other grammatical problems, don’t reflect how real people think—and I’m just getting started.

A: Present participial phrases are overused, especially by amateur writers.

Not to say that any of us here are amateurs, but too many present participial phrases are a mark of an amateur. Frankly, more than one per page (YES, per page) jumps out at me. Three on a page don’t just jump; they scream. People who aren’t really aware of this grammatical construct can inadvertently begin almost every other sentence with a present participial phrase. Seriously. I’ve critiqued *good* writers who still almost made my eyes bleed. This happens exceedingly rarely in the published books I read.

Important note: this standard seems to be very different for UK & Canadian publishers. Whatevs. TMMV.

B: Present participial phrases are frequently misused.

The grammatical construct of a present participial phrase at the beginning of the sentence ALWAYS means that the action in that phrase and the action in the main part of the sentence are simultaneous. Always. (There’s sometimes a bit more leeway when the present participial phrase appears after the main part of the sentence, though technically speaking there shouldn’t be.)

So, these would be not only grammatically incorrect, but physically impossible:

Chomping down on her food, she stuck her tongue out. (Ouch.)
Sneezing, he sang an aria.

However, there are lots of things you can do simultaneously:

Smiling, she walked down the aisle.

An important note here is that reading is a very linear activity—we read one word and then the next—and these phrases can make it easy to misunderstand or just slow us down as we try to figure out the order of the actions and picture them. This is so important it could warrant its own letter, but I don’t think I really need to explain this more.

C: Present participial phrases frequently cause misplaced modifiers.

The action or state described in a present participial phrase must ALWAYS describe/be done by the subject of the sentence. If not, you get a misplaced/dangling modifier:

Running to the car, the cat darted between his ankles.

The only grammatically correct way to understand this sentence is that the CAT was running to the car. At best, this sentence is ambiguous—we really can’t assume that it means the man was running. If I want to say the man was running to the car and the cat darted between his ankles, I’d be much safer to say THAT.

Walking down the street, a bat bit the man on the thumb.

Grammatically speaking, this sentence says a bat was walking down the street and bit a man on the thumb. Paraphrased from a famously bad police report.

D: If we’re supposed to be writing in our character’s thoughts and minds, present participial phrases would appear sparingly at best.

People rarely think that way. Really, think about how you think. Okay, generally we think in pictures, but when you do use words, is that how your thoughts go? If we’re seeking to replicate our characters’ voices and internal thoughts, then, would they use them?

Varying sentence structure isn’t a good enough reason for these either. As editor/author Alicia Rasley points out, varying sentences isn’t an end to itself: it’s an intermediate goal to create a smooth read.

Since these constructions do stick out if used incorrectly or awkwardly or too frequently, and so many first drafts contain so many present participial phrases that you can’t construe their usage as actually varying the default sentence structure anyway. Again, important enough to get its own letter, but I don’t want to beat you over the head with this.

To conclude:

Okay, maybe present participial phrases aren’t exactly evil, but just like commas, but we have to be VERY careful about how we use them (or we’ll end up with something ungrammatical or bizarre) and very judicious about when we use them.

In my opinion (formed by the careful tutelage of the editors I mentioned above), the best use of a participial phrase is for something that describes the state of the subject of the sentence, NOT an action:

Hoping she wasn’t too late, she dashed into the room.

Her emotional state in this sentence is one of hoping.

Yes, sometimes published and unpublished authors use present participial phrases. I invite you to find a book published in your target market or by your target publisher, flip to any page and count the number of sentences that begin with present participial phrases. I was amazed when I did this: books that were decades old or only a few months both yielded very few.

What do you think? How often do you really use present participial phrases? What did you find when you opened a book in your target market?

Photo by Bird Eye

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Mechanics, Technique

The building blocks of writing

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I like the Food Network game show Chopped. It’s cool to see the unusual ingredients the contests must use and the amazing things they make with them. The competitors are experienced and/or trained chefs. They know everything about the tools of their trade, from the knives to the appliances to the techniques to the ingredients.

Although they’re probably not planning a flash fiction reality game show any time soon (darn!), we writers need to know the tools of our trade just as well—perhaps even more so, since we don’t have the excuse of a 20-minute time limit or a set of necessary ingredients we’ve never seen before. One of the ingredients we always need is grammar.

It’s not optional! We know, obviously, we’re not going to get published with dozens of dangling modifiers and comma splices littering every page. “I have critique partners who’ll catch all that,” claim some aspiring authors. That’s a very worrisome attitude for someone who calls himself a writer, trying to argue that grammar is 1.) not important enough to learn and 2.) something I can shuttle off onto someone else.

If you want to be a writer, grammar is YOUR job.

Imagine if a cook wanted to become an executive chef, but he absolutely refused to learn knife techniques, or how to use a frying pan, or what a risotto should taste like. Would you take his goal seriously, or would you think he wasn’t really dedicated to it?

But, our imaginary cook argues, when I’m an executive chef, I’ll have other people to do those things for me. The people who’re beneath me. Yeah, he will—but he’ll also have people he’ll need to teach. And if they mess up, they’re not going to be the only ones held responsible.

If you have your name on a published book, writing and the English language are your business—even if you want to claim you’re only a storyteller. People will think you know something about those subjects. (Duh, I know this isn’t always right, but they’ll assume it anyway.) How are you going to feel (and look!) if someone asks you a basic question and you can’t answer? Or what if you can’t tell good grammar from bad and you pass along something unreadable to your agent or editor? What will they think?

Grammar is not impossible—and it’s not optional. You don’t have to learn the exact definition of a periphrastic tense (though obviously it might come in handy if you’re my CP 😉 ), but it’s my opinion that you should be able to construct a coherent sentence. You should be able to tell the difference between a complete sentence and a fragment. For the LOVE, learn to use commas and apostrophes correctly.

We all make mistakes—but we all need to try not to. That might mean learning to write excellent grammar on the first try (and I do believe that can be learned!), or it might mean a rigorous self-edit. Critique partners and copy editors will always help, but the primary responsibility—and effort—should come from the writer himself.

What do you think? Is grammar important? Could you use some grammar instruction?

Photo by Robert Johnson

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Mechanics

The myth of the serial comma

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The Oxford comma, or serial comma, is a standard convention in many publishing houses—but almost no newspapers. The serial comma is the final comma before the conjunction in a list:

Angela bought eggs, milk, and butter.

Some serial comma enthusiasts say that serial commas are required, and that the recent tendency away from serial commas is yet another sign of the deteriorating state of English literacy, blah blah blah. But the most common argument in favor of the serial comma is that it just takes care of so much ambiguity, such as in this famous example:

I’d like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand and God.

And yes, it’s true that if this person had used the serial comma, it would be clear that they didn’t use “Ayn Rand and God” to mean “my parents” (hello, apposition!). But let’s be honest—you knew what this person meant, didn’t you?

It’s just simply not the case that the serial comma always clears up ambiguity. How many people are in this list?

I’d like to thank my father, the man who saw me through so many hard times, and my mother.

Is “the man who saw me through so many hard times” the same person as “my father”? (That sneaky appositive again!)

And then there are even times when the serial comma can’t fix the ambiguity:

I’d like to thank Angela, my editor, and my wife.

I’d like to thank Angela, my editor and my wife.

So is Angela his editor, his editor and his wife, or neither?

What to do:
Use the serial comma—or don’t—as you’re used to (or according to your publisher’s style guide). Add it or remove it if there’s any ambiguity. And if that doesn’t work, reword. (I’d like to thank my wife, Angela, who edits my work.) Just don’t claim that one way is always right—because it’s not.

Do you use the serial comma?

Photos by Xavi Blanch and Leo Reynolds

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Mechanics

The lesser of two evils: weak verb or adverb use?

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I have a problem with smiling. And nodding.

enigmatic smileThee problem is this: there’s only a handful of words in the English language to express those actions: smile, beam, grin, smirk, simper. Nodding is even worse: nod. Other versions of this one tend to draw attention to the words instead of showing the characters’ actions: bobbed his head (“up and down,” if you want to make it even more annoying).

But the real problem here is that every smile and every nod don’t look like or mean the same thing. There are sinister smiles, eager grins, coy smiles, small smiles, half smiles, half smirks. There are greeting nods, indicating nods, assenting nods, effusive nods, reluctant nods, slow nods, quick nods.

Obviously my problem is not identifying the kinds of smiles and nods humans use. My problem comes from describing them in writing, because that’s against the rules. There are a lot of so-called rules in writing. As with anything with a body of ad hoc regulations, many of the rules contradict each other. Like these:

1. Never use adverbs. Ever! (Corollary: adjectives are bad; they are trouble!)

and

2. Always use strong verbs. Until you make yourself, your characters and your readers tired!

(We’ll talk more about Rule #1 another day.)

When do they conflict? I’ll show you. Consider:

He gave her a kind smile OR He smiled at her kindly

He shot her a bemused look OR He looked at her bemusedly

He gave his thumb a pensive chew (LOL) OR He chewed his thumb pensively

mmm lunchAnd do they need the forbidden modifier? I think so. Can you infer the meaning of his grin with just “He smiled at her”? (I have two images in mind here: “He smiled at her. Mmm. Lunch.” and “He smiled at her. Oh, a friend.”) A thumb chewer may be a small child seeking comfort, an adult pondering a problem or a guy with a nervous habit.

Now, of course, there are lots of other ways to show the intent behind nods and smiles. But setting aside all of the myriad other possible constructions, what do you think: which of the above contrasts are better? Which is the lesser of two evils?

Photo credits—Mona Lisa: Songkran; Jack-o-lantern: Joanie Cahill

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