Category Archives: English grammar

Improve your writing by proofreading

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Your first draft needs improvement. After all, it’s unreasonably difficult to decide what you want to say and find the clearest way to express it at the same time. Granted, sometimes it doesn’t matter. On the other hand, if you write to publish anywhere, turn it in for a school assignment, circulate it to colleagues at work, or otherwise send it to anyone who has a right to judge it, set aside your first draft for a day or two. Proofread it and revise it at least once. Professional publishers in the print world usually have copy editors to catch any mistakes you might have made. But not always. Everywhere else, you’re on your own. Use spell checkers, but don’t trust them too much For many generations, people complained about having to know the correct spelling in order to find it. Then came the electronic spell checker. Even the most stripped-down text editors underline suspiciously spelled words in red. More sophisticated word processing programs also point out possible grammatical errors and such mistakes and extra spaces with green underlining. You can also find online grammar checkers. Unfortunately, red does not mean that a word is misspelled, only that it does … Continue reading →

Writing with active voice

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Active voice brings writing to life. In active voice, the subject of the sentence does something. Active sentences are more direct than passive sentences and usually shorter. Want to improve your English writing skills? Write with active voice. According to William Safire’s fumblerules, “The passive voice should never be used.” That’s not strictly true, of course. But in passive voice, whoever does the action disappears from the sentence or appears after the word “by.” Some examples of active and passive voice Active voice consists of a subject followed by a finite verb and perhaps a direct object. Passive voice consists of a subject followed by a form of “to be” and a past participle. Compare Active voice: Children cannot open these containers. Passive voice: These containers cannot be opened by children. Active voice: When he returned home, the changes amazed him. Passive voice: He was amazed by the changes. Active voice: That noisy crew will be making street repairs for the next month. Passive voice: The street will be repaired for the next month by a noisy crew. Active voice: The surgeon has operated on the boy. Passive voice: The boy was just operated on. The poor boy in the picture didn’t do anything during his operation. Does … Continue reading →

Affect and effect: two spellings, four words

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Two spellings, four words? Unfortunately, yes. “Affect” is usually a verb, but it can be used as a noun. “Effect” is usually a noun, but it can be used as a verb. Although they come from the same Latin root and differ only by their first letter, their meanings are practically unrelated. The accent on “affect” as a noun is on the first syllable. Both meanings of “effect” and “affect” as a verb have their accents on the second syllable. In speech, they sound exactly the same. Both spellings take suffixes, which in turn create new pairs of quite distinct words that differ by only their first letter. We can easily consult a dictionary to puzzle out the various meanings, but I suspect that most people cannot quite as easily remember them all for very long. Using the two in the same sentence might help some: The effect of the similarity is confusing because the spelling affects the meaning. Nouns Affect The fact that the  noun affect is pronounced with the accent on the first syllable helps some, but not much. It is a technical term in psychology that refers to emotion or feeling as opposed to action or cognition. … Continue reading →

Who? or whom?

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Do you ever wonder when to say or write “who” and when to say or write “whom”? Nowadays in informal speech or writing, most people just use “who.” Perhaps most people don’t care, but sometimes it matters. If you are writing a graduate thesis or dissertation (or even an undergraduate term paper), chances are the faculty will care. If you write for Internet content sites where a human editor chooses what to accept, chances are the editor will care. You can’t get away with not knowing the difference. There is a very easy way to know with certainty which is correct, but first, look at the  following sentences and fill in the blanks. Besides “who” and “whom,” the correct answer might be either “whoever” or “whomever.” Quiz on who or whom ___ wants to know? To ____ am I speaking? _____ are you waiting for? People ____ write for publication must know grammar. Sam,   _____ many considered the most likely winner, came in third. I called three contractors and hired the only one ____ called back. ____ wants to may come. We never know ___ you will like. We can always be pretty sure ___ will be first in … Continue reading →

This is not a subject; neither is that

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[Revised June 5, 2021]   This is not a subject. What kind of sentence is that? A bad one. Why? Because the subject of a sentence and the object of a preposition or verb ought to be a noun or pronoun. “This” and “that” are mostly adjectives. Sending an adjective to attempt to do the work of a noun or pronoun is a kind of bad writing. I say they’re mostly adjectives because they can occasionally serve as articles, adverbs, or pronouns. But they’re pronouns mostly in speech. For example, when I worked in a library, I’d answer the phone, “___ Library, this is David.” In my very first French class, the teacher picked up items from and said their French name. Afterward, she picked them up again and asked (in French, of course), “what is this?” And we all answered, “that is a pencil” or whatever. Instead of a verbal antecedent, we had a specific object. But what works well in speech doesn’t necessarily work in writing. Vague writing I had a professor in graduate school who used to bleed red on everyone’s papers, mostly crabbing about the writing. At least once on every paper I turned in, he … Continue reading →