Category Archives: writing

Who? or whom?

Reading, Writing, Research Posted on by 3

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 →

FYI: initialisms in OED

Reading, Writing, Research Posted on by 1

What have texting and its conventions, abbreviations, and shortcuts done to our language? And what does it mean that some of them have even ended up in the Oxford English Dictionary? The end of civilization as we know it? Calm down! Can’t the spate of common initialisms be traced back at least as far as the New Deal? Isn’t the Oxford English Dictionary itself known as the OED? Granted, finding LOL, IMHO, FYI, BFF, and the gang in such august company as antidisestablishmentarianism and floccinaucinihilipilification is a bit of a departure. I have lately managed to reconnect with lots of my high school classmates on Face Book, and someone asked if our crusty old seventh-grade English teacher would have approved of this text talk. It would be hypocritical of her to object to initialisms. After all, we had to mark sentences with parts of speech and their functions for all the words. That’s two rows of initials above every word! If the direct object was a noun, for example, we had to put DO for direct object on the top row and N for noun right underneath it. She probably would have a hard time considering texting abbreviations as words, though. … Continue reading →

This is not a subject; neither is that

Reading, Writing, Research Posted on by 8

[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 →

Three Dubious Rules of English Usage for Writers to Ignore

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I generally admire William Safire’s views on language. I especially like the way he uses “fumblerules” to illustrate his points. But occasionally, I disagree with him. He considers that split infinitives, prepositions at the end of a sentence, and conjunctions to start a sentence always represent poor usage. I’m offering three counter-rules: Be willing to split an infinitive if necessary to really communicate. Prepositions are good to end a sentence with. And you can start one with a conjunction. About infinitives Scholars and authors of the seventeenth century, John Dryden for instance, found the Anglo-Saxon background of English somehow uncouth and tried to remake formal written English in the image of the more elegant Latin. In English, all infinitives begin with the preposition “to,” but in Latin (and every other European language I know anything about) they are a single word. Because it is impossible to split an infinitive in Latin, these scholars decreed it bad form to split one in English. I usually avoid splitting infinitives, but not when I have to choose between violating a rule that tries to make English what it’s not and writing clear and unambiguous prose. If sense demands it, I’ll split the infinitive … Continue reading →

Basic writing skills for term papers and Internet writing

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Everyone probably learns some basic writing skills in high school and college English. In my experience, if they don’t promptly forget these skills, they are at least reluctant to apply them to other classes besides English. Nevertheless, we’re never finished with the need to write and do it well. Teachers of other subjects besides English expect well-written term papers. So do people who read Internet content. When a paper or article requires research, the writer must reproduce the ideas from the sources, but not copy the exact wording. Exact copying without proper attribution is called plagiarism. In school, it qualifies the student for an automatic F, or should. Out of school, it deserves equally dire consequences. Exact copying with proper attribution is called quoting and requires some kind of typographic convention. Use quotation marks or for short quotations and block indenting for anything longer than three lines.  These methods differentiate the quotation from your own prose. And, of course, tell the reader where the quotation comes from. Here are four basic skills that every writer needs to know: paraphrase, summary, critique, and synthesis. Paraphrase A paraphrase means a restatement of the source in completely different words. All of the ideas … Continue reading →