When you don’t want them to know...

Writers:
You keep being told to write clearly, actively, directly, so that readers know exactly what you’re saying. Not always. There are times when you don’t want readers to know what’s going on — when blame or responsibility is involved, when you don’t want to name names.

“Errors have been made and others will be blamed.” This is passive writing.

Passive writing says “something happened, but we’re not saying what”; someone did something, but we’re not saying who”. Notice that the general order of subject-verb-object has been reversed. Rather than “Bob erred with the estimate; his information was faulty”, the message may appear as: “The estimate was in error because of faulty information”. No foul; no blame!

Who would write this way? Those who wish to add complexity or obfuscation to their words (think: legal documents, insurance policies, financial information, apologies). Passive writing has its place; but most often, something is being hidden.

How many sentences in this posting are passively written?

What keeps coming “between us”?

That wretched mis-use of the objective pronouns that follow “between”: namely me, us, you, her/him/it, them. Pay attention now: you do NOT see the pronouns I, we, she/he, they. There’s a reason for that.  

I, we, she/he, they are subjective pronouns, the DOers.

me, us, you, her/him/it, them are the objective pronouns, the DOees

Because “between” is a preposition, it must be followed by the object (DOee) pronouns.

YES:   me, us, you, her/him/it, them 
NO:     I, we, she/he, they
 Use any combinations of the YES pronouns after “between”.

Two more notes — 1) When there are more than two pronouns (objectives), use “among”.
2) Be courteous. Put the other pronoun first and, modestly, use the “me/us” last. 


CORRECT (hurray-whee):

Let’s keep this between you and me.
The competition is between her and me.
The promise between him or her is to accomplish the work.

INCORRECT (boo-hiss):

Let’s keep this between me and you. (you and me)
The competition is between him, her, and you. (Use “among”)
The promise between you and she is to work together. (you and her)

Got it? The Grammar Anarchist wrote The Anarchist's Guide to Grammar to avoid just such confrontations as this. Order your copy now and don’t let me catch you at this between thing again.

Verb Degrees

Choose a verb, any verb, preferably  a benign one and its extreme opposite (stroll --> race; tap --> pound; sip --> gulp). Insert other verbs that will take the benign verb, by small increments, to the extreme at the other end.

Here's my challenge: Move from “whisper” --> “screech”.

 My attempt: whisper, murmur, hum, speak, converse, enunciate, emphasize, shout, yell, scream, shriek, cry, screech…

Can you insert some other verbs in between?

So so-so!

Speakers use place savers — words or sounds that give the brain time to catch up to the tongue. The primary place savers include sounds, such as “uh, er, um”. Of late, they’re being replaced by words, which range from “so” and “in fact” to “the fact is,  it's my belief”,  and “for some reason or other”. You have to wonder if brains have slowed down or tongues have speeded up.

During a recent lecture, a speaker with what must be the slowest brain in the world nearly put me into a coma. In the first place, she spoke so slowly, my brain was in danger of falling asleep. When I noticed she was using the space saver “so”,  I started counting the times she used it. Within a period of five minutes, she used “so” more than 25 times (that computes to five times a minute). It may have been more, but my brain was very sluggish by that time.

Don’t turn off your audience — whether they are listening or reading your words — by over-using space savers. Everyone has favorites. Here are some to watch for: and, but, then, now, I think, I feel, I believe (we know you think, feel or believe what you’re saying; you don’t have to tell us), and the ever-popular so.