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.

The Little Things

The most troublesome words of editing are those wee two- and three-letter words, the kind that have totally different meanings with the change of just one letter. The irritating part is that they sneak past the keenest eyes in just a blink. Words such as at, it, an, as, am, ad, ab, ah, are, arc, arm, art, awe, ace, ade, age, ale, ape, ate, axe, aye (well, you get the idea. And those are just the a's).

One way to avoid typos of this kind is to read backward. Start at the bottom of a page and read right-to-left, bottom-to-top. That way, you’re looking at words. If you find one like “art” or “arm” and have no need for either word in that text, you catch the error before it becomes errata.

You see, grammar is looking at the fine print, the little words, and the tiny ways we mess up a page of type. Haven’t you heard: little things mean a lot!

For All You Mullygrubbers!

mullygrub (verb)
mullygrubs (moody noun)
mullygrubber (person to avoid)

The word mullygrubs came up on NPR recently and befuddled many people — both reporters and listeners. This is one of the best one-word descriptions alive (barely); it is attached to those moody, lackadaisical, gloomy, annoying people who just collywobble around, bringing negative energy to everyone.

If that isn’t enough to keep you away (or to keep you from becoming one), know that collywobble is a verb meaning to “belly-ache” (derived from “collic” and “stomach ache”). Got it?

Where the term mullygrub comes from is equally interesting (to us word geeks). An Aussie reports that a mullygrub is a cricket noun, referring to a bowled ball that “just rolls along the ground, keeping the batsman from scoring more than one run”, and therefore turning the defeated bowler into a collywobbler who resorts to any method to win with no consideration of long-term results. (Sounds as if it should be part of U.S. political grammar.)

Wait! There’s more! The word mully is a variant of muley, which refers to cattle with no horns. And how do hornless cattle behave without a means of defense? They get the mullygrubs, which turns them into very blah animals — thus mullygrubbers — blue, sad, down in the dumps.

Don’t be a mullygrubber! Forget the collywobbles and get out there and throw a party, ride a roller coaster, ask an attractive person out to dine, run naked through the stre... no, better skip that last one!

How Many Things Can You Break?

You can break a rule, a glass, an egg, a heart, a leg, your neck, a promise, a record, the bank at Monte Carlo, a $20 bill, the ice…

You can break in, out, up, down, into, even, wind, curfew, step, silence…

You can break up a fight, into the light, in new shoes, in a new assistant, out of jail, out of the blues, down in the rain, up in pain, into a bank, into song, into a sweat…

You can take a break, make a break, fake a break, shake a break (or is that shake and break?)…

Breaker! Breaker! Break!

A Relaxed Afternoon

Read this sentence carefully:

Soothed by the music, the afternoon was spent reading.

If you read it literally — the way it’s written — you have to assume that the afternoon was what was soothed by the music. BECAUSE: what follows an opening clause (soothed by the music) has to be the subject that is “soothed”. Ask: “Who is soothed by the music?” And remember to use the comma. Try this:

Soothed by the music, the angry teenager spent the afternoon reading.

Or

Soothed by the music, the feisty princess decided to throw a party.

 Or

Soothed by the music, the lazy police sergeant forgot to draw his gun.

 Or

Soothed by the music, the rebellious third graders spent the afternoon reading.

 Do you remember that a clause needs a verb? You get a gold star!

Define the Mighty “It”

1. It is raining.
2. It looks like a nice day.
3. It was a dark and stormy night.
4. It made me angry.
5. It was three in the morning.
6. It felt like doom.
7. It is hot in here.
8. It turns out she was his wife.
9. It happens to be true.
10. It is time to quit.

The Elephant in the Middle of the Room

I’ll bet you’ve never asked yourself the question, why do I need a style manual? Yet, bookstores and libraries offer shelves full of them. And no two are alike. Duh! That’s because each was written to apply to a certain publication — not yours. The Podunk Tribune, too lazy to write its own style manual, may choose the AP Style Manual and add its own touches, making it the Podunk Tribune Style Manual.

You, Mr. or Ms. Writer, can do the same thing. Or… you can write your own from scratch. Pull out a spiral notebook or open a computer file, title it My (your name) Style Manual and begin making notes.

Decide which words you want to capitalize;
Decide how you’ll spell certain words;
Write down definitions to remind yourself; list the characters of your next book;
Design a location for your story;
Keep track of your characters birthdays, ages, appearance. 

Oh the many entries you can make. In time — a very short time — you will have a bulging notebook. If you are a prolific writer, you may want to start a new style manual for each project, keeping the primary manual for general writing notes.

Congratulations! Now you are the author of Your Style Manual!