Grammar & Punctuation Redux
There are issues that haunt writers. Closely related words can be confused, mistyped, complete improperly by auto-correction, punctuation may be misapplied, and then there’s the basic stuff. You know your strengths and weaknesses. Use the FIND function to check on each occurrence of those that have plagued you.
Lay versus Lie
| To Set an Object Down | To Rest of Recline | |
| 1 – Lay | Present tense | 2 – Lie |
| 3 – Laid | Past tense | 4 – Lay |
| 5 – Laying | Present participle (doing it now) |
6 – Lying |
| 7 – Laid | Past participle (did it before) |
8 – Lain |
1 – “Don’t shoot. I’m going to lay the gun on the table.”
2 – “After that run-in with the police, I’m going to lie down for a nap.”
3 – “I fell asleep as soon as I laid my head on the pillow.”
4 – “I lay there for quite a while.”
5 – “I’m laying my gun back in the drawer.
6 – “And I’m lying down for another nap.”
7 – “Having laid the gun in the draw…”
8 – “…and lain down for two naps…”
Affect versus Effect
Affect is a verb and it means to change or influence.
• His bad driving affected his insurance rates.
• How is the injury going to affect his ability to play?
Affect has an alternate use with regard to facial expressions:
• From his bland affect, I couldn’t tell if he was happy or sad.
Effect is usually a noun meaning a result.
• The effect of the fire was to reduce the home to ashes.
• His bad driving had an effect on his insurance rates.
Effect can sometimes be a verb, too.
• We can effect change if we all vote.
Adverbs
An adverb is a word that adjusts or tweaks (modifies) the meaning of a verb, adjective, or another adverb. Adverbs are most easily identified by ending in ly, but not always.
• “I can’t marry him, Harry doesn’t dance,” she said.
• He defended his friend, “Harry dances beautifully.”
The adverb beautifully describes the manner of his dance and adds to the image.
There’s a great deal of controversy regarding the use of adverbs in writing. However, in this simple exchange the second speaker provides valuable information to the woman who wouldn’t have accepted Harry’s proposal of marriage if he didn’t dance well. The man’s entire fate hinged on that one adverb.
In the phrase, …if he didn’t dance well, the adverb is well, one that doesn’t end in “ly.”
So, there’s a justifiable case for adverbs, certainly in Harry’s mind. The issue—from whence the argument derives—is the overuse of adverbs and their contribution to verbosity without adding to the meaning of the writing.
She angrily spit in his face. Would a reader not glean that from, “She spit in his face?” The adverb angrily is unnecessary and causes a stumble in the flow of the sentence.
Some other favorite redundancies:
Whispering quietly, shouting loudly, grimacing painfully, laughing happily (though laughing menacingly is acceptable), etc. These make the anti-adverb case.
Place adverbs judiciously (as opposed to haphazardly or randomly). Whenever you’re tempted to use an adverb, reread the sentence without it to discern if the adverb’s absence changes the meaning or lessens the emphasis. Often, it won’t.
Less versus Fewer
The Associated Press style guide has recently opted to accept less in place of fewer in their unending quest for illiteracy. They’re wrong.
• “The boss has scheduled me for less time on the clock,” she said.
If the item cannot be counted, “time” is not a metric, then less is correct.
• “Yeah, I’m getting fewer hours, too.”
If the items can be counted, as hours can be, then fewer is correct.
There is less sand. There are fewer grains of sand.
Number versus Amount
This is closely related to Less versus Fewer.
• “What amount of people are you expecting at the barbeque?” is incorrect, unless you’re gathering participants by weight.
• “What number of people…” is correct.
• “What amount of meat should I cook for the barbecue?” is correct as meat is not numeric.
Passed versus Past
Passed is only used as a form of the verb “pass.”
• The fire engine has raced passed.
• Cars pulled over as it passed them.
Past functions as a noun (the past), adjective (past times), preposition (just past), and adverb (running past), but never a verb.
• It is past your bedtime.
• You have passed your bedtime.
When past is used as an adjective it refers to a time gone by or something from, done, or used in an earlier time.
Past this point usually refers to being in a position relative to the point.
Passed this point refers to being in motion relative to the point.
Both are grammatically correct.
• This past weekend was a lot of fun. It passed too quickly.
Was versus Were
Was is first and third person singular: I was or She was.
Were is plural and second person singular: They were or You were.
Often, the selection is easy; it just sounds right, however there are sources of confusion.
• The group was posing for the photo—or—several groups were posing.
While a group is many people, if there is only one group, it is singular.
Untrue statements: the subjective case uses were. If the statement is a simile, hypothetical, or wishful.
• He follows her around as if he were her dog.
• If I were in charge…
• I wish I were smarter.
Flags for the subjunctive are the words if and wish.
Could have versus Could of
Simply, Could of is derived from a mispronunciation of the contraction could’ve. Could have is correct.
Same for: must, should, would.
All are followed by have.
Me/I, He/Him, She/Her
I/he/she are subject pronouns. They do the action.
Me/him/her are object pronouns. They receive the action.
• Every day she walks to the sea and looks straight ahead not at he him.
She is looking at the person. The person is someone to whom the action is taking place, the object of the action. Therefore ..looks straight ahead not at him.
It is she is correct; the nominative case pronoun is required even though It is her slides through via common usage.
Is He is taller than me correct?
Complete the sentence: He is taller than me am doesn’t sound right.
He is taller than I am is better ==> He is taller than I is correct.
They as a singular pronoun
Grammarians have conceded a singular pronoun without gender specificity. It was adopted before any social movement.
If your child likes athletics, he/she should participate, can now be more easily expressed as: If your child likes athletics, they should participate. They’re welcome to join any sport of their choosing.
It will take a while to become accustomed to it when speaking.
The Real Basic Stuff (just in case)
They’re going to move their truck over there.
They’re: Contraction of They are
Their: possessive; indicates something owned, in this case, the truck
There: A place; not here but there
Like you, I’m going to buy two donuts, too.
to can have one of three meanings: “I’m going to school to stay to 2:00pm.”
to school: means toward
to stay: part of the infinitive, the action word/verb, stay
to 2:00pm: means until
two is the number 2
too means also or in addition
You’re going to ruin your appetite.
You’re is a contraction of You are
your is a possessive, something that belongs to you. In this case, your appetite
Using the Semicolon
The semicolon is most commonly employed to connect two closely related sentences. Both sentences must be complete sentences that can stand on their own.
A writer may choose to end the first sentence with a period or connect the first sentence to the last with a subordinating conjunction, however, often the author wishes to indicate an intimate association of the information in the first sentence with that of the second:
• He had a terrible drive home; the roads were slick with ice.
The sentences could be written:
• He had a terrible drive home. The roads were slick with ice.
—or—
• He had a terrible drive home because the roads were slick with ice.
But for reasons of pacing, meter, or symmetry with the surrounding sentences, the author preferred using the semicolon.
The second use of the semicolon is to separate items in a list where a comma might be confusing.
• He grouped the items on his shopping list into categories: vegetables, fruits, and legumes; nuts, seeds, and berries; beef, chicken, and lamb.
The groupings are lost without the semicolon as a separator.
Commas
Commas are used like their buy-one-get-one-free. They are meant to separate clauses, not to indicate pauses as in speech.
In the past few decades, popular sources have trended toward reducing the number of commas even erring on the side of skipping some that intuition would indicate as necessary.
Commas set off prepositional phrases, those that begin with the prepositions above, across, against, along, among, around, at, before, behind, below, beneath, beside, between, by, down, from, in, into, near, of, off, on, to, toward, under, upon, with, and within.
These phrase might appear anywhere in a sentence: In the beginning, everyone was sober or Everyone in this place, beside you and me, is now drunk or I think we should leave, if that’s what you mean.
Commas are used to separate sentences joined by a coordination conjunction: but, or, so, and, yet, for, nor.
He wanted ice cream, but he was trying to lose weight. or He lost ten pounds, yet that wasn’t enough.
Contrary to the opening statement, you can often feel where commas belong by the rhythm of the sentence, not by pauses as much as by groupings of words.
The second use of the comma is to separate items in a list. See the next section on the Oxford comma.
The Oxford Comma
The comma separating the penultimate from the last item in a string of items is the Oxford comma, originating at the Oxford University Press in 1905. Some style guides, including the Associated Press’s, do not use it, so you will not see this construction in newspapers and magazines.
Can you identify the difference between these two sentences?
No Oxford comma
It was a mixed crowd at the party and I ran into two stoners, a policeman and a firefighter.
With Oxford comma
It was a mixed crowd at the party and I ran into two stoners, a policeman, and a firefighter.
What a difference a comma can make. Always use a comma before the and/or that precedes the final item in a list.