Make Your Words Shine
Articles and posts offering advice and guidance to writers on how to produce good, clear writing.
Some punctuation marks are pretty straightforward—the period, the comma, the exclamation point (unless you’re Elaine Benes). And there are those marks that few know how to distinguish (the hyphen, en-dash, em-dash). But then there are those that are used all the time, but many people are unsure how they’re supposed to be used, like the semicolon. So, how are we supposed to use semicolons?
Continue reading “How Are We Supposed to Use Semicolons?”
There’s an old joke that goes something like this:
Continue reading “Ending a Sentence with a Preposition”Some cowboys are mingling at the bar when an Oxford graduate walks in. “Howdy, stranger,” one cowboy says. “Where are you from?”
The Oxford graduate answers, “I come from a place where we do not end our sentences with a preposition.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” replies the cowboy. “Where are you from, jackass?”
Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before!
Star Trek, 1966–1969
With these words a new era in science-fiction was launched, and the mission not only of the Enterprise but of an entire franchise was declared.
But these words also irritated an awful lot of grammar purists.
“To boldly go?” they objected. “That’s a split infinitive. That’s bad grammar!”
But why? What is so wrong with saying to boldly go? To understand that, you have to understand something about the history of English.
Continue reading “To Boldly Split Infinitives”
Unlike many of the so-called “grammar rules” that are really style rules, the rule against dangling participles is a good one.
A participle is a verbal adjective that comes in two main varieties: the present participle, usually formed with -ing, and the past participle, usually formed with -ed. These verbal adjectives generally function the way other adjectives do:
In addition, participles can head a phrase that modifies a noun in a sentence:
If you’ve been on social media at all and paid attention to grammar arguments, you may have seen a lot of discussion about the Oxford comma and whether writers need to use it.
The Oxford comma—or serial comma—is the comma that appears before the final item in a series, such as:
Some people insist that this final comma is unnecessary and that those sentences are just as intelligible if written:
Pronouns have gotten a lot of attention lately, primarily because they have been brought to the forefront of efforts to create more inclusive language.
Those wishing to create welcoming spaces for transgender individuals will include their preferred pronouns when introducing themselves. “Hi, I’m Jamal, my pronouns are he/him,” someone might say. This is done to create a space where someone else might introduce themselves as “Jackie, pronouns they/them.”
I have written elsewhere that it can be hard for older English speakers to hear the word they as applying to a specific, defined individual. Nevertheless, the use of they to refer to a singular individual is nothing new—and nothing to fear.
Continue reading “Singular “They” Is Not the End of the World”
No one disputes that good writing has to have good grammar. But what do we mean when we say “grammar”? It may not be what we’re used to thinking it is.
Take, for example, the following pairs of sentences. In each pair, make note of which one is grammatical.
Editors hear this a lot. Sometimes we say the same thing. Perhaps you have as well. There’s just one problem with the statement:
Everyone needs an editor.
Everyone.
One of the biggest challenges to good writing is the “curse of knowledge.” The curse of knowledge is when a writer knows what they1Yes, I used a singular “they” here—more on this in another post! mean, so they don’t bother explaining it.
You can have a perfectly grammatical paragraph, free from misspellings, typographical errors, and grammatical errors, and it can still be difficult to understand because the ideas are not adequately explained or the structure itself is unclear. Take a look at this example:
Continue reading ““I don’t need an editor—I write really well.””One of the great benefits of the internet age is that it is text-driven: emails, text messages, social media, and on and on. People are reading and writing more than ever.
But the quality of the writing hasn’t necessarily increased with the quantity. When everyone can publish without restriction, there will be a lot of poorly written content available. Otherwise good ideas can get lost in a sea of jumbled words and phrases.
Good writing and clear communication are essential if you want to stand out and be recognized. Your ideas will draw more attention and earn more respect when they are presented in ways that are easy to understand and remember.
An editor can help you with your writing not only by spotting the obvious grammatical and typographical errors but by helping to improve the flow and the clarity of your writing. An editor can help a writer avoid common writing pitfalls and enable the text to shine.
If you would like to improve your writing, Schaefer Wordsmithing can help you.