Archive for the ‘Grammar’ Category
Saturday, March 17th, 2012
Happy St. Patrick's Day to all of you–Irish or not. In honor of the occasion, here is a sentence I came across this week. It appeared in an invitation to a ladies' club luncheon that is to celebrate with shamrocks and other greenery:
St. Patrick's day has been celebrated for a 1,000 years. 
Whoops! It is correct to say A THOUSAND YEARS. It is also correct to say 1,000 YEARS. However, it is not correct to use the word A with the numerical expression. Sure and Begorrah, this sentence should be written one of these two ways:
St. Patrick's day has been celebrated for 1,000 years.
St. Patrick's day has been celebrated for a thousand years.
Tags: sentence structure, word usage
Posted in Grammar, wording | 1 Comment »
Thursday, March 8th, 2012
The Jefferson County, Alabama, tale of financial woe continues, and the grammar in one auditor's letter needs an overhaul as well. Take a look at this quoted portion of a sentence regarding the need for improvement in the county's financial controls:
"people, processes or systems were not operating in a manner that allow the Commission to prepare financial statements in accordance with U. S. generally accepted accounting principles."
Whoops! The subject of ALLOW is not PEOPLE, PROCESSES OR SYSTEMS (plural), it is MANNER (singular). Therefore, the verb should be ALLOW (singular) except that the first part of the quotation uses WERE, which is past tense, so the verb probably should be changed to WOULD ALLOW.
The auditor does not use ellipsis correctly either. His quote does not begin at the beginning of a sentence. (This is clear because the quotation begins with a lower case letter.) Therefore, he should have placed an ellipsis (three dots) at the beginning of the quotation.
Finally, I think this quotation would read more smoothly if the words GENERALLY ACCEPTED came before U.S.
Here is my suggested revision for this sentence:
"…people, processes or systems were not operating in a manner that would allow the Commission to prepare financial statements in accordance with generally accepted U. S. accounting principles."
NOTE: Would you like to learn more about effective proofreading techniques like the ones described above? Check the calendar at www.ruthbeaumontcook.com and sign up for my open enrollment class on Grammar and Proofreading. Auburn University Montgomery is offering it on April 27.
Tags: agreement, quotation marks, The Birmingham News
Posted in Grammar, quotations, Subject/Verb Agreement, wording | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 6th, 2012
Here is a homonym problem I had not seen before. It appeared in an advice column in The Birmingham News last Sunday:
I would have raised my hand, and politely yet emphatically said, "EXCUSE ME! (Raising and waiving hand now), I have something to say."
Whoops! The word WAIVE means "to give up or let go." I cannot imagine that the speaker meant that she would have given up her hand. She simply wanted to move it back and forth (WAVE) to gain the attention of the person conducting the meeting. Although WAIVE and WAVE sound exactly alike, they have very different meanings.
In editing this sentence, I would also change the punctuation for clarity and correctness. I would remove the comma after HAND in the early part of the sentence because both participles (RAISED and SAID) go back to the same helping verbs WOULD HAVE. I would also "decapitalize" RAISING within the parentheses because that phrase is not a complete sentence. It should read this way:
I would have raised my hand and politely yet emphatically said, "EXCUSE ME! (raising and waving hand now), I have something to say."
A NOTE OF WELCOME TO ALDOT WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS VISITING THIS BLOG SITE FOR THE FIRST TIME. I hope you will find Grammar Glitch Central useful and visit often. Please feel free to comment or leave questions.
Posted in Grammar | 9 Comments »
Tuesday, February 21st, 2012
I have one or two posts on Grammar Glitch Central that correct the use of INTO in connection with perpetrators turning themselves into police officers. Today's suspect did something even more unusual. He turned himself into the jail! Consider this sentence from The Birmingham News:
(The man) turned himself into the jail, sheriff's officials said Sunday.
As I have pointed out before, there is a difference in usage between INTO and IN TO. You can say that you walked INTO the drugstore or you fell INTO a ditch or you transformed yourself INTO a happy person. In each case, you are creating a prepositional phrase that describes where or what (INTO the drugstore, INTO a ditch, INTO a happy person).
TURN IN, on the other hand, is a verb plus an adverb. Used together, TURN IN means to give over to someone or something else, as in "The man turned himself IN TO the police." or "Alice WILL TURN IN her keys before she leaves the building."
I am certain that the man arrested in the shooting death at a Forestdale convenience store recently did NOT become the Jefferson County Jail! He simply went there to TURN HIMSELF IN. This sentence would be much clearer and simpler with this wording:
(The man) turned himself in at the jail, sheriff's officials said Sunday.
Tags: The Birmingham News, word usage
Posted in Grammar, word usage | 1 Comment »
Sunday, February 19th, 2012
The basic difference (most of the time) between AFFECT and EFFECT is that AFFECT is a verb, and EFFECT is a noun. About 90 percent of the time, that definition will serve you well. Here are some example sentences:
My uncle's stroke affected his ability to speak clearly.
My uncle's stroke had an effect on his ability to speak clearly.
The slow economy is affecting the election campaigns.
One definite effect of the slow economy is cuts in local government.
In a less well-known usage, EFFECT can be used as a verb that means "to bring about" something. I came across this usage recently in a fascinating article about the Great Sunflower Project launched by San Francisco State University associate biology professor Gretchen LeBuhn. LeBuhn has enlisted volunteers across the country to plant sunflowers and other bee-friendly flowers in their yards, then count the number of bees that visit during two 15-minute observation periods each month. She wants to find out why bee populations have plummeted in recent years and what can be done to increase those populations.
Here is the sentence:
I used to despair about our ability to affect change.
I do not know how Gretchen LeBuhn would have spelled this word if she had written her comment rather than spoken it, but the writer who quoted her in the Fall/Winter issue of SF State spelled it AFFECT, which would suggest the idea of "having an impact on" change. I think LeBuhn was probably referring to "bringing about" change, She went on to say in her interview that, "This (the Great Sunflower Project) restored hope in me that we as a society can do some things to really improve the world." I believe the sentence should have been written this way:
I used to despair about our ability to ef fect change.
Here is another example of an error with the less common usage of AFFECT and EFFECT. It appeared in a comment on one of the LinkedIn forums I read:
I'd say that YES misspelling and bad grammar effect credibility of a company.
What this writer meant to say was that misspelling and bad grammar have a bad EFFECT on the credibility of a company. (I agree completely with what she meant to say.) However, as worded, it sounds as if misspelling and bad grammar "bring about" credibility, which is the exact opposite of what she meant. It should be written one of these two ways:
I'd say that YES misspelling and bad grammar can affect the credibility of a company.
I'd say that YES misspelling and bad grammar can have a negative effect on the credibility of a company.
 If you would like to know more about the Great Sunflower Project, you can visit www.greatsunflower.org.
Tags: word usage
Posted in Grammar, wording | 4 Comments »
Monday, February 13th, 2012
This was the lead sentence for a recent front page article in One Voice, the newspaper of the Catholic Diocese of Birmingham in Alabama:
Divisions among Christians, including on moral issues, weakens their credibility and their ability to respond to the spiritual yearning of many men and women today, Pope Benedict XVI said.
Whoops! Although I think this sentence expresses a good point about today's "gridlock thinking," the grammar is not correct. DIVISIONS (with an S) is plural. (The basic thought is DIVISIONS AMONG CHRISTIANS WEAKEN THEIR CREDIBILITY….) Therefore, DIVISIONS should take a plural verb, which would be WEAKEN (without an S). The sentence should read this way:
Divisions among Christians , including on moral issues, weaken their credibility and their ability to respond to the spiritual yearning of many men and women today, Pope Benedict XVI said.
Apparently the headline creator for this newspaper has a better grasp of grammar because the headline uses the correct subject/verb agreement. It reads this way:
Christian Divisions, Including on Morality, Weaken Witness, Pope Says
PLEASE NOTE: My thanks to Ilene (See her comment below.) who spotted my error in this post. I have made the appropriate correction above.
Tags: agreement
Posted in Grammar, Subject/Verb Agreement | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, January 31st, 2012
Here is a usage glitch I've never come across:
In fact, they overroad then-Gov. Bob Riley's veto, preserving their 61 percent increase in compensation.
Whoops! What the OUR VIEWS page of The Birmingham News meant to use in their editorial about state government budget woes was the word OVERRODE (past tense of RIDE). ROAD, of course, is a noun that does not fit this situation. The sentence should read as follows:
In fact, they overrode then-Gov. Bob Riley's veto, preserving their 61 percent increase in compensation.
Tags: The Birmingham News, verbs, word usage
Posted in Grammar, verbs, wording | 8 Comments »
Friday, January 20th, 2012
Here is a good example of where proofreading could improve a sentence:
Ikea has received eight reports of the buckles opening worldwide, with three reports of injuries.
What was that again? Ikea has (to their credit) voluntarily recalled high chairs sold between 2006 and the beginning of 2010 because of a problem with restraint buckles. However, the sentence above makes it sound as if these buckles OPEN WORLDWIDE. What the reporter means is that, worldwide, there have been eight reports of the buckles opening unexpectedly, but that is not what the sentence says. It should read this way:
Worldwide, Ikea has received eight reports of the buckles opening unexpectedly, with three reports of injuries.
It is important to be sure that a modifier like WORLDWIDE is inserted where it will describe the correct thing.
Tags: adjectives and adverbs, Ikea, sentence structure, The Birmingham News
Posted in adjectives and adverbs, Grammar, wording | 17 Comments »
Tuesday, January 10th, 2012
As part of an email discussion about an upcoming workshop, I received this question yesterday:
Can you let me know what you're daily rate is?
Whoops! As I have "preached" before, YOU'RE is a contraction of the two words YOU and ARE. It can only be used where the words YOU and ARE (subject and verb) would fit in a sentence.
This writer needed the word YOUR, which is a possessive pronoun that describes something (in this case, DAILY RATE) that belongs to YOU. The sentence should read this way:
Can you let me know what your daily rate is?
EASY REMINDER: YOUR and YOU'RE are not interchangeable. They have different meanings and different functions.
Tags: apostrophe, pronoun
Posted in apostrophe, pronoun | 1 Comment »
Monday, January 9th, 2012
Here is part of a "Job Wanted" ad that appeared in my local newspaper this week:
Christian lady looking to clean one families home.
Whoops! The epidemic of apostrophe problems continues. This lady only wants to clean ONE HOME. The HOME should belong to ONE FAMILY. The proper way to show that ONE HOME belongs to ONE FAMILY is to add an apostrophe and an S to the end of FAMILY.
Changing the Y to I and adding ES makes the word refer to several FAMILIES, and I am sure the lady did not mean to suggest that this should be one HOME belonging to several FAMILIES. The sentence should read this way:
Christian lady looking to clean one family's home.
Tags: apostrophe
Posted in apostrophe, Grammar, plual forms | 2 Comments »
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