TheMLA's

'

HOW TO EDIT
YOUR OWN WRITING
Claire Kehrwald Cook

MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION

OF AMERICA
The one book that shows you, with
hundreds of examples, how to

Use editing techniques to produce •

flawless sentences

Keep your grammar and usage safe •

from faultfinders

Make what you say as good as •

what you mean to say
 HOW TO EDIT
YOUR OWN WRITING

Claire Kehrwald Cook

Houghton Mifflin Company O Boston

© 1985 by The Modem Language Association of America

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by
any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the
1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the Publisher.

Requests for permission should be addressed in writing to

Houghton Mifflin Company
One Beacon Street
Boston, MA 02108

Indexed by Philip James

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Cook, Claire K.ehrwald.

The MLA' s Line by line.

Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. English language-Sentences. 2. Copy-reading.
I. Modem Language Association of America. U. Title.
III. Title: Line by line.
PEI441.C66 1985 808'.042 85-8346
ISBN 0-395-38944-5
ISBN 0-395-39391-4 (pbk.)

Manufactured in the United States of America

Guiding Genius for a Generation
of Copy Editors
 Preface vzz

Introduction: On Looking at Sentences xiii

Chapter 1 Loose, Baggy Sentences 1

Chapter 2 Faulty Connections 18

Chapter 3 Ill-matched Partners 54

Chapter !/­ Mismanaged Numbers and References 75

Chapter S Problems with Punctuation 108

Afterword 13 7

Appendix A The Parts of a Sentence 13 9

Appendix g A Glossary of Questionable Usage 161

Selected Bibliography 207

Index 209
 ike most copy editors, those of us who style manuscripts
for the Modern Language Association have had our share
of appreciative authors, and not uncommonly they claim
that we have taught them something. "I enjoyed being
edited by you," one said. "I hadn't learned anything about my writing
for years, but this year I did." Another said, "I feel I learned a bit
about good prose from comparing the original and improved versions
of certain sentences and I appreciate the pedagogic value of the proc­
ess." Remarks like these ultimately led to this book, but at first they
puzzled us. In editing, we apply principles spelled out in many style
manuals-principles that our erudite authors, especially the English
teachers among them, would be likely to know. Even Homer can nod,
of course, and writers preoccupied with content naturally lack an
editor's focus of attention. Some of them, pressed for time, may even
rely on editors to smooth out the rough spots. But why had these
authors learned from us?
In discussing that question at lunch one day, my colleagues and I
came to realize what should have been obvious all along, that a
knowledge of principles does not necessarily confer the ability to put
them into practice. We began to see that our approach to sentence
repair involves specialized techniques that writers could profitably
train themselves to use. In revising their own writing, they would
have advantages denied the copy editor-an awareness of their aims
and the freedom to make substantive corrections. If professors of

vu
..
viii _________________________PR_ _E F_A_C_E

literature had found our methods instructive, we reasoned, writers in

fields less directly concerned with language stood to benefit even
more. And so we conceived the notion of this book, a book that
would show writers how to edit their own work. Its execution eventu­
ally fell to me.
In some seventeen years of editing, at the MLA and elsewhere, I
have worked on a wide variety of manuscripts-not only scholarly
essays, professional articles, reference guides, and research summa­
ries but also press releases and promotional material, business arti­
cles, technical manuals, trade books, and textbooks in such diverse
fields as mathematics, engineering, acting, broadcasting, and sociol­
ogy. I have spent most of my working life rewriting writing, and some
of it in training others to do so, and the techniques I describe here
adapt to almost any sort of exposition. They should serve all writers,
various creative authors aside, who care enough about their style to
work at crafting clear, readable sentences-scholars and serious stu­
dents, certainly, but also those in business, government, and the pro­
fessions who have to prepare reports, proposals, or presentations. To
anyone sufficiently motivated to polish a final draft this book offers
ways and means.
Copy editors work line by line on finished manuscripts. They
concern themselves with correcting sentences already written. Thus
this guide deals not at all with the earlier and broader aspects of
composition, such as gathering, ordering, and developing ideas or
using examples and setting the tone. It focuses on eliminating the
stylistic faults that most often impede reading and obscure meaning.
These errors fall into five categories, corresponding to the chapters of
this book: (1) needless words, (2) words in the wrong order, (3) equiv­
alent but unbalanced sentence elements, (4) imprecise relations be­
tween subjects and verbs and between pronouns and antecedents,
and (5) inappropriate punctuation. Punctuation merits inclusion here
because it affects the clarity of sentences, but the other mechanics of
writing-spelling, capitalization, abbreviations, and so on-lie out­
side the scope of this guide. However much these details concern
professional copy editors, they have little bearing on how sentences
work.
Two appendixes supplement the text. The first describes the parts
of a sentence and the ways they fit together-the fundamentals of
syntax. Those who have only an uneasy grasp of grammar should
find this review helpful in following the explanations in the various
chapters. Although I discuss grammar in the traditional terms that 1
am most comfortable with and that are still likely to be the most
widely known, I do not mean to oppose or dismiss the newer systems.
They simply seem less pertinent to my purpose.
 The second appendix presents a glossary of questionable usage.
While the dubious constructions it cites are only peripherally detri­
mental to good prose, writers who care enough about their work to do
their own editing will probably want to avoid wording likely to pro­
voke criticism. The concept of "correct English" is controversial, but
no one denies the interest in the subject or the prevalence of language
watchers ready to pounce on what they consider improprieties. Such
flaws stand out like red flags to copy editors committed to upholding
conventional standards. Violations can distract discriminating readers
from a writer's ideas and may even diminish the writer's authority.
Editors apply their knowledge of syntax and disputed usage in
routinely examining sentences for imperfections and making the re­
quired adjustments. Automatically checking for stylistic faults is what
this book is all about. It is also, I understand, what some computer
programs are all about. Colorado State University, for example, has
been using such a program in English composition courses. Students
type their themes into a word processor, which identifies various
kinds of errors, and if they press the SUGGEST button, it offers possible
remedies. This program obviously has a lot in common with a copy
editor.
Although not many students, so far, have worked with these
teaching aids, initial results indicate that those who have had this
opportunity do better than control groups restricted to conventional
instruction. Unquestionably the program owes its success in part to its
one-on-one guidance. Students learn better by seeing their own mis­
takes highlighted than by doing textbook exercises that may or may
not reflect the kinds of errors they are likely to make-just as authors
who know the principles of good writing nonetheless learn from re­
viewing their copy-edited manuscripts. It's hard for writers to apply
objective standards to their own work, especially when they are con­
cerned with much more than style. The computer program or the
copy editor makes the application for them.
Computerized teaching seems so promising that I naturally won­
dered whether this book would be obsolete before it got into print.
From the practical point of view, of course, the day when every writer
has the services of copy-editing software still seems far off. Moreover,
impressive as the new word processors are, they must be less efficient
than human beings who have absorbed more sophisticated programs.
What this book tries to do is to program you to edit sentences, to train
you to process your own words. Without buttons and display screens,
without any cumbersome and expensive paraphernalia, and with far
less chance of going "down," you can instantly react to flabby sen­
tences, dangling modifiers, unbalanced constructions, and errors in
subject-verb agreement.
.r __________________________P_R_E_F_A_CE

And like a computer, even better than a computer, you will know
how to go about eliminating the errors you detect. Neither you nor a
computer, however, can be programmed to select the best remedy
automatically. The choice here remains a matter of individual judg­
ment based on your objectives and the context in which the error
occurs. Thus far at least, there is no mechanized way to take context
into account. If, for example, you discover however in consecutive sen­
tences, you first have to decide which occurrence to eliminate. You
can change one however to but or to in contrast or put the contrasting
idea in an even though clause. What you do will depend on such con­
siderations as the presence or absence of similar clauses nearby, the
incidence of surrounding buts, and the structure of adjacent sentences.
This book, like a computer's teaching program, can only suggest solu­
tions. It presents revisions as possibilities and often offers alterna­
tives.
Because the flawed sentences that serve as examples appear out
of context, the discussions of possible solutions suffer somewhat from
artificiality. The poor wording may seem perverse if a better version
comes readily to mind, but considerations outside our view may have
precluded what looks like the obvious revision. Isolating badly writ­
ten sentences also compounds the difficulty of deciphering them. Sev­
eral examples I chose were so muddy that I had to guess at the writ­
ers' intentions, and sometimes I could only infer the meaning from
the context-a context impractical to reproduce. Thus some of the
suggested revisions may appear to differ in sense from the examples.
For our purposes, though, these apparent discrepancies do not greatly
matter. Since we are concerned here with how writers can edit their
own work, you should be looking at the examples as if you yourself
had written them. Presumably you would know what you intended
and could judge the validity of the changes you contemplate. Your
revision might differ in nuance from your first version because you
didn't initially succeed in saying precisely what you meant or because
the slight change in meaning or emphasis makes no difference to you
and permits a much improved sentence. Certainly as a copy editor I
do not reword with the abandon I do here, and if I do suggest a major
change, I ask the author's approval. But in the guise of a writer, I can
obviously do as I please. And that, of course, is the guise you should
assume in studying the examples and the revisions in this book.
Although I have copied most of the examples verbatim from
printed or manuscript sources, I have doctored some to make them
intelligible out of context. In these circumstances I have kept the
structure that embodies the problem but changed the wording. I also
admit to concocting a few examples of common errors when I grew
frustrated in looking for suitable prototypes, but these, too, closely
PREFACE
!...:..:..:==------------------------ XJ

resemble real-life models. In the two appendixes, however, as well as

in the Introduction and the chapter on punctuation, I have shame­
lessly fabricated illustrations to make my points as expeditiously as
possible.
In likening this book to a computer program and stressing the
semiautomatic aspects of revision, I do not mean to downplay the
importance of the individual voice or to imply that edited manu­
scripts must sound as if they had been composed by machine. This
book shows writers how to detect stylistic weaknesses and, without
prescribing single remedies, suggests approaches to revision. It leaves
ample room for choice and self-expression. Few, I think, would argue
that their unique personal styles require leaving awkwardness and
ambiguity intact. Those who know the rules but break them for delib­
erate effect are not the writers this book addresses.
Probably the best way to use this guide is to read through it first
without attempting to study it-or even to argue with it along the
way, since you may find objections answered later on. You will be­
come familiar with the range of errors it covers and the editorial
approach it advocates. If you are still shaky about some of the gram­
matical concepts, you should be comfortable with them by the time
you finish and better equipped to benefit from the book when you
take another look at it. You can then profitably return to the pertinent
parts as the need arises.
When it comes to giving credit to those who have helped me with
this book, I must begin by acknowledging my indebtedness to the
authors of several style or usage guides: Jacques Barzun, Theodore M.
Bernstein, Wilson Follett, H. W. Fowler, William Strunk, Jr., and E. B.
White. When I mention these authors in the text, I am referring to the
books that I list as primary references in the Selected Bibliography.
These volumes are the most thumb-worn in my library, and the prin­
ciples of style that I endorse are largely a distillation and synthesis of
those they have taught me. In the ideological conflict between ortho­
dox and permissive grammarians, all these authors dearly range on
the side of the traditionalists, the side that it behooves an MLA copy
editor to honor; but in the body of this book I have drawn on these
writers not so much for their pronouncements on usage as for their
advice on effective prose. In naming the books that have most influ­
enced me, 1 am not necessarily recommending them over the compe­
tition. Readers who find no mention of their own favorite mentors
should not take offense. The literature in this field is vast, and though
I have sampled considerably more of it than my list of citations sug­
gests, I am doubtless unfamiliar with many excellent contributions.
I am grateful, too, for the assistance of my family, my friends,
and my colleagues at the MLA who furnished examples and acted as
..
~''~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ PREFACE

sounding boards for parts of the book during its preparation. Special
thanks must go to Thomas Clayton and Walker Gibson, consultant
readers for the MLA, who offered constructive advice on a prelimi­
nary draft; to Jenny Ruiz and her colleagues in secretarial services,
who time and again converted heavily corrected manuscript pages
into clean printouts; and to Walter Achtert, director of book publica­
tions and research programs at the MLA, who enthusiastically en­
dorsed this project and brought it to the attention of Houghton Mif­
flin. But I am indebted most of all to Judy Goulding, the managing
editor of MLA publications, for getting it under way. She and I
planned the book as a joint endeavor, and though in the end the
demands on her time prevented her from sharing in the writing, she
cleared the way for me, freeing me from my ordinary responsibilities
at no little inconvenience to herself. Moreover, she conferred with me
at every stage, critically reviewed the entire manuscript, and contrib­
uted many useful suggestions. Her help and encouragement have
been invaluable.
Finally, I wish to thank my collaborators at Houghton Mifflin not
only for their skill and care in processing this book but for their
unfailing consideration and tact in dealing with me. I must mention in
particular Margery S. Berube, director of editorial operations, and
Donna L. Muise, production assistant, who efficiently coordinated the
editorial and production activities; editors Kaethe Ellis and David Jost,
whose prodigious double-checking repeatedly saved me from myself;
and Anne Soukhanov, senior editor, whose gracious and understand­
ing support eased my transition from editor to author.
 uthors whose writing has been professionally edited often
marvel at the improvement, apparently regarding a blue
pencil as some sort of magic wand. But those of us in the
business of wielding that pencil know that most of the
wonders we work are the routine adjustments of trained specialists.
This book aims at demystifying the copy-editing process, at showing
writers how to polish their own prose.
By the time a manuscript accepted for publication is ready for
copy-editing, the consulting editor and the author have already at­
tended to whatever major additions, deletions, rearrangements, or
new approaches have seemed desirable. Charged with preparing the
manuscript for conversion into print, the copy editor, sometimes
called a line editor or subeditor, concentrates on the fine points, styl­
ing "mechanics" and revising sentences that are unclear, imprecise,
awkward, or grammatically incorrect.
The mechanics of style are matters of form, such considerations
as spelling, capitalization, treatment of numbers and abbreviations,
types of headings, and systems of citation. In a first dose reading of
the manuscript the copy editor focuses full attention on these routine
details and brings them into line with house standards. In addition to
specifying the dictionaries and other reference works to follow for
mechanics, publishers have guidelines governing the choices where
these authorities allow options-between, for example, adviser and
advisor, the Third World and the third world, two and a half and 2 1/i. The

xiii
xiv ____________________ INTRODUCTION
____:.:...:....:....:.=..::::....:::...:::..!..!:~

point here is not so much correctness as consistency. Arbitrary vari­

ations can be distracting, since they would seem to indicate distinc­
tions where none are intended. Even if house style does not prescribe
one of two acceptable alternatives, the copy editor does not allow
both to appear indiscriminately but settles on whichever predomi­
nates in the manuscript. Conscientious writers, especially if they do
not expect the services of copy editors, should similarly verify ques­
tionable forms and strive for consistency, but they need no special
knowledge to emulate editors in this respect.
Styling mechanics is a painstaking process that leaves little room
for paying attention to entire sentences, no less to the argument of the
_text. Unless you blot out every other consideration, you can glide
right over errors and discrepancies. Ideally, therefore, the copy editor
devotes a separate dose reading-or several readings if time allows­
to removing any obstacles to the clarity and grace of sentences. With
mechanics out of the way, the editor checks sentences for common
structural weaknesses and applies the remedies indicated. It is this
procedure that the following chapters describe, for it is here that
pumpkins turn into coaches.
Although you can profitably learn to apply editorial techniques to
your own writing, you will not be working in quite the same way that
copy editors do. You will not have to worry about the author's inten­
tions and sensibilities or about publishing costs and schedules. Copy
editors have to guard against distorting the author's meaning or intro­
ducing changes that seem arbitrary or inconsistent with the author's
tone. Often they cannot do as much as they would like, either be­
cause the publisher's budget precludes taking the necessary time or
because the author's attitude discourages tampering with the text.
Deciding what to alter and what to leave alone, when to revise and
when to suggest a revision, involves considerable tact and judgment,
and queries and explanations require sensitive wording. In correcting
your own workJ you have a free hand. You don't need editorial deli­
cacy and diplomacy. You only need editorial skills that will enable
you to look objectively at what you have written. If you can master
themJ you can do more to improve your writing than anyone else can.
To use an editor's techniques, you need, first of all, an editor's
knowledge of sentence structure. The line-by-line editor looks at each
sentence analytically, seeing its components and inner workingsJ us­
ing grammatical concepts as a set of tools for detecting and eliminat­
ing flaws. If you simply recognize that a sentence sounds bad, you
can't necessarily pinpoint and correct what's wrong. Like the driver
who knows that the car won't start but has no idea what to look for
under the dutifully raised hood, you can only fiddle with this and that
in hit-or-miss fashion.
_O_N_L_O_O_K_IN�G_A_T�SE_ NT�E_N_C_E _S�����������������XV

Thus any manual of sentence repair must begin by naming parts

and their functions. However much composition instructors would
like to avoid jargon, they almost always end up using specialized
terminology in training students to look at sentences with an eye to
revision. In Errors and Expectations, a breakthrough text for teachers of
basic writing, Mina P. Shaughnessy says that explanations of what
ails particular sentences "inevitably involve grammatical as well as
semantic concepts and are much easier to give if the student has some
knowledge of the parts and basic patterns of the sentence .... [A]
rudimentary grasp of such grammatical concepts as subject, verb, ob­
ject, indirect object, modifier, etc. is almost indispensable if one intends
to talk with students about their sentences."
This guide, of course, addresses writers far more sophisticated
than the students in a remedial composition course, but many college
graduates, including some English majors, claim not to know the lan­
guage of grammar. If you are in this category, do not despair. The
subject is much less forbidding than it may have seemed when you
were a child, and even grammarphobes may readily learn as adults
the battery of terms that made their eyes glaze over in junior high.
Though the examples used throughout should clarify technical terms
as you encounter them, you can profit most from the text if you start
off knowing something about the anatomy of a sentence. Appendix A
explains the parts of a sentence in considerable detail, and you may
want to turn to it before you read the rest of the book. But this
introduction, which provides a short preview of the appendix, may be
all you need. Or it may be more than you need. If you're good at
parsing sentences, you can stop right here and move on to chapter 1.
To look at a sentence analytically, you have to recognize (1) the
units that fit together to compose the whole and (2) the types of
words, called parts of speech, that make up the various units. Let's
look first at the larger elements, the building blocks of the sentence.
A sentence is a group of words-or, occasionally, a single word­
that readers recognize as a complete statement. The conventional type
says that someone or something acts, experiences, or exists in a stated
way (or did do so or will do so). Its two basic components are the
subject, the someone or something, and the predicate, the statement
about the subject's action, experience, or state of being.
The heart of the predicate, and sometimes the entire predicate, is
the verb, a word that denotes mental or physical action or asserts
existence and that can change in form to show the time of the action
or existence as past, present, or future. Ordinarily, the subject comes
first, as in Children played, Glass breaks, Poltergeists exist. It is the word or
group of words that answers the question formed by putting What or
Who before the verb. But though it governs the verb in the predicate,
xvi ______________________IN_T_R_O_D_U_CT_IO_N

it does not necessarily dominate the sentence. Grammatically speak­

ing, the subject of the sentence may not be the topic under discussion.
If you say I prefer vodka to gin, the subject is I, but the subject matter is
liquor.
Verb forms that consist of two or more words-for example, were
playing, will be broken, and have existed-may be called verb phrases,
since a phrase is any group of related words that functions as a unit
but lacks a subject and a predicate. A clause, in contrast, is a group of
related words that does contain a subject-verb combination. Not all
clauses qualify as sentences. Though word groups like while they were
gone, af fer we had left, that you won, and as you believe have subjects and
predicates, they strike readers as incomplete. Unable to stand alone,
these subordinate clauses must serve as adjuncts to independent
clauses, which do seem complete in themselves.
A simple sentence contains only one clause. It is, of course, an
independent clause, but that term comes into play only when sen­
tences have more than one clause. Two or more attached independent
clauses without a dependent clause make a compound sentence, and
a single independent clause that incorporates at least one dependent
clause constitutes a complex sentence. A compound-complex sen­
tence, logically enough, has two or more attached independent
clauses and at least one dependent clause.
Although, as we have seen, a conventional sentence can consist
entirely of a subject and a verb, most statements need more words to
express their meaning. The predicate may tell not only what the sub­
ject is doing but also what or whom the subject is doing it to, that is,
who or what is receiving the action. In Jones handles advertising, for
example, advertising undergoes the handling. Such a word is called a
direct object. If you ask What? or Whom? after a verb denoting a
mental or physical action performed by the subject, the answer will
be the direct object. In each of the following sentences, the third word
is the direct object: I read stories, We made gifts, They gave advice.
A sentence may also tell who or what receives the direct object;
that is, it may state the indirect object of the action. This element goes
between the verb and the direct object: J read him stories, We made them
gifts, They gave us advice. When the same information follows the direct
object, it appears as part of a phrase, after the word to or for, and the
term indirect object no longer applies: I read stories to him, We made gifts
for them, They gave advice to us.
Strictly speaking, direct and indirect objects occur only in sen­
tences in which the subject performs the action that the verb de­
scribes. If the subject is not acting but acted on-as in Stories were read,
Gifts were made, Advice was- given-the subject receives the action, and
there is no direct object. When the subject receives the action only
_O _N_L_O_ O __K I_N_G_A_T_SE_NT_E_N_C_E_S________________ xvii

indirectly, as in Rookies were given advice by veterans, the element that

resembles a direct object (advice in the example) is called a retained
object. The subject of such a sentence would become an indirect
object if you revised the structure to make the subject the acting
element: Veterans gave rookies advice. A verb is in the active voice when
it states what the subject does and in the passive voice when it tells
what is done to or for the subject.
Some verbs convey no action but simply state existence and lead
to words that say something about that existence. A verb like be,
become, seem, appear, or remain links its subject to a complement, a word
or group of words that either describes the subject or serves as its
synonym, thus completing the meaning of the sentence. Each of the
following sentences ends with a complement: She seems angry, You look
ill, He remained silent, Running Water became chief, Cars can be lemons, We
had been friends. Some think of a complement as completing the mean­
ing of the predicate and call it a predicate complement; others think
of it as completing the meaning of the subject and call it a subjective
complement. Those who prefer one of these terms may use the word
complement alone to designate either an object or a predicate comple­
ment; here, however, the term has only the narrower meaning given
above-a word that follows a linking verb and defines or describes
the subject.
The two basic parts of a sentence, then-or, for that matter, of
any clause-are the subject and predicate, and the major components
of the predicate are the verb and its objects or complements. Al­
though the examples used so far include only single-word subjects,
objects, indirect objects, and comple�ents, these elements often com­
prise a group of related words that function as a unit; in other words,
a phrase or a clause may serve as a subject, an object, or a comple­
ment. Tn That he did not reply does not necessarily mean that he did not get
your letter, both the subject and the object are clauses; and in She seems
out of sorts, the complement is a phrase.
Most sentences flesh out their skeletal parts with secondary com­
ponents called modifiers-words, phrases, or clauses that describe or
qualify other elements, either restricting their meaning or giving sup­
plementary information about them. In The man in the apartment down­
stairs is eighty-five years old, the modifying in phrase identifies the sub­
ject, narrowing the meaning of man to a specific individual. Such a
modifier is called restrictive or defining. In My mother's father, who lives
in the apartment downstairs, is eighty-five years old, the modifying who
clause in no way limits or defines the meaning of My mother's father; it
simply adds a detail. We would know the subject's identity even if
the who clause were omitted. Such a modifier is called nonrestrictive
or nondefining.
xviii ______________________INT_R_O_D_U_CT_IO_N

Now let's Jook at the ingredients of the various sentence compo­

nents: the types of words, or parts of speech, that serve as subjects,
predicates, objects, complements, and modifiers. One of these, the
verb, is the central element in the predicate of a clause. Since the term
verb technically designates a part of speech, we should say simple predi­
cate when we discuss the verb's function in a sentence, but since both
terms designate the same word in a given context, the distinction
becomes blurred.
Nouns denote persons, places, things, qualities, or feelings
(teacher, John Dewey, Chicago, cities, toys, beauty, grief). They serve as
subjects, objects, or complements (predicate nouns), and a group of
related words that plays any of these roles is called a noun phrase or
a noun clause (Living on a poet's income means that you don't eaf very well).
Pronouns function exactly as nouns do, but without naming any­
thing. Most of them stand for preceding nouns or pronouns and de­
rive their meaning from the words they replace-their "antecedents"
or ''principals" or "head words." While such pronouns provide a
useful means of avoiding repetition, they are clear only if they refer
unambiguously to their antecedents. (In the last sentence pronouns is
the antecedent of they and their.) Of the various types, those that come
first to mind are probably the personal pronouns. These have the
forms J, we, you, he, she, it, and they as subjects or complements and the
forms me, us, you, him, her, it, and them as objects. Other important
categories are the demonstrative pronouns-this, that, these, and those
-which point to the words they replace (as These does in the preced­
ing sentence), and the relative pronouns-principally who, whom,
which, and that-which introduce clauses modifying the words they
stand for. Indefinite pronouns-for example, one, another, some, each,
and everyone-differ from the other types: although they qualify as
pronouns (since they perform the functions of nouns but do not name
anything), their identities do not depend on antecedents. Indefinite in
meaning, words like anyone, many, and few do not refer to specific
individuals and thus have no need for principals.
Two parts of speech serve as modifiers-adjectives and adverbs.
Adjectives modify nouns or pronouns, indicating some quality of the
words they describe (a colorful sunset, a heavy object, a long interval),
showing degree, amount, or number (slight increases, several ideas, two
signs), or singling out an individual from its category (a book, my
report, the third quarter). A group of words that modifies a noun or a
pronoun is called an adjective phrase or an adjective clause (the
woman in the gray flannel suit, the man who came to dinner).
Adverbs qualify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. When modi­
fying other modifiers, they usually indicate extent or degree (extremely
happy, somewhat earlier, quite witty, fairly well, partly responsible).
_O _N_L_O_O_K_I_N_G_A_T_S_E_NT�E _N_CE_S����������������-XiX

Most adverbs answer the questions How? Where? When? or Why?

about the verbs they qualify (danced gracefully, went there, arrives
early, sometimes regrets, therefore declines). A group of words that modi­
fies a verb or a modifier is called an adverbial phrase or an adverbial
clause (went to the bank, refused because I had an earlier engagement).
The two remaining parts of speech that concern us, prepositions
and conjunctions, are more functional than substantive: they show
how the elements they precede fit into the context. A preposition-a
word like by, in, of, on, to, or with-relates the noun or noun equivalent
it introduces, the object of the preposition, to another word in the
sentence. A preposition by definition is always part of a phrase that
consists of itself and its object or objects, along with any modifiers. In the last
sentence the prepositional phrases are italicized.
Conjunctions, the second category of connectives, come in two
main varieties, coordinating and subordinating. The coordinating
conjunctions-principally and, but, for, nor, and or-link elements
equivalent in weight and function. In other words, they join com­
pound elements: two subjects of the same verb, two verbs with the
same subject, two objects, two complements, two modifiers, or two
dependent or independent clauses. The subordinating conjunctions
indicate the roles of modifying clauses, usually adverbial ones. Such
clauses may, for example, state a condition (if, unless), a time (when,
before, after), a contrast (although, than), or a cause (since, because). While
a coordinating conjunction can connect parallel clauses, a subordinat­
ing conjunction is always part of a clause, just as a preposition is part
of a phrase. In the last sentence, while and as are subordinating con­
junctions.
As dictionary part-of-speech labels indicate, many words have
fixed identities, but many others commonly function in two or more
ways. Some words can be nouns or verbs (love, hate, promise, race, effect,
object), others can be adverbs or adjectives (fast, early, late), and still
others can be adverbs, conjunctions, or prepositions (before, after,
since). Like can be a preposition (You look like your sister), a verb (I like
my work), an adjective (I am of like mind), or a noun (Likes repel). Near
can be a preposition (I sat near the stove), an adjective (We had a near
miss), an adverb (The hour draws near), or a verb (We are nearing our
destination).
Even words that are usually confined to single roles can some­
times function atypically. Thus, horse and kitchen, ordinarily identified
as nouns, assume the guise of adjectives in the phrases a horse race and
the kitchen sink; adjectives can tum into nouns, as in the beautiful and the
damned; and parts of verbs regularly become nouns or adjectives, as in
I like dancing and a found object. In general, we recognize a word as one
part of speech or another by the way it functions in a given context.
Since nouns and pronouns function in the same ways, we obviously
have to tell them apart by their inherent differences (fortunately,
that's not difficult), but we identify most words as the parts of speech
whose roles they are playing. In Fish swim, for example, we identify
Fish as a noun because it is the subject of the sentence (subjects must
be nouns or pronouns, and fish is clearly not a pronoun). In the sen­
tence They fish, the same word is the predicate, and thus it has to be a
verb. In Don't tell fish stories, where fish modifies the noun stories, we
call it an adjective, the part of speech used to qualify a noun.
Parts of speech do have characteristics apart from the roles they
play-adjectives have comparative forms, nouns can be singular or
plural, verbs have many inflections, and so on. Some grammarians, in
fact, would say that fish in the last example is an attributive noun, not
an adjective, because it lacks the comparative forms intrinsic to de­
scriptive adjectives (we can't say, for example, that her story is fisher
than his, but yours is the fishest of all). Such niceties, however, are
largely outside the concerns of this book.
 "Omit needless words," say Strunk and White, practicing

II what they preach. Their terse injunction sums up advice

included in every contemporary style manual. Under a va­
riety of headings-Officialese, Prolixity, Verbiage, Peri­
phrasis, Windyfoggery, and Jargon-the experts agree that, when it
comes to exposition, less is usually more. Surely most authors have
read such advice or have heard similar strictures in composition
classes, but economy and precision seem hard to come by.
Bad prose proliferates because writers model their style on what
they read most, and their daily fare-whether textbooks, reports,
memorandums, or newspapers-abounds in circumlocution. Educa­
tors, sociologists, scholars, lawyers, bureaucrats, technicians, and
business executives are all notorious producers of gobbledygook.
Here, for example, is a bank president addressing stockholders in a
1980 annual report:
With the beginning of the new '80s, it is readily
ascertainable that there has been little if any improvement in
the overall national or general local economy. It is expected
by some economists that a general upturn on the national
level should come about sometime during mid-1981.
However, with the increase in taxes starting in January,
mainly an increase in social security, this will reduce the
amount of free funds available for the stimulation of
consumer spending.

Someone less given to beating around the bush might have written:
In 1980 we saw little if any improvement in the economy,
national or local, and although some economists expect an

1
2 -------------------------'---------
LOOSE, BAGGY SENTENCES

upturn in mid-1981, the tax increases scheduled to begin in

January, mainly for social security, will leave consumers
with less money to spend.

A simple statement like this is usually harder to compose than a

verbose one, but even if it came naturally, the banker might prefer
the longer version. Straightforward sentences sound unimpressive to
many writers, and officialese, creating tin ears, perpetuates itself. Un­
checked by the efforts of learned and vocal opponents, logorrhea
plagues the country. It's rather like smoking. This chapter can only
warn of the dangers, describe the symptoms, and prescribe remedies,
enabling writers who want to kick the habit to cure themselves.
Before we go on to examples and techniques, I should make clear
that writing concisely doesn't mean composing sentences like "Me
Tarzan, you Jane." It means omitting needless words, the deadwood
that does nothing but detract from both substance and style. The
pruned sentence must emerge not only leaner and clearer but also
more graceful and more effective than it was, better able to do what
you want it to do. Long sentences aren't necessarily wordy, not if
every word counts. As good writers know, leisurely sentences have
their purposes-to contrast with short ones, say, or to establish a
desired tone. A sentence can be too tight. Sometimes you need a
clause instead of a phrase, a phrase instead of a word. What you're
after is a supple style; you don't want to compact your language,
trading looseness for density. But you're not likely to run that risk
unless you're a compulsive polisher. Condensing to a fault is so rare a
failing that it needs only passing mention. Of course, if you'd like to
change the last sentence to The rarity of overfightness obviates elaboration,
you have something to worry about.
With these qualifications out of the way, we can turn to the prob­
lem of recognizing and excising verbiage. Certain telltale characteris­
tics signal wordy sentences. As you read over your writing, watch for
the symptoms described below, try eliminating them in the ways the
discussion suggests, and see your style improve.

PROFILE OF A WORDY SENTENCE

You can almost detect a wordy sentence by looking at it-at least if

you can recognize weak verbs, ponderous nouns, and strings of prep­
ositional phrases. Each of these features typifies prolixity, and they
often occur in combination.
_PR _O_F_IL_ E _O_F_A_W_ O_R_D_Y_SE_ NT_E_N_C_E ________________ 3

Weak Verbs
A rambling, unwieldy sentence generally hangs from an inert verb­
the verb to be (am, are, is, was, were, being, been), some other vague,
actionless verb like have or exist, or a passive form (the verb to be plus
a past participle; e.g., is believed, was seen). Pay attention to the verbs
you use, and when you find a weak one, try substituting something
more vigorous. Ask what happens in the sentence. If you haven't
expressed the action as a verb, you've probably buried it in a verbal
(the to or ing form of the verb), an adjective, a noun, or a subordinate
clause, as the writers have done in the excerpts quoted below. Ex­
hume the action, make it a verb, and you're almost certain to tighten
and enliven the wording.
Consider this sentence, quoted from a computer company's pro­
motional material. It appears in a paragraph explaining that the new
technology, by enabling employees to work at home, will affect real
estate values:
More remote, less densely populated suburbs, whose lower
values were often a function of how far they were from
work centers, and small towns in rural locations, whose
lower values were a reflection of the difficulty of earning a
living, are likely to see considerable appreciation of their
property values in the next two decades.
ff you check the verbs in this long-winded sentence, you can readily
spot the trouble. The verb to be occurs in the maih clause as well as in
the subordinate ones-four times in all-while nouns and verbals
(reflection, appreciation, earning, to see) freeze all the action. A little analy­
sis suggests that the "event" in the sentence is the appreciation of
property values. When you make appreciate the principal verb, it at­
tracts the proper subject, and everything else falls into place:
Since many people will no longer have to commute to work
centers to earn a living, property values in the more distant
suburbs and rural areas should appreciate considerably in
the next two decades.
Notice that the revision eliminates needless words as well as static
verbs. While it may seem to leave out information included in the
original, the omitted words tell readers nothing that they don't al­
ready know, nothing that isn't implicit in what's left. You could even
tighten the wording a bit more:
Rural and exurban property values should appreciate
considerably in the next two decades as it becomes easier
for people to earn a living in areas remote from work
centers.
4 __________________L_O_ O_S�E,_B_A_G_G_Y_S_E_N_T_EN_C_E_S

When you consider substitutes for weak and passive verbs, you may
have several good options, and the choice will depend on exactly
what you want to highlight.
In the following excerpt, from a newspaper article on a town's
plans to build an animal shelter, the wordiness stems from the passive
voice, the form a verb takes when its subject is not acting but acted
on:
The shelter will be owned by the town, but it will be run by
members of the humane society and supported, in part, by
funds raised by them. The bulk of the operating funds,
however, will be supplied by the town.

When you make all the verbs active, other economies suggest them­
selves:
Although the town will own the shelter and pay most of the
operating expenses, members of the humane society will run
the facility and provide additional support through fund
raising.

The revision collapses two sentences into one. In the original the
passive subjects shelter and bulk of the operating funds need verbs of their
own, but when town becomes the acting subject, it can govern two
verbs with different objects, thus enabling one clause to supply the
same information that formerly required two.
The next example comes from a letter that the head of a college
English department sends prospective majors:
The English Department is unusually strong for a college of
this size. It consists of twelve faculty members, whose fields
of special interest cover the range of English and American
literature. The diversity and educational background of this
department is suggested by the fact that important work
published by its members includes such subjects as
Shakespeare, Milton, Jane Austen, Tennyson, Wordsworth,
Pope, Melville, and Southern "agrarian'' writers, T. S. Eliot
and Katherine Anne Porter.

This excerpt has several problems, but notice particularly that the
weak main verbs in the three sentences attract needless words, that
the second sentence subordinates its primary information (the faculty
members' range of interests), and that the third sentence repeats in­
formation given in the second. You might revise this way:
The twelve faculty members who compose the English
Department make it an unusually strong one for a college of
this size. Their diverse special interests and educational
 __
PROFILE OF A WORDY SENTENCE
_;___::;__.;___....:.._ :..______________________ 5
backgrounds cover the range of English and American
literature, and their publications include important works on
Shakespeare, Milton, Jane Austen, Tennyson, Wordsworth,
Pope, Melville, the Southern "agrarian" writers, T. S. Eliot,
and Katherine Anne Porter.

As you check your sentences for weak verbs, always consider

eliminating leisurely sentence openers like There is and It is important
lo note that. You can usually cut them easily, and most sentences work
better if you go right to the point instead of sidling up to it. But
apparently not all experts agree. A composition manual provides this
example:
There is a hasty way of writing which is counterpart to the
hasty way of reading. It is becoming more common every
year and raises less and less protest.

Removing the weak verbs leaves:

A hasty way of writing, counterpart to the hasty way of
reading, grows more common every year and raises less and
less protest.

But you can condense even more:

Hasty writing, like hasty reading, grows. . ..

A financial columnist wrote the next example:

To make the most of your investments, it is essential that
you understand what your goals are and what your financial
temperament is.

As always, you can reduce if is essential that to must or have fa and

eliminate the what clauses. Revised, the sentence reads:
To make the most of your investments, you have to
understand your goals and financial temperament.

The last two examples, unlike the earlier ones, may not strike you as
especially wordy, and perhaps the revised versions do sacrifice em­
phasis to brevity and directness. If you want that emphasis, if you
want to draw particular attention to a statement, you can justify slow­
ing the pace.
No one recommends that you banish the verb lo be and all passive
forms from your writing. I wouldn't tamper, certainly, with "To be or
not to be, that is the question" or even with "She is more to be pitied
than censured." You may choose the passive, for example, because
you want to put its subject first in the sentence or because you do not
know, or do not want to reveal, who is performing the action. But
6 _________________L_O_O_S_E,_B_A_G_G_Y_SE_ N_T_ E _N _CE_S

when you use extra words, make sure that you are doing so purpose­
fully, that you are not just surrendering to laziness and poor crafts­
manship. As you edit what you've written, always consider replacing
static verbs. While you should keep those that provide the tone or
emphasis or variety you want, you'll find that most sentences benefit
when you shift to active verbs.

Ponderous Nouns
Wordy writing not only droops from weak verbs but sags under
bulky nouns-especially long Latinate ones with endings like lion and
ment and ence. The two characteristics complement each other. Con­
sider this sentence from a letter to the New Yark Times:
The inference that because high school graduates are more
Likely to be employed than dropouts, the differences may be
attributed to the possession of a diploma is suspect since
dropouts and graduates may differ in a variety of ways
relevant to both graduation prospects and employment
status.
Lifeless and noun-burdened, the sentence makes dull and difficult
reading. You have to grope for the meaning. If you proceed mechani­
cally, looking for verbs to replace and nouns to eliminate, you can
eventually pare the sentence down:
It is not necessarily the diploma that makes high school
graduates more employable than dropouts; other differences
may affect both their education and their job prospects.
Isn't the shorter version easier to understand? Does the original tell
you anything more? Compare the number of nouns and the number
of static verbs in the two sentences, and notice the economies
achieved in the revision, despite that opening It is. Although the sen­
tence could begin The diploma does not necessarily make ... , the more
emphatic lead, which adds only two words, stresses the statement as
a counterargument.
The next example comes from an article on interdisciplinary col­
lege courses. After pointing out that the instructors in such courses
teach material in subject areas other than their own, the author goes
on to say:
One of the effects of this purposeful disengagement from
expertise is that students are disabused of the notion that
engagement in disciplinary material on a fairly elementary
level requires mastery of that discipline.

If your ear doesn't tell you that this sentence needs work, the ratio of
nouns to active verbs should (not to mention that string of preposi-
_PR_O _f_IL_E_O_f _A_W_O_R_D_Y_SE_ NT_E _N_C_E ________________ 7

tional phrases, the symptom of wordiness discussed in the next sec­

tion). To revise, first choose an active verb for the main clause. Ask
yourself what takes place in the sentence, and you'll find the event
confined in a passive verb and tucked away in a subordinate clause­
students are disabused. To make that idea active, you can either say that
instructors, by teaching outside their disciplines, disabuse students of
a false notion or that nonspecialist teachers enable students to dis­
cover something. Either way you automatically eliminate the limp
opening-One of the effects of. A sentence can make clear that some­
thing is an effect without using the label, and there's no apparent
need to specify that the effect is one of several. (If that information is
pertinent, you can include it elsewhere; here it gets in the way.) You
might then consider these alternatives:
By venturing outside their specialties, teachers disabuse
students of the notion that only those who have mastered a
discipline can deal with its subject matter.
When teachers venture outside their specialties, students
discover that one need not have mastered a discipline to
deal with its subject matter.
These versions do omit on a fairly elementary level, but why would
students think that "engagement ... on a fairly elementary level
requires mastery"? Surely they wouldn't expect first-year French stu­
dents to do without the translations in a Truffaut film. Nevertheless,
the omission leaves something to be desired. The revisions almost
imply the advisability of having know-nothings pontificate on a sub­
ject-an unlikely suggestion in an article favoring interdisciplinary
courses. Presumably, then, the original sentence does not mean what
it says. After explaining that instructors teach material outside their
areas of expertise, the author probably intended to make this point:
By venturing into another field, teachers demonstrate that
nonspecialists can deal with the subject matter to some
extent, thus disabusing students of the notion that any
engagement in the discipline requires mastery.
Though not much shorter than the original, this version makes its
words count.
Here's one more noun-heavy excerpt, this one from a manufac-
turer's annual report:
The stability and quality of our financial performance will
be developed through the profitable execution of our
existing business, as well as the acquisition or development
of new businesses.
Before you look at the revision below, try one yourself, following the
steps used in the earlier examples. The verbiage should yield easily,
g ___________________
L_O_ O_S--' E,'-B_A_G_G_Y_SE_ NT_E _N_C_ES

but the muddy original-perhaps an example of intentional corporate

obfuscation-makes more than one interpretation possible. You may
prefer your condensation to this one:
We will improve our financial performance not only by
executing our existing business more profitably but by
acquiring or developing new businesses.
Do you object to the omission of stability and qualify? Would restoring
these terms make the revision mean more? You would have a hard
time justifying qualify, but stability may be another matter. Although
the idea of improved financial performance should encompass the
idea of greater stability, readers don't necessarily think about stability
when they see improve our financial performance, and they're not likely to
stop to analyze the phrase. Undoubtedly the sentence concerns a
company in which instability has been a problem, and the revision
carries no such implication. If the idea is important, you might choose
this wording:
We will work toward a more stable and profitable financial
performance not only by executing our existing business
more efficiently but by acquiring or developing new
businesses.

Strings of Prepositional Phrases

As you might expect, strings of prepositional phrases often keep com­
pany with weak verbs and pondero\lS nouns. Look closely at any
sentence that depends heavily on prepositions, and if you count more
than three phrases in a row, consider revising. The following exam­
ples exhibit all the symptoms of wordiness we have been discussing;
again, even if you can't hear the problem, you can detect it mechani­
cally. The first comes from a doctoral dissertation:
The more reasoned analysis made by the Saint-Simonians of
the nature of the new power situation in France and of the
reasons the present government could not satisfy the needs
of the people was confirmed by these developments.
This sentence features a passive main verb and seven prepositional
phrases, four of them consecutive and all with nouns as objects.
Changing to the active voice eliminates one phrase and gives you
These developments confirmed . .... (It also has the advantage, incidentally,
of bringing subject and verb closer together, thus making the sen­
tence easier to read.) As you look for expendable phrases, you should
see that of the nafure of the new power situation means no more than of the
new power situation and that of the reasons can be left implicit; a reasoned
analysis of the government's inability to satisfy would obviously give
_PR_O_F_IL_ E _O_f_A_W_O_R_D_Y_SE_ NT_E_N_C_E________________ 9

the underlying reasons. You can cut another phrase by using the Saint­
Simonians' instead of made by the Saint-Simonians. (When an of or by
phrase simply denotes possession or authorship, you can often substi­
tute the possessive form of the noun. But be careful: not all of phrases
translate into possessives. If, for example, you change the assassination
of the dictator to the dictator's assassination, you risk turning the victim
into a murderer.) With four phrases eliminated, the sentence reads:
These developments confirmed the Saint-Simonians' more
reasoned analysis of the new power situation in France and
of the present government's inability to satisfy the people's
needs.
In the next example, from a letter notifying stockholders of an
annual meeting, only the first sentence has an objectionable string of
prepositions, but the second plays a part in the revision:
At the meeting there will be a report to the stockholders on
the progress of the Company during the past year. A
discussion period will also take place, during which the
stockholders will have an opportunity to discuss matters of
Company interest.

The two sentences convey information that, properly arranged, would

fit in one. You don't need a knapsack and a briefcase to carry a book
and a memo pad, and you don't need both will be and will take place to
tell readers that two things will happen at the meeting. Then, too, the
second sentence, in announcing that stockholders will discuss in a
discussion period, gives readers the same information twice. Such
repetition reflects sloppy sentence structure, and it should disappear
when you tighten the wording. Finally, the phrase matters of Company
interest tells readers something that can go without saying. Two or
three short sentences in a row should trigger a check for wordiness
just as a long rambling one does. Sentence-combining drills in rhet­
oric handbooks teach students how to subordinate some elements to
others as a means of varying structure. The same technique often
eliminates needless words. Doesn't this sentence say as much as the
original two?
At the meeting the president [or whoever] will report to
stockholders on the Company's progress during the year and
then invite questions and comments.

Now let's look at a literary example:

How greatly Goethe was under the spell of the concept of
the single ideal of beauty in his classicistic period is
illustrated by the fact that he was pleased when readers
could not distinguish between his and Schiller's anonymous
publications.
10������������--����-L_O_ O_S_E,_ B_A_G_ G_Y_S_E_NT�EN_C_ E_S

Here five consecutive prepositional phrases limp up to the weak and

wordy predicate is illustrated by the fact thaf. Structuring the sentence in
this way relegates the d ynamic content to a subordinate clause with
another weak predicate-How greatly Goethe was under the spell. To
avoid the passive voice, you might decide not to make Goethe the
subject, since he is acted on, not acting. The action belongs to the
concept that held Goethe under its spell-or that captivated him, a
substitution that gets rid of one phrase. You're now down from three
of phrases in a row to two. Can you do better? Probably not. You
might be tempted to drop concept of, but the sentence would then
suggest that Goethe endorsed a particular ideal beauty rather than the
notion of a single ideal. And, of course, a single ideal of beauty differs
from a single ideal beauty. Still, going from five consecutive phrases to
two represents a considerablle improvement:
The concept of a single ideal of beauty so captivated Goethe
in his classicistic period that he was pleased when....
If you wanted more emphasis on Goethe, you might prefer to settle
for the passive:
In his classicistic period Goethe was so taken with the
concept of a single ideall of beauty that. ...
You might even think of a way to have your cake and eat it too:
In his classicistic period Goethe believed so strongly in a
single ideal of beauty that. ...

The verb believe enables you to use a single ideal of beauty without a
preceding concept of, but it lacks the force of the alternatives. You
would have to decide whether you lose more than you gain. Each of
these versions eliminates the prolixity of the original, and they do not
exhaust the possibilities. In revising you usually have the leeway to
do it your way.
When it comes to consecutive prepositional phrases, our final
example, an obligatory statement in some financial reports, sets a
record: it boasts a string of seven, not packed into the subject as in the
Goethe sentence, but dragged along behind, like so many tin cans tied
to the newlyweds' car:
The financial statements and related data presented
elsewhere in this report have been prepared in accordance
with generally accepted accounting principles, which require
the measurement of financial position and operating results
in terms of historical dollars without regard to changes in
the relative purchasing :power of money over time.
If you look for the gist of this message, the sentence seems to be
saying only that the report accords with generally accepted account-
SHORTCUTS

ing principles in stating data in historical dollars. The long subject,

The financial statements and related data presented elsewhere in this report,
includes information too obvious to mention; the predicate, have b een
prepared in accordance with, says no more than accord or follow; and
measuring financial data in terms of historical dollars makes no more
sense than measuring a room in terms of square feet. Thus the state­
ment boils down to:
Following generally accepted accounting principles, this
report states the Company's financial position, operating
results, and related data in historical dollars, disregarding
changes in purchasing power.

In fact, the last part, disregarding changes in purchasing power, translates

into "disregarding inflationary changes" -since purchasing power has
only declined in recent decades. But accountants accustomed to the
original formula would probably agree to these revisions reluctantly
if at all. Although a financial writer I consulted confirms that the
condensed version neither alters the sense of the original nor omits
anything that is not implicit, he also explains that historical dollars is a
sacrosanct technical term designating sums not adjusted for current
equivalents. But if historical dollars means "dollars unadjusted for
changes in purchasing power," isn't that last phrase superfluous?
"Not really," says my adviser. "It tells you that such changes have
occurred." To the initiated, jargon apparently has its own clarity, and
would-be reformers have an uphill battle.

SHORTCUTS

Routine Condensing
In addition to checking your writing for lifeless verbs, excessive
nouns, and chains of prepositions, you should watch for specific con­
structions, stylistic mannerisms, and even words that almost always
contribute only verbiage. With practice, you'll develop a conditioned
response to these faults and learn to edit them out as soon as you spot
them-and, eventually, even before you put them down.
Perhaps, as you've studied the examples and revisions, you've
noticed that an active verb often replaces a noun or an adjective sand­
wiched between a weak verb and a preposition. Such a change elimi­
nates two or three words: for example, is indicative of becomes indi­
cates; have an influence on becomes influence; gives consideration to, considers;
make an assessment of, assess; is capable of, can; make use of, use; is of interest
to, interests; and is a benefit to, benefits. If you check your sentences for
12 ----------------'-------
LOOSE, BAGGY SENTENCES

weak verbs and expendable prepositional phrases, you can't fail to

notice such constructions; converting to an active verb is always easy
and usually desirable. Similarly, when an of phrase follows a noun
ending in lion, you can often economize by changing the noun to a
gerund, the ing form of the verb used as a noun; thus, by the implemen­
tation of the plan becomes by implementing the plo.n; in the creation of be­
comes in creating; in the discussion of, in discussing; through the examination
of, through examining; and by the addition of, by adding.
You should also always look critically at a relative clause-an
adjective clause generally introduced by who, which, or that (under­
stood or expressed). Sometimes you can simply delete the subject and
verb. These sentences show the expendable words in brackets:
There are at least two larger opportunities [that exist] in this
area.
(Or: At least two larger opportunities exist in this area.)
The result is an organization [that is] uniquely tailored to its
customer base.
Those [who are] invited to participate on the panel pay their
own travel expenses.
Montaque, [which is located] in the far northwest comer of
the state, is the best place for sighting blue herons.
Sometimes you have to substitute a word or two for the three or
four you eliminate. For example:
their
Poor households pay more for [the] food [that they buy]
because local merchants exploit them.
with indeterminate
This is a development [the] social consequences [of which
are indeterminate].
(Or: This development has indeterminate social
consequences.)
are our many communily
Fundamental to our operation [is the variety of] services
[that our company has to offer to the commWlity].
Be alert, too, to the possibility of converting a prepositional phrase to
an adjective or an adverb. Of great complexity can become complex; at
this point in time, now; of extreme importance, extremely important; and on
many occasions, often. Obviously you won't want to sacrifice every
phrase that has a single-word equivalent. The phrases may provide
the rhythm, variety, or emphasis you need. I would not say, for exam­
ple, that the biblical merchant should have sold all that he had for an
expensive pearl instead of a pearl of great price or that Macbeth
SHORTCUTS

should have referred to an idiot's noisy and furious tale instead of to

a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and .fury. (Writers like God and
Shakespeare know when to break the rules.) I do suggest that you see
what you gain-or lose-by substituting a word for a phrase. Some­
times tightening provides a way out of stylistic infelicities other than
wordiness, and knowing the tricks of the trade gives you an advan­
tage. Had you written We will produce evidence at a later time that will
prove us right, your readers wouldn't know whether the evidence or the
time would prove you right. Changing at a later time to later would
remove the ambiguity.
Also watch for common prepositional compounds that take two
to five words to say what you could say in one word or could even
leave unsaid. Here are some of the most common offenders:
He believes that [in order] to study efficiently you need ....
to explore
Research undertaken [for the purpose of exploring] the
possibilities ....

The response [on the part] of top management to the

proposal. ...
about
She wanted to see me [in connection with] the new
campaign.

The question [as to] whether it is safe to proceed needs an

answer.
If
[In the eventuality that] the company goes bankrupt, its
creditors ....
Since
[In view of the fact that] you are in the 50 per cent tax
bracket, you should....

In [the process of actually] doing the job, you learn ....

Finally, train yourself to recognize and remove empty prose addi­

tives like case, character, degree, the fact that, factor, instance, level, nature,
and quality. Almost always expendable, any of these terms should set
off a reflex action like a flashing light at a railroad crossing. "When­
ever ... your pen betrays you to one or another of them," wrote Sir
Arthur Quiller-Couch in his celebrated essay "On Jargon," "pull
yourself up and take thought." Of course no one objects to these
words in the senses in which they have content, such as case referring
to an argument or to an event like a fire or an emergency, ch aracter as
 LOOSE, BAGGY SENTENCES
14 ----------------�-----

a figure in a novel, and nature as the Great Outdoors; but you should
have no trouble distinguishing legitimate uses from the periphrastic
expressions that clutter virtually all writing. For example:
[In the case of] Layton Brothers[, the company) didn't adjust
quickly enough to the changing market.
The remark seemed hostile [in character] and offended the
interviewer.
They carried their complaint to [the level ofJ the top
administration.
Because [of the fact that) the development ran into
delays ....
The principal assets of the bank are monetary [in nature}.
The production was [of] inferior [quality].
In [the instance of] our first production our mistake was
faulty casting.
We relied on [the factor of] surprise to give us an
advantage.
They showed a greater [degree of] interest in the outcome.
Eliminate all such circumlocutions-and I do mi�an practice total ab­
stinence-at least until you break yourself of the habit; by then you
should know when to break the rules.

Choosing Bargain Words

Every book on writing tells you to use vivid verbs and concrete
nouns. If you don't, you'll probably find yourself trying to bolster
lifeless verbs and vague nouns with modifiers, thus adding words
only because you've settled for less than les mots justes. You might say,
for example, He walked wearily and laboriously when you could convey
the same image with He trudged. Precise words a,re bargains; by com­
bining both general and specific meanings, they permit economies.
You get more commWlication per word. Trudge, amble, stroll, lumber,
stride, and lope all mean both walk and a particular way of walking;
coupe, sedan, convertible, and station wagon all mean both car and a par­
ticular type of car. In some contexts, of course, car and walk provide
all the information you want the reader to have-as in A car usually
travels fifteen times faster than a person walking. More colorful wording of
such a statement would only be silly and distracting, as in A Mercedes
travels twenty times faster than a strolling minstrel. But when you want the
reader to envision what you're writing about, as you usually do if you
find yourself adding adjectives and adverbs, make sure to choose the
 __________________________________________
_5H_O_R_T_CUT 5 �15

most specific nouns and verbs you can. Surrender to modifiers only as
a last resort.
You may detect a dependence on general and abstract words as
you check for weak verbs and excessive nouns. But look at your
modifiers, too, and ask yourself whether you would need them if you
substituted stronger nouns and verbs. Often a sentence features a
general noun or verb and then gives a supporting role to the specific
word that should have had the lead. The dog we owned was a beagle
hound, for example, doesn't say any more than We owned a beagle. The
executive who reported that her company's new policy resulted in in­
creased morale among the employees could simply have written that the
policy boosted employee morale; and the agency that concluded an an­
nouncement with For more information communicate with the director by
writing him at ... could have communicated more directly with For
more information write the director at. ...
When you do choose a precise word, trust it to do its job without
redundant modifiers-adjectives or adverbs that give the same infor­
mation as the words they describe. If, in revising, you decided to
change In my final conclusion I stated that ... to I finally concluded that ...
you'd be on the right track, but you'd have retained a redundant
finally. Here are some redundancies culled from manuscripts: first in­
troduced, final coup de grace, a temporary sojourn, totally devoid of, flawless
perfection, a small trifle, a new innovation, on first entering, straight linear
movement, and general consensus. You can save yourself from such sol­
ecisms if you watch for them and use a dictionary whenever you're a
little hazy about the definition of a word you modify. The meaning
may include the qualification contributed by the adjective or adverb.
If you look up consensus, for example, you'll find that it means "gen­
eral agreement in opinion."
Redundancy, of course, does not reside exclusively in modifiers.
A banker with a decided flair for it refers to unprecedented interest rates
that set an all-time record, thanks stockholders who have generously as­
sisted us with their help, and reports that his institution has continued to
maintain success since the outset of our entry into the computer field. Redun­
dancy creeps into prose in such varied ways that there's no cut-and­
dried method of avoiding it, but look for it. Qualifying in phrases, for
example, always deserve a moment's thought. Writers commonly
lapse into such obviously superfluous expressions as green in color,
larger in size, twenty-four in number, handsome in appearance, and rectangu­
lar in shape.
You probably can't, and you undoubtedly shouldn't, eliminate all
modifiers, but you probably should delete all intensive adverbs-very,
really, truly, actually, and the like. If you've chosen the right word,
adding a very defeats your purpose. If you haven't got the right word,
16----------- - -
-LOOSE,
---'------
BAGGY SENTENCES

the very offers poor compensation. Readers pay no attention to this

overused word. If you want to put a very in front of a large, you should
consider substituting enormous, huge, gigantic, or massive. Stressed when
spoken, the intensive adverbs do accent the words they modify and
sometimes attach themselves even to absolute words-like complete,
unique, and pure-which, literally construed, have no degrees. In writ­
ing, however, they attenuate rather than strengthen. Consider really
terrific, absolutely stunning, truly sensational, extremely vital, and very devas­
tating. The adverbs reduce powerful adjectives to conversational gush,
depriving them of their stark force. Almost all writers succumb to
these trivializing intensives. Be on guard.
By the same token, don't use a strong word if you then feel com­
pelled to pull its punch with a restricting modifier. If you write that
someone was rather Ju rious, you can't mean much more than irritated
or at most angered, unless you're attempting humor; and something
you describe as fairly essential can't be much more than important.

Leaving Unsaid
Sometimes wordiness comes from spelling out what can go without
saying. For example, essays commonly begin something like In this
paper I will discuss three aspects of contemporary life that . ... If the writer
omitted the first six words and led with Three aspects of contemporary life
that ... , would the audience learn anything less? Wouldn't anyone
reading such a topic sentence know that the paper discusses those
aspects? A book review states, The third chapter of the book deals with
administralive problems and the solutions that have been proposed for these
problems, but The third chapter deals with administrative problems and pro­
posed solutions would provide as much information. If a review refers
to the third chapter, no one is going to wonder where that third chapter
is, and if solutions appears soon after problems the reader can't fail to
take "to these problems" for granted. Once you've described an
idea-say, that human beings should seek harmony with nature-you
can thereafter refer to it as "this theory" or "view" or "so-and-so's
argument," without adding the defining that clause with every men­
tion. And whenever you can use a pronoun to refer clearly to what
you've already named, do so. If you find the same words and phrases
recurring in a sentence or paragraph, ask yourself whether you're
telling readers what they already know. In the following excerpt,
from a bulletin for college teachers, the expendable words appear in
brackets:
[In the present paper I propose to deal with] one type of
interdisciplinary curriculum [which] can be built upon
material borrowed from related departments, whether or not
 the specialists [in these related departments] choose to teach
the interdisciplinary offerings [so constructed. By this
remark I am recognizing the fact that] occasionally a
generalist who does not hold a Ph.D. in any of the
specialized fields [that have made a contribution to the
construction of such interdisciplinary course offerings] may
be the one to [take on the responsibility for] teach[ing] the
courses [so constructed, rather than a specialist from one of
the contributing areas].

If you remove the needless words and adjust what's left, you can get
something like this:
One type of interdisciplinary curriculum borrows material
from the related departments without necessarily borrowing
their faculty members. In other words, occasionally a
generalist, without a Ph.D. in a contributing field, may teach
a course.

Trim sentences, like trim bodies, usually require far more effort
than flabby ones. But though striving toward a lean and graceful style
involves hard work, it can also be fun-like swimming or running.
Shaping an attractive sentence from a formless mass of words is a
copy editor's high. One author sent back his edited manuscript with
the comment, "You seem to have chiseled out a fairly decent essay
from the pile of material I sent you." The metaphor is apt. An Eskimo
carver selects a promising stone, studies it to see what figure it sug­
gests, then chips away at it to free the desired form; you can approach
your draft in much the same way. Or, if you don't fancy yourself a
sculptor, you can think of your draft as a puzzle; to solve it, you have
to find and eliminate the superfluities that obscure your meaning. The
object is to delete as many words as possible without sacrificing sub­
stance or nuance.
If you follow the steps recommended here-checking sentence
elements one by one, omitting the needless, replacing the weak-you
can't fail to improve your style. As you gain experience, the remedial
procedures will become largely routine. Moreover, your early drafts
will require fewer corrections. You'll be writing better sentences in
the first place. "Getting rid of superfluous words," Wilson Follett
says, "has an advantage commonly overlooked: the automatic sup­
pression of weaknesses that flourish in diffuse writing....Anyone
who will struggle to reduce [a] hundred words to fifty without losing
meaning will see looseness, inconsistency, and aberration vanish.''
 Sometimes a sentence fails to say what you mean because
• its elements don't make the proper connections. Then you
have to revise by shuffling the components around, juxta­
posing those that should link and separating those that
should not. To get your meaning across, you not only have to choose
the right words, you have to put them in the right order. Words in
disarray produce only nonsense:
Him stick with the before chased boy the that dog big had
the attacked.

Ordered, the same words can make several coherent statements:

The boy with the big stick attacked the dog that had chased
him before.
The big dog chased the boy that had attacked him with the
stick before.
Before, the big boy with the stick chased the dog that had
attacked him.
The boy that had chased the big dog before attacked him
with the stick.
The big dog chased the stick with the boy that had attacked
him before.

Anyone at home with an English sentence knows without think­

ing that the verb normally comes after the subject and before the
object and that modifiers usually go next to the elements they qualify.
When words aren't near the words they go with, they go with the

18
_PU_TT�IN_G�M_O_D_I_FIE_ _R__
S NI �THE�I_R_P_LA_C_E_S
� ����
� �����
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words they're near. So if you don't pu t your sentence components

where they belong, you risk confusing your readers or getting laughs
you didn't want. Take this sentence, for example:
Queen Elizabeth read the speech, which was handed to her
by the 71-year-old Lord Hailsham, the Lord Chancellor, with
the aid of half-moon glasses.
Imaginative readers might picture the lord chancellor handing the
queen a furled parchment balanced on a pair of spectacles. The writer
should have brought the queen and her glasses together:
With the aid of half-moon glasses, Queen Elizabeth read the
speech handed to her by ....
But not all faulty connections yield to simple transpositions.
Sometimes you have to reword. Consider this sentence:
We try to help clients interpret statistics with some
sophistication.
Are the clients to interpret rather sophisticated statistics or to inter­
pret statistics in a rather sophisticated way? The article that supplied
this example ultimately makes clear that the with phrase goes with
interpret, not statistics, but there seems no way to bring verb and
phrase closer together. A change to help clients interpret with some sophis­
tication statistics would scarcely sound like English, and a change to
help clients with some sophistication interpret statistics would alter the
meaning. In such circumstances you have to open up the sentence and
give yourself a little more room to say what you mean:
We try to help clients develop some sophistication in
interpreting statistics.
You can sometimes detect faulty connections in your writing by
reading aloud-a practice that can uncover a variety of problems by
forcing you to notice individual words that you might skip over in
reading silently. But the method is not foolproof, since your familiar­
ity with what you want to say may distort the way you hear your own
sentences. You have to train yourself to look at your sentences criti­
cally and objectively, and you have to know what to look for. This
chapter alerts you to the most common word-order problems and
suggests ways of solving them.

PUTIING MODIFIERS IN THEIR PLACES

When an adjective or adverb directly precedes the word it describes,

there's no mistaking the connection. Nor is there any problem with a
20������������������-AF _U_L_T_Y_C_O_N_N_E_CT IO_N�S
------'

modifying phrase or clause that directly follows the word it describes.

But a modifier in an unusual position may fall into the wrong com­
pany and form an unsuitable attachment. Though readers can usually
figure out what you mean, the momentary misreading can distract
them from the substance of what you're saying.

Adjectives
An adjective ordinarily goes before the word it modifies or after a
linking verb (e.g., seem, appear, or become) that ties it to the subject.
Occasionally, however, you may like the rhythm or force you get by
putting two or more adjectives after the noun they modify, as in She
was an able administrator, strong but tactful. This sort of variation is fine
provided that the adjectives directly follow the appropriate word. In
the following sentence, from a pamphlet on money management, the
adjectives have gone astray:
Since dealings with a custodian bank are usually in writing,
whether local or out of town, the only difference is a lag of
a few days.
It is, of course, the bank that is in or out of town, but the word order
suggests that the adjectives modify writing (the nearest noun) or, if
not, dealings (the more prominent of the earlier nouns). To revise, you
need only move the words around:
Since dealings with the cu stodian bank, whether local or out
of town, are usually in writing, the only difference is a lag of
a few days.
An adjective modifying the object of a verb expressing opinion
(e.g., consider, think, judge, or find) also comes after the word it qualifies,
as in He found the staff competent and J consider her work brilliant. But if the
modifier cannot follow the object directly, the sentence may be hard
to read. For example:
The superintendent of the Ossining Correctional Facility
found the community's desire to preserve part of the prison
amusing.
Amusing cannot follow desire, the word it modifies, because the infini­
tive phrase claims the same s pot; placed after found, it would seem to
take desire as its object (but even a nonverbal adjective-say, ironic­
would be disruptive in that position). So you would have to restruc­
ture the sentence:
The superintendent of the Ossining Correctional Facility was
amused by the community's desire to preserve part of the
prison.
_PU_Tr�IN_G�M_O_D_I_FI_E_RS�IN�TH�EI_R_P _LA_C_E_S �������������-21

Or:
The superintendent ... found it amusing that the
community wanted to preserve part of the prison.

Sometimes, you may choose to stress an adjective by putting it

first in the sentence and setting it off by a comma. Despondent, the boy
left the room has a force you don't get with The despondent boy left the
room. An adjective in this position ordinarily modifies the subject of
the sentence. Readers will almost always make that connection
whether or not you intend it, so be sure to match logic and syntax.
Carelessness on this score can produce some bizarre results:
Lightweight and packable, Mom will find thi s comfortable,
flatteri ng robe indispensable for traveling.

If the adjectives in the example must retain their initial emphatic

position, the sentence could read:
Lightweight and packable, this comfortable, flattering robe
will delight Mom a nd prove indispensable for traveling.

But some might prefer a less frenetic approach:

Mom will find thi s lightweight, packable robe comfortable,
flattering, and indispen sable for traveling.

Occasionally an introductory adjective modifies not the subject of

the sentence but the sentence as a whole. In More important, she finished
ahead of schedule, for example, the meaning is "What is more impor­
tant is that she finished .... " The opening adjective phrase might be
considered an aside, tacked onto the sentence rather like an absolute
expression (a noun and a modifying participle having no grammatical
connection with any other part of the sentence-e.g., God willing, all
things being equal, weather permitting). You can use a self-contained sen­
tence modifier of this sort if there's no ambiguity, but be careful that
it doesn't seem to describe the subject. This sentence, from an article
on the exploitation of part-time faculty members, permits misreading:
More subtle but equally important, part-time teachers are
stripped of their professional identities.

To avoid implying that the part-time teachers are more subtle than
their full-time colleagues, you could give the adjectives a specific
noun to modify:
This practice has another effect, more subtle but equally
important: part-time teachers are....

Perhaps you have been thinking that a sentence modifier like

More important should be More importantly. Many writers do use the
 FAULTY CONNECTIONS

adverbial form, and in some apparently analogous sentences an open­

ing adjective would jar. No one would write, for example, Significant,
she finished ahead of schedule instead of Significantly, she finished ahead of
schedule. Here, in fact, we seem to be dealing more with idiom than
with logic or grammar. Idiom, the normal pattern of the language,
sometimes runs counter to both grammar and logic, but it must pre­
vail. A construction that sounds wrong to the educated ear works
against you, even though it's arguably correct. Either an adjective or
an adverb can modify a sentence as a whole, and if the particular
form that comes naturally causes no confusion, let it be-unless you
want to consider leaving it out. Writers on style have little to say
about this adjective-versus-adverb question, perhaps because there is
no hard-and-fast rule, perhaps also because such sentence modifiers
are often expendable. If what you write seems important or interest­
ing, you don't have to say that it is. And if it doesn't seem important
or interesting, saying that it is won't help. "Being told that something
is interesting," William Zinsser says, "[tempts] the reader to find it
dull.''

Adverbs
Out-of-order adverbs are as common as out-of-order adjectives are
rare. A little learning, they say, is a dangerous thing, and a vague
malaise about splitting infinitives, the to forms of verbs, apparently
accounts for a great many oddly placed adverbs. The rule, first of all,
only proscribes an adverb after the to in a two-word infinitive (to be, to
do, to think); in a passive or past infinitive-as well as in any other verb
phrase that ends with a past participle-theed form of a regular verb,
the adverb usually belongs before the participle (to have sorely needed, to
be wholly satisfied, lo have been poorly represented; has always wanted, had
been justly accused). And, second, the rule is not sacrosanct. Most ac­
complished writers respect the integrity of an infinitive-but not at
any cost.
The following sentence includes a split infinitive that careful styl­
ists would avoid and another that they would accept, at least if the
only alternative were to transpose the adverb:
To properly assess the situation, you have to carefully weigh
planned improvements against anticipated results.

Putting properly after situation improves the sentence, but if you take
carefully out of the infinitive, where can you put it? It modifies weigh.
Placed after the infinitive, it would seem to modify planned; before the
to, it would sound unnatural; after improvements, it would separate
word groups that belong together; and at the end of the sentence, it
PUTTING MODIFIERS IN THEIR _PL_A_CE_S______________ 23

would be too remote from the verb it modifies. Although a split in­
finitive is preferable to artificiality or ambiguity, you can often avoid
all three evils by omitting the adverb or rewording the sentence. In
the last example you could easily do without carefully-weighing one
thing against another implies taking care-but if you wanted to keep
it, you could substitute must for have to.
If you place adverbs by ear, you will usually put them where they
belong. Anyone who writes We have developed recently a plan or They
have completed just a suroey is either unfamiliar with the sound of Eng­
lish or mistaken about the propriety of splitting compound verbs. No
native speaker says They plan,ied recently their budget or We checked care­
fully our records. In a conventionally ordered sentence, an adverb
modifying a one-word verb ordinarily goes between the subject and
the verb, not between the verb and the object; but it may sometimes
follow the object if it remains near the verb. When there is no object,
the adverb may precede or follow the verb, as the desired emphasis
dictates. An adverb modifying a verb phrase goes after the first word
in the phrase (was extremely surprised, has often been said, would certainly
have asked) unless, in verb phrases of three or more words, it modifies
only the participle (had been justly accused, would have been officially ruled).
You usually know instinctively when to put the adverb before the
participle, and when you can't be sure, the position probably makes
no difference. But H. W. Fowler does offer a helpful hint: Ask
whether the adverb and participle naturally suggest a corresponding
adjective and noun; if they do, keep them together. Applying this test
to the preceding examples, you get just accusation and official rule but
can find no adjective and noun equivalents for either often and said or
certainly and asked.
Although adverbs generally fall into their proper places automati­
cally, they sometimes occur in ambiguous circumstances. Since they
can grammatically modify not only verbs but verbals, adjectives, ad­
verbs, and whole sentences, they have many opportunities to form
misalliances. An adverb placed between rivals for its attention makes
readers hesitate, and it may genuinely puzzle them if the context fails
to elucidate. For example:
Critics have raised doubts about attempts to interpret
Kleist's response precisely because his skeptical statements
obscure his thoughts.

Following an infinitive and preceding an adverbial clause, precisely can

modify either. Are the attempts to interpret precisely, or are the
doubts precisely because? If precisely should modify interpret, you
might consider putting it before or after that word, but it would either
split the infinitive or disrupt the sentence flow-awkward solutions
24 ---------------------------
FAULTY CONNECTIONS

best avo ided. Reversing the order of the main and subordinate clauses
proves more satisfactory. By putting the subordinate clause first, you
automatically separate the competing terms that sandwiched precisely
in the first version:

Because Kleist's skeptical statements obscure his thoughts,

critics have raised doubts about attempts to interpret his
response precisely.

This transposition also works if precisely modifies the because clause:

It is precisely because Kleist's skeptical statements obscure

his thoughts that critics have raised doubts about
interpreting his response.

When you have trouble placing an adverb, don't forget the option
of omitting it. Writers tend to use more modifiers than they need, and
an adverb that's hard to fit in may also be expendable. You could, for
example, do without the ambiguous adverb in The union leaders recom.
mend strongly demanding a new wage policy. If strongly modifies demanding,
the sentence has no room for it and would profit from its loss. A
strong word like demanding functions better without an adverbial
boost.
Of course, not all problem adverbs are dispensable. Consider this
sp arse sentence:

Writing simply is not degrading.

Since this example comes from an article on the virtues of writing

simply, readers would doubtless understand that the adverb means
0
"in an uncomplicated manner and qualifies writing. But without a
clarifying context, the sentence would be ambiguous: simply might
mean "really" and modify the predicate. A change to simply writing
would give simply the sense of "merely," and a change to simple writing
would make the gerund mean "a piece of writing" instead of "the act
of writing." Running out of options, you can't simply delete simply; it's
the point of the sentence. You have to reword:

It is not degrading to write simply.

When you read your writing, watch for Janus-faced adverbs like
those in the following examples. The suggested revisions-by no
means the only ones possible-show alternative interpretations:

Their willingness to work constantly amazed me.

I constantly marveled at their willingness to work.
� Their willing and constant labor amazed me.
---------------------------
PUTTING MODIFIERS IN THEIR PLACES 25

What you do primarily determines what you are.

• What you primarily do determines what you are.
• Your activities primarily determine what you are.
That interest rates had declined somewhat eased my mind .
..1. The slight decrease in interest rates eased my mind.
,,. That interest rates had declined made me feel somewhat
easier.

You have to revise such sentences to make sure that others will read
them as you do. All the corrections involve some rewording, often the
substitution of a noun for one of the two verb forms that vie for the
adverb's attention in the original version. This technique, in effect,
disqualifies one of the candidates, since adverbs cannot modify
nouns.
Four adverbs merit individual treatment because their placement
entails special considerations: also, only, not, and however. Although
much of the discussion applies as well to analogous words Like too,
just, and moreover, these four cause the most trouble.
Also, though nominally an adverb, seems capable of playing other
roles. In Women, and also men, are facing new challenges, for example, its
adverbial function is not immediately clear. George 0. Curme calls
also, not, and only "distinguishing adverbs," which "have the peculiar­
ity that ... they can direct attention not only to the verb and thus to
the sentence as a whole, but also to any person or thing that becomes
prominent in the situation as a whole." Whatever the grammatical
complexities, also-meaning "in addition" -can attach itself to a vari­
ety of sentence elements, so that you have to place it carefully to
avoid false connections. What element is "in addition" in the follow­
ing sentence?
I also think he is lying about where he was that night.

Do you give the same answer when you read that sentence as the
second of a pair?
She doesn't believe the defendant's alibi for the night of the
murder. I also think he is lying about where he was that
night.
I think he hated her enough to kill her. I also think he is
lying about where he was that night.
The defendant lied about his previous marriage. 1 also think
he is lying about where he was that night.

These examples should demonstrate that also in the normal adverbial

position can sometimes seem to modify one sentence element and
sometimes another, the interpretation varying with the context.
26�������������������FA_U_L_T_Y_C_O_NN�E_Cf
IO�NS
�

Strictly speaking, the also belongs before think only when the sentence
states an additional thought, as in the second example. Substituting
too for also would more dearly convey the sense intended in the first
example, and in the last example also belongs between is and lying.
Theoretically at least, the placement of only affects the meaning of
a sentence, just as the placement of also does. But in practice I only
want one, I want one only, and I want only one all have the same meaning,
despite differences in rhythm and emphasis. Although you may have
learned that only should always directly precede the word it modifies,
most contemporary writers on style qualify that rule, pointing out
that sentences like these sound stilted and unnatural:
Maybe millions of people go by, but I have eyes for only
you.
And where it will all end only God knows.
Jn each of the examples you expect to find only where the adverb
usually goes, before the verb, and the unnatural placement impedes
the reading. You cannot mistake the meaning of a sentence like In a
money market account you are only allowed to write three checks a month or
Your costs may be higher if you only deal with local suppliers, and only would
less effectively signal a qualification if it appeared later. So when only
falls into its idiomatic place without causing ambiguity, let it stand.
But "without causing ambiguity" is an important qualification.
You can sometimes muddle a sentence by putting only before the verb
instead of before the word it modifies. If, for example, you write that
The committee only seemed interested in their proposal, readers won't neces­
sarily understand "seemed interested only in their proposal." Perhaps
the committee was only feigning interest. Again, if you write We are
only ordering metal desks because they are more durable than wooden ones,
readers may think you're ordering only one type of furniture when
you mean you're ordering it for only one reason. So take care with
your onlys. If you've learned that only must precede the word it modi­
fies, make sure that your only sentences don't sound artificial. If
you've only been doing what comes naturally with only, watch out for
ambiguity.
Like only, the adverb not does not always belong where it naturally
falls. Force of habit often induces writers to put not before the verb
even when the negative applies to a different sentence element. The
problem usually arises in two kinds of sentences. One type follows
this pattern:
All municipal bonds do not have the same rating.
All forecasters do not agree that the unemployment figures
will decline.
All stories cannot end happily.
PUTTING MODIFIERS IN THEIR PLACES
---------------------- 27

Each of these sentences seems to be saying something negati�e about

an entire group when it means to point out a distinction within the
group. Precisely worded, the examples would read:
Not all municipal bonds have the same rating.
Not all forecasters agree that the unemployment figures will
decline.
Not all stories can end happily.

Still, Shakespeare could observe, echoing a proverb, that "all that

glisters is not gold," and the illogically placed not has persisted (All is
nof lost). But the alternative not all wording isn't unidiomatic-it
doesn't offend the ear-and it has the virtue of sweet reason. In revis­
ing, then, watch for sentences in which entire groups are the subjects
of negative verbs. If you find any, move the not from the predicate to
the subject, as in the preceding examples, unless, of course, the nega­
tive does apply to the whole group. Even then you may discover that
recasting the sentence with a positive verb produices a clear statement.
In the following three versions of the same example, the one with the
negative predicate seems least satisfactory:
All my colleagues will not vote in the next election.
All my colleagues will abstain from voting in the next
election.
None of my colleagues will vote in the next c�lection,
The second common misplacement of nof-traceable, like the
first, to the compulsion of idiom-occurs in ,wt-but sentences: the
adverb precedes the verb but applies only to what follows the verb.
As originally drafted, the last sentence unintentfonally illustrated this
error: ... when the adverb does not modify the verb but what follows. Had the
slip gone uncorrected, the sentence would have lacked a positive verb
to govern the clause after but. A simple adjustment usually solves the
problem: when the adverb modifies not the verb but what follows. Because a
not-but pattern emphasizes what is, not what isn't, the preceding verb
must be positive; the negative belongs to a subordinate part of the
sentence. Even conscientious writers sometimes misplace not in this
type of sentence; the error comes so naturally, in fact, that you should
routinely check for it. You can't miss it if you make a practice of
reading the verb with the part of the sentence that follows but. Try
this test, for instance, on Do not do as I do but as 1 say, and you will
quickly revise to Do as 1 say, not as 1 do. If you want to keep the
negative verb in this sort of sentence, you have to supply a positive
one as well: Do not do as I do, but do as 1 say.
However, the final adverb singled out for special attention, differs
in kind from those we have been discussing. As a pure adverb, mean­
ing "to whatever degree," it modifies other modifiers and invariably
 _ T
_ L
28�������������������FAU _ Y _ 0
_ C _ N
_ N _ E _ I0
_ CT � N
_ �S

appears in its proper place (as in However brave the knight, he will quake
before the drago11 or However valiantly he fights, the beast will prevail). More
often, though, however has a connective or transitional function. When
it means "but" or "in spite of that," grammarians call it a conjunctive
adverb, and in that role it can be hard to place. Because it highlights
what precedes, it should follow the element that contrasts with some­
thing stated previously, as in these sentences:

The Class of 1949 gave the most money; the Class of 1955,
however, had the largest percentage of contributors.
Pauline Kael heaped extravagant praise on Last Tango in
Paris; Vincent Canby, however, was far less enthusiastic.
We might consider a compromise; we will not, however,
accept the proposal as is.

Problems arise when the contrasting element is long and difficult to

interrupt. Then however may come too late to serve as a signpost:

The knights who assembled at the Round Table to discuss

what measures to take against the dragon could not,
however, devise a plan.

Or it may come too early and emphasize the wrong word:

They, however, expected the fire-breathing monster to

destroy the kingdom if they did not continually supply him
with maidens.

You may think-and many would agree-that you can avoid such
problems by putting however first in the sentence. Or did you learn tn
your school days never to do that? Some teachers used to argue that a
conjunctive however, since it stresses what precedes, has no business
coming first in the sentence. But Theodore Bernstein contends that an
initial however points to a contrast between the two sentences it sepa­
rates and that signaling the contrast at the outset has its advantages.
"Incidentally," he adds, "if your elementary school teacher told you
never to begin a sentence with however, forget it."
While the 1982 edition of the American Heritage Dictionary reports
that an opening however ''is now generally considered ... acceptable,"
it also acknowledges that "some grammarians have ruled to the con­
trary." Jacques Barron, for one, recommends keeping set transitional
words like however to a minimum and making them as unobtrusive as
possible by burying them inside sentences. "For my part," he writes,
"however is a forbidden word, the sign of a weakness in thought. I use
it once in a great while, when I cannot get rid of neighboring hut's and
do not want to add one more."
---------------------
PUTTING MODIHERS IN THEIR PLACES 29

Though you need not consider however a taboo, you should guard
against the common tendency to overwork it, particularly as a sen­
tence opener. In revising your work, think twice about every however
you use. It is in the right place? Would a different word be better? An
internal however is less ostentatious than an initial one, and an alterna­
tive like but or yet usually provides a smoother transition. Occasion­
ally, however, you may want to begin with however to mark an em­
phatic contrast between ideas, and it's always better to put it first than
to force it inside a sentence that has no room for it.

Verbal Phrases
Participles, verb forms ending in ing or ed (except for the irregular
verbs) and functioning as adjectives, have a well-known tendency to
escape the bonds of syntax, to detach themselves from the elements
they should qualify. In other words, they dangle. The most notorious
dangler is the introductory participle that does not describe the sub­
ject of a conventional sentence.
Rhetoric handbooks usually have ludicrous examples of this infa­
mous error, such as Driving along the highway, a deer leaped in front of the
car or Laughing and singing around the campfire, the weenies roasted and the
popcorn crackled. The mistakes are hard to miss and easy to fix. You
either convert the participial phrase to a clause (As we drove along the
highway, a deer leaped in front of the car) or make the subject of the
sentence the word the participle logically modifies (Laughing and sing­
ing around the campfire, the children enjoyed the sounds and smells of roasting
weenies and crackling popcorn).
But unattached opening participles, however simple to detect and
avoid, continue to flourish in real life. A cook-ahead cookbook intro­
duces its recipe for canard a l'orange with this sentence:
Roasted to perfection, carved, and reheated in orange sauce,
you can serve this duck to the boss.

Failing to bring duck and sauce together, the writer ends up with a
mutilated cook. Revised, the sentence could read:
Roasted to perfection, carved, and reheated in orange sauce,
this duck is elegant enough to serve to the boss.

A college admissions officer, writing to a prospective applicant, pro­

vides another example:
Having thus expressed a direct interest in [our college J, we
have enclosed the materials you requested along with an
application form.
 FAULTY CONNECTIONS
30 ----------------------

Clearly the sentence should read:

Since you have expressed an interest in [our college], we are
sending you an application form along with the materials
you requested.
And here's an example from a major metropolitan newspaper:
Biased on information supplied by the victim's brother, the
police in Nevada are searching for the body in the same
area where the suspect is being sought.
The police, whether based in Reno or Las Vegas, cannot be based on
informa1tion; based on does not yet rank among the participles that
have turned into prepositions or adverbs and no longer need modify
nouns 0tr pronouns. A number of participles have shed their exclusive
adjectival status and evolved into prepositions, parts of prepositions,
phrases, conjunctions, or adverbial sentence modifiers (e.g., speaking
of, provijded that, granted that, regarding, and according to); others may be
traveling in that direction but have not yet established themselves
beyond question (e.g., assuming, admitting, and acknowledging). If you
don't know whether or not a participle has undergone this metamor­
phosis, play it safe, or check its part-of-speech label in the dictionary.
Based remains a participle-a dangling participle in the last example.
You could revise by substituting a participle to fit the subject:
Acting on information supplied by the victim's brother, the
police ....
A dangling participle can occur anywhere in a sentence, not only
at the beginning. When it comes at the end, it may have more than
one word to modify. It clearly relates to the subject if no intervening
word lrnres it away, as in Many actors feel nervous when performing in the
presence of the president, but in a sentence like Many actors feel nervous in
the presence of the president when performing, readers can't be sure who's
performing. In looking for unattached participial phrases, don't be
thrown off by a subordinating conjunction like when, if, or while that
precedes the participle. You can consider a phrase like when performing
an elliptical clause, a sequence of words in which a subject and verb
are "understood" rather than expressed, but the phrase still needs an
anchor. It must, in fact, modify the word that should be understood as
its subject. If that relation is not clear, you can always convert the
phrase to a clause: when they are performing or when he is performing.
In the next example, from an advisory pamphlet for investors, the
problem arises not because the closing participle can modify either of
two nouns but because it has nothing to modify:
Individual issues in the portfolio should be ignored when
reviewing performance.
 __,I_N_T_H_E_IR�PL_A_C�E _S������������-31
_PU_lT�IN_G�M_O_D_I _FI_ER_S

Since re;oiewing cannot sensibly modify either issues or portfolio, you

have to ask who is reviewing and supply an answer. Here are two
solutions:
v\lhen reviewing performance, you should ignore individual
is:sues in the portfolio.
You should ignore ... portfolio when you review
performance.
A closing participial phrase usually either limits the meaning of
the immediately preceding noun or describes, without limiting, the
subject of the sentence. When the participle follows the noun directly,
without intervening punctuation, readers generally take it as a defin­
ing,. or restrictive, modifier of the preceding word. For example:
The
r
brochure lists the plays scheduled for next season.
( he participle modifies plays, identifying them as the ones
scheduled for next season.)
When a closing participle follows a comma, as in the preceding par­
enthetical sentence, readers ordinarily interpret it as modifying, but
not restricting, the subject of the sentence. For example:
The shipping department mailed the brochures yesterday,
working overtime to meet the deadline. (fhe dosing
participle modifies the subject, deparfmenf. without limiting or
defining it.)
If a dosing participle conforms to neither of these patterns, readers
may not: immediately see what it modifies. Sentences like these are
ambiguous:
Y..le have often seen celebrities waiting in line to buy tickets.
A giant supermarket will open in the new shopping plaza,
d1rawing customers from a fifteen-mile radius.
You can clear up the confusion by converting the closing participial
phrase to the appropriate clause (when we were waifing ... , or which
draws customers).
Hen:', finally, is a dangler in the middle of the sentence:
S,uch celebrities should be studied seriously, based on full
iI1lformation and guided by good judgment, instead of being
left to the idolatrous worship of the marketplace.
Presum,tbly the study of the celebrities should be b ased and guided,
but sinc1e the sentence includes no noun, such as study, for these par­
ticiples to modify, readers misattach them and stumble over the illog­
icality oJf celebrities studied, based, and guided. You might revise this
way:
 FAULTY CONNECTIONS

Such celebrities should not be left to the idolatrous worship

of the marketplace but should be given serious study based
on full information and guided by good judgment.
While participles are the verbals most often found dangling or
forming improper alliances, some gerund and infinitive phrases have
similar problems. A gerund, the ing verb form used as a noun, obvi­
ously cannot be a modifier, dangling or otherwise; in itselfI it serves
as a subject, object, or complement. But it can be part of a preposi­
tional phrase that needs something to modify. Such a phrase poses no
problem if the subject of the clause in which it appears is also the
understood "subject" of the gerund (the person or thing performing
its action), as in the first of the following examples, or if a possessive
noun or pronoun precedes the gerund and indicates a different sub­
ject, as in the second example:
In running a large office, an administrator must be willing to
delegate authority.
In her running of the office, I saw little to criticize.
In contrast, the opening phrases in the next pair of sentences attach
themselves incorrectly to the subjects of their clauses:
In running a large office, a willingness to delegate authority
is essential.
In running the office, I could find little fauJt with her.
Two other examples, accompanied by revisions, show that misat­
tached preposition-gerund phrases can occur anywhere in a sentence:
Our consultants felt that, instead of cutting back production,
new markets should be developed.
a Our consultants felt that, instead of cutting back production,
we shouJd develop new markets.
Customers have been lost by taking them for granted.
• We have lost customers by taking them for granted.
• Customers have been lost by our taking them for granted.
A modifying infinitive-one in which the to has the sense of "in
order to"-may also make the wrong connection if its understood
subject is not the same as the subject of the clause in which it appears.
A few illustrations should be enough to clarify the problem, since it is
the same one that occurs with preposition-gerund phrases. In each of
the following examples the infinitive has nothing to modify, and the
revision suggests a solution:
To succeed in this business, opportunities must be sought
out and promptly acted on.
• To succeed in this business, one must seek out opportunities
and act on them promptly.
PUTTING MODIFIERS IN THEIR PLACES

Hard work is not enough to succeed in this business.

• Hard work is not enough to ensure success in this business.

The trainees were praised to help build their confidence.

We praised the trainees to help build their confidence.

Infinitives and gerunds that are themselves subjects, objects, or

complements obviously need not have understood subjects that
match the subjects of their clauses. Berkeley's "To be is to be per­
ceived" is flawless, at least in its grammar, and so are Swimming is fun
and I enjoy dancing. Nor does the rule hold for adjectival infinitives or
preposition-gerund phrases that directly follow the words they mod­
ify. There's nothing wrong, for example, with The doctor gave a lecture
on keeping fit and suggested ways to stop smoking.
Fortunately, verbals are easier to use correctly than to discuss.
Most of them cause no trouble and require no attention, and once you
recognize the sort that can go astray, spotting errors becomes almost
instinctive. Just make sure that the verbal phrases you use as modifi­
ers, not as nouns, have appropriate words to modify. In reading criti­
cally, illogicalities will become obvious and can be readily corrected
by applying standard remedies. But if you didn't notice the errors in
the last sentence, you still need practice.

Appositive and Contrasting Phrases

An appositive phrase restates, and thus clarifies or defines, the term
next to it. Both elements denote the same person or thing. In General
Motors, the giant of the automotive industry, recently recorded impressive prof­
its, the appositive giant phrase identifies General Motors. By definition,
an appositive adjoins the noun or pronoun it applies to, but some­
times other words intervene, breaking the connection. While such
slips rarely confuse, the imprecision makes a poor impression. Often
the writer begins a sentence with the appositive, using it as a catchy
opener, but fails to make the synonymous term the subject:
One of the most rewarding and trouble-free house plants, I
feel that hoya belongs in every indoor garden.

If the writer could have parted with the humble I feel that, all would
have been well. Although such phrases are common, you rarely need
them to distinguish opinion from fact. But if you insist on I feel in such
a sentence, either move it out of the way or eliminate the appositive
construction:

One of the most rewarding and trouble-free house plants,

hoya, l feel, belongs in every indoor garden.
34������������������F_A_U_L_TY�C_ O_N_N_E_Cf_l_ O_N_S

Or:
I feel that hoya belongs in every indoor garden, for it is one
of the most rewarding and trouble-free house plants.
The following sentence illustrates an even more common error in
the use of appositives:
A resident of Middletown since boyhood, Trent's interest in
antiquities dates back to his senior year in high school.
In the earlier example the appositive and its principal are not adja­
cent. Here, strictly speaking, the appositive has no principal. Terms in
apposition should be grammatically equivalent, and no element in the
sentence equates with resident. Interest, the noun nearest the apposi­
tive, clearly doesn't qualify. We know, of course, that Trent and resi­
dent denote the same person, but the sentence provides Trent's, not
Trent. Since a possessive modifies a noun, thus acting as an adjective,
it cannot also function as a noun and anchor an appositive or adjec­
tive phrase. Failure to recognize this rule of grammar accounts for
many opening danglers, not only dangling appositives but dangling
verbal phrases as well (Listening to the melancholy music, my eyes filled with
tears; To be eligible for the race, your application must be filed by 15 July).
Recast logically, the sentence about Trent might read:
A resident of Middletown since boyhood, Trent became
interested in antiquities during his senior year in high
school.
Some appositive constructions leave readers in doubt about
which terms go together. Be sure that no word intervening between a
noun and its appositive invites a mismatch. For example:
The association endorses the candidacy of the first man to
challenge the unfair policies of the incumbent-a civic
leader well known to all of us, John Milner.
Reversing the order of principal and appositive would prevent the
faulty pairing of incumbent and leader:
... candidacy of John Milner, a civic leader well known to
all of us and the first man to challenge the unfair policies of
the incumbent.
A contrasting phrase, like an appositive one, should follow the
word it applies to. Some grammarians, in fact, call such a phrase a
negative appositive. In the following sentence the antithetical element
is in the wrong place:
Although government has usurped some parental
responsibilities, at heart it is still parents who are obligated
to care for children, not someone else.
PUITING MODIFIERS IN THEIR PLACES
- - - - -
--
- -----------
- -- 35

Because the not someone else is not where it belongs, after parents, the
sentence seems to say that parents must care for their children and
not for someone else. Perhaps the writer settled for this imprecise
word order because the plural are seemed awkward in the sequence it
is still p�irents, not someone else, who are obligated. But you shouldn't have
to avoid one problem by introducing another. Instead of allowing the
contrasting phrase to make an improper connection, the writer could
have recast it as a plural:
... at heart it is still parents, not state agencies, who are
obligated to care for children.

Prepositional Phrases
Preposit:ional phrases-units consisting of words like af, b y, in, and
with and their objects-will probably figure in most of the faulty
sequences you discover in your writing. Since they can modify nouns,
pronouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives, they usually latch onto
whatever precedes, and they lend themselves readily to different in­
terpretations. So keep a sharp eye out for problems.
The blunders that get into print are sometimes so blatant that it is
difficult to understand how they escaped notice. For example, a bro­
chure from a Nova Scotia resort, attempting to lure vacationing an­
glers, offers sea trout in tidal rivers without need of guides or boats. But
your own lapses may be more subtle and harder to detect, since you
read over your sentences with the inflection and emphasis that bring
out the meaning you intend. You may have to put yourself in some­
one els•�'s place before you can recognize the alternative ways of
combinilng elements.
With phrases are among the most troublesome, because with can
either have one of several specific meanings (e.g., "accompanied by,"
"by me.ans of," or "having") or serve as a vague connective, a means
of tacki:ng on supplementary information that has no precise relation
to the other sentence elements. (The with entry in Webster's Third New
International Dictionary takes up more than a column of fine print.)
How do you interpret with in this sentence?
The radio's precision controls let you zero in on weak
signals with a minimum of backgroWld noise.

The with phrase seems to go with signals, but presumably the writer is
not defining weak signals as those with the least background noise. If
the with modifies the verb zero, it's hard to know what the preposition
means: zero in on signals with a minimum of background noise doesn't fit
the pattern of "beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom" or
36�����--�������������FA�U_TL _Y�C_O_N_NE�cr�rO_N_S

"'endure hardship with patience and fortitude." The sentence needs

more precision control to help readers zero in on the message:
The radio's precision controls zero in on weak signals and
minimize background noise.

The next example gives some baffling investment advice:

Owning stocks in a period of declining prices carries the
risk of losing large amounts of money with the reward of
losing little or no money.

Perhaps the with phrase modifies risk-"carries the risk that has the
reward"-but readers do not readily make that connection when
amounts and money are closer at hand. Changing with to and and adding
potential before reward would improve the sentence; you can, in fact,
correct most with problems by substituting connectives less open to
misinterpretation-if not and, then something more specific, such as
because of or when.
Like with, for has a variety of definitions and adapts easily to the
nearest convenient word. Make sure that the word at hand is appro­
priate. In the following examples, one from a news story and the
other from a letter of application, the for phrases make the wrong
connections and, as the revisions show, putting them right involves
rewording or rearranging:
The Reagans attended the Joffrey BaHet Saturday to see their
son dance professionally for the first time.
• Attending the Joffrey Ballet Saturday, the Reagans had their
first opportunity to see their son dance professionally.
l recently prepared a report on the psychic rewards of
working for the personnel department.
• I recently prepared a report for the personnel department on
the psychic rewards of working.

By is another commonly misrelated preposition that attaches itself

readily to different types of words. You may have to edit out a by
phrase if you can't put it immediately after the word it modifies. For
example:
The law was formulated in 1662 on the basis of Boyle's
measurements by his disciple, Richard Townley.
• Using Boyle's measurements, his disciple, Richard Townley,
formulated the law in 1662.
The Romantic fascination with history led to the
replacement of the quest for a universal grammar by a
modem historical philology.
 N�T_H_E_IR�PLA�CE�5��������������37
_PU_TT�I_N_G_M_O�D_lF_l£_R_S_I

• Reflecting the Romantic fascination with history, modern

historical philology replaced the quest for a universal
girammar.

As the rev isions show, you can sometimes eliminate a placement

problem by omitting needless words. In other circumstances the best
solution may be to break the sentence in two. For example:
An Amtrak employee who worked the midnight shift in the
railroad's nearly deserted electrical substation near
Pennsylvania Station was found shot dead early yesterday
by a fellow worker.
• An Amtrak employee ... near Pennsylvania Station was
shot dead last night. A fellow worker found the body early
this morning.

Although the preceding examples all inv olve prepositional

phrases that follow the wrong elements, phrases that begin sentences
can also cause trouble. Always ask what an initial phrase modifies. If
the answer is a noun or a pronoun, the phrase functions as an adjec­
tive, and in a conventional sentence the word it modifies must be the
subject. The rule here is the same as the one governing introductory
participlles. In the following quotation the error seems obvious:
Miss Fallaci says that the dream of her life has always been
to write novels. At the age of 16, her uncle, who was a
journalist, advised her, "First you have to live, then you will
write."

The second sentence in the example should, of course, have begun

When she was 16. Although the reader quickly figures out that the
uncle was not the adolescent, the incongruity causes a moment's
pause, and the reader who hesitates may be lost to the author. "The
man snoozing in his chair with an unfinished magazine on his lap is a
man who was being given too much unnecessary trouble by the
writer," says William Zinsser, who claims that the average reader has
an attention span of about twenty seconds.
Wakh especially for dangling opening phrases introduced by as,
like, unli:ke, and other prepositions that should compare, contrast, or
group tlneir objects with analogous elements. When such words are
not in a position to relate corresponding terms, they produce illogical
statements. For example:
As a key person in your organization, we are taking the
liberty of sending you a press release describing our
p rogram for the coming year.

When ,ls means "in the capacity of," its object should be a word
synonymous with the word the phrase modifies. Here As a key person
 F _U_L_TY�C_O_N_NE�Cfl�O_N_S
38������������������-A

is too far from the you it belongs with, but changing the opening
phrase is easier than making you the subject of the sentence:
Since you are a key person in your organization, we
are ....
Or:
Recognizing that you are a key person in your organization,
we are taking.. . .

Here's another example:

As associate editor, my responsibilities included correcting
manuscripts and proofs and laying out pages.

As an applicant for an editorial position, the writer would have fared

better had he written:
As associate editor, I was responsible ....

In the next example the opening unlike phrase lacks an anchor:

Unlike most industrial companies, all of a bank's assets and
liabilities other than premises and equipment, trading
account securities, and other real estate are monetary in
nature.

Since it is the bank, not its assets, that differs from industrial compa­
nies, the sentence should have read:
Unlike most industrial companies, a bank holds only
monetary assets and liabilities, except for its equipment and
premises, its other real estate, and its trading account
securities.

The last two examples again illustrate the common error of attaching
adjective or appositive phrases to possessive forms. Since the posses­
sives themselves are adjectives, you cannot grammatically use adjec­
tives to modify them.
When a prepositional phrase in the like-unlike category follows a
negative verb, always check to see that the sentence says what it
means. Logic may dictate rewording. For example:
Men have not traditionally depended on others for their
support, like women.

Although the wording may suggest that both men and women were
traditionally self-supporting, the writer doubtless meant:

Unlike women, men have not traditionally depended on

others for their support.
 H _IR�E PL_A_C_E_S�������������39
_PU_TT�IN_G�M_O_D_I_fl_ER_S_l_N_T__

Here's one more example:

Utility shares are not popular with investors in today's
market, like low-growth stocks in past periods of recovery.

Can you tell whether low-growth stocks were or were not popular in
past periods of recovery? The ambiguity disappears when you place
the phrase before the negative statement:
Like low-growth stocks in past periods of recovery, utility
shares are not popular with investors in today's market.

In addition to as, like, and unlike, the prepositions in addition to,

except, including, excluding, among, and as well as, among others that
usually introduce adjective phrases, should link their objects to com­
parable terms. In the following sentence the among phrase does not
make the proper attachment:
I enclose my resume, which among other qualifications
details my professional training and editorial experience.

To group qualifications with the compatible words training and experi­

ence, you could move the phrase to the other side of details:
... which details, among other qualifications, my
professional training and editorial experience.

Or, to avoid the break between verb and object, you could opt for a
simpler version:
... which details my professional training, editorial
experience, and other qualifications.

Having got that far, you might decide to enclose a detailed resume and
do without the which clause. Prospective employers, after all, know
what sort of information a resume includes.
Another job seeker provided this example:
As editorial coordinator, I edited all feature articles and
wrote substantial portions of the news, in addition to the
other responsibilities listed in my resume.

The applicant's other responsibilities were not in addition to substan­

tial portions of the news. In fact, no word in the sentence parallels
responsibilities. In addition to needs a verbal object, a gerund, that can
coordinate with the verbs edited and wrote:
As editorial coordinator, I edited all feature articles and
wrote substantial portions of the news, in addition to
carrying out the other responsibilites listed in my resume.
40������������������-FA_U_L_ T_Y_C_O_N_ N_ E_cn�o_N_S

The next example comes from what must have been a hastily
written news bulletin:
The suspects are being questioned by the police, except the
one that was killed.
The exception, of course, is the dead suspect, whom the police are not
questioning, not a dead policeman, who is asking no questions. The
ercept is in the wrong place, but it doesn't deserve any place at all
Readers know that dead men tell no tales.
The final example for this section comes from an insurance com-
pany's letter to stockholders:
G uardian Life is forming a reinsurance company jointly with
the Martin Gro up Limited, to which we will both contribute
capital, along with several domestic and foreign insurance
companies.
Here the along with phrase seems to modify capital instead of we. But
since the phrase would be disruptive after we, you would do better to
reword than to rearrange:
Guardian Life and the Martin Group Limited are jointly
forming a reinsurance company, to which we will both
contribute capital, as will several domestic and foreign
insurance companies.

Clauses
The last example, as you may have noticed, features a misplaced
relative, or adjective, clause as well as a misplaced phrase. The origi­
nal word order suggests that Guardian Life will contribute capital not
to the reinsurance company but to the Martin Group Limited. Al­
though a relative clause (most commonly introduced by who, which, or
that) ideally belongs right after the word it modifies, sometimes an­
other element claims the same place, forcing the clause into an am­
biguous position. If you read, for example, The treatise includes an erten­
si'De list of virtuous women that Chaucer puts to good use in the Franklin's
Tale, do you immediately know whether Chaucer is using the women
or the list? And when you read Vandalism at Mays Field causes the
custodian to spend a lot of time cleaning up junk that might be better used for
other things, do you think about recycled trash?
Given nothing else to go on, readers associate a relative clause
with the word that immediately precedes. But often a writer can direct
otherwise. In the following version of the Chaucer sentence, for ex­
ample, the relative clause obviously modifies list even though it di­
rectly follows women:
_PU_TT�IN_G�M_O_o_rr_IE_R_S_I_N_T_H_ E_IR_P_L_A_C_ES�-������������41

In the Franklin's Tale Clhaucer makes good use of the

extensive list of virtuous women that appears in the treatise.

Here the singular verb appea1"S identifies list, not women, as the antece­
dent of th,d. The trick is to make the relative pronoun the subject of
its clause, so that the number of the verb will establish the proper
connection. This approach won't work if the ambiguity involves two
singular nouns or two plural ones, but you can sometimes avoid that
situation. If you write The qu,!llities in her poems that have received the most
critical atiention ... , the plural verb have is no help, but if you substi­
tute poetry for poems, the syntax becomes clear. Keep in mind, too, that
a relative clause will attach itself to a noun preceded by the before it
will to a noun without the definite article. The game of cards that I
remember best suggests a memorable game, not memorable cards, but
the game with the cards that I remember best might refer to a special
playing deck or to a fabulous poker hand. Thus, when there's any
question about what a relative clause modifies, you can sometimes
revise so that only the appropriate word requires the definite article.
When neither of these devices can straighten out the ambiguity
that arises when a prepositional phrase separates a noun from its
modifying clause, you can usually get rid of the phrase or transpose
it. Here are some problem s,entences and suggested revisions:
The issues in labor disputes that are hardest to resolve
concern job security.
• In labor disputes the issues that are hardest to resolve
concern job security.

The son of the company's founder, who was a compulsive

gambler, ran the business for only a short time before he
sold it.
• A compulsive gambler, the son of the company's founder
ran the business. . .
A key point in the studJies that many have overlooked is the
effect of turnover on efficiency.
• A key point in the studj[es, one that many have overlooked,
is the effect. . .

Adverbial clauses cause fewer placement problems than adjective

clauses do. They generally fit comfortably first or last in the clauses
that incorporate them. Since readers know instinctively that a clause
introduced by a word like if, although, because, or after belongs to the
predicate, they make the proiper connection even if verb and modifier
are not adjacent. In the preceding sentence, for example, the two
adverbial clauses cannot be misread. Like other adverbial elements,
however, an adverbial clause can make the wrong connection if a
42������������������-FA_U_L_T_Y_C_O_NN�
E_Cf_J_O _N_S

tempting part of speech comes between it and the word it should

modify, as in these examples:
They told us they would consider our offer when we met
them in New York.
The principal reprimanded the students for screaming after
the performance was over.
The directors were concerned about the reduction in staff
that would be necessary before they introduced the new
system.
They went on working after the conference broke up
because they had to meet their deadline.
In each of the examples, an adverbial clause that should modify the
verb in the main clause seems instead to modify an element nearer
by. The solution is to put the disputed clause first in the sentence, at
a safe remove from any competition for its attention. In the last exam­
ple you could begin with either the after or the because clause.
The adverbial clauses we have been considering form improper
attachments to subordinate verbs. Sometimes, though, the problem
occurs in reverse: an adverbial modifier intended for the subordinate
verb appears instead to modify the main one. For example:
When this plan was proposed twenty years ago, the editorial
claims that hardly anyone greeted it with enthusiasm.
The opening clause looks as if it belongs with claims, but it should go
with greeted. It identifies the time of the unenthusiastic response, not
the time of reporting that response. Watch for this common error in
your own writing. The pattern is always the same, and the remedy is
simple: either put the adverbial clause after that or, if you prefer to
leave it where it is, add a comma after the main verb and drop the
that. The second alternative-When ... ago, the editorial claims, hardly
anyone greeted-demotes the editorial claims from a main clause to a
parenthetical interruption within the main clause, which is now hardly
anyone greeted. ... The pair of commas enable readers to bridge the
gap between the sentence elements to the left and right. Here's one
more example to reinforce the point:
When stock prices are high, the broker observes that
hemlines also rise.
The sentence is illogical in more ways than one, but we need consider
only the syntax. The bull market should go with short skirts, not with
the broker's observation:
The broker observes that when stock prices go up, hemlines
also rise.
----------------------------
PUITING MODIFIERS IN THEIR PLACES 43

Or:
When stock prices go up, the broker observes., hemlines also
rise.

Here and throughout, the suggested remedies represent only

some of the possibilities. You can usually clarify word-order ambigu­
ities in several ways, and you can always adopt an entirely different
approach to a problem sentence. The next sectiorn deals with the proc­
ess of revision in somewhat more detail, showing how you might
arrive at particular solutions.

Jockeying for Position

Word-order problems usually arise because two or more modifiers­
say, a participial phrase and a relative clause--belong in the same
spot. If the word, phrase, or clause that loses its place falls into the
wrong company, rewording can be tricky. This section dissects sev­
eral illustrative sentences and discusses the steps and options that
would be involved in revision.
The first example, taken from a publisher's press release, contains
only a minor error, but trying to correct it can be instructive:

The company announced that it has formed a new editorial

press in the Metropolitan Detroit Area called International
Book Publishers.

Probably no one would fault you for letting that sentence go as it is.
The out-of-place called phrase isn't much of an obstacle since it obvi­
ously modifies press. It can't go where it belongs, right after press,
because the in phrase occupying that position has nowhere else to go.
If the prepositional phrase were placed before, after, or within the
verb phrase it modifies, has fonned, it would disruipt the sentence flow.
Still, the structure is faulty, and if the words were different, it might
be confusing ( ... formed a new editorial press specializing in European
authors called International Book Publishers). You can improve the sen­
tence by reversing the order of the modifiers ,md adding a pair of
commas to keep the in phrase from being misread with called:

The company announced that it has formed a new editorial

press, called International Book Publishers, in the
Metropolitan Detroit Area.

By setting off the participial phrase as parenthetical, the commas en­

able readers to make the proper connection. In general, though, you
shouldn't try to doctor an ailing sentence with punctuation if you can
 FAULTY CONNECTIONS

find a better remedy. Besides, the revision has the disadvantage of de­
emphasizing what the announcement should publicize-the firm's
name. A little more tinkering produces othe r possibilities:
The company announced the formation of International
Book Publishers, a new editorial press in the Metropolitan
Detroit Area.
International Book Publishers, the company's newly formed
editorial press in the Metropolitan Detroit Area, will. ...
The company announced that it has formed a new editorial
press-International Book Publishers. Located in the
Metropolitan Detroit Area, the press will....

Each of these revisions corrects the word-order problem, but one or

another would probably seem best in context.
A suburban newspaper editor wrote this caption for the front-
page photograph of a town meeting:
Part of the standing-room-only crowd at Round Hill School
that came to an informational meeting last Monday evening
on a proposed residential development near the center of
Blooming Grove.
The that clause should follow crowd, but the at phrase rightfully claims
the same place. Even though the the before crowd helps attract the
clause to the right nounf the gap between them is somewhat awk­
ward. If you put the phrase after meeting, you widen the already awk­
ward separation between meeting and on. In revising, you might begin
by deciding that two word sequences are essential: at must stay with
crowd, and on has to follow meeting. Starting from these fixed points,
you could ultimately arrive at this revision:
Part of the standing-room-only crowd at Round Hill School
last Monday evening for an informational meeting on the
proposed residential development near the center of
Blooming Grove.

A reporter for a neighborhood Manhattan weekly had a similar

problem with prepositional phrases:
After years of often acrimonious debate, the general public
got its first opportunity to inspect and question plans for the
Convention Center to be built on the site of the 30th Street
rail yards during a public hearing sponsored by Community
Board 4 last Tuesday. But the general public didn't show,
despite the presence of a high-powered panel of experts
present to answer their questions.

The opening prepositional phrase; which modifies got, occupies the

most appropriate place for a long adverbial modifier, relegating the
PUTilNG MODIFIERS IN THEI_R_P_LA_a_s_____________ 45

during phrase, which also modifies gof, to a position where it looks as

if it modifies built. Here again the writing is more awkward than
confusing-readers certainly wouldn't think that the center would be
built during a hearing-but such sloppiness debases the reporter's
by-line. Other lapses betray carelessness-the general public at the
public hearing, the presence of the panel present, and the public consid­
ered singular in the first sentence (its opportunity) and plural in the next
(their questions). These sentences might provide a good exercise for
journalism students trying to master the who-what-where-when-why lead.
Here's one possibility:
At a hearing sponsored by Community Board 4 last
Tuesday, the public got its first opportunity, after years of
often acrimonious debate, to inspect and question ....

Although the opening might be duller in this version the after clause
causes less trouble within the sentence than the during (now at) phrase
did, and the new order has the additional advantage of juxtaposing
the related elements first opportunity and after. The surrounding com­
mas mark the after phrase as parenthetical and help readers make the
proper connection between opportunity and the infinitives it governs.
Still, the word order is less than ideal, and you might try a different
approach:
Last Tuesday Community Board 4 assembled a high­
powered panel of experts to answer the public's questions
about the Convention Center to be built on the site of the
30th Street rail yards-but the public didn't show, even
though the hearing gave them their first opportunity to
inspect and challenge a plan that for years has been the
subject of often acrimonious debate.

The final example in this section comes from an account of a

murder trial:
Under cross-examination, both witnesses basically
substantiated the defendant's alibi that he was helping his
mother and her family move the day of the killings to
Ringwood, N,J., from their Sloatsburg home.

Although readers know better than to believe the sentence, it does

say that the accused hel pe d move the day of the killings to another
town from their home. Slipshod writing that's easily corrected brands
the writer as lazy or incompetent. Here you might begin revising by
adding a preposition to clarify the role that the day plays in the sen­
tence. Then, recognizing that on the day of the killings intervenes be­
tween sentence elements that belong together, you could put the dis­
ruptive phrases after that to get them out of the way. Finally, you
might reverse the order of the last two prepositional phrases and
 L _Y__C O_N�NE_CT�I_O_N_S
46�������������������FA_U�T

make them more compatible with each other (one naturally moves
from here to there, not to there from here, and one more logically
moves from one town to another than from a home to a town):
Under cross-examination both witnesses substantiated the
defendant's alibi that on the day of the killings he was
helping his mother and her family move from Sloatsburg,
N. Y ., to Ringwood, N.).

CLARIFYING THE STRUCTURE

Any discussion of faulty word order naturally concentrates on modi­

fiers, since these are the components most commonly misplaced.
While the main sentence elements-the subjects, verbs, and objects­
pose fewer problems of this sort, writers sometimes arrange them in
ways that obscure the syntax. Even if readers can't tell a predicate
from a preposition, they instinctively look for the basic components
that shape a sentence. They can't make their way through it unless
they can see its framework. A subject may have so many qualifica­
tions that readers forget what it is before they find out what it does. If
the description builds up in front of a subject, they can get lost on the
way to the main clause. The word order may suggest that an element
plays a different role from the one intended, or a verb and an object
may be so far apart that the connection between them dissolves. This
section discusses the obstacles that keep readers from recognizing
how the structural parts of a sentence fit together.

Subject-Verb Connections
A sentence in which the subject consists of a noun modified by a long
string of phrases and clauses preceding the verb that says what the
subject does may be hard to read. The last sentence is a case in point.
When complicated modifiers separate subject and verb, readers may
have trouble connecting the two, as in this sentence:
People for whom the nuclei of atoms are as real as the
bacon and eggs they have for breakfast are exceedingly rare.

You can usually eliminate an overlong subject easily enough, though

the method will vary with the particular sentence. Here you might
simply invert the sentence:
Rare indeed are people for whom the nuclei of atoms
are ....
CLARIFYING THE STRUCTURE

Or you could shorten the subject:

People for whom the nuclei of atoms are as real as their
breakfast bacon and eggs are exceedingly rare.

Or you could restructure the sentence, either by eliminating the origi­

nal predicate or by convert:ing the original subject to a clause and
choosing a different subject:
Very few people find the nuclei of atoms as ....
Or:
Though some may consider the nuclei of atoms as real as
their breakfast bacon and eggs, such people are exceedingly
rare.

The last approach often provides the fastest way out of the difficulty.
Here's what it would do for the deliberately wordy sentence that
opens this paragraph:
lf a long string of modifiers separates a subject from its
verb, the sentence may be hard to read.

While you should avoid amassing words between subject and

verb, you should also avoid long-winded modifiers before the subject,
lest you sidetrack your readers before they find out what you're talk­
ing about. Here's an example:
Still persisting almost twenty years after the assassination,
with its truth or falsehood probably never to be convincingly
proved despite the negative conclusions of repeated
investigations, the rumor of a conspiracy to kill President
Kennedy has fueled yet another work of fiction.

When you find yourself spinning out such an opening, start again. If
you can't move some of the preliminary comments into the predicate,
you'll probably have to brea:k the bulging sentence in two:
Despite the negative conclusions of repeated investigations,
the rumor of a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy persists,
probably never to be convincingly proved or disproved.
Now, more than twenty years after the assassination, it has
fueled yet another work of fiction.

Not all problems in establishing the proper link between subject

and verb occur in long sentences, as the next example shows. It illus­
trates the common fault of placing a verb where it can attract the
wrong subject:
Our representatives know that we oppose the pending
legislation and do not expect it to pass.
 FAULTY CONNECTfONS
48 ---------------------

Is it our representatives or we who do not expect? The context might

make the answer clear; the sentence itself does not. To clarify, you
either have to give each verb a subject of its own or eliminate one of
the verbs. The revision, of course, would depend on the meaning
intended. Here are two possibilities:
Since our representatives know that we oppose the pending
legislation, we do not expect it to pass.
In view of our opposition to the pending legislation, our
representatives do not expect it to pass.
The next example, sad to say, comes from an early draft of this chap­
ter:
A lazy writer will let the misplacement stand and argue that
no one can misunderst.iind the meaning.
The sentence means, of course, that the writer will let and argue, but
stand and argue seem to go together. The revision replaced let stand
with keep ( ... will keep the misplacement and argue ... ), but adding will
before argue would also have worked, since putting the verbs in par­
allel form would mark them as a pair.
Words play different roles in different sentences, and their place­
ment in any context determines the way readers understand them. An
ing verb form, for instance, can be a noun or an adjective, and often
only its relative position in a sentence reveals its function. In the last
example confusion arises because stand, the infinitive form without
the to, looks like the present tense, and the context permits either
interpretation. (Idiom calls for dropping the to before an infinitive that
follows let; let it stand is equivalent to allow it to stand.) Other ambigu­
ities stem from the duplicity of the ed verb form, which can be either
the past tense or the past participle. For example:
I realized why th ey hadl failed and regretted taking part in
the program.
The word order suggests a link between failed and regretted, though the
writer meant and to connect realized and regretted. Either of these revi­
sions would give the intended meaning:
I realized they had failed, and I regretted taking part in the
program.
Realizing why they hadl failed, I regretted taking part in the
program.
Whenever you write a sentence in which a third verb follows a main
verb and a subordinate verb and looks as if it could pair with either,
read it with the subject of each clause and you'll see the potential
---------------------
CLARIFYING THE STRUCTURE 49

misinterpretation. Here's one more example from an early draft of

this chapter:
Most adjectives modify the nouns they precede or follow
linking verbs.

Did you link precede and follow and then falter when you got to linking
verbs? Adding an either before modify to balance the or before follow
would couple those two verbs and make misreading less likely. But
since precede and follow form a natural pair, it would also help to
reverse the order of modify and precede:
Most adjectives either precede the nouns they modify or
follow linking verbs.

If you always pay attention to what the connectives and and or seem
to join, you should be able to detect and disentangle mismatched
pairs. This simple check can save you from many awkward sentences.

Ambiguous Words
Look-alike verb forms are not the only sentence elements subject to
mistaken identity. Words that can serve as different parts of speech
take on the roles the context assigns, but sometimes the context
leaves the matter in doubt. For example:
Careful preliminary work should result in the investor's
speaking to no more than a half dozen money managers,
with two or three more likely.

On first reading, the sentence may seem to contradict itself. If there

will be no more than six managers, how can two or three more seem
likely? The questio n arises only for those of us who take more in a
sense different from the writer's. We read it with two or three, inter­
preting it as a pronoun meaning "additional money managers," but
the writer apparently intended more likely as a comparative adjective
form. Replacing the with phrase with and probably only two or three
makes the meaning unmistakable.
Unfortunately, specific examples of ambiguous word usage have
little general application. The ways to go wrong are infinite. But if you
try to look at your work from a reader's point of view, you may find
sentences that are open to misinterpretation. One problem involves
the possibility of confusing nouns and verbs, since many words can
be either. Consider, for example, these phrases (or sentences?): the
frantic dance to the point of colla pse, the British camp across the river, the
triumphant shout "Eureka!" Although such word sequences are not am­
biguous once the context enables you to classify the disputed word
50������������������F_A_U_L_TY�C_O_NN
�_E CT_I_O_N_S

correctly, they may be stumbling blocks, and you can speed readers
along by revising. For example:
She has examined all the records and reports that the
witnesses have provided contradictory accounts.
. She has examined all the records and finds that. ...
The writer condemns heavily modified subjects and objects
that they muddy the sentence structure.
"-= The writer condemns heavily modified subjects and argues
that. ...
The article cites the escalating prices and charges that the
services are demanding undue profits.
� Citing the escalating prices, the article charges that. ...
If in each of these sentences you first read the second verb as a
noun, then you must also have misread the that clause as a modifier.
This ambiguity reflects a fairly common problem. When a that clause
directly follows a noun, make sure that readers can immediately tell
whether it functions as a noun or as an adjective. The noun function
is clear-cut in We tell callers that they can expect overnight delivery, but in
We told the messenger service that we always used to schedule daily four o'clock
pickups, readers can take the that clause as the object of told or as the
modifier of service. (Was the usual messenger service told to schedule
four o'clock pickups, or was the service told what we always used to
do?) In revising, you would have to get rid of the confusing used to
schedule sequence: We told our regular messenger service to schedule ... or
We told the messenger service that daily four o'clock pickups had always been
scheduled.
You can often omit that before a noun clause (No wonder you're
pleased, l thought they would agree), but you sometimes need it to keep
the subject of the clause from looking like the object of the introduc­
tory verb. In each of the following sentences the missing that permits
an initial false connection, requiring readers to pause and make an
adjustment:
I believe the economic forecast was self-fulfilling.
They reported the warehouse explosion wiped out their
inventory.
I understand the upsurge in the market reflects an
anticipated decline in interest rates.

The insistence on that in such sentences may strike you as overfussy,

but if you imagine a line break after the subject of each noun clause,
you may change your mind.
CLARIFYING THE STRUCTURE

Placement of Objects
When a hiatus occurs between verb and object or between preposi­
tion and object, the connection may not be clear, and often the two
kinds of difficulties occur together. Some verbs need prepositions to
relate them to the objects they act on-you approve of something, talk
about something, and look for something-whereas others, of course,
take direct objects and need no intervening prepositions-you like
something, discuss something, seek something. Problems may arise if
verbs seem to share an object that belongs to only one of them (We
should meet and discuss our common enemy), if verbs require different
prepositions to relate them to the same object (They never participate in
or, with few exceptions, contribute lo such charitable endeavors), or if the
direct object of one verb is also the object of a preposition that fol­
lows the other (We do not have to explain and certainly we need not apologize
for our refusal). Ideally, when two verbs govern the same object, nei­
ther should need a preposition or both should need the same preposi­
tion.
A headmaster's letter announcing noontime parent-teacher con­
ferences illustrates the risk involved in giving a direct object to only
the second of a pair of verbs:
A buffet will be served in the cafeteria during the visiting
hours, so that parents can eat as well as meet their children's
teachers.

Here teachers looks like the direct object of two verbs, permitting a
ludicrous misreading. One solution is to give the first verb an object
of its own:
... so that parents can eat lunch as well as meet their
children's teachers.

In the next example the relation of verb to object gets lost in the
distance between them:
Please read and let me have your department's views on the
attached marketing proposal.

It's hard to connect read and proposal, especially when the intervening
department's views looks as if it goes with both read and lei me have.
Adding a pair of commas, one after read and the other after on, would
clarify the structure, but the awkward break between verb and object
would remain. You can usually correct this sort of problem by placing
the object after the first verb and using the appropriate pronoun in
the prepositional phrase that follows the second:
Please read the attached marketing proposal and let me have
your department's views.
52�������������������FA_U_L_T_Y_C_O_N_N_�
E_CT
S �I0_N

Here, however, you could simply omit read and begin Please send me,
since presumably no one comments on a written proposal without
reading it first. When a sentence needs revision, tightening is often
the best approach.
In the following sentence, different prepositions share the same
object:
He always conferred with, or asked the approval of, his
colleagues.

The sentence is dear but bumpy. To smooth it out, bring with and its
object together:
He always conferred with his colleagues or asked their
approval.

In the next example the first verb lacks the preposition necessary to
connect it to the object:
For many years employees not only complied but did not
question the office dress code.
You would have to add the missing with after complied and then bring
preposition and object together:
For many years employees not only complied with the office
dress code but did not question it.

Here, though, you might prefer to substitute a verb that, like question,
needs no preposition to connect it to an object:
... employees neither violated nor questioned the office
dress code.

Although Jacques Barzun objects to examples like the last, which

involve a break between preposition and object, he sees nothing
wrong with pairing verbs in which only the second requires a prep­
osition before the object. He allows sentences like Expect and prepare
for setbacks because the preposition and object are adjacent. But some­
times such constructions tempt readers to associate the preposition
with both verbs. Here's the specific sentence that Barzun cites as ac­
ceptable:
His experience makes him the best person to tackle and
succeed in this difficult task.

Readers may not only attach the in phrase to tackle but also momen­
tarily mistake him for the best person to tackle. Here the standard
solution-the best person to tackle this difficult task and to succeed-won't
work; the best person to succeed doesn't make much sense. You could
open up the sentence:
_C_LA_R_IF_Y_IN_G�T_H_E_STR�U_CT�U_R_E�� � �
� �����������53

His experience makes him the person best qualified to tackle

this difficult task and the most likely to succeed.

Or you could tighten it;

His experience makes him the person most likely to tackle
this difficult task successfully.

While you should generally try to keep prepositions and objects

together, short gaps are easy to bridge and readers take them in
stride. You needn't change plays on and off Broadway to plays on Broad­
way and off it or replace looked up and down the street with looked up the
street and down it. If doing what you think is correct results in a sen­
tence that sounds awkward or artificial, do something else. Anything
that sounds odd is likely to make readers falter, and your aim is to
keep them moving right along. In some contexts idiom condones a
preposition at the end of a clause and the object at the beginning. No
one still recommends, for example, You get that for which you pay and
About which rules are you talking?

As a reader, you've undoubtedly run into sentences that stop you

cold because they don't make sense. Though the ideas may be simple
enough, the presentation is so poor that you have to read the words
again and again before you can begin to get their drift. You're obvi­
ously not going to devote this sort of frowning concentration to a
sentence unless you're intensely interested in it-unless you're read­
ing, say, a letter from your lover or instructions for assembling a
bicycle. As a writer, you can't expect readers to grope for the meaning
you intended to convey.
While faulty word order can make a sentence well-nigh impen­
etrable, it usually doesn't. Readers are not hopelessly literal-minded
or insensitive to logic, and they can generally recognize your intention
even though you haven't expressed it precisely. Still, faulty connec­
tions damage your prose. They are stumbling blocks, distractions that
dissipate whatever spell you're trying to weave. Efficient writing
makes effortless reading. It never calls attention to itself.
 IJ Many familiar lines of prose and poetry owe their place in
Bartlett's to their balanced cadences. "Marriage has many
pains," says Samuel Johnson, "but celibacy has no pleas­
ures." "The Puritan hated bear-baiting," Macauley ex­
plains, "not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave
pleasure to the spectators." Deprived of their parallel structure, some
famous quotations lose their punch:
[ come for the purpose of burying Caesar, not to praise him.
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships and was
responsible for the burning of Ilium's topless towers?
... brought forth on this continent a new nation that had its
conception in liberty and was dedicated to the proposition
that all men are created equal.
Many are called, but God doesn't choose more than a few .
. . . that all men ... have certain unalienable rights: to life,
liberty, and to pursue happiness.

The originals mangled here echo insistently enough to demonstrate

their superiority. And though you need not strive for the perfect sym­
metry of, say, the Sermon on the Mount (a style best reserved for
special occasions), parallel constructions have an important role in all
writing. Appropriately matched components can make the difference
between a sentence that runs smoothly and one that jerks along in fits
and starts.

54
_U_N_BA_L_A_N_C_E_ D_P_A_IR_ _S A __N_D _S_E_R_IE_S� �
� ������������55

Mos.t sentences meet the test of parallel structure when the ele­
ments presented in series or pairs belong to the same grammatical
category, that is, when all are adjectives, nouns, active verbs, infini­
tives, phrases, or clauses. Just as you can't add apples and oranges, at
least not without reducing them to pieces of fruit, you can't yoke
disparatte parts of speech or different types of constructions and ex­
pect them to function together efficiently. To write He is determined, a
fighter, and has a quick mind or We need employees with specific skills and who
can work as a team is like harnessing a horse, a goat, and a camel to a
troika or designing a chair with a rocker on one side and a pair of legs
on the other.
To :some extent parallel constructions are idiomatic. Children
chant, or used to, Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief; romantic heroes are
tall, dark, and handsome; Pal Joey's ladylove is bewitched, bothered, and
bewildered; Caesar said, I came, I saw, I conquered; and Lincoln spoke of
a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. More often
than not, parallel structure comes naturally to us. We might describe
the typical Swede as fair, blond, and blue-eyed or as having fair skin,
blond hair, and blue eyes; we would be unlikely to say that the ster­
eotype is fair, a blond, and has blue eyes. Such imbalances make us
uneasy. You don't have to know the rules of rhetoric to sense that
something is wrong with We are told to live our own lives and that we
should not interfere wilh how others behave, but an experienced editor
would immediately recognize that the infinitive phrase and the that
clause make a lopsided pair. To right the balance, you could substi­
tute not fo interfere for that we should not interfere, and perhaps someone
arrived at that point before coming up with the inspired to live and let
live. For while we're naturally attracted to parallel pairs and series,
they don't always come readily to mind. As Wilson Follett observes,
felicitous writing "seems inevitable, but if we could contemplate the
doing of it from a little in advance of the fact, we should see nothing
marked out as foreordained, but rather a labyrinth of ways to go
wrong."

UNBALANCED PAIRS AND SERIES

You can detect most errors in parallel structure by routinely checking

the words or word groups you join by and and or and making sure
that they match. In other words, the elements linked as compound
subjects, objects, verbs, and modifiers should have the same gram­
matical form. When they don't, you can either bring them into line or
change 1the structure to eliminate the need for parallelism.
 ILL-MATCHED PARTNERS
56 --------------------

Since faults in parallel structure are easy to spot, their abundance

in print is somewhat surprising. But deadlines often leave little time
for polishing, and revisions can be tricky. When you find an imbal­
ance, first try to put the coordinate items in the same form, converting
an adjective and a noun, say, to two adjectives or two nouns. Some­
times, though, the right terms prove elusive, and forcing two elements
into the same structure may make the sentence wordy or stilted. The
serial items are not parallel in The new clerk is intelligent, conscientious,
and wants to change the system, but ... is intelligent, conscientious, and
desirous of changing the system isn't much of an improvement. While the
form of the series is flawless, the artificial wording calls attention to
itself.
Serial or paired items that are hard to balance may not belong
togethf:f; they may resist alignment because they are not logically
similar. The solution then is to uncouple the combination, to subordi­
nate one component to the others instead of making them all coordi­
nate: The new clerk, who is intelligent and conscientious, wants to change the
system.
The following examples represent some of the most common
types of mismatches, and the alternatives suggest possible revisions:
The proposed transmission line is ugly, unsafe, and an
environmental danger.
t. ... ugly, unsafe, and hazardous to the environment.
The process is slow, prone to politics, and robs all
concerned of direct responsibility .
. . . slow and prone to politics, robbing all concerned of
direct responsibility.
The applicants were all college graduates, of similar
socioeconomic background, and interested in business
careers .
. . . all college-educated, similar in socioeconomic
background, and interested in business careers.
Your cover letter should include information about your
present employment and why you want to change jobs.
. . . should include information about your present
employment and explain why you want to change jobs.
The problem is on the minds of millions of Americans,
young and old and in all parts of the country, not only in
Louisiana
... . . . on the minds of millions of young and old Americans in
all parts of the country, not only in Louisiana.

The mismatched pairs and series in the above examples involve

such combinations as adjective and noun, adjective and verb, noun
---------------------
UNBALANCED PAIRS AND SERIES 57

and prepositional phrase, and noun and clause. Some imbalances are
less pronounced than these and are not even universally regarded as
flaws. Still, they leave room for improvement. If, for instance, you've
coordinated an active verb with a passive or linking one, consider
substituting two active verbs or recasting the sentence to avoid the ill­
matched compound. For example:
Farm failures contributed to the 1917 revolution and were
one of the reasons for Khrushchev's ouster in 1964.
• Farm failures contributed to the 1917 revolution and to
Khrushchev's ouster in 1964.
He has worked for the bank for many years, is
knowledgeable about ne arly all areas of banking, and will
be an excellent addition to top management.
Employed by the bank for many years and knowledgeable
about nearly all areas of banking, he will be an excellent
addition to top management.
She ranks as the country's top railroad analyst and is often
consulted by financial writers and stockbrokers.
As the country's top railroad analyst, she is often consulted
by financial writers and stockbrokers.

Combinations of nouns and gerunds can also be jarring, though

less so than those involving different parts of speech. Since a gerund
is the i ng verb form used as a noun, it might seem a fit associate for a
purebred noun, but when its verbal side is insistent, the two don't
work well together. Apparently, however, not all experts would agree.
One author, in analyzing various sorts of writing errors, makes no
apology for this sentence:
When people have to write from a point of view not their
own, they ... betray this by hedging, blustering, an uneasy
choice of words, and syntactical looseness.
In this context the gerunds suggest people doing something-hedging
and blustering-and this active element is absent from the noun
phrases in the series. But the items do not go gently into parallel
structure:
... by hedging, blustering, misusing words, and lapsing into
syntactical looseness.
Or:
... by an uneasy choice of words, syntactical looseness, and
a tendency to hedge and bluster.

The difficulty in making the terms grammatically compatible suggests

that they are not logically equivalent, and you might decide to re­
structure the sentence. Here's one possibility:
58������������������I_L_L-_M_ A_T_C_H_E_D_P_A _R_T_N_ER_S

When people write from a point of view not their own, they
hedge and bluster, betraying uneasiness in their choice of
words and their loose syntax.
In the next example one conventional noun intrudes in a series of
gerunds:
The technical reforms needed to protect Social Security
include curtailing preferential federal pensions, bringing
federal employees into the system, raising the retirement age
to sixty-eight, modification of the indexing policy, and
increasing military careers to thirty-three years.
It's hard to understand how anyone could use modification of instead of
modifying in that sentence. Similarly mystifying is the choice of the
construction of over constructing in this one:
The plan entailed razing the entire business district­
thirty-four buildings dating from the nineteenth century­
and the construction of a modern shopping plaza.
In some series, however, gerunds and conventional nouns mingle
without friction, either because the grouping is loose enough not to
require precise parallelism or because the verbal qualities of the ger­
unds do not surface. Whatever the explanation, you can usually tell
instinctively whether or not a gerund is out of place in a group of
straight nouns. In the earlier examples the change in form brings you
up short, but in the following series you hardly notice it:
Among the many aspects of credit examined are credit
scoring, debt burden, the cash analysis system used by
banks, the difference between charge and credit cards, debt
servicing, credit ratings for women, denial of credit profiles,
and th e personal judgment factor.
An accomplished writer may occasionally use an unbalanced pair
or series for a specific reason-perhaps to imitate a style of speech or
to achieve a comic effect. Few would quarrel with Lorenz Hart's "I'm
wild again, beguiled again, a simpering, whimpering child again" or
with the riddle that asks "What's big and red and eats rocks?" (An­
swer: "A big red rock eater.") But if you set aside the rules of paral­
lelism, know what you're doing and why. Unintentional violations
reflect laziness or ignorance.

PARALLELISM AND CORRELATIVE CONJUNCTIONS

Whatever leeway you allow yourself in balancing coordinate ele­

ments in general, you should enforce a rigid parallelism on those
_PARA E_ _S_M_A_N_D_C_:_O_RR_E_L_A_T_IV_E_C_O_N_J_U_N _CT_IO_N_S__________ 59
__L_L U

connected by the so-called correlative conjunctions-principally, ei­

ther ... or, neither ... nor, both ... and, and not only (or an equivalent
like not Just, not simply, or not merely) ... but also (or but if what follows
seems to intensify rather than to supplement). These double connec­
tives emphasize the correspondence between the word groups they
introduce, and it offends logic not to make the companion pieces
grammatically equivalent. The first one makes readers anticipate a
mate, and it's unsettling for those expecting a second shoe to drop to
hear instead the thud of a chair or the shattering of a teacup.
When you're roughing out a first draft, the conjunctions may not
fall where they belong (J not only sent a copy to my supervisor but also to the
head of the division), but be sure to put them right when you revise (I
sent a copy not only to my supervisor but also to the head of the division). A
good editor never reads over correlative conjunctions without check­
ing what they introduce and correcting any inequities. A sentence like
the next one should never have got past the newspaper's copy desk:
The officers were not only well respected professionally but
they also often went hunting and fishing with their
colleagues on the state police and local sheriff's department.
The following revision at least meets the technical requirements of
parallel structure:
Not only were the officers well respected professionally but
they had often gone hunting and fishing with their
colleagues on the state police force and in the Local sheriff's
department.
This alternative corrects not only the improper placement of the cor­
relative conjunctions but also the imbalance between state police and
local sheriff's department; in the original the two law-enforcement agen­
cies were linked as compound objects of on, but on the . .. department is
unidiomatic. The solution to the not only-but also problem is less satis­
factory, since were respected professionally and had gone fishing make an
odd couple. Though each correlative now introduces a coordinate
clause, the ideas are not in balance. You can get better results by
changin:g the word order and finding a more compatible verb to pair
with respected:
The officers' colleagues on the state police force and in the
local sheriff's department not only respected the men
professionally but regarded them as friends, having often
gone hunting and fishing with them.
Devising an acceptable version of the last example took consider­
able effort, and perhaps the news item came in too late to rewrite. But
many mistakes in the use of correlatives are easily fixed. Sometimes
you need only transpose one of the conjunctions or add an article or
60�����- �
- ������� � � _
� IL_L-_M_A_T_C_H_E_D_P_A_R_T_NE_ R_S

a preposition. The elements after correlative conjunctions should cor­

respond exactly; if, for example, the first conjunction precedes a prep­
osition that governs both elements, you should either repeat the prep­
osition 21fter the second conjunction or move the preposition ahead of
the first conjunction. Here are some typical errors and corrections:
Firom the beginning this faction has been critical both of the
motivation and the tactics of the new government.
Ill . . . has been critical of both the motivation and the
taictks ....
The end can neither be known nor imagined.
Ill ... can be neither known nor imagined.
He began to stay late at the office, either because the work
was piling up or to impress his staff.
• ... either to clear away the work that was piling up or to
impress his staff.
• ... either because his work was piling up or because he
hoped to impress his staff.
These virtues are not only the heart of liberal learning but
they also perform a critical soda! function: they constitute
the glue that holds the community together.
• These virtues not only constitute the heart of liberal learning
but also perform a critical social function: they serve as the
glue....
e These virtues are not only the heart of liberal learning but
allso the glue that holds the community together. (ls there
any need to point out that holding the community together
is: a critical social function?)
The company not only dominated the town's business but
a!lso the way the residents lived and thought.
• The company dominated not only the town's business but
aiso the way....
In pointing out the dangers of nicotine, the surgeon general
is, not only referring to smoking cigarettes but also chewing
tobacco.
• ... surgeon general is referring not only to smoking
dgarettes but also to chewing tobacco.
In highlighting the matching parts of a sentence and thus showing
which elements go together, correlative conjunctions sometimes pro­
vide a useful means of avoiding ambiguity. In the last example, for
instance:, the misplacement of not only is especially awkward because
it mismatches referring and chewing, suggesting that the surgeon gen-
PARALLELISM AND CLARITY ____ 61

eral was chomping on a wad of tobacco when he made his announce­

ment. But since the correlatives-especially nof only ... but also and
bath . . . and-are emphatic devices, don't squander them on com­
pound elements that don't need them. Using correlative conjunctions
where a simple and would do is like driving in a thumbtack with a
sledgehammer. For example:
I have the figures for both the first quarter and the second.
I read not only your report but also the list of
recommendations you attached.

Although the correlative conjunctions must precede parallel parts

of the sentence, the terms that make up these pairs do not invariably
function together. Each can operate alone. In particular, you can use
not only without necessarily going on to but also or but. Not only always
promises more to come, but the rules of rhetoric allow alternative
ways of keeping that promise:
It is not only our country that faces this problem, most
Western nations have high unemployment rates.
Not only our country but also most other Western nations
have high unemployment rates.

The comma after problem in the first of these examples shows that the
sentence is not yet complete. Not only signals something to follow.
This construction is one of the few that permit the junction of in­
dependent clauses without a stronger mark of punctuation or a coor­
dinating conjunction.

PARALLELISM AND CLARITY

As the preceding sections emphasize, the proper management of par­

allel structure has a great deal to do with a pleasing writing style, and
you should mix and match your sentence components as attentively
as the well-dressed coordinate their outfits. The difference between a
carefully assembled sentence and one just thrown together is the dif­
ference between a Neiman-Marcus mannequin and a cornfield scare­
crow.
But the value of parallel structure goes beyond aesthetics. While
the eighteenth-century essayists used perfectly balanced clauses pri­
marily for rhetorical effect, the matching of parts within clauses often
serves a more practical purpose. It points up the structure of the
sentence, showing readers what goes with what and keeping them on
62 ---------------- ------
ILL-MATCHED PARTNERS

the right track. Without this sort of coordination a sentence may be

not only awkward but open to misinterpretation. For example:
Emphasis is placed on explaining the company's controls
and how effective those controls can be.

What two elements does the and connect here? Neither of the possi­
bilities on its left, the gerund erplaining and the noun controls, matches
the how clause on the right, so that readers can't be sure which ele­
ments function together. They can guess, of course, but any structure
that requires guesswork also requires revision. If controls is the first
element in the pair, you can improve the sentence by converting the
how clause to a modifier-noun combination:
Emphasis is placed on explaining the company's controls
and their effectiveness.

But since controls and their effectiveness do not seiem distinct topics, a
more condensed revision might be more precise:
Emphasis is placed on explaining the effectiveness of the
company's controls.

If the gerund and the clause are the compound elements, you can
convert the clause to a verbal phrase:
Emphasis is placed on explaining the company's controls
and on demonstrating their effectiveness.

Let's look at another example:

The article on American agriculture explains l:he interacting
forces of technology, government policies, flw:t:uating
demand, international politics, inflation and recession,
surpluses and subsidies, land values, the real ·cost of
borrowed capital, and how fallow fields can e.am more than
fertile ones.

You might think at first that the final and introduces the last item of
the long series and that the clause should be made compatible with
the other items in the series-converted, say, to the potential offallow
fields fa earn more than fertile ones. But if you pay attention to the mean­
ing, you can see that the original how clause does not belong in the list
of interacting forces. Rather, it parallels forces, functioning as a second
object of explains. The revision could read:
... explains how various forces interact to affect farming­
technology, government policies ... borrowed capital-and
how fallow fields can ea rn more than fertile ones.

In many contexts you have to repeat a subordinating conjunction,

a preposition, an article, or an auxiliary verb before each element in a
_PA_RA�L_LE_L_IS_M�A_ND�C_L_A_RI_T_Y����������������-63

pair or series to reinforce the parallelism and prevent misalliances.

For example:
Limit the candidates to those managers who can provide
independently measured results or firms that can provide
good recent references.

Here readers might initially see results and firms as joint objects of can
provide. Though they would quickly reject this pairing in favor of
managers and firms, a to before firms would have prevented the flicker
of hesitation.
You usually don't have to repeat an article before each noun in a
pair or series (a pair or a series, for example, might be called pedantic,
schoolmarmish, or overrefined-the adjective depending on which
usage critic you consult). Strict grammarians recommend using an
indefinite article before each coordinate term when one word requires
a and the other an, but this rule can also go by the board in informal
contexts (Eat an apple, peach, or pear every day; He wasn't wearing a hat or
overcoat). When articles do need repeating, we generally include them
automatically. If you attend a meeting with two business acquaint­
ances, for example, you might say you went with a broker and a banker.
A broker and banker would imply a single companion who wears two
hats. When you use correlative conjunctions, an article must appear
with the second element if it does with the first. Though you may say
Get me a hammer and nail, you would have to say I don't have either a
hammer or a nail or I have neither hammer nor nail. Occasionally you need
articles before both nouns in a pair to prevent the second one from
being misread as a verb. Another a would be helpful, for example, in
Whenever I attend a seminar or lecture on the new technology I become de­
pressed.
Duplicate whatever words help to establish the relation between
compound elements. You needn't repeat articles and prepositions that
don't contribute to clarity, but you shouldn't omit those that provide
guidance. Without pointers to the contrary, readers assume that an
and or or connects the word group on its left to the corresponding one
on its right. A second about would serve no purpose, for example, in I
talked about my predecessor and his influence on our policy, where and obvi­
ously links the two objects of the preposition. The sentence permits
no other interpretation. But in I talked about my predecessor's influence on
our policy and the steps I plan to take, you need another about after and to
keep readers from seeing policy and steps as joint objects of on. Since
and does not connect the terms adjacent to it, you have to take pre­
cautions against misreading.
Be sure to treat all items in a series consistently. Don't repeat a
preposition or a conjunction with only some of them. The function
64 ___________________IL_L_-tvtATCHED PARTNERS

word should either serve the entire series or re.appear in each item.
Faulty sentences of this sort are common:
There is a feeling that the government is lagging, that
business is looking ahead with enlightened self-interest, and
labor is busy trying to sandbag against today's problems.

The illogical omission of that before the last serial item jars readers,
whether or not they recognize what's wrong, and it might lead some
to interpret the final clause as the second part of a compound sen­
tence, balancing There is a feeling, rather than as tlh.e third in a series of
subordinate clauses.
Since putting paired and serial elements in the same form helps
identify them as compounds, using parallel structure for components
that do not function together can be misleading. ln one fafrly com­
mon type of flawed sentence, readers have to choose a coordinate pair
from a matched threesome in which two grammatically compatible
elements precede and or or and one follows. Sometimes the conjunc­
tion follows both a verb in the main clause and a verb in a subordi­
nate clause and precedes a verb that looks as if it could pair with
either. The question is whether the third goes with the first or with
the second. Chapter 2, on word order, includes a few examples of this
problem. Here are two more:
The program became a successful model from which other
programs developed and pioneered a variety of major
innovations in management education.
We take pride in the work we do and appreciate your
comments and suggestions on ways to serve you better.

In sentences like these, usually the simplest solution, though not nec­
essarily the best, is to add a comma before the conjunction and a
subject before the following verb (adding only a comma would sepa­
rate the tvvo verbs that belong together as well as the two that do not):
. . . work we do, and we appreciate. . . . Sometimes, though, you can
produce a better sentence by editing out the odd verb:
The program became a successful model for other programs
and pioneered a variety of major innovations in
management education.
We take pride in our work and appreciate your
suggestions ....

If you can't easily eliminate the problem verb, you can take a differ­
ent approach. Consider this sentence:
We discovered that our competitors had increased their
market share and decided to introduce an improved product.
 R �L_L_EL_IS_M�A_N_D_C_L_A_R_IT_Y�����������������65
_PA_A

Here decided can pair with either discovered or increased-that is, its
subject may be we or competitors. Assuming that the subject is we, you
can clarify the sentence by repeating the pronoun before the second
verb:
We discovered that our competitors had increased their
market share, and we decided ....

Or you can eliminate the ambiguity about what and joins by eliminat­
ing and-in other words, by subordinating one of the verbs:
When we discovered that our competitors had increased
their market share, we decided to ....

Of course, if the decided of the original version parallels increased, not

discovered, you could make the connection clear by adding had before
decided:
We disco vered that our competitors had increased their
market share and had decided to introduce an improved
product.

The problem of misleading parallel structure is not restricted to

verbs. The next sentence allows some confusion about which nouns
function together:
The development of new electronics industries and the
country's changing demographics will cushion the
unemployment problem.

Some readers may see industries and demographics as objects of of be­

fore they recognize development and demographics as subjects of will
cushion. Among the various ways of avoiding this possibility, certainly
the easiest would be to reverse the order of the compound elements:
The country's changing demographics and the development
of new electronics industries will cushion ....

Since no confusion arises when and links the terms adjacent to it, the
transposition solves the problem. Whenever you have paired nouns
Hke those in the preceding example, try to put the odd noun last. That
is, make the noun followed by the prepositional phrase the second of
the pair. Another possibility, as always, is to change the coordinate
structure to a subordinate one:
Along with the country's changing demographics, the
development of new electronics industries will....

Or you could shift to a passive construction, if you could justify it,

and put the parallel elements in matching by phrases:
 ILL-MATCHED PARTNERS

The unemployment problem will be cushioned by the

development of new electronics industries and by the
country's changing demographics.

This approach wouldn't work, of course, if there were another by

phrase to obscure the structure:
The unemployment problem will be cushioned by the new
industries created by the electronics revolution and by the
country's changing demographics.

In pairing phrases or clauses, as in pairing verbs or nouns, watch

out for three of a kind. For example:
We understand that you plan to discontinue the incentive
program that you adopted last fall and that the union has
protested.

Is the third that clause the second one that modifies program or the
second direct object of understand? Admittedly, you could avoid con­
fusion by introducing the adjective clause, or clauses, with which in­
stead of that, but not if you follow the advice of the usage critics who
would restrict which to nonrestrictive clauses. You might better clarify
by eliminating the odd that and leaving only the parallel pair. These
two revisions correspond to the two possible meanings:
As we understand it, you plan to discontinue the incentive
program that you adopted last year and that the union has
protested.
We understand that the union has protested your plan to
discontinue the incentive program that you adopted last
year.

The next sentence has a confusing number of of phrases:

In the absence of any evidence of coercion of clients or of
opposition to the proposal, I see no reason why we should
not go ahead.

Are both evidence and opposition absent, or are both coercion and
opposition unproved? If you start with Since there is, you can pin down
the meaning by using either . . . or or neither . . . nor to mark the
elements intended as coordinates:
Since there is no evidence either of coercion of clients or of
opposition to the proposal, I see....
Since there is neither opposition to the proposal nor
evidence that clients were coerced, I see ....

Correlative conjunctions almost always provide a way of identify­

ing parallel pairs where there is any ambiguity. Although you
_PARA�_L_L _EL_IS_M�A _N_D_C_L_A_ru_T_Y�����������������67

shouldn't resort to this emphatic device frivolously, it can be useful if

you find that you haven't clearly established what elements an and or
or connects. Here's one more example, this one involving a trio of
infinitives:
The dean said that she hoped to persuade the board to
authorize the new curriculum and to increase the faculty in
several disciplines.

Either the dean hoped to persuade and increase, or she hoped that the
board would authorize and increase. Adding both after hoped or after
board would eliminate the doubt.
In the preceding examples, where coordinate elements have the
same form as some other element nearby, the parallel structure can
mislead readers about what goes with what. Less commonly, parallel
structure can mislead, not because it creates ambiguity about the
matching parts but because it suggests a correspondence between
elements that are too disparate to be associated. When Lewis Carroll
groups cabbages and kings or Alexander Pope writes of husbands and
lap dogs breathing their last, the effect is intentionally comic. Don't
impose parallel structure on incongruities unless you're aiming at
humor, because the result is likely to be ludicrous:
The police found no alcohol in his bloodstream but a loaded
gun in his car.
Nylon tricot sleepwear will make her glamorous and still
practical for traveling or lounging.

The proper management of parallel structure involves guiding

readers smoothly through sentences by signaling the elements that
work in pairs and series. There are, as Follett says, "a labyrinth of
ways to go wrong." The following examples, both from printed
sources, illustrate some of the ways not covered in the preceding
discussion of specific flaws. Above all, these sentences show that put­
ting parallel ideas in parallel form is essentially a matter of thinking
straight, of recognizing how the various sentence components fit to­
gether. Elements that have the same relation to another element
should have a family resemblance, and those that do not function
together should not look as if they do.
Our first example contains two types of faulty parallelism-one
relatively subtle, the other blatant:
Downsizing encompasses smaller cars, houses, and families,
as well as conservation efforts; all of this affects iron and
steel production, and rubber, lumber, glass, copper, and
other basics.
68 ---------------------
ILL-MATCHED PARTNERS

The less obvious flaw lies in the first clause, where the serial items
and the as well as phrase don't mesh. Cars and houses match well
enough, but certainly families are not in the same category. The as well
as phrase compounds the problem by bringing conservation efforts into
the picture. When you stop to consider the logic of this grouping, you
quickly realize that smaller cars and conservation efforts are not par­
allel notions. If nothing else, one is concrete, the other abstract. The
writer has not thought through what the sentence should say, and
judging from the quotation alone, you might have a hard time guess­
ing. Here I happen to have inside information, so that I know what
the author had in mind:
Downsizing encompasses smaller cars and houses, which in
tum reflect conservation efforts and the trend toward smaller
families....

The last part of the sentence is also inexact: production does not belong
in the same series with a list of basic materials. The second clause
should read:
... all this affects the production of iron, steel, rubber,
lumber, glass, copper, and other basic materials.

The final example in this section reflects the same sort of poor
quality control that has cost American manufacturers business:
The Japanese machine cost $60,000 less than the American
model, was judged to be more flexible and have better
controls, greater accuracy-and could be delivered faster.

You might begin attacking this sentence by making the verbs parallel.
You can't convert the two passive verbs to active ones and still have a
compound predicate, since they would require different subjects, but
you could make the first verb passive to match the others. You might
then put the cumbersome second serial element at the end, where it
causes less trouble:
The Japanese machine was priced $60,000 below the
American model, could be delivered faster, and was judged
to be more flexible and accurate and to have better controls.

Looking at this version, you might consider the parallel structure

forced and try a different approach. What about that unwieldy end­
ing? If better controls means only "controls permitting greater flexibility
and accuracy," you could simplify:
Not only was the Japanese machine judged more flexible
and accurate than the American model, but it was priced
$60,000 lower and could be delivered faster.
OTHER INCOMPATIBLES
--------------------------- 69

But if better controls is not implicit in this version, what precisely does
the phrase mean? A more specific statement might also be more
graceful:
... judged easier to operate and more flexible ....

OTHER INCOMPATIBLES

In addition to checking pairs and series for parallel structure, pay

attention to the elements you compare and contrast These too should
be parallel in form, though disparate wording is probably the most
innocuous of the ways that comparisons can go wrong. There's noth­
ing seriously amiss with this sentence:
In the early stages of market declines, the risk of making
less money is more palatable than the risk of substantial
losses.

Nevertheless, wouldn't anyone with half an ear compare the risk of

substantial losses with the risk of reduced returns rather than with the risk of
making less money? More often, a faulty comparison involves elements
compatible in form but incompatible in substance. Both may be
nouns, for example, but nouns denoting entirely different sorts of
things. Not all the precepts of grammar seem logical, but the rule that
you can only compare like things is patently sensible. Though no one
would say that five is better than blue or that eating is better than Sunday,
comparisons just as witless often find their way into print, not be­
cause the authors are simple-minded but because they don't write
what they mean. For instance:
The newspaper has been around since 1870, but its editorial
style is as aggressive as a publication started yesterday.

Clearly the author means to say that the style of the paper is as
aggressive as that of a newspaper started yesterday, but the stated
comparison is between a style and a publication. It doesn't mislead
us, because we know better than to believe what it says, but the
wording is sloppy. We all make slips in talking, and if anyone calls us
on them, we' re likely to say, Oh, you know what I mean." But in
ii

writing, where presumably we have a chance to Look over what we've

set down, there's less excuse for imprecision.
The last example illustrates a common sort of inexact compari­
son, and you can usually correct it simply by adding that of or those of
to provide a fitting balance for the left-hand side of the comparison.
Here are two more examples, with the corrections in brackets:
 ILL-MATCHED PARTNERS
70 ---------------------

Salary levels for bank portfolio managers are at least a third

less than [those for] investment managers in brokerage
houses.
The cost of renovating the offices was estinated to be
considerably below [that of] leasing new space.

It's even simpler to straighten out faulty comparisons in this form:

New York's taxes are higher than most other states.

Here tares is compared with states, but you need only add an apostro­
phe after states to make the statement logical, since tares would be
implicit after the possessive. Of course, you use that of or a possessive
form, not both. The that of is redundant in this example:
Butte's downfall may be similar to that of Detroit's.

In this sort of sentence the apostrophe works better than a that of

construction. A demonstrative that refers to a noun preceded by an
adjective seems to stand for the combination-here for Butte's down­
fall, not just downfall. Similarly, the sentence Sales tares are worse than
those imposed by the IRS is inexact, because those points to sales fares, not
just tares.
A comparison is open to misinterpretation if it fails to indicate
whether the word that follows than or as contrasts with the subject or
the object of the preceding clause. You can usually clarify the mean­
ing by adding a verb, or a subject and verb, to the second part of the
comparison. For example:
Japanese workers fear automation less than their American
counterparts [do].
The mayor considers the vigilantes more threatening than
[she does] the criminals.

Sometimes you only need a preposition to show how the right-hand

element fits into the sentence. This one-word addition provides an
elliptical clause, enabling readers to understand an implicit subject
and verb. For example:
The book deals more with the wonders of high technology
than [with] the implications for labor.
Our earnings last year were slightly higher than [in] 1979.
We imported more oil from Saudi Arabia than [from]
Mexico.

While imprecisely stated comparisons are usually more slovenly than

confusing, some are genuinely unclear. Left uncorrected, the last ex-
_O_T_H_ER�IN_C_O_M_P_A_T_I_BL_E_S������������������71

ample, for instance, could mean either that Saudi Arabia supplied
more oil than Mexico did or that we imported more oil than Mexico
did. Similarly, the earlier comparison involving vigilantes and crimi­
nals could mean either that the mayor finds the vigilantes more
threatening than she does criminals or that she finds them more
threatening than criminals do. This sort of ambiguity, though easily
clarified, is a common fault, so watch for it in your own writing. You
should, in fact, look critically at all your comparisons to make sure
that they make sense.
If a comparison is too muddled to salvage by inserting a word or
two, you may have to scrap it and start over. Certainly that's what the
author of this sentence should have done:
The tract influenced Mill, and he claimed to have reached a
state of mind differing less from that of the sect than existed
previously.

Elliptical constructions work when readers automatically infer the

missing words from those already stated. But in this example what
words are they to understand between fhan and existed? What existed
previously? The only possibility the sentence provides is a state of
mind, but repeating that phrase doesn't solve the problem:
... he claimed to have reached a state of mind differing less
from that of the sect than the state of mind that existed
previously.

Readers need to add something more on their own to keep state of

mind from seeming parallel to that of the sect instead of to the earlier
stale of mind:
... he claimed to have reached a state of mind differing less
from that of the sect than his previous state of mind had
differed from the sect's.

Obviously, readers aren't going to work that hard to do what the

author should have done for them. Besides, though the reconstructed
sentence verges on clarity, it's stunningly awkward.
Most writers are capable of drafting such poor sentences, but
they should also be capable of recognizing and rectifying their errors
when they revise. Before you can recast a badly tangled comparison,
you have to figure out exactly what terms you intend to contrast. It
takes time and concentration to rework the example we have been
discussing:
The tract influenced Mill, and he claimed that his state of
mind now differed less from the sect's than it had before.
72 --------------------
Ill-MATCHED PARTNERS

Of course, as the author, you might decide to jettison state of mind as

more trouble than it's worth:
... he claimed that he now differed less fwm the sect than
he had before.

Let's look at one more example:

The report on credit explains why lending institutions may
regard ownership of an old car more favorably than a new
one.

The sentence illogically compares ownership and new one, but you can't
correct it by simply adding that of after than. That remedy only serves
when the of phrase shows possession, and you have a different situ­
ation here. Although you can say the hood of the car or the car's hood, you
can't say the ownership of a car or a car's ownership; ownership does not
belong to a car.
When you start working on the sentence, you might decide to
restate the comparison so that it involves the two terms that naturally
contrast with each other, an old car and a new one. Using some form of
the verb own instead of the unwieldy noun ownership would give you
more flexibility in rewording. The revision would have to fit the con­
text, of course, but here are two possibilities:
The report explains why owning an old car rather than a
new one may be in your favor when you apply for credit.
The report explains why lending institutions may consider
you a better credit risk if you own an old car than if you
own a new one.

Just as the elements you compare should be in the same category,

so should any elements that you group together. Not all related items
are linked by coordinating conjunctions. Phrases introduced by words
like along with, together with, similar to, like, and unlike should have
objects of the same sort as the words the phrases modify. Chapter 2
discusses the importance of placing such phrases so that they seem to
modify the appropriate words. It is even more important to include
the appropriate words. In the following sentence, for example, the
among phrase has no anchor, no word grammatically compatible with
its object:
Federal reserve banks distribute currency, transfer funds,
and pay government bills, among other responsibilities.

You can correctly say that distributing currency is among the banks'
responsibilities but not that distribute currency is among their responsi-
OTHER INCOMPATIBLE_S
__________________ 73

bilities. Here are a few more sentences, along with revisions, to illus­
trate the problem:

Unlike taking care of other pets, fish are hardly any trouble.
""' Fish, unlike other pets, are hardly any trouble to care for.

Along with his other faults, he never met deadlines, so we

had to discharge him.
His failure to meet deadlines, along with his other faults,
forced us to discharge him.

When we go out to lunch, she always plays the fool, like

asking for chopsticks in an Italian restaurant.
When we go out to lunch, she always does something silly,
like asking for chopsticks in an Italian restaurant.

It is possible, at least theoretically, to overindulge in parallelism.

An addiction to elaborately balanced clauses could result in an artifi­
cial, mannered style. But few writers today sin in that direction. You
are not likely to go wrong if you concentrate on putting comparable
sentence components in parallel form. Although accomplished writ­
ers can sometimes justify setting the rules aside, guard against care­
less violations by routinely checking for them:

I. Look at the items you present in series to see that they match in
grammatical form, that you haven't intermingled nouns with verbs
or adjectives, infinitives with gerunds, or phrases with clauses.
Make sure, too, that you have been consistent about repeating
initial prepositions, conjunctions, possessive pronouns, or articles;
you usually have to include such words with all serial items or
with only the first. If you can't put all the items in the same form,
consider recasting the sentence to eliminate the series; the group­
ing may be illogical.

2. Notice the elements connected by and and or and make sure that
they are grammatically equivalent. Then ask yourself whether
readers will immediately recognize what terms the conjunctions
link. If the sentence components that look like a pair are not the
ones you intend, revise to preclude misreading. Pay particular at­
tention to the words that follow correlative conjunctions and make
sure that they match exactly. If you cannot put coordinate ele­
ments in the same form without sounding unnatural, consider un­
coupling them; they may be incompatible.
 ILL-MATCHED PARTNERS

3. Finally, look closely at thie elements you compare, especially those

that follow as or than, to :see that they are logically and grammati­
cally similar, that you are comparing like with like. Also make sure
to group like with like; check prepositional phrases that begin with
words like along with, together with, and among to see that their ob­
jects belong in the same category as the words the phrases modify.
If you review your writi.ng in these ways, you should detect any
errors in parallel structure you've let slip by. Checking for mis­
matches becomes automatic after a while, and eliminating them will
go a long way toward improving both the fluency and the clarity of
your writing.
 It Those scornful of prescriptive grammar have attacked
many of its precepts, but they have generally not chal­
lenged the rules that require the agreement of subjects and
verbs in person and number and the agreement of pro­
nouns and antecedents in number, person, and gender. Though some
language scholars do argue strongly for replacing his or her with an
inconsistent their in a sentence like Everyone is taking his or her seat, they
usually do not practice what they preach, nor do they recommend the
consistent but unidiomatic Everyone are taking their seats.

SUBJECT-VERB DISAGREEMENT

Most of us make most of our subjects and verbs agree most of the
time, and we do so without thought or effort. Usually, in fact, it's hard
to do otherwise. Apart from the verb to be, English verbs do not differ
in form for any subject except a third person singular-he. she. it. or
whatever one of these pronouns can stand for. The variation occurs in
the simple present tense (he works; but J, you, we, or they work) and in
any other tense or mood formed with an auxiliary verb that changes
in the third person singular, from are to is, were to was, have to has, or
do to does (it is working, she was working, he has worked, it does work). The
distinctive form always ends in s. In standard verbs the s or es attaches
itself to the root form (walks, thinks, passes); in the irregular auxiliary
verbs be and have it does not (is, was, has).

75
76 ----- - - - - -MISMANAGED
---- NUMBERS
--- AND
- REFERENCES
---

The last paragraph may seem a little complicated if you're not

comfortable with the grammatical terms, but it merely describes the
changes that you automatically make to bring subjects and verbs into
line. Errors in agreement, a singular subject matched to a plural verb
or vice versa, do not reflect faulty arithmetic or an inadequate grasp
of verb forms. If you make a mistake, you have either misidentified
the number of the subject or, more likely, lost sight of what words go
together.
Thus, to avoid errors in subject-verb agreement, you have to
know how to pick out the subject for every verb you use and how to
tell whether that subject is singular or plural. Few sentences will give
you trouble on this score. It is only certain types of construction that
may tempt you to go wrong. Once you know the danger spots and
master a few analytical techniques, you can easily detect and elimi­
nate any faults.

Compound Subjects
Usually a subject consisting of two or more words joined by and
requires a plural verb: My pad is on the desk but My pad and pencil are on
the desk. Compound subjects rarely pose problems in conventional
sentences, but when writers invert the normal order, putting the verb
before the subject, they sometimes fail to prepare for a double sub­
ject. In the following examples the correct verb form appears in
brackets:
Enclosed is [are] my application and a check for the fee.
Also on my list of all-time great comedies is [are)/\ Night at
the Opera and Tighl Little Island.
More rewarding than the salary is [are] the public exposure
the job offers and the opportunity to influence developments
in your field.

You usually have to plan ahead for compound subjects in asking

questions, too, since the verb usually precedes the subject in an inter­
rogative sentence. Here are a few examples:
How important to your operation is [are] your West Coast
office and your Washington bureau?
Has [Have] the domestic unrest and the international
opposition begun to affect government policy?
Does [DoJ an orange and a grapefruit have the same
number of calories?

Train yourself to check for subject-verb agreement whenever you

use an inverted sentence order. If you mentally put the subject before
_SU_BJ
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the verb, any mistake should become apparent. Pay particular atten­
tion to inverted clauses that begin with there and a singular verb form,
and make sure that the subject that follows doesn't need a plural
verb. These examples show how easy it is to go wrong:
There is [are] a police officer at the front door and two
reporters at the back.
In those days there was [were] only optimism and the
prospect of continued expansion.
There seems [seem) to be at least one factual error and
several false assumptions in this report.

If the plural verbs sound wrong in these sentences, you can

doubtless sympathize with writers who would choose ungrammatical
singulars. In informal writing and especially in conversation, where
there's no time to plan, the singular verb in such constructions is at
least excusable. Theodore Bernstein points out, moreover, that some
writers favor a singular verb when a singular noun is the first of the
linked subjects that follow. Edwin Newman, the popular word
watcher, would seem to be one of them, judging from a letter he
wrote to the New York Times;
According to a Washington dispatch in your edition of June
30, "There were shrimp, smoked salmon, roast beef ... " at
Secretary of State Haig's party.
I take it that the reporter was answering an editor's
question: "What were there to eat?"

Perhaps Newman means to suggest that the shrimp series is a singular

concept-the food served-and thus should not have a plural verb; in
any event he does imply that the plural verb is stilted and unnatural.
But Bernstein finds a plural verb "unexceptionable" in such construc­
tions and says that "the singular verb might put [you] in the position
of having to defend [yourself]." Fortunately, if grammar requires a
form that sounds awkward to you, you can always rewrite to avoid
the issue. You could, for instance, convert the last three examples to
There are fwo reporters at the back door and a police officer at the front; In
those days, with the prospect of continued expansion, there was only optimism;
and This report sums to contain several false assumptions and. ...
Occasionally a subject made up of two words connected by and
designates not separate entities but the same person, thing, or con­
cept; thus it properly takes a singular verb. Examples include frozen
phrases like sum and substance, part and parcel, and the long and the short
of it. The singular is also correct in a sentence like A friend and colleague
of mine is in charge of the arrangements, in which friend and colleague
denote the same person. If both a friend and a colleague were in
78 ____________M_IS_M_A_N_A_G_EDNUMBERS AND REFERENCES

charge, the article would appear before the second noun as well as the
first, and the verb would be plural. But the omission of the second
article in such sentences does not necessarily mean that the subject is
singular. In each of the following examples, the subject arguably con­
sists of two words designating one idea:
One crucially important linkage and desperately needed
collegial contact is between community college teachers and
the university faculty.
The trial and conviction of Alger Hiss is becoming as much
a cause celebre as the Sacco and Vanzetti case.

Examples like these are hard to find. Only occasionally does and join
words to form a single concept. When and is part of your subject and
you have used a singular verb form, make sure that you can justify
your choice. Ideas may be closely associated and yet distinct. Any
doubt on this issue should incline you toward a plural verb. If you set
readers wondering about your grammar, you've distracted them from
what you're saying. The singular verbs in the following sentences are
at best questionable, whereas the plurals, shown in brackets, would
not have given anyone pause:
His education and background gives [give] him an important
advantage in dealing with academics.
George Eliot understood how much resentment and
suppressed rage there was [were] in women.
My own experience and that of my colleagues argues
[argue] that. ...
Your concern and tangible aid is [are] very much
appreciated.

Some writers whose logic is better than their grammar consider a

subject plural when it consists of a singular noun followed by a
phrase beginning with a preposition like together with, along with, in
addition to, or u.s well u.s. If you write My father, as well as my mother,
prefers tea to coffee, you are, of course, talking about two persons, but
you don't have a grammatical plural. A preposition cannot substitute
for the conjunction and, which alone can link words to form a com­
pound subject, and the object of a preposition cannot be the subject
of a verb. A coordinating conjunction like and joins sentence elements
of equal grammatical weight; a preposition shows the subordinate
relation its object bears to some other sentence element.
Though in each of the following examples the writer made the
mistake of using a plural verb, the commas show that the singular
-"'----------------------
SUBJECT-VERB DISAGREEMENT 79

subject is what the sentence is essentially about and that the preposi­
tional phrase provides only supplementary information:
The strength of the dollar abroad, along with the rising costs
of domestic resorts, have [has] made European travel
attractive to American vacationers.
The senator, together with several advisers, are [is]
preparing a bill that would restrict a utility company's right
of eminent domain.
Calling for a rent strike, Richards said that the inadequate
heat, in addition to the landlord's failure to make needed
repairs and to maintain the halls, have [has] made the
building almost uninhabitable.

Subjects Subverted by Other Words

Sentences like Life is just a bowl of cherries, You are my sunshine, and Old
King Cole was a merry old soul conform to the equation I = y and, of
course, can reverse to y = z: and a merry old soul was he. The subject is
always on the left of the linking verb, and the complement, the word
that equates with the subject, is always on the right. Whether I or y is
the subject depends on which precedes the verb. Word order indi­
cates the subject, and the subject determines the number of the verb.
But when subject and complement differ in number, writers some­
times get confused, as in these sentences:
My chief concern in opposing tuition tax credits are [is] the
metropolitan public schools.
The first item on the agenda are [is] the recommendations
on cost-cutting measures.

In each of these examples, the verb agrees with the complement

rather than with the subject. Admittedly, the complement exerts a
strong pull on the verb, especially when the subject is at a remove,
and the sentences may seem awkward when you substitute the cor­
rect verb forms. Here again, your best bet may be discreet evasion (In
opposing lax credits, I am chiefiy concerned with ... ; First on the agenda are
the recommendations ... ).
Just as a complement can distract a writer from the subject, so too
can a modifier that separates subject from verb. The problem gener­
ally arises when a plural noun, usually the object of a preposition,
intervenes between a singular subject and its verb. For example:
Support from a few foundations and federal agencies for
curriculum reform and collaborative research have [has]
added significant resources to English and other disciplines.
80 ---------------------
MISMANAGED NUMBERS AND REFERENCES•

Naturally the council suggests that greater attention to public

activities-those that capitalize on demographics-are [is]
necessary.
One of the most dangerous macho games involve [involves]
two cars accelerating toward a head-on collision, the
"chicken" being the first to swerve out of the way.

Errors like these occur because writers lose track of what they're
talking about. If you routinely trace verbs back to their subjects, you
won't have this problem. It's especially easy to overlook a singular
subject like one, anyone, everyone, each, either, or neither when, as in the
last example, it precedes an of phrase with a plural object. Writers
frequently fall into the trap of discarding the individual in favor of the
group. Here are a few more examples of this common mistake:
Neither of the athletes are [is] at fault.
Each of the coUeges and universities take [takes] a different
approach.
Not one of the witnesses have [has] mentioned seeing a
blonde woman talking to the child just before the accident.

Whether a relative pronoun-usually who, which, or that-is sin·­

gular or plural depends on the number of the word it stands for, and
that word is always the noun or pronoun the relative clause modifies.
When a relative pronoun is the subject of its clause, the verb should
agree with the pronoun's antecedent. You would naturally write the
child who is and the children who are; but when the relative pronoun does
not immediately follow its antecedent, the correct choice may require
conscious effort.
Many writers who invariably keep one in sight as the subject of a
sentence, resisting the lure of intervening plurals, have become so
obsessed with one that they want to make it the subject of every verb
in its vicinity. Consider this sentence:
One of the areas that has suffered most from the economic
cutbacks is education.

Here the writer uses a singular verb not only in the main clause,
where it is appropriate, but also in the relative clause, where it is
incorrect. The subject of the subordinate verb is that, not one, and the
antecedent of that is areas. The relative clause limits areas to those that
have suffered. Education is not the one area that has suffered but one
of those that have suffered.
This error must be one of those that occur most frequently in the
work of accomplished writers. Although strongly condemned in most
usage guides, it crops up everywhere-in a column by an eminent
drama critic, an article by a well-known book reviewer, an essay by a
 _ E�JCT�-_
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respected scholar. Permissive critics take the popularity of this con­

struction in learned circles as a sign that usage is changing on this
point, and they are probably right. But logic remains on the side of
the conservatives, ancl violations are not yet above reproach. Here are
a few more examples:
He is one of those actors who has [have] a brilliantly secure
technique and who never gets [get] anything but rave
reviews.
Eva Peron was one of those figures who seems (seem] to
e:xist outside history.
Marijuana may be one of many environmental agents that
adversely affects [affect] genetic development in subtle ways.

And here's an author who not only makes one the subject of the
wrong verb but fails to make it the subject of the right one:
One of the things that was [were] missed when my
presentation was taped were [was] some acknowledgments.

While the one-of-those-who construction is probably the most

likely to trick writers into mistaking the number of a relative pro­
noun, it is not the only offender. When a relative clause does not
directly follow the word it describes, writers sometimes let interven­
ing words determine the number of the pronoun. For example:
The museum has postponed the exhibition of Picasso's late
paintings that were (was] scheduled for the fall.
IR is the number of runs batted in, not the number of hits,
that decide [decides] the ball game.

In each of these examples the verb in the dependent clause should be

singular because its subject, that, stands for the singular noun that
precedes the prepositional phrase, not for the plural object of the
preposition.

What, All, and None as Subjects

Contrary to what many writers seem to believe, the pronouns what,
all, and none are not invariably singular or plural. Their number de­
pends on their context, but unlike the relative pronouns, they do not
derive their meaning from their antecedents.
The pronoun what that concerns us here is not the one that asks a
question but the one that means "that which" or "those which," or
"the thilng that" or "the things that," and serves as the subject of a
clause. While you should construe what as singular if you have noth­
ing else to go on, don't hesitate to make it plural if you'd replace it
 MISMANAGED NUMBERS AND REFERENCES
82 ---------------------

with a plural. In sentences liike What seem to be diamonds are only rhine­
stones and The collection includes what are generally considered these writers'
best works, what clearly means "the things that." But beware of letting
a plural complement seduce you into using a plural verb when what
sensibly means "that which,." as in What the school needs is more paying
students and What concerns me most is the increasing numbers of unemployed.
Writers commonly betray their uneasiness about what by trying
to make it mean both "tha1t which" and "those which" at the same
time, giving it a singular verb in its own clause and a plural verb in
the main clause. For example:
What is now being challenged are the principles of humility
and self-sacrifice associated with Christianity.
What is missing here are the boldness and originality that
characterized his work in the past.
Watch out for such double-dealing whats in your own writing and
revise as necessary. You have to make up your mind whether the
force of what is singular or plural and correct the verb that's out of
line. In the above examples the singular sense should prevail. In the
next two the writers should probably have chosen the plural:
What is [are] even more striking than these recurring figures
are the ships and trains; that lurk on the fringes of de
Chirico's paintings.
What appears [appear} to be humility and an unwillingness
to assume the throne a:re really affectations designed to
ensure his ascension.
In the next sentence you could perhaps justify either a singular or a
plural what:
What makes a good se,cretary are not only topnotch skills
but such qualities as efficiency, conscien tiousness, and
affability.
What you cannot justify is ]both the singular verb and the plural one.
If the sentence seems awkward or unidiomatic when you bring the
two into line, revise: A good secretary must have not only topnotch skills but
such qualities as . ... Remember that you never have to choose between
clumsiness and faulty grammar. In some problem sentences-for ex­
ample, the one about de Chirico-you can simply omit the what: Even
more striking than these recurri:ng figures are the ships and trains. ... Or you
can rearrange a sentence so that what governs only one verb. The
sentence about Christian principles, for example, might read The
Christian principles of humility and self-sacrifice are what is now being chal­
lenged.
If you don't stop to think about the pronoun all, you're probably
more likely to consider it plural than singular. And when it means the
---<---------------------------
SUBJECT-VERB DISAGREEMENT 83

total number in a group, it is unquestionably plural. You would not

be tempted to use a singular verb in a sentence like All have sinned or
The ship has gone down, and all are lost. But in a different context you
could correctly write all is lost, since the sense is clearly singular when
all means "everything" or "the only thing." Whenever you use all as
a subject, take a moment to ask yourself what it means, and make
sure that your verb is compatible with your answer. The lyricist got
the grammar right in "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth,"
but the writers of the next two sentences let the plural complements
distract them:
All that matters now are your continued loyalty and
support.
All that is missing are the copies of the original invoices.
The easiest way to correct each of these sentences is to reverse the
word order:
Your continued loyalty and support are all that matters now.
The copies of the original invoices are all that is missing.
The pronoun none, of course, derives from no one; and many Eng­
lish teachers, especially in the past, have insisted that it can have no
other meaning, classing it with such invariably singular indefinite
pronouns as everything, nobody, anyone, and each. Most contemporary
grammarians, however, contend not only that none can be plural,
meaning "not any ones," but that the sense is more commonly plural
than singular. Even in a sentence in which none is clearly singular.,
such as None of my work has paid off or None of this advice seems valid, the
meaning is not "no one" but "not any11 or "no part of."
When none precedes a prepositional phrase with a singular object,
you needn't worry about your verb choice; the singular is both inevi­
table and correct. In many other contexts none can as easily mean "not
a single one" as "not any ones," and you can make it singular or
plural as you see fit. Not even traditionalists like Fowler and Follett
would call you wrong for writing either None of us are going to the
meeting or None of us is going to the meeting. Bernstein says, though, that
you're usually better off with the plural unless you emphatically
mean "not a single one," and in that case, he adds, maybe that's what
you should say. Compare, for example, I consulted five doctors, but none
was able to help me with the stronger I consulted five doctors, but not a single
one was able to help me.
The only writers who are likely to get into trouble with none are
those who believe that the pronoun must be singular and who thus
trap themselves into absurdities of this sort:
84�� � �-- ����M
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D NU
_ M
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_ E_ R_S ND _R_EF_E _RN
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None of the houses on that side of the street looks alike.

Obviously, none of the parallel roads meets.
None of the parts fits together.

A singular none makes no sense in such sentences, and you can use
the plural with nearly everyone's blessing. But if you remain uncon�
vinced, out of loyalty to your English teacher or to the etymological
sense of none, avoid using it when logic calls for a plural. fnstead of
writing None of the parts fits together, you could say No two parts fit
together.

Other Tricky Subjects

Are woirds like government, group, chorus, orchestra, team, pair, majority,
variety, and number singular or plural? They can, of course, be either: if
the collective noun denotes a unit, make it singular; if it refers to the
individuals the group comprises, make it plural. In reading over what
you have written, pay attention to collectives as subjects and see
whether you've given them appropriate verbs. Just use common
sense. IJf you say A number of critics disagree, you mean "Several dis­
agree," and you obviously want the plural. In The number of highway
accidents rises every year, number denotes a singular statistic, not the
individual collisions. Bernstein offers the helpful hint that a number
properly takes a plural verb whereas fhe number properly takes a sin­
gular one.
In general, while you can correctly treat a collective noun as sin­
gular or plural, one or the other interpretation will usually seem bet­
ter in a particular context. You will probably choose the appropriate
verb if you recognize that the choice is yours. Writers who decide on
an unsuitable singular usually do so because they think that nouns
singular in form must take singular verbs or that the plural ''sounds
funny." Americans, unlike the British, are not comfortable with com­
binations like the government are prepared or the committee are meeting.
This reluctance to regard collective nouns as plural accounts for il­
logical sentences like these:
The department comes from a variety of backgrounds.
The board of trustees differs from one another on the best
way to solve the problem.

The department as a unit does not come from different backgrounds,

and the board of trustees as a single entity cannot disagree. Of course,
making subjects and verbs agree is a two-way street. If you don't like
the way a plural verb sounds with a collective noun but the plural
interpretation makes more sense, you can find a plural subject that
_SU_B_J_ECT�-_V_ER_B�D_IS_A_G_R_EE_M_E_NT����������������-85

permits a more idiomatic sentence. In the preceding examples, for

instance, you could substitute department members and the trustees.
Although a collective noun can be singular or plural, it cannot be
both at once, as the subjects try to be in these sentences:
At the end of the ceremony the class jumps up and throws
their hats into the air.
Wh en E.T. "dies," the audience reaches for their
handkerchiefs.
The couple is spending their honeymoon in Florida.
While the plural pronoun their in each of these examples shows that
the writer considers the subject plural, the singular verb suggests the
opposite. Such mistakes are common, either because writers fail to
recognize collective nouns as permissible plurals or because they do
not see the connection between the pronoun and the verb. Once you
are alert to this sort of error, you can easily avoid it. You should
routinely check personal pronouns to make sure that they have clear
antecedents, and when you trace a plural pronoun to a subject, make
sure that the subject has a plural verb.
If you use a collective noun repeatedly in a passage, keep it con­
sistently singular or plural. Even though it is logical to construe staff as
plural in The staff expect annual salary increases and as singular in The
staff has one view, the management another, the shifting from singular to
plural may be distracting if the sentences occur close together. Decide
whether the collective noun is dominantly singular or plural and re­
word sentences that require the exceptional interpretation. If you
have used staff primarily in a singular sense, you might substitute
employees where you need the plural.
Just as collective nouns that look singular can be plural, some
words that look plural can be singular-notably, words ending in ics,
such as politics, economics, ethics, tactics, and acoustics. These words are
plural when they denote activities (Gymnastics take up much of the morn­
ing) or characteristics (The acoustics of the new thealer are excellent) but
singular when they mean a science or an art or a field of study (Ethics
interests students more than metaphysics does or Mathematics is the study of
numbers).
The distinction, though, is not always obvious. Depending on
what you mean, you can correctly write either Athletics fascinates me or
Athletics fascinate me. When a subject ends in ics, choose the verb form
that shows the sense you intend. If you're not sure, the context may
help you make up your mind, and sometimes the dictionary entry
will provide guidance. Often the number of the predicate noun makes
one or the other choice seem more logical (The most popular athletics are
swimming and tennis or Politics is a field for the power hungry); the verb still
86�����--������M�IS_M_AN�A_G_E_D_N_U_ M_B_E_R_S_A_N_ D�R _EF_E_R_EN_C_ E_S

depends on the subject, but when the subject can be either singular or
plural, the predicate noun can influence the interpretation. It is not,
howeve1r, a sure-fire indicator. Consider Gymnastics are a way of shaping
up and The ambassador's ethics are what is at issue here, not his diplomatic
ability. A fhe or a possessive before the questionable term provides
another clue, suggesting a plural. lf searching your soul and analyzing
the context still leave you in doubt about the number of an ics word,
make it singular.
A few other singular nouns ending in s include congeries, derived
from the Latin, and bathos and pathos, derived from the Greek. The
literary or scholarly writers likely to use these words are unlikely to
mistake them for plurals. But a similar singular, kudos (meaning "ac­
claim"), has strayed into general use, where it commonly appears
with a plural verb. All the usage guides would call kudos is in order
correct, but whether deserves a lcudo and kudos are in order are incorrect
depends on which dictionary you read. While the American Heritage
Dictiona1ry recognizes only the singular kudos, Webster's Ninth lists in
addition the singular kudo, with the plural kudos, as an acceptable
back-foirmation from the singular kudos.
Some writers are also confused about the numerical status of
nouns that name singular objects consisting of a pair of connected
parts. Vvords like scissors, pincers, tongs, pliers, tweezers, pantyhose, trou­
sers, and pants are plural; the things they represent, Curme says, "are
never simple in their make-up, so that the plural idea is uppermost in
our minds." But the dictionaries acknowledge that all or most of such
terms for tools, but not for garments, are singular or plural in con­
struction. A plural verb is always appropriate, but if you want to use
the singular, make sure that your dictionary gives you this option.
Since dictionaries sometimes disagree on points of usage, consult one
authority consistently.
Foreign plurals thriving in English are another problem. Among
the forms most often misconstrued as singular are criteria, curricula,
media, p,henomena, and strata. All these should govern plural verbs; the
corresponding singulars are criterion, curriculum, medium, phenomenon,
and stratum. In contrast, some originally foreign plurals have become
accepted as English singulars-for example, agenda (the original sin­
gular, agendum, has been lost) and insignia, now regarded as either
singular or plural (the singular insigne barely survives). While data and
trivia, the plurals of datum and trivium, are going the same route,
traditional critics still object to construing these words as singular;
data are and trivia are remain safe choices. In general use, some for­
eign plurals have given way to English forms-focuses is preferred to
foci, indexes to indices, appendixes to appendices-but alumni and loci, for
example, show no sign of losing out to alumnuses and locuses. The
_su_ B�J_Cf�-
E V_E_R _B_D_I_SA_G_R_ E_E _M_E _NT����������������87

explanations advanced for the varying fates of such words do not

provide a practical test for determining whether a foreign plural re­
tains its form and number. When in doubt, check the dictionary.
Still another type of troublesome subject is a quantity or an
amount stated in plural form but construed as singular when taken as
a unit. Sums of money, for example, are often singular, as in Eighty­
five thousand is only an asking price, Twenty dollars buys considerably less
than it did ten years ago, and Is sirty thousand an adequate advertising
budget? Similarly, a period of time expressed in plural form often
requires a singular verb, as in Two weeks is the usual time allowed for a
vacation and Sir months in jail is too lenient a sentence for that offense. But
the plural seems more natural in Our two weeks on the island were sheer
heaven, where the connotation is fourteen days counted one by one.
Often either a singular or a plural interpretation is defensible. When
a subject of this sort gives you pause, you're probably safe with one
or the other, but once you've made your choice, stick with it. You
have to be more decisive than this writer was:
The first few weeks on the expedition have not dampened
my enthusiasm but, I am beginning to suspect, has
disappointed my colleagues.

Alternative Subjects
Because compound subjects-subjects consisting of nouns or noun
equivalents joined by and-require plural verbs, some writers make
the mistake of also giving plural verbs to subjects joined by or. For
example:
We verge in somewhat different ways on as dark an age as
Santayana or Yeats-name your own dark prophet-have
foretold.

Obviously the sentence means "as Santayana has foretold or as Yeats

has foretold" -that is, as either one or the other has foretold, not as
both have foretold. While a dog and a cat make good pets, a dog or a
cat makes a good pet, and neither a dog nor a cat is desirable if there
are allergies in the family, because either a dog or a cat is likely to set
off sneezes. Of course, if or or nor joins plural words, the verb is
plural: either cats or dogs inspire affection.
Once you realize that subjects linked by or or nor independently
govern the verbs they share, you should have no trouble, provided
that both subjects have the same number. But when one of the alter­
native subjects is singular and the other plural, what do you do about
the verb? While some rhetoric handbooks say that in this situation the
verb should agree with the nearer subject-Neither my parents nor my
 _ _ N_A_GE
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_ N�D �RE_F_ER_E_N C
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brother is here, but Neither my brother nor my parents are here-Follett and
Barzun condemn this practice, and Bernstein and Fowler find it the
least desirable way out of an awkward situation. As Follett says, "the
construction that drives a plural and a singular in one harness always
poses a choice of evils." This problem, the pundits agree, calls for
discretion rather than valor, evasion rather than confrontation. Some­
times you can replace the questionable verb with an equivalent that
has the same form whether the subject is singular or plural. To avoid
having to choose between has and have in Either the parents or the child
has to make some adjustment, you could write Either the parents or the child
must make some adjustment. Another device, though somewhat more
ostentatious, is to provide each subject with its own verb: My brother
is not here, and neither are my parents.
What is true of subjects linked by either ... or and neither ... nor
seems to apply as well to those connected by not only ... but also, even
though the last pair do not present alternatives. Not only ... but also
appears more like both ... and than like either ... or, but there is a
nuance of difference: when bolh and and precede subjects of the same
verb, the verb serves the two subjects together; when the correlatives
are not only and but also, the verb goes with each subject in turn, as in
an eifhe1•-or construction. Whatever the explanation, not only ... but
also carmot introduce a compound subject in the same way that
both ... and does. The plural verb is jarring in Not only the students but
also the teacher are at fault, though Both the students and teacher are is
idiomatic. Logic and grammar sometimes appear at odds, and bring­
ing them together may require ingenious rationalization. For this rea­
son, perhaps, not many handbooks of English discuss not only-but also
subjects;. Among those that do, the usual advice is to make the verb
agree with the nearer subject, but that reasoning seems no more valid
for not only . .. buf also than it does for either . .. or. Here again, evasion
seems tlh.e best tactic. Substitute both ... and if that suits your purpose,
or use the verb with only the first subject: Not only are the students at
fault but also the teacher. Or settle for a simple compound: The students
and the leacher are both at fault.

PRONOUN-ANTECEDENT DISAGREEMENT

With a few exceptions, notably the indefinite pronouns (such as one,

some, and any) and the impersonal it of It's raining, pronouns stand for
nouns or for indefinite or relative pronouns. The words they replace
are called their antecedents or principals. One of the most logical
_PRO
_ N _ _U_N_-A
_ O _ N
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_ E_ C
_ ED_ T D_ _IS_A_G_R
_ E_N� EE__ M_ E_N_T������������-89

rules of grammar requires that a pronoun match its antecedent in

person, gender, and number.

Shifts in Person
Making pronouns and antecedents agree in person usually comes
naturally, but accidents do happen. As you know, the first person is I
or we; the second person is you, singular or plural; and the third per­
son is he, she, it, they, or any of the words that these pronouns can refer
to. Here are a few examples of unwarranted shifts, along with sug­
gested revisions:
If a person wants to succeed in corporate life, you have to
know the rules of the game. (Change to A person who wants to
succeed in corporate life has lo know ... , or change a person
wants to you want, or begin the sentence with To succeed.)
I play the part of a poor young woman who has to depend
on the bounty of my stingy old uncle. (Cnange my to her.
The antece dent of the possessive pronoun is who, not l; and
who-since its antecedent is woman-is the third person
singular, as the verb has shows.)
A s Americans who have seen the erosion of our standard of
living, we know that the government's policies are not
working. (Change our to their; the antecedent is who, which
has the number and person of its antecedent-Americans. But
you might better write, As American.s whose standard of living
has eroded, we . ... )
When one tires of visiting museums and cathedrals, you can
renew your strength in one of London's lovely parks, sitting
by a lake and watching the English at play. (Change one tires
to you tire, or change you can to one can and your to one's.)
In the last example you might think that he can and his would be
preferable to the one forms, which sound stilted to American ears and
seem especially objectionable when accompanied by one in other
senses. But in strict usage-quite apart from the question of sexist
language, discussed below-one's and oneself must be used with the
indefinite one, as opposed to a one that is limited in some way (one of
my friends or the one who lives in London) or to a one that serves as a
substitute for I, a usage more common in England than in the United
States (My American cousins keep saying, "Fly over and see us"-as if one
were a swallow or something). If you use one's and oneself to refer to the
indefinite one, you avoid the ambiguity that might result with his and
himself. Here's Fowler on the subject: "The difference between One
hates his enemies and One hates one's enemies is at once apparent if to
each is added a natural continuation: One hates his enemies and another
forgives them; One hates one's enemies and loves one's friends. The first one is
 MISMANAGED NUMBERS AND REFERENCES

numeral, the second impersonal, and to make his and ot1e's exchange
places, or to write either in both places, would be plain folly."
The impersonal one construction, however, can lead to the awk­
wardness of repeated ones. If it does, avoid it. You can substitute you
if it suits the tone of your writing and you use it consistently, but the
second person is informal and not always appropriate. We denoting
you and your readers, or all Americans, or the whole human race is
also a possibility in some contexts, provided again that you keep its
antecedent constant and don't let we sometimes mean one group and
sometimes another. Or you could use a plural noun that names the
group the one belongs to; for instance, you could make the last exam­
ple read:
When sightseers have exhausted themselves visiting
museums and cathedrals, they can regain their strength in
one of London's lovely parks, sitting by a lake and watching
the English at p lay.

Gender Problems
If you have been thinking that many avoid the excessive-one problem
by substituting a person or a man, you are right. A writer who chooses
to use one presumably wants the third person singular, not the first
person plural, the second person, or the third person plural, so that
the obvious way to revise the last example might seem to be this:
When a person has exhausted himself visiting museums and
cathedrals, he can regain his strength....

The contemporary objection to this solution is, of course, that the

masculine pronoun refers to a person who may be a woman. Al­
though pronouns should agree with their antecedents in gender as
well as in number, this requirement did not trouble most writers until
the women's movement alerted them to the issue of sexist language.
In our patrilineal society he has long served to denote someone of
unspecified sex, and grammar books in the past, perhaps because
they were invariably written by men, invariably recommended he
over he or she in such contexts. Several current guides, in fact, continue
to endorse the traditional usage, eloquently defending the integrity of
the language against the inroads of reformers who would sacrifice
graceful prose to social or political ends. Roy H. Copperud, for one,
finds the use of he or she "not only clumsy but unnecessary. It is a
well-established convention that in such instances the masculine form
(he) is taken as applying to both sexes." And Ebbitt and Ebbitt, after
presenting the argument against sexist language, explain that they use
he "to refer to sfudenl and writer not because of bias or obtuseness but
in the interest of economy and style."
 PRONOUN-ANTECEDENT DISAGREEMENT
-'----'----"::..._::__:_.:;,_;_--'---'--'---.....=..-::.--=----=----------------------- 91

Among the opponents of that expedient, Watkins and Dillingham

argue that "there are as many 'she's' as 'he's' in the world, and one
pronoun should not be selected to represent both." Still, no one advo­
cates the awkward repetition of he-or-she combinations. Bemoaning
the lack of a third-person singular pronoun to designate a person of
either sex, some critics have proposed adding a new pronoun to the
language to meet the need. Others have recommended using he!she,
s!he, or an ungrammatical they. At this point, however, none of these
suggestions seems to have any chance of winning general approval.
Although finding acceptable alternatives presents a challenge,
fewer and fewer writers seem comfortable with the so-called generic
he or, for that matter, with man to denote a human being or the species
and with compounds of man, such as policeman and mailman, that have
unexceptionable genderless equivalents (police officer, letter carrier). It is
hard not to see the validity of the objections to practices that relegate
women always to "the other," to the second sex, and foster a sense of
inferiority. Studies have shown that readers associate he primarily
with a male person and that they envision a man when they read
about "the doctor and his patients," "the lawyer and his clients," and
"the artist and his work." A woman does not automatically identify
with he; she may feel left out when she reads that Anyone can achieve
whatever he wants to.
If you care about good prose and also about social justice, what
are you to do? You will, of course, have to decide for yourself; but if
you use he, he or she, or they to refer to a singular antecedent of
unspecified sex, you' re going to irritate a good many readers. It would
at least seem advisable to avoid controversy whenever you can do so
without compromising what you want to say. While some writers­
women among them-still accept he for any person, they explain in a
note that their he means "he or she"; but the need for such an expla­
nation undercuts the argument that the generic he has wide recogni­
tion and acceptance. The first person plural, the second person, or the
third person plural often provides a way of avoiding the issue. Some­
times the best evasive tactic, though one not always available, is to
eliminate the personal pronoun. Thus, Relations between a teacher and his
student, a social worker and his client, and a pastor and his parishioner have
some traits in common would become between teacher and student, social
worker and client, and pastor and parishioner. ... The following examples
illustrate some controversial uses of the masculine pronoun and sug­
gest revisions that should be acceptable on both stylistic and ideologi­
cal grounds:
When a man fears that his words are being taken down,
that his associations and movements are under scrutiny, that
neighbors and associates may be babbling about him to the
police, he does not speak or act with the freedom and
92�� � � � � � � � � � M
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candor that Americans are accustomed to regard as a

birthright.
• When citizens fear that their words are being taken down,
that their associations and movements are under scrutiny,
that neighbors and associates may be babbling about them
to the police, they do not. ... (In some contexts you might
prefer recasting the passage with we or you.)

Students who have not yet wrestled with the great questions
that have immemorially engaged humane and civilized
men ... can be invited to coIJaborate with us in posing the
questions of most immediate concern to them. In so doing,
the student may more readily perceive that the unexamined
life is not worth living and that Aeschylus, Shakespeare, or
Yeats can assist him in his efforts at self-discovery.
• Students who have not yet wrestled with the great questions
that have immemorially engaged humane and civilized
thinkers ... can be invited to collaborate with us in posing
the questions of most immediate concern to them. In so
doing, they may more readily perceive that the unexamined
life is not worth living and that Aeschylus, Shakespeare, or
Yeats can assist them in their efforts at self-discovery. (fhe
first sentence does not have a gender-agreement problem­
the revision differs from the original only in replacing men
with thinkers-but it shows that the writer found a plural
subject acceptable and that the switch to the troublesome
singular in the second sentence was as gratuitous as it wa s
mistaken.)

A teacher may be ever so sincere in his belief in

communism, but can he at the same time be a sincere
seeker after truth?
• Can a teacher who is a sincere believer in communism be at
the same time a sincere seeker after truth?

Any employer wishes to have a considerable amount of

freedom in the selection of his subordinates who require
special trust. Even after a man has been hired, his employer
wants the power to dismiss him if found unworthy of
confidence.
• Any employer wants considerable freedom in selecting
subordinates who require special trust and in dismissing
those found unworthy of confidence.

While many writers apparently want to avoid the charge of sexist

language, their consciousness seems to be at half-mast. They care­
fully sidestep some controversial masculine pronouns, even at the
cost of good grammar, but fail to notice other lapses. For example:
PRONOUN-ANTECEDENT DISAGREEMENT
---------------------- 93

If a driver buckles his seat belt, the pe rson beside him will
buckle theirs.

Even though the theirs probably reflects an effort to avoid an ambigu­

ous his, not a generic one, it tacitly recognizes that the passenger may
be either a man or a woman. But the writer keeps a man in the
driver's seat.

Shifts in Number
Until the generic he came under attack, handbooks of grammar had
little to say about pronoun-antecedent agreement in gender. The pri­
mary concern was agreement in number, especially the misuse of
they, their, and them to refer to a singular noun or to a singular pronoun
like everyone, each, anybody, nobody. The women's movement may be
contributing to this error, since many who would write Everybody be­
lieves that he has the right lo decide for himself will use they and themselves
in that construction sooner than go to he or she and himself or herself.
Even well-intentioned nonsexist writers have trouble staying with the
he-or-she format, as this example shows:
After .a series of portfolio dis.asters, the astute business
person realizes that he or she is speculating with a
significant portion of their net worth.

In colloquial use the third person plural commonly refers to a

singular antecedent of undetermined sex, and some contemporary
writers on style urge general acceptance of this practice. In The Hand­
book of Nonsexist Writing Casey Miller and Kate Swift point out that at
one time you was only a plural pronoun but that it eventually became
the singular as well "in the days before prescriptive grammarians
were around to inhibit that kind of change. English needs a compara­
ble third-person singular pronoun, and for many they meets the
need." Certainly there's plenty of historical precedent for this use.
The Orford English Dictionary says that they was "[o]ften used in refer­
ence to a singular noun made universal by every, any, no, etc., or
applicable to one of either sex." Among the writers quoted in evi­
dence are Fielding, the Earl of Chesterfield, and Ruskin.
While the argument for they in singular constructions is not with­
out merit, those who favor this usage have not yet prevailed, and if
you adopt it, expect to have your grammar challenged. Miller and
Swift persuasively insist that he cannot mean either a man or a
woman because he cannot shed its male connotation. Now that the
eighteenth-century grammarians have imposed their logic on the lan­
guage, can they shed its plural connotation and mean "he or she"?
 MISMANAGED NUMBERS AND REFERENCES

Will we learn to say they is? Or will they, though construed as singular,
retain the plural verb form?
Others try to bring everybody and their into line by a somewhat
similar route. They contend that since everybody is plural in meaning,
everybody should take their seats makes perfect sense. But though words
like anybody, everybody, and each often mean essentially what all does,
they remain syntactically singular. No one advocates, for example,
Everyone are at their wits' end. Bernstein says that "the writer of crafts­
manship and taste will reject the grammatical inconsistency of the
combination of a singular noun and a plural pronoun" and will
change one or the other. Usually a shift to a bona fide plural provides
the most graceful way out of the dilemma. Here are a few examples:
The classic parka was designed for the rugged wear a
backpacker expects from their gear and clothing.
• ... for the rugged wear that backpackers expect....
The coach responds to this human frailty by asserting the
hierarchical right to monitor each player closely, forcing
them to stick to their job.
• ... to monitor the players ...their jobs.
Or, if the coach is in charge of a single-sex team:
• ...to monitor the players closely, forcing each to stick to
her [or his] job.
When the professor asked who had read the assignment,
everyone raised their hands.
• ... assignment, a1l the students raised their hands.
• ... assignment, everyone's hand shot up.
A similar error in agreement occurs when a plural pronoun stands
for a collective noun that governs a singular verb. Obviously a collec­
tive noun cannot be simultaneously singular and plural. Train your­
self always to check the verbs and pronouns you use with collective
nouns to make sure that you have been consistent. 1f you find a
disagreement, decide whether the singular or plural seems more ap­
propriate and revise accordingly. For example:
In addition, PROTECT plans to serve as a watchdog over croc.
They [ItJ will mount a large-scale advertising, fund-raising,
and membership campaign throughout Orange County.
The firm compensates their [its] managers in an unusual
manner.
The spectral cast of adventurers gathered in the opening
scene does [do J not feel that their destinies have been
completed.
_O_TER�D_
_H_ S_ �_PR_O_BE_L
I A_GE_ RE_M�ENT _ _ S���������������95
M_

OTHER DISAGREEMENT PROBLEMS

Some writers have trouble keeping to the plural point of view they
begin with. They start off talking about a group as a whole and then
shift their attention to an individual within the group. As Follett says,
"The axiom that if one person has one head, heart, or torso two
persons have two seems to be a stumbling block to a good many
writers." For example:
Humanists forever keep one foot in art and one in behavior.

Clearly humanists as a group have more than two feet among them;
the sensible change here is to The humanist forever keeps . ... This sort
of lapse from logic comes easily. The author of a popular newspaper
column on language supplied the next example, in which several
thinkers share a forehead:
This is the line being peddled behind the furrowed brow of
the most earnest and nonpartisan politicians.

Of course, changing brow to brows won't help if you're troubled by the

notion of peddling a line behind a brow, but that's not the issue here.
In the following sentence the Wlwarranted shift from singular to plu­
ral requires a little more effort to correct:
These chefs would even slice up their grandmother and
season her with parsley just so they could put on the menu
"Assiette de grand-mere."

Presumably the chefs did not have the same lineage, but converting to
grandmothers would create another problem-a sentence in which the
third-person plural pronoWl sometimes has one antecedent and
sometimes another. If all the chefs in question are men, the sentence
could read:
Such a chef would even slice up his grandmother....

If you don't mind either his or his or her for a person of unknown sex,
you could shift to the singular even if the group included women. But
if chefs must remain plural, you would have to use grandmothers and
find some way to avoid making it the antecedent of a pronoun:
The chefs would even slice up their grandmothers and
sprinkle on some parsley for the chance to put "Assiette de
grand-mere" on the menu.

The following examples of faulty noun agreements, with the correc­

tions shown in brackets, are more typical:
96������������M�I5_M_A _N_A_G_E_D_ N�U_M_8_E_RS_ _ A _ND�_ R_E _FE_R_E_N _CE� S

Lawyers are told that if they do not become a partner

[become partners] by age forty they never will.
Colleges that have [A college that has] an attractive campus
near a major city naturally have [has] an advantage that less
well situated schools do not .
Of course, some combinations of plural subjects and singular ob­
jects make perfect sense. If two persons share an apartment, you can
say They keep their apartment neat. An abstract quality characteristic of
several persons is properly singular, as in They all showed courage or
They were all driven by ambition. figurative words also remain singular:
We earn our bread and butter in nine-to-five jobs.
Occasionally you may have trouble deciding whether or not a
noun should remain singular when a related noun is plural, but you
can usually rely on either logic or your ear for idiom to guide you. If
you question such a usage, try out the plural; if it sounds unnatural,
reject it. You wouldn't change heart to hearts in a sentence like They
took heart from the situation or eye to eyes in A small painting near the
doorway caught our eye. But guard against making two or more share
something concrete that they don't have in common. Statements like
We all got our driver's license at the age of seventeen and All in favor raise
their right hand are careless and illogical.
Managing most numbers, in fact, is primarily a matter of care and
common sense. You can't have the joint venture of one person. A
group regarded as a unit can't fight with one anc>ther. The authors of
the following sentences simply weren't thinking::
The project is the result of the combined efforts of each
participa nt [all participants] working toward a common goal.
The discontinuity [discontinuities] of language present in the
Chinese example s and in Trakl's poetry has [have] different
origins.
Some errors in noun agreement occur because writers fail to note
the connective between two numerical adjectives. modifying the same
noun. You should say between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries but
from the fourteenth to the fifteenth century. Similarly, you should say the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries but the fourteenth or fifteenth century. In
other contex ts, too, writers forget that their choke of or instead of and
affects the number of a related noun. For example:
The only medicines [medicine] to cure wild inflation are [isJ
the snake oil of wage-price controls or the castor oil of
periodic hard times.
In Shakespeare's principal tragedies-Hamlet, Macbeth,
Othella, or [and] King Lear-the hero fits [heroes fit] the
classic pattern.
_O _TH_E_R_D_I_S_A_GR_E_E_M_E_NT�P_R_O_B_LE_M_5��������������97

Still another common problem arises when the same noun must
serve two constructions, one requiring a singular form and the other a
plural, as in one of the best, if not the best, deals 1 ever made. In the
example, deals goes with one of the best, but if not the best needs a deal it
doesn't get. You could, of course, write the best deal, or at least one of the
best deals, I ever made, but you can avoid the repetition by writing one of
the best deals, if not the be st, I ever made. In Fowler's words, "the place
from which the understood word [here deal] is omitted is after, not
before, the word from which it is to be supplied [here deals]; for from
a word that has already been expressed the taking of the other num­
ber is not forbidden." In other words, make sure that the completed
phrase precedes the elliptical one.
Contemporary writers on style do not comment on phrases like
one or two things, which are probably well on their way to acceptance,
but in formal contexts Fowler's principle should apply here as well. In
this example things agrees with two but not with one; precise usage
would require a thing or two. Similarly, Let me make one or two more points
would become Let me make another point or two.
One other type of faulty agreement involves the demonstrative
adjectives: this, that, these, and those. As you know, most adjectives in
English remain the same whether they modify singular or plural
nouns; the demonstratives are the exception. This and that should
precede singular nouns, these and those plural ones. Most grammarians
regard constructions like these kind of plays and those type of windows as
violations of this rule; the plural object of the of phrase tricks writers
into using the plural demonstrative, but the word modified is not the
plural noun but the singular kind or type. (Curme disagrees, arguing
that kind of and type of are adjectives in such contexts, but the weight
of opinion is against him.) The preferred choices are this kind of play
and that type of window or these kinds of plays and those types of windows.
Routinely check such constructions; if you find disagreement, change
the demonstrative to fit the noun or the noun to fit the demonstrative.
Or you can make the plural object of the prepositional phrase change
places with the noun the phrase modifies. Thus, instead of these kinds
of plays, you could write plays of this kind; instead of those types of win­
dows, you could write windows of that fype.
Whether the object of the preposition in such constructions
should be plural or singular is another matter. Use the singular when
you're talking about a classification-these kinds of farce, these types of
behavior-and the plural when you mean the individuals within the
class-these kinds of stories, these types of events. Often you can justify
either number; you're within your rights to regard the object of the
preposition as the class or as the individuals within it: these types of
activity or these types of activities. Just make sure that the demonstrative
98������������M_I5_M_A_N_A_G__D_NU
E �M�BE__R_SA__N_D�RE_ F_E_RE_N�
_ C ES

adjective before the singular sort or kind or type is this or that, not these
or those.

FAULTY REFERENCES

Most pronouns, the indefinite ones excepted, derive their meaning

from their antecedents. Unless you make clear exactly what a pro­
noun stands for, your readers will have to pause to guess. Even if they
rapidly figure out your intention, their momentary doubt is an obsta­
cle to efficient communication.
Reference-of-pronoun errors are easy to spot if you're willing to
look for them. Just trace every pronoun back to the word it replaces
and make sure that the antecedent is an appropriate part of speech
appropriately placed and uniquely qualified to do the job. In the
throes of composition, few authors bother to use pronouns precisely,
but a conscientious writer eventually makes the necessary repairs.
When you're generally satisfied with your final draft, read through it
again checking only pronouns. You'll almost certainly find some that
need clarifying.

Missing Antecedents
Writers frequently use a pronoun-especially this, which, or if-to
refer loosely to an idea or to something implicit but not stated in what
precedes. Vague at best, such a pronoun is at worst misleading; lack­
ing a dear-cut antecedent, it may associate itself with the wrong
word. Let's look at some examples, the first from a true-crime best
seller:
I had come to his office as a ... sympathizer and if, as the
trial progressed, questions arose in my mind, this wasn't out
of personal hostility to either him or his client, as he
apparently took it to be.

What wasn't out of hostility? The this has no word to stand for,
and the subsequent it that goes back to this compounds the difficulty.
Because the reference is imprecise, readers ma1y initially take it to
mean hostility, discarding this possibility only when they realize that it
makes no sense. Readers would not stumble if the writer had cor­
rected the sentence to read:
... questions arose in my mind, they did not stem from
personal hostility to either him or his client, a1s he
apparently thought they did.
fAULTY REFERENCES
-------------------- 99

The vague this is among the most common of pronoun faults. The
next two examples come from a newspaper's editorial pages:
The investors claimed a further deduction because the
property was sold at a paper loss. The Justice Department
can argue that this is ilJegal, but. ...
The this has several preceding nouns well situated to serve as its
antecedent, but it actually refers to claiming a deduction, an idea that
does not appear in the sentence in a form that can anchor the pro­
noun. To correct this sort of error, you need only convert the demon­
strative pronoun to a demonstrative adjective-that is, give this a
noun to modify:
The Justice Department can argue that this practice is illegal,
but. ...
Here's another example, with the correction shown in brackets:
The School Board is expected to decide at its next meeting
whether to have elementary pupils attend schools 40
minutes less every day. This [ruling] would leave the
children with the state minimum of five hours of daily
instruction.
The vague which crops up at least as often as the vague this. For
example:
The plans proposed for Indian Point have the look of an
Achilles' heel, which is why critics are focusing on them.
The sentence structure makes heel look like the antecedent of which
(cf. Achilles' heel, which was his vulnerable point, where heel is the antece­
dent), but presumably the critics are focusing on the plans not be­
cause of a heel but because of the plans' vulnerability. To state the
idea precisely, you could edit out the which clause:
Critics are focusing on the plans for Indian Point because
these proposals have the look of an Achilles' heel.
You can't say "because they have the look ... ," since the they might
then seem to refer to critics. If you wanted to forgo the causal idea for
the sake of conciseness, you could write:
Critics are focusing on the plans for Indian Point, which
have the look of an Achilles' heel.
Here's another example:
On days when everything seems to go well, which hardly
ever happens, you can sometimes forget the odds against
success.
 MISMANAGED NUMBERS AND REFERENCES

What hardly ever happens is that everything goes well, but that idea
is not expressed in a form that which can replace. You could write:
On days when everything seems to go well-which hardly
ever occur-you ....
In the revision which refers clearly, logically, and grammatically to
days. But rewording to eliiminate the relative clause produces a
smoother sentence:
On those rare days when everything goes well, you can ....
In the following sentence, too, you should probably excise the
problem which:
Some instructors choos,e not to participate in this activity,
which may be a telling fact in itself.
You might choose one of these remedies:
Some instructors choose not to participate in this activity,
and their refusal may be a telling fact in itself.
That some instructors choose not to participate in this
activity may be a telling fact in itself.
Occasionally which or thiis can refer clearly to the whole preceding
clause, not to a specific word, and most guides accept this usage (They
hired us immediately, which makes me think that we are underpricing our
seroices). But these pronouns are so frequently abused that you are
better off sinning on the side of caution.
A third pronoun that t1empts writers to looseness is it. But not
every it needs a preceding ireference word. In idiomatic phrases like
It's raining and It's cold out, the impersonal it requires no antecedent.
Also, in statements like If is frue that money can't buy happiness and It is
important to work hard, the subject it stands for the noun clause or
infinitive phrase that follows th e verb and explains what it means.
The it you have to worry <llbout is the one that, like which and this,
refers to some notion embedded in what precedes but not in a form
that can serve as an antecedlent. For example:
The prindpaJ claimed that he had not heard about any
muggings of younger children by high school students but
that he would investigate it.
The it has no legitimate antecedent in the sentence. The writer should
have either replaced the pronoun with a noun-say, the matter or the
complaint-or dropped the rnnanchored it and ended the sentence with
investigate. Here's another example:
The doctors wanted to operate at once, but the boy's mother
would not allow it.
FAULTY REFERENCES

H stands for an unexpressed "the operation" or "them to operate."

Even though the infinitive to operate functions as a noun in the sen­
tence, it's not the antecedent of it; you could not replace if with to
operate and have the sentence make sense. But you could write:
The doctors urged an immediate operation, but the boy's
mot her would not alJow it.

Or you could keep the original but substitute them lo or consent for it:
The doctors wanted to operate at once, but the boy's mother
would not consent.

In the next sentence the easiest solution is to replace the vague it with
a noun:
Fewer chips are passing across the gaming tables these days,
and Las Vegas is feeling it [the Loss].

An it that begins a clause and refers to what you have just said
always deserves scrutiny. Does the it have a clear antecedent in what
precedes, or does it simply refer to what you have been saying in
general? Consider this example:
When my grandmother was ten, she wheedled a quarter
from her father so she could see the circus that had come to
town and then, while standing in line to pay admission, gave
the money to a stranger who offered to buy the ticket for
her; she never saw him again-or the circus-and it made
her distrustful of everyone for the rest of her life.

Presumably the it stands for the incident just related, not for a single
word, but it's inadequate for the job and perhaps even misleading,
since it may seem at first to refer to circus. The writer should have
substituted a summarizing noun for it-this erperience, perhaps.
Although this, which, and it are probably the pronouns that most
often lack clear-cut antecedents, they are by no means the only ones.
A vague that, for instance, is fairly common. Here's one example,
along with a suggested revision:
She refuses to perform in any state that has not ratified the
ERA, and that means a Chicago concert is out.
• Since she refuses ... , a Chicago concert is out.

The next sentence not only fails to give those an appropriate antece­
dent but suggests an inappropriate one:
Sales are way off, and even those still making money are
cutting production.
102�����������-M�IS_MA
_ _N_A_G_ E_D_ N_U_M�B_ER_S_ AN�D�RE_ F_ E_R E
_ _N _CE_S

Here the solution is to replace the demonstrative pronoun with a

noun-say, companies. In the next example they lacks an explicit
antecedent:
The little town of Florida, New York, is the onion capital of
the United States, and they are [its produce is] shipped all
over the country.

That sentence requires readers to manufacture an antecedent (the

plural onions) from an adjective (the onion in onion capital). The next
example makes the same unreasonable demand:
At the end of the tenn, the instructor invites student
comment on the course, and they often make constructive
suggestions.

The sentence includes no plural noun that f hey can replace, and if
readers weren't paying attention to probable meaning, they would
find it easier to convert the singular instructor to instructors than to
make a plural noun from the adjective student. To solve the problem,
you could simply change invites student comment to invites students to
comment.
Theoretically, since the possessive forms of nouns function as
adjectives, they too are unsuitable antecedents for pronouns-except,
of course, for pronouns that are also in the possessive case. By strict
standards the following sentence is incorrect:
The president's outrage when he heard about the incident
led him to demand the secretary's resignation.

With president's technically an adjective, the he and him have no noun

to stand for. To correct the sentence, you would have to get presidenf's
out of the possessive case:
The incident so outraged the president that he demanded
the secretary's resignation.

Not many writers are careful about honoring the possessive's adjecti­
val function, and infractions rarely threaten clarity or call attention to
themselves. Still, if you respect grammatical precision, you may want
to observe the rule.

Obscure Antecedents
When you check your pronouns, first make sure that those requiring
antecedents have explicit ones. Then notice where you have put the
antecedents; generally, of course, they should antecede the pronouns.
One exception already noted is the deferred "antecedent" that fol­
lows an anticipatory it construction. But even in other contexts a
---------------------
FAULTY REFERENCES 103

briefly postponed principal may sometimes be less of a problem than

the wording adopted to avoid it. For example, In his time Joe Louis was
a great source of pride to his people seems easier to read than Joe Louis, in
his time, was a great source of pride to his people. But keep the pronoun
close to the word it stands for. Readers have to wait too long to find
out what this sentence is talking about: A legend in his own time and a
great source of pride lo the black people du ring the years when the white­
dominated sports world offered little else, Joe Louis. ...
Even pronouns preceded by appropriate antecedents may give
readers trouble. An antecedent may be too far back to serve as an
easy reference. for example:
When the judge reported the jury's request for clarification
of the incident, the defense attorneys began to have second
thoughts about the stress they had placed on it, especially
when they heard his instructions.
The his can refer only to judge, but did you hesitate a moment before
you made the connection? The distance between antecedent and pro­
noun is too great for comfort. The it may also have made you falter.
The intended antecedent, incident, lacking a dominant position in the
sentence, fails to assert itself. A pronoun refers more easily to the
subject or object of a preceding verb than to the object of a preposi­
tion or to a word buried in a parenthetical phrase. The difficulty is
compounded if some other noun of the appropriate number and gen­
der is in a better position to attract the pronoun. For example:
The current problem is coded into the computer, and it then
shows what the cause is.
Obviously it has to mean the computer, but you can see that problem,
the subject of the preceding verb, strongly attracts the pronoun, even
though the real antecedent, the object of a preposition, is closer. To
clarify, you could convert the second coordinate clause to a relative
clause modifying computer:
... computer, which then identifies the cause.
In each of the following examples the revised version is easier to
read because it takes the antecedent out of the background and gives
it prominence as the subject of the sentence:
When she moved to the small apartment over the Landons'
garage, she had the peace and quiet she needed for her
work, and its simple furnishings pleased her.
• The small apartment she now rented over the Landons'
garage gave her the peace and quiet she needed for her
work, and its simple furnishings pleased her.
104 ---------------------
MISMANAGED NUMBERS AND REFERENCES

If after four years in

college you still cannot eam enough
money to support yourself, you may think that they were a
waste of time.
• Four years in college may seem a waste of Ume if they don't
enable you to earn enough money to support yourself.
This view is endorsed in an editorial in the November issue,
and it makes a strong case.
• An editorial endorsing this view appears in the November
issue, and it makes a strong case.

Ambiguous Pronouns
A pronoun can have a specific and compatible antecedent in a domi­
nant position not too far back and still fail to make itself dear. Read­
ers cannot immediately recognize what a pronoun stands for if two or
more preceding words qualify syntactically for the role of antecedent.
In Mary says that Ellen always gives her children too many presents, whose
children is Ellen spoiling? A pronoun with two possible antecedents
can be so confusing that readers cannot tell what the writer has in
mind. More often, though, such a pronoun is only technically am­
biguous, since the context reveals what the writer intends. Still, the
questionable syntax distracts readers. They may initially misinterpret
the pronoun and then have to backtrack when logic shows that the
pronoun cannot mean what the wording suggests. Sometimes the
misinterpretation is ludicrous, as in Lady Diana's comment to report­
ers about her $55,000 engagement ring: "I can't get used to wearing it
yet. The other day I even scratched my nose with it, because it's so
big." The nervous princess-to-be apparently heard the ambiguity her­
self, for she quickly added, " ... the ring, I mean."
Although sometimes, like Lady Di, you can detect a faulty refer­
ence by saying your words aloud, a more reliable technique is to trace
every pronoun back to its antecedent and make sure that no confu­
sion is possible. As we have seen, a noun in a dominant position
preceding the pronoun is in a stronger position to serve as the ante­
cedent than, say, a noun in a prepositional phrase or in a parenthetical
element. It is also true that a pronoun tends to identify itself with the
nearest preceding noun. Ambiguous pronouns are usually pulled in
two directions-toward a nearby noun in a comparatively weak posi­
tion or a more distant noun in a stronger position or toward two
nouns in equally strong positions. Unfortunately, no set way of posi­
tioning antecedent and pronoun will ensure clarity in such contexts.
The many variables make any general rule impractical.
Worrying about unclear pronouns in the early stages of writing
can only impede your progress. But be sure to check for ambiguities
_FA_U_L_T_Y_R_E _FE_R_EN_C_E_S������������������-105

when you review your final draft. I've never read a manuscript that is
free of these errors, and they abound in print. When you find a
pronoun whose identity is questionable, you usually have to substi­
tute a noun or reconstruct the sentence. Here are a few examples, the
first one from a newspaper's theater page:
I wonder how the show will go over in Washington now
that it has turned conservative.

Here the it could refer either to the nearer noun, Washington, or to the
one in the strong position, show. The sentence, written shortly after
President Reagan took office, does mean that the capital turned con­
servative, but another interpretation is possible: the show could have
been revised to meet the prevailing taste. In fact, the story later quotes
the producer's suggestions for interpreting the scenario as Republi­
can. Still, the context does ultimately make the it-Washington connec­
tion, and you could clarify the sentence most easily by changing if to
the government.
The next example also comes from a newspaper article:
"Tell Them" was written, incidentally, by the songwriter
Paul Dresser, the brother of the novelist Theodore Dreiser,
whose "My Gal Sal" will be sung at stops along East 20th
Street.

Readers probably realize that the songwriter, not the novelist, wrote
"My Gal Sal," but they need to infer this connection. A relative pro­
noun ordinarily refers to the immediately preceding noun-here,
Dreiser-and the failure of whose to do what's expected is a stumbling
block. You could revise this way:
Incidentally, both "Tell Them" and "My Gal Sal," the song
that will be sung at stops along East 20th Street, were
written by Paul Dresser, the brother of the novelist
Theodore Dreiser.

In the last example the ambiguity might give readers a moment's

pa use; in the next one it stops them cold:
Many people fear that a boa constrictor will choke a person
for no reason at all. They don't realize that the snake will
only attack another animal when it is feeding.

Since either snake or animal could qualify as the antecedent of it, those
not up on their herpetology may well wonder whether the boa attacks
to protect its own food or to steal another's. Eliminating the direct
object of attack would also eliminate the ambiguity:
... that the snake will only attack when it is feeding.
106 ____________
MISMANAGED NUMBERS AND REFERENCES

But in the unlikely event that a snake will only attack a feeding ani­
mal, you could write:
... that the snake will only attack an animal that is feeding.
Here's one more example in which the identity of the pronowt is
anyone's guess:
The bachelor policema11l became Mr. Smith's legal guardian,
and the young man, who recently turned eighteen, moved in
with Officer Jones, who lives with his mother.
The news story does eventmtlly straighten out the ambiguity, but the
writer could have avoided the problem by rearranging the sentence so
that the masculine pronoun can refer to only one preceding noun:
Officer Jones, a bachelor policeman who lives with his
mother, became Mr. Smith's legal guardian, and the young
man, who recently tum,ed eighteen, moved in with him.

You can also create ambiguity by repeating a pronoun in a sen­

tence and giving it first one meaning and then another. Once readers
know what a pronoun refers to, they tend to understand successive
uses in the same way, and a shift in midstream can leave them floun­
dering. Although you can sometimes swap horses so dearly and wt­
obtrusively that no one notices, such a feat is an exception. Fowler's
succinct rule is "One pronoun, one job," and violating it is risky.
Here's an example:
Getting European Jews to Palestine during World War II
involved first getting them to the Mediterranean, past
German army guards and their many European
sympathizers.

The them refers clearly to Jews, and readers expect the possessive form
of the pronoun to have the same antecedent. But why would it be
difficult to get Jewish refugees past their sympathizers? To avoid this
confusion you would have to eliminate one of the pronouns, perhaps
by writing:
... past German anny ,guards and the many Nazi
sympathizers in Europe.
The error is more serious i11t this example:
Miss Brown said that until her arrest for the holdup of an
armored truck she did not know about her roommate's
hidden past.

Can you tell who was arrested? Part of the problem is that the first her
refers to an "antecedent" that does not antecede the pronoun. Sen-
FAULTY REFERENCES
---------------------- 107

tences that concern two men or two women often pose reference-of­
pronoun problems, and usually, as here, the best solution is to replace
the ambiguous pronoun with a noun, even at the cost of repetition, a
lesser evil. Since the news story that includes this sentence does iden­
tify Miss Brown's roommate by name, you could reword this way:
Miss Brown said that she did not know about her
roommate's hidden past until Miss Black's arrest for the
holdup ....

The next sentence involves a somewhat more complicated shift-

in-antecedent problem:
The teacher's job is to work with students as they struggle
to form their ideas, capture them in writing, shape them
through rewriting, and finally succeed in conveying them to
others and, equally important, to themselves.

The they, their, and themselves refer to stude"ts, the them to ideas. You
might consider shifting to the student, but using the singular would
create gender problems. The revision here does not come easy, and
since the ambiguity is more theoretical than real, expedience might
lead you to connive at the violation. But if there's a will-not to
mention world enough and time-you could devise a way:
The teacher's job is to work with students as they struggle
to form and express their ideas-ideas that they must
capture in writing, shape through rewriting, and finally
convey to others and, equally important, to themselves.

The ambiguity in the final example is self-evident:

If the heat in your building goes off, get an extension cord,
plug it into your electric blanket, and wrap it around you.

To revise, you have to edit out one of the its. You could substitute
blanket for the last one or you could write:
H the heat in your building goes off, wrap yourself in an
electric blanket plugged into an extension cord.

Getting your pronouns right should be less difficult than this dis­
cussion may suggest. Despite the many ways to go wrong, only a few
pronouns are likely to pose problems. You can usually check a sen­
tence for pronoun faults as quickly as you can read it. Correcting the
errors you find can take a little longer, but if you value clear and
unobtrrnsive prose, the time will be well spent.
 II The main reason for punctuating a sentence is to clarify its
structure and prevent misreading. Building sentences cor­
rectly, phrasing and placing the parts to show their rela­
tions to one another, reduces the need for punctuation and
avoids most problems. "The workmanlike sentence," Follett says, "al­
most punctuates itself." When you have trouble getting the commas
right, chances are you're trying to patch up a poorly structured sen­
tence. Instead of using punctuation marks as Band-Aids, you'd do
better to perform some basic surgery.
Punctuation can not only guide readers through a sentence but
contribute substance as well. Just as the same words can have differ­
ent senses depending on their arrangement, the same words in the
same order can convey different information depending on how you
punctuate them. If you write I recognized the young man who was wt>aring
a red carnation, the who clause tells readers which young man you
mean. By inserting a comma after man, you indicate that there was
only one young man you could mean, that no other was present. You
show, in other words, that the phrase young man is enough, in context,
to identify the person you're referring to, that the information about
his boutonniere is merely incidental, not defining.
Contemporary writing lacks many of the commas that weigh
down eighteenth- and nineteenth-century prose, since the tendency
over the years has been toward an increasingly "open" punctuation
style. "Apply punctuation sparingly, like salt," current advisers say,
or "When in doubt, leave it out." But as recently as the fifties some
teachers were still telling students to insert punctuation wherever

108
-----'--�--------------
COMMAS-GOOD, BAD, AND INDIFFERENT 109

pauses would occur in speaking and to use commas, semicolons, co­

lons, and periods to signify successively longer stops: "Count one for
a comma, two for a semicolon .... " While rhetorical punctuation­
punctuation to show how words should be read aloud-has its place
even today, it is confined to contexts in which structure neither re­
quires nor proscribes punctuation. In these places you may punctuate
to mark a pause, to add emphasis, to indicate how you want your
words read. Though you don't need punctuation in Smith stared blankly
for a moment and then abruptly turned and ran, you could add a comma or
a dash after moment to stress the sharp change in Smith's behavior, or
you could highlight abruptly by enclosing it in commas. But such
punctuation is basically decoration. It does not affect the clarity of
what you have to say. Far more important is the punctuation that
points up the sentence structure, that keeps some words apart and
groups others together, enabling readers to move effortlessly through
a sentence. It is that punctuation which chiefly concerns us here. This
chapter does not pretend to cover all marks of punctuation, or even
all uses of those it includes. Concentrating on common faults that can
obscure or distort meaning, it disregards conventions that are not
crucial to clear communication, as well as those that educated writers
almost never violate, such as ending statements with periods and
enclosing direct quotations in quotation marks.
Some writers profess to have no idea where to put commas, and
they willingly relinquish the responsibility to copy editors. Others
clearly have the wrong idea and insert commas that impede rather
than facilitate reading. This cavalier attitude is surprising in serious
writers, since imprecise punctuation can be as damaging as poor
wording to what they have to say. The rules of punctuation, more­
over, are fairly simple, and every handbook of composition includes
them. The difficulty, perhaps, is that these rules are invariably ex­
pressed in the language of grammar. There is no other efficient way
of presenting them. Writers who have never learned the fundamen­
tals of sentence structure cannot check the logic of their punctuation.
If you cannot tell an independent clause from an adverbial phrase,
you should bone up on syntax before going on with this chapter (see
appendix A).

COMMAS-GOOD, BAO, ANO INDIFFERENT

Commas are both the most common marks of punctuation and the
most troublesome. Yet you need them in only four basic circum­
stances, apart from dates, addresses, and other special forms. Else­
where they arc incorrect or at best optional.
110 ---------------------
PROBLEMS WITH PUNCTUATION

Helpful Commas

Before Conjunctions Joining Independent Clauses

A comma almost always belongs before a coordinating conjunc­
tion-and, but, for, nor, or, yet, or so-that links the two parts of a
compound sentence. The punctuation prevents the conjunction from
seeming to connect smaller sentence elements. For example:
In the forties girls studied home nursing, and boys took
shop. (The comma prevents boys from looking like the
second object of the girls' study.)
We must stop wasting our resources, or our children will
face dire need. (The comma prevents children from looking
like the second object of wcisting.)
He never worked, for his father had left him a fortune. (The
comma prevents the misreading of for his {either as a
prepositional phrase.)
I have now seen all Shakespeare's major plays performed,
but Hamlet remains for me the most gripping. (The comma
prevents the misreading of but as a preposition.)

This comma rule has two notable exceptions: (1) a semicolon

should generally replace the comma when the conjunction joins heav­
ily punctuated clauses; {2) the conjunction needs no preceding punc­
tuation if the clauses are short and closely related, provided that a
comma is not necessary to prevent misreading.

Between Adjacent Parallel Items

In a series of coordinate words, phrases, or clauses in which a
conjunction precedes only the final item, a comma should follow eve­
ry item except the last. For example:
On the New York Stock Exchange yesterday the industrials
were up 9.5, the transports were down 4.35, and the utilities
were unchanged.
The agency lists openings in publishing, broadcasting,
advertising, and public relations.

Most magazines and newspapers, in keeping with the trend toward

minimal punctuation, do not use a comma before the final item in a
series, but many writers on style and usage consider that comma
essential. Follett points out the fallacy in regarding it as superfluous: a
conjunction, which connects, cannot do the job of a comma, which
separates. Without the comma the final item may seem to be a com­
pound. In the last example, for instance, dropping the second comma
might turn advertising and public relations into a single field. Routinely
_C_O _M _ M_ A_S_-_G_ O�O_
D _,_BA_ D_,_A_N_D�IN_D_I_f_F_ E_R_EN_T������������111

omitting the comma before the conjunction also makes it possible for
readers to mistake certain word combinations for series:
The mailing went out to educators, teachers and
administrators.
In this study of power plants, coal-fired systems and nuclear
facilities compare unfavorably with hydroelectric operations.

Neither of these sentences includes a series. The first involves two

nouns in apposition to another; the second, a compound subject fol­
lowing an introductory prepositional phrase. If the serial comma were
obligatory, such sequences could not be misconstrued.
Commas should also separate consecutive coordinate adjectives
modifying the same noun, but not all adjectives that precede a noun
are in this category. In the phrase an intelligent, conscientious worker the
adjectives are parallel, but in the average city dweller they are not. In the
first phrase, the coequal adjectives both qualify the noun; in the sec­
ond, the first adjective modifies the unit made up of the second adjec­
tive and the noun. Since average describes city dweller, a comma be­
tween average and city would be inappropriate. Similarly, commas
would be wrong in the old oaken bucket, my sweet little alice-blue gown, and
his shiny brown leather shoes. Adjectives denoting color, age, size, or
material are rarely coordinate with other adjectives. Coordinate adjec­
tives sound idiomatic if you reverse their order or read and between
them. You can change the delicate, subtle flavor to the subtle, delicate flavor
or to the subtle and delicate flavor, but both his leather brown shiny shoes
and his shiny and brown and leather shoes sound peculiar.
Some writers add a comma after the last of a series of coordinate
adjectives, but the final comma in an engrossing, readable, and informa­
tive, book is as wrong as the comma in an informative, book. The error, if
not merely careless, may reflect some confusion about the rule for
setting off an adjective phrase that contrasts with another adjective
modifying the same word (steady, but hardly rapid, progress). While such
a phrase needs enclosing commas, a series of simple coordinate adjec­
tives needs only intervening commas. When parenthetical elements
are not involved, a comma should not separate a modifier from the
word it modifies.

Around Parenthetical Elements

In this chapter the term parenthetical element refers to any word,
phrase, or clause that should be set off from the rest of the sentence
by enclosing commas-or, if there's a sharper break in the continuity,
by dashes or parentheses. When such an element begins or ends a
sentence, the single comma that follows or precedes is one of an
implicit pair.
 PROBLEMS WITH PUNCTUATION
112 ----------------------

A pair of commas mark the words they set off as outside the
mainstream of the sentence-as either nonessential to the basic
meaning or disruptive of the flow. The enclosing commas help read­
ers bridge the gap between the structurally related parts that come
before and after. Perhaps the most common and serious of punctu­
ation mistakes is the use of only one comma in a context that calls for
a pair. Half a loaf here is worse than none: the single comma sepa­
rates words that belong together, thus inviting misreading, whereas a
pair would highlight the structure by setting off the extraneous or
intrusive. The error appears in this sentence:
The current five-year expansion program, culminating in
approximately 100 building materials supermarts by the end
of fiscal 1980 is continuing on schedule.

The expendable culminating phrase separates subject (program) from

verb (is continuing), and the single comma simply reinforces the sepa­
ration. But a pair of commas-the second after 1980-would effec­
tively bring the two together by setting off the intervening words.
Here's another example:
The expertise afforded by the exceptionally well qualified
staff, along with the dedicated leadership promises a
continuation of the division's highly successful record.

A second comma, after leadership, would help readers connect subject

(expertise) and verb (promises), but no commas at all would be better
than only one. Readers would then take the along phrase as crucial to
the sentence. Dedicated leaders and an expert staff might well be
equally important to continued success, and perhaps the writer
wanted that interpretation and inserted the comma only to keep lead­
ership from seeming parallel to staff instead of to expertise. The single
comma, though, adds more confusion than clarity, and recasting the
sentence would have been preferable. If you excise expertise-after all,
what else would one expect of an exceptionally well qualified staff?­
you avoid any question about what goes with what: The exceptionally
well qualified staff and the dedicated leadership promise continued success or, if
the staff seems more important than the leadership, The exceptionally
well qualified staff, along with the dedicated leadership, promises. ...

Nonrestrictive Modifiers
The last example, like the opening one about the young man with
the carnation, shows that the absence or presence of commas around
a phrase or clause can affect not only the sound but the sense of what
you want to say. Using no commas makes the modifier essential,
using two commas makes it expendable, and using only one can turn
- -
- -�-�--------------
COMMAS-GOOD, BAD, AND INDIFFERENT 113

your statement into nonsense. Jf you write Executives who never take
advice are pigheaded, you are limiting your criticism to executives who
do not take advice. Enclosing the who clause in commas would make
the sentence mean that all executives are pigheaded, as their failure to
take advice bears out. Similarly, the sentence The spectators horrified by
the gory scene left immediately implies that some spectators stayed behind
when the squeamish ones left. If all the spectators walked out, the
horrified phrase belongs in commas.
While you can punctuate some sentences to mean one thing or
another, others offer no choice. Only one meaning is possible and
only one punctuation decision is correct. Commas do not belong
around a modifier that defines or restricts the meaning of the word it
applies to; they would make vital information look dispensable. The
punctuation makes no sense in this sentence: A mother, willing to sacri­
fice her baby for a good cause, is a rarity. Treating the willing phrase as
nondefining leaves the ridiculous statement A mother is a rarity.
Appositives and adjective phrases and clauses. The modifiers most
likely to raise the restrictive-nonrestrictive question are appositives,
participial phrases, and relative clauses (adjective clauses usually in­
troduced by who, which, or that). An appositive introduced by for exam­
ple, that is, or namely, for instance, is invariably nonrestrictive. So too is
an appositive that consists of a synonym preceded by or:
The chipmunk, or ground squirrel, hibernates in winter.

The comma is inappropriate, of course, if or introduces not another

name for the same thing but a different thing (a dog, or canine, is ... ,
but a dog or a cat is ... ).
Modifiers or appositives that follow proper nouns are almost al-
ways nonrestrictive. For example:
Stonehenge, that mysterious assemblage of giant stones, was
the next stop on the tour.
The Yucatan, which offers beaches as well as ruins, is a
popular vacation area.
Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli's mother, is most famous for
her role as Dorothy in The Whard of Oz..
The Woolworth Tower, Iocated in downtown Manhattan,
was once the tallest building in the world.

Proper nouns usually retain their identity however you describe them
(unless there is more than one person or thing with the same name
and the context permits confusion about which of the two you mean:
The John Smith who lived next door to us is not the same John Smith who
married Mary Jones). The Yucatan remains the Yucatan no matter what
you say about it, and Judy Garland is the same celebrity whether
 PROBLEMS WITH PUNCTUATION
114 ---------------------

she's identified as a child star of the thirties or Vincente Minnelli's

first wife or an American singer who wowed them at the Palladium.
Still, writers often omit the commas required around phrases or
clauses that modify proper nouns, and you should routinely check the
punctuation in such contexts. While most modifiers that follow
proper nouns are nonrestrictive, some are restrictive, not because
they define the noun, but because they limit it to a particular circum­
stance. In a sentence like I remember Judy Garland singing "Over the
Rainbow" or I regretted finding Stonehenge fenced off from fhe crowd, the
participle provides essential information. Here again, the question
that determines the punctuation is, Would deleting the modifier alter
the meaning of the sentence? In the last two examples; the answer is
clearly yes.
A noun does not have to be proper to have an unalterable iden­
tity. In context John's kitchen table or my mother or the red house next door
or our history textbook would be unlikely to have a modifier that af­
fected its meaning. The following paired examples of nonrestrictive
and restrictive modifiers should clarify the difference between them:

Nonrestrictive: Gray, a popular color this season, is not

becoming to me.
Restrictive: The color gray is not becoming to me.
Nonrestrictive: My archaeology teacher, who has spent
years in Greece, claims that Delphi is the
most interesting site.
Restrictive: An archaeologist who has spent years in
Greece claims that Delphi is the most
interesting site.
Nonrestrictive: The detective novel, which almost always
requires a puzzling crime and an ingenious
solution, poses special problems for the
writer.
Restrictive: A detective novel that features a hard-boiled
private eye may not appeal to fans of Jane
Marple and Hercule Poirot.
Nonrestrictive: My younger sister's mother-in-law, sitting on
my left, chattered incessantly.
Restrictive: The woman sitting on my left was my
younger sister's mother-in-law.
Adverbial phrases and clauses.Like adjective modifiers, adverbial
phrases and clauses can be classified as restrictive or nonrestrictive,
but their punctuation often depends on other considerations. For ex­
ample, a comma follows any long adverbial element-restrictive or
not-that precedes the subject of the sentence. Similarly, commas set
off disruptively placed adverbial phrases and clauses even if they
_CO-=---M_M_ A_S_-_G_O_O�D�,_B_AD_ �,_A_N_D_IN_D_I_F_FE_R_ENT������������115

convey crucial information. The restrictive-nonrestrictive question

arises primarily with adverbial modifiers at the ends of sentences. A
comma precedes only a nonrestrictive adverbial phrase or clause in
that position. For example:
Nonrestrictive: I woke up this morning at exactly seven,
when my neighbor began playing the
trumpet. (Since the exact time of waking is
stated, the when clause provides only
supplementary information.)
Restrictive: I woke up this morning when my neighbor
began playing the trumpet. (Here the wheM
clauses defines the moment of waking.)
Nonrestrictive: Please be on time, as you promised.
Restrictive: Please do as you promised.
Nonrestrictive: We ran all the way to grandmother's house,
over the bridge and through the woods.
Restrictive: We ran over the bridge and through the
woods to grandmother's house.
Nonrestrictive: Ask me any time, as often as you like.
Restrictive: Ask me as often as you like.

In the preceding examples the adverbial elements are dearly re­

strictive or nonrestrictive, but in some sentences they could be either,
the interpretation resting on the use or omission of a comma. The
sentence You should wafer the plants, as Jim suggested indicates that Jim
thought the plants needed water, but without the comma the sentence
would imply that he suggested a particular way of watering the
plants-say, twice a week from the bottom. The comma has a similar
effect in these sentences:
A talent scout discovered her in 1959 {,) when she was
performing in a small club in Chicago. (Without the comma
the when clause limits the time of the discovery to that
period during 1959 when the entertainer was working at the
Chicago dub; with the comma the clause merely gives
supplementary information about the entertainer's place of
employment when she was discovered.)
Our capital investments began to pay off(,) most
dramatically after we automated the Hudson plant. (The
comma makes the worthwhile return on investment the
point of the sentence; omitting the comma shifts the
emphasis to a particularly successful investment.)
I also read the novel (,) because a friend had recommended
it. (fhe comma makes the reason for reading the novel
incidental; left unpunctuated, the sentence primarily
concerns the reason for reading it.)
 PROBLEMS WITH PUNCTUATION
116 ---------------------

When a comma does not separate a positive verb from a clause or

phrase introduced by since, because, or some similar word, the empha­
sis is on the explanation the phrase or clause contains. But when the
explanation follows a negative verb, the absence of punctuation often
leaves the sentence ambiguous. For example:
We did not lose the contract because of our references from
former employers.

Does the sentence mean that our references kept us from losing the
contract or that we lost the contract for some reason other than our
references? Adding a comma before because makes the first meaning
clear. Omitting the comma makes the second meaning probable. As
Follett analyzes the situation, the comma makes the because clause go
with the negative verb; without the comma the negative force shifts
from the verb to the explanation, so that the "because contradicts a
false reason why." In other words, a comma belongs before a phrase
or clause that gives the reason for a negative statement but not before
a phrase or clause that gives an incorrect explanation. Omitting a
comma, however, does not ensure the proper reading. You would do
better to use a positive verb and put the not before the explanation:
It was not because of our references from former employers
that we lost the contract.

A clause introduced by an as that means "in the way that" can

also be ambiguous after a negative verb:
Employees are not shirking their responsibilities, as the
editorial states.

Is the editorial defending or accusing the employees? Since dropping

the comma would slant the sentence toward an accusing editorial, the
comma presumably suggests an approving one; but readers shouldn't
have to analyze a sentence to follow its drift. As the editorial slates,
employees are not shirking their responsibilities is dear; so is Employees are
not shirking their responsibilities as the editorial states that they are.
When a clause introduced by because or as follows a negative
statement, make sure that neither the punctuation nor the wording
leaves room for ambiguity. Here are some problem sentences and
suggestions for clarifying them:
They did not publicize the impending distributors' strike
because they wanted to avoid a run on supplies.
• ... strike, because they ....
Environmentalists are not primarily responsible for the
troubles of the nuclear power industry as the article implies.
*' ... as the article implies they are.
 O M _M_A�S �G_O_O�D�,B_A_D�,_A _N_D�IN_D_IFF�E_RE_N_T�����������-117
_C....;.._

Women are not silly creatures, as Ibsen's play suggests.

• As Ibsen's play suggests, women are not silly creatures.

Erpletives and Other Deletables

Like nondefining modifiers, various other types of by-the-way
sentence elements require enclosing commas. Obviously in this cate­
gory are exclamations, polite or vulgar; interjections like well, yes, and
oh; and any name you use in directly addressing someone-darling,
stupid, Senator, Pat, Mom, or whatever. So too, usually, are transitional
expressions like on the other hand and to begin with and interpolated
asides like perhaps, incidentally, 1 believe, and I understand-though such
expressions are more often punctuated because of their position in
the sentence than because of their expendability.
Commas should also set off an alternative or contrasting phrase
that refines or embellishes another word but does not contribute es­
sential information. For example:
Their performance was hilarious, however serious its intent.
Her family was well off, perhaps even rich by some
standards.
He does the job satisfactorily, though certainly not
impressively.
A contrasting phrase is essential, though, if it limits the sense of the
first adjective:
A poor but happy person is hard to find.
Studies suggest that strict but loving parents are preferable
to parents whom children perceive as indulgent but
uncaring.
In such sentences adding commas would only destroy the intended
meaning.
One other sort of phrase that does require commas is the absolute
construction-a noun and a modifying participle that are syntactically
independent of the rest of the sentence. Here are a few examples:
We will be there, weather permitting, by six on Saturday.
I prefer a more conservative program, conditions being what
they are.
The play having started, the usher refused to seat the
latecomers.

I nlerrupte rs
A subordinate element, whether restrictive or not, must be set off
by commas if it disrupts the sentence flow. The enclosing commas
11B���������������PR�O_B_L_EM�5-�__N l_T_H_P_U_ N_cru�_A_TI_O_N

enable readers to link what precedes the interpolation with what fol­
lows. One common type of interrupter is the complementary phrase
that separates words that function as a unit-ad_jective and noun, for
example, or preposition and object. When two sentence elements
conclude with the same word, commas around the second enable
readers to carry over the first to the ending both share:
She was interested in, but also apprehensive about, the new
project.
His lackluster, though technically correct, performance
inspired only faint praise.
Sightseeing on the Bowery can be a fascinating, yet rather
sobering, experience.
They had contempt for, and refused to cooperate with, the
other tenants.

But it is often better to reword to avoid such broken links (They had
contempt for the other tenants and refused lo work with them). Other disrup­
tive elements separate subjects from verbs, VE!rbs from objects or
complements, or nouns or verbs from modifyLng clauses. Here are
several examples:
The president himself, since he believed strongly in the
project, offered to speak at the meeting.
What 1 often do, perhaps unconsciously, is to alternate
tough assignments with easy ones.
Their deceit should come as no surprise to anlyone who has
ever doubted, even for a moment, that honesty is the best
policy.
We were relieved, therefore, when the bank offered to
extend the loan.
You were, if I remember correctly, the last person to agree.
She is an old-fashioned artisan, th ey explained, who will
never use synthetic materials.

Most parenthetical interpolations are out-of-order or nonrestric­

tive modifiers, or both. But not all words that intervene between re­
lated sentence elements are parenthetical. A restrictive adjective
modifier between subject and verb does not disrupt the sentence flow,
because it is an essential, defining part of the subject (The wheel that
squeaks gets the grease). A single-word adverb conventionally placed
between subject and verb evokes no pause and needs no commas (J
always do my best). While commas should set off most out-of-order
modifiers, punctuation should not separate the main sentence ele­
ments-subject, verb, object, or complement-however they are ar­
ranged. For example:
----------'---'----------------
COMMAS-GOOD, BAD, AND INDIFFERENT 119

The final arrangements the president makes himself, paying

personal attention to every detail. (fhe order is object,
subject, verb.)
Blessed are the meek. (The order is complement, verb,
subject.)
But any parenthetical element in a sentence of this sort would, of
course, require the usual enclosing commas: The final arrangernenfs,
which are always leff to the lasf rninufe, the r,residerrt . ... When you are not
sure whether or not a phrase is disruptive, reading the sentence aloud
may help. If you naturally pause before and after the questionable
element, add the commas. Rhetorical tests can be definitive where the
rules for punctuating by structure leave room for doubt.
Introductory Modifiers
You generally need a comma after an adverbial or adjective
phrase or clause, restrictive or not, that begins a sentence in which the
subject precedes the verb. While such a modifier cannot be consid­
ered disruptive, it is out of its normal order, and the position dictates
the punctuation, as this series of examples indicates:
Running toward us, the man was shouting something and
waving a newspaper. (A comma usually follows an adjective
phrase that precedes the subject of the sentence.)
The man running toward us was shouting something and
waving a newspaper. (Commas do not enclose a restrictive
participial phrase in its normal position after the word it
modifies.)
Running toward us was a man shouting something and
waving a newspaper. (A comma does not follow a participial
phrase that comes first in an inverted sentence and
complements the subject.)

It is usually natural to pause after a modifying phrase or clause that

opens a conventional sentence, and a comma helps readers get their
bearings, signaling a delayed subject. Unless required for clarity,
however, a comma is optional when a short restrictive adverbial
phrase or clause begins the sentence. An opening like At noon or
Before you go does not delay the subject for long, but adding a comma
may serve a rhetorical purpose.
Most writers recognize the need for commas after opening modi-
fiers in sentences like these:
After a day of unremitting pressure and difficult decisions at
the office, who doesn't deserve a martini?
Although I don't mind taking an occasional trip for a change
of pace, traveling two weeks out of every four is more than
I care to do.
120������������-��_P_R_O_B_L_EM�S_WTH�P
_I_ U_ N_CT�U_A_ T_IO�N

Playing games on city streets, children endanger not only

themselves but also passing motorists and pedestrians.
If the same modifiers were im. their normal positions, only the nonre­
strictive ones would take commas:
Who doesn't deserve a :martini after a day of unremitting
pressure and difficult decisions at the office? (The after
phrase limits the question to a specific situation.)
Traveling two weeks out of every four is more than I care to
do, although I don't mind an occasional trip for a change of
pace. (The subordinate dause, merely an afterthought, does
not affect the meaning of the sentence.)
Children playing games on city streets endanger not only
themselves but also passing motorists and pedestrians. (The
participial phrase defines the subject.)

In Sequences Where N1?eded to Prevent Misreading

Sometimes you have to insert a comma to keep readers from
making a false connection. For example, though a comma is ordinar­
ily optional after a short introductory clause, it becomes essential if
the clause ends in a verb form that might make the subject of the
sentence look like a direct object, as in these sentences:
If he enjoys driving, a car would make an ideal graduation
gift.
Once you know, the answer seems ob vious.
Again, since words of the s,ame form joined by a coordinating con­
j unction appear to be paraHel sentence elements, you have to use a
comma before the conjunction if they are not. Here are two examples:
I expected them to be s1elected, and prepared for this
eventuality. (Without the comma, readers might link selecled
and prepared instead of expected and prepared.)
Melissa was talking abciut dancing, and demonstrating the
various steps she had learned. (Without the comma, readers
might link dancing and demonstrating instead of talking and
demonstrating.)

But introducing an unconventional comma is rarely the most sat­

isfactory way to prevent mis;reading; the comma may separate words
that belong together as well as those that do not. In the last example,
for instance, the comma that keeps readers from mistaking demonstrat­
ing for a gerund also keeps apart the compound participles. If Melissa
had been talking about, say, choreography instead of dancing, demon­
strating and talking would emerge as obvious parallels, so that there
would be no need for the comma. Before inserting a preventive
---------'----'----------------
COMMAS-GOOD, BAD, AND INDIFFERENT 121

comma that is objectionable, not simply optional, you should look for
a better solution. Consider this example:
The obsession leads the candidate to solicit and accept
money from those most able to provide it, and to adjust his
behavior in office to the need for money.

The comma added to avoid a faulty junction between to adjust and to

provide has the harmful side effect of separating the parallel elements
to solicit and to adjust. Rather than settle on the comma as the lesser of
evils, you could get rid of one infinitive:
The obsession leads the candidate to solicit and accept
money from those most capable of providing it and to adjust
his behavior in office to the need for money.

In Special Contexts
Since the specialized functions of the comma have little to do
with sentence structure, they are of only peripheral interest here.
Nevertheless, it may be helpful to run through the rules for the most
common conventions, those you are most likely to use in your own
writing.
In dates written in month-day-year order, use commas both be­
fore and after the year: He wrote on November 13, 1972, that. ... The
first separates consecutive digits, and the second prevents the mis­
grouping that might result from using only one comma. But omit the
commas if you use the day-month-year order or give only the month
and year, since there are then no consecutive digits: He wrote on 13
November 1972 that. ...
In addresses incorporated into the text, put commas after the ad­
dressee, the street, and the city: Send applications to L. H. Dreher, 506
High Street, Cranford, NJ 07016. But do not use commas at the ends of
lines when you write an address in block form, as in correspondence.
A comma between consecutive uses of the same word sometimes,
though not always, facilitates reading: He says that what provisions there
are, are hardly enough for sir weeks, but I doubt that that's true. Punctuated
as shown, the sentence seems dearer than it would without a comma
between the ares or with one between the that and that's. But it is often
better to reword to avoid such juxtapositions: He says that the provisions
we have are hardly enoll.gh for si:r weeks, but I doubt that he's right.
Use a comma to indicate an ellipsis (an omission of words that
readers "understand" without seeing spelled out) if the structure
might otherwise be unclear. In the following example the first two
ellipses require commas, and the last one does not: The first guests to
arrive brought champagne; the second, flowers; and the third, dessert; the first
had spent a lot of money, the others very little.
122���������������P_R_O_B_L_EM�S_\_�_£_T_H_P_U_N_CT�U_A_TJ_O_N

Commas are conventional around a title or air\ affiliation, abbrevi­

ated or not, that follows a name: George Jones, Jr., and Susan Harl, Esq.,
joined Thomas Conway, S.J., on the panel.
A comma should separate the two parts of an idiomatic construc­
tion like the more ... the merrier unless they are short and verbless. In
the following sentence only the first of the two examples requires a
comma: The fewer members who know about this plan, the better our chances
will be; for the wider the publicity the greater the risk.
A comma separates a direct quotation from the verb of saying
that precedes or follows: She said, "I wouldn't h1other to clean up." "1
promised 1 would," 1 replied. When two marks of punctuation belong in
the same spot-a comma and a question mark, say-use only the
stronger one: "Don't you mind?" she asked. When a quotation other than
actual dialogue serves as the subject or object or •complement of some
other sort of verb, omit the comma: "Sorry" doesn't help, but try 'Tll
make it up to you." (Incidentally, do not use quotatiion marks around yes
and no in a sentence like 1 said yes or The answer was no.) Use a comma
before an unquoted direct question that you incorporate into a sen­
tence: The question we have to ask is, By what criteria do we determine our
priorities?

Harmful Commas
If you understand where to use commas, you can readily infer where
not to use them. A single comma keeps words a.part; it is harmful if
the words it separates should interact. A pair of commas set off a
parenthetical unit; they are harmful if the words they group do not go
together or do not qualify as parenthetical. By marking the words
they enclose as disruptive, nonessential, or out-of-place, a pair of
commas help readers connect the related sentence elements that come
before and after; a single comma used where the context requires a
pair obscures the structure.
A single comma should not divide subject from verb, verb from
object, preposition from object, or attributive adjective from modified
noun. Nor should a comma precede a coordinating conjunction join­
ing two parallel subordinate elements-words, phrases, or dependent
clauses. Except in special circumstances, only a coordinating conjunc­
tion between independent clauses or before the final item in a series
takes a preceding comma. Similarly, a comma should not separate
correlative pairs-both ... and, neither . .. nor, either ... or, and not
only ... but also (or but)-unless the correlatives precede independent
clauses.
_CO_;;___M_M_A_S_-_G_O_O_D____.,_B_ A_ D-'-, _A _N_D_IN_D_l_FFE_R_ENT
____________ J 23

The not only-but also pair often tempts writers to use superfluous
punctuation. Many reputable authors would prefer a comma before
but in a sentence of this sort:
This comprehensive history not only provides new details
about the famous actors of the American stage but also
includes accounts of some interesting lesser-known players.

Perhaps because readers usually pause before but, the conjunction

often attracts a preceding comma, and an older convention required
one. Today, however, with rhetorical considerations no longer ascen-­
dant and with open punctuation generally preferred, this comma
seems needless. Since the not only-but also construction is emphatic in
itself (you lose considerable force if you substitute and), the added
emphasis of the comma only paints the lily. Authors, in fact, tend to
overuse these correlatives, accentuating elements that don't warrant
the extra attention. That and can, and often should, replace not
only ... but also shows that the construction is a linking one and
supports the argument against inserting a comma.
While not only ... but also connects the parallel elements it gov­
erns, a not-but construction contrasts them. Thus the punctuation
rules are different. You can treat the not element in a not-but pair as
parenthetical and enclose it in commas:

I go to Los Angeles about six times a year, not because I

enjoy the city, but because I have business there.

If the negative seems as important as the affirmative, you can omit

both commas. Or you can make the entire construction parenthetical
and use a comma only before not, indicating that your main point is
what you do, not why you do it. Using a comma only before bul.
however, would make no sense; the not element alone can be paren­
thetical but not the but element alone, as you can see if you try read­
ing the sentence with a pause only before but.
The following examples summarize where not to put a comma,.
The commas in these sentences are at best superfluous and at worst
misleading:

Between subject and verb:

Teachers who care more about instructing and inspiring
students than about doing original research, receive little
recognition in American universities. (When you're tempted
to use a comma after a subject, you've probably taken too
long to reach the verb. Consider revising: American
universities give little recognition to teachers who care . ... )
124 _______________
PR_O_B_L_EMS WITH PUNCTUATION

Between verb and object:

The senator argued during the committee hearings, that the
tax cut would not have the desired effect on the economy.
(To correct the sentence, you could either delete the comma
or add a second one, before during, to make the
prepositional phrase parenthetical.)
Between the parts of a compound subject:
The owner of the dog that barks all night, and the neighbor
who set out the poisoned meat are going to court over the
incident.
Between the parts of a compound object:
They have a pedigreed black cat with wonderful green eyes,
and a multicolored dog of mixed ancestry. (Although the
comma keeps readers from linking eyes and dog, it remains
objectionable because it also separates a pair; you can easily
avoid the problem by recasting the sentence: They have a
multicolored mongrel and a pedigreed black cat with wonderful green
eyes.)
Between parallel subordinate elements:
The restaurant is located opposite Central Park, and slightly
west of the Plaza.
After the last item in a series (only the final comma in these
examples is incorrect):
She gasped, stared, and then broke into a grin, when she
saw the otter in the bathtub. (Here the comma separates the
verb from a restrictive modifying clause.)
A haggard, bent, trembling, old man held out his hand for
money. (Here the final comma separates the three preceding
coordinate adjectives from the term they modi fy-old man.)
All these do nots apply to single commas separating parts of the sen­
tence that should flow together; a parenthetical interpolation between
such elements obviously needs enclosing commas. The final prohibi­
tion refers to a pair of commas used incorrectly to set off an essential
part of the sentence.
Before and after a restrictive modifier:
Among the Reagan supporters, who read the Times account,
the consensus was that the newspaper should not have given
the story front-page coverage.

Discretionary Commas
While logic or convention mandates some commas and proscribes
others, a number of contexts neither require nor preclude commas
_C_O _MM�A_S_-_G_O_O�D�,B_A_ D�,_A_N_D�IN_D_�_FE�RE_NT������������125

but accommodate those that function rhetorically. In view of the cur­

rent preference for light punctuation, you should generally opt to
omit optional commas. If you do use them, do so advisedly. Commas
call attention to words. They make readers pause and take notice.
Unless you want that effect, don't use commas that the sentence
structure doesn't require.
Earlier sections of this chapter mention several kinds of construc­
tions that could be correct with or without commas, depending on the
sense intended-clauses, for example, that you might or might not
construe as defining. But in these circumstances the punctuation is not
optional from your point of view, since it either does or does not
reflect your meaning. Sometimes, though, your decision will depend
less on whether or not you consider an element restrictive than on
whether or not you want it to stand out. The comma will affect the
tone of the sentence but not the sense. In the contexts illustrated
below the commas in parentheses are permissible but not essential.

After a Short Introductory Phrase or Clause

In these examples you would probably omit the comma unless
you had some reason to stress the opening modifier:

By 1952 {,) he was ready to forsake the literary life for a

steady job.
In the afternoon(,) the committee reconvened.
When she called{,) she sounded optimistic.

The fate of the comma in this position may rest in part on the other
punctuation in the vicinity. In a comma-heavy context you would not
want to add more punctuation than strictly necessary:

By 1952 the disillusioned, impoverished young writer,

having completed two novels and fifteen short stories that
no one wanted to publish, was ready to forsake the literary
life for a steady job.

Around Transitional Adverbs and Similar Interpolations

While words like therefore, accordingly, indeed, certainly, of course, and
perhaps sometimes interrupt the sentence flow and require surround­
ing commas, they often fit snugly into the text, causing no disruption
and needing no punctuation-usually because they occupy conven­
tional adverbial positions. In these circumstances, though, you may
add commas if you want to call attention to the adverb. In the first
sentences of the following pairs you would use commas only if you
chose this emphasis; in the contrasting sentences you would have to
126�������� � � � � - O_ _B_L_EM�S
� P_R T_W
H_J�PU�NC_T_UA
_ T
_O
_J -"----'N

add commas because the adverbs break the continuity, separating

verbs from objects:
I should(,) perhaps(,) add that we have no investments in
that country.
I should add, perhaps, that we have no investments in that
country.
We knew who was responsible. C onsequently(,) we refused
to take any action.
We knew who was responsible. We refused, consequently,
to take any action.
You would(,) therefore(,) have a stake in the outcome.
You would have, therefore, a stake in the outcome.

It is always necessary, incidentally, to set off the conjunctive adverb

however, lest readers momentarily mistake it for the adverb however (cf.
However, John feels we should take the risk and However John feels, we should
take the risk).

Before a Conjunction Joining Short, Closely Related

Independent Clauses
The comma is optional in sentences like these unless it prevents
misreading:
The sun is up(,) and the birds are singing.
Orchids are more exotic(,) but I prefer roses.
The staff writers met with the editor, and the two
photographers took notes. (fhe comma prevents
photographers from being misread as the second object of
with.)

Before a Conjunction Joining Words, Phrases, or Subordinate

Clauses That Differ in Form or Emphasis
lf the units joined by a conjunction are not strictly parallel, if
there is a marked break in thought or a difference in form or empha­
sis, you can punctuate to indicate the change of pace:
If you're invited to the dean's reception, wear a simple black
dress, or whatever you have that's dark and decorous.
He was staring at her intently, but turned away quickly
when she winked at him.
Please bring your partner, and your secretary, too, if you
like.

Between a Conjunction and an Introductory Modifier

When an adverbial modifier or a participial phrase follows a con­
junction joining independent clauses, a comma after the conjunction
COMMAS-GOOD, BAD, AND INDIFFERENT

is not so much optional as controversial. Few style and usage manuals

offer guidance here, and practice differs even among knowledgeable
writers. Probably, however, a comma is more often absent than pres­
ent in these circumstances. :For example:
The senator agreed to s:upport the project, but if he had
known that most of his constituents were opposed, he might
have decided otherwise.

A comma is conventional after any long clause that precedes the

subject in a conventional sentence, but if that comma is really "the
second of a pair," as Follett says, then there's reason to question the
decision to leave out the firslt comma when there's room to put it in. A
parenthetical or out-of-order modifier in the middle of a sentence
ordinarily requires punctualtion at both ends. While Follett does not
discuss any exceptions to this practice, he himself omits the first
comma when the parenthetical element follows a conjunction (e.g.,
"For despite all its deviations and excrescences, English does have a
structure ..." and "But even more important, we should remember
that many seemingly single commas stand for a pair"). The Chicago
Manual of Style says, also without giving any explanation, that the
comma is usually omitted in this situation, and Strunk and White's
Elements of Style merely says that it is not needed.
In The King's English th1e Fowlers do devote some space to this
issue. Although they argue against using a comma after a conjunction
followed by an adverbial modifier, they call the omission an offense
against logic. "But," they go on, "the injury to meaning is so infinites­
imal and the benefit to sound so considerable, that we do well to
offend." Readers "will be grateful." The Fowlers base their advice on
euphony-the absence of a natural pause after the conjunction. Oth­
ers may argue that commas both before and after a conjunction seem
to set it off from the rest of the sentence, thus doing more harm than
good. Perhaps the conjundion is as valid a substitute for the first
comma in the pair as a capital letter is when an adverbial modifier
begins a sentence.
But not all writers who can accept a single comma with an intro­
ductory modifier in this context would allow only one when the
modifier is clearly nonrestrictive:
We can speed up the sich edule, but, as 1 explained at the
outset, a rush job will increase your costs.

In such sentences a pause af ter the conjunction seems natural enough,

and the omission of the comma becomes less defensible. If you still
object to enclosing a conjunction in commas, look for a way out of the
dilemma. In the last example you could omit the comma before but,
128���������������P_R_ O_B_L_M T �P _U _N_Cf_ _U A_T_I_O_N
E �S_W_I_H

since the short independent clauses do not need the intervening

comma for clarity. Or you could replace the comma before the con­
junction with a dash or semicolon, substitute a pair of dashes for the
commas enclosing the modifier, or transpose the modifier:
We can speed up the schedule, but a rush job will increase
your costs, as I explained at the outset.
When a participial or other adjective phrase follows the conjunc­
tion in a compound sentence, it is more likely than an adverbial
modifier to need punctuation at both ends. While you may not pause
before an adverbial element in that position, you usually do before an
adjective phrase. Without a preceding comma, moreover, a present
participle might be momentarily mistaken for a gerund-the ing form
used as a noun-and be misread as the subject of the second in­
dependent clause:
Injured at the starting gate, the black stallion falls behind
the other horses, but making a tremendous effort at the end,
he predictably wins the race.
Adding a comma after but in that sentence would be helpful, and you
could then delete the comma after horses to avoid setting off the con­
junction. The next two sentences illustrate the same situation: a
comma belongs before the nonrestrictive participial phrase, but add­
ing it would hem in the conjunction (the revisions evade the issue):
Shakespeare often focuses on father-daughter relationships,
and though varying in submissiveness, all the daughters in
the plays seek patriarchal blessings before they marry.
• ... , and though the daughters in his plays vary in
submissiveness, each seeks a patriarchal blessing before she
marries.
Silas Marner has a secure place in the Eliot canon, and while
ranking below Middlemarch and Adam Bede in critical esteem,
it remains a favorite for high school English courses.
• While ranking below Middlemarch and Adam Bede in critical
esteem, Silas Marner has a secure place in the Eliot canon
and remains a favorite for high school English courses.

Before an Interrupting Modifier Following the

Conjunction that
How to punctuate an opening modifier in a that clause is another
question that authorities on usage largely ignore, but in their own
writing some of them use a comma only after such a modifier, not
before. Here, for example, is one of Follett's sentences:
The drive toward a lean punctuation is such that even if we
still wrote the complex, periodic sentences of Johnson or of
Macaulay, we should punctuate them much Less heavily.
COMMAS-GOOD, BAD, AND INDIFFERENT
----�--�-------------- 129

Perhaps Follett does not consider the restrictive even if clause paren­
thetical and uses the comma after Macaulay simply as a rhetorical
device, :not as the second of an implicit pair. When the adverbial
element is clearly nonrestrictive, it should, of course, be punctuated at
both ends:
The teacher explained that, though he himself prefers a
cl osed style of punctuation, a comma is not mandatory after
a short introductory phrase.

Some writers use two commas even with a restrictive modifier

that intervenes between that and the subject of the clause:
The teacher told the students that, if they failed to complete
any of the three major assignments, they would fail the
course.
Those who prefer this punctuation might argue that enclosing com­
mas are appropriate for any modifier out of its normal order and that
a single comma groups the wrong words, separating that from the
subject of the clause. But it is not usual to pause before a restrictive
introductory modifier, and a pair of commas can also mislead, mak­
ing an essential element seem expendable. Both arguments have
merit, and one or the other may seem the more persuasive for a
particular sentence. Since the rules here are obviously not clear-cut,
reading aloud and noting pauses may be as valid an approach as any
other.

Summary
The following outline summarizes the foregoing discussion of the
uses and abuses of commas.
I. Use commas:
A. Before conjunctions joining independent clauses (for an
exception see 111.C).
B. Between adjacent parallel elements (coordinate adjectives
and items in series) and before conjunctions preceding the
final items in series in which commas separate the other
items.
C:. Before and after parenthetical units (nonessential or dis­
ruptive elements or out-of-place modifiers).
1. Nonrestrictive (or nondefining) adjective, adverbial,
or appositive phrases or clauses.
2. Any other units not essential to the basic sentence
structure: interjections, nouns of direct address, in­
terpolated asides, qualifying or contrasting phrases,
or absolute expressions.
130���������������P_R_ O_B_L_EM�S_W_I_T_H_P _U_N_CT�U _A_TI_O_N

3. Interrupters: units, essential or not, that intervene

between structurally related sentence elements and
disrupt the continuity.
4. Introductory modifiers in conventionally ordered
sentences (for exceptions see HI.A. below).
D. Between adjacent elements that must be separated to pre­
vent misreading.
E. In special contexts.
1. After the day and year in dates given in month-day­
year order.
2. In addresses incorporated into the text, after the ad­
dressee, street, town, and state or Zip Code (no
comma between state and Zip); in block-style ad­
dresses, no commas at the ends of lines.
3. Between consecutive uses of the same word if clarity
requires.
4. Where needed to mark ellipses.
5. Before and after titles or affiliations following proper
names.
6. In all but short and verbless the more ... the merrier
constructions.
7. Between direct quotations and the tags that intro­
duce or follow them.
8. Before direct but unquoted questions incorporated
within sentences.
II. Do not use commas:
A. Between structurally related elements, such as subjects and
verbs, verbs and objects or complements, adjectives and
nouns, and prepositions and objects.
B. Before coordinating conjunctions joining parallel words,
phrases, or subordinate clauses-unless you want rhetori­
cal pauses at these points (see III.D.) or the conjunctions
precede the final items in series in which the other items
are separated by commas.
C. Between the matching parts of correlative pairs-unless
the parts are independent clauses.
D. After adjective phrases that come first in inverted sen­
tences.
E. Before and after restrictive modifiers.
III. You may generally use or omit commas:
A. After short adverbial phrases or clauses preceding the sub­
jects of conventionally ordered sentences.
_SE_M__
I _L
_
C O _
O S__
N ,_c__
o L__
O _
N S,_A_ND
D
_ �A_ _SH_E_ S_A_N_D�PA_R_E_NT�H _E _SE_ S���-���131

B. Before and after conventionally placed transitional adverbs

and similar words that can blend unobtrusively intoJheir
sentences.
C. Before coordinating conjunctions joining short, closely re­
lated independent clauses.
D. Before coordinating conjunctions joining subordinate sen­
tence elements that differ in form or emphasis or that in­
volve decided breaks in thought.
E. Before parenthetical adverbial modifiers that follow coor­
dinating conjunctions joining independent clauses.
F. Before restrictive adverbial modifiers that interrupt that
clauses, separating the conjunctions from the subjects.

SEMICOLONS, COLONS, AND DASHES AND PARENTHESES

Semicolons
Semicolons have essentially only two functions: (1) to separate closely
related independent clauses that are not connected by conjunctions
and (2) to replace commas when the items to be kept apart have
internal commas. The celebrated "comma fault," or "comma splice,"
is the use of the comma between independent clauses not connected
by and, but, for, nor, or, yet, or so. (The last two connectives are fairly
recent additions to this list; formerly, neither yet nor so could form a
compound sentence without the aid of a semicolon, but a comma is
now generally accepted, and even preferred in informal writing.) The
following sentences illustrate the comma fault; if not recast, each
would require a semicolon (or a period) instead of the comma:
Students exhaust themselves during exam week, many of
them stay up for days.
They considered taking the product off the market, its
prospects looked bleak.
I wo uld probably not find any useful evidence, still I had to
go through all those files.
But the proscription of the comma splice has some legitimate loop­
holes. Commas are conventional between independent clauses in a
series of thre e or more and in certain idiomatic constructions in which
the second of two technically independent clauses completes the
thought begun in the first:
Mary claimed that she had been reading in her room, the
vicar said that he had been working in his study, and John
refused to account for his whereabouts.
132���������������P_R_O_B_l_EM�S__W_J_T_H_P_U_N_Cf�U_ATl_ _O�N 1

They saw it, they liked it, they bought it.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
It's not only a pity, it's a crime.
It is true, isn't it?

In sentences like these you can use comm.as with impunity; in

similar but not identical circumstances you might be faulted for not
using semicolons. Borderline contexts leave room for disagreement
and require some thought. When adjacent independent clauses work
closely together, even if they do not quite fit the pattern of the pre­
ceding examples, the comma comes naturally. Semicolons seem too
stiff and formal for sentences of this sort:
We present food as it is; we don't cover it up.
They had to stop finally; they were exhausted!.
The air was stifling; we could hardly breathe.

The semicolon appears infrequently in populair writing. It suggests

the sort of complicated sentence that slows down readers, and most
magazine editors, for example, would substitute a comma, a dash, or
a period. Perrin and Ebbitt condone using a comma between "con­
tact" clauses if your voice doesn't drop at that point when you read
the sentence aloud, but other guides are more conservative. If you're
unsure about the propriety of separating independent clauses with
only a comma, it's safer to do something else. Once you start to play
fast and loose with the rule against the comm.it fault, you open the
way to imprecise punctuation or the endless weighing of whether or
not particular violations are justified. Still, you don't have to settle for
semicolons in sentences like those in the last set ,of examples. You can
substitute a comma and a conjunction or subordinate one of the
clauses:
We present food as it is, instead of covering irt up.
They were so exhausted that they finally had to stop.
The air was stifling, and we could hardly breathe.

Admittedly, these alternatives slacken the pace a bit and subtly

change the tone. Your decision will have to rest on the context, your
purpose, and your audience.
When a coordinating conjunction connects Jong independent
clauses, especially if they have internal commas, clarity often requires
a semicolon rather than a comma before the conjunction:
Since she had two college degrees, good skills, and excellent
references, she fully expected to find a job easily, despite
the high rate of unemployment; but what she did not expect,
-'----S _E M_l____cC _ O_L_O _ N�S,'-C_O_L_O_N_S......
, _A _N _D _ D_ A_S_H_E _S_A_ _
N D_PA_R_E_N_T_H _E_SE ________
S 133

until she started looking, was the stiff competition for the
positions available.
Although the cafe specializes in vegetarian dishes, it offers a
few fish entrees, including lemon sole, smoked eel, and
scampi; and these three, some food critics claim, rival
comparable dishes at the best seafood restaurants.

A mere comma won't do to mark a break that's more emphatic than

any other in the sentence. If the semicolon seems too formal for the
co ntext, either substitute a period or revise. In the last example, for
instance, a pair of dashes could replace the comma after entries andl
the semicolon after scampi.
Although you can avoid semicolons in compound sentences, you
have no choice in most series in which the items themselves contain
commas. Without semicolons sentences like these would be rough
going:

The consultants attributed the failure to increased costs,

especially for fuel; the hostility of environmentalists, local
residents, and the unions; abyssmal public relations, due in
part to company policies; and shortsighted managerial
decisions.
We get to eavesdrop on the thoughts and perceptions of
Joan, Greg's first wife; Larry, Brenda's first husband and
Greg's older son; Carol, Greg's twenty-six-year-old daughter;
and Richie, his twelve-year-old son.

If you object to semicolons, you had better avoid complicated series.

Colons
In general use, a colon introduces a formal statement or quotation, an
example, or an explanation of what has just been said. While the
semicolon indicates a greater separation between sentence elements
than the comma does, the colon serves more as a connective. Not all
careful writers observe this distinction; some follow the older practice
of using a colon as a stronger semicolon. While few experts consider
this practice wrong, most use the colon primarily as a mark of antici-­
pation. Here are some examples:

The diet was spartan: steamed fish, raw or steamed

vegetables without butter or dressing, half a grapefruit, four
ounces of skimmed milk, and unsweetened tea or coffee.
The families interviewed gave two reasons for moving: they
needed more room, and the neighborhood was deteriorating.
134 ---------------------
PROBLEMS WITH PUNCTUATION

To solve the problem, use the Pythagorean theorem: The

square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares
of the other two sides.

You should ordinarily lower-case the first letter after a colon1

unless the material that follows is set off from the introductory text
but a formal statement after a colon should begin with a capital letter.
A capital is also required if the colon introduces more than one sen­
tence; in that case, however, you may hav e to make some adjustment
lest readers think that the colon applies to only the first of the follow­
ing sentences. When the sentences are fairly short, you can change
them to a series of independent clauses separated by semicolons.
Sometimes you can use parenthetical numbers before the sentences
governed by a colon. If neither of these devices seems appropriate
and the context permits some question about how many sentences the
colon governs, try rewording to eliminate the need for a colon.
Unless the colon precedes material set off from the text-say, a
list or a long quotation-it should follow only a complete sentence; it
should not come between verb and complement or betwee n verb and
object. It would be wrong, for example, to add colons after the verbs
in these sentences:
My courses this semester are History of the Renaissance,
Introduction to Anthropology, Intermediate French, and
Shakespeare.
The reading list includes Richardson's Pamela, Fielding's
Joseph Andrews, and Sterne's Tristram Shandy.

Dashes and Parentheses

Like pairs of commas, pairs of dashes and parentheses enclose paren­
thetical sentence elements. Dashes mark a sharper break in the conti­
nuity of the sentence than the commas do, and parentheses mark a
still sharper one:
My old dog-the whole neighborhood remembers him­
alw ays whined outside a closed door.
The feeling in the audience-if it's fair to generalize-was a
vague uneasiness.
If you practice diligently (teachers recommend at least four
hours a day), you can be giving recit als within a year.

Often there is no clear-cut basis for choosing commas, dashes, or

parentheses to set off disruptive sentence elements. In some contexts
any of these would be acceptable, and you need only select the type
that best reflects your intention. In each of the following sentences,
SEMICOLONS, COLONS! AND DASHES AND PA_R_ E_N_T_H_E _SE_S_______ J 35

for example, no one could fault you if you substituted dashes or

parentheses for the pair of commas-or, for that matter, if you used
no punctuation-but your decisions would affect the way the state­
ments are read:
Use commas, or dashes or parentheses, to set off a
qualifying phrase from the rest of the sentence.
Whenever my mother invited anyone to spend the weekend,
she would fill the good crystal vase with daisies, or whatever
other flowers she could buy cheap, and place it on the
bureau in the guest room.

If a parenthetical element contains internal commas, however, you

have to set it off with dashes or parentheses:
Beginning students may dream of interpreting a poem
automatically-without the confusion, hesitancy, and
uncertainty of guessing-but the more experienced students
know better.
For approaches of this kind (psychoanalysis, Marxism,
structuralism, and the like), meaning is never on the surface.

For the sake of clarity, avoid writing sentences that need more
than one set of dashes. Sometimes, to guide readers through a sen­
tence, you have to use three levels of punctuation to designate paren­
thetical elements:
For lunch try a fruit salad-say, cottage cheese, grapes,
bananas, orange sections, and strawberries (you can
substitute melon balls if you're prone to hives)-and see
how satisfying it can be.

In the last example, which permits some difference of opinion about

where the stronger marks of punctuation belong, the parentheses and
dashes could change places; but you would then use only one dash
after strawberries, since a dash can follow but not precede a closing
parenthesis. The point is that the three degrees of punctuation make
the sentence structure far easier to follow than it would be with only
one.
Whereas pairs of dashes serve to set off parenthetical elements,
single dashes introduce terms that summarize preceding series:
Skill, courage, stamina, and heart-all these qualities are
essential if the team is going to finish on top.
Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon-our presidents during the
Vietnam years still await the definitive judgment of history.

In informal writing a dash can also take the place of a colon and
introduce an explanation or an example. It then has the sense of
namely or that is and sometimes precedes one of these terms:
 - - - - - - - - - - - -PROBLEMS
136 - - -WITH PUNCTUATION
-- - -- -

Paul stressed three virtues-faith, hope, and charity.

I hate turkey and most of the conventional trimmings­
nameJy, chestnut stuffing, giblet gravy, baked yams, creamed
onions, and cranberry relish.
Be careful to restrict the dash to its Legitimate uses. Some writers
are overfond of this mark, pressing it into service where the context
requires a comma, a semicolon, or a period. Unwarranted dashes, the
lazy author's when-in-doub t expedient, typify the gushy, immature,
breathless style associated with adolescents' diaries.
A
II any seem to believe that what matters is what you say, not
how you say it, and they're half right. Thoughts that are
trite or shailow or poorly reasoned do not, when felici­
tously expressed, turn into penetrating insights. An em­
broidered sow's ear remains a saw's ear, and style is no substitute for
substance. But substance buried in an unreadable presentation isn't
worth much either. Polishing can enhance a diamond in the rough,
and if you have the right stuff, editing can vastly increase its value.
Throughout this book I have explained that editing is largely a
matter of applying standard remedies to common faults, but it's now
time to confess that the process is sometimes more complicated than
I may have made it seem. Although most problems do yield to rou­
tine solutions, you can go wrong in so many ways that you're not
likely to detect every flaw in one reading. Sometimes you have to
remove one layer of errors before others become visible, and new
mistakes may slip in as you eliminate the original ones. Professional
editors read their manuscripts as often as the deadlines allow, making
changes each time through, and these editors are working on material
that authors have turned in as finished. In editing my own writing, I
cover a freshly typed page with scribbled corrections, retype to see
what I've wrought, then sharpen my pencil and attack again. The
vicious circle stops only when I find myself restoring the earlier ver­
sion of a sentence I "improved" last time around. I've reached the
point of diminishing returns.

137
138 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --
- �- AITERWORD

In reviewing your work, first tighten the wording. Then make

separate checks for the errors you're prone to. Skim your draft for
opening danglers; test all subjects and verbs for agreement; trace eve­
ry pronoun to its antecedent; look for unbalanced pairs and series.
This process gives you the best chance of catching oversights. While
you can correct most mistakes quickly, the others can take consider­
able time. Those involving faulty word order, ambiguous pronouns,
and lack of parallel structure can all be tricky to straighten out, and
you'll probably be working under some pressure. If you get stuck,
flag the trouble spot for later attention and go on. Sometimes you'll
hit on an inspired solution after you've given the problem a rest.
When you think you're done, go over the manuscript once more,
looking for passages that fall short of clarity or grace. You may find
that you've been overfond of some words or that your sentence struc­
ture needs varying. Try to put yourself in your reader's place and
look at your writing with a stranger's eyes. No aspect of revising is
more difficult or more important than developing critical detachment.
Editing can be hard work, but it's fun to work hard at what you
like doing-whether it's playing tennis or chess or the guitar. Some
writers find considerable pleasure in playing with sentences, and if
you've read this far, you're likely to be among them. Enjoy yourself.
Appendix The body of this book explains how trained editors correct
A faulty sentences and how you can apply their methods to
your own work. To learn these procedures, however, you
need some understanding of syntax, the principles govern-
ing the ways words fit together. The short review of pertinent terms
presented in the Introduction may be enough to jog the memories of
those who've merely forgotten the grammar they once knew. But if
you have never been exposed to the subject, which was in something
of an educational eclipse during the sixties and seventies, or if-for
whatever reason-you simply tuned out whenever the subject came
up, a more expansive summary may be helpful. This appendix takes
a more detailed look at the two interconnected ways of classifying the
components of a sentence, first as the various structural elements that
make up the whole and then as the parts of a speech that compose
each element.
I describe sentence structure in the timeworn terms of traditional
grammar, which are more widely known than the newer vocabularies
and more suited to my purpose. While linguistic scholars have good
reasons for finding fault with these concepts for in-depth analyses of
the language, their alternative structural and transformational gram­
mars do not seem appropriate here. To make sure that my terminol­
ogy was not obsolete, I consulted several current handbooks of Eng­
lish, listed in the Selected Bibliography, and they reassure me that the
old ways of looking at sentences remain alive and well. Watkins and
Dillingham, for example, begin their discussion with this observation:
"Although many methods have been devised for studying the funda­
mental elements of English, nothing has worked better and more
consistently than the traditional approach."

139
140 ---------------------
APPENDIX A

STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS

Subjects and Predicates

The conventional sentence, the age-old definition goes, is a group of
words that includes a subject and a predicate and expresses a com­
plete thought. While not all formulations that begin with capital let­
ters and end with periods meet these requirements, the few excep­
tions have little relevance to this discussion.
The word predicate tends to disconcert twelve-year-olds, but it's
less daunting when you look at it from your full height. Basically, the
predicate is the verb, the component that makes the statement (the
predication) about the someone or something that is its subject. Be­
cause a verb is technically a part of speech, we should probably call it
the simple predicate in its avatar as a sentence element, but for now
we can adopt the common expedient of letting verb mean "predicate."
Verbs are the words you ordinarily use when you order someone to
do something-Stop! Run! Slide! Write! Hush!-though in some com­
mands the verb is only implicit: [Be] Quiet! [Talk] Louder!
In such commands the subject, the one who will perform the
ordered action, is understood to be you, the person addressed. But the
typical sentence begins with an explicit subject, the person or thing or
idea that is acting, being acted on, or simply existing in the state the
predicate describes. When we talk about the subject of a sentence, we
really mean the subject of the verb. This grammatical subject is not
necessarily what the sentence is about. The sentence I found the presen­
tation dull and lifeless concerns a boring presentation, but the subject is
I. You can identify the subject of a sentence by answering the ques­
tion formed by putting What or Who in front of the verb.
In skeletal sentences, of course, it's easy to distinguish subjects
from verbs:
Elephants trumpet. Dinner is served.
I type. They have gone.
You did. Objections have been raised.
Flowers smell. We were talking.
Children play. Talking may help.
In these examples, as in most other English sentences, the subjects
precede the verbs, and the word order alone can show how elements
function: talking is part of the verb in the penultimate sentence, but
it's the subject in the last one. When a verb consists of more than one
word, you can call it a verb phrase, since a phrase is any group of
grammatically related words that you read as a unit but that does not
include both a subject and a verb.
--------------------a---
THE PARTS OF A SENTENCE 141

All the foregoing examples meet the traditional definition of a

sentence: a group of words that includes a subject and a predicate and
expresses a complete thought. If any of the examples began with a
word like although or when or since, you would no longer read it as a
sentence, with your voice falling at the end. You would read it as a
condition or a qualification of something else and wait for the resolu­
tion that would complete the thought. Putting a period after such a
word group would be like ending "The Star Spangled Banner" after
"and the home." Although objections have been raised, what nonetheless
has happened? When 1 type, what happens? Since they have gone, what
has happened? Words like although, when, and since connect and sub­
ordinate the following subject and verb to another group of words
that does make a statement that can stand alone. Any group of words
containing both a subject and a verb is called a clause-as opposed to
a phrase, a group of related words that lacks these elements. A clause
that makes sense all by itself is called independent. If a sentence
contains only one clause, this distinguishing term is unnecessary. The
simple sentence and the independent clause are coextensive.

Objects and Complements

While you can often express a complete thought with only two ele­
ments-a subject and a verb-a sentence may need a third element to
round out its meaning, most commonly a direct object or a comple­
ment. In the following sentences the verbs lead to direct objects:

Analysts study trends. Executives want results.

Children love clowns. I see friends.

A direct object, as these examples make clear, receives the mental or

physical action conveyed by the verb and performed by the subject.
What do analysts study? Trends. Whom do children love? Clowns.
What do executives want? Results. Whom do I see? Friends. In other
words, asking What? or Whom? after such a subject-verb combination,
one in which the subject does what the verb indicates, yields the
direct object-the person, thing, or idea that the verb acts on.
A verb that carries its action across to a recipient is described as
transitive (the prefix trans means "across," as in transcontinental and
transatlantic). That term may be another bugbear for grammarphobes,
but the concept is simplicity itself. If a verb has a receiver for its
action, it is transitive; if it does not, it is intransitive. Some verbs are
usually transitive, others are usually intransitive, and still others can
be either (cf. They run the store and He runs fast, She smokes cigarettes and
The fire smokes).
142 ----------------------
APPENDIX A

And while we're confronting bugbears, you should also know

that a transitive verb is in the active voice when its subject is acting
(Dogs chase cats) and in the passive voice when its subject is acted on
(Cats are chased by dogs)-that is, when the subject, not a direct object,
receives the action. Once again, the only thing difficult about the
distinction is the terminology. A verb in the active voice does not
necessarily express more action than one in the passive does. The
verb is passive, for example, in The blow was struck with force, active in
We considered the alternatives. The word voice designates the verb form
that indicates whether the subject is acting or acted on. It's the subject
that's active or passive, that's doing or being done to.
A sentence may have not only a direct object, which receives the
action of a transitive verb, but also an indirect object, which receives
the direct object or the effect of the direct object:

Teachers give students Leave me room.

guidance.
Send them telegrams. They save you money.
Caterers served us dinner. We awarded them prizes.

In each of these sentences the word directly after the verb is the
indirect object. If the order of the objects were reversed, the indirect
object would turn into a phrase beginning with to or for-gives guidance
to studen.ts, send telegrams to them, served dinner to us, leave room for me, save
money for you, awarded prizes to them. Usually the term indirect object
applies only in the first circumstance, when the word is not embedded
in a phrase. Incidentally, if you converted the verb in any of the above
examples to the passive voice and made the indirect object the subject
(students are given guidance, lhey are sent telegrams, and so on), the p assive
form of the verb would retain the direct object. It is only in this
special case that the passive voice takes an object, which grammarians
call a retained object. Here the subject of the passive verb receives not
the action of the verb but the object of the action. In most passive
constructions, the subject is acted on directly, so that there is no direct
object.
The only other primary sentence element left to discuss is the
complement, but to understand this term you first have to recognize a
category of verbs that differ from those we have been discussing.
While most verbs tell what is done by or to the subject, some express
no action at all. They simply affirm the "being" of their subjects and
lead to words indicating the condition or quality of that being. Having
little meaning of their own, these linking, or copulative, verbs func­
tion essentially like equal signs: they connect the subjects on their left
with the words on their right that either describe the subjects or serve
a, s synonyms:
---------------------
THE PARTS OF A SENTENCE 143

Circumstances are right. You should be president.

Adjectives are modifiers. We will be free.
I am optimistic. I was being facetious.
It might have been you. They were children.

The right-hand elements, called complements here, are often termed

predicate complements and are sometimes subdivided into predicate
nouns, predicate pronouns, and predicate adjectives. These names
suggest that a complement belongs to the verb portion of the sentence
(i.e., to the predicate, the part that makes the statement about the
subject) and completes the meaning of the linking verb. It is also
possible, however, to think of a complement as completing the mean­
ing of the subject, and some grammar books call this element a sub­
jective complement. (An objective complement, in contrast, is a word
that follows and identifies or describes the direct object of a verb like
name, appoint, call, or make; e.g., in We named Jones chairman, chairman is
the objective complement of Jones.) Still others use complement as a
blanket term for any word that completes the meaning of a subject­
verb combination-an object as well as a predicate, or subjective,
complement-so that birds would be a complement in both Cardinals
watch birds and Cardinals are birds. But in this book the word complement
alone means only a predicate, or subjective, complement.
The last set of examples all use the most common linking verb, to
be. An irregular verb (one whose pattern of variations differs from
that of most other verbs), it has many forms-am, are, is, was, were,
and numerous phrases involving be, being, or been. But lo be is not
invariably a linking verb. When it does not lead to a complement, it
usually either precedes a word or phrase that tells where the subject
is, as in We are here or The theater is on the left, or serves as part of
another verb. A combination like might have been done, is walking, or will
be finished is a form not of the verb to be but of the final verb in the
phrase.
There are, of course, many linking verbs other than to be-for
example, appear, seem, become, and remain-and some verbs can be
either linking or transitive:

linking Transitive
He felt feverish. He felt the cloth.
Roses smell wonderful. I smell perfume.
It is turning colder. We are turning pages.
She got sick. She got results.
Lemons taste bitter. I tasted the cookies.
The subjects in the left-hand column aren't doing anything, and noth­
ing is being done to them. They simply exist in the state indicated by
the complements.

Word Groups as Sentence Elements

The primary sentence elements, then, are the subject, the verb, and
the objects or complements. Every conventional sentence has at least
one subject-verb combination, and it may or may not have other main
elements-objects or complements. Though illustrated so far with
one-word examples, the various elements are sometimes groups of
words-phrases or clauses-that function as single units. In the next
two sentences all the main elements except the verbs are clauses:

Whoever reads this wonders who wrote it.

What matters is that they gave us the contract.

The word combinations to the right and left of the verbs in these
examples are not complete in themselves (unless, of course, you let
the left-hand clauses stand alone and put question marks after them).
Each functions as the subject, object, or complement of the sentence
in which it appears. In the following examples all the elements except
the verbs are phrases:

Buying on margin involves taking risks.

To capture an audience is to hold it enthralled.

If you have trouble identifying the main elements in a sentence, start

with the verb, the heart of the sentence. The subject will be the word
or group of words that answers the question formed by putting What
or Who in front of the verb. In the last set of examples, asking What
involves? and What is? yields the responses Buying on margin and To
capture an audience. Putting What? after the verb-Involves what? Means
whaf?-yields the direct object if the verb is transitive (laking risks) and
the complement if the verb is linking (to hold enthralled).
A verb, of course, may have more than one subject or more than
one object or complement, and a subject may govern more than one
verb. Some sentences, in ot her words, have compound subjects, com­
pound verbs, and so on. For example:

Compound subjects

Plagues and wars controlled the population.

What they promise and what they deliver are different.
THE PARTS OF A SENTENCE

Compound verbs
They loved, honored, and obeyed.
Consultants analyze problems and suggest solutions.

Compound objects
She trades stocks and bonds.
I said that I disapproved and that I would not cooperate.

Compound indirect objects

They feed woodpeckers and starlings suet.
We sent senators and representatives letters.

Compound complements
They were gentlemen and scholars.
They seemed willing and capable.

Modifiers

Nearly all the illustrative sentences used so far have had only primary
elements, but most sentences also have secondary elements called
modifiers-words, phrases, or clauses that describe or define main
elements or that qualify other modifiers. Although a modifier that
functions as a complement constitutes a main element, since it stands
alone and completes the meaning of the sentence, other modifiers are
subordinate parts of main elements.
In the example below, the main sentence elements are labeled S
for subject, V for verb, and O for object. An m before any of these
letters denotes a modifier of the designated element, and mm marks a
modifier of a modifier. A phrase or clause that functions as a unit is
treated as a single word. The first of the following examples has only
primary elements; the successive ones add modifiers:

s V 0
I Workers I demand I raises. I

mS 5 V mO 0
I Factory I workers I demand I sizable I raises. I
146 _____ APPENDIX A

mS S mS mV
I Factory I workers I in the automobile industry I usually I
V mm mO 0
!demand I fairly I sizable I raises I
mV
!whenever it is time for a new contract. I
In the last sentence the phrase in the automobile industry functions as a
unit to modify the subject, limiting workers to a specific group, and the
clause whenever if is time for a new contract works as a unit to modify the
verb demand, indicating the time of the action.
Equipped with no more information about sentence structure
than this discussion provides, you probably could not identify all the
elements in every sentence you read. Outside the isolated world of
controlled examples some components you encounter might seem to
be anomalies. These pages merely provide a common basis for dis­
cussing ways of improving sentences, and that goal does not require a
complete course in parsing.

Types of Sentences
The number and types of clauses in a sentence determine its gram­
matical classification as simple, complex, compound, or compound­
complex. A sentence containing only one subject-verb pair is simple,
no matter how heavily weighted with compound main elements and
long modifying phrases. A complex sentence, which also includes
only one independent clause, has in addition at least one dependent
clause. The first two sentences in this paragraph are simple, b ut the
third one is complex. A compound sentence, like the preceding one,
lacks a dependent clause but has at least two itndependent clauses,
usually joined by a comma and an appropriate connective (and, but, or,
nor, for, yet, so) or by a semicolon. In other words, it has two subject­
verb pairs, each capable of standing alone as a sentence; a group of
words that has only one subject for two or more verbs-that is, a
compound verb-does not qualify. The last sentence is compound­
complex because it has a dependent clause (that has only ... verbs) in
addition to the two independent ones.
We occasionally treat a word or a group of words like a sentence
even if there is no verb. Some locutions manage 1to convey a complete
thought without predicates. "The verbs are not 'left out,' " Perrin
says, "they are not thought, spoken, or written." This category in­
cludes exclamations like What a great idea! Ov1�r my dead body! and
 JT_E_N_C_E����������������147
_THE�_PA_R_T_S_O_F_A�SE_�__

Wow! and responses like Yes, No, and Maybe. While acknowledging
the righitful existence of these atypical sentences-verbless construc­
tions that can stand alone-we can continue to focus on the conven­
tional sentence.

PARTS OF SPEECH

So far we have been looking at the conventional sentence as an as­

semblage of interlocking structural components, but we can also view
it as a girouping of words with distinctive characteristics. The parts of
speech, the eight types of words that make up the various sentence
element:s, constitute the second basic set of terms that you need in
analyzing your writing.

Verbs
The predicate of a clause is that portion which says something about
the subj"ect. It comprises an action verb or a linking verb and the
verb's objects or complements, along with any modifiers of these
element:s. Properly speaking, then, the term verb designates the part of
speech t:hat serves as the crucial ingredient in a predicate, though in
common usage it also means the simple predicate, the role the verb
plays. Since the normal order for English sentences is subject-verb­
object/ complement, the predicate of a clause usually consists of the
verb and what follows, but there are many exceptions. In the last
clause, for example, the subject exceptions follows the verb are. Sen­
tences with this pattern are called inverted.
You. might have trouble picking out the verb in a sentence if all
you had to go on was its conventional definition as a word that ex­
presses action or state of being. "State of being" is a nebulous phrase
at best, and the "action" words in sentences are not always verbs. In
Exercise .seems like work and Play is beneficial, for example, the verbs are
seems and is. You can sometimes recognize a verb by where it falls in
a sentence, but its flexibility provides a more reliable test. You can
change .a verb to convey action or existence at an earlier or later time
(moved, will move), as ongoing or completed or customary (is moving, has
moved, will move), as conditional or imperative or emphatic (if I were
moving, ,Move! I do move), as performed by the subject (I moved), or as
happening to the subject (I was moved).
The verb in a clause is a word that you can leave in place and
change in form without destroying the sentence structure and often
 APPENDIX
148 ---- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - A

without making any other adjustment. In Exercise seems like work, for
example, you can substitute will seem or seemed for seems and keep the
sentence intact. But you can't say Exercised seems like work or Exercise
seems like will work or Exercise seems will like work, because erercise and
work and like are not verbs here-though each could be a verb in a
different sentence (I exercise, I work, and I like these activities). If you
have trouble identifying the verb in a sentence, try moving the state­
ment forward or backward in time. The word you change will be the
verb.
Talking about verb forms can involve intimidating grammatical
terms, some of which we've already defined, but fortunately verbs are
more complicated to talk about than to use. You might not be able to
say what the third-person singular present progressive passive form
of the verb to do is, but you would have no trouble using is being done
in a sentence.
A verb has four basic forms, or principal parts, from which you
can construct all its variations by adding helping verbs, or auxiliaries
(chiefly, be, do, have, can, could, shall, will, should, would, may, might, and
must). The principal parts are the infinitive, the past tense, the present
participle, and the past participle. The infinitive, usually signaled by a
preceding to, is the root form of the verb-the form you look up in
the dictionary and, with the exception of the verb to be, the form you
use with the subject 1 in the present tense-for example, to consider, to
play, to work. (Properly speaking, these examples are present active
infinitives; there are other types-to be considered, to have considered, fo
have been considered-but for the moment we can disregard them.)
Adding ing to a verb root usually produces the present participle, and
adding ed ordinarily creates the past tense and the past participle.
The root serves as the present tense, typically acquiring a final s
when the subject is a singular word other than J or you (i.e., when the
subject is in the third person singular), and fo llows shall or will to
form the future tense. The present participle after the auxiliary verb to
be indicates action in progress in the present, past, or future: is playing,
was playing, will be playing, has been playing, had been playing, or will have
been playing. The past participle after the auxiliary verb to have ex­
presses action completed before some other understood or stated
time: At this point we have considered the first two suggestions; We had
considered others before we heard about this one; By the time we announce our
decisions, we shall have considered all possibilities. The past participle after
the verb to be forms the passive voice: is considered, was considered, will
be considered, will have been considered, and so on.
Some verbs have irregular principal parts, but if standard English
is your first language, you almost always instinctively use the appro­
priate forms; that is, you say I thought, not I thinked; I drank, not I
THE PARTS OF A SENTENCE

drinked; I have seen, not I have seed. Most irregular verbs form the past
tense and the past participle by changing the vowel sound of the root
instead of adding ed, and many have past forms ending in t or en
instead of ed. Dictionaries show irregular verb forms, so that you have
somewhere to tum if you do find yourself hesitating over, say, She has
swam or has swum the English Channel or He had drunk or had drank too
much.

Nouns
As trad1itionally defined, a noun is the name of a person, place, thing,
quality, or feeling. [t is the only part of speech that you can particular­
ize with a, an, or the. A common noun, which you do not capitalize,
designates any member of the category named (a woman, a river, an
organization, a war); a proper noun, which you do capitalize, names a
specific member (Edna Browne, the Mississippi River, the United Nations,
World Vv'ar J). Concrete nouns name material things; abstract nouns
intangibles-concepts, feelings, and qualities. Collective nouns desig­
nate groups (team, band, committee, family); singular in form, they may
be singular or plural in meaning, depending on whether you are re­
ferring to the group as a unit or to its members (The team has won five
games, The team of all-stars play well together).
Nouns function primarily as the subjects, objects, or comple­
ments of verbs or as the objects of prepositions-a class of words,
discussed below, that includes as, of, and in in this sentence. A clause
that serves in any of these ways is called a noun clause. In the sen­
tence vVhat 1 want to know is how many shares are outstanding, both the
subject (What I want to know) and the complement (how many shares are
outstanding) are noun clauses.
Unl.ike verbs, nouns undergo few changes in form. Ordinarily the
base form becomes plural when you add s or es and possessive when
you add an apostrophe plus s; the apostrophe alone usually makes a
plural noun possessive. [rregular plurals, such as children, mice, and
geese, appear in the dictionary entries for the singular forms. Some
words 21dopted from Latin and Greek retain the original plurals; oth­
ers do not. (When you are unsure whether to write, say, formulas or
formulae·, criterions or criteria, check the dictionary; if it shows both
forms and gives no further guidance, use the one shown first.) A few
nouns have masculine and feminine forms-notably, actor and actress,
royal couples like prince and princess, and foreign-language pairs that
have entered English unchanged, such as alumnus and alumna, fiance
and fiaritcie, and masseur and masseuse. But most feminine forms-in­
cluding authoress, stewardess, aviatrix, and executrix-have fallen into
disfavor, along with the feminine mystique. Others, like waitress, host-
 APPENDIX A

ess, and heroine, are under attack but, so far at least, seem somewhat
more tenacious.

Pronouns
Pronouns substitute for nouns; they, too, refer to persons, places,
things, feelings, and qualities-though not by name-and function as
subjects, objects, or complements of verbs and as objects of preposi­
tions. Without them prose would bog down in repetition. Consider
what would happen, for example, if you had to do without if in a
sentence like this: Our year-round presence in the toy market has several
advantages: if permits the product diversity that makes us a household word, it
builds customer loyalty, and it provides early indica lions of what items to
produce in volume for the Christmas peak.
Although pronouns subdivide into several varieties, those that
probably come immediately to mind are the so--called personal pro­
nouns-the first person, which you use to refer to yourself (I, my,
mine, me; we, our, ours, us); the second person, which you use to refer to
those you're talking with (you, your, yours); and the third person, which
you use for whomever or whatever you're talking about (he, she, it; his,
her, hers, its; him, her, it; they, their, theirs, them). These words have more
forms than nouns do. The first- and third-person pronouns have dis­
tinctive plurals, all three have possessive forms, most have different
forms as subjects and objects, and the third-person singular pronoun
has masculine, feminine, and neuter forms.
The possessive forms of personal pronouns, unlike those of
nouns, do not have apostrophes. Among the alternative possessive
forms (my, mine; our, ours; your, yours; her, hers; their, theirs), mine and the
words ending in s can function as subjects or objects or comple­
ments-in other words, like nouns (J prefer yours, but hers is also good,
though she says that the best one is mine). The other forms cannot; they
serve only as modifiers (my book, your word, her 1r10sition, our goal, their
responsibility). Theoretically, his and its can work i.n both ways, though
its on its own is unlikely (That typewriter is even worse than his machine
because his still has a shift key and ifs doesn't work).
While the pronouns I and you can be replaced by nouns-say, the
writer and the readers-the context ordinarily need not include those
nouns to make dear which persons I and you refer to. But the third­
person pronouns almost always derive their meaning from their ante­
cedents-the words they stand for. In the last sentence pronouns is the
antecedent of their and they. Nouns are also known as substantives,
because they have substance in themselves; bu1t most pronouns de­
pend on substantives for substance. A sentence like It is a common
problem communicates nothing unless you know what 1t refers to. (A
THE PARTS OF A SENTENCE

few idiomatic uses of it are exceptions; in expressions like it's raining

and to put it mildly, the pronoun requires no antecedent.)
The relative pronouns-primarily who, which, and that-also stand
for nouns, or for other types of pronouns, but they appear in modify­
ing clauses, called relative clauses, that they relate to other sentence
elements. The antecedent of a relative pronoun is the word that the
clause modifies. ln the last sentence the antecedent of that is word.
Who refers to a person, which to a thing, and that to either.
Of the three principal relative pronouns, only who varies in form:
who is the subjective case (one who is wiser); whose is the possessive (a
person whose conscience is clear, a house whose foundation is sound), and
whom is the objective (the person on whom the decision depends). Relative
pronouns do not have distinctive plural forms, but they are plural in
meaning when their antecedents are plural.
Also antecedent-dependent are the demonstrative pronouns this
and thaf and their plural forms these and those. These do not introduce
clauses, but they do point to earlier words-as you might point when
you tell the person behind the cookie counter that you would like
some of these and some of those. Since you obviously cannot depend
on digital demonstration when you write, the demonstrative pro­
nouns you use must refer clearly to substantive words (as the opening
These does in the last sentence). The antecedents for this and these
should be nearer at hand than those for that and those. You might
introduce your brother to your companion by saying, "This is my
brother," but if your brother waved to you from across the street, you
would be more likely to say, "Thaf s my brother." You usually
choose the appropriate pronoun automatically, and when you do have
to think about which form to use, the distinction may be not only
unclear but unimportant. (A this, that, these, or those that identifies a
noun it directly precedes functions as a modifier. In J like that approach
or We chose these letters, for example, the that and these are classified not
as demonstrative pronouns but as demonstrative adjectives.)
Pronouns in the final class that concerns us differ from the others
in not requiring antecedents. Words like anyfhing, each, either, everyone,
neither, nobody, none, somebody, and something are called indefinite pro­
nouns-indefinite because they do not depend on antecedents, pro­
nouns because they play the roles of nouns but do not name any­
thing. Pronouns in this category use apostrophes for their possessive
forms, as nouns do. Incidentally, when that or those directly precedes a
relative clause, it constitutes an indefinite pronoun, not a demonstra­
tive pronoun, and needs no antecedent. In a sentence like Let those who
share our belief join in our fight, those means "the ones"; and in a sen­
tence like That which is true is also beautiful, that has the sense of "any­
thing."
 APPENDIX A

In some circumstances, who and which are also indefinite pro-­

nouns. When they head noun clauses, not modifying clauses, they
require no antecedents: J told them who would be there and Which you
choose depends on your taste. (Curme would classify who and which here
as "indefinite relative pronouns"-a category that also includes what,
whichever, and whoever-but in this book the term relative pronoun ap-­
plies to who and which only when they refer to antecedents and appeair
in modifying clauses.) Interrogative pronouns-who, which, and what
used to introduce direct or indirect questions-also have no antece-­
dents and thus qualify as a species of indefinite pronoun.
The few remaining types of pronouns rarely figure in the revision
process. A pronoun with the suffix self or selves-attached, inconsis-­
tently, to the possessive form of a first- or second-person pronoun
(myself, yourselves) but to the objective form of a third-person pronoun
(itself, himself, themselves)-is called a reflexive pronoun when it serves
as an object designating the same person or thing as the subject (He
asked himself ... , I was talking to myself); but it is called an intensive
pronoun when it is used for emphasis (I myself saw it happen; Thie
president herself favors our plan). Finally, each other and one another are
reciprocal pronouns.

Adjectives and Adverbs

Adjectives and adverbs serve as modifiers, the secondary elements
that describe or limit th e basic structural units. Like the main ele-­
ments, the modifiers can be either single words or groups of words
(phrases or clauses) containing assorted other parts of speech, includ­
ing nouns, pronouns, and verbs.
Adjectives are the parts of speech that modify-that is, describe
or qualify-nouns and pronouns. Some denote a quality (blue, tall, old',
significant, remarkable, slight) or indicate quantity, number, or order (all',
some, three, tenth), and others simply single out or limit, as the article:s
and pronoun-derived adjectives do (a, the, his, each other's, other, such,
this, those). A group of words that functions in any of these ways i:s
called an adjective phrase or clause.
According to the dictionary, to modify a word is to restrict it:s
meaning, but as grammarians use the term, it can also mean to de­
scribe a word without narrowing its denotation. In Only a man who cai'l
swing through the trees like an ape could manage that stunt, the adjective
clause clearly plays a defining role, making the subject not any adult
human male but one with a specific skill. But in Only Tarzan, who ca1,i
swing th rough the trees like an ape, could manage that stunt, the who clause
in no way limits the identity of the subject; Tarzan would still hie
Tarzan if the clause were omitted. Such a modifier is called nonre-
 E ����������������153
_THE�_PA_R_T_S_O_F�A _S_E _N _TE_ _N C_ �

strictive or nondefining, in contrast to the one in the first version,

which is called restrictive or defining. Here's another example: One
undertaking that is proving successful is our Wheeling coal project, which we
launched just two years ago. Here the that clause is restrictive; the sen­
tence concerns not just an undertaking but a successful one. The
which clause, however, is nonrestrictive; it gives additional informa­
tion about the Wheeling coal project but does not define it. In Errors
and Expectations Mina Shaugh nessy proposes replacing the term nonre­
striclive with ertra, which suggests the extra commas needed to mark
nondefining modifiers as nonessential elements-as frills, not nuts
and bolts. Some might find e.rtra a less forbidding word and a useful
mnemonic, but this book retains the traditional terminology, since
many readers are familiar with it.
Another easy-to-understand pair of terms that may nonetheless
sound intimidating are attributive and predicative. Attributive adjectives
are adjacent to the words they modify; in contrast, predicative adjec­
tives-or predicate adjectives, one type of complement-follow link­
ing verbs and modify subjects. In the last sentence, attributive, predica­
tive, predicate, one, and linking are attributive and adjacent is predicative.
Adjectives change in form only to show comparative degrees, as
good does in the old autograph-book verse "Good, better, best / Never
let it rest / 'Til your good is better / and your better best." The
comparative forms of good are irregular in not retaining the base form,
called the positive degree, but they do have the standard endings: er
for the comparative degree, used in judging one thing against another,
and est for the superlative degree, used in ranking at least three
things. These endings leave most one- and two-syllable adjectives
otherwise unchanged, except for the standard orthographical adjust­
ments that suffixes require (1tigh, higher, highest; quick, quicker, quickest;
big, bigger, biggest; lively, livelier, liveliest). Many dictionaries include the
er and esf forms in the entries for adjectives, so that you can look up
any that you are uncertain about. Long adjectives and others that
would sound awkward with these suffixes use more and most to form
their comparative and superlative degrees, and the dictionaries show
no er and est forms for them (more beautiful, most significant, more splen­
did, most fickle, more winning). You sometimes have the option of using
more or most even with adjectives that usually take the suffixes. For
example, you may say either I have never known a fairer judge or I have
never known a judge more /air-whichever provides the rhythm or em­
phasis you want in a particular context. Lesser, rather than greater,
degrees require less and least regardless of the adjective's length (less
risky, least risky). Of course, only descriptive adjectives have degrees.
Pronoun-related adjectives and those that denote quantity or number
do not.
154 ---------------- -APPENDIX
---A

In this book the term adjective applies to any word or group of

words that modifies a noun or pronoun. This category frequently
includes, for example, infinitives and participles, like the italicized
words in the following sentence: Alerted to th(. growing dissatisfaction
of women denied fair compensation, management set up a committee
lo study pay-scale inequities4 Nouns, too, can serve as adjectives (an
army officer, an honor student, home rule, rice pudding); for that matter,
adjectives can act as nounsJ as in The rich get richer and the poor get
poorer. Function is the overriding consideration in classifying words as
one part of speech or another.
Adverbs, the second type of modifier, do for other parts of speech
what adjectives do for nouns and pronouns. Their principal job, as
their name implies, is to qualify verbs, as in completely failed and sin­
cerely believed, but they also qualify other modifiers, as in ertremely
valuable and quite sincerely, and entire sentences, as unfortunately does in
this example: Unfortunately tile suspect completely failed to convince the jury
that he had taken his employers' ertremely valuable jewelry into his protective
custody during the party because he quite sincerely believed that it might be
stolen. Typically, an adverbial element-whether a word, a phrase, or
a clause-answers a question about the word or words modified:
How? Where? When? Why? or To what erfent? In the last example, com­
pletely tells how or to what extent the suspect failed, sincerely tells how
he believed, ertremely indicates the extent to which the jewel ry was
valuable and quite the degree of his sincerity, the adverbial into phrase
tells where he took the jewelry, the during phrase tells when, and the
because clause tells why.
Most single-word adverbs, but not all, end in ly, a suffix tacked
onto the corresponding adjective without otherwise altering it, except
that a final y preceded by a consonant becomes i (strongly, publicly,
whimsically, coyly, happily). Not all words ending in ly are adverbs, how­
ever. Occasionally that suffix turns an adjective not into an adverb but
into another adjective (lively, deadly, sickly), and ly attached to a noun
usually produces an adjective (earthly, friendly, homely, hourly, lovely,
manly, mannerly, saintly, worldly). Certain adverbs, moreover, have the
same forms as the corresponding adjectives (early, fast, first, hard, high,
late, right, straight, wrong). While some of these words also come in ly
varieties, you can usually rely on your ear to tell you which form to
use in any given sentence. You would not say that you threw a ball
highly into the air or speak of your high esteemed colleague, nor would you
be likely to get the adverbs mixed up in Lately I have been working late
in the office. Another sizable group of adverbs that lack the characteris­
tic ly endings also lack comparative degrees (almost, here, now, once,
quite, rather, since, sometimes, then, there, today, tomorrow, too, very, yester­
day). Often and soon are two atypical non-Ly adverbs that can be com-
�T�H�E�PA�R�T_S_O�F�A_S�E_N_T_EN_C_E�����������������155

pared but that do not also function as adjectives. Non-ly adverbs that
have comparative degrees form them in the same way that adjectives
do. Adverbs that end in ly invariably use more and most, less and least.

Prepositions and Conjunctions

The parts of speech discussed in the preceding section can serve as

primary or secondary sentence elements-verbs as predicates; nouns
and pronouns as subjects, objects, and complements; adjectives and
adverbs as modifiers. Those we turn to now can only be parts of those
components, and unlike the words in the other categories they never
change in form. More functional than substantive, prepositions and
conjunctions simply tie other parts of speech together.
A preposition forms a phrase with a noun, a pronoun, or a noun
equivalent-called its object-that it links to another word in the
sentence. The object may have modifiers (about all things bright and
beautiful), or it may itself be a phrase or a clause (in offPring suggestions
to whoever is in charge). A prepositional phrase functions as a unit,
usually as an adjective (the end of the book, the store on the corner) or an
adverb (left after the meeting, drove over the bridge).
The words, or word groups, commonly used as prepositions in­
clude about, above, according lo� across, after, below, beside, beyond, by, con­
cerning, despite, during, for, from, in, inside, into, like, near, of, on, out,
outside, over, through, to, toward, under, up, within, and without. But there
is no need to memorize them. You can recognize prepositions, as you
can other parts of speech, by what they do in a sentence. (To see what
they do, try reading the last sentence without of, by, and in.) Besides,
not all the words listed are invariably prepositions. While the word
up, for example, is a preposition in went up the hill, it is an adverb in
look up and an adjective in walked down the up escalator; before is a prep­
osition in darkest before the dawn, an adverb in as I said before, and a
conjunction in look before you leap; down is a preposition in walked down
the road, an adverb in all fall down, a verb in they down a beer or two, and
a noun in a first down.
While a preposition always takes an object-though occasionally
only an implicit one-the object sometimes begins the clause that the
preposition ends. While such constructions are the exception to the
rule (a preposition normally occupies the "pre-position" relative to its
object), virtually no one still .argues that a sentence should never end
with a preposition. Questions like What was the memorandum about?
and What audience are you aiming at? are quite acceptable, as are the
relative clauses in The dealer that you bought it from will provide this service
and The person that I wrote to is the assistant sales manager. Ordinarily,
however, you would omit the relative pronoun in sentences like the
last two and let readers "understand" it as the object of the preposi­
tion: The dealer you bought it from... and The pers;on I wrote to. ...
In turning to conjunctions, the second type of connectives, we
have to distinguish first of all between two mai)[l types, coordinating
and subordinating. The principal coordinating conjunctions-and, but,
for, nor, and or-join sentence elements of equ.al weight and of the
same grammatical species, linking pairs and series of words, phrases,
or clauses, as and and or do in this sentence. But, however, is not
invariably a conjunction; it is sometimes a preposition meaning "ex­
cept," as in We have mef all but one of their demands. For, too, is often a
preposition; in fact, unlike the other coordinatilng conjunctions, the
conjunction for can only connect independent clauses; used in any
other way, for is a preposition. In They left no margin for error, for they
were sure there would be none, the first for is a preposition, the second a
conjunction. In some constructions the conjunction that connects two
subjects, verbs, objects, modifiers, or independent clauses works with
a correlative that precedes the first of the paired 1elements. The correl­
ative conjunctions-both ... and, neither ... nor, not ... but, not only
... but also, and whether . . . or-heighten the parallelism of the units
they join, which should match in both form a:nd function (the last
four words are an example).
Unlike coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions do
not join coequal words, phrases, or clauses; they invariably head de­
pendent clauses and show how the words that follow relate to other
sentence elements. Typically, they introduce adverbial clauses that
modify either entire main clauses or the principa1l verbs and that state
a contrast or a condition or answer one of the questions that adverbs
usually do. In the following examples unless, when, and if are subordi­
nating conjunctions: Unless you agree, we will not proceed. Move where you
please. Please pay within ten days if you want prompt delivery. Sometimes
the clauses are elliptical; that is, their subjects and verbs are implicit
rather than stated. If we read When only five, MW knew Greek or Your
story, though true, seems incredible, we readily understand the missing
"he was" or "it is," and when and though still qualify as subordinating
conjunctions. Other common subordinating conjunctions are affer, al­
though, as, as if, as long as, because, before, since, so that, until, and while.
Some of these words-for example, after, as, and before-can also
be prepositions, and it is important to recognize their distinctive func­
tions. Both a preposition and a subordinating conjunction show how
the words that follow fit into the sentence, and e.ach forms a unit with
the words it introduces. The essential difference is that the conjunc­
tion precedes a subject-verb combination, stated or implicit, and a
preposition introduces a noun or a noun equivalent. While the object
T_HE
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A RT_S�O_F_A _S_E ���������������-157
_N_TE�N_C_E�

of a preposition may be a noun clause (to whoever wants it) or be

modified by an adjective clause (for students who hale grammar), the
preposition is not part of the following clause. It is part of the phrase
that includes its object and the modifiers; it is not part of a clause that
constitutes its object or a modifier. In contrast, a subordinating con­
junction is always part of the clause it introduces. After is a preposi­
tion in affer the ball, a conjunction in after the ball is over; as is a conjunc­
tion in ,is I was saying, a preposition in as a writer who cares about her
work; before is a conjunction in before I leave, a preposition in before the
year that I spent in France.
Although most subordinating conjunctions introduce adverbial
clauses, the conjunction that, which introduces a noun clause (not to
be confused with the relative pronoun that, which introduces an ad­
jective clause), is a prominent exception (That they refused to testify
suggests that they do not wish to be implicated). Other words that introduce
noun clauses are not usually classed as subordinating conjunctions.
Curme mentions, for example, interrogative pronouns (J asked who did
it), interrogative adverbs (J wonder why they did if), and indefinite rela­
tive pronouns (J do not know whom they invited). These fine distinctions
need not concern us here. The point to note is that not all words
introducing subordinate clauses are subordinating conjunctions.

Interjections
Last and least of the parts of speech are the interjections-a category
of virtually no concern in this book. These are words or groups of
words that disrupt the flow of coherent discourse to express some
feeling such as pleasure, pain, surprise, dismay, embarrassment, an­
noyance, or anger. Expressions like Ah! Ouch! Shucks! Pshaw! and Bal­
derdash!--not to mention all the more currently popular outbursts­
often h:mction alone as sentences. (Curme comments, in fact, that
they "belong to the oldest forms of speech. . . . Thus they are not
words but sentences. Sentences are older than words.") When intro­
duced into a sentence, an interjection has no grammatical relation to
the other components and requires commas or dashes to set it off: Oh
bother, I forgot my keys; We'll do it, by George, if it takes all year; I tried
again but-blast it!-this time 1 didn't even hit the target.

Converts and Hybrids

As this discussion has emphasized repeatedly, many words usually
classified as one part of speech sometimes function as another. "To
find oult what class a word belongs to," Jespersen says, "it is not
enough to consider its form in itself; what is decisive is the way in
which the word in connected speech 'behaves' towards other words
and in which other words behave towards it" The nouns house and
dog, for example, tum into adjectives in the terms house arrest and dog
collar; they modify nouns and show no change for the plural (house
arrests, dog collars). Such combinations are so common, in fact, that
they often develop into single words (cornerstone, doorknob, figurehead,
fishbowl, houseboat, warmonger). Similarly, adjectives readily become
nouns (the underprivileged, the disadvantaged, the wealthy, lhe superrich, the
beautiful, the damned). Even verbs are occasionally pressed into service
as nouns (the haves and the h ave nots).
Although function is the essential consideration in assigning part­
of-speech labels, a word that undergoes a grammatical shift does not
necessarily exhibit all the characteristics of its adopted class. It re­
mains, in a sense, a hybrid. Nouns used as adjectives, for example,
differ from pure descriptive adjectives in not having comparative and
superlative forms; for this reason some grammarians call them at­
tributive nouns. The reasoning of grammarians, however, does not
always seem consistent. Sometimes they insist on logic, as when they
argue that the pronoun he, since it must stand for a noun or pronoun,
has no antecedent in The manager's directive explains why he obiecfs to the
proposal. Because the possessive form manager's plays an adjective's
role, it cannot also function as a noun and serve as an antecedent for
a pronoun-except, of course, for a possessive pronoun. (To elimi­
nate the error, you could say either The manager explains in his directive
why he objects ... or The manager's directive explains his objections . ... )
But grammarians can also explain seeming violations of logic or
accept them as idiomatic exceptions. For example, though adjectives
do not modify other adjectives, best seems to be doing exactly that in
my best friend's dog, where friend's, a noun in the possessive case, must
be considered an adjective. Well, here, the argument runs, the posses­
sive really belongs to the whole phrase my best friend. In a sentence
like If is worth the effort some would call worth an adjective that atypi­
cally takes an objecti others would say that, since adjectives do not
take objects, worth is a preposition in that construction. Similarly,
grammarians who list like as an adjective that takes an object use
examples that look suspiciously like prepositional phrases (e.g., Jes­
person's "He looks like an actor").
One class of hybrids th.at all grammarians accept as having char­
acteristics of two parts of speech are the so-called verbals-infinitives,
participles, and gerunds. Infinitives, the to forms of verbs, can func­
tion as nouns, that is, as subjects, objects, or complements (To err is
human; 1 asked to be excused; and To understand is to forgive). They can
also act as adjectives (I have money to spend; Let's have something to eat; To
succeed in this business, you need connections) or as adverbs (I come to bury
_H
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AP __
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Caesar, not to praise him; J am happy to accept; J went to meet them). But
used in any of these ways, the infinitive retains some of the character­
istics of a verb: it can have a subject, a complement or an object, and
adverbial modifiers (I believe them to be intruders, They agreed lo investigate
the matter thoroughly). Incidentally, the discussion of infinitives here
and elsewhere includes those that appear without an identifying to,
which idiomatically disappears when the infinitive follows verbs like
make, help, and dare (You made me love you, I helped him build it, and J
wouldn't dare contradict her).
The present and past participles of verbs, the ing and ed forms
used with auxiliary verbs in various inflections, function on their own
as adjectives. Sometimes it makes little difference whether you con­
strue a participle following the verb to be as part of the verb phrase or
as a predicate adjective. In We are impressed, for example, you may
either consider are impressed the first-person plural present passive
form of impress or regard impressed as an adjective modifying We. But
even when participles appear without auxiliaries and clearly serve as
adjectives, they-like infinitives-still act in some ways like verbs,
taking objects or complements (Choosing my words carefully, I told them
the whole story; This procedure, once considered daring, has become common­
place). The participle, the words it governs, and any modifiers of these
elements constitute a participial phrase.
A gerund, the ing form of the verb used as a noun, differs from
the present participle only in function, not in form. But it is important
to recognize the distinction. There's nothing wrong with Concentrating
on my work made the hours fly, where the first word is a gerund, the
subject of the verb made. But in Concentrating on my work, the hours flew
by, you have the notorious dangling participle, an adjective form with
nothing to modify. (To repair the sentence, you could match partici­
ple and subject: Concentrating on my work, I made the hours fly by).
The last example illustrates how a knowledge of syntax comes
into play in correcting faulty sentences. "To revise a sentence," Mina
Shaughnessy says, you "must have ... a strategy for breaking into it,"
a way of seeing its "seams" and "joints" and "points of intersection."
Knowing its components gives you the access you need.
Appendix II While the preceding chapters focus on general problems
that keep sentences from working smoothly, this appendix
deals with specific words and phrases that some critics find
fault with. These fine points of usage have to do less with
the sense and readability of sentences than with the sensibilities of
readers. Between you and I is no less clear and graceful than between you
and me, nor is apples are different from oranges obviously superior to apples
are different than oranges-unless, of course, one or the other wording
grates on your ear as wrong. If so, the "error" distracts you from the
substance of what you are reading. As a writer, you should avoid
putting such obstacles in your readers' path.
Virtually no one disputes the practicality of using standard Eng­
lish-the dialect of the educated-for reasonably formal, public ex­
position. But more is at issue here. Even usages common in reputable
published writing are sometimes criticized as pompous, inexact, re­
dundant, or ugly. Although objectionable diction may well be the
least serious problem I discuss, writers probably crave guidance in
this area more than in any other. In Grammar and Good Taste, Dennis
E. Baron stresses the country's prevailing linguistic insecurity, attested
by the popularity of books and newspaper columns on language
abuse, and attributes it in part to "an educational system based on a
doctrine of correctness and purity in language that invariably conflicts
with the observable facts of English usage."
Critical of the traditional concept of "correct English," linguistic
scholars like Baron are interested in scientifically describing language

161
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APPENDIX B

as it is spoken, by high-school dropouts as well as college graduates,

and they do not judge one variety inferior to another (though they
recognize that "standard English" is appropriate for formal dis­
course). They question whether native speakers of the language can
make mistakes. Objective I y studying how the language functions,
how it develops and changes, they would not impose rules to inhibit
its growth.
Baron reports a long history of conflict between language scholars
and the word watchers who decry faulty usage. And "the cold war,"
Geoffrey Nunberg observes, "endures to this day." While the lin­
guists have convinced "most of the educational establishment" that
their views are correct, they have not swayed "the body of educated
public opinion."
Thus the public still asks not what the language is but what it
should be. And the language scholars, by and large, refuse to address
the question. It would "involve value judgments," the linguist Samuel
R. Levin comments, "which the linguist, as structuralist, does not
reckon himself qualified to make." Observing that "[w]e should not
ask linguistic scientists to tell us what sounds best," Nunberg finds
them "no more sensitive to nuances of usage than mathematicians
and chemists; they tend to regard prose as a necessary evil that serves
only to smooth the transition from one formalism to the next."
With language scholars unwilling to pontificate about proper us­
age, many practical stylists have volunteered for the job. Most of
these self-appointed authorities-after all, as Bernstein points out,
they had no way of getting official appointments-are writers, jour­
nalists, editors, or teachers without formal training in linguistics. But
these amateurs in the study of language are professionals in its use.
Words are the tools of their trade, and they care about them in a way
quite different from the linguists'. Instead of emphasizing patterns of
speech, they stress written usage, which can reflect careful choices.
For literary purposes some words are arguably better than others, and
value judgments are in order.
The best of the language critics have devoted conscientious and
intelligent thought to what makes good usage good; and they defend
their preferences, in a nonauthoritarian way, as logical, useful, or
felicitous. Of course, they often disagree, and Baron finds them "in­
variably inconsistent." But despite their many disagreements and in­
consistencies, they can help us formulate our own judgments. Some
arguments will seem more cogent than others or will have more ad­
herents or will rest on stronger evidence.
In focusing attention on usages that these critics dislike, I am not
rejecting the position of the language scholars. Though I would, in
fact, argue for the peaceful coexistence of the two groups, for literary
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sensitivity informed by linguistic scholarship, my purpose here is not

ideological but pragmatic. I want to alert you to wording that puts you
at some risk and that you may therefore wish to avoid, whether or not
you agree with the objections advanced. In editing for the Modern
Language Association, I suggest alternatives to such wording because
the MLA has unusually strong reasons for wanting its language to be
above reproach (not that it has always achieved this end). Even oppo­
nents of traditional standards usually find it tactful to follow the pre­
cepts they disparage. Many who don't mind like as a conjunction or
hopefully in the sense of "it is hoped" avoid these usages to forestall
attack. No one likes to be thought ignorant, and the guardians of the
language can be vicious. Baron reports that writers asked to comment
on disputed diction have recommended fines, jail sentences, and even
lynching for those guilty of certain errors. If you would not bow to
the vigilantes out of cowardice, you may choose to respect the feel­
ings of the less vindictive cherishers of proprieties. Some writers
whom Baron quotes claim to be sickened or disgusted when they find
words misused, and it is only civil to spare them distress.
Many suspect usages, I am well aware, have impressive literary
precedents, especially in works written before the eighteenth-century
grammarians attempted to impose order on the language. Only since
about 1920 has infer been condemned in the sense of "imply," lie and
lay have long been confused, as have affect and effect; Shakespeare was
comfortable with double superlatives like "the most bold­
est ... hearts of Rome"; and disinterested meant "uninterested," a
usage currently criticized, before it came to mean "unbiased."
For our purposes, however, such historical evidence is of Little
importance. Linguists may argue that changes in the way a word has
been used prove that its structure permits different interpretations
and that objections to one or the other are mere prejudices. But while
a perusal of the multivolume Oxford English Dictionary should discour­
age self-righteousness and dogmatism among the language critics, its
citations do not necessarily refute the arguments of modern arbiters.
Whatever was true in the past, certain usages are suspect today, and
if you do not avoid them, you may be thought careless or unin­
formed. From the practical point of view adopted here, the record of
the centuries is beside the point. I mention a few historical odds and
ends for their inherent interest, but I emphasize the discriminations
important to our contemporaries.
A glossary of usage confined to an appendix must obviously be
selective about its entries, and I have given priority to questionable
wording that occurs fairly often in manuscripts accepted for publica­
tion by the MLA. While I also include some usages that seem trouble­
some in the nation at large, though perhaps not to sophisticated au-
164 ---------------------
APPENDIX B

thors, there are few, if any,. of the sort considered nonstandard, such
as it don't or them things. I have also generally excluded topics dis­
cussed in the body of the book-nouns misconstrued as singular or
plural, for example, and ja rgon that contribu tes to wordiness. If you
do no t find what you are looking for here, consult the Index. Those
interested in a more extensive treatment of usage can choose from
several book-length glossaries. Of these I would single out Bernstein's
Careful Writer, which is both amusing and helpful, and Copperud's
comprehensive American Usage and Style: The Consensus, which takes
into account opinions expressed in several leading dictionaries and
usage guides.
The recommendations presented here are offered not as cast-iron
rules but, in Nunberg's words, as "the tentative conclusions of
thoughtful argument." In the end you must decide for yourself which
advice seems worth taking, or at least not worth disregarding. If your
usage is W1exceptionable when judged by the most scrupulous stan­
dards, you offend no one. If it is not, you may handicap your writing.

a, an The choice of a or an before a word depends, of course, on the sound­

not the letter-that follows: a ukulele but an uncle; an $8 check but a $10 check.
We say an heirloom, an honor, .and an hour because the initial consonants are
silent; each word begins with a vowel sound. In the past, especially in Eng­
land, the h was also virtually inaudible in words like history and hotel, so that
the preceding article was an. But today the h is generally pronounced in these
words, and the appropriate article is a. Some critics claim, however, that it is
natural to use an when the first syllable of the h word is not stressed: A history
book lists as an historical fact that. ... The 1983 edition of Webster's Collegiate,
while noting that both a and a:n occur before such words in print, claims that
an is more common in speech; but the 1982 edition of the American Heritage
Dictionary reports that an unpronounced h in words like historical and hysteri­
cal is "now uncommon in American speech." Though the appropriate article
in that context may be a matter of opinion, or of varying pronunciation, an
should clearly not precede a word that starts with an h you hear. Read a
phrase aloud if you don't know which article to use. Would an hypocrite
pretend to an humble heart?
absolute modifiers Strictly construed, expressions like most unique, more com­
plete, and more perfect seem illogical. If unique means "only one," how can a
circus act, say, be the most unique ever presented? If complete means "missing
nothing," how can one list b e more complete than another? And if perfect
means "without a flaw," how can one gem be more perfect than the next? At
this point, some style guides r,ecall "the more perfect union" of the Constitu­
tion and, sooner than question the diction of the founding fathers, argue that
everyone realistically takes perfect to mean "approximating perfection." Rea­
soning in a similar way, Curme exonerates comparative forms like deader and
more unique from the charge of pleonasm.
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But many language critics disagree. The American Heritage Dictionary re­
ports, for example, that the "vast majority" of its usage panel objects to mo5t
unique. In speech illogical comparisons slip by unremarked, but writing gives
readers a chance to notice and criticize. Think twice about assigning degrees
to obvious incomparables like mortal, endless, total, wholly, final, absolute, peer­
less, equal, devoid, and essential. Qualifying such words is like putting most
before adjectives ending in est. Shakespeare could use double comparative
forms emphatically-Antony says, for example, that Brutus gave Caesar "the
most unkindest cut of all" -but today no one over the age of six can get
away with an expression like the most biggest man. Absolutes are superlatives
in themselves; they cannot be intensified. If you preface them with more or
most, you diminish their meaning. But you can approach these extremes more
or less closely. A project can be less nearly complete than another, a record
the most nearly perfect in the cl ass.
affect, effect To affect is to influence, to effect is to bring about: The new wage
offer affected our willingness to compromise on the other issues, and we were able to effect
a settlement within a few hours. Perhaps some writers confuse the two verbs
because the noun effect corresponds to both; it can mean either "influence," as
in The report concerned the e/fecf of gamma rays on man-in-the-moon marigolds, or
"result," as in This approach had the desired effecl. The noun a/feel, defined as
''the subjective aspect of an emotion," exists only as a technical term in
psychology.
all of In a phrase like all of the people, all of my friends, or all of the time, the of
is expendable. It's not incorrect, just needless, and you may as well eliminate
it. Prepositional phrases have a way of running to excess, and it's good to
have one you can jettison automatically. But you have to keep the of, of
course, when a personal pronou n follows: all of us, all of them.
alternate, alternative With increasing frequency, alternate and alternately are
replacing alternative and alternatively. Webster's Ninth. which features usage
notes not included in earlier editions, lists the two adjective forms as syn­
onyms and reports no objections. Most other guides, however, argue for
preserving a distinction. Allerna te and alternately mean "in turn," "first one
and then the other," whereas alternative means "available as another possibil­
ity" and alternatively means "or." Traditionalists would find no fault with the
following examples: New York City allows parking on alternate sides of the street.
The editor visits the Washing/on and Boston bureaus alternately. We could lease mare
space elsewhere; alternativeb;, we could remodel and enlarge our present office5. M1my
college language teachers have had f.o find alternative careers. In sentences like the
last, however, alternate is probably more common than alternative. Theaters
ask us to list alternate dates when we order tickets; book clubs offer alternate
selections; and attorneys choose alternate jurors. Highway signs use alternate
in two senses-Use alternate merge and Take alternate route-and drivers can
understand both. But in some contexts failure to observe the distinction can
lead to ambiguity: We have alternate vacation plans; Alternately, we could go to
Spain and Italy. Why not maintain a distinction that enriches the language?
What do you gain by relinquishing it?
alternative The Latin base alter means "other of two," and some language
critics have argued that the noun alternative denotes one or the other of two
possibilities, not one of three or more. In discussing the word as a synonym
for choice, Webster's Ninth explains that it "implies a necessity to choose one
and reject another possibility." Offered a choice-say, coffee or tea-you can
refuse both. Presented with alternatives-for example, a fine or a jail sen­
tence-you have to take one or the other. Accordingly, when there's no
escaping one of even several possibilities, alternatives is a handy word, choices
a less precise substitute. Perhaps for this reason, the rule restricting alternative
to either-or contexts no longer has many adherents. Copperud reports that it
is "discountenanced by no fewer than nine authorities."
among See between, among.
an See a, an.
and/or In legal and commercial writing and/or may be a useful device, but
elsewhere it seems heavy-handed. Usually just or or and will do, but if you
must give a choice, one or the other or both conveys the notion more gracefully.
anticipate, expect Anticipate means "to foresee and prepare for." If you an­
ticipate higher interest rates, you may want to add to your bank account. And
if you anticipate losing your lease, you may start looking for new quarters.
Erpecf simply means "to look forward to" or "to consider probable." You
ma y expect to sign a contract. to complete a project on time, or to make a
profit. In some contexts either word will fit-dictionaries, in fact, list the two
as synonyms-but anticipate may sound stilted where erpect will do.
anxious, eager When you await something with pleasant expectations-say,
your vacation-you're eager for it. When you're worried about something­
say, a visit to the dentist-you're anxious about it. The usage mavens argue
that anrious should retain the notion of anxiety. If you simply use it to mean
"eager," you're not getting yo ur word's worth. Admittedly, though, this us­
age prevails colloquially, and the historical record shows anxious in both
senses. Bernstein notes that e ager is rare in speech and that anxious is the
usual substitute, but he advocates honoring the distinction in writing, where
both words are common.
apt, liable, likely Though often used interchangeably before infinitives,
these words differ in connotation. Apt implies a natural inclination (the word
aptitude may provide a mnemonic): Studies show that men are more apt to interrupt
a conversation than women are. Likely suggests simple probability: The bill is likely
to pass. Liable involves vulnerability to something undesirable: If you drink the
local wafer, you're liable to get sick. Most experts discriminate between liable and
likely or apf; fewer insist on the likely-apt distinction.
as-missing or superfluous The second as required in a comparison like as
rich as Midas tends to drop out in constructions complicated by an alternative
comparison-for example, as rich if not richer than Midas. To correct the prob­
lem, you can simply add the missing as and put commas around the inter­
rupting if . .. than phrase. Or, to avoid a break between the related words,
you can complete the first comparison before making the next: as rich as
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Midas, if not richer. Though this solution is usually the easiest and best, it isn't
always. In a sentence like He was as frightened by this threat, if not even more
frightened, than 1 had been as a child, the standard maneuver produces a rather
long-winded revision: He was as frightened by this threat as I had been when 1 was
a child, 1J not even more frightened. Adding at least offers a way out, but you have
to juggle the wording as well: This threat frightened him at least as much as it had
me when I was a child.
Sometimes an as drops out because a sentence needs more ases than it
can comfortably accommodate. Most commonly the missing as is the one
that idiom requires in constructions like depicted her as aggressive or portrayed
him as a martinet. For example, in Future historians will regard these developments
as significant as those of the lndustr-ial Revolution, the first as of the pair making
the comparison can't do double duty as the preposition that should follow
regard. Since the sentence won't tolerate a third as (as as significant as is impos­
sible), try to eliminate the need for at least one of them. Often you can
replace a verb like regard with a synonym that doesn't take as-here, consider
or jwdge. In other types of as-heavy sentences, too, you have to edit out one
kind of as construction to leave room for the other. In He wanted to be remem­
bered as much as a poet as a statesman, the as after much cannot serve both to
complete the comparison and to parallel the as before statesman. Since you
can't have a second as after much, you have to reword: He wanted lo be remem­
bered as much for his poetry as for his statesmanship.
Occasionally writers use one as where logic requires two. In Her load
suddenly felt light as a feather, for example, the sense is not "light like a feather"
but "as light as a feather," and the second as before light makes the compari­
son clear. Curme traces the single as in such constructions to older English
and notes that it lingers on. Scrooge's partner, you may remember, was
"dead as a doornail," and even today the first as is unlikely in some informal
contexts: Quick as a flash, I saw rny chance.
In contrast, a construction may attract a superfluous as. The first as does
not belong in As light as it was, the load seemed heavy after a while. The sentence
is not making a comparison; the conjunction after light has the force of
"though." Follett comments that "though, slipping less readily off the tongue,
is more emphatic," and he speculates that writers may be trying "to give as
the same degree of emphasis [when they] begin with an unidiomatic as that,
once standard, has long been obsolete."
A superfluous as may also attach itself to a verb like consider, judge, deem,
name, appoint, or designate. When the verb is in the active voice, the as inter­
venes between the object and th e objective complement; when the verb is in
the passive voice, the as falls between the past participle and the following
complement. Idiomatically, you consider, judge, or deem something impor­
tant, not as important; and someone is named, appointed, or designated your
successor, not as your successor. Not every verb in this category attracts an
inappropriate as (as would be unthinkable in thought him stupid, called her
wrong, or found me innocent), and when as is appropriate in similar structures,
it's almost inevitable-unless its omission is overlooked because an as re­
quired for another purpose seems to do the job. In a straightfonvard context
like He viewed him as a father figure or She regarded her job as dull, no one forgets
the as. Writers are far less likely to omit as after a verb that requires it than
to use as with a verb that can function on its own, Curme, in fact, reports a
growing tendency to use as with words like consider and judge. If you're uncer­
tain about the need for as. leave it out. A verb that does take as leaves no
room for doubt.

as, because Though some experts accept as in the sense of "because" or

"since," most consider this usage ambiguous, since as more usually means
"while." Either interpretation is possible, for example, in As I was planning a
trip to Paris, I took a crash course in French. To some ears as for "since" also
sounds affected: Please give this proposal your immediate attention, as the deadline
for recommendations is 15 March or As I shall need the report by 15 March, please
attend fo if promptly. Fowler doesn't object to beginning a sentence with a
causal as, but Copperud comments that this practice is more British than
American.

as, like The adverse response to the old advertising slogan Winslon tastes good
like a rigarette should gave grammar more publicity than it had had in years.
Though as can serve as either a conjunction or a preposition, traditional
grammarians allow like in comparisons only as a preposition. Even Curme,
who notes that the colloquial conjunction like has been "gaining ground" for
the past four hundred years, acknowledges that "our literary language still
requires the colorless, less expressive as." While he defends the conjunction
like as a natural outgrowth of the adverb like once common in clauses begin­
ning with like as, his argument does not sway the opposition. "The status of
like is a topic of historical linguists, not a problem of usage," Follett says.
"[ I ]n workmanlike modern writing, there is no such conjunction." To be on
the safe side, then, don't use like to introduce a clause. Substitute as or as if in
a sentence like On our farm we live like people did a hundred years ago or They act
like they expect to lake over the market.
The usage critics have made some writers so uneasy about like that as
even turns up where like would be both natural and correct. In a letter to
students' parents a college president writes, "We, as you, are concerned
about rising costs." One could argue that in this sentence as introduces an
elliptical clause, as it does in J am as concerned as you, in which are is implicit
after you. But that interpretation seems strained, and an as used in place of a
correct like almost certainly reflects a rule misunderstood. Besides, it can
result in ambiguity. In Her colleagues, as her friends, remarked on the change in her
appearance, for example, are the commenting acquaintances the same group
or separate groups? The difficulty arises because the preposition as can mean
either "in the capacity of" or "like." Substitute like for as, and there's no
problem. In some contexts, however, either connective is possible. A noun can
function like an adjective likens a noun to an adjective; a noun can function as an
adjective indicates that a noun plays an adjective's role. Both statements are
true, both prepositions defensible.

assure, ensure, insure You can insure your possessions against fire and
theft, you can assure a prospective customer that no salesman will call, and
 Y_O_F_U_S_A_G_E�����������������-169
_A_G_L_O_SS_A_R_

you can ensure or insure prompt delivery. Insure is the only proper verb
when you mean "to protect against loss." Assure, defined as "to give a guar­
antee to," needs a person or persons as its object-or, in the passive voice, as
its subject-and the thing assured appears after of or that: They assured us that
they would cooperate or We were assured of their cooperation. Although either ensure
or insure can mean "to make certain of," use one or the other consistently.
Some guides claim that insure is the more usual choice, but others would
restrict insure to its narrow meaning, thus ensuring ensure the right to exist.
as to Imprecise and often superfluous, as to borders on uselessness. You can
usually delete it before an indirect question, as in There is some doubt as to
whether they will comply, and in other contexts you can substitute a more pre­
cise preposition-usually about, of, or on: We do not share your opinion as to [of]
your staff's efficiency, I have doubts crs to [about] the outcome, The lawyer advised us as
to [on] how to conduct ourselves at the hearing. Only one use of as to escapes
criticism. A t the beginning of a sentence, the preposition can sometimes help
to make a transition or to highlight a subject that would otherwise appear in
a later and weaker position: As to tar shelters, our advice is not to invest more than
you can afford ta lose.
author In the opinion of five authorities surveyed by Copperud, authors may
write books, but writers shouldn't author them. Although the verb author, the
OED reports, appeared as early as 1596 {in the sense "to originate," not "to
write"), its critics are not impressed. They see no value in resurrecting an
antique usage that serves no pur pose; Follett includes the verb in his short list
of needless words. But presumably some authors are finding it a handy
synonym for write when they need some variety, and it may yet return to full
respectability. While the 1969 American Heritage Dictionary notes considerable
opposition to author as a verb, the 1982 edition makes no comment.
awhile, a while You can linger awhile or for a while but not for awhile. In
other words, use the article and noun, not the adverb, after a preposition. But
you can also use the article and noun adverbially: A while later I left the house.
Use awhile only where you can substitute the synonymous phrase for a time.
because See as, because and for, because, since.
beside, besides The two words have had a tangled history, but in current
usage besides means "in addition to," and beside means "next to," as in No one
besides your witness noticed the person sitting beside her.
between, among Whether you choose between evils or among them de­
pends in part on how many there are. You wouldn't choose among the devil
and the deep blue sea, though you might among the four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse. But while between is the proper and natural choice when the
object of the preposition consists of only two, among is not invariably re­
quired for three or more, despite a widespread belief to the contrary. Al­
though derived from the Old English word for two, "between has been, from
its earliest appearance, extended to more than two" (OED). Restricting it to
two can result in some rather odd sentences: They constantly travel among Ath­
ens, RDme, �nd Paris. You use among when you're singling out a member of a
group (the best among the eight candidates) or referring to something distributed
 APPENDIX B
170 ---------------------

throughout a group or held in common (lhe esprit de corps among the players).
But if the members of a group interact two at a time, between is still appropri­
ate (the ezchanges between the five panelists). Between applies to a one-on-one
situation and usually connotes a more specific relation than among does: Dif­
fering ideologies haue caused wars between nations, but a common enemy may yet bring
peace among them. The OED comments that between "is still the only word
available to express the relation of a thing to many surrounding things sever­
ally and individually, among expressing a relation to them collectively and
vaguely."
between each, between every Although between obviously needs a plural or
comp ound object, illogical phrases like between each one and between every one
are common: I ale the scrapple slowly, grimacing between each bile; Betww1 every
inning the fans went wild. Jespersen explains such constructions as elliptical,
with and the next understood after the object of between; but other commenta­
tors, including Curme, find the wording self-contradictory. To revise, you
need only make the object plural (belween bites) or change the preposition
(after each inning).
born, borne Borne, the past participle of bear, means "carried" or "endured":
The queen was borne on a lifler, He has borne his burden patiently. When used in
the active voice of the perfect tenses or when followed by a by phrase, borne
can also mean "given birth to": She has borne three children, He disinherited the
children borne by his first wife. Other references to birth call for the adjective
born: She was a woman born to rule, A child is born, Revolution is born of social
inequities.
both-redundant Both, which means "two jointly," serves no purpose in
sentences that convey this information with other words (shown in roman
type in the following examples): Both James as well as John made that recommen­
dation, They both agree on its importance, The brothers both resemble each other,
They both have the same habits. In each of these examples both is redundant.
You can eliminate it and leave the meaning of the sentence intact. But if both
provides the emphasis you want, you can often get rid of the competing
words instead: They both think that ifs important, They both have those habits.
bring, take You bring something here and take something there. Bring indi­
cates movement toward the speaker, take movement away from the speaker.
Whether you took your umbrella to the office and forgot to bring it home or
brought your umbrella to the office and forgot to take it home depends on
where you are when it starts to rain.
but he, but him In the famous line about the boy standing on the burning
deck "whence all but he had fled," the pronoun after but seems suspect. But,
meaning "except," certainly looks like a preposition, and the object of a
preposition, of course, belongs in the objective case-him, not he. Yet critics
who prefer he in that context justify the usage by arguing that but is a coordi­
nating conjunction introducing an "unexpanded clause"-presumably an
"understood" clause-whose subject is he. Curme, Jespersen, and the OED
all give some support to this interpretation. Webster's Third illustrates the
preposition but with "no one left but me" and the conjunction but with
"whence all but he had fled." Follett, however, views the distinction as "in­
visible to anyone but a lexicographer who wants to illustrate the historical
confusion between the preposition and the conjunction, and who is ready by
twists of interpretation to demonstrate that the first is the second." Bernstein,
perhaps trying to make some sense of the dictionary's examples, likes to
think of but as a conjunction when it falls early in the sentence, where it
naturally assumes the case of the subject (Everyone but she approved the proposal),
but as a preposition when it falls near the end, where the objective case is
idiomatic (Everyone approved the proposal but her). This reasoning seems to me a
specious juggling of syntax to rationalize what sounds right. My own ear is
not offended by "whence all but him had fled"-the line even appears that
way in some editions, Copperud says-and I'm much more comfortable with
the grammar. If Everyone but her approved the proposal seemed to ring false, I'd
move but her to the end of the sentence before I'd substitute she. (Of course,
if but introduces an exception to an object, the pronoun that follows must be
in the objective case whether you construe but as a preposition or as a con­
junction: The proposal was approved by everyone but her.)
can, may Using may rather than can when you ask for something is almost a
point of etiquette, like saying ,.please" and "thank you." In formal contexts,
the rule goes, may refers to permission, can to ability: May I leave now? Can she
bake a cherry pie? But no one will hold you to the distinction in informal
writing.. and it's sometimes impossible to maintain. Why may I not? and Be­
cause you mayn't are too artificial for anyone to advocate. Besides, may is
sometimes ambiguous. In You may use can for may, for example, does may use
mean "have the right to use" or "will perhaps use"? In short, have the cour­
tesy to use may if you can do so appropriately, naturally, and dearly.
cannot help but Some grammarians object to this sequence, contending that
but has the force of "nothing but" and that "cannot help nothing but" is
nonsense. Curme, however, says that the construction is still used by "good
authors." In view of the controversy, the safe course is to delete the but and
change the following verb to a gerund. I cannot help but feel sorry is dubious; 1
cannot help feeling sorry is unexceptionable and, Cunne says, becoming more
popular. According to Follett, the most vehement opponent of cannot help but,
you can also substitute cannot but feel (meaning "cannot feel otherwise") or can
but feel (meaning "can only feel"), but these choices strike others as bookish.
case of pronouns See I, me and who, whom.
center around Webster's Ninth calls this expression "standard idiom" but
admits that it is often criticized as illogical. The critics have a point. Where
center means "to focus" or "to zero in on," center on is the logical choice: The
discussion centered on the need to improve the faculty-student ralio. If you prefer
around, change center to revolve.
certain Certain lends itself to ambiguity. In Certain fru.ths are self-evident, for
example, the truths might be either unquestionable or specific but unspeci­
fied. We cannot make certain remodeling plans and Certain eventualifies, like death
and taxes, require resignation also permit two interpretations. Usually the con­
text prevents misunderstanding, but be alert to the possibility and reword if
you find an uncertain certain.
circumstances, in the or under the Under the circumstances has been attacked
from time to time on the grounds that circumstances means "surroundings"
and that things exist or act in surroundings, not under them. Fowler dis­
misses this argument as "puerile," and the consensus now is that both
phrases are in good repute. But Follett and Bernstein, drawing support from
the OED, suggest that in the circumstances is the appropriate phrase when you
refer to existing conditions that exert no pressure for action: Gasoline was
cheap and plentiful in those days, and in the circumstances the big-car market µourished.
They restrict under the circumstances to situations-usually temporary rather
than ongoing-that require some response: As we started to climb over the fence,
the bull charged; and under the circumstances we decided not to trespass.
compare to, compare with You can compare a gadabout to a butterfly or life
to a river journeying to the sea, but you would compare Bach with Mozart or
bluefish with mackerel. You use to, in other words, when you are making an
analogy, pointing out a likenes s between disparate things, and you use with
when you are evaluating things in the same category, putting them side by
side to show similarities, dissimilarities, or both.
comparisons See absolute modifiers; as-missing or superfluous; as, like;
of any; and than.
comprise To comprise is to include, contain, enclose, or take in; it is not to
compose, make up, or constitute: The bride's bouquet comprises roses, lilies, and
forget-me-nots; Three kinds of µowers are comprised in the bouquet. But The bouquet is
composed [not camprisea] of three kinds of µowers; Rnses, lilies, and forget-me-nots
make up [not comprise] the bouquet. If you are not sure that you have used
comprise correctly, try substituting the corresponding form of include. If it fits,
you have the right word. If it doesn't, try compose.
connive The verb used to mean-and, according to the dictionaries, still
does-"to close one's eyes toJ look the other way while some improper
behavior goes on": The residents complain that the police connive af drug peddling or
The authorities connive at the black market. But perhaps through confusion with
contrive, connive came to mean "to conspire," and this sense now prevails,
though some critics continue to call it an error. The preposition that follows
connive-al or with or in-signals the meaning intended. Of course, a sentence
like The proctor connived at the ciieating that went on during the examination may
seem odd to readers unfamiliar with the older usage. Some may think that
the writer blundered; others may check their dictionaries and learn some­
thing. Used "properly," the forms connivance and conniving are especially liable
to misinterpretation, since there's often no preposition to suggest that the
words mean other than what they normally do. A report alleging that a
prison break occurred with the guards' connivance may be charging that the
conniving guards ignored what was happening, but it's likely to suggest that
they helped plan the escape. If it is essential that readers understand connive
as "to wink at" rather than "to scheme," the context must make that meaning
A GLOSSARY OF USAGE

clear: Th ey accused the inspector of taking bribes to connive a:t violations of the building
code.
connote, denote What a word connotes is what it suggests-its overtones
and associations. What it denotes is its objective, factual content. Words that
dictionaries define as synonyms have the same denotation-or "shared
meaning element"-but usually differ in connotation. Both childlike and child­
ish denote "resembling a child," but the one connotes appealing qualities like
trust and openness and the other suggests unattradive characteristics like
impatience and fretfulness. Though kill, execute, murder, assassinate, slay. and
slaughter all mean "to deprive of life," their distinctive associations keep them
from being interchangeable. No one would say that meat packers execute
thousands of animals a day, and a newspaper would lbe accused of editorial­
izing if it reported that the state murdered the condemned man in the gas
chamber.
consist in, consist of To consist in is to lie in or to inhere in-that is, to have
as a defining attribute: Happiness consists in choosing the inevitable, The proof of the
pudding consists in the eating, The actor's charm consists i1,i his relaxed manner. To
consist of is to be composed of: My staff consists of my assistant, fwo secretaries,
and a receptionist; Breakfast consists of half a grapefruit, d ry toast, and coffee with
skimmed milk.
contact Because contact started out as a noun meaning "a physical coming
together, a touching," some defenders of tradition-a. majority of the Ameri­
can Heritage Dictionary's usage panel, for example-object to its use as a verb
meaning "to communicate with." Follett associates the resistance with a di­
minishing few who remember the verb as a neologism. The figurative sense
of the noun contact, as in come in contact with, is much older and generally
accepted. As a verb, contact is a handy replacement foir call, write, or come in or
gel in touch with, and its full acceptance may not be far off. But as objections
fade to the word as a converted noun, its all-occasion popularity may keep it
under a small cloud as jargon. Bernstein comments. that contact is "seized
upon by those lovers of the fad word who would rather be up to the minute
than specific." If "phone or write" is all you mean, it:'s better to say so, and
certainly there's no excuse for sentences like For further information contact 555-
8609, Contact me by mail at this address, and The detective contacted the suspect
telephonically and ordered him to come out with his hands �tp.
contemporary Since contemporary means "of the same time," it often amounts
to "current" or "modem," that is, "of our time." Usually the context makes
this sense dear, as in I prefer antiques to contemporary f;urniture, but sometimes
the word is ambiguous. In Judged by contemporary standards, Dickens's sentimen­
tality does not seem extreme, the standards may be understood as present or
Victorian, and substituting the appropriate adjective--here Victorian-clears
up the confusion. In Dickens's popularity with contempora ry readers stems from
several qualities, you could use modern instead of conlem porary, or you could
delete the with phrase and add current before popularity or today after readers.
continual, continuous Although for centuries these words were apparently
interchangeable, at some point careful writers begal[l to define continual as
 APPENDIX B

"constantly recurrent" and to reserve continuous for "uninterrupted." But this

valuable distinction has blurred in general use, and dictionaries treat the
words as synonyms. If a nightclub advertises continuous entertainment from
nine to two, do you expect no intermissions? If the writer discriminates but
the reader doesn't, precise usage won't aid communication. To make clear
that something goes on without a break, rather than over and over again, you
may have to define continuous or use an equivalent that readers understand.
But the strict sense of the term is not entirely lost to us. A residual tendency
to distinguish continuous from continual occasionally surfaces. Continuous seems
almost inevitable, for example, in phrases like a continuous stream of traffic, a
continuous flow of water over the dam, and the continuous hum of machinery. It also
survives in some technical phrases that depend on its narrow meaning­
continuous radio waves, which do not change in intensity; continuous casting in
steel production; and continuous process manufacturing, which designates a
round-the-clock operation, like oil refining.
convince, persuade Convince means "to induce belief through argument,"
persuade "to induce mental or physical action through argument." Accord­
ingly, persuade, not convince, should precede an infinitive. You convince some­
one of a truth or that something is true, but you persuade someone to accept
a statement as true.
could care less This expression-a puzzling corruption of the faddish couldn't
care less-says exactly what it doesn't mean. Anyone who stops to think
realizes that only one who cares could care less. Someone who doesn't care at
all couldn't care less. There's no logic in a sentence like Blue-collar workers
could care less about ezpense-account cutbacks. It is true that idioms are not neces­
sarily logical, but since both the logical and the illogical versions are idiom­
atic, why not make sense?
critique The verb critique has not yet won full acceptance. Although the OED
traces the usage to 1751, the American Heritage Dictionary did not acknowledge
its existence in 1969 and added the entry in 1982 with the note that many
consider the verb "pretentious jargon." (Copperud reports that three arbiters
object to the noun for the same reason, though he dismisses this judgment as
"dated and pedantic.") Since neither criticize nor review invariably suggests, as
critique does, "to give a critical examination of,'' the verb is tempting as a
convenient way of avoiding the wordy "give a critique of." It's foolish, of
course, to resort to critique where review works just as well. To some sensitive
ears to critique a play still sounds like a fingernail on a blackboard.
denote See connote, denote.
different A needless different commonly appears between a quantitative ad­
jective and the noun it modifies: J read three different newspapers every day, Many
different cities report similar problems. Different belongs in such sentences only if
you want to stress the dissimilarity of the units that make up the plural noun,
as in On three quite different occasions the same question i:irose; in the first two
examples three newspapers and many cities are as discrete as they would be
without the different. Some usage critics also object to different where various
will do, where you mean only "a number of" things, not "a number of
---------------------
A GLOSSARY OF USAGE 175

dissimilar" things: Various [not Different] books have de all with the subject. Various
[not Different] women's colleges reported declining enrollments.
different from, different than In educated American usage, one thing is
different from another, not different than another. (The argument on our side
of the Atlantic is that the prefix dif, or dis, calls for from, as in differs from and
distinct from, whereas the English prefer different to, by analogy with similar to.)
But when a clause, or an elliptical clause, follows different, some careful writ­
ers resort to than rather than use the cumbersome construction that from
would require. We use a slightly different method than lhey do seems preferable,
for example, to We use a slighlly different method from the one they use. Again, The
poem affected me differently than it ever had before compares favorably with The
poem affected me differently from the way it ever had before. Still, it seems unprinci­
pled to cast aside the different from rule whenever it becomes inconvenient. If
different than is sometimes acceptable, why object to it at all? Why indeed? the
linguists might echo. But those, like Follett, who believe in the traditional
concept of correct usage argue that you need not choose between awkward­
ness and error. Rewording usually provides a means of avoiding both. You
can revise the first of the preceding examples to read Our method differs slightly
from theirs and the second to read Never before had the poem affected me that way.
dilemma Though loosely applied to any difficult problem, dilemma has a
Greek root meaning "two assumptions" and, strictly construed, denotes a
predicament that presents two equally unpleasant alternatives. A dilemma
involves a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't choice; it's a no-win situ­
ation. The horns of a dilemma might be Scylla and Charybdis, the devil and
the deep blue sea, the frying pan and the fire, or a rock and a hard place.
discreet, discrete Discreet means "circumspect, or prudent, especially in
speech"; discrete means "separate or distinct": Discreet invesfors keep their eggs in
discrete baskets and their business lo themselves. (The word that means "separate,"
incidentally, is the one in which t separates the two es.)
disinterested, uninterested Careful writers still distinguish between disinter­
ested, meaning "unbiased or impartial, with no thought of personal advan­
tage," and uninterested, meaning "lacking interest or indifferent." You can be
interested in a controversy in which you are disinterested. Geoffrey Nunberg
suggests, however, that it is difficult to preserve disinterested in the sense of
"impartial" because in current usage interested rarely means "biased." The
distinction is so commonly disregarded that you may have to substitute a
synonym for disinterested if the context leaves room for misinterpretation.
double prepositions When two words that can serve as prepositions occur
together, one is often superfluous. Although Webster's lists combinations like
outside of and off of as prepositions, the OED and some other dictionaries still
consider them adverbs and prepositions, which they certainly were origi­
nally. In any event the preposition outside means the same thing as outside of,
and in the interests of economy you should write keep that talk outside the office,
not outside of the office. Some similar-looking combinations, however, involve
an adverb followed by an essential preposition. You cannot say, for example,
keep that talk out the office; it has to be out of the office. Always check what appear
 APPENDIX B

to be double prepositions to make sure that you need both. Your ear should
tell you whether or not one is expendable. See also from among; inside of; of
from; and off of.

doubt that, doubt whether, doubt if We often use doubt-politely or mod­

estly, perhaps-to express not uncertainty but conviction. When the clause
after doubt states something thought to be true or untrue, not merely possible,
it Logically begins with ihat: I do nol doubt lhal he means what he says, I doubt that
the Yankees can win the pennant this year. But if the doubt is genuine, the clause
should begin with whether or, more casually, if: There's some doubt whether we
can equal last year's sab, 1 doubt if they can get past the first round of the play-offs.
Although some object to if before a noun clause, most critics cite ancient
precedent for this usage and condone if provided that it is not ambiguous. It
might be misinterpreted, for example, in We have reason to doubt if they arc
telling the truth (If they're telling the truth, we have reason to doubt?). Though
the context usually makes the meaning clear, whether is the safer choice in
formal writing.

due to In traditional usage due to is considered not a preposition but an

adjective followed by the preposition to. Thus the phrase must modify a
noun or pronoun. A sentence containing due to, in other words, must name
the thing that is due to something. You can write The accident was due to the icy
road but not The car skidded due to the icy road. In the first example due to
follows a linking verb and attaches to the subject-an accident due to the icy
road. The second example has no grammatically suitable word for due to to
modify (the car was not due to the icy road); such a construction, strict
grammarians contend, calls for an adverbial modifier-usually because of.
Though usage critics may honor this distinction themselves, few still
insist on it or even de f end it. Most say that due to has evolved into a legiti­
mate preposition, like owing to before it, and can modify either a verb or a
noun. Why allow owing to as a preposition and not grant due to the same
status? Bernstein offers this speculation a bout the use of the two phrases: "It
seems likely that for every owing to, five due fa's are written or
spoken... _ Probably the same quality that accounts for the relatively infre­
quent use of owing to explains its readier acceptance: it has a more dignified,
a faintly stilted, sound to it." What currency owing to has may reflect copy
editors' efforts to avoid the adverbial due to.
For more than fifty years the adverbial due lo has been judged almost
fully respectable, but current style guides are still telling writers to expect
criticism if they use it. Those who have mastered a grammar rule, especially
those indoctrinated at an early age, are loath to relinquish it, and an endan­
gered few still complain when games are canceled due to rain.

each other, one another Some usage critics argue that each ofhtr applies to
two, one another to three or more. They point out that logically the other makes
sense only in reference to a pair. One twin helps the other; one triplet helps
another. Hence the twins help each other; the triplets help one another. Few
critics insist on the distinction, however, and many reputable writers appar­
ently regard the reciprocal pronouns as interchangeable.
A GLOSSARY OF USAGE
--------------------- 177

eager See anxious, eager.

effect See affect, effect.
either of the three Webster's Ninth defines either as "one or the other" and
gives no other meaning. Using it to refer to three or more, making it mean
"one or another," is questionable usage at best, according to Bernstein,
Fowler, and the American Heritage Dictionary. You can stay out of trouble by
substituting any or any one for either in a phrase like either of these three choices.
employ See use, utilize, employ.
ensure See assure, ensure, insure.
enthuse This widely criticized verb may never gain full acceptance. It's been
around since 1869, according to the OED, which labels it "U.S. (colloq. or
humorous.) [An ignorant back-formation from enfhusiasmJ." A back-formation,
when not facetiously intended, is "ignorant" because it is a coinage from a
word that is mistakenly thought to be its derivative, not its source. But sev­
eral words that got their start in this way have no stigma attached to them­
resurrect from resurrection, for example, and edit from editor (at least according
to most dictionaries). Such words often lack approval in their youth but gain
respectability with age, after everyone forgets their ancestry. Donate, from
donation, was once as suspect as enthuse-the OED defines it as "vulgarly (in
U.S.), to give, bestow, grant." Presumably only useful back-formations ex­
hibit this upward mobility, but the variables that determine a word's fate
resist analysis. Do we need don ate when we have give, bestow, and grant? Can
rave always replace enthuse? Can you think of any other one-word equivalent?
equally as The phrase is redundant. You can say that one film is as good as
another or that the two are equally good, but to say that one is equally as
good as another is to indulge in verbal featherbedding.
everyday, every day The solid form is an adjective, the two-word form an
adverb. Everyday events are ordinary occurrences, not necessarily events that
occur every day.
everyone, every one Everyone is a pronoun. Every one is a phrase made up of
the adjective every and the pronoun one. The one- and two-word forms are
not interchangeable. Use everyone only where you can substitute everybody:
Everyone who answers the questionnaire will receive a prize, but We will award a
priz.e to every one of the respondents.
expect See anticipate, expect.
faculty In referring to the teaching staff of an institution, you can confidently
use faculty as an adjective or as a collective noun but not as the plural of
faculty member. It is inappropriate in a sentence like Both students and faculty
served on the committee, since it designates an aggregate group, not several
individuals. The term needed is faculty members-or teachers.
farther, further Farther means "more distant," usually in a measurable sense,
as in Is Washington or Boston farther from New York?, but sometimes in a figu­
rative sense, as in My sister and 1 were growing farther apart. The more abstract
178 ---------------------
APPENDIX B

term further, meaning "more" or "additional," has a much wider applica­

tion-a further complication, develops further, pursuing the topic further. No one
misuses farther for further, and you're safe with further provided that you
don't apply it to distance. Several usage critics have even predicted that
further will eventually absorb the meaning "more distant," driving farfher into
extinction. Some already advocate using further for figurative distance-as in
further along the road of life. Curiously enough, however, Webster's Ninth reports
that the two words, though "used more or less interchangeably throughout
most of their history ... are showing signs of diverging."
feel bad or badly lf you regret something-say, an accident in which some­
one was hurt badly-you may say that you feel bad about it. Some writers
reverse the adverb and the adjective in these contexts, but if you substitute a
synonym for bad or badly, you can usually tell immediately which word to
use. You wouldn't say that you felt sadly about som ething or that someone
was hurt severe. When feel means "to be conscious of" or "to give a sensation
of," it leads to an adjective that modifies the subject: We feel responsible, The
air feels cool. If feel means "to touch" or "to believe," an adverb is appropriate
to describe the action of the verb: She carefully felt her way down the dark hall, I
feel strongly that he should resign.
fewer, less Fewer applies to units, less to quantity. With rare exceptions, fewer
modifies a plural noun (fewer persons, things, or ideas), 1£ss a singular noun (Im
joy, anger, or money}: If you lake fewer risks you may realize less profil, though less
risk may also mean fewer losses. But less is appropriate before a plural regarded
as a single entity, not as a number of units: I wrote fewer than ten checks this
morrth, but I now have less than a hundred dollars in my account; The road frontage is
Im than 450 feel; We ran fhe 10K race in less than 40 minufes. If you can't decide
between fewer and less with this sort of figure, make the sum the subject of a
clause and see whether you naturally choose a singular or a plural verb: One
hundred dollars (are, is) all you need, Four hundred and fift y feet (are, is) the required
road frontage, Forty minutes (are, is) a good time for that race. If you make the verb
is, make the adjective less.
finalize Newly coined ize words often have a hard time winning respectabil­
ity. While no one objects to established words like realize, idolize, and hanno­
nize-verbs created long ago through the union of that suffix and a noun or
an adjective-neologisms like prioritize and verticalize tend to provoke shud­
ders and grimaces. Finalize is probably the most common and the most com­
monly attacked of these words. Who needs it, the argument runs, when the
language already offers close, complete, conclude. end, finish. perfect, and tenninate?
But not everyone finds finalize unnecessary, and those who attack it as a
neologism are on shaky ground, since the OED has citations dating back to
1922. If finalize means "to put in final form," does it have a synonym? What
word would you substitute, for example, in The committee finalized its recommen­
dations? While perfected may come closest in meaning, it seems pretentious in
that sentence, and neither finished nor completed would have quite the same
sense of "put the finishing touches on."
Perhaps finalize has been somewhat maligned, stigmatized by its associ­
ation with bureaucratic jargon; it sometimes seems the only word for "finish"
A GLOSSARY OF USAGE ___ ]79

in the lexicon of officialdom, and its faddish overuse has made it anathema to
many careful writers. Certainly avoid it if you can find a fully established
equivalent to replace it. There seems no reason, for example, to write finaliHd
the preparations for the reception when you mean only "completed the prepara­
tions." If you choose finalize simply to avoid repeating a synonym, you can
usually find a better alternative.
first, firstly Either first or firstly is an acceptable sentence modifier, but if 'you
begin with first, don't continue with secondly; and if you start with firstly, don't
move on to second. All things being equal, why not adopt the shorter forms?
Noting that commentators sanction secondly, thirdly, and "what is almost in­
variably designated as etc.," Bernstein wonders whether "etc. covers forty­
thirdly or eight-hundred-seventeenthly." If you adopt the non-ly forms consis­
tently, you can move up to forty-third with no troublle.
Haunt, Hout To flaunt is to show off, to display ostentatiously or boastfully;
to flout is to treat contemptuously or mockingly. \'Vriters commonly use
flaunt when they mean flout, but not vice versa. The following sentences flaunt
both words correctly: Flouting ancient l'lws, some young Iranian women at the
markefplace flaunted Western dress. imposing a heavy fine, ,the judge fold them, "You
cannot flout the law and flaunt your contempt for the authoriffes." Anyone who flouts
the law, says Bernstein, flaunting his love of puns and mnemonics, is a
"floutlaw."
for, because, since As a coordinating conjunction, for sounds rather stilted
and old-fashioned these days, and writers usually choose since or because
instead. No one objects, but there is a shade of difference. For joins clauses
that are less closely related than those connected by the subordinating con­
junctions. It often introduces an explanation, ratheir than a cause, of the
statement that precedes: I wanted to see this production because the reviews were
excellent. 1t moved me more than i1 did my friends, for I had never sm1 the play before.
You are unlikely to use for if the context requires bemuse. If you are uncom­
fortable with for even though it fits the sense, you can usually substitute since,
which tends to mean not so much "for the cause that" as "for the reason
that." These distinctions need rarely concern you, since the correct choices
are usually automatic.
free gift Since a gift is inherently free, this phrase is redundant. Something
you pay for is no gift.
from among Rather than choose from among three possibilities, choose
from them or among them. You don't need two prepositions to do the work
of one.
further See farther, further.
fused participle See possessives and gerunds.
gender The usage manuals that discuss this word dis;miss it as an erroneous
or facetious substitute for se:r, as in persons of the femt1le gender. Gender, they say,
applies exclusively to the grammatical classification of words as masculine,
feminine, or neuter-labels more important in foreign languages than in
English, where they apply only to the personal pronouns. Since the seventies,
180��� � -���������-A_ P_PE_N_D_J_X_B
������-

however, gender has been incre.asingly pressed into service in a new sense­
or, if we take the evidence of the OED, in the sense it had in late Middle
English. With the growing focus on sexual inequalities in society, many have
felt the need for a word less loaded than serual to refer to various forms of
discrimination based on femaleness. Thus the MLA' s Commission on the
Status of Women in the Profession uses the term gender harassment to desig­
nate the disparagement of women as a cultural group, as opposed to the
mistreatment of women as sex objects. The media refer to the difference in
men's and women's earning power as "the gender gap." And some universi­
ties offer courses in "gender studies." Whether or not this political usage is
justified, it's dearly in effect. There's so little call for gender in the grammati­
cal sense that the revived corun.otation has apparently evoked little protest.
Gender, then, relates to men and women as groups within society considered
apart from any sexual activity.
general consensus Since consei�sus means "general agreement," the expres­
sion general consensus is redundant.
gerunds See possessives and 1�erunds.
get, got, gotten While get serves in many established idioms (get up, get going,
get /.lhead), it is sometimes imprecise or redundant or too informal for its
context. You might want to cornsider replacing some gels in your writing. The
following examples show altematives in brackets: The teller got [became] suspi­
cious. We've got to [must] act fasf. Employees did not get [receive] raises. I've gotten
[persuaded] them to approve.
Dictionaries give both got and gotlen as standard forms of the past parti­
ciple of gel. But Albert H. Marckwardt points out that in American speech the
difference between I've got and I'ue gotten is that between "I have" and "I have
obtained." The British, who do not use gotten, make do with obtained or some
other synonym.
graduate In the context of formal education, the verb graduate was once
restricted to the passive voice,; it meant, in other words, "to be granted a
diploma or a degree": My gra111dfather said he was graduated from high school in
1920. Today, however, the preferred and more common meaning is "to re­
ceive a diploma or a degree": lvfy mother graduated from high school in 1945. But
the definition does not include the preposition from, which must appear be­
fore the degree- or diploma-granting institution. So far at least, She graduated
high school remains objectionab:le.
hanged, hung Executions and suicides provide the only occasions for theed
forms of the past tense and the past participle of hang. Hung is the appropri­
ate form in every other sense of the verb. Al the end of the hall they hung a
portrait of Nathan Hale, whom the British hanged as a spy in 1776.
he, her, him See I, me.
historic, historical A historic event is a memorable one, worthy of a place in
history. A historical event is simply one that took place in the past. A histori­
cal study concerns history; a historic one makes history. Often historical sim­
ply means "actual" as opposed to "literary," "mythic," or "figurative": The
-------------------
A GLOSSARY OF USAGE ----- 181

historical king was Im bloodthirsty Jhan Shakespeare's character. Bernstein suggests

that among ic/ ical pairs with different meanings the longer forms often have
the more specific or down-to-earth connotations. Websler's Ninth, discussing
synonyms for laughable, suggests that comic means eliciting "thoughtful
amusement," while comical means arousing "spontaneous hilarity." Thus a
squirrel's antics at the bird feed er are more likely to be comical than comic,
and a novel is more likely to have a comic theme than a comical one. Simi­
larly, reusing jars is economical ("thrifty"), not economic ("pertaining to
economics or the economy"), and a classical scholar studies the works of
ancient Greece and Rome, whereas a classic work may be a fundamental
study in any field. If you're unsure about the connotations of such words, it's
a good idea to check dictionary definitions before deciding on one form or
the other. In discussing iclical words with the same meaning-like ironic and
ironical, bibliographic and bibliographical, and satiric and satirical-Fowler argues
that the language would be better off with only one, and he urges that we
hasten the obsolescence of the less common form by not using it. If the
shorter of the synonymous terms sometimes functions as a noun, he would
disqualify it as an adjective; thus, a zealot, being a fanatic, could have only
fanatical, not fanatic, beliefs. Of course, poets-as well as writers who take
care with their prose rhythms-would doubtless dispute this view and find
the language diminished by Fowler's restriction.

hopefully Word watchers who wince at what some call a "dangling hope­
fully" have much to endure these days. Hopefully sometimes seems to begin
every third sentence, but only rarely does the sentence indicate who is full of
hope. The adverb is unexceptionable when it means "in a hopeful manner,"
as in The candidates are hopefully awaiting the eleclion results, but it's suspect in
Hopefully the resulfs will be favorable, where no one is behaving hopefully. Some
critics maintain that you cannot make hopefully mean "it is hoped that." If
that's the sense you intend, that's the wording you should use-or, less for­
mally, I hope that or let's hope that.
While you still risk criticism if you use a dangling hopefully, many com­
mentators seem resigned to this usage, bowing to its wide popularity. In Dos,
Don'ts & Maybes of English Usag� Bernstein confesses that he has changed his
mind on this point and now accepts an unattached hopefully as "somewhat
analogous" to fortunately and luckily. Having been converted himself, he finds
it odd that "opposition continues to grow." Apparently the pundits have
done some effective proselytizing, despite the defectors among their ranks. A
note in the 1982 edition of the American Heritage Dictionary, while not con­
demning the secondary sense of hopefully as incorrect, concludes that it has
become "such a bugbear to traditionalists that it is best avoided on grounds
of civility."
You might decide to forgo the controversial hopefully simply because it's
overworked, but if you object to it as ungrammatical, you should recognize
that certain other adverbs are in the same category. Any adverb describing a
mental attitude is inappropriate, by strict standards, in a sentence that does
not indicate who has that attitude. If hopefully is incorrect in Hopefully it is not
true, words like sorrowfully and regretfully would also be wrong. But adverbs
 APPENDIX B

like fortunately and regrettably, which do not describe states of mind, are ac­
ceptable sentence modifiers; they mean "it is fortunate that" and "it is regret­
table that." "Regrettably can safely replace the objectionable regretfully in a
sentence like "Regretfully, the trains don't leaue at convettient times. Unfortunately,
English does not have a hopably to replace the questionable hopefully in Hope­
!ully, the trains will run on time.

human Adjectives commonly evolve into nouns, but for some reason human
has met resistance. While not all critjcs object to human for human being, the
usage still faces strong opposition. Follett a dmits that it has "historical prec­
edent as well as logical parallel and the support of some dictionaries," but he
still considers it a stylistic blunder, like "calling a horse an equine or a woman
a female-usages that have also had their day." Copperud says that human
"may sound quaint or technical in ordinary contexts" and concludes that,
although it "is acceptable as a noun, there is still objection to it"

hung See hanged, hung.

I, me No one fluent in English would say Me will be there. But when the first­
person singular pronoun is part of a compound subject, careless speakers
sometimes shift to the objective case: John and me will be there. A far more
common fault, however, is the use of the subjective case in compound ob­
jects. Those who would never say She gaue I a present or She spoke with I may
be quite capable of saying She gave John and l presents or She spoke with John and
I. The most popular error of this sort is probably between you and I. Children
who were taught not to say You and me are best friends may have picked up the
notion that you and I is invariably correct. If you have trouble with I and me in
such contexts, reading the questionable pronoun without the other member
of the pair should immediately indicate the proper form.
But your ear may not be a reliable guide when a pronoun falls after
some form of the linking verb to be (am, are, is, was, were, being, been). Since this
verb functions only as an equal sign, a pronoun that follows should logically
be in the same case as its equivalent on the other side of the equation.
Ordinarily, then, the pronoun to the right of be belongs in the subjective case.
The following sentences are grammatically correct: It will be you and I who
suffer the consequences. If is they who are responsible. In informal contexts, though,
the grammatical rule is often set aside. Most usage guides, in fact, consider
It's me and That's him acceptable and even preferable in general use, where
the strictly correct alternatives would seem stilted.
After the infinitive to be. the objective case is usually both idiomatic and
technically accurate. They expected me lo be the winner and They expected the
winner to be me are both good grammar, since the subject of an infinitive must
be in the objective case and a subject and complement should match. If the
infinitive does not have a subject, however, the complement is in the subjec­
tive case, matching the subject of the main verb: She wished to be I. That
sentence, of course, suggests greater formality than anyone recommends for
ordinary purposes. 'Tm so lucky to be me" goes the song from On the Town,
and no one faults the lyricist.
A GLOSSARY OF USAGE __________ 183

The rules governing J and me also apply to the other personal pronouns
with distinctive subjective and objective cases: he, him; she, her; we. us; andl
they, them.
ic, ical See historic, historical.
impact A word fit to describe the crash of a wrecker's ball against its target,,
impact has become a substitute for bearing, influence, significance, and effect. It's so
overworked in officialese and journalese that the more appropriate terms are
falling into disuse. Both Follett and Bernstein have harsh words for this "fad-·
dish" abasement of the noun. How much more horrified they might have
been had they lived to see the current vogue of the verb impact in the sense of
"to have an impact" or "to have an impact on" (Loose usage adversely impacts th1(
language). The 1982 edition of the American Heritage Dictionary, which does no1t
stigmatize impact for bearing, reports that a "large majority" of its usage pan-­
elists disapprove of the corresponding use of impact as a verb.
impl y, infer ff you hint that something is true, without saying so directly,
you imply what you mean, and the person who catches your drift, by reading
between the lines or interpreting your expression, correctly infers your
meaning. Only the one making the veiled suggestion implies, and only the
one drawing the conclusion infers. Almost all careful modern writers observe
this distinction and regard infer for imply as a solecism. imply should replace
infer, for example, in I did not mean to infer that the witness is lying.
in, into, in to If you walk in a room, you move around within it; if you walk
into a room, you enter it. In generally means "within"; info implies movement
from one place to another. But in often appears in place of into, and it is
probably pedantic to correct this usage, especially in informal contex ts, if it
sounds idiomatic. No one is likely to complain about Go jump in the lake or Put
the bonds in the safe. Idiom also calls for in after the verb place even where the
sense calls for info. You could put bonds into a safe if you wanted to, but
you'd have to place them in a safe.
Write in and lo as separate words when only the to is a preposition and
the in is an adverb closely tied to the preceding verb: Don't give in to temptation,
1 turned my report in to the inspeclor, 1 told the messenger to take the package in to fh1e
receptionist. Sometimes, though, as in the last example, the in is superfluous in
such constructions. Always consider this possibility when you revise.
infer See imply, infer.
inside of The of in this phrase is usually expendable. When the preposition
inside means "in the interior of" or "on the inner side of," does inside of mean
anything else? Of is generally also superfluous with outside or alongside. The
following sentence could be of-less: The show was soon to begin inside of fh1e
theater, and a long line had formed outside of the building, sfretching alongside of fh1e
armory on South Street. Inside of seems least objectionable, if objectionable at
all, when it means "in the space of" or "in the period of," as in The runner:,
tired inside of the firs/ three miles or The factory must be completed inside of five years.
In such contexts, however, within can often replace inside of if inside alone
seems unidiomatic.
184 ---------------------
APPENDIX El

insure See assure, ensure, insure.

interface As an intransitive v erb, interface means to become connected at a
common point between distinct systems and to interact harmoniously. When
a computer and a machine interface, they coordinale smoothly. The growing
influence of the new technology has so popularized this term that it has
passed rapidly into general use. Such interactants as authors and editors,
actors and directors, and teachers and students now tend to interface more
than they talk, confer, meet, or work together. Although this extended use olf
the word does not seem inherently wrong, it's fairly new, not dearly needed,
and greatly abused. In any event it still makes the sensitive wince.
in the light of Many writers omit the before light in this expression, but the
of phrase makes the light specific and mandates the definite article. The
reference is to a particular light, the light shed by the object of the followini;
phrase. In contrast, the of phrase in the expression in view of doesn't particu·­
larize view when it tells what is viewed, not who or what is viewing. The
difference becomes clear if you compare in view of the committee's decision with
in the view of the committee.
into, in to See in, into, in to.
its, it's Writers commonly confuse these two words, but the error is inexcus-­
able. Its is the possessive case of if (the possessive forms of personal pro-­
nouns do not have apostrophes), and it's is the contraction of if is: When the
salt has lost its savor, the Bible tells us, it's good for nothing.
join together This combination strikes modern critics as redundant, despite
the rhetoric of the marriage rite. What God has joined, let no one part would do
as well-pace the poets. [f you like your language lavish, make sure that its
rhythm redeems it.
just exactly Where just means "exactly'' (as in Baby bear's chair was iust right)1,
the just-exactly combination is redundant. That's just exactly what will happeitt
means "That's exactly exactly what will happen."
kind of Since kind of introduces the name of a category, not a unit in that
category, it cannot logically precede a or an. By current critical standards thie
articles are incorrect, for example, in What kind of a person would accept that sod
of an offer? The rule applies as well to similar expressions, such as sort of, type
of, and manner of.
lay, lie Writers who confuse these two verbs don't get no respect; violations
of the standard usage, Bernstein says, "can only be classed as illiterate." Lay
means "to place or put," lie "to rest or recline"; lay (unless you're talking
about productive hens) takes a direct object, lie does not. If you are not sur,e
which verb to use, try substituting the corresponding form of place or rest, or
see whether the verb has an object. Either of these tests can keep you from
going wrong, provided that you can recognize the distinctive forms of the
two verbs: lay has laying as its present participle and laid as its past tense and
past participle; lie has lying as its present participle, lay as its past tense (not tio
be confused with the present tense of the verb lay), and lain as its past
participle. In the following sentences all the verbs are correct: I thought I had
A GLOSSARY OF USAGE

left my reading gla5se5 lying on the bed5ide table, where I had laid my book when l lay
down for a nap yesterday, but l ap parently mislaid them. The book has lain there
unread ever since. I don't like to lie down for a nap without reading awhile first, and
when I find my glasses, I won't lay them down again without paying attention to where
I arn laying them.
leave, left If you read that artists usually work best when left alone, you
might not know whether they are most creative when isolated from others or
when not harassed with criticism and advice. Interpreted literally, the sen­
tence could be arguing for the inspirational values of the solitary life. To
leave is to go away from, to let is to permit. If you want others to stop
bothering you, to grant you some peace, you should, properly speaking, ask
them to let you alone-unless, of course, you're really saying that you want
to be by yourself. Though widely tolerated, leave me alone for let me alone
sacrifices a sometimes useful nuance. In other contexts, of course, leave for let
is a classic blunder. You should let sleeping dogs lie, not leave them lay­
though you should, perhaps, leave setting hens to their laying. See also lay,
lie.
less See fewer, less.
let, let's "Let us go then, you and I," says T. S. Eliot's Prufrock, having the
good sense to know when to disregard a grammatical rule. Since you and I is
in apposition to us, all three pronouns logically belong in the same case; the
I, in other words, should be me (us = you and me). The objective case-us in
Eliot's line-follows let automatically when there is only one pronoun, but a
second pronoun can slip inconsistently into the subjective case. Let Bill and I
share the responsibility and Lef'5 you and I see what we can do are both wrong by
traditional standards. The pronouns look like subjects of the verbs that fol­
low, and they are; but share and see are to-less infinitives, not ordinary verbs,
and the subjects of infinitives belong in the objective case. The syntax is the
same as it is in Allow Bill and rne to share and Allo w us, you and rne, to see. But
you don't have to know all that to choose the appropriate pronoun. The
question only arises when the pronoun is one of a pair, and you'll get the
right answer if you ask yourself what form you would use if the pronoun
were on its own.
liable See apt, liable, likely.
lie See lay, lie.
like See as, like.
likely See apt, liable, likely.
literally As generally used, the adverb literally, like actually, doesn't mean
much. It merely adds emphasis, often to a statement that doesn't need it.
Literally should mean "in the strict sense" or "without exaggeration," but it
usually means quite the opposite-"figuratively." Sentences like I literally
died laughing or I was literally walhng on air obviously shouldn't be taken at
face value. If literally were always used precisely, it could have considerable
force, showing that a seemingly hyperbolic or figurative statement is a matter
of fact: Her voice could literally shatter glass; "He can't come to the phone," Houdini's
secretary said. "He's literally all tied up." T ry to keep literally out of your writing
unless you mean it literally. Abuses of the word can seem ludicrous, and
those who recognize them enjoy pointing them out.
majority In general, avoid majority if you don't have precise numbers or
percentages to support it-if you're not reporting, say, the results of a survey
or an election. Most can generally replace a majority of and, for that matter,
few can replace a minority of. You could say that the phrases are justified in
only a minority of the cases in which they occur, that the majority of the time
they are expendable. But you might better say that such phrases are rarely
justified and usually expendable.
may See can, may.
may, might When used to express doubt or desire, may and might are present
and past subjunctive forms, but both point to the future. Ordinarily the
choice of may or might requires no thought. You automatically select the form
that matches the tense of the governing verb: We think that the market may
improve in the fall, We thought that the market might improve in the fall. Though you
can also say We think that the market mi-ght improve, you cannot say We thought
that the market may improve. When tense is not an issue-that is, when the
subjunctive is not governed by a past indicative-you can express possibility
with either may or might. But may suggests better odds than might does: That
horse may show, he might even place, but he certainly won't win. Whether you say
that you may be wrong or that you might be wrong depends on how confi­
dent you are that you're right. The greater uncertainty implicit in might
makes that form suitable, Curme says, for stating "an opinion or a wish
modestly, politely, or cautiously": We might be able lo help, You might try a
different approach, That might satisfy them.
may possibly, might possibly Since may and might express possibility as
opposed to certainty, combining either with possibly-or with perhaps or
maybe-is making the same point twice. Sentences like That might possibly be
true or Perhaps that may be true are common enough in speech, where the
intensifying adverbs may even help, but listening and reading audiences take
in ideas differently. In writing you're safer with Perhaps that is true or That may
be true.
me See I, me.
minority See majority.
myself ln general, avoid myself where you can use 1 or me. The form is
appropriate only when it refers to the subject of the sentence, as in J take care
of myself and J hurt myself, or follows 1 as an intensive, as in 1 myself would never
do thai or It was I myself who saw it happen. Myself is objectionable in sentences
like They praised only Judy and myself[me] and The only members who plan to attend
are Doyle and myself [l]. The rules for my.self apply as well to the other self
forms-that is, the reflexive and intensive pronouns: ourselves, yourself, your­
selves, itself, herself, himself, and themselves.
nauseous, nauseated Although the distinction between these words has all
but vanished, those who know it continue to ridicule those who do not:
A GLOSSARY OF USAGE

something that makes you sick to your stomach-a rocking ship, perhaps, or
a rotting carcass-is nauseous; you are nauseated. "A person who feels sick,"
Bernstein says, "is no more nauseous than a person who has been poisoned is
poisonous." Nonetheless, those who suffer queasiness are far more likely to
call themselves nauseous than nauseated, and nauseous is extremely rare in
the sense of "sickening." You may occasionally find it in the attributive
position-for example, nauseous odors or nauseous violence-but the usual word
for causing nausea is nauseating. Used strictly or loosely, nauseous can get you
into trouble. You're better off limiting yourself to the participles.
nor, or Writers who pair neither with or or either with nor are merely careless;
grammatically and idiomatically, the correlative conjunctions are either . .. or·
and neither . . . nor. When or and nor are on their own, however, the choice
between them can be confusing, especially in negative statements. If a word
like no, not, or nwer precedes the conjunction but clearly carries over to what
follows, the or is appropriate; there's no need for a nor to repeat the negation
for the second part. In the following sentences the nor is questionable at best,
and or would be above reproach: He said thaf he had no physical handicaps,
harmful habits, nor a11tisocia{ tendencies. They did not report the incident to the man­
ager nor confide in their coworkers. She has never explained her actions nor answered
questions about her whereabouts. Follett would find the nor in these sentences
unequivocally wrong, but Bernstein would accept either nor or or, contending
that the nor simply makes the negative more emphatic. Although the con­
struction looks like a double neg ative, those who condone it may think of nor
as introducing an elliptical clause: nor [has she] answered questions about them.
In contexts in which nor is mandatory, the negative idea would not oth­
erwise extend beyond the conjunction. W hen, for example, the conjunction
joins not two elements governed by the same negative modifier but two
independent clauses, the second seems affirmative if nor does not replace or:
Jogging obviously has no appeal for the sedentary, or does it necessarily attract athletes
who enjoy team sports. Here are two more examples that require revision be­
cause the negation stops at the conjunction: My friends gave me no aduice or
offered to help [ ... neither gave me advice nor offered to help or ... did not give me
advice or offer to help]. Morton had never objected to company policies or was willing to
join a union [Morton had never objected fo company policies nor was he will­
ing ... or ... had never objected lo company policies or been willing to join a union].
In the Last revision we readily "understand" had never before the participle
been, but if been were have been, we would not supply the elliptical never.
Fowler explains that since a negative adverb goes with the auxiliary verb it
fo11ows, it is not implicit if the .auxiliary is repeated with a second verb. In
other words, it's clear to say had never thought or acted but wrong to say had
never thought or had acted.
of any Not all experts would fa ult a sentence like Amalgamated offers the best
car-loan rates of any bank in the city. As a commercial message, it makes its
point. But if the statement appeared in an objective comparative study of
New York City banks, sticklers for logic could fault it on several counts: the
statement compares Amalgamated with itself (Amalgamated, after all, is a
bank in the city); calls something the best of one (best of any is a "blending"
188�����������--���������-A_P_P_EN_D_I_X_B

of best of all and better than a11y other-"a usage," Curme says, "which in
general is now avoided in good English"); and contrasts Amalgamated's rates
with any bank rather than with the rates of any other bank. To correct the
sentence, you can substitute the comparative degree for the superlative:
Amalgamated's car-loan rates are better than those of any other bank in the city.
(Notice that other is necessary when you compare one thing with others in the
same category.) Sometimes yo1U need only delete of any to make a sentence
acceptable, as in Advanced calculus was the most demanding [of any] course I took or
The fifth of July was the hottest do.iy [of any] last summer.
off of Confronted with an intruder, you can properly say Get out of my house
but not Gel off of my land. In the first example out and of are adverb and
preposition, and the sentence needs both to make sense. Off of in the second
example was once construed in the same way, but now off and of together are
doing what off can do alone. Get off of my land means no more than Get off my
land. Incidentally, of can be eq1.J1ally redundant after out in contexts where out
can serve as a preposition. Though Gel out of my house can't do without of, Loo/c
out of the window can. Some "double prepositions" may survive colloquially
because they seem more emphatic in speech (just as double negatives do).
Our ears and our eyes take in information in different ways. A grounds
keeper might shout at thoughtl1�ss children "Keep off of the grass!" and point
out a sign that reads "Keep Off the Grass."
of from A superfluous from oft1m shows up in constructions like The defendant
was sentenced to from ten to fifteen years and The job requires a typing speed of from
forty-five lo fifty-five words per minute. Two prepositions in a row are often one
too many. From among, inside of, and off of are other combinations in which the
second word is usually expend!able.
on, onto, on to On relates to 0111to as in does to into: unlike 011, which can mean
''on top of," onto, meaning "to a position on," necessarily implies movement
from one place to another. Walking onto the beach is not the same as walk­
ing on the beach. In many contexts, though, on or to can have the same
meaning as onto. You might move books onto your desk, but you could also
move them to your desk. And on, not onto, is idiomatic in sentences like He
placed his hand on the Bible or We put the plates on the lable or She got on her horse.
Onto is the only correct form, however, when you mean "knowing about" or
"aware of," as in We're onto their game. Where on and lo are used together as
separate words, on is an adverb closely associated with the preceding verb,
while to alone is the prepositio11 for the phrase that follows. You might move
on to better things or ramble on to a tolerant listener or walk on to the end
of the road. You might even continue on to the beach, then go onto the
beach, and stay on the beach for an hour or two.
on, upon Don't use upon where on will do. Where the two are interchange­
able, upon adds a bookish note. In some phrases, of course, it's idiomatic­
once upon a time, for example, or set upon by thieves or assumed a put-upon expres­
sion-and you may occasionally want it in other contexts if the prose rhythm
benefits from two syllables instead of one. But on should be the routine
choice for phrases that follow verbs like base, brood, comment, depend, hit, look,
rely, and verge.
A GLOSSARY OF USAGE --- ____ _________ 189

one another See each other, one another.

onto, on to See on, onto, on to.
or See nor, or.
oral, verbal Oral means "spoken," as opposed to "written," and many writ··
ers use verblll as if it were synonymous. When they refer to verbal contracts
th ey mean agreements not formalized in writing. But whereas oral derives
from the Latin word for mouth, verbal comes from the Latin for word and,
strictly construed, means only "in words," whether spoken or written.
passed, past Do not confuse passed, the past tense and the past participle olf
the verb pass, with past, which can be a noun, as in from the past; an adjective,
as in past hopes; an adverb, as in is past due; or a preposition, as in go past th1�
barn. The following sentences use passed and past correctly: The president passed
the buck. Two hours were passed in playing cards. The day of the five-cent cigar is long
past. We passed the house. We drove past the house.
past history Since history means "past events," past history-that is, "past past
events" -is a redundancy. The adjective past is often expendable in othe:r
combinations too. Expressions like past experience and past records usually con­
vey nothing more than the nouns would if left unqualified.
people, persons Strict usage requires the plural persons for small groups and
restricts people to masses-crowds of people, the II merican people, the people al th.e
rock concert. Observing this distinction calls for common sense. Usually we're
as likely to use people after three as after three fhousllnd, and substituting person.s
for countable numbers may do more harm than good. Where people is too
informal for the context but persons sounds affected, you can usually find ,1
more specific plural. Knighthood may be bestowed, for instance, on four
distinguished British subjects instead of four distinguished persons. Persons
invited for dinner can be guests, persons sitting on a panel can be partici,­
pants, and persons waiting for a train can be commuters or travelers.
persuade See convince, persuade.
possessives after of Most grammarians refer to phrases like a friend of Jane'.s
and a relative of mine as "double genitives," and some critics consider them
redundant. Since both the of phrase and the possessive case can denote own­
ership, the objection may seem logical, but such constructions are unques·­
tionably established idiom. Certainly no one suggests "correcting" a play of
his to a play of him. Those who condemn the double genitive would have to
change the construction to one of his plays or a play by him.
Some thoughtful commentators, however, take no exception to of fol­
lowed by a possessive noun or pronoun. Follett, among others, regards a
friend of ]llne's as an elliptical way of saying "of Jane's friends" (i.e., "among
Jane's friends") and therefore finds the possessive appropriate. In some con­
texts, in fact, it lends clarity, since without it the of phrase would be ambigu­
ous: an inlerprefation of Ruskin is not necessarily equivalent to an inlerprelation of
Ruskin's.
In such constructions, however, the possessive form of an inanimate
object is neither idiomatic nor grammatical. We say one leg of the fable, not one
leg of the table's. No critic disputes the redundancy of a sentence like Our school
has an enrollment higher than that of any other's (the correct alternatives are higher
than any other's or higher than that of any other). But such lapses are rare. Where
a possessive form comes naturally after of, you can generally use it in good
conscience. All that you need absorb from this discussion is that informed
critics condone constructions like that attitude of Alice's and that some contexts
permit either the regular or the possessive form of a noun after of, with only
a nuance of difference: a responsibility of the manager or a responsibility of the
manager's.

possessives and gerunds Would you say if you don't mind me asking or if you
don't mind my asking? If my sounds natural, you have a discerning ear. Since a
gerund, by definition, is the ing verbal used as a noun, it needs a possessive
modifier, just as any other noun does. If you don't mind me asking, at least in
theory, is no better grammar than if you don't mind me question. Failure to use
the possessive case before a gerund can create ambiguity, as in this sentence:
Harold did not approve of his da ughter living in New York or of his grandchildren
playing in the street. Here grandchildren and daughter look like objects modified
by restrictive particles, ing verbals used as adjectives. Using the possessive
forms, daughter's and grandchildren's, would make clear that Harold disap­
proved not of his relatives but of their activities.
In 1906 Fowler coined the term fused participle for a gerund whose ''sub­
ject" is not a possessive, and he denounced the construction as a grammar­
less atrocity. But most later experts have contested this blanket condemna­
tion. They point out that the possessive case is not always feasible before a
gerund and that the rule therefore needs qualification. When the subject of
the verbal is heavily modified, compound, abstract, or incapable of showing
possession, the possessive case is impossible. No one advocates adding 's in
any of the following sentences� He objects to the man who lives nert door putting up
a fence. What do you think about Russia and its satellites refusing to participate in the
Olympics? She disapproved of pragmatism dominating all our decisions. The possibility
of this occurring here is unthinkable.
It's difficult, of course, to claim importance for a grammatical principle
that you can disregard whenever it becomes impractical. Though one excep­
tion may prove a rule, many can discredit it. Here again, idiom would seem
to triumph over logic. But experts determined to impose order on the lan­
guage have tried to explain away the need for possessives in resistant con­
structions. Follett, for example, finds the fused participle acceptable where he
can construe the ing phrase as a "heavy (long-drawn-out) apposition" to the
preceding noun or pronoun. This reading is possible, he contends, whenever
the stress is on the person or thing acting, not on the action, as in We do not
object to you and your partner sitting in on the meeting, bul we cannot accommodate any
addilional visitors. But one could more easily argue that in these circumstances
the i,ig form becomes a dear-cut participle, with nothing fused about it: It is
unusual to see both labor and martagemenl adopting that position, and I was surprised
to find the head of the company taking the initiative.
Sometimes, though, there's no getting around the grammatical need for
a possessive that idiom proscribes. Faced with this dilemma, many writers
forgo grammar, but strict constructionalists avoid the issue by recasting the
A GLOSSARY OF USAGE

sentence. The necessary rewording can be quick and easy. Thus, They were
hardly prepared for the justice of the peace ref using to marry them readily converts to
They were hardly prepared for a justice of the peace who would ref use to marry them or
They never anticipated that the justice of the peace would refuse lo marry them.
Although the experts disagree about some aspects of the fused-participle
issue, they all recommend using the possessive before a clear-cut gerund
whenever this choice has no undesirable side effects. With the few excep­
tions already noted, a one-word subject of a gerund-especially a personal
pronoun or a proper noun-belongs in the possessive case.
preparatory to, previous to, prior to Don't use any of these circumlocutions
if before will do. Wordy at best, they often sound pretentious or introduce an
inappropriate technical note. Preparatory to is all right if you want to stress the
idea of "in preparation for," as in Preparatory to the interview, I did some research
on the company; but there's no excuse for Preparatory to going to the bank, I 5topped
at the post office, where before is obviously the natural choice. Prior to, according
to Follett, suggests "necessary precedence"-"from its origin in the law" and
its extension to logic. Thus it's justifiable in Fees must be paid sixty days prior to
the start of the new tenn but stilted in She runs four miles prior to breakfast.
Dictionaries define the preposition previous to only as "prior to, before"; so
unless you need it for variety or euphony, substitute before. Never use an
elaborate word for a simple one merely to sound grander or more genteel.
presently Though many writers use presently in the sense of "at present,"
critics object to this practice and restrict the meaning to "in a short time."
With alternatives like now and currently, there seems no reason to adopt the
contested usage. Besides, presently for at present can be ambiguous. You can
presently see the film at the Broadway Theater, for example, may be referring to a
coming attraction, not a current one. If presently does mean "currently" there,
it's superfluous as well as suspect. Unless you mean to emphasize now as
opposed to then or later, the present tense is usually the only temporal
indicator you need.
previous to See preparatory to, previous to, prior to.
principal, principle Principal is either an adjective meaning "main" or a
noun meaning "the main thing" or "head person." Principle is always a noun
meaning "rule." The two words are commonly confused. As a noun, principal
is rarely appropriate in a general sense, but it has several specific denotations
in various fields. It may refer, for example, to the chief administrator of a
school, a person represented by an agent, a lead performer, one who com­
mits a crime (a perpetrator as opposed to an accessory), the main body of an
estate, or a noun represented by a pronoun (an antecedent).
prior to See preparatory to, previous to, prior to.
prone Used precisely, prone means "lyir.g face down"-not just "lying
flat"-and contrasts with supine, "lying face up."
proved, proven When you need the past participle of prove in a verb phrase,
make it proved: if has proved, if has been proved. Proven is preferred only in
certain legal phrases and as an adjective preceding the word it modifies:
proven ability, a proven fact. Peirhaps the alternative participles once corre­
sponded to the two meanings i::>f prove, "to tes t" and "to provide convincing
evidence of," but if so the distinction has long since been lost.
quite Quite can mean either "wholly" or, paradoxically, "to a considerable
degree." Though the first is the older and stricter sense, the second prevails
today and no longer provokes criticism, except perhaps in a highly formal
context. In fact, if either meaning is possible, as in The meeting wa5 quite
successful, "to a considerable degree" is the more likely interpretation. Thus
you're better off not using quil,e for "wholly" if you're not quite certain that
the context makes that sense quite clear.
rather than Derived from the ,comparative degree of an Old English adverb
meaning "quickly," rather is redundant when used with another comparative
term that does the same job, .as in the following sentences: Eight out of ten
dentists under forty prefer brushing with soap rather than with toothpaste. If would be
better to improve our product rather than to lower the price. Caught outdoors in a
lightning storm, you may be safer lying down rather than standing up. To revise, you
would edit out one or the other comparative term, either rather or its rival:
Eight out of ten ... prefer soap to toothpaste for brushing their teeth; We should
improve our product rather than lower the price; Caught outdoors in a lightning storm,
you may be safer lying down than standing up.
Unlike later dictionaries, the OED lists than only as a conjunction, not as
a preposition, and critics who still hold this view contend that rather than
must link grammatically comp.arable terms. They object, for example, when
a gerund after rather than contrasts with an ordinary, or finite, verb. In the
following sentences the approv,ed choices appear in brackets: We use a comput­
ing company for our payroll rather than handling [handle] if ourselves. [ would accept
thai decision rather than prolongirig [prolong] the controversy. Sometimes, though,
the force of idiom so strongly favors the ing form in such a context that the
required verb sounds odd: Rather than do the work yourself. delegate the responsi­
bility to an assistant. While many commentators would accept ralher than as
prepositional in that sentence and use doing, it's safer to substitute instead of,
a dear-cut preposition, which makes the gerund unquestionably right: Instead
of doing the work yourself, delegate. ... Though instead of, "in place of," is not
perfectly synonymous with rather than, "in preference to," the shade of dif­
ference rarely matters.
reaction This scientific term denotes an automatic response to a stimulus, as
in a knee-jerk reaction, a tozic reaction lo a drug, a chemical reaction between sub­
stances, and a backlash reaction. Though the word commonly substitutes for
response, opinion, or view in genieral contexts, careful writers reserve it for its
technical use. In each of the following examples the alternative shown in
brackets is preferable: The audi'ence reaction [response] was enthusiastic. We asked
the customers how they reacted to I[what they thought on several innovative proposals.
reason-redundant While you can properly begin an explanation with The
reason is that or This occurs because, several critics object to The reason is because.
Since both reason and because indicate that an explanation will follow, you
A GLOSSARY OF USAGE

need only one or the other. The reason why, though less widely condemned,
also has its opponents. If you recognize that why means "the reason for
which," you can see the excess in the reason why, "the reason the reason for
which." Instead of writing That is the reason why the program failed, you can say
either That is the reason the program failed or That is why the program failed.
relationship Explaining that the suffix ship makes a concrete noun abstract,
as in friendship, showmanship, and s portsmanship, Fowler objects to the inappro­
priate use of relationship for relation. Since relation, except when it refers to kin,
is an abstract term in itself, adding ship is needless and illogical. According to
Fowler, you "might as well make connerionship, correspondenceship, or associa­
fionship, as relationship from relation in abstract senses." Though other usage
experts disregard this argument, perhaps because the cause seems lost, Fow­
ler's reasoning does seem cogent, and relation usually can replace relationship.
But not always. Rightly or wrongly, the relation of one person to another is
called a relationship these days-even if it doesn't lead to betrothalship or
marriageship. Relations won't do for relationships in a sentence like I had better
relationships with my professors than with the other students.
respective, respectively When used to relate the members of one pair or
series to those of another, these words can clarify what goes with what:
Jacques, Sean, and Enrico designed accessories-respectively, hats, jewelry, and shoes.
Here the adverb keeps readers from assuming that all three men specialized
in all three types of accessories. But res pective and respectively se.rve no purpose
in sentences that do not follow this pattern. The following examples could do
without them: Three planes are scheduled to leave Chicago at 10 a.m.-bound,
respectively, for New York, New Orleans, and Los Angeles. The fwo winners gave
Cranford, New Jersey, and Schenedady, New York, as their respective birthplaces.
Even when a sentence relates two pairs or series the proper combinations
may be obvious without respective or respectively. The modifiers are not mis­
used in the following sentences, but they hardly seem necessary: John, Bill.
and Robert are married, respectively, to Judy, Beth, and Amy. This year Yale and
Vassar held their graduation ceremonies on, respectively, 20 May and 2 7 May. Since
respective and respectively make readers stop to pair the right elements, you're
better off constructing sentences that do not need these props. The respectively
is essential in Rural and urban areas tend to favor, respectively, potatoes and pasta
but not in Rural areas tend to favor potatoes, urban areas pasta.
restive Although dictionaries indicate that the original meaning of restive­
"balky" or "resisting control" -still Jives, the word more commonly serves
as a synonym for "restless." Copperud says that "popular misuse has added
another sense" to restive, but he probably thinks of a half-empty glass as half
full. Less sanguine critics complain that popular misuse has destroyed a use­
ful word and replaced it with an unneeded alternative for restless. A few loyal
supporters of the older meaning consider the new usage incorrect, but even if
they use restive right, readers are likely to understand it wrong. Our guide tried
to calm the restive donkey probably suggests an uneasy animal, not a mulish
one. Still, since the donkey was doubtless both uneasy and mulish, the mis­
interpretation is not serious. You have nothing to lose by keeping restive to its
 APPENDIX B

strict meaning, and you may be helping a valuable distinction stage a come­
back.

sequence of tenses The managing of tenses is too large a subject for the
scope of this glossary, but here's the tip of the iceberg. Ordinarily the tenses
of verbs used in sequence reflect the chronology of the events reported: I had
planned to attend the opening, but 1 changed my mind; I still haven't seen the play, but
I will soon. Sometimes, though, you may indicate time relations with adverbs
and subordinating conjunctions instead of shifts in tense: She attended Bowdoin
before she went to Yale; After they saw Paris, we couldn't keep them down on the farm;
Last year we sold a million units, but this year we had a 50 per cent decline.
The verb in the main clause normally determines the tense of a verb in
a subordinate clause: He says th.at good management will make a difference, but He
said that good management would make a difference. A related verbal is usually in
the present tense if its action occurs at about the same time as that of the
main verb and in the past tense if its action occurs earlier: Mincing no words,
he claimed thaf poor management had bw1 responsible, but Having studied fhe record,
I think that poor management was responsible. If the main verb in the last example
were thought, the verbal would remain unchanged; it's the only past form we
have, and it would still designate an action preceding that of the main verb.
Since such adjustments are usually automatic, there seems no need to discuss
them in greater detail. When writers have trouble, it's generally with the
exceptions.
Not all subordinate verbs change to match the main verb. Other consid­
erations sometimes come into play. In They say lhat an artist had owned the
house my family bought, a shift from say to said would not alter the tenses in the
that clause. No other tenses would make dear that one past action occurred
before the other. Another exception is the subordinate clause introduced by
a verb in the past tense but stating an enduring truth-one that is as valid
now as it was in the past: They searched the suspecf's house, which is located on
Orchard and Vine; He said that lilacs bloom in May in this par/ of the country; She
taught us that parallel lines never meet. See also may, might.
The present tense is also appropriate when you report what appears in
print. A book contains now exactly what it did earlier: Hamlet condemns his
mother's marriage. By extension you can use the present tense to discuss what
an author has written: Shakespeare portrays Macbeth as superstitious, Marx advo­
cates a classless society, Aristotle argues for a golden mean. Of course, you can also
use the past tense in such statements. While the work expresses itself in the
permanent present, you can say that the author either described or describes
in a work. But be consistent. If you write Nielzsche claims but Kant argued,
readers may wonder why you are making a distinction. Even though you use
the present tense in discussing what authors say in their works, you should
ordinarily use the past in recounting what they were or did: Emerson, who
stresses the relation between nature and the soul, studied theology at Haroard. An
exception, of course, is "the historical present" -the present tense used to
describe past events as if they were happening now: It's Sunday afternoon, 7
December 1941. The radio is playing Christmas carols, and my eighteen-year-old
brother and I are clearing the table after dinner, squabbling as usual about whose turn
A
_ G Y_R
_ _L_O_SS_A _O_ _F�US_A_G_E�����������������-195

it is to wash. Paul gives in finally, cursing his rotten luck in having me for a sister.
Then the music stops, right in the middle of "Silent Night," and an excited, incredulous
voice announces the end of our world: "The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor!" Paul
breaks a glass, and I rush to hug him. If you adopt this device in the interest of
vivid narration, make sure to stay with it. It's easy to lapse into the past.
shall, will; should, would The auxiliary verbs shall and will, of course, are
used to form the future tenses, and should and would express-among other
things-the future from the point of view of the past. Grammar books used
to devote considerable space to the distinctive uses of these words, but today
they tend to accept whichever comes naturally, tacitly acknowledging that
proscription has made no headway against instinctive usage. The many com­
plicated and conflicting sets of rules and descriptions that have been at­
tempted over the last two hundred years or so have generally been too con­
voluted to help. Jespersen, the Fowlers, and Follett, for example, all devote
twenty or more pages to the subject, but the Fowlers seem to acknowledge
the futility of their endeavor: "It is unfortunate that the idiomatic use [of shall
and will], while it comes by nature to the southern Englishman (who will find
most of this section superfluous), is so complicated that those who are not to
the manner born can hardly acquire it; and for them the section is in danger
of being useless."
Among the authorities Copperud surveyed, only Follett insists on "a
relatively small nucleus of orthodox principles" governing shall and will. If
you have some knowledge of these rules, a brief review may be useful, if
only to lay their ghost. "For a dialect that does distinguish shall and will,"
Julian and Zelda Boyd provide this succinct "summary of the hand­
books ... (ignoring the negative and subordinate occurrences)":
1.I shall-predicts, foretells, surmises, etc.
2. I will-promises, threatens, warns, etc.
3. You shall (he, she, it, they, etc.)-promises, etc.
4. You will {he, she, it, they, etc.)-predicts, etc.
5. Shall I (we}?-asks for orders
6. Will I (we}?-asks for a prediction
7. Shall you?-asks for a prediction (rare, British)
8. Will you?-rnakes a request
9. Shall he (she, it, they)7-asks for orders
10. Will he (she, it, they)?-asks for a prediction

In the same dialect should and would, when simply referring to the future,
follow similar rules: should is reserved for the first person (I said that 1 should
like to apply, and they said that they would like an interview}. But both words have
other standard uses that muddy the waters. For example, should can also
mean "ought to" (You should do as you please) or express a condition (Jf it should
rai,i, the picnic will be canceled); would can also express a condition (If you would
try, you might succeed), as well as habitual past action (Every night we would dine
at eight), contingency (J would if I could), desire (Would that it were so), and,
along with will, capacity (My old car would take five passengers; the new one will
seat only two). In these special senses should and will and would are appropriate
with all persons.
In modem usage should survives primarily in statements of condition or
obligation, and shall occurs mainly in questions such as Shall we dance? and
Shall J answer the door? Will and would are usual in alll other contexts. In the
sentence We will offer the success!ul candidate a competitive salary, the will seems
to modern readers simply a straightforward future, not an atypical usage
denoting a pledge. But though the earlier conventions are rarely honored,
neither are they proscribed. You can use should with J on occasions that call
for formal politeness. If in applying for a job you write I should like to be
considered for the position you advertised, a few potential employers might even
be impressed. For the simple future, however, the first-person shall or should
may sound stilted or quaint.

she See I, me.

since See for, because, since.
so, so that In formal writing so is not appropriate when used alone as an
intensive, as in That is so true. When so precedes a modifier, except in com­
parisons, it means "to the extent" and needs a qualifying that clause to com­
plete its meaning: We were so concerned about the decline that we called in a
consultant, We were so disappointed in the product that we discontinued it.
Formal contexts also call for so that, rather than s;o alone, to introduce a
clause expressing purpose or result: They lefl before dawn so that they could avoid
traveling during the hottest part of the day; She had practiced for weeks, so that the
audition went well.
In negative comparisons so . . . as sometimes se1�ms more natural than
as . . . as, to American ears at least, and grammar tea1chers used to insist on
this usage: I am not so sure as you that we have made the right decision. Today,
however, you have a choice; according to Copperud, not so sure as and not as
sure as are "equally acceptable."
so-called Don't use so-called before a term enclosed in quotation marks. Both
the adjective and the quotation marks call attention to a special usage, and
one or the other ran do the job alone.
so that See so, so that.
subjunctive mood The subjunctive mood is easier to use than to contem­
plate. Even grammarphobes terrorized by the term usually shift smoothly
into the subjunctive whenever it's appropriate. In contrast to the indicative
mood, which designates the ordinary verb forms used in factual statements,
the subjunctive expresses certain conditions, wishes, demands, and resolves.
But because most subjunctive forms are the same ,as the indirative ones,
writers often use the subjunctive without recognizing it. In the past tense the
only variation for the subjunctive is that were repl.aces was, but the past
subjunctive refers, not to the past, but to the present or future. In If you
wanted better grades, you would work harder, the verb in the if clause is the past
_A_G_L_OS_ S_AR�Y_O_F_U_S_A_G�
_E � � � � � � � � � � � � � �
� -197

subjunctive. In the present subjunctive the only differences are that be re­
places am, are, and is and that the base form of any verb-the form that
follows the infinitive sign to-replaces the third-person singular form, as in
Long live the queen instead of Long lives the queen.
The long live formula, expressing a wish, is one of the many frozen
phrases in which the subjunctive stilJ appears. Others include Thy will be done,
Come hell or high wafer, If need bi:, Heaven help the working girl, The devil take the
hindmost, God damn it, and So be it. Such expressions are smvivors from a time
when the subjunctive was more common than it is now. Today we are more
likely to express conditions, wishes, and resolves with the auxiliary verbs
may, might, should, would, and lef: If the need should arise, May heaven help us, Let
if be so.
If clauses are the primary occasions for giving the subjunctive any
thought. A condition that differs from the one known to exist-a condition
contrary to fact, in other words-still requires thf" subjunctive: If 1 were young­
er, I might consider the move; If she were a man, you would have behaved differently; If
I were there, you would not have asked that question. But writers with a vague
notion about using were instead of was in an if clause sometimes resort to the
subjunctive when the clause expresses a condition that may or may not exist,
not one known to be contrary to fact. The was is appropriate, for example, in
If he was at the meeting, he has undoubtedly heard the news. He may have been
there-we don't know. Thus the clause states a possibility, not something
obviously not true. Here are a few more if clauses in which the indicative
verb form is correct: If she wai. responsible, she should admit the fact; Tf you. are
correct, we still have a chance; If a customer fails to pay within two months, we extend
no further credit.
In addition to contrary-to-fact conditional clauses, some noun clauses
require the subjunctive. Since wishes are often for contrary-to-fact condi­
tions, it is not surprising that they are expressed in the subjunctive mood: I
wish you were here, T wish I were Jailer, She wished she were rich. But you can also
use auxiliary verbs to state wishes: J wish that it would rain, I wish that I could
be with you. Finally, the subjunctive is appropriate in formal recommenda­
tions, resolutions, commands, and statements of necessity: We recommend that
the department institute scholarships for language study abroad and sponsor an ex�
change-student program. The same that clause could also follow Be ii resolved, We
demand, or It is essential. But you would ordinarily use a less elevated formu­
lation: We asked the department lo institute . . , or 1f is essential for the department to
institute. ...
take See bring, take.
than If, as most modern dictionaries report, than can be a preposition, the me
is legitimate as well as natural in a sentence like My sister is older than me. But
the OED labels than incorrect as a preposition, and most careful writers
would still say My sister is older than I, construing than as a conjunction
introducing an elliptical clause. In such sente nces the case of the pronoun
that follows than depends on the role the pronoun plays in the implicit clause:
You helped Elizabeth more than T [.did] or You helped Elizabeth more thtm [you helped}
me. If you mentally complete the clause after than, you can tell which case is
appropriate. Or you can note the terms being compared, the terms that than
links: the pronoun after than belongs in the subjective case if it contrasts with
the subject or subjective complement of the preceding clause and in the
objective case if it contrasts with an object. The compared terms are you and
J in the first of the last two examples and Elizabeth and me in the second.
(Those who consider than a preposition would use me in both examples, so
that the comparison would be ambiguous.) Because than is commonly treated
like a preposition colloquially, the subjective case may sound stilted when it
is required after the conjunction. If so, Fowler suggests, add the appropriate
verb after the pronoun: My sister is older than I am. But the phrase than whom
lies outside these considerations. In constructions like a politician than whom
none has greater integrity the whom is inviolable-a sacrosanct, idiomatic excep­
tion to the rules of grammar (at least for those who will not recognize than as
a preposition). Nowhere is it written, though, that you have to resort to such
awkward wording.
Than, of course, does not always precede a pronoun that has distinctive
subjective and objective forms to clarify what terms you are comparing.
Sentences like the following are at least technically misleading, and an unin­
tended comparison can be ludicrous: I take better care of our pets than the chil­
dren. Chimps resemble human beings more than other apes. ln interpreting dreams,
analysts reveal more about themselves than their patients. Confronted with this sort
of ambiguity, you should complete the implicit clause or at least add enough
words to identify the contrasting terms: J take belier care of our pets than the
children do; Chimps resemble human beings more than they do other apes; In interpret­
ing dreams, analysts reveal more about themselves than about their patients.
Comparisons involving than any need special watching. In the following
sentences they are illogical: J like Sardi's better than any reslauranl in the theater
district. Jefferson is taller than anyone on the team. Mary Pickford was more popular
than any young actress of her day. If Sardi's is in the theater district and Jefferson
is on the team and Mary Pickford was a young actress of her day, they are all
being judged as superior in some way to themselves. To correct such slips,
add other or else: belier than any other restaurant, taller than anyone else on the team,
more popular than any other actress.

that, which Relative clauses that modify inanimate nouns or pronouns usu­
ally b egin with that or which. The force of idiom and the weight of critical
opinion favor that for restrictive, or defining, clauses and which for nonrestric­
tive, or nondefining, clauses. A defining clause identifies the word it modifies,
limiting it to a particular member of a group, as in The novel that the instructor
recommended depicts the Civil War period in the South. It is essential to the mean­
ing of the sentence. But a nondefining clause in no way restricts the sense of
the word it describes; it simply provides supplementary information. In The
nouel Gone with the Wind, which the instructor recommended, depicts the Civil War
period in the South, the relative clause is expendable, as the enclosing commas
indicate. Since the title identifies the book, omitting the which clause would
not alter the meaning of the sentence.
The usage critics who recommend that for defining clauses argue not that
which is incorrect but that restricting which to nondefining clauses helps con-
A GLOSSARY OF USAGE

vey necessary information. Although nondefining clauses are set off by com­
mas and defining clauses are not, Follett, for one, considers the mere omis­
sion of commas an inadequate means of signaling a defining clause. In a
sentence like Ban/cs which offer irmesfmenf counseling are another possible source of
help, he argues, readers cannot be sure that the absence of punctuation is
significant. Maybe the writer forgot to put in the commas, or maybe the
typesetter overlooked them. Is the intended meaning "Banks, which offer
investment counseling," or "E:anks that offer investment counseling"? In
other words, are all banks a soiurce of help or only those that offer counsel­
ing? If the clause began with lhat instead of which, the question wouldn't
arise.
And if that, not which, were mandated for restrictive clauses, a comma
would not have proved so powerful a weapon for conservative Republicans
in composing their party's 1984 platform. That policy statement, as originally
drafted, took a position against "any attempts to increase taxes which would
harm the recovery.... " In other words, the party opposed increasing taxes
that would be harmful, thus implying that some tax increases might not be.
But the right-wing faction succeeded in inserting a comma before which, thus
making the clause nonrestrictivie and expendable, putting the party on record
as opposing all tax increases and explaining, parenthetically, that they would
harm the recovery.
While which may not sound amiss in a restrictive clause, that is virtually
impossible in a nonrestrictive clause. If you're not sure that you can distin­
guish between the two types, hy substituting that whenever you write which.
If it fits, chances are that the cla1use is restrictive and the that preferable. This
test, incidentally, should also indicate whether or not the clause needs en­
closing punctuation.
In two circumstances, howi�ver, restrictive clauses must begin with which
instead of that. Which is necess,ary for a clause describing either the demon­
strative pronoun that or, usually, a noun preceded by the demonstrative ad­
jective that. That that must be done should be done quiclcly is dearly impossible;
which must replace the second that. That deed that must be done is similarly
objectionable, but in such sequences changing the second that to which is not
always your only alternative. Instead, you can sometimes substitute an article
for the first that and keep the se,cond one: A deed that must be done should be done
quickly. That is also impossible when the relative clause begins with a preposi­
tion. Whether or not the clause is restrictive, which is the only choice in such
contexts; the issue on which they disagre_e, the book from which we quoted, the events
wifh which the report deals. But tlzat is all right-preferable, in fact-when the
pronoun is the object of a preposition that it precedes: the issue that they
disagree on, the book that we quoted from, the events that the report deals with.
If a sentence has more tha1� than it can handle, switching to which for a
restrictive clause should be a last resort. You usually have options. You can
sometimes leave Jhat implicit at the head of a clause or reduce the clause to a
word or phrase. The following sentence, with its five that clauses, poses an
editing challenge: He said that they realized that an institution that failed to comply
with the law that bars discrimination in schools that receive federal funding might have
to close. But revising leaves only one: They realized, he said, that an institution
might have to close if it failed to comply with the law banning discrimination in
federally funded schools.
that, who Either that or who can refer to a person. Use whichever comes
naturally or sounds better in a given context: No one that the agency sent us is as
qualified as Mary Johnson, who has exactly the sort of baclc:ground we're loolc:ing for. ln
modem expository prose who seems almost inevitable in a nonrestrictive
clause, but there's nothing wrong with it in a restrictive clause either: Anyone
who talc:es on this project musl be highly motivated.
that of This phrase often appears where it doesn't belong and fails to show
up when needed. It's excess baggage in One popular sport in Michigan is that of
figure slc:ating, but it's absent without leave in The appeal of the country was
stronger than the city, where its omission after than results in an illogical com­
parison. Here are two more examples, the first with a superfluous that of and
the second without a necessary one: Often the earliest symptom is that of a sharp
chest pain. But this pain is not like a heart attack.
they, them See I, me.
too In the sense of "overly," too sometimes seems inappropriate when it
precedes a modifier denoting a negative quality. Calling a plan too prone to
failure, for example, may prompt the question "As opposed to just prone
enough?" When too appears without any indication of the standard for judging
a quality excessive, it implies "to a degree greater than desirable." Thus if
you write The candidate is too arroganf, you suggest that there is a desirable
degree of arrogance. To avoid this implication, either omit too or qualify it:
The candidate is too arrogant to have much chance at the polls.
A more common stricture condemns the not too construction, as in I am
not too sure about that. Barzun, for one, criticizes it as ambiguous and illogical.
He considers it a corruption of a proper none too or not any too phrase, which
he translates as "not overly in any degree" and sees as an "ironic rendering"
of "not at all." Thus we understand I am none too certain of that to mean "I am
not at all certain." But when not replaces none, the meaning can be either "I
am not more certain than I can be" or "] am not very certain." Even though
the second meaning is almost always what the writer intends and the reader
understands, formal contexts call for greater precision. Besides, such state­
ments are sometimes more than theoretically ambiguous. I cannot be ioo opti­
misfic about your chances, for example, can mean either "your chances are so
good that l can't feel more optimism than they warrant" or "your chances are
so slight that I can't be very optimistic about them." I cannot recommend him too
highly is similarly open to interpretation. To clarify such sentences, eliminate
too if it means "very" (J cannot recommend him highly) and eliminate both not
and too if it means "overly" (J can recommend him highly).
uninterested See disinterested, uninterested.
unique See absolute modifiers.
upon See on, upon.
us See I, me.
_A_G_L_O_SS_AR�Y_O_F�US_A_G_E������������--����-201

use, utilize, employ Discussing utilize as a synonym for use, the 1982 edition
of the American Heritage Dictionary finds the word "especially appropriate" in
the sense "of making useful or productive what has been otherwise or of
expanding productivity by finding new uses for the thing or person in­
volved." While use can have the same meaning, it has broader applications.
Use works wherever utilize does, but utilize cannot always replace use. Except
when employ "applies to the hiring of persons," it is broadly "interchange­
able" with use. Both employ and utilize are overworked, pretentious substitutes
for use. If you use them at all, be sure to restrict them to their narrow mean­
ings. But while a sentence like We employ 200 worlurs is unexceptionable,
critics regard utilize as pompous even when used as dictionaries define it:
Scouts learn to utilize two sticks of wood to start a fire. Modern style guides all
insist that plain is better than fancy, and you should 2tlways at least consider
replacing utilize and employ with use. If you've used use already and don't want
to repeat it, you usually have other options. The scouts, for example, can
learn how to start a fire by rubbing two sticks of wood together.
verbal See oral, verbal.
very, very much When used as an adverb, very intensifies other modifiers; in
traditional grammar it cannot qualify a verb, since an action cannot be inten­
sified, but it can qualify an adverb of manner or quantity that modifies a
verb. Thus, while you can't talk very, you can talk very much. The problem
of very versus very much arises with past participles-the verbals that charac­
teristically end in ed-which both function as adjectives and combine with
auxiliaries to form passive-voice and perfect-tense v,erb phrases. Since very
can modify an adjective, can it also modify a past participle? Or does the
participle remain verb enough to require very much? Can we, for example, be
very interested, or must we be very much interested?'
Concern about this issue may be fading, but the use of very with certain
past participles is so strongly condemned by some critics-F ollett, for exam­
ple, finds it offensive to "finer ears"-that you may want to heed the pro­
scription. While the OED permits very in the sense of "very much," illustrat­
ing the usage with quotations from writers like Joseph Addison and George
Eliot, the 1982 American Heritage Dictionary still warns against it.
A few past participles have developed into full-fledged adjectives with
separate dictionary entries. You can, for instance, be very depressed about
the economic outlook and very worried about your investments.' But most ed
forms retain too strong a verbal identity to accept the intensive very. They
require proper adverbial modifiers like much, well, and highly: A performance
can be very much enjoyed but not very enjoyed; a proposal can be very well
received but not very received; a book can be very highly praised but not
very praised.
The participles that cause trouble are borderline forms like encouraged,
appalled, and s urprised. Some critics sanction very with such words, accepting
them as adjectives; others insist on very much. And th1e dictionary may be no
help on this issue. Known and chosen. for example, are labeled as adjectives,
but celebrities are well known, not very known, and words are well chosen,
not very chosen. The prudent course is to use an adverb like much or well
whenever it sounds all right. Maybe you can get away with / am very inter­
ested, but you're clearly safe with / am very much interested. A participle that
unquestionably qualifies as an adjective won't accept very much as a modifier.
I am very much tired, for example, is impossible. Fowler suggests another
consideration, pointing out that a participle is at its most adjectival when it
directly precedes the word it modifies and at its most verbal when it follows
an auxiliary verb and precedes a by phrase. Thus the context may influence
your decision on very or very much: One very surprised winner said that she had
been very much surprised by the news. The issue may seem complicated, but it
should rarely arise. Intensives like very are usually unnecessary at best. If you
choose the right words, your writing can be very-free.
via Though via is often treated as a synonym for by, through, or by means of, its
strict meaning is "by way of," interpreted geographically, and careful writers
use it only in describing travel routes. You can go via the Thruway or the
Taconic Parkway if you're traveling to Albany from New York City, but you
can't go via bus or car. You should avoid via in other senses where a precise
and proper alternative sounds natural, but if you insist on sending letters via
air, you might be accused of pedantry.
we See I, me.
which See that, which.
while Insisting that while means only "at the same time as," English teachers
of the past did not allow it in the sense of "although" or "whereas." Though
this restriction has been eased, while still seems ludicrous when it's used in a
way that contradicts the notion of simultaneity: While our ancestors took months
fo cross the continent, we do ii in five hours. But modem critics accept while for
"although" or "whereas" if the temporal meaning fits as well: While .American
women did not fight in World War II, they produced the weapons and supplies that
ultimately brought victory.
who See that, who.
who, whom In traditional grammar, the choice of who or whom depends on
the same principles that govern / and me. But who and whom often occur in
convoluted contexts that complicate this choice. You have to analyze the
syntax before you can determine the proper pronoun. Since conversation
offers no opportunity to formulate sentences in advance, no less to parse
them, most critics condone "misuses" in speech. ("Who shall I make this
check out to 'om?" asks a dowager in an o ld New Yorker cartoon.) In fact,
even though writers have time to figure out the appropriate case, more and
more commentators are questioning the value of bothering. In his 1975 essay
"Wham's Doom," Theodore Bernstein forswore his allegiance to the old
rules and proposed abolishing whom except directly after a preposition.
When he presented this recommendation to twenty-five "experts" ("teach­
ers, consultants on dictionaries, writers, and knowledgeable linguists"), he
found fifteen who agreed with it, four who equivocated, and six who dis­
agreed. But the 1983 edition of Webster's New Collegiate Dictio,iary, pointing
out that language watchers have been predicting the "demise of whom" since
at least 1870, reports that the word "shows every indication of persisting
_A_G�L_O_ S_S _A _RY�O_F_U_S_A_�
G_E � � � � � � � � � �������203

quite a while yet." Even some of Bernstein's supporters admitted that they
probably wouldn't act on his proposition.
Using whom correctly-if you too want to be on the safe side-is not so
difficult as all the fuss about the word suggests. You do have to analyze
sentences now and again, but the process may be good for you. If you're
concerned about the effect of Velcro, calculators, and digital docks on to­
day's children, you should be able to see the value in mastering whom. Lionel
Trilling commented to Bernstein that the effort involved in figuring out the
proper case "tends to build character," and Russell Baker said that "having to
pause at the thorn patch of whom assists the cause [of] having less said bet­
ter."
The proper use of whom involves determining what role the pronoun
plays within its own clause. lf you mentally isolate the clause from its context
and then put it in normal subject-verb-object order, the structure becomes
clear. Use whom if the pronoun is the object of a preposition, even one at the
opposite end of the clause; the direct or indirect object of a verb; or the
subject of an infinitive. Use who if the pronoun is the subject of a finite verb
or the subject of a subjective complement. It may help to substitute a per­
sonal pronoun for a questionable who or whom. Use who where you would use
1, we, he, she, or they; use whom where you would use me, us, her, him, or them.
The following sentences are correct:
1. The police have captured lhe man who they lhin/r: robbed the bank. The pro­
noun is the subject of robbed, not the object of think. Always use who if you
can delete the subject-verb combination immediately after the pronoun and
still have a coherent statement. Try this test on the following sentences, all of
whose whams should be whos: The customer summoned the waiter whom she remem­
bered had served her. She asked him whom he thought had poured vinegar into her wine
glass. He didn't know how to answer this woman, whom the manager had said spelled
trouble. In these examples, incidentally, whom is wrong in everybody's book.
Neither natural nor correct, it's the conscious choice of those with "a little
learning." They recognize that whom is appropriate for a direct object but fail
to see that the pronoun is not the object of the verb that directly follows but
the subject of the next verb. The who clause as a unit functions as a direct
object or a modifier.
2. The official whom they wanted to question would not cooperate. Here omitting
the subject-verb combination after the pronoun would not leave a sentence
that makes sense. Isolating the clause whom they wanted to question and putting
it in normal order, they wanted to question whom, shows that whom is correct. It
can only be the object of queslion.
3. Is there no one whom we can trust? Rearranged in subject-first order, whom
we can trust becomes we can trust whom, and the choice of whom becomes
obvious-unless, of course, tr ust who sounds as right to you as trust whom. If
so, try the personal-pronoun-equivalency test. If you would say trust him
rather than trust he, you can be sure that whom is appropriate.
4. The editor whom she had hoped fo work with rejected the manuscript. Without
she had hoped, the sentence would be gibberish. The relative clause is whom she
had hoped to work with-in normal order, she had hoped to work with whom. Whom
204 _____________________
APPENDIX B

is the inevitable choice once you recognize the pronoun as the object of the
preposition with.
5. The prize goes lo whoever finishes first. The rules governing who and whom
also apply, of course, to whoever and whomever. Here, since the subordinate
clause is already in normal order, you should have no trouble recognizing
whoever as its subject, provided that you identify the clause as whoever finishes
first, not as to whoever finishes first. The preposition to belongs to the main
clause; the whoever clause is its object. If you can't tell whether a pronoun
alone or a whole clause is the object of a preposition, you can quickly find
the answer by analyzing the clause. Ask how the pronoun relates to the verb.
In the example who has to be the subject of finishes; thus it cannot also be the
object of the preposition. The structure is different when a relative clause
begins with a preposition. For example, in The man to whom I was talking is my
neighbor, the clause to whom I was talking modifies man. Within the clause the
subject and verb are I was talking and whom is the object of to. The preposition
is dearly part of the clause; without it, whom I was talking makes no sense.
6. He is not the person who I thought he was. Without I thought, the sentence
remains structurally sound (though the omission affects the meaning), and
you can recognize who as a subjective complement if you begin the clause
with the subject: he was who. Was serves only as an equal sign, linking the
subject he with its complement who, and both sides of the equation belong in
the same case. The grammar changes if you express the same idea in these
words: He is not the person whom I thought him to be. Here the I thought is
indispensable. In the rearranged clause, I though/ him to be whom, the infinitive
to be, like other forms of the verb, links grammatical equals, but since the
subject of the infinitive (him) is in the objective case, the complement (whom)
is also objective.
7. Whom do you want to handle the deal? When you begin the sentence with
the subject, you get You do want whom to handle the deal? As the subject of the
infinitive lo handle-the person doing the handling-whom is correct. You
wouldn't say Do you want I to handle the deal? would you?
The most common mistakes in the use of who and whom are whom as the
subject of a verb that does not immediately follow the pronoun (1 did not see
the dancer whom the critics said was lhe best), whomever as the subject of a clause
that functions as the object of a preposition (He asked to speak to whomever is in
charge), and who as an object of a nonadjacent verb or preposition (Who did she
usk for? He invited someone who I considered rude). Though an ungrammatical
whom takes some effort, an ungrammatical who comes naturally, and it is the
least objectionable of these errors-in speech, in fact, it is quite acceptable.
But if a correct whom seems stilted in writing, revise the sentence to avoid the
need for it. Don't simply substitute an ungrammatical who.
All this to-do over the letter m may seem foolish. The choice of who or
whom rarely affects darity, masterpieces of literature contain "mistakes,"
English has a long tradition of shedding case endings, and in many contexts
the spoken whom is at least obsolescent. The arguments against maintaining a
who-whom distinction are strong, and the experts willing to defend the old
rules are dwindling. But, esteemed or not, the traditional usage remains
_A _G_L_O_SS_AR�Y_O_f_U_S_A_G_E�����������������205

dominant in literate writing. Few authors who know the rules are willing to
flout them.
who am, who are, who is The verb that follows the subject who agrees with
the word the pronoun stands for. Thus you would say I who am; you, we, or
they who are; and he or she who is.
whom See who, whom.
whose, who's Like the personal pronouns, who has no apostrophe in the
possessive case. The possessive form whose can mean either "of whom" or
"of which." In other words, it c.an refe r to either a thing or a person: that book,
whose jacket James designed is as acceptable as that woman, whose jacket James
designed. Who's, of course, is the contraction of who is. It's Guess Who's Coming
to Dinner, not Gum Whose. ...
will See shall, will; should, would.
wise The word wise, in the sense of "knowing," legitimately combines with
nouns to form such adjectives as streetwise, "wise in the ways of the street,"
and money-wise, "knowledgeable about money." The suffix wise is also unex­
ceptionable when it means "in the manner of," "in the direction of," or "in
the position of," as in crabwise, otherwise. clockwise, and edgewise. But faddish
compounds in which the wise suffix means "regarding" strike most language
watchers as dubious at best. Critics denounce terms like policywise, qualitywise,
and decisionwise not only as jargonistic and overworked but as cumbersome
and needless. Though such words theoretically provide short and snappy
alternatives to long-winded phrases like from the standpoint of and with regard
to, they often do nothing of the sort. Careerwise, he was going downhill, for
example, is hardly superior to His career was going downhill; nor is Enroll­
menfwise, colleges are now healfhier than they were a decade ago better than College
enrollments are higher than they were a dec�de ago.
would See shall, will; should. would.
Primary References Language. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1982.
Barzun, Jacques. Sirntple and Direct: A Bernstein, Theodore M. "Whom' s
Rhetoric for Wriftirs. New York: Doom" (1975). Reprinted in Dos,
Harper and Row, 1975. Don'ts & Maybes of English Usage.
Bernstein, Theodore M. The Careful New York: Times Books, 1977.
Writer: A Modern Guide to English Boyd, Julian, and Zelda Boyd. "Shall
Usage. New York: Atheneum, and Will." In The State of the
1977. Language. Edited by Leonard
Follett, Wilson. Modern American Michaels and Christopher Ricks.
Usage: A Guide. Edited by Jacques Berkeley: University of California
Barzun. New York: Hill and Press, 1980.
Wang, 1966. The Chicago Manual of Style. 13th ed.
Fowler, H. W. A Dictionary of Modern Chicago: University of Chicago
English Usage. 2nd ed. Revised by Press, 1982.
Sir Ernest Gowers. New York: Copperud, Roy H. American Usage and
Oxford University Press, 1965. Style: The Consensus. New York:
Strunk, William, Jr.,, and E. B. White. Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1980.
The Elements of Style. 3rd ed. New Fowler, H. W., and F. G. Fowler. The
York: Macmillalll, 1979. King's English. 3rd ed. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1931.
Other Works Cited Levin, Samuel R. "Comparing
Traditional and Structural
Baron, Dennis E. Grammar and Good Grammar." College English 21
Taste: &forming the American (1960): 260-65.

207
208 __ -------- SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Markwardt, Albert H. American Robert F. Willson, Jr. New York:

English. New York: Oxford Macmillan, 1977.
University Press, 1958. Perrin, Porter G. Writer's Guide and
Miller, Casey, and Kate Swift. The Indez to English. 4th ed. Revised by
Handbook of Nonsexist Writing. Karl W. Dykema and Wilma R.
New York: Lippincott & Crowell, Ebbitt. Glenview: Scott,
1980. Foresman, 1968.
Nunberg, Geoffrey. "The Decline of Watkins, Floyd C., and William B.
Grammar." Atlantic (December, Dillingham. Practical English
1983): 31-46. Handbook. 6th ed. Boston:
Shaugnessy, Mina P. Errors and Houghton Mifflin, 1982.
Expectations: A Guide for the Teacher
of Basic Writing. New York: Intensive Grammars
Oxford University Press, 1977.
Curme, George 0. English Grammar.
Simon, John. Paradigms Lost. New
New Yark: Barnes and Noble
York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1976.
Books, 1947.
Zinsser, William. On Writing Well: An
Jesperson, Otto. Essentials of English
Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction.
Grammar. University: University
2nd rev. ed. New York: Harper
of Alabama Press, 1964.
and Row, 1980.
Dictionaries
Handbooks of English
The American Heritage Dictionary,
Crews, Frederick. The Random House Second College Edition. Boston:
Handbook. 2nd ed. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1982.
Random House, 1977. The Orford English Dictionary (OED).
Ebbitt, Wilma R., and David R. 13 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
Ebbitt. Writer's Guide and Index to 1888-1933.
English. 7th ed. Glenview: Scott, Webster's Ninth New Collegiate
Foresman, 1981. Dictionary. Springfield: Merriam­
Hodges, John C., and Mary E. Webster, 1983.
Whitten. Harbrace College Webster's Third New International
Handbook. 9th ed. New York: Dictionary. Springfield: G. & C.
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982. Merriam, 1961.
Kierzek, John M., and Walker Webster's II: New Riverside University
Gibson. The Macmillan Handbook Dictionary. Boston: Houghton
of English. 6th ed. Revised by Mifflin, 1984.
A, an, 164. See also Articles. Adverbial phrases and clauses, xix, 41-43, 154
kind of preceding, 184 ambiguity and, 116-17
parallelism and, 63 commas and, 114-17
Absolute construction, commas and, 117 introductory, 119-20
Absolute words, 16, 164-65 Adverbs, xviii-xix, 154-55
Active voice, xvii, 3-6, 11-12, 142 ambiguity and, 23-26
comparative forms of, 154-55
Additives, empty, 13-14
intensive, 15-16
Address, direct, commas and, 117
interrogative, 157
Addresses (street), commas and, 121
introductory, 21-22, 42
Adjectives, xviii, 152-54 position of, 22-29, 41-43
absolute, 16, 164-65 redundant, 15
agreement of, 97 split infinitives and, 22-23
attributive, 153 transitional, 125-26
commas separating, 111 Affect, effect, 165
comparative forms of, 153 After, 41-42, 156-57
coordinate, 111 Agreement, 75-98
demonstrative, 97, 151 of adjectives, 96-97
hybrids and, 158 common sense and, 96
introductory, 21-22 group-to-individual shifts and, 95-96
ly ending and, 154 of nouns, 95-97
nonrestrictive (nondefining), 1 52-53 objects of prepositions and, 97-96
pronoun-antecedent, 88-94
nouns as, 154, 158
subject-verb, 75-88
numerical, 96
All, number of verb after, 81-83
phrases and clauses as, xviii, 40-41, 113-14,
All of, 165
152-53. See also Relative clauses. Along with
position of, 20-22 misplacement of, 40
predicative, 153 parallelism and, 72-74
restrictive (defming), 152-53 singular verbs after, 76-79
redundant, 15 Also, placement of, 25-26
stressing of, 21 A Item ate, a/terna tive, 165-66
superlative, 153 Although, while, 202

209
 INDEX

Ambiguity, 49-50 Articles (a, an, the)

adverbial clauses and, 116-17 kind of preceding, 184
adverbs and, 23-26 with number, 84
commas preventing. 120-21 parallelism and, 63
correlative conjunctions and , 60-61 plural vs. singular subjects and, 78
parallelism and, 61-69, 70-71 relative clauses and, 41
participles and, 30-32 As, 156-57
pronouns and, 104-7 ambiguity of clauses introduced by, 116-17
relative clauses and, 40-41 because vs., 168
than comparisons and, 198 commas before, 115, 116-17, 127
verb placement and, 47-49 equally with, 177
Among if ... than phrase and, 166-67
between vs., 169-70 /il:e VS., 168
misplacement of, 39 missing or superfluous, 166-68
parallelism and, 72-74 opening phrases and, 37-38, 39
Amounts, singular vs. plural status of, 87 since vs., 168
As ... as, 166-68
An, a, 164. See also Articles.
parallelism and, 69
kind of preceding, 184
so ... as vs., 196
parallelism and, 63
Assure, ensure, insure, 168-69
And
As to, 169
commas before, 110-11
As well as
parallelism and, 55-58, 62-69, 73
misplacement of, 39, 51
semicolons before, 131-133
parallelism and, 68
singular subject with terms connected by,
singular verbs after, 78-79
77-78 Author, 169
subject-verb agreement and, 76-78 Auxiliaries, 148
verb ambiguity and, 48-49 Awhile, a while, 169
And/or, 166
Antecedents, xviii, 88-94, 150-51
ambiguous pronouns and, 104-7 Bad, badly , 178
demonstrative pronouns and, 151 Bargain words, 14-16
faulty references for, 98-107 Because
gender problems and, 90-93 ambiguity of clauses introduced by, 116
indefinite pronouns and, 151-52 as vs., 168
commas before, 115-16
misplaced clauses after, 40-43
for or since vs., 179
missing, 98-102
Before, 156-57
number of, 93-94
Being, verbs of, 142-43, 148
obscure, 102-4
agreement of subjects with, 75-88
person and, 89-90
person and, 75
possessives as, 102
pronouns after, 182-83
relative pronouns and, 80-81, 151
wordiness and, 3-6
the preceding, 41
Beside, besides, 169
Anticipate, erpert, 166
Between, among, 169-70
Antithetical elements, 34-35 Between each, between every, 170
Anxious, eager, 166 Born, borne, 170
An y , an y other, 187-188, 198 Both, redundant, 170
Anybody , 93-94 Both ... and, 59-61
An yone, singular verb with, 80 commas and, IZ2
Apostrophe, 149 subject-verb agreement and, 88
Appositives, 33-35 Bring, take, 170
commas and, 113-14 Bui, 156
negative, 34-35 commas before, 110, 127-28
possessive forms and, 34, 38 following ,iot, 27, 123
/\pf. liable, likely , 166 semicolons before, 131-33
But he, but him, 170-71 dates and, 121
By, placement problems and, 36-37 direct address and, 117
discretionary {optional), 124-29
ellipsis indicated by, 121
emphasis and, 126
Can, may, 171
exclamations and, 117
Cannot help but, 171
"fault" or "splice," 131-32
Center around, 171
harmful, 122-24
Certain, 171-72
helpful, 110-21
Circumlocution, l, 13-14. Su also Wordiness.
however and, 126
Circumstances, in the or under the, 172
idiomatic constructions and, 122
Clarity. See Ambiguity.
independent clauses and, 110, 126
Clauses, xvi, 141
interjections and, 117
adjective, xviii, 40-41, 113-14, 152. See also
interpolations and, 117-19, 125-26
Relative clauses.
interrupters and, 117-19, 128-29
adverbial, xix, 41-42, 114-17, 154
introductory modifiers and, 119-20, 125,
as complements, xvii, 144, 149
126-26
conditional (if), 196-97
dependent (subordinate), xvi, xix, 146, 156 misreading prevented by, 120-21
elliptical, 30, 70, 156 nonrestrictive modifers and, 112-19
independent. See Independent clauses. pairs of, 112, 122
modifying, xvii, 146 parallel items and, 110-11, 121, 124, 126
nonrestrictive (nondefining), 152-53, parenthetical elements and, 111-20
198-200. See also Nonrestrictive elements. proper nouns and, 113-14
noun, xviii, 149, 152 quotations and, 122
as objects, xvii, 144 repeated words separated by, 121
parallelism and, 66 restrictive vs. nonrestrictive elements and,
position of, 40-43 112-19, 124, 129, 199
prepositions and, 155-56 semicolons vs., 131-33
relative. See Relative clauses. serial, 110-11, 124
restrictive (defining), 153, 198-200. See also short phrases or clauses and, 125, 126
Restrictive elements. specialized functions of, 121-22
short, 125, 126 summary of uses of, 129-31
as subjects, xvii, 144 that and, 128-29
Collective nouns, 84-65, 94, 149 titles of persons and, 122
Colons, 133-34 transitional words and, 117, 125-26
capitalization after, 134 verbs separated from objects by, 124
dashes vs., 135-36 verbs separated from subjects by, 123
Comic, comical, 181 Comparatives
Commands, 140 absolute modifiers and, 164-65
Commas, 109-31 adjective, 153
absolute construction and, 117 adverbial, 154-55
addresses (street) and, 121 Compare to, compare with, 172
adjective phrases and clauses and, 113-14 Comparisons
adjectives separated by, 111 as and, 166-68
adverbial phrases and clauses and, 114-17 elliptical clauses and, 70
appositives and, 113-14 lib! and, 168
complementary phrases and, 118 of any and, 187-68
compound objects separated by, 124 parallelism and, 69-72
compound subjects separated by, 124 possessives and, 70
compound verbs separated by, 120 so ...as and, 196
conjunctions and, 110, 120, 122-23, 126-29 than and, 197-98
conjunctions separated from independent Complementary phrases, commas and, 118
clauses by, 126-28 Complements, xvii, 142-44
contrasting elements and, 117, 123 clauses as, 144, 149
dashes or parentheses vs., 134-35 compound, 145
212 _________________________INDEX ____;,,::�

Complements (cont.) Demonstrative pronouns, xviii, 151

objective, 143 Denote, connote, 173
phrases as, xvii, 144 Dependent clauses, xvi, xix, 146, 156
predicate, xvii, 143 Different, 174-75
subjective, xvii, 143 Different from, than, and to, 175
subject-verb agreement and, 79 Dilemma, 175
Comprise, compose, 172 Direct objects, xvi, 51, 141
Conciseness, 1-17. See also Wordiness. compound, 145
Condensation, 1-17. See al50 Wordiness. Disagreement problems. See Agreement.
Conjunctions, 156-57 Discreet, discrete, 175
commas and, 110, 120, 122-24, 126-29, Disinterested, uninterested, 175
132-33 Disruptive elements. See Interrupters.
commas surrounding, 126-28 Donate, 177
coordinating. See Coordinating conjunctions. Double genitives, 189
correlative. See Correlative conjunctions. Double prepositions, 175-76
introductory modifiers and, 126-28 Doubt that. whether, and if, 176
parallelism and, 126 Due to, 176
prepositions vs. subordinating, 156-57
semicolons and, 132-33
short clauses and, 126 Each, 93-94
subject-verb agreement and, 76-78, 87-88 betwun with, 170
subordinating. See Subordinating singular verbs with, 80
conj unctions. Each other, one ,mother, 176
Connection problems. See Word-order Eager, anzious, 166
problems. Effect, affect, 165
Connectives. See Conjunctions; Prepositions. Either, singular verbs with, 80
Connive, 172-73 Either of the three, 177
Connole, denote, 173 Either ... or, 59, 60, 66, 187
Consensus, 15, 180 commas and, 122
Consist in, consist oj, 173 subject-verb agreement and, 88
Contact, 173 Ellipsis, commas indicating, 121
Contemporary, 173 Elliptical clauses, 30, 156
Continual, continuous, 173-74 parallelism and, 70--71
Contrasting elements, 34-35 Elliptical phrases, 97
commas and, 117, 123 Employ, use, utilize, 201
however and, 28 Ensure, insure, assure, 168-69
parallelism and, 70-73 Enthuse, 177
Converts (parts of speech), 157-59 Equally as, 177
Convince, persuade, 174 Every, between with, 170
Coordinating conjunctions, xix, 156, 179 E1Jerybod y, 93-94
commas before, 110, 120, 122 Everyday, eoery day, 177
semicolons before, 132-33 Everyone, 75, 93-94
Correlative conjunctions, 58-61, 66-67, 156, every one vs., 177
187 singular verbs with, 80
commas and, 122-23 beep/, misplacement of, 39-40
subject-verb agreement and, 87-88 Exclamations, 146-47
Could care less, 174 commas and, 117
Critique, 174 Excluding, misplacement of, 39
Expect, anticip ate, 166
Expletives, commas and, 117
Dangling participles, 29-31, 34, 159
Dashes, 134-36
Dates, commas and, 121 Faculty, 177
Defining elements. Su Restrictive elements. Farther, further, 177-78
Demonstrative adjectives, 97, 151 Faulty connections. See Word-order problems.
---------------------
INDEX 213

Feel bad or /oadly, 178 Hung, hanged, 180

Fewer, less, 178 Hybrids (parts of speech), 158-59
Finalize, 178-79
Financial terms, 10-11
First, firstly, 179
First person, 89, 150, 182
J, me, 182-83
antecedent agreement and, 89
Flabby sentences. See Wordiness.
Flaunt, flout, 179 than preceding, 197-98
icl irnl words, 181
For, 156
because and since vs., 179 ics ending, singular nouns with, 85-86
Idioms, 22
commas before, 110
commas and, 122
faulty connections and, 36
parallel structure and, 55
semicolons before, 131-33
Foreign words, plurals of, 86-87
lf clauses, 196-97
commas and, 127
Fm gift, 179
From among, 179 If ... th11n phrase with as, 166-67
Ill-matched partners. See Parallelism.
Further, farther, 177-78
Fused participle, 190-91
Impact, 183
Future tenses, 195-96
Imply, infer, 183
1n
into or in lo vs., 183
superfluous expressions introduced by, 15
Gender In addition lo
pronoun-antecedent agreement and, 90-93, misplacement of, 39
107 singular verbs after, 78-79
sexist language and, 90-93 lnclu.ding, misplacement of, 39
Gender, 179-80 independent clauses, xvi, xix, 141, 146
General consensus, 180 commas before, 110, 126
Genitives, double, 189 semicolons before, 131-33
Gerunds, 159 Indicative mood, 196, 197
parallelism and, 57-58, 62 Indirect objects, xvi, 142
placement of, 321 33 compound, 145
possessives and, 190-91 Infer, imply, 183
prepositional phrases and, 32, 39 Infinitives, 148, 158-59
wordiness and, 12 omission of to from, 48, 159
Gel, gal, go/ten, 180 placement of, 32-33
Glossary of questionable usage, 161-205 split, 22-23
Got, gotten, get, 180 Inside of, 183
Graduate, 180 lnslead of, rather fha11 1 192
Grammar, 139-59 Insure, assure, ensure, 166-69
Intensive adverbs, 15-16
Inter[ace, 184
Hanged, hung, 180 Interjections, 157
He, she; him, her, 89, 182-83 commas and, 117
ambiguous antecedents for, 106-7 Interpolations, commas and, 117-19, 125-26
he/she, he or she, and slhe vs., 90-91, 93 Interrogative sentences, compound subjects
obscure antecedents for, 103 and, 76
sexist language and, 90-93 Interrogative words, 152, 157
shifts in number and, 93 Interrupters
Helping verbs, 148 commas and, 117-19, 128-29
Historic, historical, 180-81 dashes or parentheses for, 134-36
Hope{ul/y, 181-82 In the light of, 184
However lnfo, in to, in, 183
commas and, 126 Introductory words
placement of, 27-29 adjectives as, 21-22
Human, 182 adverbs as, 22, 42
214 ____ INDEX

Introductory words /conif.) May

appositives as, 33-34 ran vs., 171
as phrases as, 37-38, 39 might vs., 186
commas after, 119-20., 125, 126-28 May possibly, 186
conjunctions before, iindependent clauses Me, I, 182-83
and, 126-28 antecedent agreement and, 89
hopefully, 181-82 than preceding, 197-98
however, 28-29 Might, may, 186
like phrases as, 37-39 Might possibly, 186
long-winded, 47 Minority, 186
needless, 5-7, 16 Misinterpretation. See Ambiguity.
participles as, 29-30, 119, 126-28 Misplacement of words. See Word-order
preposition.al phrases as, 37-39 problems.
unlike phrases as, 37-��9 Modifiers, xvii, 145-46. Su also Adjectives;
It, 89 Adverbs.
ambiguous antecedenfts for, 105, 107 absolute, 16, 164-65
missing antecedents for, 98, 100-101 clauses as, xvii, 40-46, 146
obscure antecedents for, 103-4 competing, 43-46
Its, it's, 184 extra, 153
iu ending, 178-79 introductory. See Introductory words.
nonrestrictive (nondefining), xvii, 152-53. See
also Nonrestrictive elements.
Jargon. See also Wordiness. phrases as, xvii, 29-40, 43-46, 146
financial, 10-11 position of, 19-46
Join together, 184 precise words and, 14-16
Just mictly, 184 restrictive (defining), xvii, 152-53. See also
Restrictive elements.
subject-verb separation by, 79-81
Kind(s) of, 97-98, 184
Mood, 196-97
Kudos, 86
Myself, 186

Lay, lie, 184-85

Leave, left, 185
Nauseous, nauseated, 186-87
Less, fewer, 178
Needless words. See Wordiness.
Let
Neither, singular verb with, 80
leaue vs., 185
objective case and, 185
Neither ... nor, 59, 60, 66, 187
commas and, 122
Let's, 185
subject-verb agreement and, 87-88
Liable, likely, apt, 166
Lie, la y, 184-85 Nobody, 93-94
Like Nondefining elements. See Nonrestrictive
as vs., 168 elements.
opening phrases and, 37-38 None, number of verb after, 81, 83-84
parallelism and, 72-74 Nonrestrictive (nondefining) elements, xvii,
placement problems �tnd, 38-39 152-53
Likely, apt, liable, 166 adjective, 113-14
linguistic attitudes, 161--64 adverbial, 114-17
Literally, 185-86 commas and, 31, 112-19, 128, 129, 199
/y ending, 21-22, 154-5S participial, 31, 128
ordinal numbers and, 179 that vs. which introducing, 198-200
Lying, laying, 184-85 Nor
commas before, 110
or vs., 187
Majority, 186 semicolons before, 131-33
Man, 90, 91 subject-verb agreement and, 87-88
Not singular verb with, 80-81
followed by but, 27, 123 you vs., 90
placement of, 26-27 One another, each other, 176
Not only ... but (1ilso), 59-61 One or two (things), 97
commas and, 122-23 One's, oneself, 89
subject-verb agreement and, 88 Only, placement of, 26
Not too, 200 On/a, an to, on, 188
Nouns, xviii, 149-50 Opening modifiers. See Introductory words.
as adjectives, 154, 158 Or
agreement of, 95-97 appositives introduced by, 113
attributive, xx, 158 commas before, 110, 113
clauses as, xviii, 149, 152 nor vs., 187
collective, 84-85, 94, 149 parallelism and, 55-58, 63, 64, 73
common, 149 semicolons before, 131-33
concrete, 14-15, 149 subject-verb agreement and, 87-88
feminine forms of, 149-50 verb ambiguity and, 49
masculine forms of, 149 Oral, verbal, 189
parallelism and, 65-66 Order of words. See Word-order problems.
phrases as, xviii, 144 Our, antecedent agreement and, 89
plurals of. See Plurals. Outside, outside of, 175
ponderous, 6-8 Owing to, 176
possessive forms of, 149
proper, 113-14, 149
singular, ending in s, 85-86
Number Pairs, parallelism and, 55-58, 62-67
pronoun-antecedent agreement in, 93-94 Parallelism, 54-74
relative clauses and, 41, �81 articles and, 63
subject-verb agreement in, 76-88 checklist for, 73-74
Number, singular vs. plural verbs with, 84 clarity and, 61-69, 70-71
Numbers, ordinal, noun agreement and, 96 clauses and, 66
commas and, 110-11, 124
comparisons and, 69-72
Objects, 51-53, 141-42 correlative conjunctions and, 58-61, 66-67,
agreement of subjects with, 95-97 156
of clauses. See Clauses. gerunds and, 57-58, 62
clauses as, xvii, 144 incongruities and, 67
commas separating verbs from, 122, 124 nouns and, 57-58, 65-66
complements of, 143 pairs and, 55-58, 62-67
compound, 124, 145 phrases and, 66, 72-73
direct. See Direct objects. prepositions and, 63, 65-66, 72-73
indirect. See Indirect objects. series and, 55-58, 62-64, 73
phrases as, 144 verbs and, 57, 64-65, 68
placement of, 51-53 Parentheses, 134-35
of prepositions, 51, 52-53, 97-98, 155-56 Parenthetical elements
retained, xvii, 142 commas and, 111-20
Of, possessives and, 9, 70, 189-90 dashes or parentheses for, 134-36
OJ 1iny, 187-88 Participles, 148, 159
Off of, 175, 188 ambiguous, 30-31
Of from, 188 dosing, 30-31
On, onto, on ta, 188 dangling, 29-31, 34, 159
On, upon, 188 fused, 190-91
One introductory, 29-30, 119, 126-28
antecedent agreement and, 89-90 nonrestrictive (nondefining), 31
he vs., 89 past, 148, 149, 159
sexist language and, 90 placement of, 29-.32, 34, 159
 INDEX
216 ----------------------

Participles (cont.) Possessives, 149

present, 148, 159 as antecedents for p,ronouns, 102
restrictive (defining), 31, 114 appositives and, 34, 38
very modifying, 201-2 comparisons and, 70
Parts of speech, xviii-xx, 147-59 gerunds and, 190-91
functional classification of, xx, 154, 157-59 of phrases and, 9, 70, 189-90
Passed, past, 189 pronoun, 150, 205
Passive voice, xvii, 3-6, 10, 142, 148 whose, 205
Past, passed, 189 Precise words, 14-16
Past history, 189 Predicate, xv-xvii, 140-41. See also Verbs.
Past tenses, 148-49, 194 simple, xviii, 140
participles forming, 148, 149, 159 Preparatory to, previous to, prior to, 191
subjunctive, 196-97 Prepositions, 155-56
People, persons, 189 a�er antecedents of relative clauses, 40-41
Person, persons, gender problems and, 90 compound, 13
Person, 150 double, 175-76, 188
pronoun-antecedent agreement in, 89-90 faulty connections and, 35-40, 43-46, 51-53
sexist language and, 90-93 gerunds and, 32-33,. 39
verbs and, 75 introductory phrase:s and, 37-40
Persuade, convince, 174 number of verbs folllowing, 78-80
Phrases, 141 objects of, 97-98, IS5-56
adjective, xviii, 113-14, 152 objects separated fmm, 51, 52-53
adverbial, xix, 114-17, 154 parallelism and, 63--64, 65-66, 72-73
appositive, 33-34 sentences ending wiith, 155
comp lement, xvii, 144 subordinating conjunctions vs., 156-57
contrasting, 34-35 wordiness and, 8-14
elliptical, 97 Presently, 191
expendable, 8-11 Present tenses, 148, 194-95
gerund, 32-33 participles forming, 148, 159
infinitive, 32-33 subjunctive, 197
interrupting, 117-19 Previau5 to, preparatory ta, prior to, 191
introductory. See Introductory words. Principal, principle, 191
modifying, xvii, 146 Prior ta, preparatory to, previous to, 191
nonrestrictive (nondefining). See Prolixity. See Wordiness.
Nonrestrictive elements. Prone, 191
noun, xviii, 144 Pronouns, xviii, 150-52
as object, 144 ambiguous, 104-7
parallelism and, 65-66, 72-73 antecedents of. See Antecedents.
participial, 159 but with, 170-71
prepositional, xix, 32-33, 155-56 case of, 182-83, 202�-5
restrictive (defining). See Restrictive collective nouns and, 94
elements. demonstrative, xviii, 151
as subject, 144 gender problems arnd, 90-93
verb, xvi, 29-33, 140. See also Verbals. indefinite, xviii, 151-52
Placement of words. See Word-order indefinite relative, 152, 157
problems. intensive, 152, 186
Plurals, 149 interrogative, 152, 157
collective nouns and, 84-85 number of, 80-85, 93-94
foreign words and, 86-87 personal, xviii, 150. See also specific
pronoun, 150, 151 pronouns.
quantities and, 87 plural, 150, 151
singular nouns vs., confusion of, 84-87 possessive, 150, 205i
subject, 76-88, 95-96 reciprocal, 152
verb, 76-88 reference errors and, 98-107
Position of words. See Word-order problems. reflexive, 152, 186
 relative. See Relative clauses; Relative s ending, singular nouns with, 85-86
pronouns. Second person, 89, 150
sexist language and, 90-93 one vs., 90
than preceding, 197-96 Semicolons, 131-33
Proper nouns, 1 49 colons vs., 133
commas and, 113-14 independent clauses and, 110, 131-32
Proved, proven, 191-92 series with commas and, 133
Punctuation, 108--36 Sentences
colons, 133-34 baggy. See Wordiness.
commas, 109-31. See also Commas. complex, xvi, 146
dashes, 134-36 compound, xvi, 146
parentheses, 134-35 compound-complex, xvi, 146
purposes of, 106-9 definition of, 141
rhetorical, 109 groups of words as elements of, 144-45
semicolons, 110, 131-33 inverted, 76, 147
misplaced elements of, 16-53
opening of. See Introductory words.
Quantities, singular vs. plural status of, 67 structure of, xv-xvii, 139-47
Questionable usage, 161-205 types of, 146-47
Quite, 192 Sequence of tenses, 194-95
Quotation marks, so-<.alled and, 196 Series
Quotations, commas and, 122 commas in, 110-11, 124
parallelism and, 55-58, 62-64, 73
semicolons and, 133
Sexist language, 90-93
Rather lhan, 192 Shall, will, 195-96
Reaclio11, 192 Slhe, 91
Reason, redundant, 192-93 She, he. See He, she.
Redundancy, 15 Should, would, 195-96
Reference-of-pronoun errors, 98-10'7. See also Similar lo, parallelism and, 72-73
Antecedents. Since
Regret/ably, regretfully, 161-82 as vs., 168
Relationship, relation, 193 commas before, 116
Relative clauses, 151, 155-56 for or because vs., 179
misplacement of, 40-41 Singular. See Plurals.
number and, 41, 80-81
So
prepositional phrases separating, 40-41
commas before, 110, 131
that vs. which introducing, 198-200
semicolons before, 131-33
the before antecedents of, 41
so that vs., 196
who vs. whom introducing, 202-5
wordiness and, 12
So ... as vs. as ... a5, 196
Relative pronouns, xviii, 151, 152. See also So-called, 196
Relative clauses. So that, so, 196
omitted (understood}, 155-56 Staff, singular vs. plural sense of, 85
position of, 40-41 S ubjects, xv-xvi, 140-41
singular vs. plural, 80-81 agreement of verbs with, 75-88
Repetition, 9 alternative, 87-88
Respective, respectively, 193 of clauses. See Cla uses.
Restive, 193-94 clauses as, xvii, 144
Restrictive (defining) elements, xvii, 152-53 commas separating compound, 124
adjective, 113-14 commas separating verbs from, 123
adverbial, 114-17 complements of, xvii, 143
commas and, 31, 112-19, 124, 129, 199 compound, 76-79, 124, 144
participial, 31, 114 interrogatives and, 76
that vs. which introducing, 198-200 interrupters separating verbs from, 118
218 ----------- - - - - - - -
- -----'--
INDEX

Subjects (wnt.) Third person, 89, 150

modifiers separating verbs from, 79-80 number of antecedents and, 93-94
phrases as, 144 vs. one, 90
placement problems and, 46-49 sexist language and, 90-93
plural, 76-88, 96 verbs and, 75
singular objects with plural, 96 This
subject matter vs., xvi adjective agreement and, 97
subverted by other words, 79-81 missing antecedents for, 98-99
wordiness of, 46-47 Those. See These, those.
Subjunctive mood, 196-97 Titles of persons, commas and, 122
Subordinate clauses. Su Dependent clauses. Together with
Subordinating conjunctions, xix, 156-57 parallelism and, 72-74
Substantives, 150, 151 singular verbs after, 78-79
Superfluousness. Su Wordiness. Too, 200
Superlatives, 153 Transitional words
Supine, prone, 191 commas and, 117, 125-26
Syntax, 139-59. See also Word-order problems. however, 28
Type(s) of, 97-98, 184

Take, bring, 170

Tenses, 148-49, 194-96 Uninterested, disinterested, 175
future, 195-96 Unique, 164-65
past. See Past tense. Unlike
present. See Present tense. opening phrases and, 37-38
sequence of, 194-95 parallelism and, 72-74
subjunctive mood and, 196-97 placement problems and, 38-39
Than, 197-98 Upon, on, 188
parallelism of element following, 70-72 Us, we, 183
That Usage glossary, 161-205
adjective agreement and, 97 Use, uliliu, employ, 201
ambiguous function of, 50
as conjundion, 157
interruptive mo difiers following, 128-29 Verbal, ort:il, 189
misplacement of, 40-41 Verbals, 158-59
omission of, before noun clauses, 50 placement of, 29-33
parallelism and, 64, 66 tense of, 194
repeated, 199 wordiness and, 3
vague antecedents for, IOI Verbiage. See Wordiness.
verb agreement with, 80, 8 1 Verbs, xv-xviii, 140-41, 147-49
which vs., 198-200 absence of, 146-47
who vs., 200 active, xvii, 3-6, 11-121 142
Thal of, 200 adverb position and, 23
comparisons and, 69-70 agreement of subjects with, 75-88
The. Su also Articles. auxiliary (helping), 148
relative clauses and, 41 of being, 142-43. See also Being, verbs of.
There, verb number and, 77 colons following, 134
These, those commas separating compound, 12.0
adjective agreement and, 97-98 commas separating objects from, 124
vague antecedents for, 101 commas separating subjects from, 123
They, them, their, 182-83 complements of, xvii, 142.-43
agreement problems and, 89, 93-94 compound, UO, 145
ambiguous antecedents for, 106, 107 interrupters separating subjects from, ll8
missing antecedents for, 102 intransitive, 141
obscure antecedents for, 104 irregular, 148-49
sexist language and, 91-93 linking (copulative), 142-43
INDEX
--------------------- 219

modifiers separating subjects from, 79-80 that vs., 200

objects of, 51-52, 141-42. See also Objects. verb agreement with, 80-81, 205
parallelism in, 57-58, 64-65, 68 whom vs., 202-5
passive, xvii, 3-6, 10, 142, 148 Whoever, whomever, 204
person and, 75 Whom, 202-5. See also Who.
phrases as {verb phrases) xvi, 23, 140. Su Whose, who's, 205
also Verbals. ambiguous antecedents for, 105
placement problems and, 46-49 Will, shall, 195-96
plural, 76-88 wise as suffix, 205
recognition of, 147-48 With phrases, 35-36
root forms of, 148 Wordiness, 1-17
strong, 14-15 implicitness and, 16-17
tense of, 148, 194-96 ponderous nouns and, 6-8
transitive, 141-43 precise words and, 14-16
voice of, 142, 148 prepositions and, 8-14
weak, 3-6 routine condensing and, 11-14
wordiness between subjects and, 46-47 verb weakness and, 3-6
Very, 15-16 Word-order problems, 18-53
very much vs., 201-2 adjective, 20-22
Via, 202 adverb, 22-29
Voice, 142, 148 ambiguous word usage and, 49-50, 104-7
active, xvii, 3-6, 11-12, 142 appositive, 33-34
passive, xvii, 3-6, 10, 142, 148 clauses and, 40-46
contrasting phrase, 34-35
modifiers and, 19-46
Was, subjunctive and, 196-97 multiple modifiers and, 43-46
We, 183 object, 51-53
antecedent agreement and, 89, 90 prepositional phrase, 35-40, 43-46
Wm, subjunctive and, 196-97 pronoun, 104-7
What, number of verb after, 81-82 structural, 46-53
When clauses, 42 subject-verb connection and, 46-49, 79-81
commas before, 115 verbal phrase, 29-33
Whereas, while, 202 Would, should, 195-96
Which
agreement of verbs with, 80
missing antecedents for, 98, 99-100
Iha/ vs., 198-200 Yet
While, 202 commas before, 110
commas and, 128 semicolons before, 131-33
Who You
antecedent agreement with, 80, 89 antecedent agreement and, 89, 93
than preceding, 198 one vs., 90
 The MLA's LINE BY LINE
How to Edit Your Own Writing
Some of the author's examples, before and after editing:

BEFORE AFTER
"Queen Elizabeth read the speech, which "With the aid of ha lf-moon glasses,
was handed to her by the 71-year-old Lord Queen Elizabeth read the speech handed
Halisham, the Lord Chancellor, with the to her by the 71-year-old Lord Halisham,
aid of half-moon glasses." the Lord Chancellor."
"In the present paper l propose to deal "One type of interdisciplinary curriculum
with one type of interdisciplinary curricu­ borrows material from the related depart ­
lum which can be built upon material bor­ men ts without necessarily borrowing
rowed from related departments, whether their faculty members. In other words, oc­
or not the specialists in these related de­ casionally a generalist, without a Ph.D. in
partments choose to teach the interdisci­ a contributing field, may teach a course."
plinary offerings so constructed. By this
remark I am recognizing the fact that occa­
sionally a generalist who does not hold a
Ph.D. in any of the specialized fields that
have made a contribution to the construc­
tion of such interdisciplinary course offer­
ings ma y be the one to take on the
responsibility for teaching the courses so
constructed, rather than a specialist from
one of the contributing areas."
"If the heat in your building goes off, get "If the heat in your building goes off,
an extension cord, plug it into your electric wrap yourself in an electric blanket
blanket, and wrap it around you." plugged into an extension cord."
"Once you know th e answer seems "O nce you know, the answer
• seems
obvious." obvious."
"In pointing out the dangers of nicotine, "In pointing out the dangers of nicotine,
the surgeon general is not only referring to the surgeon general is referring not only to
smoking cigarettes but also chewing smoking cigarettes but also to chewing
tobacco." tobacco."

46442 .01028

H-01028 ISBN 0-395-38'144-5