Month: February 2011

by Jennie Ruby

OK, I know we all love the police talk. Law & Order, CSI, COPS, etc. have made police blotter jargon extremely popular. Legalistic language is everywhere. You can even hear little kids saying things like "Please move your vehicle" and moms saying "You have parked your bicycle in an illegal manner." I get it. I understand. I just read a Grisham novel myself. But let's try to at least impose a modicum of grammatical correctness while we are making statements like this: 

"The perp was apprehended on the premise/s."

I have seen the singular form of the word premise incorrectly used to mean a home or place of business at least 10 times in the past two weeks. Here's how it works: a premise, the singular form of the word, is a proposition or a kind of hypothesis. It is a working supposition one uses in logic problems. And of course, you can have several propositions, or premises.

That's where the legal term enters. The premises are the preexisting properties–grounds and buildings–upon which a lease or mortgage is based. In this sense, the plural word premises is always used. A good memory aid is to substitute the word grounds where you would use the word premises.

They found the miscreant on the grounds.

They apprehended the perp on the premises.

The first sentence means they found the person on the lawn or on the property surrounding a building. Notice that if you substituted the singular word ground, the meaning would be completely different. Then it would mean they found the person maybe either lying on the ground or on foot, rather than, say, in a car or helicopter. Similarly, if you used the singular word premise, the sentence would nonsensically mean that they found the perp on a logical proposition.

Now that you know what is what with this word, I am betting you will notice people using it incorrectly in the news, in print, on the radio. One last note: when you hear television police officers or newscasters use the word, you might hear them pronouncing it "premisis." There is no such word.  

Are you an eLearning developer who has been tasked with creating an effective voiceover script? If so, consider attending my Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts class. I also teach the Writing Training Documents and eLearning Scripts class.

About the Author:  Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Editing with Word 2003 and Acrobat 7" and "Editing with MS Word 2007" to her credit. She is a publishing professional with more than 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.

by Jennie Ruby

To be, or not to be, asked Hamlet, making those two infinitives among the most well-known phrases in English. An infinitive is a verb form with the word to in front of it, in the form to verb. To be, to think, to ski, and so on.

We use these verb forms as nouns, as adverbs, and as adjectives. But one thing is for sure: these verb forms are never used as the verb in a sentence, and therefore will never have a subject. That is why if the word who/m happens to be in front of an infinitive, it is not the subject of the infinitive.

Here are some problem sentences:
 

He wondered who/m to hire as the new ski instructor.

Jimmy asked who/m to ski behind.

They told us who/m to see to order the new equipment.

To determine whether to use who or whom, you try to figure out whether the word who is the subject of any verb. In all of these examples, the word who has a verb form immediately after it. But those verb forms are all infinitives. And since infinitives do not have subjects, the word who is not the subject of any of them. Since who is not the subject of any verb in these sentences, all of them should say whom:
 

He wondered whom to hire as the new ski instructor.

Jimmy asked whom to ski behind.

They told us whom to see to order the new equipment.

The whole infinitive thing is just one more reason who versus whom is one of the hardest parts of English grammar. Just remember–an infinitive never has a subject. 

Are you an eLearning developer who has been tasked with creating an effective voiceover script? If so, consider attending my Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts class. I also teach the Writing Training Documents and eLearning Scripts class.

About the Author:  Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as "Editing with Word 2003 and Acrobat 7" and "Editing with MS Word 2007" to her credit. She is a publishing professional with more than 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.