Category: Writing & Grammar

by Jennie Ruby

I am happy to report that, at least among readers of this newsletter, the past perfect is not dead. I received a lot of corrected sentences properly using the past perfect. Here, from Kris Westrum, are the corrected sentences:

1. If I had had my coat on yesterday when the downpour started, I would not have gotten so wet.
2. Although Tadd had his umbrella, his briefcase still got wet. (past tense)
3. I went out the door, picked up the paper, and walked to my car; then I realized that I had forgotten my keys.
4. The meeting was cancelled because the room reservation had not been made.
5. Because the field was not yet dry, the soccer game was postponed. (past tense)

In addition to many correct answers, we received some discussions and alternatives that bring up additional issues. For example, Linda EllisEnright explains why number 2 is correct:

Although Tadd had his umbrella, his briefcase still got wet. (OK as is, because the two events are happening at the same time, not one before the other.)

She also raises an interesting issue:

Incidentally, if the sentence started with "if" instead of "although," I think it would need the past perfect, but I can't quite explain why.

If Tadd had had his umbrella, his briefcase might not have gotten wet.

She is correct that using if would change the situation to one that requires the past perfect.

Why? When you are setting up a conditional expression (a clause starting with if), and you know that the condition that you are proposing was not true (saying "if he had had his umbrella," when I already know for a fact that he did not have his umbrella), you must use the subjunctive mood of the verb. To indicate the subjunctive mood in the past, you use one tense further past than normal–in this case, had had instead of just had.

The second part of the sentence also uses the subjunctive, because that part is also talking about something that we know is not true. Here, the subjunctive helping verb might, as well as the past perfect have gotten, indicates the subjunctive mood.

Linda also comments correctly on number 5:

Because the field was not yet dry, the soccer game was postponed. (Being wet was the state of the field at the same time as the soccer game was postponed. The two things happened simultaneously.)

OR (also OK):

Because the field had not yet dried, the soccer game was postponed. (I think this works because it is equivalent to saying "Because the field had not yet finished drying…" The sentence is referring to the moment that the field would have finished drying, which would have occurred (if at all) prior to the postponement).

In sum, we see from these sentences the two main uses of the past perfect:

1. To indicate that one past event happened before another past event
2. To create the subjunctive in the past

Thanks go out to Kay Honaker, Andrea Mitchell, Jon Chambers, Michelle C. McCready, and Jen Stamey for their corrected sentences. Good job on (almost) all of them!

My question for next week is whether you enforce a distinction between "over" and "more than."

1. (Over/more than) five years ago, we started publishing the survey results monthly.
2. The report was due (over/more than) a week ago.
3. The lot holds (over/more than) 300 head of cattle.
4. Three people scored (over/more than) 100 on the test.
5. There were (over/more than) 200 people in the lobby.

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

Last week I asked readers to tell us how they format a numbered list. I received several responses. Here is a sampling: 

Kris Westrum explains the rational behind treating numbered lists differently in text versus in list form:

I never use parentheses around numbers in vertical numbered lists because the numbers stand out so nicely. But I always use them in lists in sentence form in order to set them off from surrounding text and punctuation.

 

Linda Craig adds to that the important point that treatment of lists should be consistent:

 I use the following

1. This

2. Is

3. A

4. Sample

I think you can use any form as long as it is consistent throughout the list.

Unless there is a definite reason for using numbers I prefer to use bullet points.

She also has a good point about bullets versus numbers: if the order does not matter, use bullets.

Lisa Heil gives us the traditional business option of using a parenthesis after the number in a vertical list. Although this style is not typically used in publishing, it is often used in business writing. Also major points for the cleverness of how she made her answer into a list!

Here is how I treat numbered lists:

1. I use a period.

2) Or I use a single parenthesis on the right.

3) I always make the list vertical.

4) That way each item stands out more clearly.

Thank you to all our correspondents this week!

My concern for next week is our disappearing past perfect tense. Let us know what you think of these examples–are they right or wrong–and I'll discuss them next time:

1. If I had my coat on yesterday when the downpour started, I would not have gotten so wet.
2. Although Tadd had his umbrella, his briefcase still got wet.
3. I went out the door, picked up the paper, and walked to my car; then I realized that I forgot my keys.
4. The meeting was cancelled because the room reservation was not made.
5. Because the field was not yet dry, the soccer game was postponed.

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

Results are in for last week's question about the meaning of this sentence:

My boyfriend loves soccer more than me.

The choices were A and B:

1. My boyfriend loves soccer more than I do.
2. My boyfriend loves soccer more than he loves me.

By a large margin, you readers said it means B. Literally, in print, that is the official meaning. But this was more of a survey than a quiz, because even though that is the way this sentence should be understood in print, most people don't use sentences like this one correctly in the spoken language. So if you said A, that is still a valid choice-for the spoken word.

My question for discussion next week is this: how would you spell and punctuate these possessives?

1. We went to Mike and Sues house for dinner. [Mike and Sue are a couple and co-own the house.]
2. There were so many of us that we had to take both Mike and Deweys cars. [we took two cars, one belonging to Mike and one belonging to Dewey]
3. George said that we should take Mike and his's cars.
4. I think we can all fit in Mike and I's car.

Send us your answers and I will post the results here. [Hint: a past article on our blog might give some insight.]

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

Comparisons involving pronouns are a trouble spot in English. The trouble arises from the fact that when speaking, we hear the comparison words than, as, and like as being prepositions. After a preposition, you use the object form of a pronoun, like this:

*She is taller than me.

*My nephew sneezes just like him.

*Jason is as tall as him.

I've marked these with asterisks because these sentences would generally be considered wrong in print. During the 18th century, when scholars in Europe were codifying the rules of English grammar, a decision was made to treat these comparison words as conjunctions rather than prepositions. In that situation, you don't necessarily use the object form of the pronoun. Instead, you see the conjunction as joining two statements, and the second statement should logically have the same complete grammar as the first one, whether you actually state the additional words or not:

• She is taller than I [am].
• My nephew sneezes just like he [sneezes or does].
• Jason is as tall as he [is].
• The joke offended him more than [it offended] me.

This means that sometimes you get the subject form of the pronoun, as in the first three examples, and sometimes you get the object form, as in the last example. One of my favorite grammar books advises always including the words that complete the comparison, so that your reader understands why you have chosen that particular pronoun.

According to Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, surveys have shown that in print, the majority of people will see the objective pronouns in the first set of sentences as incorrect. I'm guessing that those very same people use the other method in speech!

The upshot of all this is that in speaking, most of us use the first set of examples, treating comparison words as prepositions, but in writing, it is better to be safe and use the "complete the comparison" method. That way, we can be sure that readers will think we got it right.

Beyond that, misunderstanding about the pronoun can even create ambiguity:

• My boyfriend loves soccer more than me.

 

Which meaning do you think this sentence has:

1. My boyfriend loves soccer more than I do.
2. My boyfriend loves soccer more than he loves me.

What do you think? Go ahead and post your comments!

***

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.

This week I am reading The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. It confirms an important part of what I teach in my proofreading and editing classes: Use a checklist. Although the book is written by a physician for application in the medical field, the points it makes are ones that I have been familiar with for decades in publishing.

The main point is that the human brain is not as consistent and infallible as we wish it were. Merely knowing facts, knowing how to do a procedure, and knowing the consequences of failure will not get us to the highest level of accuracy in actually accomplishing things. We forget details, even though we know them and know that they are important.

The solution? Make checklists and use the checklists, whether you think you need them or not. For years I was filled with anxiety when packing for business trips. Would I forget my flash drive? Would I forget my good shoes? One time I did forget my socks, and had to give a presentation wearing the crazy-expensive and uncomfortably snug "support hose" that were the only socks available in the nearby drugstore.

The solution? You've got it. A packing checklist. For years, I used a blueline checklist when checking the final printer's proofs for scientific journals. It prevented the occupational hazard of waking up in the middle of the night and wondering, "Did I remember to check the copyright date?" and the like.

And a mental checklist rather than a written one is not as effective. The short mental checklist of shut the windows, turn off the electricity, take out the trash, and so on recently failed me when leaving a vacation cabin. Days later a neighbor called frantically to tell me the front door was standing open, having been left unlocked! We were luckily not robbed, but you can be sure a written checklist will be in use the next time I go there.

Some of you noticed my failure to use a checklist two weeks ago to remind myself to log in to the Acrobat review of this newsletter and proofread my work. I incorrectly used an apostrophe in the word expression's in the first sentence of my article about apostrophes!

Do you have a success story about a checklist? Do you have a horror story that drove you to create one? We'd love to hear from you.

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

Lately I've been hearing a lot of people use expressions like Jennie and I's house. The most alarming use, perhaps, was in a sentence very much like this one: "All of the editing and proofing is handled by Jennie and I's department." When the head of the editing department struggles with a grammatical issue, you know it is a bad one.

As I discussed last week, having a person's name and a personal pronoun in the same sentence seems to make our normal ear for grammar go out the window. Surely no head of an editing department would ever say "I's department." So the solution to this problem is just about the same as the solution I offered last week: leave the other person's name out, choose your correct pronoun, and then add the other person back in: "Jennie and my department.*"

However, that is not quite where the grammar books leave us [my source is The Gregg Reference Manual]. We need to also make sure that it is clear that Jennie also has ownership of the department.

Separate possession with two names:

Jane's and Sam's cars are in the parking lot.

[They own separate cars.]

Joint possession with two names:

Jane and Sam's car is in the parking lot.

[They co-own one car. Think of this as taking the phrase Jane and Sam and adding an apostrophe-s to it.]

Joint possession with one name and one pronoun:

Jane's and his car is in the parking lot.

[They co-own one car, but since the pronoun "his" doesn't really apply to Jane, you have to add an apostrophe s to her name to make it clear that she is also one of the owners.]

Separate possession with one name and one pronoun:

Jane's and his cars are in the parking lot.

[Notice that this looks the same as joint possession, but the use of plural for cars makes it clear that they each have a separate car.]

So the right way to say the problem sentence we started with?

All of the editing and proofing is handled by Jennie's and my department.

Note: The asterisk (*) indicates an example illustrating incorrect grammar or usage.

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

First, a point of clarification re last week's contest: we had more than two dozen entries, not just several. Second, an excellent question was raised on the blog: how much re-writing can be allowed on something like this before the meaning is changed?When I set up the contest, I did have in mind just ridding the existing text of redundancies. That is exactly what the majority of contestants did, and I categorized those entries as "editing." The other entries were complete rewrites; in other words, they were substantive edits. I rewarded those entries because they went above correcting the text and attempted to address the needs of readers in new and creative ways. However, that kind of editorial rewrite is not always welcome.

The distinction between substantive editing and copyediting is important in any kind of publishing or editing work, and it goes straight to the question of your level of authority over the text.

If you are the writer of a text, you typically have complete authority over it. That means you can do anything you want: delete words, delete entire sentences, shorten or lengthen sentences, change word choices, change the tone, make it say something entirely different from the original version, change the overall length, and so on.

If you are editing someone else's writing, your level of authority differs with the situation. Magazine or newsletter editors whose main goal is to serve the needs of their readers may have complete authority over the text writers submit for publication. Academic copyeditors, on the other hand, have little authority over the content, organization, and meaning, but have a great deal of authority over the mechanical details, such as how to define acronyms on first use, whether to italicize or underline book titles mentioned in text, whether to spell out numbers, and the like.

Level of authority is something to clarify with your supervisor, with the writer of the text, or with the client who hires you as an editor. Pinpointing your level of authority may involve factors such as whether you are the boss of the person who wrote the text, whether you are lower or higher in the organizational hierarchy than the writer, whether you are an authority on the content, and what stage of production the material is in. If the material is in its final production stages and the deadline is tomorrow, you will minimize your editorial changes regardless of your authority level.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the contest. It was great fun to see person after person nail all of the redundancies. We'll do another one soon.

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

The results of last week's redundancy contest were astonishing. We received several replies, all of them excellent improvements on the original redundant (and wordy) example. To judge the contest, we had to be brutal.

 

Contestants were asked to send in a list of the redundancies in the following paragraph, along with a rewrite:

 

You walk up to an ATM machine and enter your PIN number. While you are there, you print out a hard copy of your statement so you can check on the past history of your account. The reason you need a printout is because your total balance seems too high, and you want to make absolutely certain your rent check has cleared.

The first cut was made by disqualifying everyone who changed "walk up to" to "walked to." Some prepositions following a verb are redundant (as was "check on" in our example), but others actually complete or change the meaning of the verb. Think of the difference between "to follow up" and "to follow" or between "to throw out" and "to throw." Here, removing the word "up" changed the meaning from "approach" to something more like "hike to."

Second, the entries fell into three categories: editing the text to remove the redundancies, rewriting the text to make it more concise, and rewriting the text as a training document.

In the editing category, anyone who missed a redundancy (e.g. ATM machine or PIN number) was cut. Second (I said we had to be brutal), anyone who made a punctuation error was eliminated. The most common punctuation boo-boos were adding a comma in a compound predicate and adding a comma before a trailing subordinate clause.

In the rewriting category, the competition came down to cleverness and word count. And in the training category, cleverness and conciseness won the day.

And so, without further ado, here are the winners of the redundancy elimination contest:

In the editing category, coming in third at 36 words, is Sheri Kraft:

You walk up to an ATM, enter your PIN, and print out your statement so you can check on your account because your balance seems high and you want to see if your rent has cleared.

In the rewriting category, coming in second at 28 words, is Karla Marsh:

You want to view your account history to be certain your rent check has cleared, so you go to an ATM, enter your PIN, and print your statement.

In the rewriting category, coming in first at 25 words, is Jim Dages:

While at an ATM, you notice your balance seems too high so you print a statement to verify the rent check has cleared.

In the training category, coming in first at 16 words, is Charles Ormiston:

To make certain a check has cleared: 

1. Approach an ATM

2. Enter your PIN

3. Print your statement 

And our overall winner, from the rewrite category, is again Charles Ormiston, with 24 words:

You want to make certain your rent check has cleared, so you walk up to an ATM, enter your PIN and print your statement.

Thanks to all who participated.

 

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

How many redundancies can you spot in the paragraph below? 

 

You walk up to an ATM machine and enter your PIN number. While you are there, you print out a hard copy of your statement so you can check on the past history of your account. The reason you need a printout is because your total balance seems too high, and you want to make absolutely certain your rent check has cleared.

 

Some of the redundancies may be obvious, but others have become such habitual usage that it sounds funny to us to eliminate them. Redundant expressions may occur partly because we want to make sure we are understood. If our reader could miss one word, we add a second as a backup. Others probably occur because we have forgotten what an acronym stands for, or we have forgotten what we said earlier in the sentence.

 

As the classic book on writing style, Strunk & White says: "Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence must have no unnecessary words; a paragraph, no unnecessary sentences." But should redundancies always be eliminated? We would love to hear your thoughts on that question.

Plus, send in a list of the redundancies in the ATM paragraph above, along with a rewrite of the paragraph. Winning entries will be announced next week.

 

 

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.