The Logical Blog

By starting with the unique subject and a specific action, you create a strong and interesting sentence. However, many of us don't write our training and business documents that way. Instead, we distance ourselves and our readers from the content of our sentences by using "false subjects." A false subject is the word there or it serving as a placeholder for the true subject. The nonaction verb to be follows, typically in the form of is, are, was, or were, acting as a placeholder for the true action of the sentence.

And where are the true subject and the true action hidden? The true subject might appear after the verb:

There was an angry chickadee chasing a marauding squirrel from the feeder.

But sometimes the subject might not be included in the sentence at all, as the action becomes passive:

There was a squirrel being chased from the feeder.

The cure for this distancing and uninteresting writing style is to (1) notice a false subject at the beginning of a sentence, (2) identify the true subject or actor (who may not even be mentioned in the sentence), and (3) identify the true verb. Once you have identified all of the important content, reconstruct the sentence with the true subject first, then the true verb. Thus,

There are two different ways that a mailbox can be installed.

First I notice the false subject and nonaction verb: "there are." Then I look for the true subject or actor. The true actor is not even in the sentence. To decide on a true actor, I have to think about who would install a mailbox. I could just say "a person," but a more specific person would be better. Maybe a mail carrier or a building contractor installs the mailbox. Or maybe I am talking directly to the reader "you."

Next I determine the action or true verb. In this case "installed."

Now I put the true actor and the action verb at the front of the sentence:

You can install a mailbox one of two ways.

Try that process on these sentences. Feel free to invent true actors if they are not present in the sentence. Add action verbs as needed. I can't wait to read your improvements. I expect your suggestions will make the text below far more interesting and stronger.

1. There are two places you can edit a resource calendar: the Working Time tab of the Resource Information dialog box and the Change Working Time dialog box.
2. There is a widespread misperception that search fields are case sensitive.
3. It is difficult for voting rights advocates to prove in federal court that packing minority voters into majority-minority districts diminishes their ability to elect candidates of choice.
4. There is an average wait time for tables of more than 40 minutes.
5. It is sometimes desirable to convert user-defined missing values to nulls.
6. There is one simple query that can be issued that allows you to select all records from a table but display only a specified column.

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If you love Jennie's articles, you'll love her classes. Join her online and learn about Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Step-by-Step Scripts and Training Documents.

In the first example, there is no reason for a comma afteralthough. The word although is not a transition word ( likehowever, therefore, or moreover). Instead, although is a "subordinating conjunction." It creates a subordinate clause and is actually part of the clause.

In the second example, the comma after although appears to form a pair with the comma after warm, making the introductory clause "when the water is warm" look as though it is parenthetical, or nonessential. However, it is not nonessential, because if you remove it from the sentence, the part about "that day the water was cold" becomes a non sequitur.

Let's look at an example where the word although is actually followed by an interruption, rather than by an introductory clause:

Although, as Pete said, the rain stopped by midnight, the stream was still flooded at 6 am.

The interrupter "as Pete said" is surrounded by commas, meaning you can leave it out and the sentence does not suffer a loss of meaning.

In speech people sometimes pause after the word althoughwith index finger raised, quizzical look on face, appearing to think of a new thought that contradicts what they just said and that might make them change their mind. In these cases, people tend to pronounce the word although in a long, drawn out manner with an emphasis in the middle: al-THOUGH-ohhh. Their words might be punctuated like this:

I intend to fire Jim–although–didn't he just win a new account? [I might be changing my mind.]

The dashes indicate interrupted thought and a complete departure from the gist of the sentence. A comma would not be a strong enough punctuation mark to indicate this kind of interruption. Contrast that with this:

I intend to fire Jim, although [or even though] he just won a new account. [I'm still going to fire him.]

I intend to purchase a new laptop, although my old one still works.

By far the majority of sentences with although in everyday business, training, or marketing are these ordinary uses, not the long, drawn out because-I-might-be-changing-my-mind types of sentences. So, I return to my original statement: don't use a comma after although.

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If you love Jennie's articles, you'll love her classes. Join her online and learn about Writing Effective eLearning Voiceover Scripts and eLearning: Writing Step-by-Step Scripts and Training Documents.

1. Our office does not use these old-style floppy disks any more. I think we should throw them out.
2. What will the meeting be about?
3. Whom am I speaking to?
4. I informed the client where the meeting is at.
5. Which tunnel are we going through?
6. This is a reminder that the east building is the one we are going to.

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After I read John M. Widen's entry for last week's challenge, I realized that no more need be said: 

1. black coffee cup
   • Please wash my black-coffee cup. Someone put cream in it.
2. cheap jug wine
   • If I decanted my wine into an inexpensive ceramic container, I might refer to it as my cheap-jug wine.
3. long range plan
   • My long range-plan for the rifle club was written on a roll of butcher paper.
4. orange sofa pillow
   • I chose lime green for the orange-sofa pillow. Of course I have no taste in colors or syntax.
5. free range chicken
   • Any poultry that escapes the rifle club might be called free range-chicken, or not.
6. broken CD tower
   • I should throw those old disks away instead of storing them in my broken-CD tower.
7. grape seed oil
   • It's easier to plant new vineyards if you lubricate the planter with grape seed-oil.
8. orange juice maker
   • While celebrating Holi in Mumbai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holi) we bought drinks from the orange juice-maker.    
9. lower back pain
   • I have lower-back pain so I engaged a chiropractor who promised to lower back-pain.
10. red leaf lettuce
    • There is a head-forming red-leaf lettuce but I prefer the taste of red leaf-lettuce.

And here are the correct answers sent to me by Ginny Supranowitz:

1. black coffee cup
2. cheap jug wine
3. long-range plan
4. orange sofa pillow
5. free-range chicken
6. broken CD tower
7. grape-seed oil
8. orange-juice maker
9. lower back pain (I think lower-back could be hyphenated, but we all know what it means without the hyphen.)
10. red-leaf lettuce