Good Grammar and Capitalization

Proper capitalization is one of the cornerstones of good grammar, yet many people fling capital letters around carelessly.

Not every word deserves to be capitalized. It’s an honor that must be warranted, and in writing, capitalization is designated only for very special words.

Capitalization of Titles

Keep in mind that there are several contexts in which we can examine capitalization. For example, when writing a title (of a blog post, for example), almost all of the words in the title are capitalized. This is called Read more

Word Pairs: Who vs. Whom

It sounds pretty old fashioned: To whom have you sent those letters? Modern colloquial speakers expect something more along the lines of Who did you send those letters to?

While whom may sound outdated, it can pose a problem, especially if you’re writing for an erudite audience, or if you are a stickler for using words properly and adhering to the rules of grammar.

In the example above, the second sentence (Who did you send those letters to?) breaches the standards set forth by proper grammar, and it breaks the rule in the ongoing battle of who vs. whom.

Here are the two grammar rules violated by our example sentence:

1. It ends with a preposition
2. Uses who where whom is the correct interrogative pronoun Read more

Parts of Speech: Verbs

Verbs are action words, one of the eight parts of speech. They are also one of the two essential components in forming a complete sentence.

In language, verbs are the most active of all the parts of speech. A well chosen verb can communicate action through imagery. For example, “She struts” says a lot more than “She walks.”

Verbs are also flexible. Add the -ing suffix to a verb to make a noun (He revised his own writing). Verbs can also function as adjectives (We have a running dialog). Basically, you can have a lot of fun with verbs, tweaking them to suit your own writerly purposes. But first you have to understand what they are and what role they fulfill. Read more

Homophones: Affect vs. Effect

Homophones can be confusing. Luckily, there’s an easy way to remember affect vs. effect.

I see it all the time: affect and effect mixed up as if they were completely interchangeable.

But they’re not.

These two homophones may sound exactly alike, but they don’t even belong to the same parts of speech! If you’ve ever been typing along and come to one of these words, and scrunched up your eyebrows wondering whether to spell it with an a or an e, then this grammar lesson is for you!

Affect vs. Effect

In the ongoing wars between homophones, affect vs. effect is one of the most brutal fights on the battlefield. One is usually a noun (but not always) and the other is usually a verb (but not always). So the war wages on, and in the meantime misspellings and typos run rampant whenever one of these two words appears in print.

To Affect

Affect is almost always a verb. It is something that happens. You are affected or you affect. This word is never preceded by an article such as an or the because it’s not a thing, it’s an action. When writing, or speaking for that matter, and unsure of the spelling, ask yourself if the word is being used as an action. If it is, then go with affect.

a = action
a = affect

An Effect

Effect is a noun, and that is a thing. It’s not something you do, it’s something you have, or give, or something that just is. We hear this word most commonly in reference to fancy film making — you know — special effects. “The special effects in that movie were groundbreaking!” Note the use of the article, the, as in the effect. See that? Easy!

the = article
effect = noun

Also note that if used with an adjective or noun phrase, it’s effect (with an e):

• After effect
• Special effect
• Greenhouse effect
• Sound effect
• Effects of alcohol
• In effect…
• Adverse effects
• Positive/negative effects
• Cause and effect
• Side effects

More Homophones?

That’s all for today! Do you think the battle of affect vs. effect can be won? Will we eventually learn how to spell these two homophones correctly or will they someday merge into a single word?

Do you have any homophones that you need clarified? Or are there any homophones out there that you just can’t seem to remember? Leave a comment and I’ll try to come up with a clever mnemonic device just for you! If you’re too shy to leave a comment, go ahead and use the contact form!

And if you have any tips or tricks for remembering how to spell affect vs. effect, then please share your knowledge. Or, if you are stuck on any homophones, drop a comment. There’s a good chance your grammar question will be answered in an upcoming post.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in January, 2008, but has been updated with new information and therefore republished for your reading pleasure.

Punctuation: The Difference Between Dashes and Hyphens

To the passive reader, it’s a short horizontal line that appears somewhere in a text, usually joining two words together. To a writer, it’s something else entirely, but what? Is it a dash, a hyphen, or a minus sign? More than once, I’ve been pecking away at my keyboard and stopped suddenly when confronted with this versatile and confounding punctuation mark.

When you use this mark, do you know whether you’re using it as a dash or hyphen?

Many people use dashes and hyphens interchangeably, which is understandable, since most of us use the exact same keyboard character for both dashes and hyphens. However, they are technically two completely different punctuation marks.

Dashes also come in a couple of different formats: the em-dash (long) and the en-dash (short).

This post looks at the following punctuation marks:

• Hyphens
• Dashes
• Em-dashes
• En-dashes

Hyphens

A hyphen is used to connect words in order to form a compound. It was also used commonly during the typewriter era to show that a word was broken at a carriage return, but that usage is rarely seen these days. Examples include:

• ten-year-old
• merry-go-round
• editor-in-chief
• co-worker
• e-mail

Hyphens are also used to denote prefixes and suffixes when they are not affixed to a base word. Also, certain modifier combinations call for hyphenation.

Hyphenated Modifiers

When two modifiers together modify another word, they are often hyphenated. For example, in the phrase “real-world situations,” the words “real” and “world” are connected with a hyphen. Note that “real” modifies “world” (the world is real) and as a single unit (a hyphenated modifier), the two words together modify “situation.” This is standard practice when one modifier modifies another to form a single modifier to a noun or verb.

Note, however, that adverb-adjective combinations are not normally hyphenated. For example, a “well understood concept” is not hyphenated (“well” is an adverb modifying the adjective “understood”).

In a future post, we’ll take a more detailed look at hyphenated modifiers.

Dashes

There are two types of dashes: the em dash (–) and the en (-) dash.

The Em Dash

This is also called the double dash–and rightly so–because it actually consists of two dashes presented without spacing before or after, and used to evoke emphasis (note that the spacing is up for debate as some style guides and writers include a single space before and after the em dash). This kind of dash is often used to “set off an element added to amplify or to digress from the main clause” (Publication Manual of the APA, 2001, p. 291).

The En Dash

An en dash is really used more like a hyphen because it connects words. This connection forms a compound adjective where each individual word has equal weight. Here are two examples: Did you receive the July-August issue of the publication? Will you be on the San Francisco-New York flight?

Why are they called em and en dashes?

In typesetting, the em dash is the same width as the letter m, while the en dash matches the width of the letter n. It’s interesting to note that technically, a hyphen should be a tad bit shorter than the en dash. However, typewriters and computers only have the one punctuation mark (right above the p key) which must do triple duty (hyphen, em dash, and en dash), so unless you’re a professional typesetter, there’s no need to worry about measuring your marks.

How do you use dashes and hyphens in your writing? Do you have any questions or thoughts to add? Leave a comment.

Parts of Speech: Adjectives

Understanding the different parts of speech is essential for writers who want to craft prose intelligibly.

A basic understanding of language and mastery of grammar helps writers understand the craft from a mechanical standpoint, and can result in superior writing abilities.

Parts of speech make up the fundamental building blocks of language. Do you know an adverb from an adjective? A conjunction from an interjection?

If you’re a writer, you should.

In a post titled “Parts of Speech,” we identified adjectives as follows:

Adjective: An adjective is a word that modifies a noun or pronoun. Often, adjectives are descriptive as in comfortable or red. Traditionally, adjectives included determiners, words that indicate definiteness as in articles a vs. the, or quantity as in one, some, or many. Linguists are increasingly separating determiners as unique parts of speech.

This definition only scratches the surface.

Interesting Facts About Adjectives

Did you know that not all languages have adjectives? Most do, though. And those that don’t use alternative parts of speech (such as verbs) to modify nouns and pronouns, thereby fulfilling the same role that adjectives play in English.

Also, words that are adjectives in one language may not be adjectives in another language. According to Wikipedia: “English uses “to be hungry” (hungry being an adjective), French uses “avoir faim” (literally “to have hunger”)…”

Adjectives lend themselves particularly well to derivation, which is the linguistic alteration of a word by adding a suffix (such as -ness, -ise, -al). Add -ize to the adjective glamor and you get glamorize.

Adjectives vs. Determiners: Separate Parts of Speech?

Determiners are a subclass of adjectives, which modify nouns by limiting their meaning. Determiners may precede descriptive adjectives.

Articles (a, an, the) are determiners as are words such as some, each, many, and few (to name a few). Other determiners are demonstratives, possessive determiners, quantifiers, and cardinal numbers (first, second, third, etc.). Many determiners are listed as pronouns, such as your or their.

Linguists increasingly regard determiners and adjectives as two separate and distinct parts of speech. However, that is not usually reflected in grammar references material. For example, most dictionaries still classify determiners as adjectives.

Types of Adjectives

There are several types of adjectives. Here’s a quick look at a few of them.

• Attributive adjectives – normally precede the nouns that they modify and are considered part of the noun phrase.
  
• Predicative adjectives – are linked to the nouns they modify, usually with a predicate (e.g. “the car is fast” rather than “the fast car”).
  
• Absolute adjectives – modify either the subject of a sentence or a nearby noun, and are best demonstrated by example: “The car, fast and sleek, sped through the intersection.”
  
• Substantive adjectives – are still modifiers, but used as freestanding nouns. Example: “There are two cars, a fast one and a red one. I’ll take the fast one, you take the red.”
  

Each of these types of adjectives warrant an entire study. This is just a brief overview so you understand how diverse the part of speech can be.

Adjectival Phrases

Most parts of speech team up with other words in a sentence to form phrases, and adjectives are no exception. In an adjectival phrase, the ajective is at the head. A single adjective in a sentence constitutes an adjectival phrase.

More often, adjectives that are modified by other adjectves or by adverbs make up an adjectival phrase (such as glaceing very in front of any adjective). More than one adverb or complement can be used to modify an adjective within an adjectival phrase.

Modifiers and Writing

Modifiers are essential to writers. They are the words that help us describe characters and scenes, but they are not meant to be crutches. They should be used conservatively for the greatest impact. Consider the following two sentences:

She quickly ran to the other side of the field.

She sprinted to the other side of the field.

Which of these sentences creates a more distinct image in your mind?

Highly descriptive verbs and nouns will always carry more impact that flat verbs and nouns that are modified with fancy adverbs and adjectives. Keep this in mind with your own writing, and try not to lean on modifiers as a crutch to enhance your writing.

Do you have anything to add? Do you have any questions about adjectives of any other parts of speech? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

Homophones: Accept and Except

The English language is fraught with sound-alike words that look nothing alike on the page, or the screen. These homophones have given many students headaches as they agonize over word choice while composing essays and even short stories.

Accept and except are two such words. Though not among the most commonly confused homophones, these two words do occasionally find themselves getting mixed up and used incorrectly.

Here’s a quick way to remember the difference between accept and except.

Accept

Accept means to take or receive, agree or consent, undertake responsibility, or reconcile oneself to something. In a sense, it means to acknowledge. You can’t really accept something without acknowledging it, except in some very far out circumstances. Since both words start with ac, it should be easy to remember whether accept belongs in your sentence.

I accept your proposal.

I except your proposal.

Is the proposal acknowledged? Then choose accept.

Except

You know what’s special? The letter x. It’s special because it’s so rarely used. Wouldn’t you agree? We could almost say that the letter x is an exceptional letter. Remember this letter and these words together: x, exceptional, except. Because except always indicates something that is special, or different from the others. It means with the exclusion of, with exception, or otherwise. It marks something unique.

Everyone accept me had read the book.

Everyone except me had read the book.

Does this sentence indicate something or someone that is unique, like one person who didn’t do something that everyone else did? Mark it with an x and use except.

Accept and Except, and Other Homophones

What other homophones can you come up with besides accept and except? Are there any that you find especially perplexing? Share them in the comments!

Word Pairs: Farther? Further?

Believe it or not, farther and further each have distinctly different meanings although people tend to use them interchangeably.

And it’s no surprise, because these two words look a lot alike, sound a lot alike, and the difference in meaning is quite subtle. Plus, there are a few circumstances when they are legitimately interchangeable.

Let’s solve the farther, further mystery for once and for all. After all, word pairs aren’t difficult or confusing if you make them fun!

Farther

The word farther deals with physical distance or that which can be measured. One way to remember this is to recall the phrase “far away.”

Examples include:

• I jog a little farther each day.
• Do you live farther away from the city now?
• The library is farther from my house than the bookstore.

Further

Further also deals with distance, but not in physical terms. Use further when you’re talking about figurative distance or a general advancement. Some interchangeable terms include furthermore, moreover, and in addition. Further also indicates a greater degree of something. Here are examples of how to use further correctly in a sentence:

• I’ll be delving further into the topic at a later date.
• I am further along in my holiday shopping than I was last year at this time.
• Further, I intend to finish my shopping before the end of the week.

Farther / Further

In some cases, you can use either of these words, especially when the distinction isn’t clear. For example, if you are discussing a book, you could argue that there is physical distance between the pages because they can be measured. However, since the distance between pages is not geographical in nature, usage of farther or further is ambiguous. When it’s not completely clear which word to use, you can choose either one, though it’s usually safer to go with further because it has less restriction that its cousin.

• I’m farther along in the book than other members of my book club.
• The other members of my book club are further along in the book than I am.

If you have any tips for remembering farther – further, then please do tell!

Do you have grammar questions? Are there any word pairs that confound you? Send me an e-mail or leave a comment with your suggestions for grammar topics!

How to Use a Semicolon

Lots of people aren’t quite sure how to use a semicolon.

The semicolon might be the most misunderstood punctuation mark in the English language. This dot-comma combination is often used where a period, colon, or even a plain old comma belongs.

Underused and often abused, the semicolon is useful in a number of writing situations. Although proper semicolon use requires a little finesse, this particular punctuation mark is surprisingly easy to understand.

Here’s the lowdown on semicolon use:

• The semicolon establishes a close connection between two sentences or independent clauses.
• A semicolon can replace conjunctions and or but.
• Semicolons indicate a stronger separation than a comma.
• A semicolon is often used in lists to separate items when some of the items in listed subsets require commas.
• The semicolon is always followed by a lower case letter with proper nouns being the only exception (proper nouns are always capitalized).


• Semicolon use can be applied to separate two clauses or sentences that are saying the same thing in different ways.
• As with other punctuation marks that denote the end of a clause or sentence, there is no space between the semicolon and the word preceding it; there should be a single space after the semicolon.

Want real examples that show how to use a semicolon? You got ‘em!

• I watched the Grammy Awards last night; I was most pleased that Amy Winehouse won and thought it was a great show this year.
• I love music; however, I haven’t played my own guitar in several years.
• I have lived in several different cities: San Francisco, California; Haiku, Hawaii; and Santa Barbara, California.
• When I was in fourth grade, I won the spelling bee for my entire school and went to the district championships. I practiced every night, memorized all the words on the list, and felt confident that I had a shot at winning; I got nervous on stage and misspelled one of the words even though I knew the proper spelling.
• I’m fascinated by names and their meanings; Melissa means honey bee.
• There’s nothing like the gentle drum of water hitting against the window pane; I love the rain.
• This is not only a grammar post, it’s also a tag from by Rudy Amid in which I’m asked to write seven weird facts about myself; the seventh is that I’m using my blog to multitask and be a good sport about memes.

In many cases, semicolon use is appropriate or grammatically correct, but when a period will do the trick, go with two separate sentences. In other words, if you can choose between separating clauses by a semicolon or writing two separate sentences (using a period), write two separate sentences. This makes text easier to read.

How often do you use semicolons? Ever? Do you think it’s best that this punctuation mark is used sparingly, or should we all aim for increased semicolon use — start a new fad, maybe? Share your thoughts on how to use a semicolon in the comments.

Oh, and I tag anyone who feels like sharing seven weird facts about themselves. Post them on your blog, and then come back and leave a comment here! And don’t forget to keep practicing proper semicolon use.

Parts of Speech: Nouns

To be a decent writer, one must be familiar with the building blocks of language. The most fundamental of those building blocks are the parts of speech.

Nouns are just one of the eight parts of speech in the English language.

Etymology

The word “noun” comes from the Latin word nomen, which means “name,” and this is fitting, since the main purpose of nouns is to name things.

Definition of Noun

The formal and traditional grammatical definition of noun as a part of speech in the English language may vary from definitions in other languages. Noun is commonly defined as a word that refers to a person, place, thing, event, substance, quality, or idea.

However, this definition may be limited in scope.

According to Wikipedia:

Contemporary linguists generally agree that one cannot successfully define nouns (or other grammatical categories) in terms of what sort of object in the world they refer to or signify. Part of the conundrum is that the definition makes use of relatively general nouns (“thing,” “phenomenon,” “event”) to define what nouns are.

For example, green is both a color (and therefore could be seen as a noun) and a descriptive word (which would be considered an adjective). In this sense, the person-place-thing definition of noun is lacking and fails to address the complexity of a noun as one of the parts of speech.

Many nouns double as other parts of speech. A good example of this is the word run. You can run (verb) or you can go for a run (noun).

Parts of Speech and Sub-classes

Many parts of speech can be separated into various sub-classes. There are a number of different sub-classes of nouns.

Proper and Common Nouns

Proper nouns identify unique or specific entities. Many proper nouns are the names of people or places. For this reason, an alternative term for proper nouns is proper names.

Examples of proper nouns include names of people (John, Jane, Fluffy, American) and places (Mexico, Paris, Antarctica, Jupiter). These differ from common nouns that simply refer to people in general (person, people, individual, group) and places in general (country, city, continent, planet).

In most sentences, a common noun requires an article or limiting modifier:

• I see a person.
• This is for the people
• That individual is writing.
• Two groups are reading.

Conversely, proper nouns don’t normally take articles and limiting modifiers.

• I’ve been to Mexico.
• Are you going to Paris?
• Where is Antarctica?
• Can you see Jupiter in the sky?

Proper nouns may also be used to refer to the names of important items, such as the U.S. Constitution.

Proper nouns are almost always capitalized in English.

The Internet is often capitalized because it is seen as a specific place or location. However, capitalization of Internet is a style, not a grammar, issue.

Finally, some proper nouns are homophones with common nouns. For example, God (capitalized) refers to a specific deity whereas god (not capitalized) would indicate some or any deity.

Countable and Uncountable Nouns

Some nouns can be pluralized and others cannot. Those nouns that can be counted are countable nouns. The ones that can’t be counted are uncountable nouns.

Countable nouns can also be connected with quantifiers that indicate quantity.

• There is one person.
• I have five apples.
• He ate some bananas.

Uncountable nouns are also called mass nouns or non-count nouns. They never take plural form and cannot be connected to quantifiers that indicate quantity. Examples of uncountable nouns include the following:

• Love (as emotion or feeling)
• Music
• Advice
• Luggage
• Electricity

Collective Nouns

Collective nouns are easy to identify because they refer to groups (thus, collective). The following are examples of collective nouns note that they include pluralized, countable nouns):

• Gaggle (of geese)
• Colony
• Board (of Directors)
• Cars

It’s important in writing that there is agreement between a collective noun and any connected predicates.

Ex: The colony traveled with each other.

In the sentence above, colony is a collective noun so the predicate must take a plural subject (each other). You cannot say “The director talked to each other” because “director” is not collective but “each other” is.

Concrete and Abstract Nouns

Concrete and abstract nouns are talked about frequently. To put it simply, concrete nouns have physical bodies. We can interact with them with at least one of our senses (see, hear, taste, smell, touch).

On the other hand, abstract nouns identify things that we cannot see, hear, taste, smell, or touch. Examples of abstract nouns include feelings and ideals – love, hate, freedom.

Differentiating between concrete and abstract nouns is harder than it sounds. For example, is art concrete or abstract? Does it depend on how it’s used in context?

Many abstract nouns end with suffixes such as -ness, -ity, and -tion. In some cases, these suffixes can be added to concrete nouns to form abstract nouns.

Learning Parts of Speech

It can take time learn all the parts of speech, especially when, like nouns, they have so many sub-classes, which should also be learned. However, developing an understanding of the language from a technical perspective will help you become a better writer because you’ll have a more thorough knowledge of the tools at your disposal and you’ll better understand how to use them.

Homophones: Which witch?

Recently, Kris of no known web site commented:

I have trouble with witch/which (and even so, I am not sure I have those right) and weather/wheather [sic]. any good ideas on how to keep them straight???

Well, Kris, I do have an answer for you, and some tips to help you remember how to toggle comfortably between these two pairs of homophones. For today, we’ll start with which witch.

First, We Spell Our Homophones

All too appropriate, since we are discussing witches (Get it? Spell.). The first step is to memorize the correct spelling of both words:

which
witch

Which witch?

Which witch? These two words sound exactly alike but they are totally different. In short, one of these is a person who casts spells. The other is not a person at all; in fact it is merely a pronoun. How to remember?

• Who, what, and where are also pronouns that start with the letters wh — just like the word which as in which pronoun do you like best?
• A person may itch but a pronoun may not, and like the word itch, the witch that is a person has a t in its spelling.
• If you can memorize the phrase which witch itches?, it may help you to remember since each witch will belie its meaning in context. The itch doesn’t hurt either, considering the previous tip.

Homophones are challenging for lots of people but you can find easy tricks that will help you remember the difference between words that sound alike but are spelled differently.

Next time someone asks which witch? You’ll know exactly what to tell them.

Word Pairs: Lay or Lie

Word pairs often seem like they were designed to confuse writers.

One of the most common grammatical mistakes is the practice of unwittingly using lay or lie incorrectly. This error is so common, it even slips past professional writers, editors, and English teachers — all the time.

Maybe eventually these two words will morph into one and have the exact same meaning, but until then, it’s worthwhile to learn proper usage. But for now, their meanings are completely different.

Let’s take a look at this interesting word pair and find out whether we should be using lay or lie based on each word’s definition.

Lay

Dictionary.com lists 42 different definitions for the word lay. Of these, 28 are categorized as a verb used with an object, eight as verbs used without an object, and six are simply nouns. Plus, there are 15 verb phrases that use the word lay, as well as nine idioms. This is a word that can be used in a lot of different ways!

Let’s keep things simple by focusing on what differentiates lay from lie.

In short, lay is something you do to something else. You might think that sounds funny, especially considering idiom number 58 (get laid), but it’s true and of course “getting laid” is exactly what you should use to remember that you lay something (down).

Lie

Lie only has 27 definitions, so that’s a relief. Though, that’s not taking into consideration the nine additional definitions that deal with falsehoods.

Again, we’ll keep it simple. Just remember that you should use the word lie when there is no object involved.

Lay or Lie

Here are some tips to help you remember whether to use lay or lie in a sentence:

Every sentence has a subject and a verb. An example would be:

I write.

“I” is the subject, and “write” is the verb. Many sentences also have an object:

I write blogs.

In this example, “blogs” is the object. The object in a sentence receives the action of the verb. The subject is taking or making that action.

Subject: I (does the action)

Action: write (the action)

Object: blogs (receives the action – i.e. gets written)

Learning Word Pairs is Easy!

The word lay should be used when there is an object receiving the action, i.e. something or someone is getting laid (down) by something or someone else.

• I always lay my pencil down by the phone.
• I laid the book on that chair.
• I am laying down the law.

Conversely, the word lie is used when there is no object involved, i.e. the subject of the sentence is doing the lying.

• I lie down every afternoon.
• The kitten lies there, dozing.
• The dog is lying down.

That was easy!

Do you have any tips for remembering whether a sentence calls for lay or lie? Are there any word pairs that confuse you? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

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