by Nick Renton

Created on: January 21, 2007   Last Updated: May 14, 2007

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE:
IMPROVING GRAMMAR, PUNCTUATION, STYLE AND WORD USAGE

Samuel Johnson, the famous lexicographer, was once caught by his wife while cuddling the maid.

She exclaimed: "Samuel, I am surprised!"

"No, my dear," he responded, "it is I who am surprised. As for you, you are astonished."

AWKWARD SENTENCES

Q. What is the best strategy for dealing with sentences which do not sound quite right?

A. It is usually much better to rewrite an awkward or confusing sentence completely, rather than to try to patch it.

Often it is desirable to split a long or convoluted sentence into two or more shorter ones.

Jargon or acronyms which the intended audience might not understand are best avoided. At the very least, such items should be explained when first used and/or they should be included in a glossary.

STRAY COMMAS

Q. A stockbroker recently wrote:

"The key assumption underpinning our forecast EPS growth, is the successful move into the US."

Is the use of the comma in this way correct?

A. No! A surprising and astonishingly common error is the placing of a comma between a subject and the following verb. The commas in such sentences utterly destroy the natural flow of the message and should therefore be omitted. It is difficult to understand what logic causes so many writers to commit this sin.

A simple sentence may help. Would anybody really want to say the following:

"My wife, is pretty."

INCORRECT PLACEMENT OF QUOTATION MARKS ADJACENT TO FULL STOPS

Q. Should a closing quotation mark precede or follow a full stop?

A. Whether a closing quotation mark should precede or follow a full stop always depends on the context.

Contrast the following:

She said, "My husband works hard."

Here the full stop comes first, because the quoted words form a complete sentence by themselves.

The plural of "man" is "men".

Here the full stop comes last, to show the end of the sentence. The reverse order would be quite illogical, as the plural word required is "men" and not "men." in this context.

WRONG CASE AFTER PREPOSITIONS AND VERBS

Q. One hears sentences such as the following all the time:

"This is a worry for your mother and I."

Why are they considered wrong?

A. The sentence should read:

"This is a worry for your mother and me."

The preposition "for" needs to be followed by the accusative case "me", not the nominative case "I". The fact that "for" and "me" are here separated by another object "your mother" makes no difference, a point frequently misunderstood. The following expansion may assist understanding:

"This is a worry for your mother and for me."

Verbs also take the accusative case. Thus:

"Please join Joan and I for refreshments."

should be:

"Please join Joan and me for refreshments."

e-MAILS

Q. Can an exchange of e-mail messages have unexpected consequences? Furthermore, does style matter?

A. Indeed it can. The informal style acceptable in e-mail messages enables them to be created with much less effort than formal letters. However, this can also be a legal trap. For example, an exchange of e-mails could constitute a binding contract; a carelessly worded comment could become the basis of a libel action; and so on.

In regard to style issues, some correspondents overdo the informality and do not even use a spelling checker. At the very least this would enable them to fix typographical errors.

Furthermore, e-mails are more easily read if they contain a series of short paragraphs, separated by blank lines, rather than just a single jumbo paragraph.

NOTE:

A web page devoted to many more of such questions and answers can be found at .

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