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October 13, 2020October 13, 2020

The Juuuust Right Word

Now that it’s October, in most parts of the country autumn has well and truly set in. But here in Florida, although it’s cooled down a bit, it’s definitely still grilling weather. I don’t know exactly what our neighbors were cooking last Sunday afternoon, but it smelled wonderful.

As I sat on our patio getting hungrier with each passing minute, my brain started searching for the right noun to describe the mouth-watering breezes tickling my nose and my appetite. I mentally ran through a list:

Odor…scent…fragrance…smell…finally I came up with a word that satisfied me: aroma.

Then I had to go back and figure out what was not quite right about those other words I’d considered. Odor seems mostly negative—maybe it’s the association with the phrase body odor. Scent wasn’t bad, although it could make you think of a bloodhound tracking something. Fragrance was a bit better since it’s more positive, but I associate that word more with non-food-related pleasant smells such as flowers and perfume.

Smell is kind of a funny word. It seems like it should be fairly neutral, yet if you sniff the air and ask, What’s that smell?, it usually implies that the smell is bad or at least unexpected or strange in some way. But you can modify it to express that it’s a good smell or even, like my neighbors’ dinner, a wonderful smell.

The word I finally settled on, aroma, fit the bill because it’s generally used to describe pleasant smells, usually in connection with food. A few days ago in my reading I came across a reference to the aroma of flowers, and it sounded just wrong to me.

Now your mileage may vary; maybe these words have different nuances for you. But the point is to think carefully about the words that you choose, especially when describing subjective experiences such as sensory or emotional states. You can consult a dictionary of course, but usually a better bet is to run them past your friends and family (which is exactly what I did in writing this post).

Sometimes the difference between words can be subtle but powerful. Consider this sentence that I recently edited for a friend who is a hypnotist. Originally it read:

Bad habits are easier to break if you use the power of your subconscious mind.

I changed it to:

Bad habits are easier to break when you use the power of your subconscious mind.

Changing just that one small word—if to when—drastically alters the implications of the sentence. The word if suggests that the reader might not be able to tap into the power of the subconscious, whereas when is much more confident that the reader will be able to do so and, consequently, be able to make the positive changes that he or she is seeking.

And on a humorous note, check out this amusing explanation about the distinction between complete and finished!

Do you agree with my assessment of odor, scent, fragrance, smell, and aroma? Does the aroma of flowers sound strange to you, too? What other clusters of words with subtle shades of meaning have you encountered in your reading or writing? Please share your thoughts or any questions below!

September 29, 2020September 29, 2020

In Good Condition

Once again, my musical bent intruded on the writing of this installment about the use of the conditional. We’re going to be focusing a lot on the word if today, which of course immediately made me think of this song from the early ’70s. But if you need something a bit more funky to get you going, here’s another good option.

OK, yes, I admit it: I’m old.

Anyway, most conditional sentences have an easily recognizable structure: they start with an if clause (phrase containing a subject and verb) that sets up a hypothetical world, then are rounded out by another clause describing what happens in that world.

So let’s start out by looking at the if clause. Sometimes it describes a situation in which the speaker (or writer) is either leaving the options open or doesn’t know if the if clause is true or not. This is known as the open conditional:

If Kurt likes that song, he’ll watch the video. (The speaker doesn’t know if Kurt likes it or not, but is confident that if he does, he’ll watch the video.)

If Kurt liked that song, he watched the video. (Again, the speaker doesn’t know if Kurt liked it or not, but is that confident that if he did, he watched the video.)

In these two sentences the tenses of the verbs show only the time of the action, the same way that verb tense does in most of the sentences we usually construct: likes indicates action in the present; he’ll watch, the future; and liked and watched, action in the past. So verb tense rules in the open conditional are flexible and work pretty much normally.

So far, so good. Things get more interesting, however, when we start exploring the opposite of the open conditional, called the remote conditional. Here the speaker either knows for certain that the hypothetical world created in the if clause is not true or thinks it very unlikely:

If Kurt liked that song, he would watch the video. (The speaker thinks it’s very unlikely that Kurt likes or liked it. The clause he would watch the video describes what might happen on the off chance that Kurt in fact likes or liked it.)

If Kurt had liked that song, he would have watched the video. (Again, the speaker thinks it’s very unlikely that Kurt liked it. And he would have watched the video implies that he didn’t watch it, serving as proof that he didn’t like the song.)

By the way, we saw this same concept of remoteness in our last installment on the irrealis mood. And, as with the irrealis, remoteness in the conditional is reflected in the verb tense.

Now let’s turn to those verb tenses, where we’ll find that the structure of the remote conditional is more rigid than that of the open. Notice that in the examples both if clauses are in past tense; as a matter of fact, in the second example it’s in the past perfect tense, the “past of the past”: had liked. In the second clauses, we have the auxiliary (“helping”) verb would, which is the past tense of will. Would is by far the most common past tense auxiliary to show up in the second clause, but it can also be should, could, or might—the past tense forms of shall, can, or may.

Now here’s what’s odd about the remote conditional: the use of the past tense in the if clause does not necessarily mean that the action happened in the past. Its only function is to mark remoteness. Notice that I said that in the first example’s if clause, If Kurt liked that song, that the speaker doesn’t think that Kurt likes or liked the song. In this case, we can’t determine the time of the action without more context.

But another example will show the tense oddness much more clearly:

If you waited until the singer’s birthday next week to post the video, you would get more views.

Since we have next week in the if clause, clearly the action did not take place in the past. The past tense verb waited shows only the remoteness—that the speaker is pretty sure that the you addressed won’t wait to post the video.

Finally, what about our example with that past perfect verb in the if clause?

If Kurt had liked that song, he would have watched the video.

Remember that in the remote conditional, the past tense shows only remoteness, not past time. So if we want to express that Kurt liked the song in the past, we have to take the past tense for remoteness and add another past tense to it. This gives us the past perfect (the “past of the past”), which can always be recognized by the auxiliary had.

By now your brain is probably ready about to explode—I know mine certainly is! The good news is that most native speakers of English construct these conditional sentences correctly most of the time. But it’s always a good idea to give them a second look to make sure that you’re conveying what you intended, particularly whether the if clause should be open or remote. There’s just one fairly common pitfall to avoid with the remote conditional: remember that the auxiliary would goes only in the second clause, never in the if clause:

Wrong: If you would have waited to post that video, you would have gotten more views.

Right: If you had waited to post that video, you would have gotten more views.

And if you can’t make heads or tails out of what I’ve said, here’s another explanation of the conditional that might help. Please feel free to leave a comment below with any questions or any good examples of conditionals you come across in your reading!

September 15, 2020September 15, 2020

Shifting Moods

Hopefully your mood today is like the happy emoji in the picture. When I started drafting this post, I was smiling like that–until I got deeper into my research and discovered that I screwed up when I previewed the subject for you last time around. I said that the irrealis is a subset of the subjunctive mood, and a counterpart to the mandative subjunctive that we were talking about in that post. Well, it turns out—it’s not. The irrealis is actually a whole separate mood—hence the title of this installment.

(That, by the way, is one of the things I love about doing these blogs—I learn a lot from the research!)

So let’s backpedal a little bit and finish up the subjunctive mood, and then we’ll go on to the irrealis. To review quickly, the mandative subjunctive we talked about last time is for demands, requirements, requests, recommendations, or suggestions, such as:

Last week Carol insisted that Pat go to the movies with her.

We request that the attendant lock the garage at night.

The same subjunctive form—the unmarked form of the verb, with no endings, no matter which person, or singular or plural—can also be used for hypothetical situations where there is a decent chance of the statement coming true, such as:

Brian made back-up copies of the report lest it be accidentally deleted.

We made sure to stock up on supplies for fear that the hurricane hit hard.

Jenny is always remarkably patient with her toddler, whether he be sleepy, grumpy, or rambunctious.

These might sound rather formal or just a bit strange—but they’re all correct. And of course they could all be written in the more everyday indicative mood, such as Jenny is always remarkably patient with her toddler, whether he is sleepy, grumpy, or rambunctious. Nevertheless, you can see that in each case there’s a reasonable chance that the hypotheticals could come true: the report could get deleted; the hurricane could hit hard; and Jenny’s little boy probably goes through all those moods (and many more) in the course of a typical day.

The irrealis (“not real”) mood, however, is for hypotheticals that are clearly not true or have very little chance of ever coming true. In English, the only place that the irrealis is grammatically marked is with the use of were, such as in this phrase that we say all the time without even thinking about it:

If I were you…

Have you ever heard anyone say If I was you? I’ve lived in several different regions of the U.S., and I don’t think I ever have. But you get the point—when you say If I were you, you clearly are not the other person to whom you’re speaking, nor will you ever be.

But how about this one:

If Blake were better qualified, he would get the job.

As opposed to:

If Blake was better qualified, he would get the job.

The first variant implies that Blake will most likely never be able to improve his qualifications enough, but the second leaves the possibility a bit more open. So this is another function of the irrealis mood’s were—to convey a sense of what grammarians term factual remoteness.

And that leads us very neatly into our closely related subject for next time: the conditional. Until then, be on the lookout for hypotheticals in both subjunctive and irrealis moods, paying particular attention to whether they’re situations that could reasonably come true or not. If you find some good examples, please share them below!

September 1, 2020September 1, 2020

In the (Subjunctive) Mood

A few weeks ago, I got to do a fascinating interview (via Skype) with a PhD candidate in the UK. So what does that have to do with legendary Big Band leader Glenn Miller? The subject of the interview was one of the grammatical moods in English, namely, the subjunctive. Since I have a bit of a musical background, any mention of “mood” always reminds me of the iconic Glenn Miller tune “In the Mood.” (Click on the link if you’d like to listen to it while reading this post!)

But what IS the subjunctive mood? Unless you’re a hardcore grammar nerd, you might have never even heard of it—but if you’re a native speaker of American English, you probably use it correctly all the time. When we say that subjunctive is a mood, it means that it indicates the speaker’s attitude towards the verb. It’s not a tense (time category) such as present or past. In English, there are basically two varieties of subjunctive: mandative and irrealis. Today we’ll focus on the first one.

The mandative subjunctive is for demands, requirements, requests, recommendations, or suggestions. Its form is simple: it’s the unmarked form of the verb, with no endings. You can also think of it as the infinitive without to. In other words, it will always look exactly the same, no matter the person or whether it’s singular or plural:

I go We go

You go You go

He/she/it go They go

As you look through these, they all probably look and sound fine—except for he/she/it go (as opposed to he/she/it goes). The only other time that mandative subjunctive is obvious is with be:

I be We be

You be You be

He/she/it be They be

And those are the only times that it has a visibly different form in English. Otherwise, the mandative subjunctive is virtually undetectable—which is probably why most people are unaware of it.

So what does this look like in action? Check these out:

Last week Carol insisted that Pat go to the movies with her.

We request that the attendant lock the garage at night.

Here I’ve used third person singular (he/she/it) form to make the mandative subjunctive obvious: go instead of goes; lock instead of locks. In first or second person, here’s what it would look like:

Last week Carol insisted that I go to the movies with her.

We request that you lock the garage at night.

Although these look just like the usual forms for those verbs, they’re actually in mandative subjunctive mood. (BTW, the everyday mood we use most of the time, for statement of plain fact, is called indicative.)

And some examples with be:

Andrew suggested that I be notified of the travel delay.

Donald urges that you be ready for the hike.

Angela insists that they be kept in the loop.

What my UK colleague and I discovered during our interview is that, whereas speakers of American English tend to use the mandative subjunctive exactly as I’ve described, speakers of British English generally don’t. Instead, they tend to say:

Last week Carol insisted that Pat should go to the movies with her.

Or, even more bizzarely:

Last week Carol insisted that Pat went to the movies with her.

The variation with should is OK to me, but the one with went just sounds so wrong!

Another interesting thing in the interview was that a sample sentence with be that my colleague showed me looked strange when I read it silently on the printed page, but when I read it aloud, it sounded fine. So if any of the above examples look odd, try reading them out loud!

Be on the lookout, but even more so on the listen out for these verb forms. Do these examples sound natural to you? If not, what do you usually tend to say? Feel free to comment below–let’s get a discussion going!

And I’ll be back next time with the other variety of subjunctive, the irrealis, which is used for talking about hypothetical or contrary-to-fact situation

August 3, 2020August 4, 2020

Pondering Punctuation: Demystifying the Comma, Part Five

At long last, we’ve come to the final installment of our series on the correct use of the comma! If you missed any portions or would like to review, please see the list at the end of the post.

I have to admit that I’m suffering from a bit of comma burnout—and I’m sure you all are too! So let’s just dig in and get this done.

With Parenthetical and Descriptive Phrases

When your sentence contains a phrase that adds an explanation or comment, and you want to create the effect of just a slight pause, use commas to surround the phrase:

Using commas correctly can be, to say the least, confusing at times.

The use of periods, on the other hand, is usually straightforward.

If you remember back to our last installment, we talked a bit about essential and extra information. The distinction is important in comma usage because if a descriptive phrase is essential to identifying the person or thing it’s modifying, no commas are used:

The book with the distinctive blue cover is my favorite grammar reference.

Here the phrase with the distinctive blue cover is essential; if we removed it, a reader wouldn’t be able to tell which book we’re talking about: The book is my favorite grammar reference. Note also that there are no commas around the essential phrase.

But have a look at this sentence:

The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation, with its distinctive cover, is my favorite grammar reference.

Here, since we have the name of the book, the phrase with its distinctive cover is extra information. If we removed it, a reader would still know which book we’re talking about: The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation is my favorite grammar reference. And note that we do need commas around the extra phrase. As we saw last time, you could think of the commas as miniature parentheses.

(And by the way, The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation is a real book, and it is indeed one of my favorite grammar references. I highly recommend it! Note that I’m not an Amazon affiliate and do not receive anything for this endorsement.)

This rule—no commas for essential phrases, commas for extra phrases—also applies if the phrase starts with such as or including:

It’s best to avoid unusual words, such as multitudinous and deracinate, when writing for a general audience.

Here the phrase such as multitudinous and deracinate is extra information, since we’ve already established that we’re talking about unusual words. The extra phrase merely supplies some examples, and it’s surrounded by commas. But if the sentence was written this way:

It’s best to avoid words such as multitudinous and deracinate when writing for a general audience.

In this sentence the phrase such as multitudinous and deracinate is essential for identifying what kind of words are to be avoided. If we removed the phrase—again, a good test to determine whether a phrase is essential or extra—we’d be left with the nonsensical It’s best to avoid words when writing for a general audience. Hmm, how would you do that?

With Dependent Clauses

Hooray, we’ve arrived at our final two comma rules! We have just one last grammar term to define quickly. In a previous post about colons and semicolons, we encountered the term “independent clause,” which means a clause that can stand on its own as a sentence. So if an independent clause can stand on its own, what do you think a dependent clause would be? Yup, it’s one that, even though it has a subject and a verb, can’t stand on its own as a sentence. For example:

*When I finish editing the book

*If there’s nothing that needs to be changed

These clauses clearly can’t stand on their own—they need another clause to round out the story. (The asterisk at the start means that they’re ungrammatical sentences.) Plumped out and paired up with a main clause, they might look like this:

When I finish editing the book, I’ll notify the author.

If there’s nothing that needs to be changed, the book will be published late this year.

And this shows the first dependent clause rule in action: when the dependent clause comes before the main clause, put a comma at the end of the dependent clause.

But what happens if we swap the order of the clauses?

I’ll notify the author when I finish editing the book.

The book will be published late this year if there’s nothing that needs to be changed.

Now the main clause is first and the dependent second, and there’s no comma. Most of the time this will hold true. There are only a few cases in which a comma might be necessary after the main clause:

If there’s a significant contrast, indicated by the dependent clause starting with though, although, even though, or whereas;
If the dependent clause starts with because and there is possibility of ambiguity (usually when the main clause contains a negative verb); or
If the dependent clause is clearly parenthetical and has no effect on the overall meaning of the sentence.

Examples of these:

The novel on the whole was good, although the end was a bit disappointing.
Scott didn’t read the book, because his friends hadn’t liked it.
I’ll finish up this post now, if you don’t mind.

If you’d like to read in more detail about these exceptional cases, check out this very thorough blog post. It’s written on a grammar nerd level of detail and so is not an easy read, but it does contain many good examples helpful for understanding these situations.

I hope that this series has cleared up at least some of the confusion you might have about the proper uses of the comma. But more importantly, I hope that you’ve come to realize that using commas—and in fact, all punctuation—is more of an art than a science. That’s why it’s so important to look for the rules in action when you read and to make a conscious effort to use them in your own writing. Remember that you can always send me your questions; I’m more than happy to help! Either post them below, or email to steph@tightprose.com.

And now, I promised you a recap of all the comma articles with links—here you go!

Part one: Commas in pairs; joining independent clauses; the serial, or “Oxford,” comma.

Part two: Commas with “not” phrases; with “the more…” “the less…” type phrases; with questions inside a sentence; with quotations; with parentheses.

Part three: Commas with introductory elements: words, short phrases, adverbial phrases, and participial phrases.

Part four: Commas with relative clauses and appositives—where the distinction between essential or extra information is particularly important.

Part five—this post: Commas with parenthetical and descriptive phrases, and with dependent clauses.

July 20, 2020July 21, 2020

Pondering Punctuation: Demystifying the Comma, Part Four

One of the surprising side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic has been an increased demand for cybersecurity experts. It seems every time you turn on the TV lately, there are plenty of commercials offering programs to teach jobseekers these skills. Since we’re all online so much now—for work, shopping, and just staying in touch with each other—there’s increased risk of our personal data being stolen.

Have you ever stopped to think about what goes into that personal data? Just what information is essential to identify you as an individual? How about these: your full name; your birthday; credit card numbers; your Social Security number, for you Americans out there—the list is extensive, and even depends on the part of the word you live in.

But then there are other facts about you that, while interesting and maybe even important, are true of many people: that you live in a particular town or city; that you play a particular sport; that you have a dog or cat for a pet, and so on. This type of information doesn’t single you out; you could call it extra information.

In today’s installment of our continuing series on comma usage, let’s take a look at how these types of information—essential and extra—are handled in sentences.

With relative clauses:

A relative clause is a phrase within a sentence that modifies a noun and starts with that, which, or who/whom/whose. Sometimes a relative clause contains information essential to identifying a specific person or thing, but other times it contains extra information. For example:

When we visited the mother dog and her litter, we decided to take the puppy who had a white spot on her chest.

Our puppy, who has a white spot on her chest, loves to play fetch.

Notice how in the first example, the relative clause who had a white spot on her chest is essential for identifying which puppy we selected. If you got rid of that clause, the remaining sentence wouldn’t make any sense: *When we visited the dog and her litter, we decided to take the puppy. This leaves the reader wondering which puppy we picked. (BTW, the asterisk before the sentence means that it’s ungrammatical.)

In the second sentence, however, since we don’t have to single out a particular puppy, you could leave out the relative clause who has a white spot on her chest and the sentence would still make sense: Our puppy loves to play fetch. In this case, the clause who has a white spot on her chest is extra information.

Traditionally, grammarians have called the essential type “restrictive” and the extra type “non-restrictive.” But I’ve never found those terms helpful, so I’m going to stick with these concepts of essential and extra information throughout this post.

Now, on to the role of the comma. Look again at the essential example:

When we visited the mother dog and her litter, we decided to take the puppy who had a white spot on her chest.

Note that there is no comma before who. But in the extra example:

Our puppy, who has a white spot on her chest, loves to play fetch.

There are commas around the clause who has a white spot on her chest. So the rule is: if the relative clause contains essential information, it does not take commas; but if the relative clause contains extra information, it does take commas.

Another way to look at it is that the commas are functioning almost like parentheses—they are signposts that mean “We don’t need this information to identify someone or something.”

One more example:

Every book that Chuck owns is about sports.

The book The Boys of Summer, which Chuck owns, details the history of the early 1950s Brooklyn Dodgers.

If we remove the essential relative clause that Chuck owns from the first sentence, we’d be left with Every book is about sports. And of course that’s not true. Notice that there are no commas, either.

But we can remove the extra relative clause—everything between the commas—from the second and it’s still a true statement: The book The Boys of Summer details the history of the early 1950s Brooklyn Dodgers. The fact that Chuck has a copy of this book is extra information.

You’ve no doubt noticed that in the first sentence the word that starts off the relative clause, but in the second it’s which. You’ll come across some traditional grammars that prescribe using that only with essential clauses, and which only with extra clauses. But this is not actually a hard and fast rule. Native speakers of English tend to automatically use that only with essential clauses, but you can use which with either type. Just go with whichever sounds better to your ear, and then check whether you need to have commas (extra) or not (essential). Chances are that if you naturally used that, it will be an essential clause, which does not need the commas.

With appositives:

Whew! I know that was a lot to absorb. But fortunately this next rule works just like the one for relative clauses.

First of all, what’s an appositive? It’s a word or phrase which usually follows directly after a noun and provides more information about that noun—for example:

Jason’s wife, Helga, is a German citizen.

Here Helga is an appositive to—more information about—Jason’s wife.

Do you see where we’re going with this? If an appositive provides more information about a noun, sometimes that information is going to be—you guessed it—essential, and other times it’s going to be extra. And the comma rules are exactly the same as with relative clauses: no commas with essential information; commas (again, think parentheses) with extra information.

So why did we use commas in that example? Jason has only one wife, so we don’t need her name to single her out. It’s extra information. But how about this one:

Jenn’s brother Nate came to visit her.

No commas here—which means that Jenn has more than one brother; Nate is the one who came to visit, and his name is essential in order to pinpoint him. But what if the sentence had been written this way:

Jenn’s brother, Nate, came to visit her.

At first glance this seems to be the exact same sentence. But check out the commas—this version means that Jenn has only one brother, so his name is extra information.

One more set of examples, this one not so tricky:

Many theater lovers consider Shakespeare’s play Hamlet the greatest drama of all time.

Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio, is not often performed.

In the first sentence, Hamlet is essential to identify which one of Shakespeare’s plays we’re talking about—so no commas. But in the second sentence, since Beethoven wrote only one opera, the name isn’t essential—it’s extra information.

By now your head is probably spinning—mine certainly was when I first started paying attention to this distinction. And you might even wonder why it matters. I have no answer for that, other than to say that it does: observing the rules and correctly applying (or not applying) the commas will distinguish you as a careful writer who pays attention to detail.

And some good news—this is the most subtle, most difficult application of all of the comma rules. You’ve seen the worst now, so our last installment on the comma will be a piece of cake! I’ll be back soon with those few remaining rules. Until then, as always, look for these principles at work “in the wild,” and practice using them in your own writing. And please feel free to leave any questions below!

July 7, 2020July 7, 2020

Pondering Punctuation: Demystifying the Comma, Part Three

Everyone knows the value of getting any endeavor off to a good start, whether it’s a new job, a new relationship, or even a blog post. Proverbs about the importance of beginning well abound in many languages. Personally, I’ve always liked the expression “getting off on the right foot,” which is particularly timely now that we can get out more, what with it being summer and with coronavirus restrictions easing.

And of course making a good start also applies to writing. So for today’s installment of our continuing series on commas, let’s look at some rules about correctly using commas when your sentence has an introductory word or phrase. You want the start to be powerful because that’s one of the two strongest positions in the sentence—the other one is the end.

With introductory words:

If you have an introductory word such as an exclamatory Oh or Ah; words like Yes, No, or Well; or if you’re addressing someone by his or her name—all of these need a comma afterwards:

Oh, I love your shoes!

Yes, they look so comfortable.

Jen, where did you buy them?

With introductory words or short phrases:

Then there are several words or short phrases that, although they’re introductory in nature, tend to pop up in the middle of sentences to clarify something, such as that is, namely, and for example. They usually follow a semicolon or dash, or are enclosed in parentheses. All of them need a comma afterwards:

Many hikers dream of becoming Appalachian Trail thru-hikers; that is, they want to walk the entire trail from start to finish in one trip.

Sports stores usually sell specialized footware—for example, golf shoes and baseball cleats.

My favorite sport (namely, tennis) also requires its own kind of sneakers.

Now let’s look at two situations in which the introductory phrase is a bit longer: adverbial phrases and participial phrases. Don’t let the grammatical terms put you off; we’ll explain those as we go.

With introductory adverbial phrases:

A single word that’s an adverb modifies a verb, usually adding information such as when the verb happened (such as late), how it happened (slowly), where it happened (there), and so on. An adverbial phrase does the same thing, just with more words—it modifies the verb of the main sentence. Say we had a sentence like this:

We sat down to eat dinner.

Now we’d like to add an introductory phrase to elaborate more on when we sat down. So we’ll add the phrase and then a comma before the main part of the sentence:

After walking home from the baseball game, we sat down to eat dinner.

If the introductory adverbial phrase is short, the comma may be omitted:

Until 1986 the tennis balls used at Wimbledon were white. (This is clear without the comma after the introductory Until 1986, which specifies when.)

But make sure that if you do leave it out, you don’t make the sentence unclear:

Before eating, their dogs like to go for a walk.

Here’s the incorrect version so you can compare how the reader could get off to a false start if you left out the comma:

Before eating their dogs like to go for a walk. (Someone’s eating dogs?! Oh, wait, no…)

Another possibility would be to rewrite this one so that the adverbial phrase is at the end: Their dogs like to go for a walk before eating.

And finally, there’s just one “don’t” with this rule: do not include a comma if the phrase comes directly before the verb it modifies:

Through the city streets ran all the marathoners.

In this sentence the subject, the actor, is marathoners; they ran (verb) through the city streets (adverbial phrase specifying where).

With introductory participial phrases:

The terms “participle” and “participial” sound like some serious grammar, but they’re just talking about modifiers made from verbs. Participles can be in the present tense, in which case they end in -ing, or past, usually ending in –ed. Let’s start with a main sentence:

Bryan decided it was time to buy new loafers.

Then we want to add an introductory participial phrase to modify when he decided. This will look a lot like the introductory adverbial phrases we just talked about, and once again, the phrase needs a comma after it, before the main part of the sentence:

Noticing the hole in the toe of his shoe, Bryan decided it was time to buy new loafers.

Here the participle is Noticing.

As with the adverbial phrase, there’s just one exception, and again, you have to zero in on the verb (action) of the main sentence: if the phrase comes directly before the verb (and the sentence is therefore in reverse order), no comma after the participial phrase:

Walking along the boardwalk were throngs of vacationers.

As we noted above, this could be rewritten to turn the sentence around: Throngs of vacationers were walking along the boardwalk. But you might want to have vacationers at the end in order to emphasize it.

I hope these few rules will help you always get your sentences off on the right foot! But if you have any questions, please feel free to leave me a comment below—these rules that allow some stylistic leeway can be confusing. A good practice is to complete your first draft without worrying about punctuation rules, then go back and look them up afterwards. And remember to take on just one rule at a time: focus on using it for several days before adding another one into the mix.

I’ll be back next time for our last foray into the complicated world of the comma!

June 23, 2020June 23, 2020

Pondering Punctuation: Demystifying the Comma, Part Two

If you’re over the age of 45 or so, you might remember that back in the day the fast-food restaurant chain Wendy’s had several hilarious commercials containing the catchphrase “parts is parts.” Check out my favorite one of the bunch:

Unlike Wendy’s chicken sandwiches, however, many sentences are not one unbroken piece, but are made up of two or more parts. So in this installment of our continuing series on using commas correctly, let’s look at a variety of situations in which commas help mark off those parts.

With “not” phrases:

When you insert a phrase containing not to clarify a noun, set it off with commas (or just one if the phrase comes at the end of the sentence):

My friend likes mustard, not ketchup, on her burgers.

I prefer grilled chicken sandwiches, not the fried ones.

**With “the more…,” “the less…” type phrases:**

Usually you should place a comma between clauses (another term for phrases) that include constructions such as “the more…”, “the less…”:

Studies have proven what everyone suspects: the more fast food you eat, the more weight you tend to gain.

If the phrases are short, you may omit the comma (but it’s not wrong to still include it):

So the less you eat the better.

With questions inside a sentence:

If you want to include a question within a sentence in the form that it was originally asked—also known as a direct question—put a comma before it:

John asked himself, do I want a vanilla or a chocolate milkshake?

If the question is long or has its own internal punctuation, you may capitalize the first letter of the first word—but this is not mandatory:

The question on my mind was, Can those vegetable-based substitutes really fool people who love burgers made of meat?

But if you’re paraphrasing the question, that is, rewording it to make it indirect, then no comma or capitalization is necessary:

The question on my mind was whether those vegetable-based substitutes could really fool people who love burgers made of meat.

With quotations:

I think we all remember this one from school: when you introduce a quote in the middle or at the end a sentence, put a comma before the open quotation marks. This holds true whatever you’re quoting, whether it was written or spoken:

The newspaper’s food critic commented, “This new locally owned fast-food restaurant beats all the national chains hands down.”

Amy asked, “Are those chicken nuggets spicy?”

But if you introduce the quotation with that, whether, or a similar word, you don’t need the comma:

I assured her that “they’re not spicy at all.”

When the quote begins the sentence, place a comma at the end of the quoted part, just before the close quotation marks—unless the quotation needs a question mark or exclamation point:

“That was a good burger,” said Mark.

“I thought it was great!” exclaimed Dave.

With parentheses:

When you have material in parentheses that needs a comma afterwards—for example, it’s an item in a series—the comma goes outside the close parenthesis, never inside:

The order for the office included two chicken sandwiches, six burgers (four with cheese), and enough french fries for everyone.

I think that’s enough parts and commas for today, but I’ll be back soon with more. Most of these rules are pretty clear-cut, but please feel free to leave me a note below if you have any questions. The best way to start getting a handle on all these rules is to take them one at a time: choose just one and concentrate on it for several days in your writing. When you start feeling confident with that rule, take on another.

And now I’ve gone and made myself hungry—time to get some lunch!

June 9, 2020June 9, 2020

Pondering Punctuation: Demystifying the Comma, Part One

Commas are, without a doubt, the punctuation mark that gives everyone the most headaches. One reason is that they are the most frequently used of all punctuation. A few days ago, as I was preparing for this latest installment in our punctuation series, I decided to conduct my own informal survey. I selected five books at random from our personal library, and five pages within each book—so 25 pages in all. It turned out that there were only 4 pages out of those 25 in which the comma was not the highest frequency mark; the period overtook it in all of those. And in all five books, the average of the five sampled pages always came out with the comma as the winner.

Another cause of comma confusion is that in some places you need it, but in others it’s optional. (Does that remind you of the semicolon from last time around?) And there are many contexts where commas should or can be used: the section on the comma in the Chicago Manual of Style runs 37 paragraphs! Compare that to the period, which Chicago covers in just four paragraphs. But relax—we’re going to take the comma step by step, starting out with its most clear-cut uses and gradually working up to more complicated ones. (And no way are we going to cover all 37 paragraphs!)

I think most of us learned in school that a comma indicates a pause in a sentence, as opposed to a period’s full stop. If a period is a stop sign, you could think of a comma as a yield.

This analogy will be helpful especially when we get to the more complex uses of the comma. Just as you wouldn’t want too many yield signs in one short stretch of road, you don’t want to overload your sentences with commas, which could make your writing jerky. Yet you want enough to manage the flow of your traffic, er, sentences properly. The end goal, as with everything in your writing, should always be to make your meaning clear and easy to read.

All the uses of that comma that we’ll look at today are mandatory.

One of the most basic is the commas in pairs rule: whenever a comma sets off an element such as the year in a date or the name of a state or country after a city, there must be another comma following that element:

After conducting the informal punctuation survey on May 28, 2020, I began writing the blog post.

The yield sign picture was taken in Orlando, Florida, in the neighborhood where I live.

You also need a comma when you want to join two independent clauses with a conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so). Remember that “independent clause” is just another name for a complete sentence, which has a subject (an actor) and a verb (an action or a linking verb). So you could take two sentences such as:

Some drivers almost come to a stop at yield signs. Others hardly slow down at all.

…and make them one:

Some drivers almost come to a stop at yield signs, but others hardly slow down at all.

The important points to remember are that you must be joining two independent clauses, and you need both the comma and the conjunction. If you leave out the conjunction, you have the error called a “comma splice”:

Incorrect version of the above example: Some drivers almost come to a stop at yield signs, others hardly slow down at all.

Just as you might have heard of the “comma splice,” maybe you’ve encountered the term “Oxford comma.” It sounds fancy, but it’s simply this: when listing three or elements in a series, with a conjunction before the last one, there should be a comma between all the elements and before the conjunction. This is also known as the serial comma rule, and here’s what it looks like:

Among the books I sampled were a novel, a history book, and a business book.

You could argue that this is our first optional use of the comma, because some style guides do not require the last comma before the conjunction—which would look like this:

Among the books I sampled were a novel, a history book and a business book.

However, I agree with The Chicago Manual of Style that consistently using the serial comma prevents misunderstanding. What if you had a sentence like this:

The authors included collaborating academicians, Cialdini, and Dostoevsky.

This sentence that includes the serial comma is clear that we’re talking about three separate entities: 1) the group of academicians, 2) Cialdini, and 3) Dostoevsky. But if you omit the final comma after Cialdini, you get:

The authors included collaborating academicians, Cialdini and Dostoevsky.

This version could be interpreted to mean that the names of the collaborating academicians are Cialdini and Dostoevsky—just two entities, in other words. So using the serial comma keeps everything clear.

Finally for today we have the use of the comma between two or more adjectives (descriptive words) before a noun. Sometimes you need it; sometimes you don’t. But don’t worry—there are two tests to help you figure this out: if you can put the word and between the adjectives and the sentence still makes sense, then you need a comma between them. Or, if you can reverse or rearrange the order of the adjectives and the sentence still makes sense, then again, put a comma between them:

Cialdini’s Influence is an interesting, accessible book.

If you run the tests, you get the following, both of which make sense—so a comma goes between interesting and accessible:

Using and instead of a comma: Cialdini’s Influence is an interesting and accessible book.

Reversing the order: Cialdini’s Influence is an accessible, interesting book.

And again:

Crime and Punishment has a complex, detailed plot.

Apply the tests—again, this one passes, so it needs the comma:

Using and instead of a comma: Crime and Punishment has a complex and detailed plot.

Reversing the order: Crime and Punishment has a detailed, complex plot.

Here are some sentences that don’t pass the tests, so no comma goes between the adjectives:

Dostoevsky is considered one of the masters of nineteenth-century Russian literature.

Try the tests—compare how they don’t work here the way they did above—so no comma:

Using and instead of a comma: Dostoevsky is considered one of the masters of nineteenth-century and Russian literature.

Reversing the order: Dostoevsky is considered one of the masters of Russian nineteenth-century literature.

And again:

We have many yield signs in our town to control the heavy neighborhood traffic.

Try the tests:

Using and instead of a comma: We have many yield signs in our town to control the heavy and neighborhood traffic.

Reversing the order: We have many yield signs in our town to control the neighborhood heavy traffic.

This sentence clearly fails test number one. The result of test number two isn’t bad, but it doesn’t sound as natural as the original version. At any rate, since it definitely failed one test, no comma here.

Whew, I think that’s quite enough for one day! Take some time over the next two weeks to start looking for places in your writing that would require these rules, and be on the lookout for examples “in the wild.” A good way to master these rules is to focus on just one for several days; when you feel you’re getting more confident applying it, add another. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment below. I’ll be back soon to unravel more mysteries of the comma!

May 26, 2020May 26, 2020

Pondering Punctuation: Colons and Semicolons

I mentioned previously that my husband and I have sons who are twins, but unfortunately I didn’t have space in that post to talk more about them. They’re grown up now (I can’t believe they’ll be 30 in July!) but raising them was quite an experience. We gave them similar names, and they look a lot alike, though not as much now as when they were kids. Yet despite having many common interests, they have distinctly different personalities.

Which brings us to the latest installment of our punctuation survey: the colon and the semicolon, which would seem to be the twins of the punctuation world. Like our sons, they have similar names. And each is made up of two other punctuation marks: a colon is two periods stacked up, while a semicolon is a period over a comma. But despite the similarities, colons and semicolons are used very differently.

First, a quick grammar definition which will help with the following explanations. Remember that for a string of words to be considered a complete sentence, it needs a subject (an actor) and a verb (an action or a linking word). Another name for a sentence is an independent clause:

Scientific researchers often use identical twins as subjects.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to have triplets or more.

Some cultures consider the birth of twins to be good luck.

Be on the lookout—you might see some of these independent clauses again soon. And now that we have that out of the way, let’s get started.

The easiest way to remember what a colon does it to think of it as meaning “as follows.” You can use one at the end of an independent clause to indicate that the words following will explain, illustrate, or amplify what you said before the colon. The material after the colon can be another sentence or a list:

Scientific researchers often use identical twins as subjects: their matching DNA profiles allow the scientists to control for one variable.

Parents need three attributes for raising twins: flexibility, a positive attitude, and endless patience.

And as a matter of fact, you can even include the words “as follows,” or other such introductory words, before a colon:

I always give new parents of twins the following advice: don’t sweat the small stuff, and remember that most of it is small stuff.

Just one caution with the colon: always remember that it should come after an independent clause—that is, a compete sentence. Don’t use a colon when you have a list within a sentence:

Incorrect: Our sons’ common interests are: languages, video games, and martial arts.

This is incorrect because the bit before the colon—Our sons’ common interests are—is not a complete sentence without a complement after the linking verb are. Here’s how it should look:

Correct: Our sons’ common interests are languages, video games, and martial arts.

While the colon is pretty straightforward, the semicolon can be a bit trickier because its use is often optional. Some writers love it, while others never use it at all. For hardcore grammar nerds (like me) there’s even a whole book about the use and abuse of the semicolon throughout the history of English literature and prose. (I am not an Amazon affiliate and do not receive anything for this endorsement.)

So let’s take it one step at a time. The easiest way to use a semicolon is to join two independent clauses without a joining word (conjunction) when the writer wants to make a close connection between them:

Raising twins wasn’t easy; I can’t imagine what it would be like to have triplets or more.

Identical twins share 100% of their DNA; fraternal twins share just 50%, the same as regular siblings.

In both these cases you can see why the writer would opt to link the independent clauses; they are clearly related. But you could instead join them with a comma and a conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, or so):

Raising twins wasn’t easy, so I can’t imagine what it would be like to have triplets or more.

Identical twins share 100% of their DNA, but fraternal twins share just 50%, the same as regular siblings.

Or you could make them two separate sentences:

Raising twins wasn’t easy. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have triplets or more.

Identical twins share 100% of their DNA. Fraternal twins share just 50%, the same as regular siblings.

So this is a stylistic choice. All these options are grammatically acceptable, but each has a different feel to it. To me, the last option—making them two sentences—seems choppy. But sometimes that might be the effect you want to create.

You can also include an introductory word or phrase after the semicolon and before the second sentence. Words and phrases commonly used in this situation include however, therefore, indeed, thus, hence, accordingly, besides, that is, for example, namely, etc. Be sure to include a comma after the introductory word or phrase and before the second sentence:

Some cultures consider the birth of twins to be good luck; however, others regard it as a bad omen.

Our sons have rather different personalities; nevertheless, they are very close.

The last main use of the semicolon is for a series of phrases which contain internal punctuation, usually commas. (And yes, I couldn’t resist sneaking in more colons as well):

My mother-in-law sewed many wonderful things for the boys: their white, traditional christening gowns; little sports coats in their customary colors—one red, one blue; and several Halloween costumes.

Our sons had an interesting assortment of possessions growing up, such as: sturdy, slanted drawing boards; comfortable, black, waterproof boots for playing outside; and a vast collection of Lego blocks.

Once again, this is not mandatory; if the list is unambiguous punctuated with commas, you can do it that way instead:

Our sons had an interesting assortment of possessions growing up, such as: sturdy, slanted drawing boards, comfortable, black, waterproof boots for playing outside, and a vast collection of Lego blocks.

Currently the boys live in separate states and can get together only every few months. Since I can’t reunite them right now, I’m going to at least get the punctuation twins back together. The one remaining similarity between the colon and the semicolon is that they are both placed outside quotation marks and parentheses:

Here’s an interesting fact about the two members of the 80s group The Proclaimers, whose one big hit was “I’m Gonna Be”: they are identical twin brothers.

My mother-in-law sewed many wonderful things for the boys: their white, traditional-style christening gowns; little sports coats in their customary colors (one red, one blue); and several Halloween costumes.

Hopefully this has helped demystify the colon and semicolon at least a little bit—but please feel free to contact me at steph@tightprose.com if you have any questions! They’re really not so daunting, and remember too that a semicolon is usually optional. If you choose to join the ranks of those who don’t use it, you’ll be in good company with writers such as George Orwell and Kurt Vonnegut, to name just…two!

Tight Prose

Tag: editing