Malapropisms

A malapropism is the use of an incorrect word in place of another similar sounding correct one, often with unintentionally amusing effect. The name comes from the character Mrs. Malaprop in the eighteenth-century play The Rivals by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Her name is actually a play on the French mal á propo, literally “poorly placed.”

The character of Mrs. Malaprop uses wrong words that sound like the correct ones—for example, saying “allegory” instead of “alligator,” “pineapple” instead of “pinnacle,” and “epitaph” for “epithet.”

We might hear someone say, “Jesus healed the leopards [lepers],” “He is a man of great statue [stature],” or “We went to Vatican City to visit the Sixteenth [Sistine] Chapel.” All of these mistakes fall into the category of malapropisms.

Mondegreens

A similar usage error is the mondegreen, a word or phrase that results from a mishearing, especially of something recited or sung. The term derives from a misheard line in a Scottish folk song. The song’s lyrics include the line “laid him on the green,” but listeners thought they were hearing “Lady Mondegreen.”

Mondegreens aren’t always related to misheard song lyrics, but examples from popular music are certainly frequent and familiar. For instance, Jimi Hendrix did not sing, “Excuse me while I kiss this guy,” and Creedence Clearwater Revival did not point out that “There’s a bathroom on the right.”

Many years ago, I misheard a line from “The Tears of a Clown” by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. I thought “just like Pagliacci did” was “just like my Yahtzee kid.” While I had never heard of Pagliacci, I had played Yahtzee.

I also mistook “I thought the major was a lady suffragette” in Paul McCartney’s “Jet” for “I thought the major was a lady, so forget!” A friend of mine thought Elton John’s rocket man was out in space “burning all the shoes he ever owned” instead of “burning out his fuse up here alone.” No doubt you’re guilty of a few mondegreens of your own.

Eggcorns

Once described as a “slip of the ear,” an eggcorn is a usage mistake that results from a seemingly logical alteration of a misheard word or phrase. Have you ever heard someone say that something does not “pass mustard,” that they take something for “granite,” or that they are repeating an “old wise tale”? These misheard words and phrases are all “eggcorns.”

The word “eggcorn” was coined by a linguist after he heard of a woman who complained about  “eggcorns” falling from an oak tree onto her car. She was obviously referring to an “acorn,” but she may have heard it as “eggcorn” all her life. Regardless, the mistake is actually rather sensible given that acorns are egg shaped and their seed looks much like a kernel of corn. In any event, linguists soon adopted this word to apply to all such mistakes.

Unlike mondegreens and malapropisms, eggcorns make a modicum of sense and therefore have the possibility of becoming widespread and perhaps even replacing the original term. A person might mention entering “unchartered waters,” a phrase quite close to the correct “uncharted waters,” or point out that someone is “scandally clad.” If we have never seen the written word “scantily,” we might easily think we heard “scandally” instead. After all, if someone is scantily clad, that person may indeed cause a scandal in certain contexts, no?

Sometimes a Misreading Sticks

Perhaps my favorite instance of an eggcorn is “helpmate.” In the King James Version of the Bible, Genesis 2:18 says that God will make a “help meet” (Eve) for Adam. When the KJV was produced in the seventeenth century, “help” could mean a companion and “meet” meant appropriate or fit. Seeing that the animals were not suitable companions for Adam, God creates Eve. Later readers could not make sense of this two-word phrase and substituted “mate” for “meet,” which makes better sense to readers unaware of the older use of “meet.” And because the two words sounded as if they were one word, we ended up with “helpmate.”

Of course, the meaning of a word can legitimately change over time, and in a future article we will talk about some of the more interesting shifts. For now, I hope you have enjoyed this review of some of the quirky ways we (mis)use our language. Until next time, “gentile” readers, it may be a “doggy-dog world” out there, but don’t curl up into a “feeble position.” Charge into the linguistic sea, “full stream ahead”!

PS: If you have a favorite “slip of the ear,” please share it in the comments below. I’d love to hear it!

* * * *

Dr. Ron Cooper, the author of this blog post, has written three other posts on this site: “Curmudgeon Bemoans Confusion,” “You’re Still on My Lawn,” and “Begging the Question.”  A senior professor of philosophy at the College of Central Florida in Ocala, Florida, Dr. Cooper is also a novelist and poet. In 2018, he won a Florida book award for his latest novel, All My Sins Remembered. He is an amateur bluegrass musician who challenges anyone to play and sing worse than he does. 

The post A Slip of the Ear: Misheard and Misused Expressions appeared first on Get It Write.

Can you spot the agreement error in each of these sentences?

1. Here’s three good reasons to buy your office supplies from us.
2. There’s many causes of school violence.
3. Here is the sales report, the market analysis, and the strategic plan.
4. There is Harry, Sue, and Michael.
5. Here’s a few boxes of old photographs from the attic.
6. There’s not even a dozen protesters at the rally today.

Each of these sentences incorrectly pairs the singular verb is with a plural subject.

Why Here and There Are Tricky

Why do these inverted constructions—when subjects appear after their verbs—cause trouble?

Since here and there can never be subjects regardless of their position in a sentence, when we use them to launch a clause, we must look ahead to determine if the subject is singular or plural. Only then can we choose the appropriate verb.

Preoccupied with composing a message, a writer may overlook the plural subject and default to a singular verb.

Here are the same sentences with the correct (plural) verbs:

1. Here ARE three good reasons to buy your office supplies from us.
2. There ARE many causes of school violence. [Note that the original sentence used the contraction “there’s,” short for “there is,” but the contracted form of “there are” is the awkward “there’re.”]
3. Here ARE the sales report, the market analysis, and the strategic plan.
4. There ARE Harry, Sue, and Michael.
5. Here ARE a few boxes of old photographs from the attic.
6. There ARE not [or There AREN’T] even a dozen protesters at the rally today.

Our Ears and Eyes Get Us in Trouble

Sentences 1 and 2 are fairly straightforward. Even before reading through to the plural nouns “reasons” and “causes,” we should know that plural verbs are necessary since the adjectives “three” and “many” invariably denote plurality.

Sentences 3 and 4 prove more challenging because in each case a singular noun (“the sales report” and “Harry”) immediately follows the plural verb, and such juxtaposition troubles our ears—until we continue reading and discover that those singular nouns form only one part of what are, in fact, plural subjects.

In sentence 3 the complete subject consists of “the sales report” AND “the market analysis” AND “the strategic plan”; in sentence 4 it comprises “Harry” AND “Sue” AND “Michael.”

Such discordant sentences could, of course, be rewritten. If we want to keep our ears happy AND be grammatically correct, we might rework them this way:

3. The sales report, the market analysis, and the strategic plan are in this folder.
4. Harry, Sue, and Michael are walking in the door.

Finally, sentences 5 and 6 can also give us pause. With the noun phrases “a few boxes” and “a dozen protesters,” we may be initially fooled by the article a that launches these expressions, and we may anticipate singular subjects. The only way to avoid agreement errors with these phrases is, once again, to look ahead and accurately identify the subjects before deciding on the appropriate verb. In these two examples, the subjects are the plural nouns boxes and protesters, respectively.

A Word of Caution

Relying solely on word-processing grammar checkers to flag agreement errors (and other language issues, for that matter) is risky. Such programs may lack the sophistication to distinguish between a discrete single-noun subject and a singular noun that is merely part of a plural subject, especially when the subject appears after (rather than before) the verb. (On the bright side, this potential software shortcoming points to the continued need for human oversight in writing-related endeavors. AI has not rendered us wordsmiths redundant—yet.)

All careful writers should, therefore, spend an extra moment scrutinizing the entire clause before deciding whether to employ a singular or plural verb after an introductory here or there. (Incidentally, sentences beginning with “where is” warrant similar scrutiny. “Where’s the beef?” is grammatically correct; “Where’s my keys?” is not.)

There’s a Related Issue 

In general, writers tend to start too many sentences with the word there. Most of those sentences could be more succinct. Consider these examples:

• Original: There is a squirrel making noise in our attic.
• Revision: A squirrel is making noise in our attic.

• Original: There are ten people serving on the zoning committee.
• Revision: Ten people serve on the zoning committee.

• Original: There is a tendency for people to lie about their age.
• Revision: People tend to lie about their age.

Test Yourself

Is the number of the verb correct in the following sentences?

1. Here’s the list of addresses you asked me to compile.
2. There is a casserole, a fruit salad, and a lemon pie in the refrigerator.
3. Here’s the top ten reasons for subscribing to the Get It Write blog on English grammar, mechanics, and usage.
4. There’s not enough hours in the day for me to complete my work.
5. Here’s some paint samples for you to take home.
6. There’s no doughnuts in the break room this morning, and there’s only a couple of drops of coffee left (so we might as well go home!).

Answers

1. HERE’S [or Here IS] . . . [The singular noun list is the subject.]
2. There ARE . . . [Three items constitute a plural subject. To be more succinct, we might instead write, “A casserole, a fruit salad, and a lemon pie are in the refrigerator.”]
3. Here ARE the top ten reasons . . . [The plural noun reasons is the subject.]
4. There ARE not [or There AREN’T] enough hours . . . [The plural noun hours is the subject.]
5. Here ARE some paint samples . . . [The plural noun samples is the subject.]
6. There ARE no doughnuts . . . and there ARE only a couple of drops . . . [Both doughnuts and drops are plural subjects.]

Elsewhere on this site we discuss the opposite problem: the use of plural verbs with singular subjects. This can occur, for instance, when either or neither is the subject of a clause. And who, which, and that can present equally tricky situations because these pronouns are sometimes singular and sometimes plural, depending on their antecedent(s). Check out those links, too!

Copyright Get It Write 2001. Revised 2024.

The post When Sentences Start with “Here” or “There” appeared first on Get It Write.

People commonly misuse myself. Sometimes they mistakenly use it as a subject, such as in the expression “Anna and myself are going home.” But if we remove “Anna and,” most of us know it would be grammatically incorrect to say “Myself is going home.”

Why? Because we need a subject for the verb “are going,” and myself can never be a subject.

So when do we use reflexive pronouns, the ones that end with –self  or –selves (myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, yourselves, ourselves, themselves)?

To use reflexive pronouns appropriately, we need to remember three facts about them:

First, Reflexive Pronouns Can Be Objects but Never Subjects

Reflexive pronouns serve as objects (indirect and direct) of verbs, verbals, or prepositions:

• Henry scared himself. [Himself is the direct object of the verb scared.]
• I gave myself a treat. [Myself is the indirect object of the verb gave; treat is the direct object, the thing being given “to myself”]
• Before the meeting, she allowed herself time to park her car. [Herself is the indirect object of the verb allowed; time is the direct object, the thing being allowed “to herself“]
• We voted to give ourselves a raise. [Ourselves is the indirect object of the verbal (infinitive) phrase “to give”; the raise is the direct object, the thing being given “to ourselves.”]
• The candidate inspired large donations, propelling herself to the top of the polls. [Herself is the object of the verbal (participial) phrase “propelling herself to the top of the polls.”]
• She bought lavish gifts for her children and herself. [Herself is one of the two objects of the prepositional phrase “for her children and herself”; herself and children are also the indirect objects of the verb bought.]

Second, Reflexive Pronouns Can Intensify Any Noun or Pronoun—Subject or Object

Reflexive pronouns can serve as intensifiers, functioning grammatically as appositives (words that rename other words):

1. I myself wrote that check.
2. I wrote that check myself.
3. Harriot assured us that she herself would lock the building.
4. Harriot assured us that she would lock the building herself.

As we can see in the second and fourth sentences, a reflexive pronoun does not have to be right next to a noun to intensify it.

So while a reflexive pronoun can never be a subject, it’s fine for a reflexive pronoun to intensify a subject, as is the case in all four of these examples.

Third, a Reflexive Pronoun Must Always Refer to the Subject of Its Own Clause

This third point is very important: Regardless of which role a reflexive pronoun fills—object or intensifier—the reflexive pronoun must refer to (think reflect) the same person or thing serving as the subject of the same clause:

• In the clause “Henry hurt himself,” Henry and himself refer to the same person.
• In the clause “I gave myself a treat,” I and myself refer to the same person.
• In the clause “she allowed herself time . . . ,” she and herself refer to the same person.
• In the clause “she bought lavish gifts for her children and herself,” she and herself refer to the same person.
• In the clause “We voted to give ourselves a raise this year,” we and ourselves refer to the same people.
• In the clause “I myself wrote that check,” I and myself refer to the same person.
• In the clause “that she would lock the building herself,” she and herself refer to the same person.

Sometimes writers and speakers think they can use myself (or any of the reflexive pronouns) to avoid having to choose between I and me (or any of the subject-object pronoun pairs, such as she/her, he/him, etc.), but as we have seen here, we should use reflexive pronouns only in certain grammatical constructions.

TEST YOURSELF

Three of these four sentences use reflexive pronouns incorrectly:

1. My boss gave the tickets to Henry and myself.
2. Audrey and myself are going to the shareholders’ meeting this afternoon.
3. Hilda herself was responsible for the fire that burned down her house.
4. Gayle asked if Paul and herself could leave work early that afternoon.

ANSWERS

• Sentence 3 correctly uses the reflexive pronoun: herself intensifies the subject Hilda.

• Sentence 1 is wrong because the subject—boss—is not the same person as myself. (It is worth pointing out, too, that the correct pronoun in sentence 1 should be me, not I, because the preposition to requires an object, not a subject.)

• Sentences 2 and 4 both use a reflexive pronoun as the subject of a clause. Although a reflexive pronoun can intensify a subject, it can never be a subject. Sentence 2, then, should use I instead of myself, and sentence 4 should use she instead of herself.

Since many people use myself when they aren’t sure whether to use I or me, readers may find it helpful to read our article on that subject.

Copyright 2002 Get It Write. Revised 2019, 2023.

The post Myself (and Other Reflexive Pronouns) appeared first on Get It Write.

A Little Background on a Longstanding Debate

The one-space-versus-two controversy has raged throughout the history of printing. As Jim Felici notes, this debate can be traced back even to the Declaration of Independence and to early versions of the Judeo-Christian Bible. A quick online search reveals that it continues to be a hot topic.

For many years, I believed (and even stated in this blog) that the two-space convention arose after the introduction of the typewriter, in response to its lack of proportionally spaced characters. With this new machine, all letters, numbers, and symbols were “monospaced”: they each took up the same amount of real estate on the typewritten page, an arrangement that resulted in more space between skinny characters (such as the letter “I” and the number “1”) than between wider ones (such as the letters “M” and “W”).

According to a broadly circulated argument, inserting more space after end punctuation came about to ensure that readers could easily spot the end of one sentence and the start of another, since that gap would be larger than the gaps surrounding narrow characters.

I have since learned that this theory is full of holes.

Another closely related but equally specious belief held that book publishers have always employed only one space after periods. Not true.

In an article appearing in its Shop Talk series, the very reputable Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) dispels these myths and others that commonly appear in discussions about spacing after end punctuation. (If you’re looking for an even deeper dive, this article by an artisan book publishing company makes a compelling case for the notion that spacing decisions have always been largely arbitrary, having little to do with font size, typewriter limitations, or printing traditions.)

The Two-Space Camp

Most (but, as we will see, not all) people who favor two spaces learned to type on a typewriter, and a rule acquired many moons ago is often deeply entrenched and difficult to shake. But those who stick to it may be doing so not merely out of habit or even sheer stubbornness: some insert two spaces because they believe that this end-of-sentence visual cue renders their texts more readable. 

In 2018, our “two-spacers” gained meager support from researchers who claimed that reading comprehension improves slightly with the additional space. Though their study was not terribly persuasive, it nonetheless elicited some strong opinions, as reflected in this article in The Atlantic.

The One-Space Camp

Those who favor one space likely learned keyboarding on computers, and in this modern, screen-based environment, two spaces are usually deemed unnecessary and even distracting.

Some “one-spacers,” in fact, can be extremely dismissive of their two-space counterparts, as evidenced in this article, enlightening not only for its lack of nuance but also for the heated responses expressed in the comments. 

So What Do I Advise? 

For the past forty years, I’ve inserted only one space after sentence-ending punctuation (also known as terminal punctuation). When all is said and done—and even after we dispense with the false information and historical myths swirling around this issue—holding on to the two-space convention many of us learned decades ago is difficult to justify. (And be aware that editors routinely remove double spaces from documents intended for publication.)

That said, if you feel strongly about using two spaces, be consistent throughout any single document. Readers may become distracted (if only subconsciously) by spacing that fluctuates, and text that is consistently spaced is more aesthetically pleasing. 

It’s also helpful to consider other factors:

• If you choose a monospaced word processing font (such as Courier New, Lucida Console, or Andale Mono), you might gain some readability by using two spaces.

• As far as I know, most (if not all) style books advocate the one-space approach. However, if your workplace has an in-house style manual or adheres to a particular style (e.g., MLA, APA, AP, Chicago), then you should stick to the guidance provided by that resource. 

Old Habits Die Hard

Regardless of how or when you picked up the two-space habit, it may prove more challenging to shed—should you wish to do so—than you anticipated.  Luckily, word processing software provides tools to assist with your transition to the single-space side:

• Microsoft Word’s punctuation settings can be configured to flag sentences followed by two spaces; see the CMOS article mentioned earlier for easy step-by-step instructions.

• When using a proportionally spaced font, I avail myself of my software program’s global find-and-replace function to search for all instances of two spaces in a document and replace them with one. The process takes about three seconds and ensures consistency.

(If you’re eager to tackle another hackle-raising issue, head on over to a post about the Oxford comma.)

Copyright 2002 Get It Write. Revised 2018, 2023.

The post One Space or Two after Periods? appeared first on Get It Write.

• The administrative assistant filed John’s and Rob’s report.
• The administrative assistant filed John and Rob’s report.

The rule about handling possessives with joint and separate ownership is pretty straightforward: In sentences describing joint ownership, only the second (or last, if we have more than two) noun or pronoun should be possessive, whereas in cases of separate ownership, both (or all) nouns or pronouns should be possessive.

In this case, then—each person having produced a separate report—the apostrophes in the first sentence are correct.

However, if you said that neither of these sentences is correct, you’re right! If each person has generated a separate report, then the word report should be plural:

• The administrative assistant filed John’s and Rob’s reports.

In a different scenario, if John and Rob had collaborated on a single report, the correct construction would be the second one:

• The administrative assistant filed John and Rob’s report.

Sometimes punctuation serves not only to enhance readability but also to convey meaning. The writer’s decision about which names to make possessive affects the reader’s interpretation of the sentence: did the assistant file two reports—one authored by John and one authored by Rob—or only one report written by both John and Rob?

(For another example of punctuation affecting the meaning of a sentence, see the post on the Oxford comma.)

Here are two additional examples followed by explanations:

• We are planning to attend Sam and Teresa’s retirement party. (One party is being held to celebrate both people’s retirement, so the party “belongs,” so to speak, to them jointly.)
• We are planning to attend the party honoring Sam’s and Teresa’s outstanding sales records. (Each of them possesses a separate, individual sales record; we have two records, not a single record jointly owned.)

• When I went to my husband’s family reunion, I finally met Joe’s and Martha’s parents. (Joe and Martha are not siblings; they do not “own” the same set of parents.)
• When I went to my husband’s family reunion, I finally met Tim and Sally’s parents. (Tim and Sally are siblings; they do “own” the same set of parents.)

And that’s how we differentiate between joint and separate ownership.

This blog features several other posts about when and how to make words possessive, so be sure to check them out, too:

• One is about making words possessive when they end in s (or in z, x, ch, or sh).
• Another addresses the difference between possessive nouns and attributive ones (or, put another way, why we have an apostrophe in Mother’s Day and Father’s Day but not in Bankers School or Veterans Day).
• We have a post explaining why we need the possessive case before a gerund.
• And last but perhaps most important, we have a post addressing the very common mistake of making words possessive when they simply need to be plural.

Have a question? Drop it in the comment section below. I love hearing from readers.

Test Yourself

1. 1. We complained to the housekeeping service when the trash receptacles in Hal and Barb’s offices had not been emptied for three days. [They work in separate offices.]
   2. Small Town and Eden’s population increases in the last decade have been staggering, despite economic hardships endured by both counties.
   3. After the ceremony, everyone who attended Nancy’s and Tom’s wedding walked across the street to the reception.
   4. Susan and Richard’s proposals were outstanding, so the company has funded both of the projects for the next fiscal year.
   5. The seamstress had to alter both Emily and Julie’s dress before the party.

Answers

1. 1. Hal’s and Barb’s offices
   2. Small Town’s and Eden’s population increases
   3. Nancy and Tom’s wedding
   4. Susan’s and Richard’s proposals
   5. Emily’s and Judy’s dresses

Copyright 2001 Get It Write. Revised 2023.

The post Possessives: Joint or Separate Ownership appeared first on Get It Write.

* * * * * * *

For nearly four decades, my colleagues and I watched students make the adjustment from high school to college, both at big universities and at small liberal arts colleges. Year after year, some students thrived and excelled while others crashed and burned.

What makes the difference? Some success or failure is, of course, a consequence of personality or life circumstances, but a lot of it has to do with attitudes and choices. 

We have seen the powerful transformation that education can have on a young person, so to help students get the most out of their college experience, we offer the following advice: (1) set the stage for academic success, (2) ask for help, (3) manage time well, and (3) consider life outside the classroom. The section at the end is for parents, guardians, and other adults who care about college-bound students:

Set the Stage for Academic Success

• Read your college bulletin. Every college has different requirements for graduation (the number of hours needed, specific courses to be taken, other requirements to be met, etc.). Be sure to talk with your academic advisor specifically about all registration decisions. But unfortunately, not all advisors are as familiar as they should be with requirements, and ultimately the responsibility for fulfilling them on time is yours. You need to be very familiar with your college bulletin, too.  Most financial aid runs out after four years, so it is critically important for you to finish on time. The bulletin is likely published digitally on your institution’s website.

• The course catalog might be part of the bulletin or a separate document.  Remember that the smaller the college, the less likely it is that every course will be offered every semester. Even at larger institutions, some courses may be offered only once or twice during your four years at the institution. If there is a course you are excited to take, talk with the department chair for that discipline and ask how often it is offered. If you are REALLY interested in a course, ask who usually teaches it and go talk to that person.  Professors love to teach courses that students are interested in, and if you can identify a small group of interested students, the professor might be able to get it on the schedule (more likely at smaller colleges than larger ones, but not exclusively).

• In your first semester, you will likely take only (or at least mostly) general education (sometimes called “core”) courses. If you are earning a bachelor’s degree, these are the courses that set your degree apart from a technical or associate degree. The idea is that to be an educated human being, you should know a little bit about a lot of topics and not just a lot about your major.  These are important courses—especially if you’re undecided about a major. However, don’t let anyone talk you into taking certain courses to “get them out of the way” your first semester.  Instead, at a time when you are adjusting to being on your own, being away from home, and being responsible for every aspect of your life, make sure your course load is very manageable. Here are two tips for at least your first semester:

• • Consider taking the minimum number of courses you have to take to be considered full time (and eligible for the dean’s/president’s list—check the bulletin!). Note: If you brought in some AP, IB, or dual-enrollment credits, you’ll likely be fine taking the minimum. If you didn’t, check to see how many credit hours you will need to graduate, divide that number by 8, and make sure you earn at least that many hours every semester. (If you’re willing to take some in the summer, you’ll have even more cushion, but make sure financial aid will cover them!) Also, if you’re unsure about any of the courses, sign up for one extra and decide after the first class meetings which one to drop. Also, remember that if you take the minimum number of hours to be a full-time student, you won’t be able to drop one if it gives you trouble. Remaining a full-time student is critically important and tied to financial aid, residence hall access, and on-time degree completion. Again, talk to your academic advisor.

• • At least for your first semester, choose courses you like and/or are good at. Doing so will go a long way toward ensuring that you have a positive first semester. A good GPA is confidence building and provides a solid foundation. A poor GPA is hard to bring up and can even mean a semester of being on academic probation. Get off on the right foot.

• Colleges/universities have a “drop/add” period that typically lasts at least several days and maybe up to a week. During this period, you may drop classes without having your record reflect that you dropped them. Remember that you need to keep enough credit hours to be full time, and you should ALWAYS talk to your advisor before dropping any classes to be sure you don’t create any problems for yourself with graduating on time and/or with financial aid. (I know I’ve said that twice already, but it is THAT important!) This is also a good time to check on classes you wanted to take but which were full when you registered; someone else may have dropped, and a seat may have become available.

• If there is a class you REALLY want to take but it’s full, go talk to the professor. Professors love to have students in their classes who want to be there.  Sometimes they will allow you to add the class even when it’s full. If you aren’t in another class at the same time (one you would have to drop should a seat in the preferred class become available), then show up for the class and speak with the professor either right before or right after to express your interest in adding it.

• GO TO CLASS. A lot of students blow off classes for almost any reason. But it’s a lot harder to find out what you missed than simply to go to class yourself.  Plus, if you are asking others what you missed, you’re trusting that they understood what was important.  Big mistake.

• Pay attention in class. You’re there, so why not take advantage of the time to listen and to try to figure out what you will need to know on tests and what is going to be expected on projects.  You are (or someone is) paying a lot of money for this education; get everything you can out of it. Plus, professors know when you have checked out–when you’re looking at a cell phone in your lap, have your head down on the desk, or are doing homework for another class. Such behaviors are not only disrespectful but foolish; your professors will be be faced with deciding whether to round up your exam grade (or even your final grade) to the next highest letter grade if your score is close. They are the people who will write your letters of recommendation for grad school, jobs, and internships.  Make a good impression. Make it easy for them to give you the benefit of the doubt and to recognize that you are responsible, intellectually curious, and mature. One way to reveal those traits is to . . .

• Be engaged in class.

• • Sit near the front (less easily distracted).
  • Ask questions and answer questions your professor asks. Class is much more fun when you’re engaged; plus, you’re showing the professor that you care.  Win-win.
  • Occasionally seats are assigned. If you end up with an assigned seat that’s not where you can function well, talk to the professor privately after class about moving.
  • Sometimes you’ll have friends taking the same classes. Naturally, you’ll want to sit near them, but be careful not to let that friendship be a distraction. Make the tough decision to sit elsewhere or to study on your own if it becomes clear that your friendship is interfering with your success.
  • Take notes. If you struggle to take helpful notes, ask your professor for permission to record the classes so you can listen to them again later and take better notes (or fill in gaps). Even if you never read your notes later, just the fact that you TOOK notes will put you ahead.  Plus, taking notes helps keep you focused. (Recent research indicates that writing notes by hand makes them more memorable than using a keyboard.)

• Most colleges/universities will allow students to take one or two courses “pass-fail.” That means that you don’t earn a grade in the course, and as long as you pass it, it won’t affect your GPA. A lot of students worry so much about their GPA that they never dare to take courses that might challenge them. They will overlook a course that sounds interesting because they are worried it might “blow their GPA.” Ask the registrar’s office about the availability of pass-fail courses. After you graduate, it will be a lot harder to find the time and money to take interesting courses like the myriad ones available to you in college.

• You don’t have to know your major right away or even for the first year (or possibly two). The most common question people ask soon-to-be college students is their major. Instead, we should be asking young people “How do you hope college will change you?” You are going to college to learn about yourself, to question your beliefs and values and to make them your own. You may discover in a general education course that you love a particular discipline and decide to pursue it as a major.  But you don’t have to know right away.  “Undeclared” is perfectly fine for a while.

• Pick up a minor or two or a second major. No matter what your major ends up being, you will benefit personally and on the job market if you can also do one of these things: (1) write well, (2) create computer code, (3) understand digital analytics, (4) design a website, (5) speak a foreign language, or (6) speak well. These are skills that nearly every workplace needs, and if you can do the work of that profession (your major) AND have one or more of these additional skills, your resume will stand out. Even if you are headed for a professional graduate school, you want to be well-rounded. In fact, the top medical schools are now looking for humanities majors, understanding that a physician needs to understand human nature.

• Even if you are planning to go to law school or med school and are worried about a good GPA, don’t neglect to join clubs, engage in activities, and/or pick up a second major unrelated to your first major. Be able to show those professional schools that you are well rounded academically and socially.

• Have academic integrity. Most colleges have an honor code that you will be asked to uphold. Make the decision to be an advocate for honesty in your work. Don’t cheat on tests or download papers from the Internet. Don’t plagiarize. When you walk across the stage and receive your diploma in four years, you want to know that you earned it honestly. It is easy to get caught up in a culture that thinks nothing of cheating, but make a pledge to yourself to be better than that. If you do cheat in any of these ways, even if you don’t get caught, you will have to live the rest of your life with the knowledge that you didn’t earn your degree honestly.  If you make a mistake (and we all make mistakes), learn from it and vow to do better.

Ask for Help! 

• The best professors went into the teaching profession for two reasons: (1) They love their subject matter and want you to be excited about it, too. (2) They love to teach and want to see you succeed. So if you’re struggling with ANYTHING in a class (can’t hear, don’t understand the material, don’t know how to study for a test, can’t do the homework), email the professor and ask if you can sit down one-on-one during office hours and talk. Don’t stay too long, but let the faculty member know that you want to do well and would like advice about how you can succeed. The very fact that you cared enough to reach out to a faculty member will go a long way toward building a good rapport.

• When you go to a professor, try to be specific about what you need help doing. Show that you’ve tried to do the work, and point out where you are getting stuck. In other words, do your part first.

• Most campuses have tutoring centers—a writing center, a math lab, etc.—where you can go for help from trained tutors, often other students who are good at that subject. Take advantage of that FREE help! Find out where they are and how to sign up for an appointment even before you need them.

• Some students find that the skills centers are great places to do difficult homework. They are usually quiet, and there are people available to help you if you get stuck while you’re doing your homework.

• Figure out who the academically successful people are in a class (hint: they may not always be the smartest but they have learned how to do well) and ask if you can study with them. It helps them, too, to have someone to study with, even if they are explaining content to you.

• Your institution offers an array of support services beyond academic skills centers. If you are feeling depressed, sad, lonely, angry, frustrated, homesick, or stressed in any way, take advantage of the FREE counseling services. If you’re having trouble with a roommate that you have been unsuccessful in resolving yourself, talk to your hall’s resident advisor (typically an upper-class student). If that person isn’t helpful, talk to the staff in the residence life office.

Manage Time Well

• Every college bookstore has a planner/agenda book with that institution’s logo on the front. Get one.  Even in this highly digital age, my students overwhelmingly preferred a printed agenda book they could carry to all their classes and meetings and into which they could write all their due dates, meeting times, etc.

• • Write in pencil (due dates will change).
  • As soon as you get your syllabi, write down all the project due dates and test dates (in pencil).
  • Besides writing down due dates, schedule time to prepare for those due dates—blocks of time to do research or write a draft for a paper or to study for tests.

• Make sure you can see your college emails on your phone. Up to now, your main means of communication has been texting, but in college, email rules; your institution’s staff and your professors will reach out to you via email, not text. It is professionally courteous to respond to all emails quickly, and most certainly within 24 hours.

• Don’t waste the time between classes. If you schedule classes with a break in between, you may think you don’t have time to get started on other work, but if you take that attitude, you’ll essentially fritter away many hours of your week.  Some students sign up for back-to-back classes for this reason, leaving them with big chunks of out-of-class time in which to do projects and homework and study for tests.  But some students can’t pay attention well for even two classes in a row, much less more than two.  It might be best for those students to spread out their classes, but they need to find something productive to do between classes so they don’t lose that time. That “free” hour is perfect for organizing notes from the previous class, for reading an assignment for another class, or for doing research for a paper.

Consider Life Beyond the Classroom

• Get involved in campus life outside the classroom. As with everything in life, your college experience is what you make of it. You can watch Netflix and play video games every night for the rest of your life, but college lasts only four short years. Rather than rushing back home every weekend, stay on campus and hear guest speakers. Go to concerts, dance performances, and plays. Go on trips over spring break and in the summer. Engage in as many internships as you can. Join a club team or service organization. Some of the most profound experiences you will have will happen outside the classroom.  Many of these experiences are FREE (or, more accurately, you have paid for them with your tuition).  Take advantage of as much as possible.  One day you will regret not attending more of the events that your college made available to you.

• Go abroad for a summer or a semester. Yes, these experiences can be very expensive, and all of them require at least some significant out-of-pocket expenses. They might seem impossible, but before you assume you can’t afford them, ask for help. Your advisor might know of travel scholarships available to students. Start planning during your first year, and ask friends and family to donate to a “study away” trip instead of giving you gifts for holidays and birthdays. Can’t afford to be away for an entire semester? Then go for a couple of weeks one summer or during a May or winter short term.  Can’t afford to go abroad? Do a study-away semester or summer in Washington, D.C., or another place closer to home (but new for you). Try as hard as you can to broaden your exposure to people who live differently from you and who see the world in ways unfamiliar to you. But if study-away is not an option for you, remember that you can broaden your experiences right there on campus by taking advantage of guest lectures, service opportunities, and so forth (see previous bullet point!).

• If you don’t have one already, start a digital file called “resume.” Don’t worry about formatting, but jot down notes about every experience you have that might end up on a resume one day. Put down the dates of that activity, your supervisor/coach/teacher/etc., and the particular skills it required. Include email addresses and phone numbers of people who might later serve as references for you.  You think you won’t forget, but you will. No experience is out of bounds.  You will need to rewrite your resume for every single opportunity you apply for anyway, and you never know which of your experiences might serve you well down the road.

• Take advantage of the Career Services office. If you have no idea what you want to major in or what career you might want to pursue, career counselors can help. When you are a student, you can take all kinds of personality and aptitude assessment tests that would cost you a small fortune if you weren’t a student.  TAKE THEM WHILE THEY ARE FREE! Start a file, and get to know your career counselors. If you wait until your senior year, you’ve missed a tremendous opportunity.

• If you need to work to earn money during college (and many people do), try to get an on-campus job. Check with your financial aid officer to see if you qualify for a workstudy or workship job on campus. You won’t waste time getting to and from work, and an on-campus employer will be more likely to understand when you need to change your schedule because you have a big test or exams.

• Call your mom and/or dad and/or other people who love you and are adjusting to your being gone. This transition is hard on them, too. Let them know you’re OK, and give them a glimpse of your campus life.  BUT resist the urge to go home for at least the first month—maybe even not until fall break or Thanksgiving.  Campus is your new home-away-from-home now, and you need to be there to meet people, to take advantage of activities, to learn about your surroundings. As with most things in life, you’ll get out of it what you put into it; if you remain more emotionally and physically tied to life “back home” than to life on campus, you will be cheating yourself.  Some parents have a harder time letting go than others; if your parents are texting you every day (or multiple times a day!), you may have to set (gently) some boundaries.

• Take care of yourself. Sleep. Eat. Exercise. Have fun, but be safe. When you make mistakes (and you will), forgive yourself, learn from the experience, and get back in the game.

 A note to the adults who care about college-bound young adults:

• Parents and guardians, unless your child’s life is in danger, it is almost never a good idea for you to come to campus or make a phone call to campus to solve a problem your student is having with a class, a professor, a grade, or a roommate. Your doing so suggests that you don’t think your student is capable of handling the problem. If your young adult calls you for help, suggest people/offices your student might approach about the problem.  Not getting satisfaction from a professor? Suggest that your student ask to see the department head. Having roommate trouble? Your student should approach the resident advisor and, if the situation is still unresolved, the director of resident life. These are growth opportunities for your young adult.

• When we were in college, the only way to talk to our loved ones was to sit on the floor beneath the one-and-only pay phone on our hall and wait for it to ring.  Cell phones make it possible to be in constant communication, but if our young adult children are going to make the most of their experience, they need to be focused on life at college, not on life at home. Resist the urge to text or call them all the time. If you aren’t hearing from them as often as you wish you were, that’s probably a good sign that they are engaging in college life and having a good time. You did a great job raising responsible young adults, and now your capable young adults are doing exactly what you prepared them to do! Give them space in which to do it.

If you are also someone with experience on a college campus and have points to add, please send them along. (Contact info is in the footer of each page on this site. Thanks!)

The post What We Wish Every First-Year College Student Knew appeared first on Get It Write.

First, A Brief Grammar Lesson

Unless they are absolutes, adjectives and adverbs can take three forms or degrees of comparison: positive, comparative, and superlative. The adjectives ambitious, friendly, precise, and witty, for example, can be expressed in the following degrees:

Positive: ambitious, friendly, precise, witty.

Comparative: more ambitious, friendlier, more precise, wittier.

Superlative: most ambitious, friendliest, most precise, wittiest.

For native English speakers, the positive degree poses little difficulty since it is simply the “regular” (or uninflected, as grammarians would say) form of a modifier. but the use of the comparative and superlative degrees occasionally gives pause even to seasoned communicators.

Comparative vs. Superlative

In a nutshell, comparative modifiers compare two items (or people, places, etc.) and employ more or an –er suffix, and superlative modifiers compare three or more items and employ most or an –est suffix:

• Amy is the more studious of the Williamses’ two children, and she is also the most studious student in her class.
• Our apartment building is the taller of the two on our block. It happens also to be the tallest one in town.

Here are five sentences we will use for illustration:

1. Eliza is the oldest of my two daughters.
2. Having his choice of two offices, Melvin opted for the one closest to the elevator.
3. Of the three cities the committee considered for the conference next fall, Charleston has more restaurants and sightseeing opportunities.
4. The tomato plants in our yard this year are more fruitful than any we have ever grown.
5. Holly sold more Girl Scout cookies than anyone in her troop.

The first two are incorrect because they use the superlatives oldest and closest to compare only two daughters and two offices, respectively. Instead, the comparative degree makes more sense:

• Eliza is the older of my two daughters.
• Having his choice of two offices, Melvin opted for the one closer to the elevator.

We encounter the reverse problem in sentence 3. Since more than two cities are being compared, the superlative degree is the better choice:

• Of the three cities the committee considered for the conference next fall, Charleston has the most restaurants and sightseeing opportunities.

If, however, the sentence had been written so that each of the other two cities was being compared separately to Charleston, then the comparative degree would work:

• Of the three cities the committee considered for the conference next fall, Charleston has more restaurants and sightseeing opportunities than either of the other two.

Logic Plays a Role

What about sentence 4? Well, if we declare that the tomato plants in our yard this year are more fruitful than any tomato plants we have ever grown, we are saying, in effect, that they are more fruitful than even themselves (since any includes this year’s plants)—a statement that is illogical.

The appropriate way to announce that this year’s bounty is unprecedented is to say that the plants are “more fruitful than any other tomato plants we have ever grown.” The word other clarifies that we are actually comparing this year’s crop to the crops of each earlier year—but only one earlier year at a time. And given that only two years’ crops are being compared at a time, we should use the comparative “more fruitful than. . . .”

But we could opt to rephrase the sentence to render the superlative appropriate:

• The tomato plants in our yard this year are the most fruitful we have ever grown.

Here the superlative degree makes sense because we are comparing this year’s crop to the crops from all previous years at once; that is, we are simultaneously comparing more than two crops.

Finally, sentence 5 displays the same faulty construction as sentence 4, and its remedy is similar. Saying that Holly sold more Girl Scout cookies than anyone in her troop implies that she also outsold herself (since anyone would include Holly), so we must either add the word else (to clarify that her sales achievement is being compared with that of each of her troop mates individually) or recast the sentence in the superlative:

• Holly sold more Girl Scout cookies than anyone else in her troop.
• Holly sold the most Girl Scout cookies of everyone in her troop.

This quotation from Words into Type* sums it up well: “The word other or else is required with a comparative when a person or thing is compared with a class of which it is a part.”

*Words into Type, out of print now for decades though available online, remains highly regarded by many copyeditors and writers.

TEST YOURSELF

Can you spot problems with the comparative and superlative degrees in these sentences?

1. The highway connecting Bloomingdale to Mooresville is more frequently traveled than any road in California.
2. Of all the annual reports we have read in the past decade, James Little’s was more concise.
3. Three employees made suggestions for improving the company’s health care benefits, but Susan Miller’s plan was the most practical and cost effective.
4. Faced with two investment portfolio options, most employees chose the more aggressive one because it has performed best during the past five years.
5. We examined two vacation packages and decided that the trip to Disney World was the most affordable.
6. Which do you like best, Coke or Pepsi?
7. No restaurant in the city offers as many gluten-free dishes as we do.
8. Death Valley, California, is hotter than anywhere on earth.
9. And last but not least, here’s one for all the Brady Bunch fans in the audience: Jan was envious of her older sister, Marcia, and they often bickered. But Peter got along well with his oldest sister, even though he once broke her nose while tossing a football with his younger brother, Bobby.

ANSWERS

1. more frequently traveled than any OTHER road in California or the MOST frequently traveled road in California.”
2. the MOST concise
3. CORRECT
4. performed BETTER (MORE aggressive is correct)
5. was MORE affordable
6. BETTER
7. No OTHER restaurant
8. hotter than anywhere ELSE on earth OR the HOTTEST place on earth
9. CORRECT. Fans of The Brady Bunch will recall that there were six siblings in this blended family, three girls and three boys, and that Jan and Peter were the middle children. Jan, then, had one older sister and one younger sister; as the middle sister, she would always be comparing each of her sisters to herself (so two people at a time). Peter, on the other hand, had three sisters, so Marcia is appropriately described as his oldest sister.

Copyright 2001 Get It Write. Revised 2023.

The post The Comparative and Superlative Degrees appeared first on Get It Write.

This lack of awareness is not surprising given that strict use of the subjunctive is now quite rare, even in the most formal speaking and writing situations. Astute communicators, however, understand the grammatical nuances of this mood and can recognize when it is being used correctly (or not!).

A Little Background about the Subjunctive Mood

Before we go any further, bear in mind that mood is distinct from tense (past, present, future, etc.) and voice (passive or active). Those three elements, along with person and number, constitute the five properties of English verbs. 

The concept of mood in English is complex, and the indicative and subjunctive moods are at times conflated. Simply put, an indicative verb makes a factual statement, whereas a subjunctive verb denotes a hypothetical or doubtful statement. Consider these sentences:

1. If I were you, I would increase my weekly contribution to the company’s retirement fund.
2. I wish that his report were more succinct.
3. We recommend that the trip be postponed until next year.
4. The finance department requests that Marcus submit updated budget projections each month.  

When stating a fact—that is, when using the indicative mood—we would never write “I were,” “report were,” “trip be,” or “Marcus submit.” But these verbs are used appropriately in the examples above because each sentence is describing a situation that is hypothetical, conditional, or contrary to fact, and such constructions logically call for the subjunctive mood:

1. The situation is clearly hypothetical: I cannot be you.
2. His report is not, in fact, succinct, so the sentence speaks of a hypothetical situation.
3. The trip is not currently postponed, so the subjunctive mood is appropriate to suggest a possibility rather than an actuality.
4. At present, Marcus is not submitting updated budget projections each month, so we use the subjunctive mood to express the mere possibility of his doing so. 

How Do We Express the Subjunctive Mood?

For the present subjunctive mood of most verbs, we use the form of a verb that usually serves as the third-person plural—that is, the form without the s ending—regardless of whether the subject is singular or plural:

• Indicative: The man leaves home every morning for work.
• Subjunctive: The sheriff insisted that the man leave town and never return.

• Indicative: Hilda works from home most days.
• Subjunctive: Her supervisor would prefer that Hilda work in the office.

For the irregular verb to be, we use be for all present tense subjunctive mood verbs and were for all past tense forms, regardless, again, of whether the subject is singular or plural:

• Indicative: Julio was president of his class.
• Subjunctive: If Julio were president of his class, the meetings would be more orderly.

• Indicative: I am studying French in preparation for my trip next fall.
• Subjunctive: If I were to study French, I would be better prepared for my trip next fall. 

The Word If Does Not Always Signal the Subjunctive Mood

Of course, not every clause starting with if requires a verb in the subjunctive mood. Many if statements are simply expressing the conditions necessary for something to be true, and the indicative mood is usually the best fit when these conditions are more likely than not to be met. For example, when we write (or say) “If he arrives [not the subjunctive arrive] on time, we will have dinner before the show,” we are implying that our companion’s punctuality is not only possible but also quite probable.

Sometimes we must understand the context before deciding whether the subjunctive mood is the right choice—as with these two options:

• Indicative: If Smith is chosen as the corporation’s next CEO, she will likely change several controversial hiring practices.
• Subjunctive: If Smith were chosen as the corporation’s next CEO, she would likely change several controversial hiring practices.

If the odds are in Smith’s favor—say, because she is regarded as the most qualified candidate—then we would probably use the indicative If Smith is chosen. But if her chances of landing the position seem remote, we could convey this uncertain, hypothetical outcome by the subjunctive If Smith were chosen.

Knowing when to apply the subjunctive mood can be challenging. Visit Merriam-Webster’s article for more on this topic, including a helpful explanation that underscores the complexity of recognizing when an if statement is truly subjunctive or merely conditional.

TEST YOURSELF

Which of the following sentences require verbs in the subjunctive mood?

1. If I was Sam, I would hire an assistant now before the hiring freeze takes effect.
2. The committee suggested that Dr. Jones is chosen as the next chief of staff.
3. As August approaches, every school child wishes that his or her vacation was longer.
4. It is critical that every potential donor gives blood during this shortage.
5. If my playing the bagpipes yesterday before 8 a.m. was annoying, I apologize.
6. If it wasn’t for your help, I’d still be locked out of my car.

ANSWERS

1. If I WERE Sam, I would hire an assistant now before the hiring freeze takes effect.
2. The committee suggested that Dr. Jones BE chosen as the next chief of staff.
3. As August approaches, every school child wishes that his or her vacation WERE longer.
4. It is critical that every potential donor GIVE blood during this shortage.
5. In this sentence, WAS is correct because the statement is likely to be true.
6. If it WEREN’T for your help, I’d still be locked out of my car.

Copyright 2001 Get It Write. Revised 2023.

The post The Subjunctive Mood appeared first on Get It Write.

If a newspaper is published every two weeks, it is a biweekly or a semimonthly publication?

The answer is not simple.

If we check Webster’s for definitions of each prefix, we find that although semi always means “half,” the prefix bi can mean either “every two” or “twice.” Thus, bimonthly can mean either “every two months” or “twice a month.”

Webster’s warns us that when using the prefix bi, we should give the reader clues about which meaning we intend. And when you are the reader, you should make sure you know which meaning the writer intends.

Before you decide to pay $19.95 for a bimonthly magazine, read the fine print to find out if you will receive six issues a year or twenty-four.

When we mean twice (as in “twice a week” or “twice a month”), we can avoid ambiguity by using the prefix semi (as in semiweekly for “twice a week” and semimonthly for “twice a month”).

Three final notes:

1. We have a special word—biennial—that means “occurring every two years.” The word biannual has only one meaning: “occurring twice a year.” Biannual is thus interchangeable with semiannual, although biannual is less preferable if we wish to avoid any chance of misreading by folks who are not thoroughly familiar with these definitions.
2. Never use a hyphen with either of these prefixes unless the root word begins with the letter i, as in semi-independent, semi-invalid, and semi-infinite.
3. English speakers outside of the United States frequently employ the very useful word fortnight, which unambiguously describes a period of two weeks.

TEST YOURSELF:

Which prefix—bi or semi—would be the better (that is, the less ambiguous) choice for a word to describe each situation below?

1. occurring twice a week
2. occurring every two months
3. occurring every two years
4. occurring twice a year
5. occurring twice a month
6. occurring every two weeks

ANSWERS:

1. semiweekly (Biweekly is acceptable but potentially ambiguous.)
2. bimonthly (Be careful to provide context clues so the reader does not think you mean “twice a month.”)
3. biennial
4. semiannual (Biannual is also correct but potentially ambiguous to readers unfamiliar with the difference between biennial and biannual.)
5. semimonthly (Bimonthly is acceptable but potentially ambiguous.)
6. biweekly (Something that occurs every two weeks happens more often than something that happens twice a month since a year comprises 52 weeks but only 12 months.)

Copyright 2023 Get It Write (rev. from original 2001 publication)

The post Bi and Semi as Prefixes appeared first on Get It Write.

Recently, in part one of our series on misplaced modifiers, we explored how word order can affect the clarity of a sentence. That post looked at familiar one-word modifiers such as only and almost, and it also examined squinting modifiers. This time we turn our attention to participles—both the single-word variety and participial phrases.

Repeat Offenders: Misplaced Participles and Participial Phrases

You’ve probably heard of “dangling participles” and were warned to avoid them at all costs. Fear not: we will address these grammatical errors later. But a participle doesn’t have to be dangling to cause trouble, and today’s post will explain why.

For those who were daydreaming in grammar school, we’ll first define a participle. Simply skip this section if you are already conversant with the concept.

What Is a Participle?

A participle is the –ing or –ed form of a regular verb that we use with a helping (also referred to as an auxiliary) verb to represent certain verb tenses.

Here is the regular verb to walk used with helping verbs to create different tenses:

• Today I am walking four miles.
• Yesterday I was walking when I saw a squirrel.
• Occasionally I have walked more than six miles in one day.

The complete verb in each of these cases is the helping verb plus the participle.

(Irregular verbs have . . .  well . . . irregular participles; the past participle of the verb to be, for example, is been, not beed.)

Participles Can Function as Modifiers (Usually Adjectives)

Here are two sentences in which walking is functioning as a modifier (in these cases adjectives) and not part of the verb in the main clause:

• Sam put on his walking shoes.  [What kind of shoes or which shoes? Walking shoes.]
• After a night out, he looked like the walking dead. [What kind of dead? The walking dead.]

Participles often launch what we call participial phrases, words or phrases that flesh out the idea expressed by the participle. In the next sentence, the participial phrase walking the dog starts with the participle walking and is followed by the object of that participle—the dog. Taken as a whole, the participial phrase modifies (i.e., describes) the noun woman:

• I spoke to the woman walking the dog.

 “Walking the dog” answers the question “which woman?” Walking is not a verb at all in this context but a modifier—in this case, an adjective describing the noun woman.

Participial phrases can begin with either the –ing or –ed form of the verb:

• The car blocking the driveway is mine.
• The fire alarm was triggered by the biscuits burning in the oven.
• Elections are often won by candidates backed by the most money.
• Tomorrow we will begin planting in the fields plowed last week.

In these sentences, the verbs are is, was triggered, are won, and will begin—whereas blocking, burning, backed, and plowed are adjectives answering the questions which car? which biscuits? what kind of candidates? which fields?

We know that blocking, burning, backed, and plowed are participles because we recognize that in different sentences, each of those modifiers could serve as verbs or parts of verb phrases.

Momentary deeper dive: Modifying participles, as we have seen, are adjectives derived from verbs. They are, in fact, one of three kinds of verbals—participles, gerunds, and infinitives (topics for another day). While verbals don’t function as verbs in a clause, they nonetheless retain all the properties of verbs; thus, as we saw above in the sentence about the woman walking the dog, a participle can have an object.

When Are Modifying Participles Problematic?

As is true for other modifiers, modifying participles cause problems when they are misplaced. Here is an example using the participial phrase “presented clearly and logically”:

• Unclear: Presented clearly and logically, the judge was convinced by the arguments.
• Clear: Presented clearly and logically, the arguments were convincing to the judge.

The first sentence is unclear because it suggests that the judge was presented clearly and logically rather than the arguments.

Here is another sentence containing the participial phrase “pacing back and forth in front of the jury.” To test the placement of the participial phrase, we ask ourselves, “Who was ‘pacing back and forth in front of the jury?’”

• Unclear: Pacing back and forth in front of the jury, the case was made with great conviction by the attorney. [This sentence illogically says that the case was “pacing back and forth in front of the jury.”]
• Clear: Pacing back and forth in front of the jury, the attorney made her case with great conviction. [This sentence clearly says that the attorney, not the case, was “pacing back and forth in front of the jury.”]

Sometimes we can correct an illogical sentence simply by moving the participial phrase so that it clearly modifies the appropriate noun. In doing so, however, we must be careful not to create a new problem:

• Unclear: Wanted for attempted murder in three states, the judge refused to let the defendant’s family post bail for his release. [The judge is not, as this sentence says, “wanted for attempted murder in three states.”]
• Clear but uses the passive voice: Wanted for attempted murder in three states, the defendant was denied bail by the judge. [This sentence says clearly that the defendant is the one “wanted for attempted murder in three states,” but now the sentence is written in the passive voice.]

Perhaps the best solution in this case is to convert the participial phrase into a dependent clause, a group of words that has a subject and a verb but which cannot stand alone as a sentence. The dependent clause is in square brackets, with its subject in bold and its verb in italics:

• Clear and uses the active voice: [Because the defendant was wanted for attempted murder in three states], the judge denied him bail.

Note: This clause happens to be functioning as an adverb because it’s modifying the verb denied in the main clause.

Here is an unclear sentence that can be made clear either by revising the main clause or by changing the participial phrase, which is in bold, to a dependent clause:

• Unclear: Dismissing the case and sending it back to a lower court, the public outcry was substantial and largely opposed to the Supreme Court’s decision. [This sentence illogically says that “the public outcry” was “dismissing the case and sending it back to a lower court.”]
• Clear: Dismissing the case and sending it back to a lower court, the Supreme Court faced substantial public outcry. [Here we kept the participial phrase but made sure it logically modifies “the Supreme Court” and not “the public outcry.”]
• Clear: [After the Supreme Court dismissed the case and sent it back to a lower court], the public outcry was substantial and largely opposed to the decision. [This time we kept the main clause as it was in the original sentence but converted the participial phrase into a clause (in brackets).]

 Writers intent on being clear and logical in their communication must be adept at recognizing and correcting misplaced participles and participial phrases—because they will encounter an awful lot of them!

If you haven’t already read our post on one-word misplaced modifiers, check it out now. Forthcoming posts will address other misplaced elements as well as the dreaded dangling participle.

Test Yourself

Identify the misplaced participles and participial phrases in the following sentences and replace them with clear and logical revisions:

1. Frolicking through our front yard and eating all our potted plants, our neighbors saw a family of deer.
2. Carefully designed by a committee of judicial educators, the seminar participants will find that the agenda addresses their training needs.
3. After searching the backyard for hours, the little boy’s mother found his blanket walking back toward the house.
4. Writing four papers and taking three exams, the last semester of law school challenged Emily.
5. We stared for hours every day at the television watching the March Madness games.

Answers

1. Our neighbors saw a family of deer frolicking through our front yard and eating all our potted plants. [In the original sentence, the neighbors were “frolicking” and “eating all our potted plants.”]
2. The seminar participants will find that the agenda, carefully designed by a committee of judicial educators, addresses their training needs. [In the original sentence, the participants were “carefully designed” by the committee.]
3. Walking back toward the house, the little boy’s mother found his blanket after searching the backyard for hours. [The original sentence suggests that the blanket was walking back toward the house. It is, of course, possible that the writer intended to say that the blanket was in the arms of the child, who was walking back toward the house, but the syntax of this sentence leaves room for misinterpretation either way.]
4. Writing four papers and taking three exams, Emily found the last semester of law school challenging. [The original sentence suggests that the semester wrote papers and took exams.]
5. We stared for hours every day at the television as we watched the March Madness games. [The original sentence suggests that the television was watching the games. Here we converted the participial phrase to a dependent clause. Another option is to move the participial phrase to the beginning of the sentence, that construction reverses the order of actions: Watching the March Madness games, we stared at the television for hours.]

The post Misplaced Participles appeared first on Get It Write.