What's Wrong with Using "THERE"?

Over the years, I've often done recap posts after the annual spring LDStorymakers Writers Conference, which is always a highlight of my year. In my opinion, it's THE best conference in Utah, and likely well beyond. That's saying something, because Utah has an unusually strong writing community that puts on a lot of conferences.

I hope to do a full recap at some point, but today I want to talk about something I posted on Instagram during the awesome Chris Crowe's 2-hour intensive class about micro-revision.

For those who haven't followed me and my blog ramblings over the years (or as a refresher, seeing as I'm not here as often as I once was), I've been editing professionally almost as long as I've been writing professionally. I've worked on books ranging from first attempts by beginners to pros' books that went on to win awards and become best-sellers. (I could totally name drop but won't; you'll just have to trust me on that one.)

Whenever I'd had returning clients, they mention how much they learned from the previous edit. That is hugely satisfying! It also means that their next book is better than the last one because they've learned new skills, and in turn, that means that my edit can take that next book to an even higher level.

(Important side note here: I'm not taking on new clients right now. I have a few friends and one old client I'll still work for, but typically, if you ask me to do an edit for you, I'll probably have to refer you to someone else. It's a matter of time, balance, and priorities. First and foremost, I'm a writer, but I reached a point where I was an editor who sometimes managed to sneak in a little writing, and I had to change that!)

Above you'll see a slightly cropped version of the picture I posted, which shows a portion of Dr. Crowe's class handout.

The responses to my post varied from those who cheered Dr. Crowe's advice to those who were genuinely confused as to what the problem is with using THERE. And thus this post was born.

The most important thing to keep in mind about writing is that there are no hard and fast rules. For every so-called rule, you can find exceptions. If someone ever says ALWAYS do this or NEVER do that, you can safely assume that they're wrong at least part of the time.

About the only guiding rule I follow as a writer is this: 

Anything that separates my reader from the deep experience of being immersed in my story—anything that holds them at a distance, pulls them out, or otherwise reminds them at they're reading a book—defeats my goal.

In my two-plus decades of professional experience, stronger sentences are one of the best ways to reach that goal. Words and sentences are the tools we use to create a story world and make it come so alive that it immerses the reader.

For those wondering about my passion for grammar and how that fits in, consider this: 

A big part of creating stronger sentences includes all of my grammar, usage, and punctuation rants from Word Nerd Wednesdays.

Why? Clunky, ungrammatical, ambiguous, and otherwise troublesome writing automatically makes for weak and confusing writing that pulls the reader out, making for a shallow reading experience.

All of that leads to my main point: 

The vast majority of the time (note I didn't say always), sentences beginning with THERE WAS, THERE WERE, and variations, are weak. Such sentences tend to TELL instead of SHOW. Other times, they end up wordy and redundant. They may even have a strong verb, but it's buried inside the sentence.

The Good News Is Two Fold: 

• You can easily do a search for phrases like there were and there was to find those weak sentences.
• Strengthening those weak sentences is almost as easy as finding them.

There Were: Weak Examples

I made these up on the spot, and I make no claims about their brilliance, but they should do the job:

• There was the teacher lecturing at the front of the classroom. 
• There were many streets leading to the cemetery.
• There were dozens of couples waltzing around the dance floor.

None of those sentences is grammatically incorrect. None is wrong from a technical standpoint. But none is great, either. They could all certainly be stronger, and stronger writing should be every writer's goal.

Okay, so we've figured out how to identify the weak constructions. Now what?

STEP ONE: DELETE THE OFFENDING WORDS

Just cut off THERE WAS/WERE from the front of each sentence. Using the example sentences above, let's see what we have left:

• . . . the teacher lecturing at the front of the classroom. 
• . . . many streets leading to the cemetery.
• . . . dozens of couples waltzing around the dance floor.

Check it out: Each sentence already has a strong noun we can use as the subject instead of the weak THERE. Plus, the verbs are already a whole lot stronger than WAS or WERE: 

• teacher lecturing
• streets leading
• couples waltzing

So if we already have strong subjects and verbs, why on earth would we want to fall back on something that will water down the image? The phrase there were is so bland on its own that it literally requires an explanation to be understood.

Yet chances are good that the explanation already following the THERE opening is pretty strong. In which case, simply cut the dead wood before the explanation and let it stand alone.

To show just how weak THERE can be, try this: Imagine your eyes are closed and you hear someone begin a story with, "There was . . . "

The storyteller pauses. What do you picture?

I'd wager that your mind would be blank. You couldn't picturing anything, because those words don't tell us anything. We have to wait to hear more before becoming part of the story. We've started with garbage words. They do nothing.

Just Cut to the Chase

Let's take the strong subjects and verbs we already have. The only real other change needed is tweaking the verb so it makes sense, and that's easy:

There was the teacher lecturing at the front of the classroom

BECOMES

The teacher lectured at the front of the classroom. 

BOOM. See how we're immediately in the classroom, listening to a lecture? Before, we were being held at arm's length as someone else points out what we're supposed to notice. (Over there is a classroom . . .)

We can then expand on the image and experience, building the rest of the scene with other writing building blocks.

Here's another take on that same sentence: Flip the order and start with the location to orient the reader right away: 

At the front of the classroom, the teacher lectured.

Depending on the context, tone, pacing, and other factors of the scene, that might work even better.

You could come up with a hundred other ways to change it up, and almost all of them would be stronger than starting with THERE WAS or THERE WERE.

Another One of Our Example Sentences: 

Original: There were many streets leading to the cemetery.
Deleting first two words: . . . many streets leading to the cemetery.
Changing the verb tense as needed: Many streets led to the cemetery.

See? So easy, it's almost like a game. Let's Fix the Third Sentence: 

Original: There were dozens of couples waltzing around the dance floor.
Deleting the first two words: . . . dozens of couples waltzing around the dance floor.
Changing the verb as needed: Dozens of couples waltzed around the dance floor.

Tada! 

This kind of revision is one of my favorites to make: it's very effective and oh-so-easy to implement! 

Tightening sentences by cutting the dead wood such as THERE makes a huge difference, especially when you're talking about a novel-length work.

Don't make your reader slog through wordy, meandering sentences. Experiment with cutting THERE, then see how much stronger your scenes become.

WNW: Grammar Girl's Quick & Dirty Tips Book Review

As long-time readers know, this isn't a review blog. The only reviews I post are about books I have handpicked, and they're usually nonfiction titles I want to pass along to fellow readers and writers. I think the last book I reviewed was Mignon Fogarty's 101 Words Every High School Graduate Needs to Know.

Truth be told, shortly after that post, I meant to post a second review of another book by Fogarty (also known as Grammar Girl, from the podcast of the same name), but after reading the other book, I promptly misplaced it in one of those cases of "I'll keep it in a very safe place so I won't lose it" and, of course, I promptly forgot the safe place.

I didn't want to post a review without having the book beside me because, as I do with so many reference books, I wrote in the margins and wanted to be able to refer to my notes.

For this week's Word Nerd Wednesday, the first bit of good news is that the book is found and at my side! Hooray! Now we can discuss Grammar Girls' Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.

The second piece of news is that I had a great time rereading my notes and then going over the passages they refer to, and I found the book as delightful as I did when I first read it a few years ago. I found stars, underlined passages, and smiley faces all over the place.

Best of all, the author and I share many of the same stylistic peeves, which made me like her even more. Seriously, I couldn't stop grinning over to try and versus to try to on page 45, something I rant talk about on page 90 of my own grammar book. Beside her discussion of another of my peeves, the weak there is/are way of beginning a sentence, on page 81, I'd written, "Yay!"

Grammar Girl is known for her conversational, accessible style, and this book is no exception. It's laid out in an easy-to-read format, with clear headers and fun examples, as well as text boxes with background and other additional information, often fun trivia related to language. (Yes, fun and language can exist in the same sentence.)

The book goes over many common problems in writing, from grammar to punctuation to style issues. She even discusses why the rule of two spaces after a period has changed in the computer era (page 85). (See this post for my explanation, which agrees entirely with her.)

The final chapter is short, and while it won't be one you turn to regularly to remember a rule, it's helpful for writers of all kinds. It talks about breaking through blocks, finding writing groups, revising, proofreading, and more.

At the end of the book, you'll find appendices with lists of commonly confused words and other great references.

I can't cover all of the great parts of a book with more than 200 pages, but here are a few highlights I particularly enjoyed:

• Squinty modifiers. (Page 65.) Great name for an easy error to make with modifiers, with a clear explanation and a great example.
• The semicolon splicer image to help remember how to use the mark (page 75).
• Properly punctuating indirect questions. (Page 89.) I've seen this issue a lot in my editing work, and agree with Fogarty so entirely that in that margin, I wrote "For the love!" because people need to learn this!
• How to properly use a colon. (Pages 92 to 96.) A much-needed explanation.
• The Oxford comma. (She favors it! Woohoo!) 
• The title of chapter six: "Prozac for Pronouns: Getting the Stuntmen of Language Under Control." (Page 139.) LOVE IT.

And this gem on page 96: "Using a hyphen in place of a dash can cause your copy editor to have a mild fit."

Amen and amen.

The book is a quick read, and it's one you'll want to keep on hand as a reference for a long time. 

My only complaint is tiny: A few things have changed since the book's publication in 2008, such as how long Facebook status updates can be. Like I said, very small things. Considering how fast technology changes, I'm impressed how on top of technology she is, and that I noted only a couple of spots where things are different in 2014. 

Get a copy for yourself and another for the writer in your life. (Hint: That's everyone in today's society. We all need to know how to write clearly.) Here's the link again to make it really easy for you. And if you haven't gotten my book, here's that link too.

SOME BIG NEWS IS COMING SOON!

Stay tuned for the announcement of two projects I'm working on with Luisa Perkins. We'll roll out the first one in a few weeks, and the second one a few weeks after that. 

You won't want to miss out on them! 

UPDATE
Coincidentally, right now, Mignon Fogarty (Grammar Girl) is raising money to fund an awesome card game called Peeve Wars. I've chipped in; I hope you will too. The campaign has just 10 days left to reach its goal. Learn more about Peeve Wars and donation rewards HERE. If you have personal grammar and usage peeves (and you know you do), you'll want this game.

WNW: Grammar as Currency

On last week's Word Nerd Wednesday, Jordan McCollum made a comment about how the "needs washed" usage can be considered standard if you live in an area where it is, well, standard.

We exchanged some emails about what constitutes "standard" and acceptable as far as English goes. I don't want to put words into Jordan's mouth, and she can always write about her opinion on the issue, but I thought the topic was worth addressing in a WNW post.

Here's my basic opinion on standard English and the "rules," keeping in mind that while I love language and am a total nerd about it, I am not an expert, nor a linguist. And Jordan has studied linguistics.

However, my dad is a linguist (I think word nerdery is genetic). We talk about this kind of stuff a lot, and I think it's largely thanks to his influence that I don't get overly annoyed by a lot of so-called grammatical mistakes in conversation or other casual settings, like emails and blog posts. I don't even care that on Twitter, there's a search feature for "Who to Follow" instead of "Whom."

For that matter, sometimes I find myself enjoying differences in speech patterns, as it's a peek into a different culture.

There was the time Dr. Oaks taught about how some people pronounce an R sound after an A, resulting in words like warshed instead of washed. I'd never heard anyone pronounce it like that, but lo and behold, just a few months later, I met a family who did. They warshed their warsh rags in the warshing machine.

I was fascinated. Dr. Oaks was right! How cool.

Jordan has a point that what's acceptable usage varies from area to area. I'd say that since such a huge portion of the world speaks English as a native language, you'll find variations within every country (and state) that speaks English. There's bound to be a wide range of what's considered okay in any one place.

On top of what's considered standard, most people speak in several "registers," meaning they slip into and out of various ways of talking depending on the context. So I'd use far more formal language when teaching a writing workshop than I would when chatting with my sister.

Another example: While we were dating, my husband mentioned how differently I spoke when I was around my high-school friends. At first I balked at the idea, saying that I didn't just change who I was when they showed up. But I watched myself after that, and his observation was right. My group of friends from that era had its own tone and even slang. It was natural to slip into it when around them and then slip out of it like a light jacket when I walked away. So natural I didn't notice I was doing it.

I've heard of corporate professionals who speak one way most of their days but then visit their parents back in the Bronx (or the Deep South or some other place) for Christmas and by New Year's, they're talking with a heavier accent again and using colloquial phrases they'd almost forgotten about.

This is normal. This if perfectly fine.

AND YET. (You could hear that coming, couldn't you?)

The standard exists for a reason. It's a collection of agreed-upon rules that marks what is expected of educated people in our culture. If you are educated, you're expected to know these rules.

In a social (and even economic) sense, standard English is the currency we use in our interactions.

That means it's valued. If you decide not to use it, fine. Just know that your language may prevent you from using the same currency, communicating (and succeeding!) in a way others who do use the standard will by default.

Because the standard is such a huge currency, it's a good idea to follow any rule in a situation that values the currency.

If you used their as a singular possessive pronoun in a resume, you may know that it's gradually becoming accepted usage, but a potential boss may not, thinking it's still a standard rule. The potential employer, knowing the currency of standard English, may well assume you don't know correct grammar and therefore aren't as smart or capable as you really are.

Just like you'd never wear a swim suit or pajamas to a job interview, you need to use the right language in the right settings to be taken seriously.

I've mentioned this idea before, particularly how a student called Dr. Oaks out on it, asking why we couldn't just turn in our papers using our regional dialects if they aren't inherently any more inferior or "wrong" than the standard.

Dr. Oaks just laughed and basically said, "Because you're at a university, that's why. Part of your education is to learn how to communicate using the standard dialect and then prove you know it in your writing."

In today's technological world, where pretty much everyone is required to communicate with the written word in virtually any job (even at McDonald's), knowing the rules and expectations goes a very, very long way.

As we shoot forward into the electronic future, it's going to be more and more important for our kids to have the currency they need to succeed, and that means knowing the standard language so they can communicate effectively, be taken seriously (as smart and capable!), and, frankly, to get ahead in life.

I've seen too many cases where someone uses their regional dialect in a setting where it simply isn't appropriate or welcome. The person is brushed off as incompetent or even unintelligent.

Sure, you can always fight back by saying that the people who judge you based on your language are wrong, narrow-minded, and not so smart themselves.

And you may be right.

But being right isn't going to get you the job.

WNW: When "Right" Is Twitchy

Our local recreation center has a sign on the track that reads, in part, something like:

If you swam, Dry off before going on the track

A good friend e-mailed me about it after twitching all through her three times-a-week runs around that track. She asked if the sign was wrong, because it sounded awkward (especially with "swam"), but she couldn't think of a better way to say it.

If you set aside the fact that dry shouldn't be capitalized here, the sign is grammatically correct.

The tenses of swim go like this:

Present tense: swim (This morning, I will swim for thirty minutes.)

Past tense: swam (Last week, I swam ten laps.)

Past participle: had swum (I thought back to the time I had swum with a team.)

So swam is the right form of the word, plain old past tense.

And yet. That sign makes me twitch too.

It's a great case of when smooth writing and clarity trump "right." In other words, just because it's correct doesn't mean it's the best way of saying something.

The other day, as I was leaving the rec center, I saw her as she came around the track. "I've got it!" she said. "It should say, 'Dry off after swimming'!"

Ding!

She's absolutely right. The sign could be rewritten in a number of ways, and that's a great one. It would not only save room, but be clearer. Her version takes the verb swam and turns it into a noun, swimming.

As you all know, I get all twitchy when things are incorrect, but that doesn't mean I won't twitch when they're correct—but goofy and awkward.

A great writer can take a twitchy (but correct) sentence and mold it, making the end result something others will read and understand without a second thought.

Or a twitch.

Word Nerd Linkage

It's a day late for Word Nerd Wednesday, so I thought I'd do something a little different: show you some of my favorite nerdy places to hang out.

Oxford Dictionaries Online and their Word World blog brings me no end of joy. I follow their Twitter stream, and it always points me toward posts that cheer the nerd inside me. (Up today: Five Events that Shaped the History of English)

Check out this fun Michigan Today post about obscure words. (It even mentions mondegreens, which we talked about more than a year ago HERE. In related news, we bought Mad Gab for Christmas.)

Grammar Girl. I'm going to admit here that I first learned about Mignon Fogarty, known better as Grammar Girl, when she appeared on Oprah to clear up some grammar confusion. She has a great podcast and blog (and a book and regular vlogs on YouTube) where she addresses a wealth of grammar and usage issues. (I admit I've learned a few things from her.)

"The Alot" on Hyperbole and a Half. The writer here is hysterically funny and does a few other posts related to language, like the one on the semi colon. (Note that the entire blog isn't about language or punctuation, and some posts are somewhat PG-13, definitely not appropriate for kids.)

Fake Editor and Fake AP Stylebook. Both of these are on Twitter, and their streams keep me in stitches. (November had a Fake NaNo Tips feed. Holy crimeny, I laughed.)

Also on Twitter, and showing that his wit is just as sharp with 140 characters as it is on the silver screen, is Steve Martin. He's a great writer as well as actor, and his tweets show an awesome grasp of not only what Twitter is (and how to poke fun at it) but how to craft a great tweet with the language. (Like how he used "FYI" and went on to explain that it means "for your information" but FYI is shorter . . . all in the same tweet.)

Common Errors in English. This site is a treasure trove of information. Stuck on whether it's wrack your brain or rack your brain? What about the difference between discreet and discrete? The guy behind the site is thorough and easy to understand, and the it's all arranged alphabetically. Just click on the letter of the word you're wondering about. (He has a book version and a calendar. I think I need that.)

Proofreader's Marks, courtesy Merriam-Webster. I do a lot of freelance editing, and while most in digital, every so often I get a hard-copy job. Once or twice, I'll get a brain freeze (which was the right way to insert a hyphen?), so I pull up this bookmarked site and double-check.

National Punctuation Day. Yes, it has its own website. Remember this one when September rolls around.

Funds for Writers has been listed as one of the top 101 best web sites for writers by Writers Digest for over a decade. It's a fantastic resource. (Tooting my horn here: I won the 2009 essay contest. Felt kinda cool.) The owner, C. Hope Clark, has a sister blog, updated regularly in addition to putting out three regular newsletters with oodles of great information for writers.

Not that I'm even a little biased (Hahahaaa!) but I think Precision Editing Group's Writing on the Wall blog is pretty great too.

I could list more word and writing-related sites, but I'll stop there and leave you with one that's for the pure fun of it. It's where we see inside the lives of the people who inhabit those picture-perfect catalogs like Pottery Barn: Catalog Living.

Check it out and laugh.

Sample Sunday: There, Their, They're

Sample Sunday is for authors to share a bit of their Kindle-published titles. I'll post a sample of Lost Without You sometime soon, but today I thought I'd put up a piece from my grammar book, There, Their, They're: A No-Tears Guide to Grammar from the Word Nerd, which is now on Kindle for all of 99 cents.

Below is the section that discusses splitting infinitives: what does it mean to split an infinitive, and is it wrong to do so?

(Check out the #SampleSunday hash tag on Twitter to read other samples from Kindle authors.)

Splitting Infinitives

At some point in history, grammarians and teachers decided that Latin, a dead language, should be our guide. Why it made any sense to use another language to prescribe English grammar, I’ll never know, but Latin is the basis for the argument that we shouldn’t split infinitives (and a bunch of other silly grammar “rules”).

Here’s the crux of the old argument: In most languages, the infinitive or base form of a verb is a single word.

Since I know Finnish best, I’ll use it as our example.

Finnish: olla

English: to be

You can’t take the Finnish olla and split it up. It’s one word. The same holds true for the French être and the Spanish ser. The infinitive is one word. Of course you can’t split it up and have it make any sense.

But English has two words for the infinitive: to be. So, heck, let’s throw something between them: to happily be

That’s what is called a split infinitive. Frankly, unless you’re writing a paper for cranky Mrs. Robinson from eighth grade who insists on her students abiding by antiquated rules, split infinitives to your heart’s content. Although you shouldn’t overuse any construction, splitting an infinitive isn’t wrong.

Consider how utterly flat the classic tagline from Star Trek would be if it held to this “rule”:

To go boldly where no man has gone before.

Sorry, Mrs. Robinson. That lacks punch. It’s lame. We really need to split that infinitive:

To boldly go where no man has gone before.

Whether you like Vulcans or avoid them like a bad rash, you have to agree that the original tagline is the superior one.

From Chapter 2: Grammar Grapples, There, Their, They're: A No-Tears Guide to Grammar from the Word Nerd

WNW: More on Passive Voice: Hi, Ambiguity!

A couple of weeks ago we discussed what passive voice is plus when it's actually okay to use it, even though writers are told over and over again to avoid it.

That post got some comments (hey, that phrase was passive :-D) about whether some sentence structures were passive, and I promised to clarify.

The example cited was:

She was excited.

IS that passive? It does have the key word was in there.

The answer: No, that sentence is most definitely NOT passive.

Except. English has some great ambiguity built into the underlying context. So all by itself and out of context, no, that sentence is not a passive construction. But it could be. (We'll get to that in a second.)

A similar example, showing why it's NOT passive:

Sarah was sad.

That sentence can't be passive; nothing (or no one) is being acted upon. We're just describing a state of being for the subject (Sarah), not what's happening to her.

You could make that kind of construction passive:

She was excited by putting up the Christmas tree.

Check it out: now it's passive. She's not just in a state of excitement; she's being acted upon (putting up the tree), which makes her excited.

Here comes the funky ambiguous part:

This kind of sentence construction (he/she/it was ____) is ambiguous in English because the sentence could imply that something is being acted upon.

Basically, in some contexts, you could figure out what's making the person excited (versus the fact that she just IS excited).

If you have an entire conversation (or, in writing, a paragraph or whatever) where we know why she's excited, what's causing the excitement, then it's passive. In Sarah's case, we know her excitement is because of the Christmas tree.

So "She was excited," while not grammatically/structurally passive, becomes contextually passive.

Upshot there:

She was excited could be passive . . . or not. Technically it isn't from a grammar standpoint, but the final meaning depends on what the speaker intends.

Again, based purely on the structure, and if we're just explaining her emotional state, then no, it's not passive. Not even close.

Another ambiguous example:

The turkey was cooked.

We could simply be stating a fact about the turkey: We have poultry that is not longer raw.

Say a story explained how they knew when it was time to eat Thanksgiving dinner:

The turkey was cooked.

That's not passive. It describes the state turkey. (It's toasty hot, juicy, falling off the bone, and ready to eat. Yum. Pass the cranberry sauce.)

To make it passive, we need the person who did the cooking to be implied:

The turkey was cooked.

[And we, the reader/listener, know Paula did the cooking. The turkey was cooked by Paula = passive.]

(Is this making any sense?)

Here's my linguist dad's key way of explaining passive voice:

Passive voice is when the grammatical subject is ALSO the logical object.

WNW: Things We Say Wrong--Right

Found a fun video showing a lot of incorrect usage and pronunciation in English. It's really funny and worth taking a look/listen.

Two of my favorite bits:
"Text messaging has erased any sense of spelling you may have gleaned"

"I could care less."

But . . . I have a few beefs.

First, watch the video. Then read my rant.




Okay . . .

First off, he says that if you feel bad that's incorrect. He insists that the adverb form is needed: you feel badly.

See, here's the thing: feel bad is just fine.

In fact, it's more correct . . . unless he's discussing the sensing capability of his nerve endings and how they just don't work anymore.

Then he could feel badly, because he'd be NUMB.

Aside from that example, the fact is that you don't always need the -ly adverbial form, which he brings up multiple times, like with talk different vs. talk differently.

It comes down to FLAT ADVERBS, something this dude could use a lesson on.

(For a quick lesson, check out Grammar Girl's explanation. She points out that flat adverbs go back the 1600s. They're more popular now, but hardly new.)

And then there's this complaint:

a whole nother apple

Here's the deal: English has lots of pre-fixes (like UN as in unsolved puzzle), and suffixes (like FUL, as in thankFUL), and many others.

Just about every language also has IN-fixes, where the "fix" is sandwiched in the middle of words. English doesn't support infixes very well, but guess what?

A whole nother is essentially an English INFIX.

They exist, dude. Deal with it.

Also, alternate pronunciations aren't wrong just because they exist. Yes, words are sometimes pronounced incorrectly, but if, over decades, more than one pronunciation is considered acceptable by the educated masses, the others will be added to dictionaries.

This happens with English a lot, since most of the planet speaks it (at least as a second language), and many, many countries have it as a national language and speak it with their own pronunciation and variations.

(I'm not about to tell an Aussie that his way of saying "mate" is wrong. Are you?)

Thing is, LANGUAGE EVOLVES. (Read that post for yet another rant.)

From Chaucer's and Shakespeare's standpoints, our English would be ridiculously "wrong." But no, it's not wrong. English has just CHANGED over the centuries. A lot.

The final kicker of the video would be really funny if he weren't still harping on the adverbial thing.

I wanted to absolutely love the video. I loved parts. But he lost a bit of credibility on some points. Sigh.

Note on last week's WNW: Got a few questions on passive voice, including whether something like "she was excited" falls under that umbrella. Will discuss that soon!

WNW: The Apostrophe Song!

This error drives. Me. Crazy.

I addressed the issue right before Christmas one year begging people to NOT use an apostrophe on their gift tags (such as, "to the Smith's") because that implies ownership. (To the Smith's what? Their dog?)

With gift tags and such, we're talking PLURAL situations. Plural.

(Say it with me. PLLLLUUUURRRAAAL.) Plurals take an S.

And they take NO APOSTROPHE. That's possessive (ownership).

Therefore, you're giving cookies to a group of people all called Smith. Hence, the Smiths.

And you go to the store to by a bunch of bananas, plural. So you don't use an apostrophe, because that would make a single banana own something.

So: NOT banana's (you're buying the banana's . . . peels?) but bananas.

I found yet another fun video that showcases a peeve. Enjoy!

In other news, Lisa Loo over at Is That a Garage Door on My Ceiling? has moved into her house FROM a garage (hence the title of her blog).

She totally rocks. In totally unrelated news, she put my blog button on her side bar. :-D

She has a new problem: since her blog name no longer fits, she needs a new one and is hosting a contest for it. Check out the details HERE.

WNW: A Rant: Could NOT Care Less

Hearing (or reading) I could care less is one of my eye-twitching peeves, because it states the exact opposite of what the person means.

I could care less means that the speaker/writer could conceivably care less than they do at this moment.

So . . . they DO care. At least a little. Because they COULD care less.

So it's possible for them to care less than they do right now.

Yeah, not even ALMOST what they mean.

Try again:

What they mean is that they care so little that there is no way for them to care any less than they already do. There is no caring here. At all. None. Zip.

Ergo, they could NOT or couldn't care less.

John Cleese says it better. He's also fun to watch while ranting about it:

WNW: Rules? Who Says?

Several people have asked me recently about the rules of grammar and usage. Who makes them? What determines what a rule is? When and why and can we break them?

To answer that, first, we have to back up a bit.

Language evolves; we all know that. Take a look at the opening line of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in the original, and your eyes will glaze over. (That is English? What the . . . )

My dad has the first paragraph memorized, and when he recites it, it sounds stinkin' cool . . . but nothing like English.

My History of the English Language class was taught, as I've mentioned before, not by a linguist as it should have been, but by a well-meaning but ignorant literature professor who had no clue what the material meant. (Fortunately, I could go to Dad to figure out what the HECK she was teaching.)

But the workbook was helpful. It gave us exercises to show how the language had gradually changed in very predictable ways (if this vowel came after this consonant, it changed into this one). We'd apply the changes to Old English sentences and get Middle English ones. Then we'd get a new set of rules, apply them and, assuming we'd done the previous set correctly, we'd end up with Modern English.

It was way cool, especially to see how the changes weren't random, but very systematic.

We did similar things with sentences in a current dialect: BEV, or Black English Vernacular. Such "street" talk may sound random and just wrong, but even it is governed by its own rules (whether the speakers know it or not).

That was a lesson in a simple linguistic concept:

No dialect is inherently better or worse than another. They all have quirks and rules and structure. There is nothing in and of a standard dialect that makes it better than another . . .

Except for the fact that those who are educated have picked the standard as the dialect of the educated. They've selected it as the "correct" dialect, for lack of a better term.

Therefore, to be taken seriously in school, jobs, and other settings, a person must know the standard dialect and know its rules.

If you break the rules of the standard dialect in a situation where the standard is called for, you risk losing credibility and looking uneducated.

But break the rules of the standard by speaking your home-town dialect with family and friends, and that's totally fine. That dialect is what's expected of you in that environment.

Most of us have several of these "registers" (sort of like mini dialects) that we use in different situations. For example, I'd tell the same story to a gal pal very differently than I would to a police officer or my parents or one of my children. In each situation, I'd slip into a different register, using different vocabulary, sentences lengths, etc.

Okay, so back to the standard dialect and THE RULES:

The rules change gradually over time. Note the over time part.

A true change can take literally decades before it's accepted as a new standard.

So who accepts it as the new standard? Essentially, if the majority of educated, standard-dialect speakers view the change as an acceptable usage, it's considered a new rule.

Forty or so years ago, parents constantly corrected children asking, "Can I go to the bathroom?" with, "May I go to the bathroom?"

But the word can has since taken on a definition beyond ability. It also implies permission. Today, you'll occasionally run into someone old-school who insists on the old definition, but kids today will grow up with the new one.

Recently we watched an old movie that had a moment using can in the old sense, with an adult correcting the child, and my kids were genuinely confused as to what the problem was. (And these are well-read, smart kids, if I say so myself.) The rule has simply changed. Can I go is perfectly acceptable now.

Another rule that's on its way out but has a few die-hard people holding on is whom (and its cousin, whomever). There's a funny scene on The Office about when to use whomever, and it's a great example of how the general (educated!) public has almost entirely lost the meaning of whom. (Pam, the secretary, knows the rule. Michael, the manager, doesn't. Then again, I wouldn't call Michael educated . . .)

Today, whom is so rarely used that in my own writing, I avoid any sentence structure that would call for it, because it would draw attention to itself. Can you imagine Kim from Band of Sisters asking "To whom does this straw belong?" Um, no.

Other books, including the new Mockingjay, use who in places where the old rule required whom, which again shows how things are changing and how we're getting pretty darn close to having who being acceptable in every situation. (But not in everyone's book, quite yet. I'd give it another ten years.)

All of this is why, in casual conversation and on blog posts, I don't worry about broken rules and the like. Those aren't situations (or registers) that require the rules, such as they are, to be kept.

But in professional situations, such as in articles and novels and the like, I tend to lean on the side of being conservative, to be sure that my colleagues, readers, and reviewers are aware that yes, I am well-versed in the standard dialect and know its rules.

And this is precisely why I freaked out when a copy editor added a lay/lie error to one of my books. I caught it at the last minute (phew!). And yes, I know 99% of readers likely either wouldn't notice or care. But I do. And I know that there are readers who do care.

I also know that the distinction between lay/lie is dying, but, to quote Monty Python, it isn't quite dead yet.

So it's a good idea to learn the rules, including what's gradually changing and how close the changes are to being considered standard. Then use that knowledge in speech and writing when the register is appropriate.

Hanging out with friends, I could well say, "Me and my sister went to the store," but if I'm talking to a prospective employer, I'd rephrase it as, "My sister and I went to the store."

Because I know the rule and the expectations surrounding the standard.

Lots of rules are bent all the time, and you can definitely get on those bandwagons, but if you're hoping to be taken seriously in a professional writing capacity, you do need to know the "real" rules of the standard and know how to apply them.

But then you can have fun breaking them in dialogue, because your characters can speak in whatever register and dialect they want.

It Was Inevitable, Really

The other day, my fifth grader's class was discussing parts of sentences.

One student guessed that a preposition was the subject of an example sentence, and my daughter gave a rather lengthy explanation about why that was not, in fact, correct.

I believe the sentence in question was something like:

The students went to the school.

"To the school is a location. It's where they're going to," she said. "So that can't be the subject. The action with the verb is where you find the predicate, and to the school is at the end of that, so it's part of the predicate. But the students are the ones doing the action. So the students is the subject."

The class stared at her in stunned silence.

My daughter closed her mouth, swallowed, and, looking around at the class of gaping fifth graders realized:

Oh my gosh . . . I'm turning into Mom.

Sniff. I'm so proud. What a great Christmas gift.

Writing Journey: Evolution of a Word Nerd

TODAY IS READER QUESTION TIME:

Alexes from One Cluttered Brain asked me several all at once, and they're all sort of related, so I'm answering them together:

When did this fascination with grammar and words begin? Does it interfere much when you write something? And aren't you an editor as well? How does that work when you are trying your writing hat on? Does your editing hat ever get in the way?

Being as I grew up with a linguist as a father, conversations about words were typical dinner-table fodder.

(I thought this was normal. Apparently not.)

I don't remember ever not thinking that words and etymologies and so forth were interesting.

I also grew up with a mother who was always reading. My father used to joke that he couldn't get into his own bedroom without a library card. The master bedroom had several bookcases which were filled, stuffed, and then crammed with books.

The basement was the same. So was the kitchen. Every room in the house had books. And I mean every room. Yes, even the bathroom had a bookcase. (Not kidding.) When I moved out, guess what moved into my bedroom? Yep: more bookcases.

As a result of being the child of both a linguist and a bibliophile, I think it was pretty much inevitable that I'd develop a love of language and books.

On the other hand, the specific grammar and punctuation switch got turned on in 10th grade when I had Miss Drummond for honors English. She made those subjects suddenly make sense and be fascinating to boot!

I loved her as a teacher so much that I was her aide in 11th grade and then I took College Prep English from her in 12th. (After which, I challenged the AP test and passed with a 5, because she's just that good of a teacher.)

Even my brother, who has no interest in anything English, had her in high school and admitted that she was the only teacher who ever made grammar make sense to him. She made him get it.

(See? GRAMMAR CAN BE TAUGHT! It's not just freaks like me who can understand this stuff!)

The poor woman couldn't get rid of me. She also couldn't get rid of my family. First she had Dad as a professor at BYU, then my brother as a student, then my older sister as a student, and then me . . . twice. (Or for three years, if you count the aide thing.) Of us siblings, only one of us didn't have her as a teacher.

In college, two classes with Dr. Oaks cemented my love for all things language, whether it's grammar, usage, punctuation, or anything linguistic. But on some level, the interest has always been there thanks to Dad's PhD in linguistics and Mom's passion for books.

So on to the second part of the question: Does my word nerdiness interfere with my writing? After all, I do edit professionally as well on the side. Do they conflict? Not really. In some ways, having that background helps.

The nerdiness and internal editor are just part of who I am. Yes, there are times I put on my editor hat specifically to look at grammar and usage issues, but even in a rough draft, it's just not in me to throw in a random "less" when it should be "fewer" or to mess up "imply" and "infer." That's not how I speak or write. The rules are so ingrained that some things simply come out correctly the first time.

One thing that's easy to mess up as I type is homonyms, but that's not because I don't know the right word but because my fingers often get going on one word, and it's the wrong one, so I have to fix it later.

(So yes, even I, the person who wrote a book on the topic, mess up at times when I'm randomly throwing out a comment in on a blog or on a Facebook status, as Jessica noted so ably recently when I wrote "there" instead of "their.")

On the other hand, I do have to make a point of separating my editor side from my creative side. While I'd never write, "less times" (unless it's an intentional character quirk in dialogue), there are plenty of other editorial things I could be stressing out over, and drafting is not the time for that.

Trying to edit as I draft would be paralyzing, because writing is a creative experience. You have to let go to create, let yourself get lost in the world and the characters and the story. I can't worry about revisions and editing at that point. Those will come later.

So I let go. I take off my editor hat, knowing I'll come back and put it on another time. I love drafting. It's a ball living for a time in my own little world.

The nice part is that when I do come back for revisions with my editor hat on, I know that what I have to fix won't generally be grammar errors and spelling mistakes. (Just a small bonus, really.) That's not to say I won't have plenty of other things to fix (character motivation, plot holes, telling instead of showing, lame dialogue . . . holy moly, truly, on some days, the list goes on and on).

The one place my obsession does interfere with is reading. It's really, really hard to take off the word nerd/editor hat then, which is frustrating. I have a difficult time picking up a book and enjoying it for its own sake.

It's a rare gem that draws me in so fully that I don't notice clunky punctuation or where I don't mentally rewrite sentences or groan at a really bad typo or grammar error.

My personal favorite error I caught a few years ago: three times in the same book I found prostate instead of prostrate. Oy. Where oh, where was the proofer?! I also caught a dang funny dangling modifier in one of the Twilight books. I giggled like crazy (it implied that Bella was her own father), but obviously no one else gave a snit about it.

(Then again, I doubt I'd care the slightest bit about a dangling modifier if my books were on the NY Times list for dozens of weeks on end, sold millions of copies and were made into blockbuster movies. But I digress.)

Got a question about anything writing or publishing-related? Ask away!

WNW: A Quiz and a Giveaway

After last week's post and excitement over Grimm's Law, I promise to get back to it . . . just as soon as the kids are back in school .

(That means I'll need to consult my university notes and talk to Dad to refresh a few things in my mind and such, which means I'll need some time and likely several posts to do it justice. Time. I don't really have that right now.)

Anyhoo, in the meantime, I sort of blew past my third bloggy anniversary in July.

Um, yeah. Whoops.

I meant to do something really cool for my three-year mark. Something really neat and amazing, like a huge giveaway with a big sponsor or . . . I don't know, something. And then I posted something else on the actual anniversary and realized it a week later that it was over and . . . well, yeah..

So. . . let's all pretend that we're celebrating three years of The Lyon's Tale with a Word Nerd quiz . . . about me! (Because I'm going to be vain and pretend you all care.) Some questions you'll just have to guess at. Others you may know if you've been reading here long enough. Just give it a stab regardless. There are only 10 questions--it's worth trying for, right?

You can either leave your answers in the comments or send them to me via e-mail at annette at annettelyon dot com.

The person with the most correct answers gets a copy of There, Their They're: A No-Tears Guide to Grammar from the Word Nerd, OR a copy of one of my novels, their choice.

That includes the first two (non-historical) ones that are out of print, because I was smart enough to buy some copies before it was too late. (Yay for me, I was on-time for something.) So basically, the winner gets whatever book of mine they want that's currently in my house. (No waiting for a new book to come out next year, because I KNOW I'll forget to send it to you.)

If there's a tie, then both winners will get to pick one. Or maybe I'll let one of my kids draw a winner, and the runner-up gets something chocolaty, since I've been cooking up chocolate all over the place for that darned cookbook. (Haven't mentioned that in my Writing Journey yet, have I? I'll get there soon.) Anyhow, I'll cross that bridge if we get at tie.

So here's my Word Nerd quiz:

1. Which of the following languages have I NOT studied?

a) German

b) French

c) American Sign Language

d) Finnish

e) Russian

2. In what grade did I take my first language class?

a) 2nd

b) 4th

c) 6th

d) 8th

3) What was the first language I studied?

a) German

b) French

c) American Sign Language

d) Finnish

e) Russian

4) Why did I pick that one?

a) I heard it was easy.

b) My friends were taking it.

c) My grandpa is from a country that speaks it.

d) I wanted a challenge.

e) My parents picked it for me.

5) Probably the biggest factor in my becoming a Word Nerd is that:

a) I took a class about the history of English and loved it.

b) Dad is a linguist.

c) I worked at a library.

d) I learned to read at a young age.

e) I used to read the encyclopedia for fun.

6) While living in Finland and attending public school there, what language class did I attend?

a) Swedish

b) French

c) English

d) Russian

7) What is my favorite language "toy"?

a) Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends, by David Wilton

b) Word Nerd: More than 17,000 Fascinating Facts about Words, by Barbara Ann Kipfer, Ph.D

c) The Oxford English Dictionary

d) The Write Express Rhyming Dictionary

8) What language did I study in high school for 2 years?

a) French

b) German

c) Russian

d) Japanese

9) Who was my favorite professor at BYU? (If you've read enough WNW posts, this one should be easy. Oh, and I really did take at least one class from each of these teachers.)

a) Dr. Snyder

b) Dr. Oaks

c) Dr. Thayer

d) Dr. Crisler

10) What high school teacher do I credit for my understanding of punctuation? (Again, if you've been reading this blog long enough, you should know this.)

a) Miss Drummond

b) Miss Jarmon

c) Mrs. Oldredge

d) Miss Winn

(Answers will be accepted through Tuesday, August 18th, MDT, so I can announce the winners on the next WNW. Have fun!)