Category Archives: Grammar

Grammar

Clauses vs. Verbal Phrases in English

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Dear A Z:

You wrote:

Are these sentences correct:

1-I was trying to help Jean, completely exhausted, out of the car.

2-I was trying to help her, completely exhausted, out of the car.

3-The doctor was examining Don, severely injured in the accident.

4-The doctor was examining him, severely injured in the accident.

5-The doctor was examining Don, severely injured. 6-The doctor was examining him, severely injured.

All of these appear technically OK, but they are all pretty awkward. Remember, English tends to use clauses where other Indo-European languages prefer verbal phrases.

Far better, and more typical English would be something like this: I was trying to help Jean, who was completely exhausted, out of her car.

Or even two sentences would be superior to #1: I was trying to help Jean out of her car. She was completely exhausted.

Software

Using Grammar Slammer on Two PCs

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Dear PE:

You wrote:

Thanks for replying. I am the only user of Grammar Slammer. I take my netbook when I travel and would like to use the program outside of my home. So, how do I get a copy on my netbook? Thanks.

If you still have the installation file you received from us or from Share-It, simply install the program on your netbook. If you do not have the installation file any more, you can also simply copy the entire contents of the Grammar Slammer folder into a new folder on your netbook. All the files you need are in that folder. Any registry information would be copied to the registry the first time you run the program.

If you are still having problems, we can send you another installation file. We can e-mail one to you if your e-mail takes attachments; or you can purchase a backup CD from our online order page for $5.00 US.

 

Grammar, Reviews

Grammar Gaffes in the Office

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The following note was sent in response to an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal about what it called Grammar Gaffes in the Office. This article was brought to my attention more than once.

Dear Ms. Shellenbarger:

Thank you for your article on Grammar Gaffes in the Office. While you did attribute some of the problem to informal usage with e-mails, text messages, and the like, that is not the root of the problem. There has always been some kind of informal English, dialectical or otherwise. But people used to understand that in order to communicate effectively, it was necessary to learn standard English, even if they only used it in formal reading or writing. Your example of the Oxford comma is a good illustration of the confusion less precise grammar can cause.

The main problem nowadays is that many schools no longer teach grammar. I teach high school at a private school, and we get a lot students transferring in either middle school or high school who have never had any grammar at all. Each year we have some ninth graders who have never been taught how to use a dictionary or what a part of speech is.

I have had conversations with businessmen and college professors who complain that in the last twenty years they get applicants even with advanced degrees who cannot write a clear sentence. Such conversations usually include something like, “I hope you’re teaching your students grammar!”

A science teacher at my school asked me about this, since she knew of elementary schools that teach writing without grammar. It reminded me of when I was in fifth grade and we were being introduced to basketball in gym class. At first, some of the kids took the ball and ran with it down the court as if it were a football. The gym teacher then took the time to explain the rules to us. You cannot play a sport properly until you known the rules, I told this teacher. It is no different with a language.

Software, Vocabulary

Liter/Litre, Meter/Metre, etc.

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Dear Mr. R:

You wrote:

Please, oh please! When are you going to get metric nomenclature correct and stop making up your own spellings?

It’s litres not liters and metres not meters.

We are located in North America, so we do use the North American spellings on our web site. We explain this on our page noting the slight differences between British and North American English. Many of the differences go back to before the Revolution. While I personally admire Samuel Johnson both as a writer and a lexicographer, he was a Tory so his dictionary never received very much attention on this side of the pond.

By the way, our Spell Checker that ships with our Grammar Slammer program has both British and North American options.

Grammar

Whose – Both People and Objects

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Dear A P:

You wrote:

May I please point out that your statement “Who (or its forms whom and whose) refers only to people” is incorrect. For example: “The houses, whose roofs were damaged in the storm are now being repaired …etc.”

Kind regards
A P

Thanks for the note. Elsewhere we actually have whose this way—but you are correct, in modern English it is used for all such possessives. Whose as an interrogative referring to a thing would be most unusual, but as a relative pronoun you are correct. We have clarified this point in our material.

Software

Grammar Slammer on More than One CPU

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Dear P E:

You wrote:

Thanks for replying. I am the only user of Grammar Slammer. I take my netbook when I travel and would like to use the program outside of my home. So, how do I get a copy on my netbook? Thanks.

If you still have the installation file you received from us or from Share-It, simply install the program on your netbook. If you do not have the installation file any more, you can also simply copy the entire contents of the Grammar Slammer folder into a new folder on your netbook. All the files you need are in that folder. Any registry information would be copied to the registry the first time you run the program.

If you are still having problems, we can send you another installation file. We can e-mail one to you if your e-mail takes attachments; or you can purchase a backup CD from our online order page for $5.00 US.

Grammar, Vocabulary

Somebody vs. Anybody

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Dear NT:

You wrote:

Are sentences “1” and “2” both acceptable in this context:

You said that your cousin was in the house. We went there, and there was nobody in the house.

1-I said my cousin lived there. I didn’t say SOMEBODY was there.
2-I said my cousin lived there. I didn’t say ANYBODY was there.

Both make sense. Normally “any” goes with a negative, so most English speakers would say #2. Sentence #1 is a little ambiguous because somebody does live there. “Anybody” or “anyone” is more standard and what would normally be said.

Grammar

Using Well and Good

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Dear Mr. C:

You wrote:

I have read the article you already have posted but my question is this: When someone asks me how I am doing, I will usually say, “I’m doing well.” My friend corrected me and said, “You can’t do well, you ARE well or are DOING good.” That sounds incorrect to me. Is he right?

It depends on what you mean. “Well” is commonly an adverb. Adverbs do answer the question “How?” or “In what manner?” If you are in good health, you would normally say, “I am doing well.” “Well” modifies the verb “am doing” and tells us how you are doing. Your response for that question is fine.

However, your friend may be thinking of another context. While “good” is normally an adjective, it can be a noun as in “the greater good.” When you say “I am doing good,” “good” is the direct object of “am doing” and tells what you are doing. It does come across as immodest, but if you felt you had been involved in a meritorious activity, you could say “I am doing good,” i.e. “I have been doing a good deed.” We are more likely to say that about others; for example, the Bible in Acts 10:38 has Peter saying that Jesus “went about doing good.”

“Well” can also be an adjective meaning “in good health.” If you were to say, “I am well,” meaning that you were in good health, that is acceptable. This may be what your friend was thinking of.

I hope this helps.

Grammar

Capitalizing Words Referring to Names

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Dear LA:

You wrote:
Hi – I have a question for you: When referring the church (as in the Catholic Church, not using the word Catholic), do you capitalize the word church? Thank you.

Without trying to sound wishy-washy, we have seen it both ways. However, with the article “the” before it, the syntax suggests that the word would not be capitalized since we are not naming it. It would be like writing about William Faulkner and then referring to “the author” with a capital “A.”

Whichever way you do decide, be consistent.

Software

Why No “Automatic Editor”?

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I am using your trial program to see if it is helpful to me, and every time I try to grammar check anything using your program I get this message box. There is an exclamation in the top left corner along with this message.

“This selection contained 14 words and 1 sentences with 14 words per sentence, 3.71 characters per word, and 1.21 syllables/word. The grade level readability is approximately 8.45.”

Then there is the option to press “ok” or “cancel.”

Of course, this references changes due to size of document or sentence, but I get it every time and it is not checking the text. What is the problem?

There is no problem. That appears at the end of every completed grammar check. If you get that without any problems being flagged, it means that the checker found no errors.

I have tried “ok” and “cancel” and taken out all commas, etc. to see if it is checking and it is not. What am I doing wrong? I really need a program to check not just spelling, but comma usage, etc. and I am hoping your program will be of some assistance so I may purchase the program.

Please read the file “What to expect from grammar programs” if you have not done so. In many cases commas are not checked because they change the meaning. Any grammar checker is only going to be able to note basic punctuation problems. Otherwise, it would simply be annoying, asking questions for virtually every punctuation mark.

Grammar is intimately connected with meaning, so there is nothing automatic about grammar checking. That is why we have included our detailed Help file with grammar rules. If you have a question about the comma usage, use the Help file–it is very simple to use. You could even bookmark the “Comma Contents” page.