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Inside the Parentheses

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:04:39 +0000

British novelist Neil Gaiman really likes parentheses:

I admired [C.S. Lewis's] use of parenthetical statements to the reader, where he would just go talk to you. Suddenly the author would address a private aside to you, the reader. It was just you and him. I'd think, "Oh, my gosh, that is so cool! I want to do that! When I become an author, I want to be able to do things in parentheses." I liked the power of putting things in brackets.
_{(Neil Gaiman interviewed by Hank Wagner in Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman. Macmillan, 2008)}

American author Sarah Vowell also likes parentheses, but she's self-conscious about using them:

I have a similar affection for the parenthesis (but I always take most of my parentheses out, so as not to call undue attention to the glaring fact that I cannot think in complete sentences, that I think only in short fragments or long, run-on thought relays that the literati call stream of consciousness but I still like to think of as disdain for the finality of the period).
_{("Dark Circles." Take the Cannoli: Stories From the New World. Simon & Schuster, 2000)}

Editors have their own reasons for discouraging the use (or at least the overuse) of parentheses. "[T]hey are distracting and should be avoided when possible," says Rene Cappon in The Associated Press Guide to Punctuation (2003). "Commas and dashes can also do the job of parentheses, often more effectively."

Origins of Parentheses
The symbols themselves first showed up in the late 14th century, with scribes using virgulae convexae (also called half moons) for a variety of purposes. By the end of the 16th century, the parenthesis (from the Latin for "insert beside") had begun to assume its modern role:

Parenthesis is expressed by two half circles, which in writing enclose some perfit branch, as not mere impertinent, so not fullie concident to the sentence, which it breaketh, and in reading warneth us, that the words inclosed by them ar to be pronounced with a lower & quikker voice, then the words either before them or after them.
_{(Richard Mulcaster, Elementarie, 1582)}

In her book Quoting Speech in Early English (2011), Colette Moore notes that parentheses, like other marks of punctuation, originally had both "elocutionary and grammatical functions. . . . . [W]e see that whether through vocal or syntactic means, the parentheses are taken as a means to downplay the significance of the material enclosed within."

Parentheses Within Parentheses
Like a baseball game headed into extra innings, parenthetical remarks have the potential to go on indefinitely--a point nimbly illustrated by Lewis Thomas in the opening paragraph of his essay "Notes on Punctuation":

There are no precise rules about punctuation (Fowler lays out some general advice (as best he can under the complex circumstances of English prose (he points out, for example, that we possess only four stops (the comma, the semicolon, the colon and the period (the question mark and exclamation point are not, strictly speaking, stops; they are indicators of tone (oddly enough, the Greeks employed the semicolon for their question mark (it produces a strange sensation to read a Greek sentence which is a straightforward question: Why weepest thou; (instead of Why weepest thou? (and, of course, there are parentheses (which are surely a kind of punctuation making this whole matter much more complicated by having to count up the left-handed parentheses in order to be sure of closing with the right number (but if the parentheses were left out, with nothing to work with but the stops we would have considerably more flexibility in the deploying of layers of meaning than if we tried to separate all the clauses by physical barriers (and in the latter case, while we might have more precision and exactitude for our meaning, we would lose the essential flavor of language, which is its wonderful ambiguity )))))))))))).
_{(The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher. Viking, 1979)}

On those rare occasions when a parenthesis within a parenthesis is unavoidable, most style guides recommend that we switch to square brackets to highlight the distinction. Paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson followed this practice, comically and self-consciously, in an apologetic letter to his sister:

But now, then, (I can't make up my mind which) I really didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I know that it must be hell (that would just slip in [I hate parentheses]) to tinkle about by the numbers & have dumbbells to instruct, but at that it doesn't sound like a bad job. (I just can't seem to be sympathetic without going it-might-be-lots-worse all over.)
_{(Simple Curiosity: Letters from George Gaylord Simpson to His Family, 1921-1970. University of California Press, 1987)}

Punctuating Parenthetical Remarks
Here are a few guidelines to keep in mind:

As a general rule, don't use a comma, colon, or semicolon directly in front of a parenthesis (though you may, as here, use one of these marks after a closing parenthesis):
She found a hedgehog, and a snakeskin (but no snake), and a rock that looked just like a frog, and a toad that looked just like a rock.
_{(Neil Gaiman, Coraline. HarperCollins, 2002)}

When a complete sentence stands by itself inside parentheses, capitalize the first letter and place a period (or, if appropriate, a question mark or exclamation point) in front of the closing parenthesis:
The magnitude of the Puritan devotion to higher education is on display in a letter Reverend Thomas Shepard, Jr., wrote to his son upon the lad's admission to Harvard. (The elder Shepard was a graduate of Harvard's class of 1653.)
_{(Sarah Vowell, The Wordy Shipmates. Riverhead, 2008)}

On those infrequent occasions when a sentence is interrupted by another complete sentence that's inside parentheses, don't capitalize the first letter of the parenthetical sentence and don't put a period in front of the closing parenthesis:
He put the ball of thread (it was very thick stuff, more like cord than thread) into his mouth so that his cheek bulged out as if he were sucking a big bit of toffee.
_{(C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle. The Bodley Head, 1956)}

In the end, punctuation is a matter of personal taste as well as rules, and so, like essayist Cynthia Ozick, you should feel free to reject most parenthetical proscriptions (even when they're delivered by a renowned literary critic):

I was taking a course with Lionel Trilling and wrote a paper for him with an opening sentence that contained a parenthesis. He returned the paper with a wounding reprimand: "Never, never begin an essay with a parenthesis in the first sentence." Ever since then, I've made a point of starting out with a parenthesis in the first sentence.
_{("Cynthia Ozick, The Art of Fiction No. 95." The Paris Review, Spring 1987)}

More About Punctuation:

Inside the Parentheses originally appeared on About.com Grammar & Composition on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012 at 00:04:39.

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Grammatical Zeros

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:04:19 +0000

Funny thing about grammar: it can show up in a sentence even when there's nothing there.

Borrowing from mathematics, linguists use the term zero to signify the absence of a word (or part of a word) in a structure where that morpheme usually appears. In a zero infinitive, for instance, it's the particle to that's absent ("I heard him sing"). Similarly, a zero plural (deer, fish, sheep) is missing the -s ending that ordinarily turns a singular noun into a plural.

A grammatical zero is something like an empty chair at a dinner party where one of the guests has failed to arrive. As long as that chair remains empty (or in grammar, null), we're at least vaguely reminded of the absent character.

By now you can probably guess that a zero article refers to the absence of a definite article (the) or an indefinite article (a, an) before a noun. In general, the zero article is used with proper nouns ("She flew to Chicago"), mass nouns ("Knowledge is power"), and plural count nouns where the reference is indefinite ("Merdine collects books"). The zero article is also used with means of transport ("by train") and common expressions of time and place ("at noon," "in school").

Interestingly, some nouns that are never used with a zero article in American English do take the zero article in British English. For instance, where Americans speak of being "in the hospital" and "at the university," the British say "in hospital" and "at university."

Another species of grammatical zero sometimes goes by the unfortunate name of bare relative--a phrase that may conjure up some disturbing family images. We prefer using the term zero relative pronoun to characterize the absence of that, which, or whom at the beginning of a relative clause. Except in the most formal styles of writing, the pronoun can usually be dropped from a relative clause in which it serves as the object: "I followed the advice [that] you gave me."

A cautionary note: If this brief explanation of grammatical zeros inspires you to write a "zero composition," your instructor is likely to respond in kind by assigning a zero grade to that blank sheet of paper.

More Missing Pieces:

Grammatical Zeros originally appeared on About.com Grammar & Composition on Monday, February 20th, 2012 at 00:04:19.

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Quick Tips for Writing Under Pressure

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:09:16 +0000

You have 25 minutes to compose an SAT essay, two hours to write a final exam, less than half a day to finish a project proposal for your boss.

Here's a little secret: both in college and beyond, most writing is done under pressure.

Composition theorist Linda Flower reminds us that some degree of pressure can be "a good source of motivation. But when worry or the desire to perform well is too great, it creates an additional task of coping with anxiety" (Problem-Solving Strategies for Writing, 2003).

So learn to cope. It's remarkable how much writing you can do when faced with a strict deadline.

To avoid feeling overwhelmed by a writing task, consider these eight (admittedly not-so-simple) strategies.

Slow down.
Resist the urge to jump into a writing project before you've thought about your topic and your purpose for writing. If you're taking an exam, read the instructions carefully and skim all the questions. If you're writing a report for work, consider who will be reading the report and what they hope to get out of it.

Define your task.
If you're responding to an essay prompt or a question on an exam, make sure you're actually answering the question. (Don't alter a topic to match your interests.) If you're writing a report, identify your primary purpose, in as few words as possible, and make sure you don't stray far from that purpose.

Divide your task.
Divide your writing project into a series of smaller steps (a process called "chunking"), and then focus on each step in turn.

Budget and monitor your time.
Calculate how much time you have to complete each step, setting aside a few minutes for editing at the end. Then stick to your timetable. If you hit a trouble spot, skip ahead to the next step.

Relax.
If you tend to freeze up under pressure, try a relaxation technique, such as deep breathing, freewriting, or an imagery exercise.

Get it down.
As James Thurber once advised, "Don't get it right, just get it written." Concern yourself with getting the words down, even though you know you could do better if you had more time.

Review.
In the final minutes, quickly review your essay to make sure all your key ideas are on the page, not just in your head. Don't hesitate to make last-minute corrections.

Edit.
Novelist Joyce Cary had a habit of omitting vowels when writing under pressure. In your remaining seconds, restore the vowels (or whatever you tend to leave out when writing quickly).

Finally, the best way to learn how to write under pressure is to write under pressure--over and over again. So calm down, and keep practicing.

More Writing Advice:

Image: poster created by the British Ministry of Information in 1939

Quick Tips for Writing Under Pressure originally appeared on About.com Grammar & Composition on Friday, February 17th, 2012 at 00:09:16.

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Name That "-nym": A Matching Quiz

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 00:04:43 +0000

In the article "Name That '-nym': A Brief Introduction to Words and Names," we look at 22 language-related terms ending in "-nym" (a suffix derived from the Greek word for "name" or "word"). Here's a chance to test your familiarity with 10 of those terms, some of them fairly common and others not.

Match the "-nym" terms below with the appropriate definitions and examples that follow. You'll find the answers at the end of the quiz.

Terms
(a) antonym, (b) aptronym, (c) backronym, (d) demonym, (e) homonym, (f) metonym, (g) mononym, (h) oronym, (i) retronym, (j) toponym

Definitions and Examples

A word having a meaning contrary to that of another word: the opposite of synonym.

A new word or phrase (such as "landline phone" or "print newspaper") created for an old object or concept whose original name is no longer unique or has become associated with something else.

A one-word name (such as "Madonna" or "Adele") by which a person or thing is popularly known.

A word that has the same sound or spelling as another word but differs in meaning--as in the homophones "ceiling" and "sealing" and the homographs "moped" (past tense of "mope") and "moped" (a motorbike).

A name that matches the occupation or character of its owner--such as Dr. Russell Brain, a British neurologist.

A word or phrase used in place of another with which it's closely associated, such as "Whitehall" for the British government.

A word (such as "tuxedo") coined in association with the name of a place (a country club at Tuxedo Park, New York).

A name for the people who live in a particular place, such as "Danes," "Dubliners" and "Dallasites."

An expression (such as "Seasonal Affective Disorder") that has been formed from the letters of an existing word or name ("SAD").

A sequence of words (for example, "The stuffy nose can lead to problems") that sounds the same as a different sequence of words ("The stuff he knows can lead to problems").

Answers

a (antonym)
i (retronym)
g (mononym)
e (homonym)
b (aptronym)
f (metonym)
j (toponym)
d (demonym)
c (backronym)
h (oronym)

More About Words and Names:

Name That "-nym": A Matching Quiz originally appeared on About.com Grammar & Composition on Wednesday, February 15th, 2012 at 00:04:43.

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Love Metaphors for Valentine's Day

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:04:40 +0000

Here, from linguist George Lakoff and philosopher Mark Johnson, is a metaphorical thought for Valentine's Day:

Is the concept of love independent of the metaphors for love? The answer is a loud "No!" . . .

Imagine a concept of love without physical force--that is, without attraction, electricity, magnetism--and without union, madness, illness, magic, nurturance, journeys, closeness, heat, or giving of oneself. Take away all those metaphorical ways of conceptualizing love, and there's not a whole lot left. . . .

Without the conventional conceptual metaphors for love, we are left with only the skeleton, bereft of the richness of the concept. If somehow everyone had been forced to speak and think about love using only the little that is literal about it, most of what has been thought and said about love over the ages would not exist.
_{(George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. Basic Books, 1999)}

Lakoff and Johnson's thesis inspired us to look back through the ages and collect 99 of those conceptual metaphors for our article Love Is a Metaphor. Alongside passages from Plato, Ovid, and Shakespeare are fresh figures from the likes of Tom Robbins, Eminem, and Alicia Keyes.

As you'll see, love has been compared to everything from a pearl, a flame, and a cloud to a crocodile, a migraine headache, and an exploding cigar. While some comparisons evoke a sense of rapture, others impart feelings of cynicism or despair.

Visit Love Is a Metaphor: 99 Metaphors of Love, and then, if you're in the mood, stop back here to add a love metaphor of your own.

More About Figurative Comparisons:

Love Metaphors for Valentine's Day originally appeared on About.com Grammar & Composition on Monday, February 13th, 2012 at 00:04:40.

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Having Fun With Language at Grammar & Composition

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:04:54 +0000

Language is fun. Everyone who speaks and listens and writes and reads is involved to some degree with the inherent playfulness of human language. Ancient graffiti, classical fables, and many stories from the Bible and mythology show us that people have played with language for a very long time.
_{(Richard Lederer, Get Thee to a Punnery: An Anthology of Intentional Assaults Upon the English Language. Gibbs Smith, 2006)}

The student should discover language is fun because it is a sturdy tool for the exploration of experience. It gives the student writer what he hungers for--a way to find meaning and understanding in his own experience.
_{(Donald Murray, Learning by Teaching. Boynton/Cook, 1982)}

Having fun with language, making imaginative leaps and idiosyncratic jumps, "beaming" from idea to idea like Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise transporting between planets, is a great place to start. This is where surprise and discovery most often occur--in the realm of the experimental and unexpected. After all, if writers followed only predictable paths, where would new ideas come from?
_{(Dinty W. Moore, Crafting the Personal Essay: A Guide for Writing and Publishing Creative Nonfiction. Writer's Digest Books, 2010)}

In the spirit of fun, here are some of the odd, amusing, and sometimes downright silly topics covered at About.com Grammar & Composition over the past five years.

Spam, dead parrots, and the Spanish Inquisition at Monty Python, Figuratively Speaking

An unofficial (and highly improbable) list of the Ten Worst Student Essay Topics of All Time (#10: OMGYG2BK: A Twitter Essay in 23 Tweets)

A quick stop at Oui Oui Enterprises, a portable toilet rental service in Chicago, Illinois (one of 200 Store Name Puns)

Woozies, ghost poop, foochacha, and other terms for dust balls in What Is Family Slang?

Cracking wise with the likes of Sideshow Bob, Krusty the Clown, and Linguo the Grammar Robot at Language Lessons From The Simpsons

A humorous helping of "superfluous redundant pleonastic tautologies" in George Carlin's Essential Drivel

"Would you mind holding my metaphor for a second?" asks Dr. Gregory House in "House" Calls

"The Chaos"--a poetic compendium of irregularities in English spelling and pronunciation

Join us as we revisit these and other eccentric linguistic events at the Lighter Side of Language at Grammar & Composition.

Having Fun With Language at Grammar & Composition originally appeared on About.com Grammar & Composition on Friday, February 10th, 2012 at 00:04:54.

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Quiz on Commonly Confused Words (Winter 2012)

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:04:59 +0000

You know the drill: ten questions, two minutes, correct answers at the end of the post. (For explanations, examples, and exercises, follow the links to our Glossary of Usage: Index of Commonly Confused Words.)

Band or Banned
"The first modern jazz _____ ever heard in New York, or, perhaps anywhere, was organized at The Marshall."
(James Weldon Johnson, "The Making of Harlem," 1925)

Bolder or Boulder
"There is a giant sandstone _____ about a mile north of Old Laguna, on the road to Paguate. It is ten feet tall and twenty feet in circumference."
(Leslie Marmon Silko, "Legend of the Yellow Woman and the Giant," 1981)

Brake or Break
"You can _____ every grammatical and syntactical rule consciously when, and only when, you have rendered yourself incapable of _____ing them unconsciously."
(Bernard Levin, quoted by Arianna Huffington in "Bernard Levin Remembered." Ariannaonline.com, August 17, 2004)

Incidence or Incidents
"No hunter stalking his prey is more alert to the presence of his quarry than a writer looking for small _____ that cast a strong light on human behavior."
(Norman Cousins, The Healing Heart: Antidotes to Panic and Helplessness. Avon, 1984)

Incite or Insight
"A bad writer is a writer who always says more than he thinks. A good writer--and here we must be careful if we wish to arrive at any real _____--is a writer who does not say more than he thinks."
(Walter Benjamin, journal entry, Selected Writings: Volume 3, 1935-1938)

Raise, Raze, or Rise
"I have a dream that one day this nation will _____ up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'"
(Martin Luther King, Jr., "I Have a Dream," 1963)

Ring or Wring
"Having failed to _____ a confession from you, they lock you in a cell, and leave you there all night."
(H.L. Mencken, "The Nature of Liberty," 1922)

Sole or Soul
"In practice nobody cares whether work is useful or useless, productive or parasitic; the _____ thing demanded is that it shall be profitable."
(George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London, 1933)

Taught or Taut
"Each of their faces was as clear to me as in the moment of actual vision--the man's fat shiny bewildered face; the _____ white face of the woman, the hard red line of her mouth, the eyes that were not flashing, but positively dull, with rage."
(Max Beerbohm, A Relic, 1918)

Wait or Weight
"I finally told Ross, late in the summer, that I was losing _____, my grip, and possibly my mind."
(James Thurber, The Years with Ross, 1959)

Answers:

band
boulder
break, break
incidents
insight
rise
wring
sole
taut
weight

More Quizzes on Commonly Confused Words:

Quiz on Commonly Confused Words (Winter 2012) originally appeared on About.com Grammar & Composition on Wednesday, February 8th, 2012 at 00:04:59.

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Charles Dickens at 200: Tope�s Tenses, Pip�s Conjugations, and Mrs. Merdle�s Verbs

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:04:20 +0000

Then came the time when, inseparable from one's own birthday, was a certain sense of merit, a consciousness of well-earned distinction. When I regarded my birthday as a graceful achievement of my own, a monument of my perseverance, independence, and good sense, redounding greatly to my honour.
(Charles Dickens, "Birthday Celebrations." The Uncommercial Traveller, 1860)

To mark the 200th birthday of the great Victorian novelist Charles Dickens (born on February 7, 1812), we've gathered some of his characters' most memorable observations on language.

Mr. Pecksniff's Sounds and Forms
"Oh Pa!" cried Mercy, holding up her finger archly. "See advertisement!"

"Playful--playful warbler," said Mr. Pecksniff. It may be observed in connection with his calling his daughter a "warbler," that she was not at all vocal, but that Mr. Pecksniff was in the frequent habit of using any word that occurred to him as having a good sound, and rounding a sentence well without much care for its meaning. And he did this so boldly, and in such an imposing manner, that he would sometimes stagger the wisest people with his eloquence, and make them gasp again.

His enemies asserted, by the way, that a strong trustfulness in sounds and forms was the master-key to Mr. Pecksniff's character.
(Martin Chuzzlewit, 1843-44)

Mr. Micawber and the Parade of Words
Mr. Micawber had a relish in this formal piling up of words, which, however ludicrously displayed in his case, was, I must say, not at all peculiar to him. I have observed it, in the course of my life, in numbers of men. It seems to me to be a general rule. In the taking of legal oaths, for instance, deponents seem to enjoy themselves mightily when they come to several good words in succession, for the expression of one idea; as, that they utterly detest, abominate, and abjure, or so forth; and the old anathemas were made relishing on the same principle. We talk about the tyranny of words, but we like to tyrannize over them too; we are fond of having a large superfluous establishment of words to wait upon us on great occasions; we think it looks important, and sounds well. As we are not particular about the meaning of our liveries on state occasions, if they be but fine and numerous enough, so, the meaning or necessity of our words is a secondary consideration, if there be but a great parade of them. And as individuals get into trouble by making too great a show of liveries, or as slaves when they are too numerous rise against their masters, so I think I could mention a nation that has got into many great difficulties, and will get into many greater, from maintaining too large a retinue of words.
(David Copperfield, 1850)

Mrs. Merdle's Verbs
In the grammar of Mrs. Merdle's verbs on this momentous subject, there was only one Mood, the Imperative; and that Mood had only one Tense, the Present. Mrs. Merdle's verbs were so pressingly presented to Mr. Merdle to conjugate, that his sluggish blood and his long coat-cuffs became quite agitated.
(Little Dorrit, 1855-57)

Pip's Conjugations
Even when I thought of Estella, and how we had parted that day for ever, and when I recalled all the circumstances of our parting, and all her looks and tones, and the action of her fingers while she knitted--even then I was pursuing, here and there and everywhere, the caution, Don't go home. When at last I dozed, in sheer exhaustion of mind and body, it became a vast shadowy verb which I had to conjugate. Imperative mood, present tense: Do not thou go home, let him not go home, let us not go home, do not ye or you go home, let not them go home. Then, potentially: I may not and I cannot go home; and I might not, could not, would not, and should not go home; until I felt that I was going distracted, and rolled over on the pillow, and looked at the staring rounds upon the wall again.
(Great Expectations, 1860-61)

Tope's Tenses
"Mr. Jasper was that, Tope?"
"'Yes, Mr. Dean."
"He has stayed late."
"Yes, Mr. Dean. I have stayed for him, your Reverence. He has been took a little poorly."
"Say 'taken,' Tope--to the Dean," the younger rook interposes in a low tone with this touch of correction, as who should say, "You may offer bad grammar to the laity, or the humbler clergy, not to the Dean."
(The Mystery of Edwin Drood, 1870)

Eloquence and Verbosity
[T]hough lovers are remarkable for leaving a great deal unsaid on all occasions, and very properly desiring to come back and say it, they are remarkable also for a wonderful power of condensation, and can, in one way or other, give utterance to more language--eloquent language--in any given short space of time, than all the six hundred and fifty-eight members in the Commons House of Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; who are strong lovers no doubt, but of their country only, which makes all the difference; for in a passion of that kind (which is not always returned), it is the custom to use as many words as possible, and express nothing whatever.
(Martin Chuzzlewit, 1843-44)

Dombey's Grammatical Studies
The young gentlemen were prematurely full of carking anxieties. They knew no rest from the pursuit of stony-hearted verbs, savage noun-substantives, inflexible syntactic passages, and ghosts of exercises that appeared to them in their dreams. Under the forcing system, a young gentleman usually took leave of his spirits in three weeks. He had all the cares of the world on his head in three months. He conceived bitter sentiments against his parents or guardians in four; he was an old misanthrope, in five; envied Curtius that blessed refuge in the earth in six; and at the end of the first twelvemonth had arrived at the conclusion, from which he never afterwards departed, that all the fancies of the poets, and lessons of the sages, were a mere collection of words and grammar, and had no other meaning in the world.
(Dombey and Son, 1846-48)

Charley's Penmanship
I had not been at home again many days when one evening I went upstairs into my own room to take a peep over Charley's shoulder and see how she was getting on with her copy-book. Writing was a trying business to Charley, who seemed to have no natural power over a pen, but in whose hand every pen appeared to become perversely animated, and to go wrong and crooked, and to stop, and splash, and sidle into corners like a saddle-donkey. It was very odd, to see what old letters Charley's young hand had made; they, so wrinkled, and shrivelled, and tottering; it, so plump and round. Yet Charley was uncommonly expert at other things, and had as nimble little fingers as I ever watched.

"Well, Charley," said I, looking over a copy of the letter O in which it was represented as square, triangular, pear-shaped, and collapsed in all kinds of ways, "we are improving. If we only get to make it round, we shall be perfect, Charley."
(Bleak House, 1852-53)

Though best known as a novelist, Dickens also wrote hundreds of sketches and essays, some of which can be found in the collections Sketches by Boz (1836), The Uncommercial Traveller (1860), and Reprinted Pieces (1861). The social concerns that figure prominently in his fiction also appear in many of these essays.

Here, for your edification and amusement, are three of his finest short pieces:

Image: Charles Dickens (born February 7, 1812; died June 9, 1870)

Charles Dickens at 200: Tope�s Tenses, Pip�s Conjugations, and Mrs. Merdle�s Verbs originally appeared on About.com Grammar & Composition on Monday, February 6th, 2012 at 00:04:20.

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Monosyllables: A Few Good Short Words

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:04:04 +0000

Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.
_{(Winston Churchill, The Times Literary Award Presentation, Nov. 2, 1949)}

One way to get straight to the point when you write is to use short words--not all the time, of course, but when you sense that your prose has grown dull and thick, weighed down with large words that just take up space and get in the way of what you want to say. In a pinch, short words can speed up a line and light up a thought.

Keep in mind that you don't have to sound like The Cat in the Hat when you use short words. Why, just think of these great lines:

"To be or not to be . . ."

"I have a dream."

"If you build it, he will come."

"These are the times that try men's souls."

"The stuff that dreams are made of."

"May the Force be with you."

"Be all that you can be."

"He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword."

"Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By.'"

"The buck stops here."

"When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."

"Seize the day."

"So it goes."

"I love you."

When we write, our goal should not be to fill up a page with short words or with long words. We should aim to find the best words, a mix of the long and the short.

But when caught in a tight spot, when your thoughts get lost in the web of words and you can't seem to find your way out, try to clear your head and clean up your prose with a few short words.

Trust me: it works.

More About Keeping It Short:

Monosyllables: A Few Good Short Words originally appeared on About.com Grammar & Composition on Friday, February 3rd, 2012 at 00:04:04.

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A Crash Course in Linguistics

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:04:53 +0000

Simply defined, linguistics is the systematic study of language. Though various types of language studies (including grammar and rhetoric) can be traced back over 2,500 years, the era of modern linguistics is barely two centuries old.

Kicked off by the late-18th-century discovery that many European and Asian languages descended from a common tongue (Proto-Indo-European), modern linguistics was reshaped, first, by Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) and more recently by Noam Chomsky (born 1928).

Linguistics, like most academic disciplines, has been divvied up into numerous overlapping subfields--"a stew of alien and undigestible terms," as Randy Allen Harris characterized them in his 1993 book The Linguistics Wars. Using the sentence "Fideau chased the cat" as an example, Allen offered this "crash course" in the major branches of linguistics. (Follow the links to learn more about these subfields.)

Phonetics concerns the acoustic waveform itself, the systematic disruptions of air molecules that occur whenever someone utters the expression.

Phonology concerns the elements of that waveform which recognizably punctuate the sonic flow--consonants, vowels, and syllables, represented on this page by letters.

Morphology concerns the words and meaningful subwords constructed out of the phonological elements--that Fideau is a noun, naming some mongrel, that chase is a verb signifying a specific action which calls for both a chaser and a chasee, that -ed is a suffix indicating past action, and so on.

Syntax concerns the arrangement of those morphological elements into phrases and sentences--that chased the cat is a verb phrase, that the cat is its noun phrase (the chasee), that Fideau is another noun phrase (the chaser), that the whole thing is a sentence.

Semantics concerns the proposition expressed by that sentence--in particular, that it is true if and only if some mutt named Fideau has chased some definite cat.

Though handy, Harris's list of linguistic subfields is far from comprehensive. In fact, some of the most innovative work in contemporary language studies is being carried out in even more specialized branches, some of which hardly existed 30 or 40 years ago. Here, without the assistance of Fideau, is a sample: applied linguistics, cognitive linguistics, contact linguistics, corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, forensic linguistics, graphology, historical linguistics, language acquisition, lexicology, linguistic anthropology, neurolinguistics, paralinguistics, pragmatics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and stylistics.

Image: The Linguistics Wars by Randy Allen Harris (Oxford University Press, 1993)

A Crash Course in Linguistics originally appeared on About.com Grammar & Composition on Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 at 00:04:53.

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