Writing, Clear and Simple

I occasionally occassionally browse through my referral logs to see what sort of search terms people used to find this site. Some of the time, it’s clear that they find an article that answers their questions. For example, I constantly see people searching for “bad news messages,” and Google takes them directly to my article, “Delivering Bad News.” It’s clear, however, that they haven’t always found what they were looking for on my site—not until now, anyway. This post will attempt to answer some of those unanswered questions. 

1. What does the word exodus mean?

Before I answer that, one little point: If you can’t or won’t buy yourself a good dictionary, bookmark this site: www.thefreedictionary.com. Use a dictionary or go to a dictionary site, rather than googling a word when you want the definition. “The right tool for the job,” and all that.

Now, to the definition (from thefreedictionary.com, by the way):

1.  A departure of a large number of people.
2. Exodus

a. The departure of the Israelites from Egypt.
b.  Abbr. Ex or Exod.

Usage note: Never write mass exodus. An exodus is already a “mass” event. Mass exodus is a pleonasm. (Exercise for the class: go look up “pleonasm.”)

2. starting a sentence with if

That’s easy: If you think you shouldn’t start a sentence with “if,” you’re wrong. See?

3. what does “a little song a little dance a little seltzer down your pants” mean

That phrase goes back to the Mary Tyler Moore show, in which it was said to be the catch phrase used by Chuckles the Clown. You can read more here on Wikipedia. 

4. Grammar question is it all your or all of your?

 Both. No, really. As far as I know, either one is fine, grammatically speaking, so trust your ear to let you know which one sounds better in a given situation.

5. can i use semicolons to list things

I find paper and pencil works better. As far as punctuation goes, a colon is more appropriate to set off a list, like this: 

Here is a list of stuff: Item A, Item 2, and Cranberries.

You can also use it to introduce a bulleted or numbered list. Find out about the uses of the semicolon here. 

It’s just a little apostrophe, right? What difference does it make? Just ask a fellow North Dakotan, Julie Neidlinger. In a post about a movie called Jesus Camp, she says:

One point I want to make is in regards to all the material, stories and articles written by professional journalists (what, they can’t Google Devils Lake?) and discussion involving this camp and the location of it. It is NOT Devil’s Lake. It’s Devils Lake. There is no apostrophe. This is a huge difference and, as much as you want the rich irony of the town being possessed by the devil for your article, as much as the apostrophe allows you to end your article with a clever turn of the phrase, the name is not a possessive. It is a reference to the Native Americans referring to the lake as full of spirits, hence the name of the Spirit Lake Tribe that borders the lake.

Think I’m being petty? Much ado about that little apostophe is being made as people can’t get over the name of the town and the subject of the movie.

Get those little details right. 

The semicolon—sometimes called the love child of the comma and the period—must be an important punctuation mark. After all, the designer of the typewriter keyboard put it on the home row, right under your right pinkie.*

But it isn’t like the period, you know. Everybody knows what to do with a period. You put it at the end of a sentence. Like that. Or you use it with abbreviations, like Dr. or Mr.

What’s the semicolon for? It’s not all that mysterious, really; you use it to join two sentences into a compound sentence. Like that. The beauty of the semicolon is it eliminates the need for a conjunction. In the example I just showed you, I could have joined those two sentences with because: “It’s not all that mysterious, really, because you use it to join two sentences into a compound sentence.”

The semicolon is entirely optional. You can live your whole life without ever using it (and many writers have). There’s no rule that says you have to join two independent sentences together, and even if you decide you want to, there’s no rule that says you have to do it with a semicolon rather than a conjunction.

But I encourage you to experiment with it. Noah Lukeman, in A Dash of Style, says that “The semicolon elevates punctuation from the utilitarian (from punctuation that works) to the luxurious (to punctuation that transcends).” Lynne Truss, author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves, agrees:

The semicolon has been rightly called ” a compliment from the writer to the reader.” And a mighty compliment it is, too. The sub-text of a semicolon is, “Now this is a hint. The elements of this sentence, although grammatically distinct, are actually elements of a single notion. I can make it plainer for you — but hey! You’re a reader! I don’t need to draw you a map!”

Given that using a semicolon implies a level of trust in the reader’s ability to “get it,” you may want to approach it with some trepidation if you’re writing for an ESL audience. Be sure that the connection between the sentence elements is quite clear.

Some recommendations, then:

• Use a semicolon to join two grammatically separate, but thematically linked sentences into a unified whole. “Always try to do things in chronological order; it’s less confusing that way.”
• Use a semicolon before adding a clause introduced by a conjunctive adverb like however, nevertheless, or for example. “Tweedledee was angry at his brother for spoiling his rattle; moreover, he said Tweedledum had poor taste in haberdashery.”
  
• Some style guides call for semicolons in things like bibliographic citations and indexes (for example, The Chicago Manual of Style indicates that you may need to use them when listing several authors), so if you’re bound by a particular style, be aware of its requirements.
  

*Actually, the story of the design of the QWERTY keyboard layout is a complicated one; suffice it to say here that much of what people “know” about it is folklore and not hard fact.

Have you given much thought to punctuation lately?

 I thought not. Novel Journey scored an interview with Noah Lukeman, author of  A Dash of Style: The Art and Mastery of Punctuation, who had this to say:

For most writers, punctuation is something they learned when young and which they now do mostly by instinct. Most writers have not actively studied or paid close attention to the marks on an ongoing basis, or in recent years. Since they do so much instinctually, they prefer not to dwell too deeply. It is like holding up a magnifying glass to the part they prefer to keep in the dark, or at the very least, not to be highlighted.

 So, what’s your approach to punctuation? Do you just stick things in where they seem to fit, or do you follow a set of rules learned in grammar school?

In the last post, I said that commas are used to indicate the separate items in a list. That function is just an extension of the comma’s basic purpose, which is to show where a sentence’s joints are: where introductory, interrupting, or concluding phrases and clauses begin and end, which are the units in a list or the parts of an address, a person’s title, where the non-essential clauses are, and so on.

Some people find it useful to think of commas as showing where you should pause when reading a sentence, but that’s an oversimplification. If you stop with that rule of thumb, I think you run the risk of leaving out commas that should be added, and adding commas that you shouldn’t.

With that in mind, here’s another use for commas: Insert a comma when you have two complete sentences joined with a conjunction, such as and, but, yet, because, and so on. For example:

Almost everybody knows what a comma is, but few can explain how to use it.

 That sentence really contains two complete sentences: "Almost everybody knows what a comma is," and "Few can explain how to use it." This causes trouble for some people when they omit the conjunction; what you have then is lovingly called a comma splice, and it looks like this:

Almost everybody knows what a comma is, few can explain how to use it.

Please don’t do this. If you want to leave out the conjunction, then use a semicolon instead of a comma. Yes, it is true that you can find examples of comma splices (also known as splice commas) in the writings of such literary luminaries as Samuel Beckett, E.M. Forster, Somerset Maugham, and John Updike, just to name a few. But you’re not them, are you? e e cummings wreaked havoc on rules of spelling, capitalization, and punctuation, but if you’re not him, I don’t recommend that you follow his lead either. Lynn Truss (I mentioned her and her book Eats, Shoots, and Leaves in my previous post) explains it this way:

Now, so many highly respected writers adopt the splice comma that a rather unfair rule emerges on this one: only do it if you’re famous.  

Unfair, maybe, but it works for me.