The Proofreading Agency

However should I use ‘however’? – Punctuation and word order with conjunctive adverbs

Super-proofreader — Mon, 13 May 2019 10:18:58 +0000

As is no big surprise when it comes to the English language, the question of how to use ‘however’ is complicated by the fact that the word has two different meanings: ‘in whatever way’ and ‘by contrast’.

‘However’ meaning ‘in whatever way’

In the question of the title, the first ‘however’ means ‘in whatever way’, and when used with this meaning it can come:

at the start of the sentence, with no comma after it: However should I use this word?
after a semicolon, with no comma after it: I don’t know how to use this word; however I do it is wrong.
in the middle of a sentence, with no commas around it: I get it wrong however I try to use it.

‘However’ meaning ‘by contrast’

In this context, the meaning of ‘however’ is the same as that of ‘but’, only more formal, and this causes further confusion because although their meaning is the same, their grammar is different.

‘But’ can be used between two sentences to make them one, either with a comma or without:

I like tea but I don’t like coffee.
I like tea, but I don’t like coffee.

It is not conventionally considered correct to use it at the start of a sentence, and it certainly can’t be used at the end.

‘However’, on the other hand (apologies for introducing another adverb of contrast!), can come at the start of the sentence as long as it is followed by a comma:

I like tea. However, I don’t like coffee.

It cannot be used to make two sentences one, either with no punctuation or with a comma; instead, a semicolon is needed before ‘however’ and a comma after it:

I like tea; however, I don’t like coffee.

Having said that (apologies again), it can come part way through a single independent clause or sentence, and is traditionally enclosed by commas:

I like tea. I don’t, however, like coffee.

It can even come at the end, with a comma before it:

I like tea. I don’t like coffee, however.

Other conjunctive adverbs

Other adverbs that follow the same pattern are ‘furthermore’, ‘moreover’, ‘nevertheless’ and ‘therefore’, and indeed ‘on the other hand’, ‘having said that’ and ‘indeed’, with the commas now considered optional for many of these, particularly ‘therefore’ and ‘indeed’. Nonetheless (and there’s another one), some positions may sound more natural than others. For instance, the examples below that are marked with an asterisk (*) sound a little awkward to me, but you and others may well disagree. Once again, it seems to be a question of the extraordinary complexity and flexibility of the English language.

Most verbs: They have decided to…

They therefore have decided to… (between subject and auxiliary: no comma)
They have, therefore, decided to… (between auxiliary and main verb: comma either side)
They have decided, therefore, to… (after main verb: comma either side)

Modal verbs: They can choose what to do.

*They therefore can choose what to do. (between subject and auxiliary: no comma)
They can, therefore, choose what to do. (between auxiliary and main verb: comma either side)
*They can choose what to do, therefore. (at end of sentence: comma before)

Verb ‘to be’: Their options are limited.

Their options, therefore, are limited. (between subject and verb: comma either side)
Their options are, therefore, limited. (after verb: comma either side)
*Their options are limited, therefore. (at end of sentence: comma before)

Making words mean what you want: 2

Super-proofreader — Fri, 22 Mar 2019 10:11:29 +0000

‘Sure, if I reprehend any thing in this world it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs!’
Mrs Malaprop in Sheridan’s The Rivals

Fortunately, few speakers or writers, real or fictional, misuse words to quite the extent of Sheridan’s Mrs Malaprop, who has lent her name to the phenomenon of using a word that sounds similar to the correct one but means something completely different. Unfortunately (because of their humour value), malapropisms are actually a relatively rare occurrence and are too idiosyncratic to be worth cataloguing. Far more frequent, and far trickier to spot, are confusions between words that are fairly similar in meaning, whether they sound similar or not. Below are some examples that we often come across.

choice vs option

There are two ____ for this question. Which is the correct word to fill in the gap?
a. choices
b. options

Students may make only one _____. Which is the correct word to fill in the gap?
a. choice
b.option

‘There are two options for this question.’ but ‘Students may make only one choice.’ An option is something to choose from, and a choice is the actual decision, so multiple-choice questions are in fact a misnomer, as they are really multiple-option questions!

describe vs refer to

Question 1: What word describes the large, yellow astral body that provides light and heat/energy to our planet?
Answer: The Sun.

Question 2: What is wrong with ‘describes’ in Question 1 above?
Answer: The word ‘Sun’ doesn’t tell us anything about what that object is like; it simply names or refers to it. Adjectival phrases such as ‘large, yellow astral body’ describe the Sun.

different vs various

Rephrase the following sentence using the word ‘different’:
There are various stages in the process.

Answer: There are several different stages in the process.

Here at the Proofreading Agency, we often encounter ‘different’ being used where ‘various’ was meant, as in ‘The measure failed for different reasons.’, which should be ‘The measure failed for various reasons.’ as various refers to the number, more than one, while different refers to the lack of similarity.

especially vs specially

Complete the following sentences with ‘especially’ or ‘specially’:

Hurricanes are frequent in Bangladesh, ____ in the rainy season.

This activity has been ____ devised for higher-ability students.

This classic continues to cause confusion. Both words mean ‘particularly’, but ‘especially’ means ‘more than the others’ (think ‘e’ for ‘extra’), while ‘specially’ means ‘with this specific objective/intention’. So, the correct answers are:

Hurricanes are frequent in Bangladesh, especially in the rainy season.
(Hurricanes are more frequent in the rainy season than in other seasons.)

This activity has been specially devised for higher-ability students.
(It is intended for that group in particular.)

limited vs restricted

Can you explain the difference between these two sentences?

Parking in this area is restricted.

Parking in this area is limited.

In the first sentence, the lack of parking is externally imposed; there are plenty of spaces, but maybe some are reserved for staff members or can only be used by the public at certain times. In the second, there simply aren’t enough spaces for the number of drivers hoping to use them.

Incidentally, what Mrs Malaprop was presumably intending to say is, ‘… if I apprehend any thing in this world it is the use of my vernacular tongue, and a nice arrangement of epithets!’ Some of her other gems include: ‘I thought she had persisted from corresponding with him’ (for desisted) and, my own personal favourite, ‘I hope you will represent her to the captain as an object not altogether illegible’ (for eligible).

For more in a similar vein, see our previous post Making words mean what you want.
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The whys, wherefores, therefores and therebys

Super-proofreader — Tue, 26 Feb 2019 17:27:33 +0000

‘O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?’

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene ii

This famous question must be the most misinterpreted line in all of the Bard’s many works. Students across the generations have taken it for an instance of Shakespearean irony, with Juliet asking where her sweetheart is when in fact the boy is standing right below her window, and yet ‘wherefore’ doesn’t mean ‘where’ but ‘why’: ‘Why are you Romeo?’, i.e. from the Montague family, Juliet’s family’s sworn enemies.

Fortunately, we don’t encounter many ‘wherefore’s in present-day proofreading, but other similar adverbs do cause difficulties.

Take a look at the following highlighted instances, and see whether you can suggest a better word or words:

On 17^th November 1903 the Wright brothers made their first flight, therefore changing the course of history.

The ‘squeaky pop’ test is a test for the presence of hydrogen where a lighted splint is dipped into a test tube.

Carbon capture is a system where carbon dioxide is trapped as it is emitted from factories and other major sources.

The last week of November is the period where most online sales are made.

Answers

1. On 17^th November 1903 the Wright brothers made their first flight, thereby changing the course of history.

Explanation: ‘therefore’ means ‘for this reason’; however, changing the course of history was presumably not the brothers’ reason for inventing the aeroplane but rather a result, and ‘thereby’ means ‘as a result of this’.

2. The ‘squeaky pop’ test is a test for the presence of hydrogen in which a lighted splint is dipped into a test tube.

Explanation: a test is not a place, so ‘where’ is not the most appropriate word. If we break the sentence into two, we get:

The ‘squeaky pop’ test is a test for the presence of hydrogen. In this test, a lighted splint is dipped into a test tube.

so ‘in which’ is the best relative adverb, but ‘whereby’ is another possibility (see below).

3. Carbon capture is a system whereby carbon dioxide is trapped as it is emitted from factories and other major sources.

Explanation: again, a system is not a place; ‘whereby’ (by means of which) is the best choice to follow words such as ‘system’, ‘process’, ‘technique’ and ‘plan’.

4. The last week of November is the period when most online sales are made.

Explanation: at the risk of repeating myself, a period is not a place! ‘When’ is the correct word for referring to time.

One final proofreading thought to close with: why (or wherefore) do we need the expression ‘whys and wherefores’, since the two words mean the same thing?
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Difficulties with ‘and’

Super-proofreader — Mon, 21 Jan 2019 12:18:53 +0000

I’d like you to understand, doctor. I grant you it’s easy enough to choose between a ‘but’ and an ‘and.’ It’s a bit more difficult to decide between ‘and’ and ‘then.’ But definitely the hardest thing may be to know whether one should put an ‘and’ or leave it out.

Joseph Grand, a character in The Plague by Albert Camus

http://www.24grammata.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/The_Plague__Albert_Camus-24grammata.com_.pdf

Hopefully, most writers don’t struggle with word choice to quite the extent of Camus’ perfectionist civil servant, but as perfectionist proofreaders we do sometimes need to sort out sentences where ‘and’ causes difficulties.

Consider the following example:

The hospice relies on donations from local businesses and volunteer care workers.

Does this mean that it relies on donations from volunteer care workers? Presumably not, but rather that it relies on them to care for residents. As discussed in a previous blog post, it’s a problem of parallelism: the parts on either side of the ‘and’ are assumed to be equivalent, but in this case they are not.

Solutions:

The simplest solution, and the closest to the author’s original words, is simply to repeat ‘on’:

The hospice relies on donations from local businesses and on volunteer care workers.

A more grammatically accurate, but perhaps semantically rather redundant, one is to repeat the structure of ‘abstract noun + from + people’:

The hospice relies on donations from local businesses and nursing support from volunteer care workers.

A similar issue arises here:

The meal consisted of prawn curry and sweet dumplings in syrup.

Was the prawn curry in syrup? Let’s hope it was just the dumplings! As in M. Grand’s ‘and’ versus ‘then’ dilemma, the problem lies in the fact that the sentence is referring to a sequence of events rather than simultaneous ones.

Solutions:

One solution is to use an Oxford/serial comma:

The meal consisted of prawn curry, and sweet dumplings in syrup.

Another is to rephrase ‘and’ using an expression to indicate sequence:

The meal consisted of prawn curry followed by sweet dumplings in syrup.

Although ‘and’ versus ‘but’ may be relatively straightforward for Joseph Grand, ‘and’ versus ‘or’ often causes writers problems when used with the verb ‘choose’.

We often come across sentences such as:

Students should choose between Question A or Question B.

Solutions:

This is actually tautological and should be either:

Students should choose between Question A and Question B.

or:

Students should choose Question A or Question B.

As for whether to include ‘and’ or to leave it out, this seems to be a problem peculiar to Joseph Grand, but watch this space in case we come across any examples!Follow us:

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Go easy on the exclamation marks!

Super-proofreader — Fri, 14 Dec 2018 15:45:13 +0000

A December blog post seems the perfect opportunity to wish you ‘Merry Christmas!’ or ‘Happy Holidays!’ (depending on your beliefs or lack of), and also to reflect on the use and overuse of the exclamation mark. According to some sources¹, it originated in the Latin term ‘io’, meaning ‘joy’, placed by medieval scribes at the end of a sentence much as we’d use an emoji today, with the ‘o’ then moving below the ‘I’ and becoming a dot. This makes the exclamation mark ideally suited to expressing festive delight, as in ‘Merry Christmas!’ or ‘Joy to the world; the Lord is come!’

Shakespeare referred to it as ‘a note of admiration’ (1611), with writers shortly afterwards using the terms ‘note of exclamation’ and ‘exclamation note’², indicating that it could already be used to express emotions other than joy. Charles Dickens is a renowned enthusiast of punctuation marks in general, and of the exclamation mark in particular, with A Christmas Carol (1843) containing 1,351 of them per 100,000 words – equivalent to five or six per page.³

However, the exclamation mark didn’t have its own key on the typewriter until the early 1970s⁴, and its introduction may have been the beginning of a slippery slope. These days it seems to be used everywhere and anywhere, often to make a piece of writing sound more ‘fun’ than it really is, in sentences that are not exclamations, such as ‘You could record your presentation on your mobile phone!’ or ‘Try to think of at least three examples!’ In these instances, I tend to agree with F Scott Fitzgerald that ‘An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own jokes.’⁵

So what exactly does count as an exclamation? Well, making a joke is one legitimate use of the mark, as is expressing surprise, delight or anger, or shouting for any reason. There also seems to be a tacit understanding that you should use either one or three, with three being too informal for academic or literary writing, except in quoted speech.

Incidentally, Dickens has been variously praised and mocked for his idiosyncratic use of colons in A Christmas Carol (from the very first sentence: ‘Marley was dead: to begin with.’)⁶ – but colons can be the topic of a future blog post. In the meantime: Merry Christmas!, Happy New Year! and Have a joyous festive season!

¹ https://atkinsbookshelf.blog/2017/03/18/novels-with-the-most-exclamation-points/; https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-history-of-the-exclamation-point-16445416/#GVLm4lZuECCDIcBe.99

² https://www.etymonline.com/word/exclamation

³ https://atkinsbookshelf.blog/2017/03/18/novels-with-the-most-exclamation-points/

⁴ https://atkinsbookshelf.blog/2017/03/18/novels-with-the-most-exclamation-points/

⁵ quoted in https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-history-of-the-exclamation-point-16445416/#GVLm4lZuECCDIcBe.99

⁶ https://www.vulture.com/2014/01/best-punctuation-marks-literature-nabokov-eliot-dickens-levi.htmlFollow us:

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Reference – pronouns and the importance of human proofreaders

Super-proofreader — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 09:26:05 +0000

I wrote in a previous blog post (Plausible typos and homophones) about the continued importance of human proofreaders and their superiority (for now) over computers. Another area where humans’ use of contextual inference outperforms machines’ analysis is the grammatical issue of reference – the use of pronouns and pronoun phrases to avoid repeating previously used nouns.

I remember a university lecture on machine translation that highlighted the issue with the following example:

• The monkey ate the banana because it was ripe.
• The monkey ate the banana because it was hungry.

As human speakers of English, we understand that ‘it’ refers to the banana in the first instance and to the monkey in the second, but early machine translation systems struggled to render the difference in French, for example, where ‘it’ has to be feminine in the first case and masculine in the second:

• Le singe a mangé la banane parce qu’elle était mure.
• Le singe a mangé la banane parce qu’il avait faim.

However, reference can pose problems for humans too when sentences become longer and more complicated. Take a look at the following example (with all the pronouns in bold):

• Anna steals an apple from a market stall. Her friend Bonnie, who is with her, tells her that it is wrong, but she is mistaken for the thief and is punished for the crime that she committed.

It starts off clearly enough, but at the end it is not obvious who the second ‘she’ refers to. Now try this version:

• Anna steals an apple from a market stall. Her friend Bonnie, who is with her, tells Anna that it is wrong, but Bonnie is mistaken for the thief and is punished for the crime that Anna committed.

It is now perfectly clear what happened to whom, but the repetition of the names is perhaps a bit excessive. A good solution is often to use paraphrases instead of names or pronouns to make the writing varied but keep it clear who is being referred to:

• Anna steals an apple from a market stall. Her friend Bonnie, who is with her, tells her that it is wrong, but Bonnie is mistaken for the thief and is punished for the crime that her friend committed.

Now let’s look at an example from an academic context:

• The section that follows contains an analysis of the data. Because this is based on qualitative research, it does not provide an objective, measurable picture of the issue, and they should be interpreted in the context of the whole interview with each respondent. This will enable them to get a sense of their attitudes towards the issue.

Confused? If so, it is not from a lack of subject knowledge but from the writer’s ambiguous use of reference. It is not clear whether the first ‘this’ refers back to just ‘data’, to the analysis or to the section of the paper, and, to add to the confusion, ‘data’ itself switches from singular to plural within the course of the sentence. Again, it is not clear whether the second ‘this’ refers back to the data, to the context of the whole interview or to the interpretation of that context. Finally, are ‘them’ and ‘their’ the same people or not, and who on earth are they anyway?

This version should make a lot more sense:

• The section that follows contains an analysis of the data. Because this data is based on qualitative research, it does not provide an objective, measurable picture of the issue, and should be interpreted in the context of the whole interview with each respondent. This wider context will enable researchers to get a sense of respondents’ attitudes towards the issue.

A good rule of thumb for academic writing and editing is to avoid using ‘this’ in isolation but always to specify ‘this what’. Doing so can then help untangle other problems of unclear sentence structure, and of unclear thinking behind it. My hope is that it will be many a long year before Microsoft Word can do this for you!Follow us:

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Plausible typos and homophones – the importance of human proofreaders

Super-proofreader — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 09:52:48 +0000

Maybe it’s because I’m writing this on a Friday and the prospect of a weekend tipple is looming in blatant disregard for ‘Go Sober’ October, but I seem to have encountered a lot of beer-related typos recently. The processes and products of brewing seem to lend themselves particularly well to slips that still make sense.

Plausible typos – easy (and often amusing) to identify

Here are three that I’ve particularly enjoyed:

as water enters, the cells grow lager

the ales revenue has increased year on year

there are three varieties of beer in North America

Not only have these brought a smile to my lips and cheered me with the thought of a pint, but they have also reassured me as to the superiority of human proofreaders over automated correction systems. No doubt a sophisticated computer program could work out by means of complex algorithms that larger, sales and bear would be more likely in the context, but as yet such analysis is beyond the capabilities of Word’s spelling and grammar checker.

Homophones – not so easy to identify

On the other hand, incorrect homophones are much harder for a human proofreader to spot as they sound right when the phrase is read out loud, and the incorrect word may make sense too. Here are some that are particularly tricky, requiring real-world knowledge that Word certainly does not possess:

Zimbabwe, formally/formerly known as Rhodesia, is located in south-east Africa.

Hessian is a type of course/coarse material made from natural fibres.

Deprivation/Depravation is a major problem in refugee camps.

Knowledge of geopolitical history will tell the human proofreader that formerly is correct in the first sentence, and the context of the second sentence should make it clear that the writer was not referring to student learning resources, but unless some examples follow, the proofreader might have to query with the author whether ‘lack of basic necessities’ or ‘moral corruption’ is intended in the third.

Somehow I seem to have segued from the happy topic of a weekend pint to the sad issue of refugee camps, so I’ll return to my initial subject to say, ‘Cheers! Here’s to human proofreaders!’.Follow us:

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Writing it with style 2 – compiling your own style sheet

Super-proofreader — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 10:42:10 +0000

In our previous blog post, we outlined the points that a publisher’s house style guide covers. However, if you’re proofreading for a private individual rather than a company, they are very unlikely to provide you with a style guide, and even when there is one, it cannot cover everything. Particularly if you’re working on a large document, it’s a good idea to put together your own style sheet as you go along.

There is, of course, no need to make a note of the points that are hard and fast rules, such as whether ‘tomorrow’ or ‘tommorow’ is the correct spelling, unless it is a frequent error and you are passing the document on for someone else to correct (they can then use Find and Replace to change all instances). However, nor is it just a question of your own personal preferences, such as the fact that you can’t bear the use of ‘they’ to mean ‘he or she’, think ‘coordinate’ looks odd without a hyphen or prefer ‘has proved’ over ‘has proven’. The important thing is to be faithful to the author’s preferences, so, as you go along, make a note of the forms and spellings they use most frequently, grouping them into categories. The following headings are typical:

Spelling and hyphenation
e.g. coordinate vs co-ordinate

Capitalisation
e.g. sentence case for headings

Abbreviations
e.g. technical terms that don’t appear in a standard dictionary, such as an exam board’s use of OWTE to mean ‘or words to that effect’

Numbers
e.g. words for one to nine; figures for 10 and over

Punctuation
e.g. a preference for dashes over colons and semicolons

Grammar
e.g. ‘which’ rather than ‘that’ in relative clauses (‘the book which I have written’)

Typeface choices
e.g. bold for the first mention of a word listed in the glossary

If you’re editing a work of fiction, keep a list of the characters’ names (and make sure the spelling, or even the name – it has been known! – doesn’t change part-way through). It’s also a good idea to make a note of their main characteristics – hair colour, height, the car they drive, etc. In a famous slip of editorial attention, one of the most prominent characters of French literature, Emma Bovary, ended up with brown eyes on one page and blue eyes on another!

The style sheet is also useful as a justification of the changes you’ve made, allowing the author and their future publisher to follow your logic, so don’t hesitate to send it to them with the proofread document.Follow us:

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Writing it with style

Super-proofreader — Fri, 17 Aug 2018 16:23:18 +0000

One of the things we proofreaders constantly seek to achieve is consistency. And one of the ways we achieve this is through using a house style. Publishing companies, magazines, journals and newspapers, among others, frequently have their own. So, in case you don’t know what a house style is, it seemed like a good idea to explain…

A house style begins by consideration of the inconsistencies which could be introduced into our printed output.

For example, let’s look at spellings. Some words can be spelt in more than one way, with little or no difference between the meanings. Among these are toward/towards, amongst/among and judgment/judgement. In each case, both words mean the same and they are both correctly spelt. And what about hyphenation? Some words are correctly spelt whether with or without a hyphen, and they also mean the same. Examples would be co-operate/cooperate, or co-ordinate/coordinate.

And the same applies to punctuation. Again, there are cases where two different ways of punctuating are both correct. Speech marks may be single quotation marks (‘ ’) or double quotation marks (“ ”). Units of measurement could be preceded by a space, or not: a 100m race can just as easily be a 100 m race. And 23g of flour weighs just the same as 23 g of flour, and is correctly written either way. Similarly with punctuation of people’s initials: W H Auden, W. H. Auden, W.H. Auden and WH Auden are all fine.

As consistency is always important for presenting a professional image, to ensure this, many publishers, magazines, journals, newspapers, etc. have a house style. Companies setting up their website for the first time may also want to create their own. So may individuals embarking on writing a novel, or even a lengthy thesis.

So, the house style is a set of rules for certain ways of spelling words and certain uses of punctuation in order to ensure consistency in written publications and material. If you have ever considered setting up your own house style, here is a list of points you could consider – by no means an exhaustive list, but it may at least give you a start…

Use of double or single quotation marks for reported speech

Particular ways of spelling words (towards/toward, whilst/while, etc.)

UK English or US English

Use of ‘z’ or ‘s’ in words such as organize/organise, realize/realise, etc.

For hyphenated terms in headings, whether to capitalise only the initial letter or the whole term; for example, Long-term Implications / Long-Term Implications

Format for decades, e.g. 1960’s or 60’s or 1960s

Initials representing a person’s name with full stops and spaces or not, e.g. D.H. Lawrence / D H Lawrence / D. H. Lawrence / DH Lawrence

One or two spaces after a full stop

Space between a digit and a unit of measurement, or not (e.g. 100m or 100 m)

Abbreviations of page numbers with a space, or not (e.g. p.20 or p. 20)

Centuries written as words or numbers (e.g. 20^th century or twentieth century)

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Even if you think you know the answer, you may not! If vs though and may vs might

Super-proofreader — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 08:14:06 +0000

As I’m sure you’re aware, our beloved English language is full of little subtleties that are a continual source of fascination and confusion.

Even if and even though

Consider, for example, the difference in meaning between these two sentences:

1.a. Even if the weather seems fine, I’ll take an umbrella.
1.b. Even though the weather seems fine, I’m going to take an umbrella.

The contrast in the future tenses gives you a bit of a clue here, but which sentence means that the weather currently is fine, and which refers to possible future meteorological conditions?

I’m sure you’ll have answered correctly that the weather is currently fine in 1.b., whereas this is a future possibility in 1.a. However, between ‘as if’ and ‘as though’, there is no such difference. For instance, ‘It looks as if the weather will be fine’ is more informal, and ‘It looks as though the weather will be fine’ is more formal, but the meaning is essentially the same.

May and might

Now consider these pairs of sentences (no extra clues this time!):

2.a. You may be right.
2.b. You might be right.
3.a. England may have won the 2018 World Cup.
3.b. England might have won the 2018 World Cup.

In pair 2, to which sentence could you add ‘well’ and to which could you add ‘– I really wouldn’t like to say’? In pair 3, which sentence is said by someone who spent mid July on another planet and doesn’t know what the actual result was, and which is said by someone who was on planet Earth and knows England didn’t win?

No doubt you answered ‘You may well be right’ and ‘You might be right – I really wouldn’t like to say’ for the first question, and ‘3.a. = doesn’t know’ and ‘3.b. = didn’t win’ for the second. The odd conclusion to be drawn from this is that in the present tense either ‘may’ or ‘might’ can be used with little fundamental difference in meaning – ‘might’ just adds a further degree of uncertainty – while in the past tense the difference is significant: to say that something may have happened indicates lack of knowledge, while to say that something might have happened indicates a possible event that didn’t in fact occur.

With this in mind, what’s wrong with the following sentence about the Second World War?

Neville Chamberlain’s 1938 meeting with Hitler may have prevented military action against Germany.

Presumably the historian knows that the meeting did not prevent war, and so the sentence should use ‘might’ instead of ‘may’. Although this example is fictitious, it is typical of the confusions between ‘may’ and ‘might’ that we often come across.

For another similar error, and other confusions caused by the English tongue, see the section on if vs whether in the blog post Making words mean what you want.Follow us:

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The Proofreading Agency

However should I use ‘however’? – Punctuation and word order with conjunctive adverbs

‘However’ meaning ‘in whatever way’

‘However’ meaning ‘by contrast’

Other conjunctive adverbs

Making words mean what you want: 2

﻿The whys, wherefores, therefores and therebys

Difficulties with ‘and’

Go easy on the exclamation marks!

Reference – pronouns and the importance of human proofreaders

Plausible typos and homophones – the importance of human proofreaders

Writing it with style 2 – compiling your own style sheet

Writing it with style

Even if you think you know the answer, you may not! If vs though and may vs might

The whys, wherefores, therefores and therebys