One Step Forward to Better Writing

A Letter to Wired Magazine

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 01:51:00 +0000

Dear Editors: You published in your February, 2012 issue a piece titled “Use Your Own Words”. In fact, you chose to make it the first article in the magazine. It is this article with which I would like to take issue. The author, Anne Trubek, bemoans the constraints of proper spelling and the constrictions of English grammar. Yet if you re-read the article (as I assume you at least perused it once before it was published) you will see that her argument boils down to “why spell correctly...

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Craptacular Grammar Tip: Quotation Marks Gone Wrong

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 23:16:00 +0000

NOTE: In case you thought I might be unaware, I know that “craptacular” isn’t a word. It seemed to fit the quality of the examples, however. Check back for more posts in this new series! Out of curiosity, I clicked a reputable organization’s free “Grammar Tip of the Day” link, to see whether I’d like to subscribe. I found this example and immediately thought that the only reason I’d ask for such a tip each day would be to provide fodder for One Step Forward. Why? At best the tip...

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Obligate: Two Words, One Spelling

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 18:25:00 +0000

I read a book in which the big baddy was an organization called Obligate. The author chose not to explain the reason for that name until halfway through the story, which meant that I did not know how to pronounce it for about two hundred pages. It surprised me how distracting that was. If you are scratching your head, wondering what other pronunciation I’m writing about, this post is for you. Obligate does double duty, as both a verb and an adjective. You pronounce the two forms...

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Word Tidbits: Discreet versus Discrete

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 20:29:00 +0000

I doubt most people realize that discrete and discreet are discretely separate words. Today I thought I’d explain the slight difference between the two adjectives and clear up any confusion. Discreet refers to cautious or tactful action. The word generally applies to something secret, such as a discreet rendezvous, or that you wish kept quiet, like dropping a discreet word in someone’s ear to let them know they have toilet paper stuck to their shoe after a trip to the facilities. Off the...

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Grammar.net 2011 Contest and a Thank You

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 15:26:00 +0000

The darling folks at Grammar.net have nominated One Step Forward for the Grammar.net "Best Grammar Blog of 2011"! If you would be so kind, and if you agree, do click over to their contest page and vote for this humble attempt to explore the English language. (Note: They've listed it as "Legbamel's blog on writing" rather than its official name. Further note: They've fixed the listing and now it's under One Step Forward and open for voting now!) Such kindnesses keep me interested in...

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Hyphens and the Compound Adjective

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 22:26:00 +0000

We’ve never tackled compound adjectives, here on One Step Forward, partly because it’s such a complex subject. Often you can make your sentence clearer by using an adjectival phrase or clause rather than worrying about whether to hyphenate. But today we’re going to ease your fears and explain just when to put that pesky hyphen between words in a compound adjective. Here’s the short version: hyphenate when you place the compound adjective in the sentence before the noun. This too-simple...

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Word Tidbits: Reveille vs. Revelry vs. Reverie

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 15:43:00 +0000

A recent incident sparked this post: I heard someone singing Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (of Company B) and, yet again, use the word revelry instead of reveille. I thought perhaps I should point out to folks that the two words have absolutely nothing to do with one another. If you substitute one for the other you'll be blowing nonsense. Then I thought of reverie, a third word that sounds similar but, again, has a very different meaning. Reveille, as you may guess from the spelling, comes to...

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Too Quick with the Acronym

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 22:49:00 +0000

What is it with me and acronyms? I seem to have become obsessed. But when I read my post about using pronouns clearly I found that I had used one without explaining it. Shame on me! I referred in that post to Dave from “HR”. While many people likely knew for what words the acronym stood the proper thing to do would have been to write out the phrase and then give the acronym in parentheses if I intended to use it in the rest of the piece. Thus it should have read, “What if I had written...

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For Whom the Pronoun Stands

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Tue, 24 May 2011 19:44:00 +0000

In my post about may versus might I included the sentences, “Don may be forced to fire Ted if he cannot resist the temptations of YouTube while at work. I’ve heard that he might seek counseling to curb his addiction.” In rereading that example, I wondered if my pronoun use was perhaps unclear. Naturally, that made me wish to post about how I could tell. In short, the general rule runs thus: unless the sentence otherwise specifies to which person it refers, a pronoun used refers to the...

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If I May, If I Might

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 17:22:00 +0000

If I may, I’d like to explore the infinitesimal difference between may and might. In this case, I don’t see a “wrong” way to use one word in place of the other so much as I harbor a curiosity about why there are two such words. I retrieved my enormous dictionary and found the following definitions. I’ve abbreviated them to the salient points. May: be allowed to or capable of, be likely to (to some degree), or to be obliged to (in matters of contract or statute). For purposes of brevity,...

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Making Sense of Oxymorons: A Writing Prompt

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 17:03:00 +0000

I received one of those obnoxious chain mails filled with clip art and Comic Sans font in seven colors and eight sizes. I’d been forwarded this one in particular several times because it purports to contain oxymorons. Of course is contains nothing of the kind but I (mostly) appreciate that people think of me when they see jokes about the English language. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, an oxymoron is a phrase that contradicts itself. I’ve most often heard “military...

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Misusing Malfeasance

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 17:53:00 +0000

I recently read what purported to be an indictment (informally, rather than in the legal sense) of a public-sector employee who the writer was calling to task for what he viewed as a refusal to enforce a law. The specifics of the issue don’t matter to us because we’re here to talk about the English language and abuses to which it is subject. The sentence in question began thus:This appears to be a blatant malfeasance of justice…Ah, the overblown sentence! When your opponent resorts to this...

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Word Tidbits: Recap

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 01:56:00 +0000

I was driving home the other day, listening to NPR’s fabulous All Things Considered as I do every night. The woman presenting her story said something like, “For those of you unfamiliar with his record, let’s recapitulate.” Naturally, I immediately wondered how many people know that “recap” is actually an abbreviation of the word recapitulate. Of course, I immediately looked it up both on-line and in my adored 2,700-page Webster. There, recap is defined as putting a new cap or tread on...

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My Own Fit of Pique

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 23:37:00 +0000

I received a newsletter from a printer in town that contained an article purporting to give advice on naming your business. One of the items on the checklist was, “Peaks customer interest”. As you may imagine, this piqued my ire more than my interest. I’ve written before about the two words, but my mind this time took a different turn. I thought of the ways you can and generally do not use the word pique. You might write, “Alfred stormed out in a fit of pique.” You could certainly say,...

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Word Tidbits: Do You Want Your Cake to be Moist?

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 18:23:00 +0000

I thought I’d do a little exploration of synonyms and how words convey different meanings. This all started with a rant about the word “moist” and my feeling that it ought not to be applied to food. I was brought up short by the question of what word could possibly be placed on cake mix boxes and food commercials that would give the same sense as “moist” without the dirt-and-worms connotations it carries for me. Though I did not have a ready answer, I turned to my trusty thesaurus, hoping...

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To Infinitives and Beyond: the Infinitive Mood

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Infinitives are interesting creatures, grammatically. Though they look like verbs they act like nouns. I’d like to take you through a little look at them and the infinitive mood in general. Infinitives live as symbiotic verbs, unable to exist on their own in sentences. They rely on other verbs to give them context and sense. You can use them in place of subjects, as in the famous, "To err is human," or employ them as objects, as I replaced the direct object of "like" in the third...

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More Bad Headlines for Fall

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 01:53:00 +0000

The weather is cooling here in the Heartland, as it’s called, and I thought you’d all enjoy a new batch of finger shaking to warm your hearts. I receive a lot of newsletters from national organizations and magazines so I get some terrific fodder…information, that is, in my e-mail every week. These four stood out of the recent batch as the best examples. "A World of HVAC&R Information at Your Fingertips" Pardon my language, please, but who the hell puts an ampersand in an acronym? ...

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Is Sue Interested in Dative Bob?

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 17:05:00 +0000

I think it’s high time we talked about the dative case, which requires a little exploration of direct and indirect objects. To further this purpose I’ve constructed a little example for you. We’ll try this sentence two ways:Sue gave Bob her phone number. Sue gave her phone number to Bob.As you can see, whether you’re assuming “to” Bob in the first example or congratulating him after the second, the man indirectly receives the action of the verb no matter how direct Sue may have been with...

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Cute Overload Hurts Everyone

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 22:44:00 +0000

Thanks to my unseemly interest in the residential sprinkler debate, I find myself with yet another example of bad grammar in journalism. The Greenville, South Carolina Examiner published an article recently that contained the following:After an emblazoned battle between industry professionals and 100's of firefighters that were in support of fire sprinklers and the Home Builders Association and numerous builders who were against, the SC House and Senate sided with the latter.I can find at...

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Which Is Less Wet? Drier vs. Dryer

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 21:22:00 +0000

As a quickie, let me clarify this little question. If you wish to write about something that is comparatively more dry, you write drier. If you mean a machine or other device that makes something drier, you want the word dryer. A dryer makes things drier. Personally, I avoid the whole things by using "more dry" but technically the comparative form exists. Now excuse me while I makes the driest martini ever while drying my clothes.

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I Said That I’d Return

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 17:01:00 +0000

Actually, I didn't say that. But I have returned and I will again, the dearth of posts this year notwithstanding. I chose that name for this post because I want to write about the word that today. It's been a bone of contention between a co-worker and me when used in documents for an official record so I thought I'd explore its role in sentences such as the title above. Consider the following:He explained that he had seen four different versions.I contend that (nudge nudge) you should...

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Yet Another Failure, This Time of Logic

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:49:00 +0000

I have no stake in the fight over requiring sprinklers in new houses. I wanted to make that clear from the beginning. I was, however, frustrated by the complete perversion of logic that this author perpetrates after chiding her opponents for the very same failure. Notice that her responses to the “red herrings” often consist, themselves, of red herrings. Notice, also, her exaggeration of the number of deaths in home fires by over 9% (from 2,740 to 3,000) in an attempt to shore up her...

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Sudden and Complete Acronym Failure

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 17:37:00 +0000

Imagine, if you will, that you read a press release that begins with the following sentence, more or less.The City of Fargo has installed a HAWK Beacon (High Intensity Activated Crosswalk Beacon)...to aid pedestrians in crossing 40th Avenue S by Centennial Elementary School.A laudable effort, no doubt, and one that may save the lives of incautious children. I, however, reacted not to the concept of the light but to the apparent inability of the people who created this thing to understand...

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Pray Tell Me What This Means

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 19:17:00 +0000

It's come to my attention that people commonly believe that Shakespeare coined the phrase "pray tell" and launched its popularity. It may be that he expanded the knowledge of the term, but in reality people used it long before ol' Will brought it to their attention. In this case, the word pray escapes religious connotations and grew from the Latin precari into preier in Old French, and then became preien, to beg or beseech. Lest you think that precari the end of that particular language...

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Give Immemorial the High Sign

noreply@blogger.com (Legbamel Not-Pop) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:39:00 +0000

I have a habit of using archaic idioms and, as you can see from the existence of One Step Forward, becoming curious about their origins. The other day I told a co-worker that I would give her “the high sign” when I was ready for her and immediately wondered about that phrase’s history. Naturally, my friends, I thought that you might wonder the same thing. While I discovered the term in many a dictionary and contentions that it dated back to first few years of the 20th century, I had some...

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