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Grammar In this section, we go back over some of
the many grammar questions that have been sent our way. Grammar on the Web This week, we list some of the many Web sites devoted to grammar. Of particular note is "Hypergrammar," from the University of Ottawa. At Cornerstone, we're
thinking of converting our 1997 book, "Write Better, Right Now," into a searchable, interactive Web resource that clients can customize to match their own internal style guides. In other words, if you had a
grammar question, you could scoot over to your own customized home page and start looking for answers. Does this sound like something you could use? What would make this really valuable to you? Let us know!
In the meantime, here is a collection of online resources: WORD USAGE: enquire vs. inquire We operate a free grammar hotline for our clients (including anyone on this list) and one of the questions we are asked most often involves the difference between
"enquire" and "inquire." A similar question arises with "enquiry" and "inquiry." Normally, when there is a choice of two words, there is also a stuffy and complicated reason for
preferring one over the other. Not here. Although both the Gage Canadian and the Oxford Canadian dictionaries prefer the i-words, they don't proscribe the e-words. So, while the former seem somewhat more
"Canadian," the difference isn't great enough to insist on. FORWORDS vs FORWARDS After last week's item on the words enquire and inquire, one of our clients called us to ask about people who put "forwards" in reports. Forward thinking is a good quality in a writer, but that section should actually be called a foreword (since it's the "words" that come "before"). Moreover, strictly speaking, if the author of the report also writes the foreword, then it's actually a preface, not a foreword at all. Tricky verb agreement Fill in the missing verb: "If either you or one of your friends ___ had this happen to you, please call us."
The candidates, obviously, are "has" and "have." But which one? The first thing we do is take out the "of your friends." That just distracts us. But it still leaves a problem. We can't
just combine "you" and "one" because our verb refers either to "you" OR to "one," not both. And both "you" and "one" require different verbs. In cases like
these, you should defer to whichever subject is closest, in this case, "one." So fill in the blank with "has."
Our thanks to the crew at the Canadian Transportation Agency for this tricky little question. Defending "hopefully"
Had Rhett Butler said, "Hopefully, my dear, I won't give a damn," he would still be vilified by grammarians. As the argument goes, the
adverb "hopefully" needs a tangible subject capable of doing the hoping. In other words, if I say, "Forcefully, they will object," then we know how they will object. But if I say, "Hopefully,
they will object," it is not clear who will hope. Or is it? Grammarians insist that the sentence "Hopefully, they will object" literally means "They will object in a hopeful manner." But most
readers will interpret it to mean "It is to be hoped that they will object." The meaning is implicit, and the adverb represents an economical use of words. Oddly, though, the only adverb that seems to
attract the ire of grammarians is "hopefully." Most editors don't seem bothered by any of a number of like adverbs used in similar ways: actually, basically, fortunately, frankly, regretfully, strictly,
thankfully and many more. To be consistent, we should either dump them all, or concede that "hopefully" is not the villain it has been made out to be. Utilise or use? 'Jesses Word of the Day has words of wisdom on the deplorable word utilize. "[U]tilize can often be no more than a pretentious substitute for use, and this should be avoided. However, utilize does
have its own meaning: 'to turn to profitable use; to make a practical use for'. This is not the same sense as 'to bring into service', which is what use fundamentally means." As Jesse explains, "The teacher
couldn't use the new computer" is very different from "The teacher couldn't utilize the new computer." The first phrase means that the teacher couldn't even turn the computer on, or that it was broken, or
that somebody else was working on it, or something similar. But replace use with utilize, and our phrase now means that the teacher could do something with the computer, but just couldn't anything practical with it.
A disagreeable agreement problem Here's a poser. The
Canadian Nurses Association called us about a grammar conundrum. Should it be, "Nancy Malloy is one of many who have given their lives," or "Nancy Malloy is one of many who has given her life."
Our first impulse, of course, was to cheat like mad. We suggested rewriting the sentence. But the nagging question remained. What was the right way of writing that sentence? This is a problem of subject–verb
agreement. (Usually, the subject of the sentence is the noun that does whatever is described by the verb, while the object is usually the thing that the subject acts on.) So to make the verb and subject agree, find out
what the verb is acting on. For example, in the sentence "One of the sales clerks skis competitively," the verb "skis" refers not to "sales clerks" but to "one." It is one clerk
that skis competitively, not all the sales clerks. So what about our original sentence? The verb is "given." Who has given? Not "Nancy Malloy," or even "one of many." Many have given.
Nancy Malloy is merely one of them. Hence, "Nancy Malloy is one of many who have given their lives." Prepositions ending sentences Many of our English "rules" are just 18th-century attempts to sound more Latin, according to
The Mother Tongue: English And How It Got That Way. Blame it on Robert Lowth, the clergyman who wrote A Short Introduction to English Grammar
in 1762. But even Lowth was no dogmatist, believing that it was "generally better and more graceful, not crucial, to place the preposition before its relative," a sentiment even we agree with. Winston
Churchill, for example, once reputedly objected to the way his book had been edited to avoid a preposition at the end of a sentence, and wrote in the margins "This is the sort of English up with which I will not
put." The Guinness Book of Records
once kept records of the most prepositions at the end of a sentence, giving pride of place to the anti-Australian boy who complained to his bedtime-book-reading dad, "What did you bring that book, that I don't want to be read to from out of about Down Under up for?"
And finally, there is the old joke: Man #1: "Excuse me, where is the library at?" Man #2: "Here at Harvard, we never end a sentence with a preposition."
Man #1: "O.K. Excuse me, where is the library at, jerk?" Using "comprise" Last week, we wrote about how "the press would have covered the events that now comprise our history." This sparked some e-mail questioning the use of the word
"comprise." Traditionally, you would say that history comprises events, not the other way around. However, there are examples of people mixing this up dating from at least the 1700s, and the latest edition of
"Fowler's Modern English Usage" notes that "the sheer frequency of this construction seems likely to take it out of the disputed area before long." Nevertheless, even though many editors would
forgive our use of "comprise," we probably should have stuck to the traditional usage.
Cornerstone is a
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