Words Fail Me Part 8

* Lie and lay. To lie is to recline: Camille often lies on the divan. Last night she lay on the divan. For days she has lain on the divan. To lay is to place: Sluggo lays his heart at Nancy's feet. On Sunday he laid his heart at her feet. Every night he has laid his heart at her feet. A memory aid: Notice how you can hear the word lie in recline, and lay in place.

* Their and there. Remember them this way. Their is a possessive (a word that shows ownership) and has the word heir in it: Their heir inherited their hair. As for there, it refers to a place; it's like here and has here in it: He blew his inheritance here and there.

* Its and it's. This one is easy. Its is possessive, and it's is short for it is or it has. (In contractions, such as it's, apostrophes stand for missing letters.) So if you can subst.i.tute it is or it has, use it's. When the parakeet is cranky, its squawk means it's hungry.

* Your and you're. Same principle. If you can subst.i.tute you are, go for you're. Your att.i.tude proves you're a ninny.

You'll save yourself plenty of grief if you remember that p.r.o.nouns don't have apostrophes when they're possessive (hers, his, its, ours, their, theirs, your, yours). They have apostrophes only in contractions; the apostrophes stand for missing letters: I'm (for I am), we've (we have), she'd (she would), they're (they are), and so on. Engrave it on your brain.

Taking Leave of Your Tenses.

Tenses are the time zones of writing, and you can't be in two zones at the same time. Even the Concorde can't be in Pacific and Mountain times at once. When writers are careless with tenses, readers get lost along the way.

Tenses let readers know when something happened, is happening, or will happen. We can say: Today Ralph drives a bus. Yesterday Ralph drove a bus. The day before, Ralph had driven a bus. Tomorrow Ralph will drive a bus. By next fall Ralph will have driven a bus for twenty years. Simple enough. We're just telling time with verbs.

But when there's more going on in a sentence-it has two verbs, maybe three-the tenses have to make sense together.

A supervisor in a hurry might write this recommendation: When duty calls, Ralph answered. That sentence has a foot in one time zone and a foot in another. Duty's call and Ralph's answer should happen at roughly the same time. But in the example, duty calls in the present while Ralph answered in the past.

When things happen at the same time, the tenses of the verbs have to be the same: When duty calls, Ralph answers. Or: When duty called, Ralph answered.

The goings-on in a sentence don't always go on at the same time, however: Ralph says he drove yesterday and will drive next week. When we write about things that happen at different times, the tenses have to work together.

Usually common sense kicks in. We combine verbs correctly without giving them much thought. On occasion, though, the juggling is tricky, especially when we throw in will or would. Here's how to choose between them.

* When the other verb is in the present, use will: Ralph says he will wear his uniform.

* When the other verb is in the past, use would: Ralph said he would wear his uniform.

The idea is the same with compound tenses, like has said (this is called the present perfect) or had said (the past perfect).

* When the other verb begins with has or have, use will: Ralph has said he will need a bigger size.

* When the other verb begins with had, use would: Ralph had said he would need a bigger size.

Another sign of poor tense is using one have too many: He would have liked to have driven a double-decker. In this case, one have is enough, and it can go with either verb, depending on the emphasis: He would have liked to drive a double-decker, or He would like to have driven a double-decker.

Still tense about tenses? We've only scratched the surface here, so if you need to know more, check your grammar book.

Rules, Schmules.

If grammar is supposed to help us make sense, why do some of the rules seem so nonsensical? Well, maybe those aren't real rules, after all.

You've no doubt heard them all your life: Don't split an infinitive. Don't start a sentence with and or but. Don't end one with a preposition (of, to, with, and so on). Don't use contractions (including don't). None of them are true-including the one that says none is always singular.

These misconceptions, which serve only to make writing clunky and convoluted, are not real rules and never have been. Since the 1300's, writers of English have gotten along fine without them. So where did they come from?

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, cla.s.sics scholars set out to civilize the English of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton. They took a language that's essentially Germanic and tried to clothe it in Latin grammar. No wonder the shoes pinched.

For generations, our most eminent grammarians have tried to lay these myths and Latinisms to rest, but they keep rising again like Jason from his watery grave. And like Jason, they're not real, so feel free to ignore them. Our best writers do. George Bernard Shaw once complained to the Times of London about an editor who hadn't gotten the word: "There is a pedant on your staff who spends far too much of his time searching for split infinitives. Every good literary craftsman uses a split infinitive if he thinks the sense demands it. I call for this man's instant dismissal; it matters not whether he decides to quickly go or to go quickly or quickly to go. Go he must, and at once."

Comma Sense.

I've come across this story many times on the Internet. I can't guarantee that it's true but I still like it. Male and female college students were given these words-woman without her man is nothing-and asked to punctuate them as a sentence.

The men wrote: Woman, without her man, is nothing.

The women wrote: Woman: without her, man is nothing.

Don't overlook the power of punctuation. It's not just window dressing; it can change the meaning of a sentence 180 degrees. This is what I mean: Jack said Harry wrecked the car. Or perhaps: Jack, said Harry, wrecked the car. And look what a difference a hyphen can make: The stolen sofa was recovered. Or: The stolen sofa was re-covered.

Sometimes reading a sentence aloud and listening for pauses can help you punctuate it. A slight pause might be a comma; a longer one, a semicolon; an even longer one, a period. (That sentence is an example.) But remember, the point of punctuation is to make writing clearer and easier to read. A barrelful of exclamation marks can't equal one juicy adjective or verb.

I certainly can't tell you in a few paragraphs everything you need to know about punctuation. But I can hit the high spots, the problems that show up most often. If you don't see it here, look it up.

* A comma by itself usually isn't enough to hold together two expressions that could be separate sentences: Jack broke his crown, Jill wasn't seriously injured. (This is sometimes called a run-on sentence.) If you want to join those expressions with a comma, add a linking word, like and or but: Jack broke his crown, but Jill wasn't seriously injured. There's more on joining parts of a sentence in chapter 12.

* The semicolon may be the most unappreciated and underused punctuation mark. If you find semicolons intimidating, relax. They're handy for joining expressions that could stand alone, like the ones above: Jack broke his crown; Jill wasn't seriously injured. Semicolons can also be used to tidy up a series of items with commas inside them. Imagine how hard it would be to read this sentence if only commas were used: Jack broke his crown, which was fractured in two places; sc.r.a.ped his knee, nearly to the bone; and ruined his lederhosen. Lincoln found the semicolon a "useful little chap"; you will, too.

* Dashes and parentheses shouldn't be abused. They do roughly the same thing-they let the writer say something (like this) in an aside-though dashes are somewhat more in-your-face. If your writing breaks out in dashes, try using parentheses for variety (and vice versa). But if commas would work as well, as they often do, use them instead.

* The exclamation point is a squeal, the "Eek!" of punctuation. It's the equivalent of a flashing neon sign on a sentence. If you're writing something astonishing, remarkable, astounding, or horrific, you'll land a bigger punch by letting your words do the job. A startling statement is all the more startling if it's delivered without an elbow in the ribs. So use exclamation points sparingly. A little punctuation can go a long way.

Incidentally, go easy on the italics. If you have to use slanty print like this for emphasis, perhaps your words aren't dramatic enough on their own. It's all right to use italics once in a while, but don't go bananas.

Spellbinding.

The most dynamite resume in the world won't get you in the door if you've misspelled "curriculum vitae." Crummy spelling is more noticeable than crummy anything else. It irritates readers and embarra.s.ses writers. Yet spelling goofs are the easiest to fix. Unless you're dead certain about a word-is it pretentions or pretensions? wierd or weird? gauge or guage?-look it up. Reaching for your Funk & Wagnalls should be a reflex action. Wear it out; thumbit to bits. The best writers I know own the grimiest, most tattered dictionaries.

Dictionaries aren't foolproof, though. Read the fine print when you check the spelling of a word. Lexicographers include troublemakers like irregardless, alright, ahold, and anywheres. That's because a dictionary is supposed to include words that are widely used, even if they're clearly wrong. But the editors also caution us when these words are nonkosher versions of correct ones (regardless, all right, a hold, anywhere). Don't just look up a spelling and stop there; read further, in case it's not the accepted one. Watch for warnings such as "substandard," "nonstandard," "obsolete," "variant spelling," "vulgar," "obscene," and so on.

What about computer spell-checkers? I'm glad you asked. The speller in your machine has a very small IQ and you shouldn't rely on it entirely. First, it may tell you to misspell a word. (Mine doesn't recognize restaurateur and tells me to spell it restauranteur.) Second, your speller won't stop you from using the wrong word if it's spelled right. (Mine pa.s.sed this sentence with flying colors: Eye trussed their are know miss steaks hear, four my come pewter is all weighs write.) Third, it's all too easy to hit the wrong key and wreak havoc. On my speller, the Skip Once key is just below Replace. The other day I was ripping through a piece with the spell-checker, repeatedly hitting Skip Once (I thought). But my mouse had drifted up a zillionth of an inch, and I was actually hitting Replace. The discovery prompted me to shout several words that my dictionary describes as "vulgar" or "obscene."

As for grammar-checkers, they've come a long way, but they haven't arrived yet, baby. Like spell-checkers, they overlook many mistakes and encourage you to make many more. There are grammar-checkers that accept "between you and I," "most unique," and "Politics are my favorite subject." When I ran a sentence from the Declaration of Independence through my grammar-checker, it found so many "errors" that I can't list them. Among other things, it suggested changing "all men are created equal" to "G.o.d created all men equally." Jefferson would not have approved.

19. Down for the Count.

WHEN THE NUMBERS DON'T ADD UP.

I once edited a book review in which this sentence appeared (details have been changed to protect the guilty): "Oglethorpe Carrothers was one-third journalist, one-third statesman, one-third war hero, one-third humanitarian, and one-third playboy." Granted, math isn't my strong suit, but I know enough to raise an eyebrow when I meet five-thirds of a Carrothers.

Like that reviewer, many people are more concerned about the sound of their words than the sense of their numbers. The words read well, but the numbers don't add up. Beware of any figures you haven't checked and double-checked. Count on your fingers if you must, but be sure the math makes sense.

Playing the Percentages.

What do you make of this sentence? The stock price jumped 200 percent in less than an hour, rising to $50 from $25. Something's wrong here (even if you got in on the stock early). Do you see why?

When you start with $25 and you increase that by $25, you've doubled the original figure, to $50. But that's a jump of only 100 percent, the original number increased by itself once. When $25 goes up 200 percent, it increases by itself not once but twice-that gives us the original $25, plus $25 and another $25, for a total of $75.

Goofy percentages whiz past us every day. They routinely appear in newspapers, TV broadcasts, and magazines because n.o.body stops to count.

Doubling, tripling, and quadrupling are all clear enough: a number is multiplied by two, by three, by four. But tossing in percentages leads to trouble. A number that's doubled goes up 100 percent, a number that's tripled goes up 200 percent, a number that's quadrupled goes up 300 percent, and so on. Go figure.

This is a case where being right isn't necessarily the answer. If there's an alternative, avoid using percentage increases of more than 100, especially big round ones that look wrong even when they're right. It may be correct to write, Scalpers sold the $10 tickets for $50, a 400 percent increase, but this is better: Scalpers sold the $10 tickets for $50, five times the original price. When there's no better way, at least make sure the figure is right: The police arrested 156 scalpers this year, a 140 percent increase from the 65 arrested last year.

Never use decreases of more than 100 percent, however, unless you're writing about mathematics. A 100 percent drop gives you zero, so any greater decrease would leave you with a negative number. Outside of math cla.s.s, your chance of being right is less than zero.

Sorry, Wrong Number.

Two times two is four, and that will never change, at least not in our times. But times is tricky when you're writing about numbers. What do you make of the calculation here? Mort owns two Chihuahuas but Rupert owns eight, or four times more.

If that looks right to you, look again. Rupert actually has three times more Chihuahuas than Mort. Think of it this way: Rupert owns six more than Mort. And that's three times more than Mort's two, not four times more. Chihuahuas don't multiply that fast.

We run into trouble using the expression times more when we forget that we're adding the times calculation to whatever it's more than. The problem is so widespread that I'd suggest ducking it altogether. Why not drop the more and use times as many or times as much? A math teacher-and an English teacher, too-would give you an A for this effort: Mort owns two Chihuahuas, but Rupert owns eight, or four times as many.

We also go wrong when we write that a number is umpteen times less than another: Baby Leroy weighs twenty pounds, five times less than his mom, who weighs a hundred.

The problem is the same; it's just going in the other direction. You could say that the baby weighs four times less than his mom (think of it this way: his weight is eighty pounds less, or four times twenty less, than his mom's). But even that wording gives me a headache.

Again, I recommend copping out. Drop the times less and rephrase the sentence, using as many as or as much as instead: Baby Leroy weighs twenty pounds, a fifth as much as his mom, who weighs a hundred.

The most common times problems involve more and less. But the same principle applies whenever you use numbers to compare things. Instead of saying, So-and-so is x times richer than what's-his-name, make it: So-and-so is x times as rich as what's-his-name (or as tall as, as old as, and so on).

If you take my advice, you' ll find it comparatively easy, more or less.

Do Not Fold and Mutilate.

How many sheep are in this fold? Babe's flock of ten sheep increased threefold last year. No, the answer isn't thirty, although that's probably how most people would interpret the sentence. The answer is forty-the original ten, plus three times that number.

And that's the problem with using fold to say how much something has increased. Attaching fold to a number is just another way of saying times, and it can be just as confusing. Even if you get it right, you'll probably be misunderstood.

The solution? Don't use fold to say something has doubled, tripled, or quadrupled. Just say that it has doubled, tripled, or quadrupled: Babe's flock of ten sheep tripled last year. Or you could make it: Babe's flock of ten sheep increased to three times as many last year. This solution is definitely preferable with larger increases. If Babe ended up with 150 sheep, make it: Babe's flock of ten sheep increased to fifteen times as many last year.

By the way, don't use by when you mean to. They're not the same, not by a long shot. If Babe's flock had increased by fifteen times as many, he'd have 160 sheep-the original ten, plus fifteen times as many. Way to go, Babe.

As if fold weren't confusing enough, it's even woollier to say, Babe's flock often sheep increased three times last year. You run into the same problem, and another besides: You might mean that three lambs joined the flock last year, or that the flock increased on three separate occasions.

All right, we've counted enough sheep. One more thing before I fold. Whatever you do, never use fold to describe a decrease. I recently read that a country's food supplies had fallen sixfold. If you know what that means, please explain it to me.

Run Those Figures by Me Again.

As I've said, I'm not a whiz at math. I make it a practice to check my figures two times, maybe three, with even the most elementary arithmetic. If I get the same number twice, I go with it. But numerically clumsy though I am, I once worked at the Wall Street Journal, where every number had to be perfect. If I can get my numbers straight, so can you.