Words Fail Me (12 page)

Can you untie this one?
He did not marry her because she was a Methodist.
Do you see why that sentence is tangled? No, it has nothing to do with religion or romance.

The problem is that the sentence can be read in two ways. It could mean:
Because she was a Methodist, he did not marry her.
Or:
He married her, but not because she was a Methodist.
We shouldn't have to be mind readers to understand an explanation.

The
not
is just as slippery if it's part of a contraction. Try to find the two possible explanations here:
A.J. didn't change the tires because he was doing practice laps the next day.

Did he or didn't he change the tires? Make it:
Because he was doing practice laps the next day, A.J. didn't change the tires.
Or:
A.J. changed the tires, but not because he was doing practice laps the next day.

Why worry about a few
not
s? Because making sense is the most important part of writing. That makes sense, doesn't it?

You think nobody cares about grammar? The next time you post a message to an Internet newsgroup, try mixing up
it's
and
its, lie
and
lay,
or
there
and
their
, and see what happens. The grammar police will be on your case, and you' ll get so many flames that your modem will smoke.

Believe me, people care. Whether you're writing e-mail or snail mail, a Web page or a page of a memoir, grammar counts. Readers may dismiss writing that's otherwise okay, even terrific, if the grammar is screwed up. This is no small matter, particularly when you're trying to make a good impression—applying for a job, say, or trying to sell a book proposal, or writing an essay for admission to college.

It's a good bet, though, that your grammar isn't perfect. If you didn't learn it in school (like most Americans under forty) or if you've forgotten what you were taught, buy a grammar book and keep it right beside your dictionary. Don't be intimidated. Grammar books aren't as forbidding and textbooky as they used to be, and not all of them bristle with technical terms. You don't need to know the heavy terminology, anyway. You can be a good driver even if you can't name all the parts of a car.

This chapter is no substitute for a grammar book. But until you get one, here's a look at some of the blunders that writers make most often.

Hugh Downs, who often wraps up
20/20
broadcasts by saying, "Good night from Barbara and me," has gotten indignant letters from viewers who think, mistakenly, that he should be saying "from Barbara and I." I hear that the same thing used to happen to Harry Reasoner when he did the evening news with Barbara Walters.

Perhaps the single most common mistake in grammar these days is using
I
instead of
me.
"This is just between you and
I
,"a friend writes conspiratorially. Or a colleague says in a memo, "The boss humiliated Ellen and I." Or Aunt Agatha writes, "Happy Birthday from Uncle Miltie and
I.
"

It's
me,
it's me, it's me, O Lord!

So what's
I
got that
me
doesn't? Many people seem to feel that
I
is somehow classier than
me,
probably because of all the nagging they got as kids for saying, "Me want Twinkies," or "Me hate broccoli." They're left with the impression that there's something second-rate about
me
. Impressions like that are hard to overcome, but a trick might help.

When
I
or
me
appears by itself, we never mess up. No one says, "The boss humiliated
I.
" So when
I
or
me
is part of a pair, just eliminate the other guy. In Aunt Agatha's note, for example, get rid of Uncle Miltie:
Happy Birthday from
me;
then put him back in the picture:
Happy Birthday from Uncle Miltie and
me
. Give it a try.

The same trick works with
he
and
him, she
and
her, they
and
them,
and other pronouns (words that stand in for nouns, like
Ike, Lassie,
or
the Nelsons).
Take the sentence
Ricky saw
she
and David at the mall
. Is it
she
or
her?
Lose David and the answer is obvious:
Ricky saw
her
[
and David
]
at the mall.

Remember, too, that a pronoun at the front of a sentence is more likely to be a subject (
I, he, she, they,
etc.), while one at the back is more likely to be an object (
me, him, her, them
). When you have to guess, play the odds.

"I don't want to talk grammar, I want to talk like a lady," said Eliza Doolittle, the flower peddler in George Bernard Shaw's
Pygmalion
. Sorry, but we can't talk or write well without using words correctly. So let's talk grammar some more.

A big part of grammar is matching up the verb (the action word) with the subject (who or what is doing the action). If a subject is singular, the verb is too. If the actor is plural, so is the action word. Nobody should have trouble with a simple sentence, such as
Linda tapes every phone
call.
The subject,
Linda,
is singular and so is the verb,
tapes.
But what if the sentence isn't so simple? Let's toss in something extra between the subject and the verb:
Linda, along with her techie friends,
[
tape
or
tapes
]
every phone call.
Which is it? No, the verb doesn't change. Since
Linda
is still the subject, the verb is still singular:
tapes.

When you come across a sentence with a lot of information separating the subject and the verb, don't be misled. Phrases such as
along with, as well as, together with,
and
in addition to
don't change a singular subject. Mentally eliminate the extra stuff and you won't go wrong.

Familiarity breeds contemptible grammar. Some words are misused so often that the errors start to look right. How many times have you read something like,
Sleeping Beauty
laid
down for a nap
, or
Bill should train Buddy not to
lay
in the driveway?
Close, but no cigar. Sleeping Beauty
lay
down, and Buddy should be taught where to
lie.

Many English words are easy to confuse because they look and sound so much alike.
Lie
and
lay
are good examples, along with
their
and
there, its
and it's, and
your
and
you're.
Here are some quick reminders to make sure you use them correctly.

•
 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 substitute
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 substitute
you are,
go for
you're.
Your
attitude proves
you're
a ninny.

You'll save yourself plenty of grief if you remember that pronouns 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.

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.

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, classics 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: