----------------------------------------------------------------- THE BETTER WRITING SKILLS NEWSLETTER, June 2009 By Tim North of Scribe Consulting www.scribe.com.au ----------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to the June 2009 Better Writing Skills newsletter. IN THIS ISSUE 1. Does "brother in law" need hyphens? 2. Should we use a colon-dash? 3. The excitement of subject-verb agreement. Woohoo! 4. Just for fun Your comments and questions are always welcome. Just send e-mail to: info@scribe.com.au Cheers, Tim North (Perth, Western Australia) ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Does "brother in law" need hyphens? ----------------------------------------------------------------- My first correspondent this month, Peter, wrote in with the following question: Your newsletter prompted me to ask a question from my son's homework. He has to punctuate a sentence correctly, and I have a question about one bit. It contains the phrase 'brother in law', and I seem to recall that the correct punctuation for that is 'brother-in-law', but I may be deluded of course. There are two questions: firstly, is that the 'correct' punctuation, and even if it is, is it common enough usage that an 11 year old would be expected to use it? I consulted several dictionaries of both US and UK English. All contained entries for "brother-in-law" with the hyphens, so yes I'd say that it was both the correct and the preferred usage. I'm sure that you'll also see it written without the hyphens quite commonly. My rule of thumb, though, is to mimic the style found in the dictionary. Hope this helps. -- (c) 2009 Tim North: http://www.scribe.com.au ----------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Should we use a colon-dash? ----------------------------------------------------------------- My next correspondent, Diane, wrote in with a question about changing trends in punctuation: I was taught that after initial text there should be a colon-dash -- where the colon-dash is effectively saying 'as follows' -- and not simply a colon. Is this just a style issue? You can see if you look up a few lines that I ended the first paragraph of this article with a colon, like so: ... trends in punctuation: Diane correctly points out that it was once common to use a colon and a dash, like this: ... trends in punctuation:- Which should we prefer? Well, modern usage is to use a colon by itself. The use of ":-" is rare these days and getting rarer. I suspect that many younger readers might look at it and see a malformed smiley face. :-) Hope this helps. -- (c) 2009 Tim North: http://www.scribe.com.au ----------------------------------------------------------------- 3. The excitement of subject-verb agreement. Woohoo! ----------------------------------------------------------------- My next correspondent, Andrew, wrote in with a question about grammar: Once again I'd be glad of your opinion. This sentence: "The place that the Lord is in above, and the place that He is not in below, DEFINES our place" in editing I changed to: "The place that the Lord is in above, and the place that He is not in below, DEFINE our place." Which is correct? Can it be both; if so, which is best? I think you were right to change it, Andrew. I find that choices like these become clearer if I simplify the sentence as much as I can. In this case, the sentence simplifies to either: This place and that place DEFINE our place. or: This place and that place DEFINES our place." To most native speakers, it will now seem clear that "define" is the correct choice. But why? Well, English requires something called "subject-verb agreement". This simply means that if the subject of a sentence (the person or thing doing the action) is singular then the verb (the action) must also be singular. Similarly, if the subject is plural then the verb must also be plural. That seems reasonable, but what does it mean in practice? Well, let's look at the simplified sentence from above. The subject is "this place and that place". As this is plural (there's more than one place) it follows that the verb we choose ("define" or "defines") should also be plural. And that's where everything gets funky. Confusingly, the plural form of the verb is "define" WITHOUT the "s". The singular form is "defines" WITH the "s". Go figure. If you're confused by that (and who wouldn't be?), here's another example to help you along. Consider these sentences: 1. The dog eats a lot. 2. The dogs eat a lot. In sentence 1, the subject of the sentence (the dog) is singular; that is, there's only one dog. We thus need to use the singular form of the verb "to eat". Confusingly, the singular form is "eats" with an "s" -- the opposite of what you might expect. Conversely, in sentence 2, the subject of the sentence (the dogs) is plural. We thus need to use the plural form of the verb. Equally confusingly, the plural form is "eat" without an "s". That's right; the singular form of a verb often ends with an "s" and the plural form without. How does anyone learn a crazy language like English? -- (c) 2009 Tim North: http://www.scribe.com.au ----------------------------------------------------------------- Do you know someone who'd like this newsletter? ----------------------------------------------------------------- Do you have a friend or colleague who'd find the Better Writing Skills newsletter interesting? If so, please feel free to send a copy of this issue to them. Alternatively, please tell them they can browse back issues here: http://www.scribe.com.au/newsletter.html Thanks for helping to make this newsletter so successful! ----------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Just for fun ----------------------------------------------------------------- This month, check out Googlism.com. It's a companion site to the Google search engine, and it will provide you with a brief summary of everything that Google knows about you, your friends or any topic you can think of. http://www.googlism.com Enjoy. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Would you like more help with your writing? ----------------------------------------------------------------- On my web site, you'll find my range of jargon-free, downloadable e-books that will help you to become a better writer. These e-books will help you with business proposals, report writing, term papers, technical writing, grant writing, creative writing and more: http://www.scribe.com.au/ebooks.html ----------------------------------------------------------------- REPRODUCING THIS MATERIAL You're welcome to reproduce the articles from this newsletter that are copyrighted by Tim North, but please don't modify or sell them. Also, please provide a clickable link back to: http://www.scribe.com.au FUTURE MAILINGS You can prevent (or receive) future mailings by visiting this page: http://www.scribe.com.au/newsletter.html This is a GENUINE service, and you will not receive any unsolicited e-mail as a result. You have my word on it. -----------------------------------------------------------------