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How Much Further?

May 17, 2013 in Say What? with 2 Comments

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The adverbs farther and further are often a problem for many writers. It helps me to think of farther as only applying to actual distance, but you would say, “We cannot travel any further tonight” if you are talking about physical distance. Farther is used to note the progression of physical distance. “I ran farther than I ever had before.”

Further seems to cover everything else:

  • Thoughts of leaving are furthest from my mind.
  • Let’s discuss this further.
  • The farther we go into the desert, the hotter it gets.
  • I am farther away from the store than you are.
  • I am further from realizing my goals than I was last year.
  • Stop before you go any further on that topic.

If you’re dealing with a sentence that seems a bit ambiguous, you really can use either word. People regularly use either word for physical distance and it’s become acceptable. But to be safe, default to further, and you’ll probably be fine. No need to fret further on the subject.

More Verbs To Drug You Through

May 10, 2013 in Say What? with 8 Comments

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Here are some lines that are similar to many I see in manuscripts I edit:

“After George drug Ralph through the mud, he sunk into his easy chair and watched TV.”

“The sun shined on the water after the sun had rose.”

“I sung a song after I swum across the lake, then I drunk a bottle of beer.”

Okay, I hope you saw some problems in these sentences. If you didn’t, that’s okay. That’s why you’re reading this blog post—to improve your grammar, right? So, don’t feel bad—you’re not alone. I’m not sure that we conjugate so many verbs incorrectly because this is how we’ve learned to talk, but whatever the reason, we need to use the correct conjugation of a verb in our writing.

If you want to get technical, what is happening is writers are using the past participle form (usually with had, as in “I had swum”) with the past indicative (the” regular old” past tense, as in “I swam.”) So here are the three correct forms of some verbs you may sometimes get confused (present, past, and past participle forms):

  • Swim, swam, swum
  • Shine, shined, shined (if you are shining shoes or some object)
  • Shine, shone, shone (if an object is shining on its own, such as the sun)
  • Rise, rose, risen (the sun had risen at six a.m.)
  • Raise, raised, raised (as in lifting your arm)
  • forbid, forbade, forbidden
  • Get, got, gotten
  • Bear, bore, borne (carry)
  • Bare, bared, bared (reveal)
  • Drink, drank, drunk
  • Hang, hanged, hanged (as in swinging from the gallows)
  • Hang, hung, hung (to suspend)
  • Shake, shook, shaken

And it’s drag, dragged, dragged—no, not drugged. That involves chemicals. Which makes me think of last week’s post and the misuse of lie and lay. ”I lied on the bed after they drugged me there.” Some writers intend for this to mean they were reclining on the bed after someone pulled them along the floor. But I’m sure you see how this really means something entirely different (more like an abduction scene from a spy thriller, right?).

 

 

To Lay or To Lie—That Is the Question

May 3, 2013 in Say What? with 4 Comments

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If I were asked to vote on the verb that causes the most confusion and is invariably conjugated incorrectly more often than correctly, lie would win hands down. If you Google “to lie” or “lay/lie” you can find enough websites discussing these seemingly unobtrusive, simple words to fill volumes. How can a three-letter word cause so much grief? I think there are two reasons. 1) the word lay has two completely different uses and 2) we use these verbs incorrectly in speech as well. I am guilty of often saying something like, “The dog’s laying on the couch.” I often hear people using lay instead of lie. But what’s even more “off” to me are the “creative” conjugations some people come up with like:

  • I lied on the couch for six hours (wow, your voice must have gone hoarse talking for so long!).
  • I layed down when I got tired.
  • The chicken layed an egg.

Really, there are only six words you need to remember. If you recite them a bunch of times, you might just be able to recall them when you need them. And two of them repeat, so you really only need to know four words. How hard is that? Here they are:

  • Lie, lay, lain
  • Lay, laid, laid

If you’re not sure when to use lie, think of recline (Hear the long i sound in both words). Lie (not the verb discussing whether you are telling the truth or not) is something you do to yourself—you lie down. I lie down today. I lay down yesterday. I had lain down every day for a week.

Lay is something you do to something else (in grammar-talk this verb takes a direct object. Lie never does). When you think of lay, think of place (Hear the long a sound in both words). I lay the book on the table. I laid the book on the table. I had laid the book on the table every day this week.

So just repeat after me: “Lie, lay, lain. Lay, laid, laid . . .”

I think I need to go lie down now.

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