Tag Archive - usage tips

Chopping Off Words To Make Them Taste Good

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I’m fascinated with the fluidity of language and how every day it seems words come and go around us. Think how over time we have dropped the last letter or two off certain nouns—perhaps just out of carelessness or due to our verbally dropping them (and just not hearing them in speech) such that over time the acceptable spelling of these words changed. Here are some words as they were originally penned:

  • panned cakes (pancakes)
  • iced tea (that’s the correct form but we say “ice tea” much of the time)
  • powered steering
  • linked sausages (makes more sense, doesn’t it?)
  • creamed cheese (same here)
  • roasted beef

Maybe over time some of these ( and  many other) words will be shortened even further, as we continue to chop up our language via text messaging. Now even phrases are shortened into acronyms to save time typing (like ROFL and LOL, which I use a lot. If you don’t know what these mean, ask someone who texts a lot!). We now put chops on the barbie and drink (soda) pop and eat dogs. Seems like this is really all about food, hmmm.

Maybe we’re in such a rush to eat, we don’t want to take the time to complete our sentences. Or we’re talking with our mouths full and drop a few letters inadvertently. Something to chew on, eh?

 

How Much Further?

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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

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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?).

 

 

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