Someone I Promise Never to Be

—in person anyway. On this site I do it all the time.

I don’t do it when you write to me, either. Unless you ask. Aren’t you glad?

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—So I’d better call attention to it. Even though the speaker got everything else wrong.

“All right” is always two words, folks! “Already” can be one word, though.

A rule in English is to put modifiers as close to what they modify as you can. Adjectives generally go directly before the noun they modify, a blue car, for example. (Except for post-positives such as “malice aforethought.”)

Adjectival phrases can go afterwards, but what do you do when you have more than one of those phrases? You put the phrase as close as you can to the thing it modifies. Here’s a guy who didn’t:

Decades ago, psychologist Benjamin Libet monitored subjects’ neural activity while they chose to hit a button, and he discovered a burst of activity preceding the conscious decision to push the button by a split second.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/my-go-to-arguments-for-free-will

What does that split second refer to? It refers to the burst of activity, not pushing the button! He didn’t need so many big words, either. How about this:

… he discovered a burst of activity a split second before the decision to push the button.

Well, I think the sentence is easier to follow now.

This sort of thing is part of good writing. No clear-cut rule, just good judgement.

• When you write, think how you might be misunderstood, and don’t do that.
• Try not to cause bumps for your reader.

But it’s from The Washington Post, a place where I expect better writing. The quote is lengthy, so I made the solecisms bold.

Carrie Dennett writes about why the Traffic Light Diet, a system of assigning the colors red, yellow and green to foods, is too simplistic, doesn’t have much impact, and can lead to nutritional deficiencies (some “red” foods have essential vitamins and minerals) and obsessive eating behaviors. Cara Rosenbloom writes about why telling people how long they will have to walk or run to work off the calories from, say, a chocolate bar, is too simplistic, can lead to nutritional deficiencies and can encourage obsessive behavior.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/traffic-light-diets-label-foods-red-yellow-and-green-thats-too-black-and-white/2020/01/19/7d0c4030-3878-11ea-9541-9107303481a4_story.html

Simplistic already means “oversimplified.” Good writing has no such thing as “properly oversimplified” to be able to have too much of it. Use the word by itself!

Harrumpf.

When you quote someone, make sure you get the quote right. Adding to or subtracting from the original is a no-no. Look at the last panel:

The Scout motto is just “Be prepared.” (Someone once asked Baden-Powell “Be prepared for what?” and he answered, “Any old thing.”)

Perhaps we have the excuse that he called it “my scout motto,” but I still say he should have gotten it right. Harrumpf.