One of My Rules!
Well, rule of thumb, that is. A recommendation, really. Third panel. He stated the rule a bit more strongly than I do.
My rule is that your writing is generally better if you can think of a good verb and dispense with the adverb. Unless your emphasis is on the adverb, maybe.
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Another Who-Whom Lesson
Maybe it’s a subordinate clause lesson, because that’s the key here.
From the June 2021 Scientific American, page 62:
Last line. Shouldn’t that be “to whomever…”? After all, “to” is a preposition, so we should use the objective case, right? Nope.
Here’s the rule:
- Go from the inside to the outside.
What’s inside the prepositional phrase? A noun clause! And “who” (well, “whoever”) is the subject of “needed,” so it gets the nominative case!
So there you have it. Sometimes you can say “to who.”
A Diaresis I Don’t Often See
A diaresis is two dots above the second of a pair of vowels to show that you pronounce each vowel; it’s not a diphthong. Perhaps the most common example is in the word coöperative, or maybe naïve.
Here’s another, from the New Yorker, of course:
Usually people use a hyphen because they don’t know how to make a diaresis. Hence, re-evaluate and co-operative. That’s okay.
Here’s a picture of the ASCII codes for the diaresis:
PS—I think it’s slightly funny that we don’t spell it diäresis…
I Agree, I Think, Especially about the last complaint
Here’s the comic:
That kid knows grammar! Elision is when you leave something out that should really be there, usually.
- In the first panel he left off the subject, “I,” though the cartoonist doesn’t mention that elision.
- In the second panel, he could also have said “take it along,” but she has a point, I guess.
- In the last panel, I agree with her strongly. Should be “to be toasted.”
Examples Illustrating Conciseness
Or concision if you want to be fancy. I got this from a Facebook post, so no useful credit.
Rules of thumb:
- if you can leave out a word without changing the meaning, leave it out.
- If you think of a shorter way to say something, say it that way.
PS—the picture disappeared from Facebook. Sorry. You can find another post on this subject dated August 4, 2021.