Forum Moderators: not2easy
In any one of these elements, you are bound to find common mistakes that both novice and experienced writers make.
By starting this thread, I hope to develop a list of common mistakes, traps and pitfalls ALL writers make. This compilation of errors can be used by writers aspiring to pinpoint and eliminate weak spots in their prose.
To start this thread, allow me to list three of my "pet peeves."
#1) Unnecesary use of the word "that."
Examples:
Bad-> "She said that he did not have to go to school today."
Good-> "She said he did not have to go to school today."
When determining if you can eliminate "that" from a sentence, say it outloud without the "that" and if it still makes sense, then you don't need it. I see this one all the time, even in college textbooks. It may not be a "big deal," but it's my biggest pet peeve (for some reason).
#2) Using the same subject or verb in the same or adjacent sentences.
Example: The City Council met Thursday with all members present. The City Council's first item for discussion was the annexation of the Harrison Subdivision. After 10 minutes of deliberation, the City Council approved the formation of committee to research and make recommendations concerning annexing the Harrison Subdivision. The committee will report back to the City Council in four weeks.
Nauseating isn't it? How about substituting city leaders, or just council or councilmembers or town council? Harrison Subdivision is also used twice too close together.
It is unimaginative and makes for feeble prose.
#3) Avoid slang, cliches, colloquialisms and catch phrases. ie, "Show me the money!" - "Ya'll come back now!" "He counted his chickens before they hatched."
This is also unimaginative and makes for weak content.
Those are my 3 to get it started. I have more but will hold back for now as I hope to get some input from others who have their own pet peeves of ain't not no good content.
Thanks,
Zapatista
I can't stand the incorrect use of passive voice because it requires the most work to correct. I just tell offending writers to start over from the beginning--with active voice.
Passive voice is also a trick people use to avoid responsibility: "Mistakes were made." In such sentences, the object hides the omission of the subject, implying there was no agent involved in the action. Bad things happened, but no one is to blame.
The author Charles Baxter ruminates on this subject in his essay, "Dysfunctional Narratives, Or 'Mistakes Were Made' [pshares.org]" that appeared in Ploughshares magazine a few years ago (and which is also included in his book Burning Down the House).
People don't read long paragraphs, unless they know what it is going to be about. Text that does not tell you what the whole paragraph will be about on the first line irritate me. I tend not to read this type of material because I browse the first part of paragraphs and only read the relevant information that I need.
Please, don't get started on quotes. People that don't know the full quote, or the meaning of the quote should never use them.
One of my "favorite" misquotes is another from Shakespeare:
Generally quoted as "Kill all the lawyers", the correct quote is "In order for tyranny to succeed, we must first kill all the lawyers."
Even if the content that the web designer cre8ted is dificult for you too, read that is not the designers' job. The desinger is their too make a sight that look's good. Spelling, and, grammer, are better left to those that no better.
A good web designer's job should not end with the look of the site s/he designs. A web designer's job is to make their clients look good so that visitors will perceive the site as professional.
If there are blatant spelling, punctuation and grammatical punctuation errors, the client looks foolish to educated visitors. A designer who allows this to happen has not done his/her job.
Consider the difference between a "man eating fish" and a "man-eating fish".
I can agree with that if the person's title is Web Designer/Content Editor/Writer/Copyeditor/Proofreader.
In the paper and ink world the book designer is responsible for just that and nothing more; it's up to the editorial staff to fill the space with of of those nice words.
And the digital world has made the designer's job, whether web or print, that much more difficult. It is all too easy for an editor or other content person to take the easy way out ("Let's just tweak the leading or tracking a bit to make it fit."), instead of rewriting copy.
Keepin' it short,
Jim
An emerging style I increasingly find, which disgusts me, is that of the shameless self-promoter/megalomaniac. Is he trying to sell me something or inform me that he is a demi-god of the widget industry?
I am reading several grammar and writing books (again) at the moment and discovering that certain "rules" presented in each are at odds with each other. This thread is enlightening and offers some helpful points, even if we conclude we all had different English 101 teachers.
Another point, someone mentioned overuse of the word "it." I thought about IT and concluded that if 95 percent of your audience is native speaking English people, why sacrifice your style and grammar for the other five percent? IT sounds harsh, but if you know your audience then focus your content for the common good.
Zapatista
Zapatista, then you have mentioned the word "that" quite unnecessarily five times already in this thread alone! :o
>#1) Unnecesary use of the word "that."
Examples:
Bad-> "She said that he did not have to go to school today."
Good-> "She said he did not have to go to school today."
If it's a quote, I would be inclined to use the word "that" to avoid having to put quotes around the speech.
>#2) Using the same subject or verb in the same or adjacent sentences.
There are occasions when I think using the SAME subject is necessary to avoid confusion.
Avoiding errors and good prose are two quite different things. Both are best, but good prose with errors is in my opinion worse than bad prose without.
Of course, spelling is important too! :)
I thought it was necessary when I used it but apparently you disagree. Thank you for your opinion. I only see one, maybe two instances where I agree with you. It does sneak up on one.
>"If it's a quote, I would be inclined to use the word "that" to avoid having to put quotes around the speech."
Okay. In light of your statement above, I don't know why I put those examples in quotations. However, I was not quoting anyone. In making a direct quote from someone, I agree it should be left exactly the way they state it.
"There are occasions when I think using the SAME subject is necessary to avoid confusion."
I can agree with THAT. There are many exceptions to the rules we offer here.
"Avoiding errors and good prose are two quite different things. Both are best, but good prose with errors is in my opinion worse than bad prose without."
I couldn't agree more. :-)
The book is very small but full of great dos and don'ts. You can get one at Amazon or B&N.
Art
Well yes, if I were applying your rule, I do think it unnecessary in some of those instances. Just surprised to see you doing it, since you dislike it so much. ;)
As it happens, your point is a very good one. It's not incorrect, but as you say often it is unnecessary. I for one am highly guilty, but now you've mentioned it, will try to avoid this in the future.
>I don't know why I put those examples in quotations
Sorry Zapatista, I didn't explain that point clearly. I wasn't referring to your quote marks.
On occasions, it might be more correct to put quotes around the speech. To avoid having to concern myself with this dilemma, I personally would just use "that":
She said, "He …
She said that he …
Anyway, a most interesting discussion Zapatista!
The finest aspect of being human is that we communicate and writing is one of the most important ways of communicating.
If the style is authoritative, I tend to expect fewer errors in grammar, spelling and punctuation. However, if the communication style is trying to create the effect of a conversational tone, I'll give the writer a lot more leeway for errors in grammar and "personalized" spellings (i.e. "gotta", "lemme", ending sentences in a preposition, etc.).
As a result, I'm more inclined to read personal pages or forums with mistakes, however I tend to leave business sites with errors.
And for anyone who needs a quick and handy reference for using apostrophes, there's always this site [apostrophe.fsnet.co.uk].
;)
I may be a boring stickler for the rules but email written like a note on a scrap of paper gets about the same amount of attention from me ;).
Misusing their, there, and they're.
Corporate press releases that have a lot of words that never actually mean anything (bloat). Also, corporations that ambitiously overstate: "Amalgamated Widget Corporation, the global leader in widget production, ...."
Everyone is the "global leader" these days.
Last I checked, using a double negative would give you a positive, so that word would then mean "regarding" (or some similar conjugation of the verb).
"You're such a looser."
It's quite easy to figure out its proper use if you just think for a moment.
No, it's not. According to the rules of the english language, "it is" would shorten to "it's" as an abbreviated form, yes. However, also according to the rules of the english language, the posessive form of a singular word is formed by appending "'s" to the end of the word. Therefore the posessive form of "it" should be "it's".
Unfortunately, this means that the spelling "it's" could be a conjunction of "it" and "is", or could be the posessive form of the word "it". We are more tolerant of such ambiguity in speech than we are in writing, so we keep the words but change the orthography -- which requires an exception to the rule. The fact that English is a language rife with exceptions doesn't make them any more consistent or intuitive. There is nothing for it but to memorize this one.
Yours, his, hers, theirs ---> its.
Not irregular at all!
Ever compare a chart of English pronoun forms to one of the same forms in a language that makes sense? (The closest thing to an example of such a language I can think of is formal written Latin, which by all repute wasn't something people actually spoke. My experience suggests that pronouns are a place where exceptions thrive in language development. Of course, IANALinguist.)
I'm not saying that it isn't confusing and possibly jarring when people get it wrong, BTW. Just that I don't think logic gets you out of the bind.
<added>Maybe Esperanto has logical pronoun structure? It's a young and artificial enough language not to have undergone normal evoultion to generate exceptions yet. Anyone know?</added>
it
it's
its'
Obscure that the apostraphe appears AFTER the s, but it is correct grammer. Don't ask me for which situation each is used I am not 100%, but I believe that "it's" is used for "it is" and "its'" is the possesive variation. Americans may differ, and I may be wrong anyway :)
The rest of you peeved goobers who made unintentional mistakes in grammar, spelling, and subject/verb agreement - well shame on you. Of course, you don't know if I'm referring to you or not. :)
lawman
1/. The correct grammar and style is that which 'sells'. Use split run testing using different versions, and the 'correct' grammar is the one with the highest sales.
2/. English is a living language. If enough people use a word like 'bad' to mean 'good', then the English dictionaries eventually reflect the change, first as slang, then as 'real'. The rules of grammar are an 'invented' code. Local dialects often have features which, whilst gramatically incorrect, are older than the rules or grammar. If if sounds 'good', and people understand what you mean, then say it
3/. I hate sloppy grammar. I often have to exercise extreme self control to avoid physically attacking complete strangers just because I overhear them using a double negative. This is depite the fact that my own grammar is imperfect.
You might observe that my third view is in conflict with my first two opinions.
I have observed the same.
They hang on, of course in phrases like "that's a no no". And seem perfectly acceptable in situations like:
Bil Gates: Do you like Microsoft?
Me: No I don't.
Or I could have replied "No no I don't" without confusing Bill into thinking I meant "Yes I don't" -- whatever that means :)
And English also has some examples of a double positive meaning a negative -- example:
Bill Gates: Microsoft is a wonderful company!
Me: Yeah, yeah.
