Overcoming Bad Writing Habits 9

[BJCooperIT]

We once discussed the importance of spelling and grammar here at TT. I cannot locate that thread, but in general we all agreed that our professional images suffer from bad habits in our writing. We also agreed that spell checking and proofreading are important.

The purpose of this thread is to provide tips to help make us aware of and overcome common mistakes. A few months ago I discovered that there was a word which I was mispronouncing. This was not a new word, indeed it is commonly used. I was embarrassed when I realized that I have been making this mistake all my life. That set me to thinking, what other "mistakes" do I make of which I am unaware? I always struggle with punctuation and know that I could use a few pointers there.

Since this site is dedicated to helping other professionals, I would like this thread to provide tips that may be helpful. If you read a something you already know, then good for you. If you benefit from it, even better! Hopefully, each one of us can find some little bad habit we can overcome.

I used

http://www.merriam-webster.com/

as a reference. Here are 3 common mistakes that are on the top of my hit parade:

THAN vs. THEN
THAN: "...taken as the point of departure in a comparison expressive of inequality... easier said than done"
THEN: "next in order of time... first came the clowns, then came the elephants"
I remember this by thinking "than" compares 2 items

TO vs. TOO
TO: "used as a function word to indicate movement or an action or condition suggestive of movement... drove to the city"
TOO: ": BESIDES, ALSO... sell the house and furniture too"
I remember this by thinking if it is excessive, there are too many O's

DANGLING PREPOSITONS
Remember prepositions? at, to, for, with, in, on...
I had an English teacher who would automatically give a failing grade to any paper in which she found a sentence that ended with a preposition. This would include something like "What did you go to the store for?". I am forever rewriting sentences to avoid this mistake.

How about it? Give us your recommendations.

[sup]Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.[/sup][sup] ~George Bernard Shaw[/sup]
Consultant/Custom Forms & PL/SQL - Oracle 8.1.7 - Windows 2000

 

[lespaul]

I read BJ's post yesterday and printed out the rest of this and read it last night! I try very hard to proof read my posts and to use the correct form of they're/there/their/it's/its/accept/except/etc.

But, I had to read BJ's thoughts on dangling prepositions to my children. My daughters are constantly asking:

"Where's the ___________ at?"

The response is an automatic:

"Between the A and the T."

It's what my mother said to me and it's what I say to my children. I've been doing it forever, but they just don't GET IT! My oldest couldn't believe that a paper would get a failing grade for having a dangling preposition!

Thanks for the additional support in teaching my children!!

Leslie

 

[flapeyre]

True story:

A nurse, making her rounds to dispense medication, asked a patient, "Are you Mr. Thompson?"

The patient replied, "Wright".

The nurse, mistakenly thinking she had found her man, gave Thompson's medication to Wright.

Shows how a combination of homonymns and failure to follow procedure (not checking the hospital ID bracelet on the patient) can have potentially bad consequences.


"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward, for here you have been, and there you will always long to return."

--Leonardo da Vinci

 

[BJCooperIT]

Toughest teacher I ever had in school!

[sup]Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.[/sup][sup] ~George Bernard Shaw[/sup]
Consultant/Custom Forms & PL/SQL - Oracle 8.1.7 - Windows 2000

 

[zbnet]

My particular pet issue is missing hyphens from words used to qualify other words. In extreme cases, they change the meaning.

My favourite example is 'flat-earth mover' vs 'flat earth mover'. The former is someone who rejects the idea that the world is a globe, the latter is a squashed bulldozer!

 

[LesleyW]

Hmm... wouldn't a squashed bulldozer be a 'flat earth-mover'???

 

[zbnet]

Would you write fence-erector then? Or car-transporter? Or dining-room? Most of the time the hyphen is optional in these circumstances where the meaning in unambiguous (or should that be un-ambiguous?), with a modern trend tending to minimal hyphenation where it doesn't change the meaning. It doesn't matter whether I tell you my brother drives a earth mover or an earth-mover, the meaning is clear in either case. My example illustrates when leaving out the hyphen of the fixed compound (in this case 'flat-earth') changes the meaning: a hyphenation minimalisation too far!

 

[Onyxpurr]

If only the younger generation thought this way!

I heard that English teachers are having difficulty with high school students because that are starting to write in text messaging words.

LOL

 

[Chopstik]

I am perhaps a little late to this, but one I am careful of is ensure vs. insure. From Dictionary.com:

<Usage Note: Assure, ensure, and insure all mean “to make secure or certain.” Only assure is used with reference to a person in the sense of “to set the mind at rest”: assured the leader of his loyalty. Although ensure and insure are generally interchangeable, only insure is now widely used in American English in the commercial sense of “to guarantee persons or property against risk.”>

Me personally, I tend to use "ensure" as it clarifies (for me, anyway) the difference between being certain and insurance. Most people I have read use insure and I must admit it does drive me somewhat batty because I see that more as "insurance", not "making certain". Is this a common interpretation?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
&quot;If you can't explain something to a six-year-old, you really don't understand it yourself.&quot;
-- Albert Einstein

 

[Onyxpurr]

Well being in the 'insur'ance biz, I do not use the "insure" unless I am talking about guaranteeing persons or property at risk.

I usually use the word ensure when referring to an object or process, and assure when referring to a person.

Example:

I want to ensure that this does not happen again.

I want to assure you that this will not happen again.

 

[GlenJohnson]

thread96-787981

This user likes to use things like "I've had 2 do this before".... type thing. Makes me crazy, and I usually don't offer much help to people that do that. Might be petty on my part, but..........

Glen A. Johnson
If you're from Northern Illinois/Southern Wisconsin check out Tek-Tips in Chicago, Illinois Forum.

TTinChicago

 

[jen89]

you meant B4, not before, right? That is a personal pet peeve of mine as well. It takes so little time to spell the entire word - probably less than it takes me to decipher the sentence when written this way. Maybe I just don't spend enough time on IM. I am only 24, it makes me feel very old to gripe about how "kids these days" type. If it is not just kids, please don't enlighten me. I don't think I want to know.

 

[CajunCenturion]

This forum is for and by professionals.

If you find such language inappropriate, which it seems you do, (as do I), then I suggest you red-flag the posts. The only way that we can maintain a decent level of professionalism is to not allow childish behavior to remain.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[Kjonnnn]

Its amazing that there are 111 posts on correct grammar usage. Just amazing.

 

[LNBruno]

You mean "It's" - right? LOL

I sometimes wish the code window had spell check - option explicit just doesn't seem to go far enough...

< M!ke >

 

[GPOTony]

I'm joining this discussion late, and would like to say the following.

>There is no transitive verb “to author”. Books are >written, composed or drafted by authors, THEY ARE NOT >AUTHORED.
>Rosie

I believe that in America, ALL verbs can be transitive ;-)

 

[sleipnir214]

I missed that part of rosieb's post, but the online dictionaries I've consulted (YourDictionary.com, Dictionary.com, and M-W.com) all specify that the verb "to author" is transitive.


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TANSTAAFL!!

 

[BJCooperIT]

I just found this:
100 MOST OFTEN MISPELLED MISSPELLED WORDS IN ENGLISH

[sup]Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.[/sup][sup] ~George Bernard Shaw[/sup]
Consultant/Custom Forms & PL/SQL - Oracle 8i & 9i - Windows 2000

 

[rosieb]

GPOTony & sleipnir214

(I don't care what the dictionaries say, they're wrong!)

It's a lazy, ugly, imprecise and totally unnecessary useage which has gained acceptance only because of the frequency of its use in marketing-speak by the semi-literate.

It may have gained formal recognition by virtue of commonality of useage but to my (admittedly, very biased, mind) that does not turn it from a "bad" to a "good" writing habit.

Not, of course, that I'm biased.

Rosie

 

[sleipnir214]

rosieb:
I have several comments, and I just couldn't pick which one to post. So I'll post them all, in order of greatest to least facetiousness.

<facetious>[ol][li]You make a strident claim -- if I'm to stipulate your authority on the matter of linguistics in general and English in specific, do I get to revoke that authority if you go off the deep end and decide that Middle English is the preferred form?[/li][li]You speak with great passion and authority. I'll stipulate the passion. From whence the authority?[/li][li]Let's decide democratically. I've sited three sources -- I see that as three votes. So far, the tally is 3 to 0.[/li][li]An utterance in a language transmits meaning only because the speakers of that language agree on the meaning of that utterance. If the consensus agrees to drop the genetive case from a language and add transitivity to the verb "to author", who am I to argue?[/li][/ol]
<facetious>



Want the best answers? Ask the best questions!

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[AnanthaP]

Been following the thread and read the latest post and noted the sitations (cited not sited).

You see, everyone's got their own personalised blind spots (taught, dinned in, becaame habituated to using ...).

So whats the deal? Good writing does indeed make for more precise communication.

If we can get our meaning across, it's OK.

If we are going to publish a book, I'm sure the editors will take care of grammar (they too need jobs).

End