Introductory Phrases and Clauses Have Their Purpose

The following sentence appeared in a news article during the recent campaign leading up to the primary run-offs in Alabama:



Senior staff just before his news conference was set to begin were quietly informing reporters that (Tim) James had decided to end his challenge.



This sentence is difficult to read because the inserted dependent clause (printed in red) separates the subject STAFF from the verb WERE INFORMING for no good reason. It just does not fit in this position, and the focus ends up in the wrong place.



I would suggest rewording it this way and using a comma to set off the resulting nine-word introductory clause before the main idea:



Just before his news conference was set to begin, senior staff were quietly informing reporters that James had decided to end his challenge.



I hope you agree that this sounds much clearer. This is the kind of improvement that can be made if you make time to proofread what you write.

Paying Out....Give Out--Parallel Structure Problem Strikes Again

This morning's The Birmingham News has a teaser sentence on the front page about the tough choices BP is facing with its finances. This long and involved sentence needs better parallel structure so the reader can follow it. It reads this way:

As the claims over the oil spill disaster mount for the energy giant, the company is torn between two tough choices: paying out settlements to those affected by the ongoing crisis, or give out dividends to its shareholders, which include public employee retirement systems and pension beneficiaries.

The two verb phrases highlighted in red should be in the SAME format, both ending in ING. The sentence should read as follows:

As the claims over the oil spill disaster mount for the energy giant, the company is torn between two tough choices: paying out settlements to those affected by the ongoing crisis or giving out dividends to its shareholders, which include public employee retirement systems and pension beneficiaries.

BONUS NOTE: Notice that I also removed the comma before the word OR. There is no logical reason for separating these two phrases with a comma.

HAS? HAVE? Pick one only, please!

I received a colorful ad brochure magazine in my mailbox this week. It contains many ads for upscale shops in my area. The graphics and the photography are quite attractive, but the feature articles about businesses are riddled (yes, riddled!) with glaring Grammar Glitches. Whoever is writing these pieces is either careless or does not have a good grasp of common writing rules.



I'll share three examples this morning--all from the same short article. The first is a parallel structure issue in this sentence:



Lucy's even has a school spirit department for all the Vestavia Rebel fans and have recently created a Teen Advisory Board.



The writer started the sentence assuming correctly that "Lucy's" is ONE store and used the singular verb HAS. Then, maybe because Lucy's offers "Gifts, Toys and a Whole Lot More," the writer switched to the plural verb HAVE in the second part of the sentence. Hm-mmm. Maybe the writer made this mistake because the word FANS (object of the preposition FOR and NOT the subject for the verb HAVE) was just too close to the verb, and she could not resist.



Whatever the reason, the writer was creating two verb phrases that both refer back to the singular subject LUCY'S. The sentence should read as follows:



Lucy's even has a school spirit department for all the Vestavia Rebel fans and has recently created a Teen Advisory Board.



The same short article contains two more Grammar Glitches. One is a run-on sentence:



When you have the time you will want to go in the store and shop, they have convenient front door parking and specialize in great gifts for every budget.



This is not easy to read because the one comma in the sentence (which should be two sentences) is in the wrong place. The comma should come after the five-word introductory clause WHEN YOU HAVE THE TIME. There should be a period after SHOP. It should read as follows:



When you have the time, you will want to go in the store and shop. They have convenient front door parking and specializde in great gifts for every budget.



The other Grammar Glitch is another comma placement error:



Owner, Tahara Evans is a Vestavia graduate as well as a resident of Vestavia Hills.



The writer needs to make up her comma mind on this one. Either she wants to set off the owner's name with a comma in front of it AND a comma after it OR she should streamline, journalism style, and not set the name off from the OWNER title at all. The sentence should read this way:



Owner Tahara Evans is a Vestavia graduate as well as a resident of Vestavia Hills.



When you put a person's title BEFORE the name, it is not necessary to use the commas. The writer would only have needed commas if she had written it this way:



Tahara Evans, owner of Lucy's, is a Vestavia graduate.

Whoops! As I was proofreading this blog entry, I noticed yet another Grammar Glitch in this same short article. Here it is:

Lucy's reopened in their new location on September of 2009.

Lucy's could reopen ON a specific day in September or IN September. It is not necessary to add the word OF. This sentence should read as follows:

Lucy's reopened in its new location in September 2009.

BONUS POINT: I am sticking with the writer's first usage--that Lucy's is SINGULAR--and changing THEIR to ITS in this sentence!

I'm Not Sure How You ALLUDE a Police Officer

A young shoplifting suspect ran a red light yesterday in Birmingham and caused a crash that killed one person and left another seriously injured. The police had stopped chasing him, but he was still racing away. What a sad situation.

The article in The Birmingham News stated that the suspect was charged with the following:

...felony attempting to allude a police officer, theft, reckless driving and several traffic violations...

I HOPE that the police manual refers to this first charge as "felony attempting to ELUDE a police officer." Just a reminder for all of my Grammar Glitch readers: ALLUDE means to make an indirect reference to something, as in:

The professor often alluded to his own poetry.

The judge would not allow the attorney to allude to the defendant's former crime.

The word ELUDE is needed here. It means to evade or escape from, especially by a daring move. The suspect reference should read as follows:

...felony attempting to elude a police officer, theft, reckless driving and several traffic violations.....

BONUS POINT: I did not add a comma between "driving" and "and" in this series because it was part of a journalism article in a newspaper. Although the comma after "and" in a series is highly recommended in business and literary prose, it is usually omitted by journalists.

My 200th Grammar Glitch Post! Commas, Commas, Commas!

I'm treating myself to a virtual torte this morning in honor of my 200th Grammar Glitch post. Please enjoy a virtual slice with today's post, and thank you to all my regular readers.

If you have a question or a topic you'd like covered, please let me know. As you can see, I never lack for ideas, but I am ALWAYS glad to respond to a specific inquiry.

Today, I'm going to highlight some comma problems that appeared in the current issue of 280Living http://www.280living.com/.

1. A good rule of thumb for comma usage is to set off any introductory phrase or clause that is more than three words long. Here is an example sentence:

According to Chelsea High School art teacher Max Newton over 400 art pieces were entered from local Southeastern states.

The subject of this sentence is "over 400 art pieces," and the reader must plow through nine words to find the subject. A comma definitely helps with that process by pointing out where the subject is. The sentence should read this way:

According to Chelsea High School art teacher Max Newton, over 400 art pieces were entered from local Southeastern states.

2. If you insert an ING phrase after the subject and before the verb (especially if you also add a phrase like "at first"), set the phrase off front AND back with a comma. Here is an example sentence:

His mom Sue being a nurse at first was skeptical about the correlation of his spinal structural compromises coinciding with Jacob's symptoms.

In repairing this sentence, I set off the ING phrase with commas (front AND back), and I also moved the "at first" phrase to a better location. I also reversed the word "Jacob's" and its pronoun "his" so that the reader knows who Jacob is before "his" refers back to him. Whew! Lots of repairs here! The sentence should read as follows:

His mom Sue, being a nurse, was skeptical at first about the correlation of Jacob's spinal structural compromises coinciding with his symptoms.

3. It is important to use commas in the logical places for pauses in a sentence. Here is an example sentence that puts the comma way too early:

Unfortunately, for the conference another unlikely scenario could be worse than last season....

The phrase that should be set off before the subject here is "Unfortunately for the conference," NOT just the word "unfortunately." The subject is "another unlikely scenario." The sentence should read this way:

Unfortunately for the conference, another unlikely scenario could be worse than last season....

4. Finally, when you set off a phrase or clause WITHIN clause (rather than at the beginning), it is important to use a comma AT THE BEGINNING and another comma AT THE END of what is set off. Look at these two sentence examples:

John Calipari, after leaving Memphis has a new stable of freshman who are very skilled....

Mississippi State is another team that has a slim chance and, in my opinion would be a good representative for the conference.

In both sentences, the writer has inserted a comma at the BEGINNING of an inserted phrase but failed to insert another comma at the END of the inserted phrase.

BONUS POINT: If you have a whole stable full of them, the word should be FRESHMEN (plural).

These sentences should read as follows:

John Calipari, after leaving Memphis, has a new stable of freshmen who are very skilled....

Mississippi State is another team that has a slim chance and, in my opinion, would be a good representative for the conference.

Have a great day, everyone! And thanks for reading.

Proofreading with Your Parmesan!

My 280.com advertising brochure for this month features a mouthwatering ad for Nino's Italian Restaurant in Pelham http://www.ninos-pelham.com/. The food sounds wonderful, but the person who wrote the "Southern Palate" review of Nino's needs to be more careful with the grammar and usage. In describing the lasagna, she wrote:

"This lasagna was even better than your moms with lots of gooey cheese and a generous portion of meat, the sauce was perfect!"

Whoops twice for this sentence! First, this lasagna is NOT being compared to your moms, and your moms don't come covered with gooey cheese! This lasagna is being compared to the lasagna your mother might make. Second, "the sauce was perfect" should be a completely separate sentence--partly to avoid a comma splice (run-on sentence) and partly because the point about the sauce should stand on its own and not be buried in the previous sentence. This part of the review should read as follows:

This lasagna was even better than your mom's with lots of gooey cheese and a generous portion of meat. The sauce was perfect!

BONUS POINT: I don't recommend frequent use of the exclamation point in formal business prose, but in a restaurant review in an ad brochure, it is certainly acceptable if you want to exclaim over the sauce!

Another run-on sentence appears in the last paragraph of the restaurant review:

"Don't be afraid to step out and try something different, this delicious dish is mild and includes a side of pasta."

This sentence, which refers to Eggplant Parmigiana, dilutes both parts by running them together. They should be separate and read as follows:

Don't be afraid to step out and try something different. This delicious dish is mild and includes a side of pasta.

Another Comma Glitch

Last Tuesday, I talked about not separating an adjective from its noun with a comma. Here is another good rule: Do not use a comma to separate a subject from its verb.

Walgreens had an ad in this morning's newspaper for a horse linament that erases pain. This was the first sentence of the description:

An ingredient often used to treat inflammation in race horse legs, is now back on the market in its original doctor recommended clinical strength formula.

There should NOT be a comma between "legs" and "is." The only time you would have a comma between the subject and the verb is IF a phrase that does not change the meaning of the subject is inserted. In that case, there would be TWO commas, one at the beginning of the inserted phrase and one at the end of it. In this sentence, that is not the case. The information beginning with "often used" DEFINES the ingredient and is necessary for meaning. Therefore, it is NOT set off by commas.

Use horse linament for your pain if you wish, but use your commas correctly!

A wonderful, furry, hug,,,,And other comma glitches

Let's tackle a comma Glitch today. One basic rule is that you do not use a comma to separate an adjective from the noun it modifies. This sentence appears in a delightful article in 280 Living about Macy, the loveable service dog:

Say the word "snuggle" at Danberry at Inverness retirement community and you will get a wonderful, furry, hug....

The first comma (between WONDERFUL and FURRY) is fine because it separates one adjective from another adjective. The second comma (between FURRY and HUG) is not fine because it separates the descriptive word FURRY from what it describes, which is HUG. The sentence should read as follows:

Say the word "snuggle" at Danberry at Inverness retirement community, and you will get a wonderful, furry hug....


In an article on the same page of 280 Living, two sentences illustrate another basic rule for comma use: If an introductory clause is longer than three words, it should be set off by a comma so that the reader can find the main subject of the sentence. Those of you who have attended my business writing workshops have heard me compare this to Hansel and Gretel dropping breadcrumbs--Yoo-hoo, the subject is over here!

When a doctor approaches the bedside with an air of quiet confidence the therapeutic process can begin.

When you are calm and filled with self-respect others immediately pick up on that energy and some of it rubs off on them.

Whew! That is a lot of information to muddle through without any breadcrumbs or road signs. In the first sentence, the main subject is PROCESS, which is the 15th word in the sentence! In the second sentence, the main subject is OTHERS, which is the 9th word in the sentence. In my opinion and according to most business writing manuals, a comma is necessary after the introductory clause in each sentence, as follows:

When a doctor approachs the bedside with an air of quiet confidence, the therapeutic process can begin.

When you are calm and filled with self-respect, others immediately pick up on that energy, and some of it rubs off on them.

BONUS POINT: In the second sentence, I also added a comma before AND because the last part of the sentence (some of it rubs off on them) is a completely separate idea.

Got Gold? Need Punctuation Pointers!

The Roadshow is traveling around buying up gold and silver, antique toys and other goodies. Their full page ad is, for me, a treasure trove of poor punctuation, and I will share some of it with you over the coming days.

Let's begin with the most confusing problem, which is what to do with periods and commas when using quotation marks. Here is one example from the ad:

"Old tin windup toys...are in great demand now." said Davis, "Especially those that are character related."

Whoops! The first error comes after the word NOW. Because "said Davis" comes AFTER the quote, there should be a comma, not a period, after NOW. The second error is with the word ESPECIALLY. It should not be capitalized because it continues the sentence that starts before "said Davis." Because "said Davis" comes in the MIDDLE of a complete sentence, there should be a comma after "Davis" as well.

I can't resist also mentioning that the word WIND-UP, according to my trusty American Heritage Dictionary and my personal brain, has a hyphen in it when used as an adjective to describe a noun. When used as a verb + adverb as in something like "I'll wind up this explanation as soon as possible," there is no hyphen. To my knowledge, there is NO instance in which this should be spelled WINDUP.

Therefore, this sentence should read as follows:

"Old tin wind-up toys...are in great demand now," said Davis, "especially those that are character related."

Here is another quotation mark goof involving the last sentence of the same ad:

"We help people sort through their coins for unique dates....See you at the Roadshow." said Fuller.

Once again, because "said Fuller" comes AFTER what is quoted, there should be a comma, not a period, after ROADSHOW and then, as given, a period after FULLER. The statement should read as follows:

"We help people sort through their coins for unique dates....See you at the Roadshow," said Fuller.

Please stay tuned. My next blog entry will deal with the apostrophe errors in the same ad.

Confusing Semicolon with Comma

I read an interesting article this week about how churches are using Twitter and other social media networks to appeal to young people. Good idea, perhaps.

The following sentence in the article had a problem--it used a semicolon where a comma should have been:

At Christ Tabernacle Church in Queens; the Rev. Adam Durso and his brother Chris, the youth director, keep in contact with their flock, sometimes hourly, on a half-dozen social media sites.

A semicolon should only be used to separate one clause from another (or items in a series from each other). In this sentence, the first six words are an introductory PHRASE, so they should be set off from the main sentence with a COMMA, not a SEMICOLON.

At Christ Tabernacle Church in Queens, the Rev. Adam Durso and his brother Chris, the youth director, keep in contact with their flock, sometimes hourly, on a half-dozen social media sites.

Even if you Twitter, keep those semicolons for special occasions!

Commas, at times, should be in pairs.

Commas can be used alone or in pairs. Often, when a pair of commas is called for (at the beginning and end of a phrase that has been set into the middle of something else), the writer puts in the first comma, then gets busy with the rest of the sentence and forgets the second comma of the pair.



Here is a good example of this as it appeared in a Religious News Service story by Daniel Burke:



Even less controversial issues, like the overhaul of the White House faith-based office have been kept outside the public eye.



The basic statement here is: Even less controversial issues have been kept outside the public eye. The phrase "like the overhaul of the White House faith-based office" is set into the middle of the statement AS AN EXAMPLE OF A LESS CONTROVERSIAL ISSUE. It should be set off with a comma at the beginning AND another comma at the end of the phrase that is set into the middle of the statement.



The sentence should be punctuated this way:



Even less controversial issues, like the overhaul of the White House faith-based office, have been kept outside the public eye.

An ING verb cannot be the main verb by itself.

When proofreading what you write, always check to make sure you are creating complete sentences. If you move words around, it is easy to have a sentence fragment without a complete verb. Notice in the first sentence of this paragraph that "are" is used as a helping verb with "creating" to create the complete sentence.



Here is a sentence that appeared Monday in an article in The Birmingham News. The reporter was writing about behavioral health issues found in soldiers returning from tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan:



The screenings, which are required for all U. S. service members, including members of Guard and Reserve units, who return from combat tours.



There are three verb groups in this long sentence, but what the reporter ended up with was simply three verb phrases and no main statement in the sentence. I suspect this happened when he tried to combine ideas and then forgot to go back and proofread what he put together.



It is simple to fix this goof by simply eliminating the word "which" and turning "are required" into the main verb:



The screenings are required for all U. S. service members, including members of Guard and Reserve units who return from combat tours.



Notice that this sentence reads more smoothly if the comma between "units" and "who" is removed. The reason? The writer is using "who return from combat tours" to QUALIFY which units he is talking about. The comma would only be used if the "who" part is nice to know but does not QUALIFY the particular units.

Job Hunt Not Going Well? Check the grammar in your resume.

In my travels to various companies and state agencies to do business writing workshops, I often hear HR managers state that their first "cut" to a pile of resumes is to eliminate all those with spelling or grammar errors. As one manager at a prominent Birmingham company told me recently, "I simply won't consider an applicant whose resume has errors."

Dr. Mildred L. Culp writes a syndicated column about workplace issues that appears in The Birmingham News and Mobile's Press-Register on Sunday mornings. She responded to a reader's letter this week with much the same advice about the importance of good grammar and usage in resumes. See what you think of the writing quality of her reader's letter:

...I would your help in maybe redoing my resume because I have been job hunting for over a year without any luck I keep trying to better my education to help but with no luck so if you have time please give me some advice. I am currently enrolled into the H&R Block tax course but I am not sure where to list it at.

Whew! In her response, Dr. Culp referred to the grammatical errors in the letter (missing word, run-on sentences, incorrect prepositions) as "door closers," and I would certainly agree with that. Here are my suggestions for improving this dreadful paragraph:

I would like your help in redoing my resume because I have been job hunting for more than a year without success. I keep trying to better my education, but I am still unable to get ahead. If you have time, please give me some advice. I am currently enrolled in the H&R Block tax course, but I am not sure where to list that on my resume.

Doesn't that read more smoothly?

If you would like to contact Dr. Culp about help with job search, you can access her website at www.modbee.com/workwise. Her sydicated column originates at the The Modesto Bee in central California. You can e-mail her at culp@workwise.net.

Entangled Sentence #1

In a recent editorial headlined, "Judge not, unless ye be qualified," The Birmingham News ran a sentence that I just cannot help judging. Although the editorial made a good point (There should be minimum qualifications for judges in Alabama.), I'd like to suggest improvements to the following sentence:

Overwhelming House approval on several bills this session, for example, one that would ban transfers of campaign contributions among political action committees, has not moved the Senate to action.

I read this sentence several times before I could digest its meaning easily. It is correct to set off a phrase like "for example" with commas, but when "for example" is part of a longer phrase that interrupts the main idea and is also set off by commas, things get confusing. There is a definite need for additional punctuation or a change of wording to make the point stand out.

By the time I reached "has not moved...," I'd forgotten what hadn't moved. In case you are wondering, it was the "overwhelming house approval on several bills" way back at the beginning.

I came up with a few suggestions. See which one you prefer and if you agree that it is clearer than the original.

SUGGESTION A: Overwhelming House approval on several bills this session--for example, one that would ban transfers of campaign contributions among political action committees--has not moved the Senate to action.

SUGGESTION B: Overwhelming House approval on several bills this session, including one that would ban transfers of campaign contributions among political action committees, has not moved the Senate to action.

SUGGESTION C: The House has overwhelmingly approved several bills this session, including one that would ban transfers of campaign contributions among political action committees, but so far, the Senate has not moved to act on any of them.

I'd love to hear your e-mail responses on this one. Stay tuned for more entangled sentences and suggested solutions in coming weeks.

Do NOT use an apostrophe to create a plural word!

I'm not sure where this bad habit started, but I seem to be crusading against it. I received a letter last week with this statement in it:

On behalf of the planning committee and the attendee's we thank you for your help with this conference.

An apostrophe is used to show possession or contraction (the attendee's embarrassment...the attendees' registration forms). It is NOT used before an "s" when making a word plural.

The above sentence should have read as follows:

On behalf of the planning committee and the attendees, we thank you for your help with this conference.

NOTE: I also placed a comma after "attendees" because the introductory phrase (coming before the subject "we") is nine words long.

Have a great week, everybody, and may all your apostrophes land in the right places!

Comma Placement--Today's Grammar Glitch

When writing just the month and year (omitting the day of the month), it is not necessary to place a comma between the month and year.

In a recent issue of The New Yorker, the author of an article about candidate Rudy Giuliani ("The Political Scene: Mayberry Man"--August 20, 2007) forgot this rule and wrote the following sentence:

In April, 2000, Hanover accepted a role in Eve Ensler's feminist play "The Vagina Monologues."

This sentence should read as follows:

In April 2000, Hanover accepted a role in Eve Ensler's feminist play "The Vagina Monologues."

ANOTHER REMINDER: The author of this sentence did get the placement of the period INSIDE the quotation marks absolutely correct. Even though the name of the play is not a complete idea, the period still goes inside the quotation marks. Periods and commas ALWAYS go inside quotation marks.