Don't Sweat the Crocodiles
It's amazing how emotional people can get about language. I'm not talking about insults, or anything disparaging or slighting. I'm talking about tiny, cosmetic differences that have no effect on the clarity of a message.Things like whether the period goes inside or outside the closing quotes. (If you follow American-standard rules, it goes inside. For the Brits, outside, or variable.) And even though the placement doesn't change the meaning, some folks are ready to declare war on anyone who doesn't do it the right way—their way.
Same with ensure or insure, imply or infer, and dozens of other options. You can find lots of good dictionaries and style manuals that give the okay to either in certain uses—which is to say they recognize that good writers and speakers sometimes use the less-standard member of the pair. But that doesn't seem to be enough for the so-called purists, who see their jobs as protecting the virginity of our beloved language.
When I see grownups raging at each other over one of these trivial points, it reminds me of Ogden Nash's clever poem about the apotheosis of purists, Professor Twist. Here's the last part:
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "A crocodile."
It would be nice if all members of the grammar gestapo would read that, or maybe even keep it posted where they can see it while they work.
I remembered a rule from a forgotten English teacher from the 50’s and I want to check: after I use a “wish” or “if” is it necessary to change a subsequent “was” to a “were”?
And here’s our answer:
As with most things in life, it depends.
The key point in deciding whether to use “was” or “were” is whether or not you’re talking about something that’s true (or probably true). If it’s true (or probably so), use “was”; if untrue (or probably so), use “were.”
So if you say “He thinks that if he was/were somewhere else, he’d be rich and happy,” you’d use “were.”
But if you say “If that noise was/were the phone, I didn’t realize it,” you’d use “was.” In the first example, it’s not true that he’s somewhere else; in the second, it appears likely that the noise was the phone.
What we’re dealing with here is what grammarians call “moods” or “mode,” the use of different verb forms to show the speaker-writer’s intent. The indicative mood is used for ordinary sentences like simple questions or statements of fact. The main use of the subjunctive mood is to show “conditions contrary to fact.”
So someone who says “If the mailman were here...” is indicating that the mailman is not present—”If the mailman were here, I’d give him this letter.” But saying “If the mailman was here...” suggests that the mailman may well have been there—“The mailman has almost always comes by before this time, but if he was here, he left no mail.”
We used to see the subjunctive much more frequently, but for present-day writers and speakers, the most important thing to know is what’s been covered here—use “was” with factual things, “were” with non-factual.
Someone did a study on that (don’t know why), and it seems that many people have strong opinions on the subject. They’re about equally divided between front-siders and back-siders, and there’s a range as to how important they think it is. People in the middle (like me) don’t much care one way or the other, but some do—a lot. Some have even confessed to doing a roll-reversal when using someone else’s bathroom.
Reminds me of the attitudes toward serial commas. If you write about A, B, and C, do you need a comma after B? As with most things in life, it depends. Sometimes you do need a comma to clarify, but most of the time you don’t—the meaning is usually clear without punctuation.
Still, even when no comma is needed for clarity, some people insist that we shove one in. Others insist that we leave it out.
Why? Don’t know that either.
It could be for the sake of consistency—foolish or otherwise. But I suspect the underlying reason has more to do with the toilet-paper mentality than with any desire for clear writing.
Some people learned a rule way back when, and have trouble giving up their certitude.They're sure their way is the right way, and just can’t stand to see others doing things the any other way.
Many (I think most) well edited publications do use that serial comma, yet many do not. So do it your way, but recognize that others have the right to differ.
During a writing workshop we conducted in Washington D.C. last week, we mentioned the fact that people can get very emotional about their language—even about points of usage that many of us consider unimportant.
One woman told about a problem in her office, where people had formed two opposing camps over a disagreement about the spelling of a word. It wasn’t a trivial matter to them—they had serious arguments—ongoing and heated. “One man,” she said, “was so angry he was nearly in tears.”
So, what was the word? It was gauge, or gage, depending. When I asked the workshop participants how they might have handled the situation, one man (intelligent, good writer) said, “Tell them to just shut up and get back to work.”
Well, that’s one way to do it. We’ll give you our ideas about it next week, but in the meantime, let us know what you think. Tell us what you might have done—before, during, or after the problem came up. Give us your opinion on the spelling, or anything else you’d like to say on this topic of disagreements about usage.
We’ll try to ga—um, consider—your ideas before adding ours.
Welcome to the newly launched Landablog. We’re glad you’re checking us out, and hope you’ll be returning often.
Our goal is to share information about words, writing, grammar, and other topics related to our language and how we use it.
We’ll give you our opinions and suggestions, and we’ll welcome yours. We’ll post some of your emails for others to read, because we know some of you have valuable things to say. We want and welcome differing opinions and dissenting views, but won’t post pointlessly offensive comments.
We want you to enjoy your visits here, so we really want to avoid doryphorism (discussed below, and at our website, Landabooks.com).
All that said—again, welcome.
First, the word. Our choice, based on comments from readers, is doryphore.
A doryphore (dory-for) is a person who takes great pleasure in finding and pointing out others’ mistakes. Doryphores are always ready to pounce, eager to belittle others. Their battle cry is “Aha, gotcha.” We all know at least one—and where doryphores are concerned, one’s a crowd. (Thanks again to writer/teacher Jane Mallison for the gift of that word.)
Now for the sentences. We think reviewing and revising can be good practice, so we invite you to play editor on these two we’ve lifted from respected publications.
This method can be used to remove a judge who is so ill or intellectually diminished that he or she can no longer serve.
Spanish and English are both Indo-European languages. This means that many thousands of years ago, they both had a common ancestor.
Feel free to give us your opinions on these sentences—along with suggested rewrites if you like—and we’ll add our own comments later.