What is a sentence?

http://bngeek18.deviantart.com/art/My-puzzled-face-168534301

 
If you were asked, how would you define a sentence? Ask your friends. Ask you family. Ask your students. You may be surprised and amused by their responses.

Not long ago I was asked to take a class on basic grammar at a regional campus about 450 km from Adelaide, the state's capital city and the university's home base. All the students were in the first semester of a pathway program leading into an undergraduate degree. The class profile was typical for this regional campus: most hadn't studied for many years, were female and were native English language speakers. I knew that these students would find the idea of a class on grammar scary at best.

To put them at ease I began the class with the story of a guy I'd worked with some years ago who had a very definite and somewhat surprising answer to my sentence question:

'It's a group of 40 words about something.'

Why 40 words? He'd worked out from the novels he'd read that most sentences were about forty words long. This snippet of information explained why I had joined the ranks of staff who couldn't make much sense of his essays. Every sentence was forty words long.

It also crystallised for me why so many students, educated in a system which has de-emphasised the teaching of grammar, have no way of reviewing or correcting their texts at sentence level.

How did my regional students define a sentence?

 'A group of words about one idea.'

'It's a group of words that starts with a  capital letter and ends with a full stop. You put the full stop where you need to take a long breath.'

'In sentences you always start with a capital letter and end with a full stop. If you need to take a short breath you put in a comma. You put the   full stop where you need to take a long breath.'

'A sentence has to say something, make sense.'

'A sentence has a beginning, someone doing something and an end. It's about one idea.'

'All you want to say about one thing.'

'It has to have a, what do you call it, a subject, but I forget the rest...'

Everyone agreed that long ago a primary school teacher had linked sentence writing to breathing. Is it any wonder that holding up a mirror to some student essays reveals some very heavy breathers and others panting their way to that final full stop?

Any suggestions for those who write breathily?

The Grammar Gang welcomes Helen Johnston - Language and Learning Coordinator at the University of South Australia.  Helen has worked at UniSA for 'a long time' and her interests are teaching academic literacies - especially to those returning to study after a long absence.  Welcome Helen!

Dash it! What's the point of a hyphen? Help Nest feature # 6

Op-Eds Italy, 2008

Hyphens, em dashes and en dashes.  They all look the same so where, dear reader, should we use them?  In fact, why should we use them?

Before I present you with this Help Nest feature (thank you Judit), I should declare a deep and long-hidden secret.

For a very long time, I really didn't know there WAS such a thing as an 'em' or an 'en' dash.   I spent the better part of my forty years in complete ignorance. This was until one of my grammarian friends said, 'no, Andrea, you don't use a hyphen there, you use the elegant em dash'.

As for hyphens, I tend to use them in a cavalier and careless stream-of-consciousness* way in my writing.   

This is not entirely treason, as it seems that rules and uses of the hyphen (or its cousins the em or en dash) are really quite loose and used in any number of creative ways to aid expression.

As the image above suggests, the hyphen is going the way of much punctuation. There tends to be an inclination toward minimalism and they are used less and less.  However, what I have attempted to provide are a few examples of how they might be used, to what effect and some of the rules of their use.


One of the most common uses (given in the example below) is to join compound words.

noun + adjective	noun + participle	adjective + participle
accident-prone	computer-aided	good-looking
sugar-free	power-driven	quick-thinking
carbon-neutral	user-generated	bad-tempered
sport-mad	custom-built	fair-haired
camera-ready	muddle-headed	open-mouthed

Oxford dictionaries online (accessed 2 July, 2012) 

Our friends at Purdue, in their excellent resource on hyphen use, describe how hyphens can be used for prefixes such as 'ex'  ('ex-officio') and 'self' ('self-assured').  They also explain how hyphens come in handy for separating words at the end of a line.  However, they stress this should be after a syll-

able.

The University of Sussex, explains the cardinal rules of hyphen use.  These are to use them to achieve clarity in writing; to avoid unnecessary use and to consult a well-regarded dictionary for consistency.

On the last point, they give the example of  'land-owners, land owners or landowners?' to highlight how confusing the hyphen can be. In my Oxford Concise, it is 'landowner'.  I have seen it written as 'land owner' in The Daily Telegraph (UK) .  Although I did not see any hyphenated versions of the word, I did find an online definition of 'land-holder in the Collins Dictionary.  See why it's so confusing?

Roy Peter Clark, in his whimsical work The glamour of grammar (2010) describes a novel use for the b----- hyphen, which is to leave letters out of a word to partially disguise its profanity.   The bl--dy hyphen, he explains, is sometimes used to simply replace the vowels when cheeky editors are feeling a bit bold.  He pays homage to the hyphen by saying that (in addition to the ellipsis) it can be your best friend when leaving something out of a text for the sake of brevity, taste or dramatic effect.

The em dash—and I had to cut and copy this dash from another source because I forgot which keys to use—is longer and used to separate or shift thoughts midstream through a sentence.  I find it easy to see why some people swear by it but tend to forget to use it because it is cumbersome to insert.  (One important rule is never to put a space before or after it.)

The en dash is half the width (-) of the em dash and is used to show a range in numerical or other values. For example, 46-102 or November-January. As you can see, I couldn't figure out how to put in an en dash so I used a hyphen.  (I am sure purists would not approve and would adroitly know the six key combination to use to insert the correct punctuation.)

In summary, I would not expect you to use my blog post as a definitive guide (given my opening admission).  However, I would ask you to consider that hyphens and other dashes are handy; the purpose of each is different and there is an abundance of (sometimes conflicting) advice to find on the internet or in style guides.

I do welcome (as always) your comments and suggestions for other readers.  Finally, thank you to Judit for her query on the Owl/Possum Help Nest on June 5 which inspired me to research hyphens and their dashed friends further.

* Stream-of-consciousness was something I learned this morning when reading a couple of chapters of Henry James's The portrait of a lady.  Yes, reader, James coined this handy term to describe the free-falling, wide-ranging thought patterns of his lovely protagonist, Isabel.   Just thought I'd share something I found interesting.   :)

These are a few of our favourite things

Dear Gramm-o-philes (or Grammarphiles, or Grammarians if you prefer)

'Sound of Music', 1965  National Publishers Inc

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things (Rodgers and Hammerstein, 1959)

Those readers who participated in our our little poll about how they used the Grammar Gang, gave the most number of votes (34) to the question which said 'to help me with my academic writing'. 

We did our own whip around and - in no particular order - made a selection of our favourite 'writing at university' resources.

From our colleague Lisa at Massey University in New Zealand:

APA interactive

From Julia at Adelaide University:

Adelaide University Learning Guides

Julia particularly likes the ones on articles and literature reviews.   She also recommends Oshima and Hogue's 'Writing academic English' and Murphy's 'English grammar in use'.

And I really like these simple resources from the University of South Australia:


Linking words and phrases

Objective and subjective writing


Reading log

I hope you like these as much as we do.  Please add your own comments and contributions.

Double, double, toil and trouble

  

As Shakespeare's witches said in 'Macbeth': 'Double, double, toil and trouble.'
But wait a moment. Should that be 'Duble, dable, toil and trible'? Of course, a spell checker helps, but even spell checkers aren't perfect.

Do you have difficulty spelling words ending in -ible, -able and -uble? You're not alone. There are so many homophones (words which sound the same but may be spelt differently) in English that choosing the right one is not always easy. Other commonly confused words are 'effect' and 'affect', or 'they're' and 'their'.  How can you be sure which is the correct spelling? As always, I'd recommend a good online learner's dictionary. The seven listed here are available free of charge:

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
http://www.mycobuild.com/free-search.aspx
http://www.ldoceonline.com/
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/
http://www.learnersdictionary.com/
http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/
http://oaadonline.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/

If you spell a word incorrectly in the dictionary search box, you'll be given suggestions which prompt you to find the right word - perfect for difficult spellings!

Another way to remember confusing spellings is to use a mnemonic, or memory aid, such as 'i before except after c, except in certain cases'. This rule helps with words like 'friend' and 'receive'. Another suggestion made to me was the mock warning given by a primary school teacher: 'Spell "friend" properly, or I'll "fry" your "end"!' Sounds painful, but I've never forgotten it!

What memory aids for spelling do you know? Please add your suggestions in the comments box below and help make a discernible difference to our reputable blog!

Call for papers - Journal of Learning Design

Call for papers – Journal of Learning Design

September 2012

‘The Classroom without walls:  Social software, cross institutional collaboration and working across cultures.’

 

The Grammar Gang cordially invites contributions for a special issue of the Journal of Learning Design.
    

The Grammar Gang is a cross-institutional community of educators and bloggers spanning four institutions, three countries and two hemispheres.   We have been invited to compile a special issue of the Journal of Learning Design, around the theme of ‘The Classroom without walls’.  Our intent is to compile an issue which examines innovation in higher education, as boundaries between institutions blur and policy makers are constantly challenged to keep up with the amorphous technological landscape.

This special issue of JLD invites contributions which look at: 

• Cross institutional collaboration and its pedagogical benefits
• The use of social software to facilitate collaboration
• Implications for the academy
• Administrative challenges
• New ways of working cross culturally 

The Grammar Gang began as a cross-institutional collaboration between Purdue University and the University of South Australia in 2008.  There are now more than 200,000 visitors to the blog each year. 

The team comprises:

• Associate Professor Linda Bergmann (The Writing Lab, Purdue University US
• Ms Susanna Carter
• Ms Andrea Duff (Division if Information Technology, Engineering and the Environment, University of South Australia)
• Associate Professor Lisa Emerson (School of English and Media Studies, Massey University)
• Dr Julia Miller (School of Education,  University of Adelaide)

Guidelines for papers can be found here:

https://www.jld.edu.au/about/submissions

Deadlines for Abstracts are May 31, 2012 (Full papers June 30, 2012)

Contact:

Andrea.duff@unisa.edu.au for further information

Feeling tense?

English is easier than some languages, but harder than others, in respect to tenses. In English, we don't make too many changes to our words to show that we're changing tense. e.g. I walk, I walked, I will walk, I was walking. We have some irregular verbs (I write/I wrote), but some languages make many more changes. Perhaps you speak one of those languages? Conversely, other languages don't change their verbs at all, and all the work is done elsewhere in the sentence, by another word that indicates whether you're talking about the present, past or future.

One thing I'm often asked by students writing essays in English, then, is what tense they should use. The answer depends very much on the discipline for which you're writing, but in general you can use the present tense when you're talking about ideas (e.g. Smith claims that . . .) or general truths (e.g. Water boils at 100 degrees centigrade) and the past tense if you're talking about past actions (e.g. The researchers surveyed 300 people). The funny thing about academic writing in many disciplines is that you can use the present tense even when something was written a long time ago (e.g. Shakespeare says . . .; Brown (1962) notes . . . ). If you're talking about an experiment you propose to do, though, you should use the simple future tense: 'This experiment will investigate . . . It will use . . . ' When in doubt, check with your department for any particular conventions you should follow.

One tense that seems to be vanishing in Australia is the past perfect, used in what is often called the 'third conditional'. e.g. 'If I had known you were coming, I'd have baked a cake.' I often hear people now saying, 'If I knew you were coming, I'd have baked a cake.' (Actually, no, they don't bake cakes for me, but they could do!) I know what they mean, but I like the past perfect here. What do you normally use? I've put a poll up so you can give me your votes on this.

Whatever your views, there's no doubt that language changes, is always changing and will continue to change!

The sad truth about English teachers

I knew my grammar and punctuation fetish was getting out of hand when, on a recent trip to the beach, I had casually written all the famly's names in a line on the sand, and my two daughters, aged 8 and 10, proceeded to add in commas. They have t0 live with me. And it's clearly rubbing off.

Last week I was asked to speak at the staff meeting of a local high school about the kinds of writing expected at university. "How much did grammar and punctuation matter at university?" was the first question I was asked. And I really didn't know. I know - I think - what I expect or hope for, but I really don't know about what is expected elsewhere.

But it struck me as significant that this was the first question that was asked. In the 90 minutes of the workshop I'd presented, I hadn't mentioned grammar or punctuation at all. But here it was: first off the block. But what I really wanted to say in response was this "If I had to choose between students who will grapple with ideas, take risks with new concepts, explore their question but fall over with expression OR students who write perfect prose but trot out established ideas without internalising or struggling to extend themselves, I'd go for poor expression every time." Of course such a dichotomy is, to a certain extent, ridiculous. But as a teacher I have often found that when my students are really struggling with ideas, their writing skills deteriorate, and I don't mind, because they're learning.

Image by BookRiot

The rules we live by

Recently, I was reading one of my students' journal entries in which she discussed how she struggled with some aspects of academic style. To my surprise, she mentioned a particular rule she had been advised on: never use apostrophes in academic writing. I'd never heard this one before; I'd heard some people advise students not to use contractions, but had never taken any notice of such advice myself. But - no apostrophes at all? This student had realised how crazy this rule was when she was advising another student and suddenly realised how removing possessive apostrophes made the writing less concise and more cumbersome. When I asked her how she came by this rule, and why she had adhered to it for so long, she shrugged and said she'd never questioned the advice because it came from a reputable source.

This made me think about other rules I've come across that students think are absolutes: never use the passive voice, never use pronouns (any pronouns??), always write in deductive paragraphs, always use a transition at the end of each paragraph, always insert a comma where you would breathe in a sentence...I could go on.

Some of these rules fit into my 'maybe' category: maybe it's best to avoid the passive voice unless there's a reason to use it? Maybe deductive paragraphs are going to lead to clearer writing so you might want to make them your first option? But some of these rules are just plain wrong: please don't insert a comma wherever you breathe in a sentence, please feel free to use pronouns, and please, oh please, use apostrophes (correctly, and not too colloquially) in academic writing!

But where do these ideas come from? Some of them, I'm sure, must be misunderstandings on the student's part: I'm almost sure the apostrophe and pronoun 'rules' fit into that category. A teacher might have said "be careful using contractions in academic writing" and somehow it translated into "avoid all apostrophes" in my student's mind. A teacher might have said "avoid personal pronouns in formal reports" and it turned into "avoid all pronouns in academic writing". But some of these ideas will have emerged out of teachers trying to make the rules easier for students to understand: there are so many rules about commas, for example, that a teacher might give up trying to explain and come up with this simple (but entirely wrong) rule. We want our students to write more clearly, so we come up with the deductive paragraph rule and somehow it sticks as an absolute.

In my last two blog posts I have discussed particular rules relating to grammar and punctuation, and both have led to interesting discussion in the comments about whether the rules are correct or whether they are simply my taste. What I have loved about these comments is that they have challenged any absolutes, discussed the changing nature of language (David, I'd love you to write a blog post about Henry Hitchings on Grammar Gang one day), and invited a consideration of the relationship between rules and taste (shibboleth is such a fine word, thanks Allen!).

But what this raises for me, as a teacher of writing is how do we teach these issues without resorting to teaching 'rules' that can be misinterpreted or converted into absolutes? How do we give students the flexibility to work with language and make judgements about usage, while still meeting the formal requirements of many of their teachers? I'm still thinking around these issues: do you have any views on this? Or have you come across any absolutes about writing that your students believe in?

peeves and passes

Recently, on a drive from Palmerston North to Auckland, I spent some time musing on which grammar issues bother me and which ones don't. Of course, the very fact that this issue was taking up space in my brain illustrates that I'm a Tragic Grammar Nut. I could have been taking in all the delicious signs of spring: the soft greens of newly unfurled leaves, spring lambs and calves, even little black piglets in one paddock. I could have been swelling with nationalistic pride; New Zealand is gripped by World Cup Fever so there were All Black flags everywhere, fluttering from cars, letter boxes, roof tops. One farmer had even filled a whole paddock with flags and black and silver balloons.

But no, I was thinking about grammar and punctuation.

What doesn't bother me? Well, I decided that comma splices in some situations (I recently read a PD James novel that was full of them) don't raise my blood pressure too much, especially if I can see the reason for them. Incomplete sentences don't worry me too much, again, if there's a reason for them. I can cope with some misplaced commas. And I'm very comfortable about starting sentences with conjunctions.

But what can't I live with? Sorry, I'm a stickler for apostrophes - even when the mistake doesn't really cause any confusion. I think this is a weakness in my character: I should be more forbearing, but there it is. I can't bear "should of" to such an extent that I would correct someone who uses such an expression, whether that person is a total stranger, a friend, a salesperson or my boss. But my biggest peeve is one that hit me in the face on this trip. We stopped in Hamilton for a meal at our favourite Turkish restaurant and there was a GIGANTIC advert which said, in letters half a mile high, "More data, less dollars". It was all I could do not to head to the nearest hardware store to buy a ladder, black paint and a paint brush and correct it. I was still yelling "FEWER dollars!!" as my partner bundled me hastily into the car, executed a swift u-turn, and headed back on to the motorway out to Auckland.

So what are the grammar errors you can live with? And which ones bring out the Grammar Nut in you?


Image source: https://mrswhitegsl.wikispaces.com/Words+to+the+Wise

SAVE THE SEMI-COLON (and impress everyone!)

Semi-colons get a bad press. They have been described as the most feared form of punctuation (right up there ahead of apostrophes). Here at the Grammar Gang, we love them: the rules are simple to apply, and when you use them correctly, the outcome will be a tighter and more elegant style. One of us declares that she fell in love with someone because of his masterful use of semi-colons. We're not sure we believe her - but hey! It's worth a try, isn't it?

So let's start by taking a look at the rules for using semi-colons.

Rule #1 Use semi colons to separate lengthy items in a list (especially if those items contain commas), like this:
The shop owner's defence consisted of three specious arguments: he couldn't be expected to use apostrophes correctly because he had been the victim of poor English teachers at school; no-one really valued apostrophes anymore because they were old-fashioned; and apostrophes had no impact on the meaning of a shop sign anyway.

The Grammar Gang includes three self-declared grammar nuts: Andrea Duff, whose commitment to the correct use of commas is legendary; Linda Bergmann, who has been known to attack shop owners who engage in apostrophe abuse; and Lisa Emerson, whose students refer to her as the Semi-Colon Queen.

You can see that in this latter example, it would be very confusing to use commas to separate out the items. So, avoid confusion and use a semi-colon.

Rule #2 Use semi-colons to join two complete sentences that are linked by meaning in some way.This one is a little more tricky and requires some personal judgement and preference. Consider the following sentences:

She wrote the report in clear, simple prose. It received a positive response from the Board.

The grammar in the sentence above is correct and clear. Both sentences are complete and therefore can work independently. However, if you wanted to imply that the two sentences are related in some way, then use a semi-colon to link them:

She wrote the report in clear, simple prose; it received a positive response from the Board.

Using a semi-colon suggests that because the report was written in clear, simple prose, it received a positive response. Of course you could have written:

Because the report was written in clear, simple prose, it received a positive response from the Board.

But where is the elegance in that? And why use more words than you need to? The use of the semi-colon implies the connection more subtly, and its use makes the sentence more concise.

Some of you may be asking "but couldn't I just use a comma?" The answer is no, you can't use a comma to join two complete sentences: it's not a strong enough piece of punctuation.

Beyond rules

Applying Rule #2 (i.e. choosing to use a semi-colon instead of a full stop or a conjunction) is a matter of taste, discernment and context. Often it's a matter of considering the pace of your writing. Consider the passage below:

She stood in the dark, silent forest. Her heart thudded. She stepped forward. Behind her, something rustled in the trees.

Now try it with semi-colons:

She stood in the dark, silent forest; her heart thudded; she stepped forward; behind her, something rustled in the trees.

Both pieces of writing are grammatically correct. But they achieve a different impression. The pace of the second version is faster, perhaps reflecting the breathlessness of the person in the scene. Which version you prefer will depend on what you want to achieve in your writing.

Images sources from http://www.spreadshirt.co.uk/save-our-semi-colon-C4408A10321348 and http://fandom-grammar.livejournal.com/tag/usage:punctuation