Let me ask you two simple questions:

1. When somebody pays you a compliment, do you thank them?
2. If somebody sends you a gift, do you send a thank-you note? Thank-you phone call? Thank-you e-mail?

Chances are, if your mother raised you well, your answer to these two questions was, “Yes.” Because the whole point is that when somebody does or says something nice, you acknowledge your appreciation, even if it’s simply with a gracious smile.

But, what about when you get an unsolicited e-mail? Do you answer it? Do you acknowledge it? I don’t so much mean the spam, or the “I can make you a million dollars” business offers. Junk mail is a whole, separate animal. But what about a friendly e-mail from a stranger? Or an e-mail from a friend? A letter in the mail? (Remember those?) Do you reply?

By rights, the answer should again be, “Yes.” It’s a courteous gesture, an acknowledgement that another human made an effort to make contact. It’s true, it’s a busy, hectic world and it’s not necessarily possible (or desirable) to respond to every e-mail that shows up in your inbox. If I were to send an e-mail out of the blue to an A-list blogger who doesn’t know me from Eve, I wouldn’t really expect a personal answer (though I’d be thrilled to get one), any more than I’d expect to get a phone call from Julia Roberts if I sent her a friendly fan letter. (I’m sure that her mother taught her to be polite, too, but she only has so much time. To elicit an actual phone call, that would have to be some letter!)

Among family, friends, and acquaintances, though, it seems to me that the “Say Thank You” rule is as important as ever. If not more. We ARE all busy, crazed maniacs trying to keep all our balls in the air, and while it’s not possible to respond to everything, the polite, human-interaction thing is more important than ever. If you spend most of your time sitting on the far side of a computer monitor and keyboard from most of the people you interact with, your personal interactions become more important. Because they are exactly that–personal.

Human-to-human, even with a computer filter, is priceless interaction to a social species such as ourselves. I mean, sure, some people are annoying, but a lot of them are darn nice to be around. And, really, doesn’t it behoove us all to encourage as many of the nice ones as possible?

I almost touched on this the other day when I was talking about a kinder, gentler form of writing, and then realized that it was perfect for today’s Mangled Monday.

Double-Negatives make a positive.

(Raise your hand if you learned this in 7th grade math class.)

Let’s do the grammatical math.

• I do not want to go to the zoo.
  (-1) This has one negative, making the sentence negative.

• I’m not ever going to hit my kids.
  (-1) This one also has just one negative, so the kids are safe.

• I ain’t never going to hit my kids.
  (-2) Oops. “Ain’t” is a negative (am not), and “never” is a negative and together, they make this a positive statement. Because, see, if you “not never” do anything, then you’re actually doing it–because the opposite of “never” is “sometime.”

• I didn’t do nothing!
  (-2) Again–two negatives. If you’re not doing “nothing,” you’re doing “something.”

• I can’t get no satisfaction.
  (-2) This one sounds familiar… If you’re not completely UNsatisfied, that means that you’re satisfied at least some of the time.

The thing about those last couple of examples, though? Double-negatives or not, they still make their emphasis pretty clear. Because in common usage, of course, you can add in negatives for emphasis–especially in dialogue. “No, I didn’t never, never, never, no how, no way kill anybody!” Nobody’s going to sit there on the jury counting the negatives and think, “Hmm, 6 negatives, that must mean that he’s guilty.” The gist of the sentence is obvious.

And, what about this sentence?

• No, I do not want any more meat loaf.
  Technically, there are two negatives in the sentence, but since they are parts of different clauses, they don’t “interact.” That first “no” is essentially a sentence all on its own.

Then, there’s the Litote–a rhetorical device which makes a positive statement by using two negatives. “She’s not exactly ugly,” can be said about, say, the supermodel of your choice, if you’re shooting for dry understatement. Or, a job reference that reads, ”Mr. Smith was not a bad employee.” They’re not exactly singing the poor fellow’s praises, are they, but they didn’t actually say anything bad about him either. It’s that whole, damning-with-faint-praise thing.

This ties in with the post I wrote about the advantages of weak writing. Because while it’s frowned upon by writing experts, there’s a lot to be said for a little understatement, a little shading to your writing.

Because, nothing is simple black and white–not even something as obvious as the double-negative rule.

What do you think?

We’ve talked about the importance of strong, active writing, but what about those times when a passive voice is actually a better choice?

No, seriously. King Arthur had the right idea. Might isn’t always right.

Taking the strong, firm, direct approach to writing–using active verbs, avoiding the “extras” that weaken the sentence’s impact–is bruited about in all the best writing guides as ideal writing. But what about the times when you don’t want to be direct? When you don’t want your writing to sound like an Army Sergeant yelling at new recruits?

Like, say, when issuing an invitation. It takes a very special person to get away with an invitation that says, “8:00. Saturday night. My house. Be there.” Most of us stick to something a little softer like, “The pleasure of your company would be appreciated….” This is a classic, round-about kind of sentence that the “active writing” mavens despise, and yet . . . it’s diplomatic.

This goes for other requests, too. Whether it’s in an e-mail, a letter, or a blog post, it’s generally considered poor form to demand things of your readers. “Click Here!” gets the point across, but the context is important. If you’re saying something like, “Your life is in danger right now and you can only be saved if you Click Here!” . . . well, who wouldn’t click? Even, “Want to buy now? Click Here” is acceptible because it’s not so much an order as an opportunity. But if you’re just linking to a picture of your dog, or if you’re trying to convince someone to donate money or buy something . . . it probably wouldn’t hurt to be a little less . . . pushy. Make sure they know the option is there, but leave the decision to click up to them. No pressure.

In fact, if you’ve been paying attention, there were a couple of sentences in that last paragraph that took the scenic route instead of getting directly to the point. “It’s generally considered poor form,” is a lot less direct than “It is poor form.” And, “It probably wouldn’t hurt to be a little less pushy” is much more round-about than, “Don’t be pushy.” But, see? The “direct” alternatives are more . . . presumptuous, more demanding. They are direct commands that lack the finesse of suggestions.

Sometimes, though, that’s exactly what you need. Who wants to be told what to do all the time? Who wants the writer to do all the work for them? I mean, sure, that’s the writer’s job, but you have to leave something for the reader to do, a journey to take–and they have to choose to do it. If you’re trying to persuade, or trying to teach or explain, you can’t just say, “This is the way it is. Period.” You need to let the reader discover that for themselves.

Again, it comes down to diplomacy. Nations don’t usually tell other nations what to do–or when they do, they usually couch it in the form of Very Strong Suggestions. As soon as you start giving orders, people start digging in their heels and resisting. Negotiation is better than outright hostility. There’s a natural give-and-take involved. Well, the same goes between writers and readers. It seems like it’s one-sided because, of course, the writing is complete before it can be read, but still . . . if the readers choose not to read, what good does solid, direct, strong writing do?

Mind you, I am not taking back what I wrote last month about strong, direct writing. I’m just saying that, sometimes, being less direct is a good thing. A little diplomacy. A little tact. A little power-of-suggestion. It’s the Road Not Travelled of the writing world.

So, let’s think … So many writing misconceptions abound, which one should I address today? How about split infinitives? That one’s always fun.

In grammatical-speak, an infinitive is the most basic form of a verb. To be. To run. To cry. To write.

The traditional idea is that they should never be separated. You never say, “To quickly run” or “To greatly love.” And, that famous one?* Starships should not boldly go anywhere, but should go boldly. Instead, you should say, “To run quickly,” “To love greatly.”

Theoretically, at least.

The old rule is that putting anything between the “to” and the verb is a no-no. However, this is mostly based on the rules of Latin grammar, and thus not applicable to modern English.

Or is it? Ideally, no, you should not split the infinitive . . . but it’s not always possible to avoid it. Or desirable. Here’s a quote from the Columbia Guide to Standard American English:

Best advice: split an infinitive in speech whenever you wish, if the result sounds clear and unambiguous, but in writing follow the conservative path, especially when you’re uncertain of your readers’ expectations and sensitivities in this matter.

In other words, go with your “ear,” but if possible, leave the infinitive intact.

*You know, that famous Star Trek line in their mission objective: “…to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

We’re all human. We all make mistakes from time to time, typing “tot he” instead of “to the,” missing the Shift key when typing “I,” stuff like that. It happens. And those kind of errors are what make things like automatic spell-checks useful, instead of detrimental. These kinds of errors, though, are not the same thing as ones caused by carelessness, or a sloppy disregard of spelling conventions, which is a whole ‘nother post.

But what about those troublesome words? Even the most careful people have “catch” words . . . the ones their brain regularly catches on, uncertain of the spelling. Is it seperate or separate? Committment or commitment? How embarras(s)ing!

Because, this is one of the most dangerous things about sloppy spelling–after a while, when you’ve seen “loose” written countless times when it should have been “lose,” the incorrect spelling starts looking like it might be . . . correct. And after a while, the correct spelling might start putting up red flags in your brain. I worked in the greeting card department of a local department store when I was in high school, and around Mother’s Day, suddenly, the word M-O-T-H-E-R just simply did not look correct to me any more. Moth-er? Could that possibly be right? What’s a word about fluttering, wool-eating insects have to do with my Mom? Just looking at that word for hours on end started to throw me off, even though I knew perfectly well (usually) how to spell Mom’s formal title.

You know the old expression about familiarity breeding contempt? Well, where spelling is concerned, it breeds a casual disregard.

So, in the face of rampant misspellings through the blogosphere, e-mail-land, and everywhere else, what can an advertent speller do to keep sharp and accurate?

1. Use memory tricks. “Separate” has always been a trick word for me, until I finally pointed out to myself that it was like paring something into separate pieces . . . and pare has an A, not an E as its active verb. Or, for discrete/discreet–the modest one has both “e”s tucked safely inside the word, whereas the one describing sepArate things has them divided by the T. Or, the “too” that means “also,” has an extra O. You get the idea.
2. Check the dictionary or, yes, use the spell-check. Dictionaries are more reliable, and the spell-check might not be able to tell you whether you should use “would” or “wood,” but if you spell something like “explanatory” incorrectly, the chances are pretty good that it’s going to catch it.
3. Know who you’re reading. Again, everyone makes occasional mistakes, but when you’re out in the world reading the latest recipe or rant by your favorite blogger, you’ll usually know whether that person tends to be accurate or not . . . and you’ll know when to ignore a red-flag word. (”This person is great with the marketing scenarios, but clearly doesn’t know the inside of a dictionary.”) It’s no reflection on them–a person can be brilliant but a chronically bad speller. Just . . . try to know whose spelling is apt to be wrong so you can keep your mental guard up.
4. And, of course, simply don’t make mistakes…. (ba dum bum).

What tricks to you use to catch your (entirely accidental, of course) spelling mistakes?

What words do you get stuck on?

Most of you should know what an adjective is, but what about a Compound-Adjective?

This is an adjective created when two or more adjectives modify the same noun.

• Blue-gray paint
• Absent-minded professor
• Semi-solid food
• Sweet-and-Sour pork

The idea is that the hyphen will help to avoid confusion. Otherwise, that tasty dish on the menu might confuse someone who’d never been to a Chinese restaurant before. Sour pork? And what kind of sweet comes with it? And what kind of food is “semi food,” any way?

You can also have compound adjectives created by an adverb modifying the adjective.

• Brightly-lit room
• Never-ending story

You do not need the hyphen if one (or more) of the words is capitalized.

• I’m raising my baby with the reliable Dr. Spock method

Although, if you wanted to use the tried-and-true Dr. Spock method, you’d need hyphens to hold the Tried and True words together.

Of course, over time, some words–held together so well by the hyphens–eventually merge into one, seamless word all their own. Like, say, “online.” Or “babysit.”

Then, of course, there are compound nouns, but . . . I’d bet you can figure those out on your own now, can’t you? Because, really, they’re pretty much the same thing, except that they’re nouns (grin). For some reason, “Snow-shovel” is springing to mind tonight, but that could be because of the weather forecast.

If you want to read more,  look here for more information.

So, here I sit in front of this blank screen. I had an idea in my head for a post, opened up the page to write it down, but . . . poof! It disappeared. All I can hope is that it will resurface in time to stand up and be counted. Or written, whatever.

Ideas that escape are fast and slippery and not likely to be hunted down. ~Carrie Latet

In the meantime, though, let’s think about that whole “inspiration” thing, shall we? So much of writing–or any creative endeavor–is about finding a kernel of an idea and nurturing it. The idea is the spark used to light the fire, but if you feed it too quickly, blow too hard, or make any of a number of well-meaning mistakes, the spark goes out and you’re left with . . . that blank screen that faced me at the beginning of this post.

Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable. ~Francis Bacon

Trying too hard can be the death of the idea. Which, when you think about it, sounds counter-intuitive. There are so many analogies that talk about the sheer work of creation, comparing it to childbirth or any of a million similar, extreme-effort activities.

Labor gives birth to ideas. ~Jim Rohn

Writers already know about the hard work involved in nurturing that glimmer of an idea. And yes, dragging it into the light can be similar to labor–and not just the “giving birth” kind, either. Ideas are twisty and they struggle to escape. Maybe not all the time, but so, so often. Forcing them onto paper (or a computer screen) is tough.

Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead. ~Gene Fowler

Still, though, that initial idea–that little gift from the Muses–is priceless. Indefinably precious. It is also something that doesn’t require actual work, per se. All the writer needs to do is be the conduit for the idea, open to the possibility. (Although, I’ll be the first to grant you that it can be an effort to stop thinking long enough for an idea to float its way to the surface.)

Everyone who’s ever taken a shower has an idea. It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference. ~Nolan Bushnell

Pulling the idea into the light and nailing it down onto paper? That can be work. But the idea itself? Magic.

Sometimes imagination pounces; mostly it sleeps soundly in the corner, purring. ~Leslie Grimutter

Are you interested in some more great quotes about writing? Click here.

Sadly, it’s true. There are still people who get confused about when to use “your” and when to use “you’re.”

This one is really simple.

• If you want to say, “You are,” you write “you’re.” It’s a contraction of the two words.

• If you mean to denote possession, you want “your.” Your house. Your coloring book. Your computer.

See? Simple.

This picture pretty much says everything all by itself, but let’s be clear and explain it any way.

My father was writing an e-mail this morning and this window popped up in his automatic “Spelling and Grammar Checker.” The program objected to the phrase,”This site will explain” because it felt the subject and verb didn’t match.

It went on to suggest:

• This site will explains
• This site wills explain
• The site wills explain
• These site wills explain
• Those site wills explain

Hmm. With that list of choices, where do I begin?

Well, other than that he was correct in the first place? Then, well, last time I checked, “wills” is not a verb. Or rather, it’s not this verb. It can mean “to will,” as in, how you leave someone an inheritance, in which case I suppose that Dad’s statement would have been grammatically incorrect … but since his e-mail wasn’t leaving anything to any one it’s not exactly relevant. Not to mention that, as verbs go, the “I like you so much, I’m leaving you something when I die” version of “will” is a whole lot less common than the “exercise your will, make a choice, make something happen” kind of “will.” That’s like a spell-checker thinking I meant “bee” like the honey-bee when writing “To be or not to be, that is the question.”

The point of the story? Electronic aids like spell-checkers may be useful things, but you should never, ever depend on them. Not only do they get confused about homonyms like aunt/ant, be/bee and uncertain about words that are misspelled into other, valid words (like, “could” instead of “cold”) . . . sometimes, like the system in the picture, they’re just plain stupid, no matter how well-meaning.

There’s simply no substitute for the human brain.