I’m in the middle of reading a book called The Fight for English: How Language Pundits Ate, Shot, and Left by David Crystal, about language and the way we use, need, and apply rules. His premise is that grammar pundits who insist on rules are not acting in the best interests of the language. He says in the introduction, “How should we deal with the disturbing note that is creeping into contemporary debate on the subject? … Zero tolerance? That is the language of crime prevention and political extremism. Are we really comfortable with the recommendation that we should all become linguistic fundamentalists?” Now, I’m only halfway through the book, and so can’t tell you exactly in what way they (and I?) are harming the language, but the chapter I just read over lunch got me thinking….

The crux of this particular chapter is that you need as many different dialects and variations on a language as you do clothes in your wardrobe. If you only have one outfit to wear, so that you use it for everything from jogging to work to dinner out on the town (not to mention state dinners, mucking out stalls, sky-diving, and every other event in your life), you are going to have problems. No single outfit in this day and age can possibly cover all the possibilities. Similarly, you are going to speak differently to your five year-old than you do to your chums at the local bar … or to your boss, clients, or the President of the United States.

It’s certainly true. I can’t quite imagine somebody being introduced to George Bush and saying, “Hey, buddy. How ya’ doing?” Nor did I ever lean toward my niece when she was small and say, “Inserting that silicate plaything into your oral orifice is a short-sighted plan detrimental to your well-being.” There is no one writing (or speaking) style that works for every occasion. As Mr. Crystal puts it, “If children have only one variety of language to use, it is like having a single-item wardrobe. On the other hand, if they have been made aware of all the varieties in a language–by degrees, of course, during a language syllabus of several years–then they leave school linguistically fully dressed.”

The thought that keeps flitting through my head, though, is that–while this is true, and having variations available is healthy (not to mention stylish)–you should still know the “correct” rules to begin with. There’s an old saying that, “You need to know the rules to break them,” which is sheer nonsense. It’s easier to break rules when you don’t know they exist, you just don’t realize you’ve broken them. Any lawyer can tell you that ignorance is no defense.

The difference, though, is that if all you want to write at the the lowest common denominator level of English, you can write the same way your five-year old does. You’ll get your point across, more or less, without any fancy bells and whistles like complex sentences or parallel construction in a bullet list. But just like clothing, you get noticed for the way you present yourself, and if you can write in an intelligent way, you’ll make a better impression than if you don’t.  Just ask Eliza Doolittle if her lessons in speech, deportment and dress didn’t make a difference when she headed back to Convent Station to visit her old cronies. First impressions are key.
If varied language use is analogous to having a well-rounded wardrobe, I submit that the more serious and formal you want to be, the more rules you need to know. You can hang out with friends in jeans, t-shirts, and your most comfortable, worn-in phrases of speech. Any schmuck can put on a sweat suit, scratch himself, and grunt for a beer, but you’re not going to be able to take him to a white-tie affair without a little sprucing up. You need to wear a suit and tie at a funeral, untorn jeans on a date, and a tuxedo, gloves and a cravat at a state dinner–and none of those come without some set of rules. How do you match a shirt with the suit? What kind of shoes do you need to wear? And how do you actually put on that stiff-fronted shirt and collar studs? And, also, while wearing it, stand up straight, brush your hair, and remember to use your napkin during dinner.

The more formal you want to be, the more rules you need to know. You can’t write an academic paper in the same informal tone that you use in a letter to a friend. You’re not going to write to that friend in the same way you wrote the life-changing job proposal you just submitted at work, and there’s apparently some kind of rule against writing an instruction manual with any clarity whatsoever. If you can’t construct the sentences with correct grammar and vocabulary, you’re going to look just as out-of-place as that beer-drinking schmuck being introduced to President Bush. You’ll be able to communicate beautifully with your buddies, but you’re less likely to be invited to speak about serious matters of state over in the West Wing–no matter how intelligent you are.

Is this the point that Mr. Crystal is going to make in upcoming chapters? I have no idea, but I loved his wardrobe analogy.

Now, I just need to go change my clothes….

The primary use of a semi-colon is to link two sentences together.

Now, obviously, sentences are usually kept separate and distinct. Sometimes, however, they are very involved with each other, and like to keep close. Like twins, or mirror images, they’re more connected to each other than to the sentences next door. Usher in the semi-colon.

• My mother was a terrible cook; we ate out a lot.
• Cable television is expensive; renting movies is cheap.

It is important to remember, however, that the sentences connected by the semi-colon be complete sentences, and if you’re using a conjunction (and, but, or), you don’t need the semi-colon. Like, for example, that last sentence. I could have stopped after “complete sentences,” added a period, and then started up the next sentence with “If you’re using.” I could also have put a semi-colon there and dropped the “and.” It’s your choice. As a writer, you have options, but like at certain restaurants, no substitutions are allowed.

Semi-colons can also be used to break apart the items in a series, when a comma isn’t quite enough to do the job.

Usually, when writing a list, you use commas to keep items separate. (”My favorite ice cream flavors are vanilla, peppermint, and pistachio.”) When the items start getting more complicated, though, commas can become unclear. (”I have travelled to Boston, Massachusetts, Madison, Wisconsin, and San Franciso, California.”) This is where the semi-colon comes into its own.

• I have travelled to Boston, Massachusetts; Madison, Wisconsin; and San Francisco, California.
• My dogs’ ages are Katy, 9; Chappy, 7.

And, that’s it. Clear? Unclear? Anything I left confused? Further questions?

I don’t need to tell you that the price of gasoline is going up, but did you know that the same tips that can help extend your gas mileage can help your writing, too?

1. Don’t Speed. Go Slow and Steady.
   Take your time. There’s no need to rush, just work steadily. You’ll get the job done almost as quickly as if you hurried, and chances are you’ll be less stressed when you finish, too.
2. Easy Starts and Stops.
   You don’t have to start off at a run, take a few moments to think about what you want to write. Pause to collect your thoughts, picture what you need to say. Then gently put your pen to paper, and step on the gas.
3. Use Cruise Control.
   You may not be able to write completely on auto-pilot, but it never hurts to use templates, or familiar formats to help ease the process along. Having a structure your brain and fingers are used to can help jog that creativity.
4. Check Your Tire Pressure.
   Make sure your equipment is ready. Sharp pencils, plenty of paper, a full laptop battery … whatever it is that you need to get the job done. There’s nothing worse than a flat tire to keep you from getting where you’re going.
5. Turn off the Car to Avoid Excessive Idling.
   Obviously, you need to work to get anything done, but sometimes you’re forced to stop. It might be writer’s block, it might just be so beautiful a day that you need to step outside. But when life sends you a traffic jam, you’re better off accepting it gracefully and just shutting the whole thing down, rather than wasting gas and energy sitting there without moving.
6. Lighten the Load.
   It’s not necessarily a bad thing to have a large work load–in fact, it’s hard to complain about having too much work–and yet, it can be difficult to focus when you’ve got too many things to do, and only two hands to do them with. If you can drop a little of the extra weight, it might help you get more mileage.
7. Keep the Windows Closed.
   Naturally, distractions should be avoided. Don’t stop to check your e-mail. Don’t get distracted browsing on the internet. Don’t let the kids drag you out to play (too often). If you want to get anything written, you need to write!

Incidentally, as a Public Service Announcement, if you want to read these and other tips for actually saving gas (because, if you have a car, who doesn’t these days? ), here are a few links for you. Change Your Driving Habits (and Save Gas!) is a good one, as is this Top Ten list, also from Edmunds. Then there’s this list of 30 tips, and this one of 29, many of which were new to me.

What do you folks think? Any tips to add?

And, what are the gas prices where you are today? My local gas stations are hoving at just about $4.00 per gallon–some stations are a few pennies are higher, some are a few pennies lower, but there you go.

Have you ever given any thought to how you write the date? 365 (or 366) days, broken out into 12 months, of 28, 29, 3o, or 31 days, all sequentially counted in groups called years.

Now, the months themselves may be spelled out, so that this month is written as “June” or as its number in the monthly sequence (06). In this computer age, even four-letter months are also sometimes abbreviated by the first three characters (”JUN” or “JUL”).

Here in the U.S., we write the month first, followed by the date. (June 9), and if specifying the year, they are separated by a comma (June 9, 2008). Some other countries, though, prefer to put the day first (9 June) which conveniently makes that comma no longer necessary (9 June 2008 or even sometimes 9th June 2008). I admit that, American though I am, I often prefer to write the date that way.

Years, of course, are counted these days in what is known as the “Common Era,” formerly known as “Anno Domini.” The calendar most of us work with is the Gregorian calendar, and started with year number 1 at (supposedly) the birth of Jesus Christ. Other nations, other cultures, have their own calendars, of course, and many of them prefer not to be saddled with such a “Christian” dating system, yet with the world getting smaller and the Internet getting bigger, we needed a non-offensive alternative, and so the “A.D.” was switched to “C.E.”

We are also, of course, in the 21st century, even though our year starts with “20″ and not “21.” (The “first” century, of course, was years 1-100. The second century was 101-200, and so on. There was never a year “zero.” This is why, incidentally, that the 21st century did not start in 2000, but not until 2001, but that’s an old argument.) We had gotten into the habit for years or writing the dates just by the last two digits (”98″ for “1998″, for example) but the shock of switching into a brand new century threw us off, so that about half the time, we’re still writing the 4-digit year rather than just 2-digits, just to remind ourselves of where, exactly, we are in this space/time continuum.

Now, why bring all of this up today? Because a couple days ago, on Saturday, if you write dates as we do here in the U.S., it was June 7th, 2008 and for a brief moment, 06/07/08 9:10. How cool is that, huh?

For those of you using the British way of writing dates, though? You get another chance at it next month, on 6 July 2008.

Most people will tell you that, if you want to write, you should read. A lot. That there is no better training for being a good writer (other than the actual writing part).

Now, reading a lot has never been a problem for me. Quite the contrary–my problem has always been putting the books down long enough to do anything else. This love of reading, of course, is one of the reasons I run the weekly meme about books over at Booking Through Thursday, and the other day, one of my readers left me a question that started me thinking: “What’s your take on the power of fiction–no matter the medium?”

If you’re anything like me, one of your favorite reasons to read is for the story. Not for the character development and interaction. Not because of the descriptive, emotive powers of the writer. Not because of deep, literary meaning hidden beneath layers of metaphor. No … it’s because you want to know what happens next.

Television, movies, even good documentaries tell stories and make you want to travel along with the writer (or narrator) as they unfold. March of the Penguins wasn’t a huge hit just because penguins are cute. No, we all wanted to know what happened when the mothers came back.

People like stories. Whether you write fiction or non-fiction, you can structure all sorts of writing as a story to capture your readers right away. For example:

• You can frame an article on the production of wool by following one shepherd’s harrowing night looking for a sheep lost in a storm.
• You can talk about the benefits of perseverance and never giving up by relating a story of a hard-luck, underdog football team that managed to scrape out a huge win over the league favorites.
• You can write a how-to instruction manual on organizing your computer files by comparing the average computer-worker’s desk to the one used by a monkish scribe scratching on parchment with a quill pen back in the fourteenth century.

Humans are geared to love stories–or, why would we waste so much time reading novels when we could be raising our families or earning money? We love hearing about the adventures, the trials, the joys, the happy endings. And, most of all, we learn from them, without even realizing it. You don’t need a moral to hit you over the head to pick up the point that doing the right thing is a good idea–you can learn it by example by listening to Cinderella, or any of the many, many fairy tales most of us grew up on. Even though she strayed from the path and got eaten by a wolf, you want to know if Little Red Riding Hood lived to learn her lesson.

This is a powerful idea. Think about how much easier it is to grab someone’s attention by telling them a story. Start off, “When I was growing up, I had a friend who thought he knew everything. Well, one day….” and they’re hooked. You can use that anecdote as a springboard for almost anything–an article, a sales pitch, a speech–because your readers are going to want to know what happened with that friend.

It’s all about what happens next.

I’ve covered many of the other punctuation marks, but not yet the Colon, otherwise known as the pair of eyes (:) in a classic emoticon smiley<:)>. Other than looking at you, though, it has other uses:

Primarily, it alerts the reader to the fact that a list or explanation is following.

• “We need from the store: milk, bread, eggs.”
• “Here is a list of primary colors: red, blue, yellow.”
• “Please choose one: paper or plastic?“
• “My greatest wish for the world: peace.”

It has other uses too, of course. It divides subtitles from main titles, “The West Wing: Season One.” It is used in telling time (1:45) or in separating chapters and verses in religious writings or epic poems (John 3:14–16). It is used after the salutation in a business letter (”Dear sir:“) It’s also used for notting ratios and such in mathematics. But, mostly, its primary use is to introduce something.

One thing that is important to note, though, is that you never put a colon after a verb. You would not write, for example, “My favorite foods are: chocolate, pie, and brussels sprouts.” The colon is redundant because it’s more or less filling the same function as the verb “are.” However, you could write, “The teacher asked me to list my favorite foods: chocolate, pie, and brussels sprouts.”

There is some debate as to whether or not use a capital letter following the colon. British English says no (unless it’s a word that would normally be capitalized), and American English seems to waffle a bit, saying it depends on context, but the general rule of thumb seems to be that if the colon is introducing an independent clause, the first word should be capitalized.

It seems like such a simple thing. When writing a basic sentence, you end it with a period (also known as a full-stop).

Obviously, when asking a question you use a question mark (?), and you follow up an exclamation with an exclamation point (!). You might be leading into a list of items and need a colon (:), or be writing dialogue that drifts off so that you need an ellipsis (…).

But, usually, almost all the time, you’re going to end your sentences with a period. That’s that little dot at the end.

I mention this because, more and more often, I see e-mails and blog posts chock-full of pretty much every other possible means of ending a sentence, with nary a period to be seen. Really, though, it’s simple. Approximately 98% of the time, you should use a period to end a sentence. Every now and again, for emphasis or as a means of signifying that you’re asking a question, you will need to use something else, but you shouldn’t let the others become a habit.

I’ll admit that I do this too often, myself. I’m far to fond of using ellipses at the ends of my sentences, especially when making suggestions in an e-mail. I like to think that it makes me seem less bossy that way, that I’m leaving the final decision up to the reader. But, really, I’m just fooling myself. I know perfectly well that what that really does is make me a sloppy writer. And that’s not usually the impression I want to make….

I’ve talked about not over-using the same, tired words, which ties into other, earlier posts that stressed the importance of a good vocabulary. Having a healthy variety of words to play with can only help the quality of your writing, right?

Well, yes, but here’s the Catch-22. I’m sure that you folks would all recognize A+ words like “prodigious,” “ratiocination,” “loquacious,” or whatever, because clearly you are all wise and erudite people, but . . . what if your readers aren’t familiar with them? Does it make you sound pretentious and too out-of-touch? Does it make you sound like you’re showing off?

Too many “big words” may make your writing obscure, rather than clear, elitist rather than elevated, smug rather than smart.

It is a fine line to walk. I can (and do) recommend that you foster as large a vocabulary as your brain can absorb, but there are occasionally problems about actually using it. I don’t know that I can actually tell you why, however. Maybe it’s a cultural thing, where showing off is frowned upon, even over something as simple as vocabulary and correct grammatical structure. Or perhaps there’s a desire to fit in, to talk like everyone else who’s not an English professor. Or maybe it’s just that simple words like “good,” and “pretty” are just that? Simple. Straight-forward. Solid, Anglo-Saxon, strong words . . . not fancy like the Latin-based ones.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to knowing your audience. (How many times have you heard that, huh?) If you are writing to a group of English professors, darn it, buff that vocabulary to a eye-searing shine and take it for a spin around the block to see what it can do. If you’re writing to a group of 10-year olds, though, it’s probably best to leave the souped-up vocabulary in the garage and bring out the Schwinn instead. But leave off the training wheels. You wouldn’t encourage a 10-year old to try riding his bicycle along a super highway, but you want him to be smart enough to recognize the cool, mind-stretching words when he sees them, so don’t be afraid to use some words that he might not know.

Because, here’s the other thing–never talk down to your audience. You might not want to pitch your writing style so high above their heads that you can’t connect to the reader, but there’s nothing wrong with making them stretch just a little to absorb your wisdom.

It’s a fine line, but who ever said that keeping it simple was a bad thing?

I’ve got an object lesson for you today, so let’s start with a story:

I recently bought a new camera (a Nikon D40 DSLR, which I love, thank you), but I’m irritated with Adorama camera. Even though we’re in different states, they charged me sales tax. I sent an e-mail to amazon.com who agreed that it should not have been charged, but that I’d need to contact Adorama directly, which I did. Now, I’m all kinds of happy with my actual order and I can’t fault their order fulfillment, but . . . my God, who do they have doing their customer service??

This is the reply I got back (with misspellings, bad typing, and multi-colors intact):

I am really sorry, but every one have to pay sales taxes, the difference on how much, it will depend on where the shipping address is.

For example I have an overseas credit card, when I use it here in NY either if I choose pick it up at the store or that they deliver it to me , I always pay 8.13%.

Also you please check Sales taxes in the United States - New Jersey has a 7% state sales tax. This is split as 3.5% for the State, and 3.5% for the municipality.

Um, ack! Completely disregarding the lack of a helpful response (i.e., the answer I want (grin)), this is one of the most badly-written, appallingly atrocious e-mails I have ever received. Really. Ever.

Think about how badly this makes Adorama look. I’m not happy about the $45 sales tax, but I am absolutely appalled at the verbal skills of this person from “On line customer services,” who doesn’t even seem to know that “online” is one word, or that titles and department names are usually capitalized. (The fact that she so nicely/patronizingly gave me a link to Wikipedia informing me that NJ has its own sales tax didn’t help matters. Gosh, really? I’ve never bought anything here ever in my life and hadn’t realized. SO helpful.) My verdict on Adorama? Great camera and very prompt service which I appreciated and can’t fault, but their follow-through and customer service?? Oy. Awful.

Which just goes to show–it doesn’t matter how good a service you provide, how well you fulfill that service IF you don’t back it up with a professional appearance. Good grammar may not be the most important thing in the world, but just like a clean appearance, a friendly smile, and decent manners … its absence sticks out like a sore thumb, and that’s what people are going to remember. Years from now, I might remember how quickly I got my camera in the mail, but I will absolutely remember the terrible e-mail I got from customer service. Not only that, but if I needed to place another camera order right now? I’d be more inclined to patronize a company whose employees show a reasonable grasp of the language.

You might say, but didn’t this employee got her point across? Yes, she did, but she left a bad impression. If there had been one typo in there, I would have chalked it up to a simple error. Everyone makes mistakes, and people are busy, yes, yes, but with this many? Not to mention the sloppy visual of the bad typing with double spaces between words, and the multiple colors? Not very professional.

And that is exactly the point. End of lesson.

Seen in the wild:

This sign so incensed my sister, she went back and took a picture just for us. See it? It asks, “Have alot of square footage?”

This is a simple one, folks. “Alot” is not a word, unless you are referring to that little town in India.

When talking or writing about a “considerable quantity or extent,” it is correctly written as “a lot,” two words.

If you need further memory aids, as this site humorously points out, “You shouldn’t write ‘alittle’ either.” (At least, I hope he meant it humorously. I can’t say I’ve ever seen “alittle” in writing, but maybe I’ve missed something?)