Undangling Your Prepositions

A student stops a professor on the university campus.

Student:  Hey, professor, where’s the library at?

Professor:  Never, never, never end a sentence with a preposition.

Student:  OK.  Where’s the library at, asshole?

The professor in the joke is wrong.

The problem is not the "at" ending the sentence.  "At" is simply unnecessary.  "Where's the library?" is sufficient.

Sometimes keeping a dangling preposition at the end of a sentence is better than removing it.  For example:  "This is the kind of thing up with which I will not put" is just silly.

• This blog is about when getting rid of the dangle is recommended.

The dangling preposition is a problem in my students' essays - especially if there are a lot of them.  One essay had all these sentences:

• Listening to others is a skill I would like to improve on.
• Dealing with indirect people is another important communication skill I would like to become more proficient in.
• Speaking confidently in public settings is something I would like to become better at.
• I wrote down a few key points that I wanted to touch on.
• My husband is someone I would like to be closer to.

Looking at the sentences above, you can see that each preposition has an object:

• improve on listening
• proficient in dealing with indirect people
• better at speaking confidently
• touch on a few points
• closer to my husband

Some grammarists say the object should always follow the preposition that introduces it.

I suspect "always" is too restrictive, but writers should always be aware that the preposition at the end of a clause creates -- an unfinished, dangly, wordy feel to the sentences, especially when there are several in one essay.  

Grammatically speaking, the prepositions should be followed by a noun rather than preceded by one.  For succinct writing, I generally look at my dangling prepositions and see if I can use a different word or change the sentence structure.
Look at all the tiresome unnecessary words you can eliminate:

• I would like to improve on my listening skills.  (-3)
• I would like to become more proficient in dealing with indirect people.  (-5)

As for ending a question with a preposition:

I prefer the wording of the questions above to the unreadable "To whom should I give this?"  or "From where did this come?"  What do you think?

Answers  

1. Where are you going?
2. Who wants this?
3. Seems fine as it is.
4. Seems fine.
5. Who is going with you?
6. Which container is it in? Still dangling but seems fine.

Do I Indent My Paragraphs?

There are two ways to indicate a new paragraph:

• indent the first line of the paragraph by one-half inch
• do not indent, but leave extra space between paragraphs

Conveniently, we can set our word-processing programs to leave extra space after the hard return which tells the program that you are starting a new paragraph.

The current rule is to either indent or leave the space, but do not do both.

There is a popular style of writing blogs, business memos, letters, and reports called "Full Block."  In this style, paragraphs are not indented.  As you can see, I consistently leave a space between paragraphs rather than indent.  Increasingly, everything we write is left- margin justified. There is always a blank space between paragraphs.

I have been, perhaps unnecessarily, encouraging my students to indent paragraphs for non-business writing.  Most essay writing that they do for me is informal story-telling as they reflect on communication events in their lives.  Indenting, rather that leaving the blank space sometimes means they can fit the whole story onto one page, but there is no particular other reason to indent.  I imagine I am being anachronistic in preferring indentation for non-business writing.  It tends to make the writing look more like the narrative story that it is and less like the business report/school assignment that it also is.

But the official non-rule is that the indentation sends the same message as the space between paragraphs.  We must indicate a shift in perspective by starting a new paragraph.  To fit a page, indent your paragraphs; otherwise, suit yourself and be consistent.
 

Ode to the Colon

The full colon is a much abused couple of dots.  It is often omitted or misplaced.  I just ran across this sentence in my student's essay:

"I was picking through a rack of clothing, flipping through mindlessly, when I saw it.  The shirt."

I let that slide, but in my punctuating heart I would have preferred

"I was picking through a rack of clothing, flipping through mindlessly, when I saw it:  the shirt."

Colon Rule #1

Colons introduce lists, even a list of one.

Colons follow nouns, not verbs.  I tend to follow colons with two spaces, semicolons with one space.  If you follow periods with two spaces, do the same with colons.

Which of these sentences are wrong?

1. Things that make my life meaningful are:  love, food, and music.
2. My life is made meaningful by these things:  love, food, and music.
3. Our topic might include: the impact of violent video games on computer science students, the best violent video games, and the gaming subculture.
4. Our group members are:  Adam, Jane, Shaun, and Matt.
5. The thieves stole the following items a printer, a DVD player, and a laptop.
6. My boss insisted on three rules of behaviour be polite, control your temper, and ask questions when you don’t understand.
7. Some of my qualities are:  charm, intelligence, and ambition.
8. The officer seized the following items, 12 bullets, 13 knives, 20 semi-automatic weapons, and one virtual light sabre.

Colon Rule #2

Colons also introduce direct quotations; however, in most informal writing, a comma is preferred.

Insert colons, quotation marks, and hyphens in the sentences below:

1. The CBC website today says A court in China has sentenced an online gamer to death for the real world murder of a fellow player after a confrontation over a virtual weapon.
2. The article also says that the victim was stabbed with a real weapon for selling a virtual sabre.  It is unclear whether the sabre was sold for real or virtual money.
3. The website at http://open.utoronto.ca/ has the following This cross divisional, tri campus project was launched in November 2004 with a two and a half year grant from the Provost's Academic Initiatives Fund (AIF).

Colon Rule #3

Colons are used to indicate time.  The robbery took place at 11:30 a.m.  Take note that a.m. and p.m. are written in lower case with periods.

When using military time (the 2400 clock), the use of the colon seems to depend on the author.  The Toronto airport and Via Rail use the colon.  Police, hospitals, and emergency services often do not use the colon; however, scientists and engineers tend to use it.  Here are some correct sentences:

1. The GTAA website says my flight will arrive at 16:20.
2. The ambulance arrived at 0022.  
3. I was dispatched at 2320 to 1285 Main St. East.

Ode to the Colon

by Elizabeth Zetlin

O double pinhead

dagger of colonization

never direct

always explaining

leading us to expect

you’ve got the answer.

You dribble along

a tangle of intestine

ending up at:

yes: the rectum,

that final excretion

of all your verbiage

all your promises all your excuses

about being too busy,

not having enough time,

you’ll get to it tomorrow.

You lead us on and on

with your examples,

series of comments, lists

of things you have to do.

Why don’t you just relax,

tip sideways

like the eyes of crows:

come to an end.

 from The Thing with Feathers, BuschekBooks, 2004, p. 68.

Answers
Quiz 1:  Only #2 is correct.
Quiz 2:  

1. The CBC website today says, "A court in China has sentenced an online gamer to death for the real-world murder of a fellow player after a confrontation over a virtual weapon."
2. The article also says that the victim was stabbed with a real weapon for selling a virtual sabre.  It is unclear whether the sabre was sold for real or virtual money.
3. The website at http://open.utoronto.ca/ has the following: "This cross-divisional, tri-campus project was launched in November, 2004, with a two-and-a-half year grant from the Provost's Academic Initiatives Fund (AIF).

The Semicolon is Everywhere

Suddenly, the semicolon is a very popular tattoo.  It is a sign that "the sentence is not over yet" for people struggling with mood disorders and mental illness.

"A semicolon is used when an author could've chosen to end their sentence, but chose not to. The author is you and the sentence is your life." 

Consequently, it seems in questionable taste to now discuss proper use of the semicolon; yet, I just noticed several places in my student's essay where a semicolon would make it easier to read.

In the sentence above, you see a semicolon before "yet."  I would normally put a comma before "yet" since "yet" is a conjunction joining two complete sentences as we discussed here.  I chose a semicolon because there are already commas in the sentence, and the punctuation before a conjunction joining two sentences carries a particular heft. 

QUIZ:  Here are the sentences from WW's essay.  How should they be punctuated?

• 1.  Unfortunately, our chosen topic did prove to be difficult to research and our presentation was scattered, vague, and far too broad.
• 2.  I don’t want to become more persuasive because I think that all my ideas are great, but in this instance and others like it, I failed to convince my group not to make a poor decision.

My student did manage to put a semicolon in his essay - in the wrong place.  He wrote

• 3.  I find that I can often miss what the other person is saying; not on an emotional or subtext level but I often find it difficult to simply pay attention

The semicolon is a confusing punctuation mark.  It is most commonly used to join two short complete sentences when it seems like a good idea.  It indicates more than a comma, but less than a period.  In the examples above, a semicolon helps a reader navigate a sentence that already has several commas.  There are other uses, including now as a symbol of hope and support for people with mental illnesses

Answers

1.  Put the semicolon after "research."

2.  Put the semicolon after "great."

3.  Change the semicolon to a comma and put the semicolon before "but."  It's not a great sentence, but we are just here now to edit semicolons.

Using Numbers in Your Writing

The following rules come from the NASA Style Guide.  I find this style guide to have great tips.  I generally agree with everything they say, for now.  Memorize some of this.  There will be a test below in due course.

Numerals:

***Whole numbers from one through nine:

Write these out, including ordinals like "fourth" and "seventh."

***Numbers starting at 10:

Use numerals unless it's a large round number and it seems appropriate to write it out, as in "one in ten thousand."

In numbers of four or more digits, use commas between groups of three digits, counting from the right:

• 32,987
• 1,512
• 2,734,456

Measurements (distance, weight, mass, clock time, force, volume, etc.):

Use numerals (35 kilometers, 10 grams, etc.). "Clock time" means units of hours or smaller. Use numerals for hours and smaller.  Use words for days, months, and years under 10.

Examples: 4 minutes, 3 hours, two days, seven months, nine years.

Actual years:

Use numerals (e.g., 1995, 2004) In the case of years, no commas are used.

Page numbers

Use numerals (e.g., pp. 972-1003). In the case of page numbers, no commas are used.

Consistency within a sentence:

If you have several numbers relating to the same thing in the same sentence and at least one of them is big enough to be written in numerals, then all of them will be in numerals. Example: "There are 8 students in the philosophy department, 13 in the classics department, and 117 in the romance languages department."

At the beginning of a sentence or title:

Write out any number that begins a sentence or title. Example: "One hundred twenty-eight students visited Kennedy Space Center."

Comma Coma #8: Conjunctivitis

Conjunctions (and, but, as, or nor, yet) join things.

Sometimes conjunctions join two complete sentences.  Each sentence has a subject and a verb.  Here are two of my student's sentences:

• "I'd like to be better at communicating clearly with my family."
• "I am the only person in my family who has ever been to graduate school."

Where should Batman add commas?

If you wish to join these two sentences, put a comma before the conjunction:  "I'd like to be better at communicating clearly with my family, as I am the only person in my family who has ever been to graduate school."

Another student wrote

• I don't think my nervousness is something I can easily control.
• I just wish I could find a way to stop thinking about it and be confident in what I am saying.

Join the sentences with "but" and you have this:  "I don't think my nervousness is something I can easily control, but I wish I could find a way to stop thinking about it and be confident in what I am saying."  Add a comma before the conjunction when joining two complete sentences.

Notice there is no comma between "and" and "be confident."  If the author had added "I wish I could" after "and" then there would be two complete sentences joined by a conjunction and the comma after "and" would be required:  ". . . but I wish I could find a way to stop thinking about it, and I wish I could be confident in what I am saying." 

Where should Batman have added commas?

Answer

Add a comma before each "and."

Capital Confusion #3: Don't Be a Spambot

Students:

Learn correct capitalization or you will be mistaken for a spammer.

This email arrived recently:

How many errors do you see?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject:  Urgent Request From Apple Team.

Warning,
Some-information on your account appears to be missing or incorrect

Please confirm your information so that you can continue to enjoy all the benefits of your Apple-ID.
Otherwise, your apple ID Will be Blocked
Here's The link to all the legal details

Click Here To Verify Now

Once The Security Check Finished Your Account Will be more SAFER.
Thank you for being an Ap-ple-custo. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Errors?  Too many to count.  
Capital letter errors?  Too many to count.

Subject:  Urgent Request From Apple Team.

Warning, 
Some-information on your account appears to be missing or incorrect 

Please confirm your information so that you can continue to enjoy all the benefits of your Apple-ID.
Otherwise, your apple ID Will be Blocked
Here's The link to all the legal details 

Click Here To Verify Now 

Once The Security Check Finished Your Account Will be more SAFER. 
Thank you for being an Ap-ple-custo. 

Time to Canadianize Your Writing

Welcome to Canada.  Welcome to my class.


You have likely been in many other classes up to now.  The classes that involved writing in English had teachers who taught you the preferred English style for the country you were in.

Canada has its own writing idiosyncrasies.  We like our letter zed.  We like it in many places where other countries like a soft, sibilant "s."  Not us.  We want to IZE everything.

Look in the dictionary.  The word "realise" is not there.  Don't apologise for not checking.  Apologize!  I will never sympathise with you for your pain.  But I might sympathize.

In Canada, you will have to prioritize, accessorize, empathize, and finalize.  Here are some exceptions:

• advertise
• apprise
• compromise
• devise
• enterprise
• exercise
• surprise.

You can look here for an explanation of this.  As the linked article says, English spelling is "untidy."  I'd say downright messy.  Buy and use the POCD if you intend to write Canadian English better (dammit).