21st Century Grammar Handbook (11 page)

Compound word
. Two or more words that can stand independently are often joined in various ways to make compound words. It is important to recognize that such compounds are tricky to spell and to make into
plurals.
Some guidelines follow, but be sure to look up such words in the
dictionary
if you have any doubt about their
spelling.

In grammatical terms, comparatives and
superlatives
made up of
“more”
or “most” and an
adjective
or
adverb
are compound words that are not hyphenated or “spelled solid” (as one word). They represent the simplest case of compounding and need not be of further concern to most writers. Some examples: “more favorable,” “most appreciative,” “White House,” “standing invitation,” “quickly stated.” No compounds of adverbs ending in “-ly” should ever have a hyphen, though this mistake is commonly committed.
Plurals
of these words are formed as one would expect, with only the more important of the words becoming a plural form: “White Houses,” “vice presidents.”

Compounds that are hyphenated are more complex. First, you need to make sure that the word is in fact spelled with a hyphen. Many words form most of their compounds either with hyphens or without, but some combine both words into one solid word: “self-starter,” “self-management,” and “self-conscious” but “selfless.” Other compounds are hyphenated when they act as
adjectives
but not when they
are
nouns:
“decision-making processes” but “good decision making is needed.” To avoid leaving such discretion to writers or dictionaries or to stop puzzling combinations from cropping up (“The decision-making offices need good decision making”), some
styles
dictate spelling common compounds one way only. But controversy and variation persist: “database” is a solid compound in some styles, “open” (two words) in others, and hyphenated in yet others. Consistency should be your byword, as well as reliance on whatever authoritative sources are available to you—an organization style sheet or preferred dictionary.

Care should be taken, under whatever style is adopted, to make sure that compounds are hyphenated when leaving them open would cause ambiguity: “The free trade policy is in force in this country.” Lack of a hyphen between “free” and “trade” in this sentence leaves the reader unsure if the policy in question has to do with free trade or if there is a trade policy that has become free somehow. Many readers will recognize free trade as a concept and compound the words mentally. But those who don’t know about the history of economics and policy might be left to wonder, as will the more informed for whom the lack of a hyphen opens the door to guessing what you had in mind. Help everyone out with a hyphen.

Some compounds that are always hyphenated include many forms of
numbers,
like
fractions
and spelled-out numbers: “one-tenth, two-thirds, forty-six, three-year-olds.” But numbers with the spelled-out word “percent” should not be hyphenated even when they are used adjectivally: “a 42 percent raise.”

Plurals of hyphenated words add “S” to the critical word only: “self-starters,” “sisters-in-law.” But
possessives
of hyphenated compounds add an
apostrophe
and “S” to the end of the compounded string: “the sisters-in-law’s gift” (treated as a singular possessive although the compound is plural because of the position of the first “s,” which makes a plural); “Self-starters’ rewards are great” (plural possessive formation because the plural “s” and possessive ending are in the same place).

Comprise.
See
compose.

Computer.
Wondrous are the efficiencies and consistencies that can be gained by using a computer (word processor, spell checker, and grammar checker) in your writing! And woeful are the errors that overreliance on computers can produce!

Computers are useful writing tools because they can so easily copy, move, and check things. But they can also easily be made to move and copy things in the wrong places, leaving unwanted remnants of such cutting and pasting if we don’t supplement the computer’s speed and ease with care and attention in our writing, revising, and proofreading. It is so easy to move a character or space too much, leaving an inadvertently spliced word behind (or too many spaces or a
fragment
no longer wanted where a
phrase
used to be). And it is so easy to push the copy button more than once or too long, creating
redundancies
and other embarrassments.

But nothing is so seductively helpful and disruptive as the
spell checker. “Butt their canned bee errors in thus document—I spill chucked it trice!” True, but did you look with care to see if the properly spelled but completely inappropriate words were in the right order, had the right meanings, were not misused
homonyms
or other tricky words? (Look again at the quoted sentence. Virtually every word in it is the wrong one for the
sentence.
For example, “their” is spelled correctly but is grammatically wrong. It should be “there.”) “In the big inning God created the word” is all spelled right, but it doesn’t quite meet the highest standards of accuracy.

A
grammar
checker would also not find fault with the last mistaken example (rumored to have occurred in a famous and elaborate edition of the Bible). Your writing is probably less subject to inspection than the Bible, but it needs as much care to avoid such errors that cannot be caught (and might be generated) by a carelessly used computer.

So by all means write on the computer and benefit from its efficiencies and ability to help check for and maintain consistency. But don’t believe for a minute that all those handy tools take the place of careful, attentive writing, revising, and proofreading. Otherwise, you might be in for a sore prize. See also
revision, editing, spelling,
and
dictionary.

Conjugation.
Verbs
change forms to agree with their noun
subjects
and to reflect
tense, mood, voice,
and so on. The forms into which they change are called “conjugations.” See also
noun
and
agreement.

Most verbs change in regular patterns into their various
forms, but some are irregular in pattern and require memorization or checking of
grammar
references or other authoritative sources. There are few if any acceptable variants of conjugation forms, and it is very important to form verb
persons,
tenses, moods, voices, and so on absolutely correctly. Few errors are more glaring than improperly conjugated verbs.

See the entries for each tense, mood, voice, person, or
number
for proper
usage
of the forms outlined here. This entry discusses only the mechanics of conjugation, not proper use of the verb forms. See also entries for important specific verbs.

In the
present tense
regular
verbs
stay the same as their root (or main) form in first-and
second-person
singular and
plural
and in third-person plural, but they add “S” to the third-person singular:

Past tenses
of regular verbs add “-ed” to the root form for all persons and
numbers:
“I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they painted.” There are some variants, depending on the letter that ends the root form and where the accent falls on the word. Words that end in “el” and are accented on the first
syllable
(“travel”) form the past as do other regular verbs:
“traveled.” Words that end in “el” but aren’t accented on the first syllable (“excel”) add an “1” in forming the past tense (“excelled”). British spelling uses the double “1” for all past tenses of “el” root words, and some American
styles
adopt this variant
spelling.
For the most part, this style should be avoided in American writing.

The past tense form is also, in most cases, the past
participle,
which is used to form compound past and
future tenses:
“I have traveled, I will have traveled, I could have traveled.” The same form often appears in the
passive
voice: “It was painted.”

The regular present participle is formed by adding “ing” to the root and by following the same spelling
rules
as the past tense: “traveling,” “excelling.” This form is used in compound present and future tenses: “I am traveling, I will be traveling, I will have been traveling.” See
gerund.

Besides the indicative
moods
covered by the forms already listed, verbs form regular
imperatives,
which are the same as the root form and regular
subjunctives
or conditionals in the present, in the same way: “Paint the fence, Kid.” “It is important that the kid paint the fence.” Past subjunctives add
auxiliary
verbs: “It would have been better if the kid had painted the fence.” See
irregular verbs.

Conjunction.
The words that connect pieces of
sentences
are called “conjunctions.” The following list includes the most commonly used conjunctions. You should look at the entries for individual words to find any peculiarities in their
usage,
associated
punctuation,
and other tips:

The conjunctions are classified grammatically into several types, each of which has a separate entry in this book
to give you some idea of how the category works and differs from the other sets of conjunctions. The grammatical types of conjunctions
art conjunctive adverbs, coordinating conjunctions, correlative conjunctions,
and
subordinating conjunctions.

Conjunctive adverb.
Adverbs
that perform the role of conjunctions are called conjunctive adverbs; they link independent
clauses
essentially in the same way
coordinating conjunctions
and
subordinating conjunctions
do but suggest a stronger division of the
sentence
parts and are therefore accompanied by a
semicolon
as
punctuation:
“Lynch is brilliant; indeed, Lynch is a genius.” The adverbs most commonly used as conjunctions are

Connective.
See
conjunction.

Conscience, conscious.
Commonly confused, these words not only have different meanings but are different
parts of speech.
“Conscience,” a
noun,
is a person’s feeling for or sense of moral or ethical correctness—right and wrong. A “conscious” person is awake, aware, not asleep or otherwise knocked out. “Conscious” is an
adjective.

Conscious.
See
conscience.

Consonant.
The letters in the alphabet divide into two main types: consonants and
vowels.
Consonants are all the letters but “a,” “e,” “i,” “o,” and “u,” from which they are distinguished by the way we produce their sounds when we speak. It is sometimes important to recognize consonants and vowels when you are deciding how a word breaks into
syllables
so that you can
hyphenate
it.

Continual, continuous.
“Continual” things go on over longish periods but may stop and start. “Continuous” things don’t stop and extend for fairly long times.

Continuous.
See
continual.

Contraction.
Especially in less than formal or
standard English,
words are often shortened or contracted and combined into a single word: “Isn’t it wonderful!”