21st Century Grammar Handbook (12 page)

While this happens in speech naturally and without recourse to any special conventions or treatments, in writing the decision to use contractions must be consistent with expected
style
and standards and must observe some rules of
spelling.

Written contractions contain an
apostrophe
that indicates letters have been omitted form the shortened word or words: “cannot—can’t,” “should not—shouldn’t,” “she would—she’d.” Just where the apostrophe falls can be hard to judge and may require the use of a reference source or
dictionary
to confirm. Be careful not to use more than one apostrophe even though more than one letter has been dropped or letters have been dropped in more than one place: “he could not have—he couldn’tve.”

The last example illustrates the problem of standards and choosing whether or not to use contractions. Strictly speaking, no contractions, particularly elaborate ones like “couldn’tve,” should appear in academic or otherwise formal writing. But increasingly, the highest, most constrained styles allow contractions as they come closer to spoken language, which is full of such elisions. No guidebook or reference can tell you whether to use contractions in what you write, but there are some points to consider. If you are unsure of the style expected of you, it is probably best to be cautious and avoid contractions. However, even in the most demanding styles, some uncontracted phrases may sound affected or pretentious. When you face such a situation, you might decide to yield to the temptation to allow a less formal, more speechlike contraction to creep into what you write.

A few contractions have become standard English, usually when archaic
phrases
have been contracted into commonly used forms: “five of the clock—five o’clock.” Only the contracted forms of such words are used. See also
its, their,
and
your.

Coordinating conjunction.
Coordinating conjunctions link more or less equal parts of
sentences
in a rather direct and clear relationship: “X and Y,” where
“and”
is the coordinating conjunction. The other coordinating conjunctions are
“but,” “for,”
“nor,”
“or,” “so,”
and “yet.” When using these conjunctions in your writing, you should make sure that the elements linked are relatively equal in importance, weight, and treatment. Coordinating conjunctions that separate independent
clauses
usually have
commas
before them: “The dog is three, and the cat is five.”

Correlative conjunction.
Correlative conjunctions function almost the same as
coordinating conjunctions
—linking more or less equal parts of
sentences
—but they come in pairs:
“both … and,”
“either… or,” “just as … so,”
“neither … nor,” “not only … but also,”
“whether … or.” “Both Robbins and Thornton speak French.” “Just as Robbins speaks quickly, so Thornton, speaks forcefully.” In most cases, correlative conjunctions joining independent clauses have
commas
before them, as in the previous example.

Cost, cost, cost.
An
irregular verb
in its main,
past tense,
and past
participle
forms.

Could.
“Could” is an important
auxiliary
verb: “I could do that if I wanted to. And pigs could fly.” See
verb.

Could of.
Don’t use “of” to stand for
“have”
in constructions like this.

Criteria, criterion.
“Criteria” is the
plural
of “criterion.” Its unusual form reflects its origins in Greek. Make sure “criteria” as a
subject
agrees with a plural
verb.
WRONG: “That is the right criteria.” RIGHT: “Those are the right criteria.” See
agreement.

Criterion.
See
criteria.

Cut, cut, cut.
An
irregular verb
in its main,
past tense,
and past
participle
forms.

’d.
The letter “d” with an
apostrophe
before it is used to form
contractions
of
past tense
and other
auxiliary
verbs and
pronouns:
“he had—he’d,” “I would—I’d.” Avoid contractions in formal,
standard English
writing. See also
verb.

Dangling modifier.
One very common problem in writing concerns
adjectives, adverbs, phrases,
and
clauses
that are worded or located in sentences in such a way that they do not have clear, or any, referents or
antecedents
—they dangle somewhere without a clear relationship to any other part of the sentence: “Lying in the sun, the day was clear.” In this example it is not clear who or what is lying in the sun—certainly not the day. You can detect problems like this in your writing only by rereading, checking, revising, and proofreading. You can solve such problems by putting the dangling words close to what they are talking about and by making sure that the relationship between that thing or person and the words describing it is clear and logical. Thus the sentence used in the example might become “Lying in the sun, I enjoyed the clear day,” depending on what you intend to say. The point is to match clearly intention and expression.

Dash.
The dash
punctuation
mark (—) is used to separate parts of a
sentence
that are more or less equivalent but that
have no words to link or join them (that lack
conjunctions):
“The minister spoke of a book—the Bible—known to us all.” Here the dashes take the place of words like “that is,” which could also be used to blend the concepts of “book” and “Bible” together.
Clauses
can also be joined by dashes: “The lecturer gave a speech—the audience listened with interest.” Again, the dashes stand for something like “that is” and indicate a sort of contraction, or elision, of the ideas or words in the sentence.

Since dashes are used where words might have been supplied to specify a relationship, there is always the risk that the dash will not clearly convey the nature of the relationship or the things linked. Moreover, the things dashes set off are usually interjected into a sentence rather than being integrated into it with connective words. By their nature, such
interjections
interrupt the flow of thought to some degree (and often to good effect), and many of them can prove distracting. For these reasons, most
style
guides suggest restricted use of dashes.

Dashes can be typed as two
hyphens
with or without spaces around them or as any solid line longer than a hyphen. But using more than two hyphens is not preferred in
standard English.

Data.
Although “data” is a
plural
form of the
Latin
“datum” and since the singular is not used in
standard English
except in the most erudite writing, this “plural”
noun
has come to be used quite commonly as a singular, especially when the topic is large quantities of information seen as a collection: “The data on this subject is copious and convincing.” Many academic settings would find this
example substandard, but singular uses of “data” have spread with the growth of computers and information science.

Dates.
There are several systems for expressing dates in writing. Which you use in your writing depends on the standards set in the community in which you are expressing yourself or by the
audience
to which you are addressing yourself.

The most commonly used date system is month, day, year. The full name of the month comes before the number of the day, a
comma
follows, and then comes the numbers of the year: “March 23, 1987.” The number of the year is followed by a comma if the
sentence
continues or by any other
punctuation
mark that is appropriate at that point in the sentence: “On March 23, 1987, the contract took effect. But work began only on March 28, 1988—much later than anticipated. The completion date was March 22, 1999.” The
numbers
are in figures, and they are not followed by letters to indicate that they are
ordinal numbers,
even though the date in the example is frequently pronounced as the “twenty-third of March.” WRONG: “March 23rd, 1987.”

If the day of the week is specified in this style, it can come before the date and is followed by a comma: “Friday, March 23, 1987” (because the day of the week and the numerical date are seen to be in apposition, as are the numerical date and the year; see
appositive).
The day of the week following the date is preceded by a comma and usually adds an
article,
since the following day is seen as an afterthought or
interjection:
“May 23, 1987, a Friday.” No
comma is needed if month and year alone are recorded: “It happened in March 1987.”

An alternate system avoids the commas by placing the day number before the month and year: “23 March 1987.” All the other
rules
noted above apply to this system, which is common in the military and other styles: “Friday, 23 March 1987.”

In formal English it is preferred to spell out dates in one of the systems noted above. However, our digitized society more and more commonly also expresses dates in numbers alone: “5/23/87,” “5-23-87,” or some variant on these. Follow the style set or likely to be least confusing for the circumstances in which you are writing. If your audience includes British or European readers or writers, be aware that numerical notations of dates in Europe (and the United Kingdom) usually reverse the month and day from American usage: “23/5/87.” In the now-boring example, there is no question that March 23 is meant because “23” can only be a day. But a European who writes “11/12/1992” probably means “December 11,” while an American who wrote the same numbers would mean “November 12.” See
A.D., B.C.,
and
century.

Declension.
The pattern of
inflection
—changes in word forms to reflect changed grammatical roles—for
nouns
and
pronouns
is called “declension.” In nouns and pronouns, declensions list patterns of changes in
case, gender,
and
number,
pronouns can also be inflected (and therefore declined) in
person.
The declension for the personal pronoun in the
nominative
case is “I; you; he, she, it; we; you; they.”

Degree.
See
comparison.

Demonstrative.
Demonstrative
pronouns
are
“that”
“these,” “this,” and “those.” They work the same way all other pronouns work, and they are used mainly to point at, identify, or indicate a
noun
(thing or person): “Do you see this picture?” “I saw that film.” “The child read those comic books.” “This” and “these”
(plural)
generally refer to things or people that are or are perceived to be closer or more immediate, while “that” and “those” (plural) indicate more remote nouns. Be sure that these pronouns agree in
number
with the words they modify or refer to. WRONG: “These are the picture I had in mind.” Don’t use
“them”
as a demonstrative pronoun. WRONG: “I saw them things.” See
agreement, modifier,
and
antecedent.

Dependent clause.
See
clause.

Dialect.
The dialects or variants of English that ethnic, religious, regional, cultural, or economic groups speak are often highly prized by them as important signs of group identity or solidarity. Many people in such groups speak or write
standard English
in some circumstances but prefer to observe the standards and
usages
of their dialects in other, usually less formal, communications. However, keeping the two sets of grammatical and usage
rules
separate is often difficult, just as it is often hard to judge what parts of any standard apply in any specific instance. Perfectly sound constructions,
spellings,
pronunciations, and so on in one
dialect or pattern of standards might indicate seriously defective education, intelligence, or taste in another.

Most standard English writing should, by definition, avoid dialect. However, it must be recognized that standard English is simply the dialect of preference among those who are or believe themselves to be in a position to dictate what the standards are or should be. Thus the choice of what standard to apply—what dialect to choose—at any moment is not as clear as one would hope. In general, it is safe to follow the strictures of any widely recognized
grammar
handbook or
dictionary
to produce an acceptable standard English. It is always a matter of judgment on the part of each writer to decide whether that dialect is suitable for the writing she or he is doing at the moment. See
colloquial.

Dialogue. Recording others’ speech directly is called writing in dialogue. Conventionally,
quotation marks
are used to indicate directly recorded speed: “‘Hello,’ he said.” In this example, the directly quoted speech is contained in single quotes because examples in this book are contained in double quotes. Normally, dialogue appears in double quotes, while direct speech recorded within a dialogue is put in single quotes, as in the example. Directly quoted speech can also be indented and made a
block quotation
to indicate that the words of someone other than the author are being reported: “The politician said

The news conference ended shortly thereafter.”

Directly reported speech within an indented block appears in double quotes, but the block itself has no quotes around it. Normally the reported speech of each person who takes part in the dialogue being recorded is also set off by beginning a new
paragraph: