21st Century Grammar Handbook (17 page)

Their use is fairly straightforward except for the complexity of deciding whether they are singular or
plural.
The example above treats “none” as a singular indefinite and suggests that the writer thinks of the group of “them” as individuals, not one of whom is present. It would be correct
to write “None of them are here,” suggesting that “them” is a group of more than one individual conceived of plurally. It can be argued that when “none” refers to a group of things that are readily divisible into individuals, it should agree with plural
verbs
(see
agreement).
This is a good rule of thumb to follow, particularly when there is some doubt in your mind—check the
antecedent
or thing referred to by the indefinite pronoun and choose singular or plural appropriately. But all the indefinites in the following list are unclear in their number and can be used as you see fit: “all,” “any,” “enough,” “more,” “most,” “none,” and “some.”

The same
rule
and variation holds for pronouns that refer to indefinite pronouns: “Enough of the paint remains to use it on the barn.” Here ‘enough’ refers to a singular quantity of paint and therefore governs the subsequent singular pronoun But: “Enough of the pigs remain to make them into many hams.” Here “enough” is plural because it refers to pigs; it therefore requires a plural referent pronoun—“them.”

You should take care not only with agreement and antecedents of indefinite pronouns but with their overuse. If you can put a
number
or quantity to something, don’t say “some” or “a few.” Obviously, there are times when things are not certain, and indefinites express the lack of counts or amounts. But the presence of many indefinites in your writing might signal a failure to find out how many whatevers are being talked about. And too many whatevers might leave your reader with too many doubts about what you are writing about.

Indefinite article.
See
a.

Independent clause.
See
clause.

Indicative mood.
See
mood.

Indirect object.
Sentences in which
subjects
act on an
object
and convey that action in some manner to another thing or person are said to have “indirect objects” that receive the action or the object less directly than the object itself: “The mail carrier gave the letter to Chris.” “Letter” is the direct object, and “Chris” is the indirect object in the example. Indirect objects are often preceded by “to” or a similar word, but not always: “The mail carrier gave me the letter.” “Me” is the indirect object in this sentence.
Pronouns
are not always indirect objects, however: “The clerk directed me to the manager.” Here “me” is the
direct object
and “manager” acts as the indirect object.

Note that pronouns in the
objective
(also called accusative)
case
change form (are inflected)—“me” is the inflected objective case form of “I,” a
nominative
singular form considered uninflected. See
inflection.

Indirect question.
Questions
that are reported rather than stated directly are called “indirect questions.” They are not followed by
question marks
but by
periods:
“My roommate asked what I thought.” But: “My roommate asked, ‘What do you think?’ ”
Interrogative
pronouns like “what” often signal an indirect question and take the place of any
punctuation
that might mark a question. See also
pronouns.

Indirect quotation.
Like
indirect questions,
indirect
quotations
talk about someone’s speech but don’t record it directly: “The reporter said that the politician made a speech.” No
quotation marks
set off words reported in indirect quotations. But: “The reporter said, ‘The politician made a speech.’ ” The word
“that”
is the most common signal that speech is being reported indirectly rather than being quoted directly.

However, sentences that include “that” can report speech directly and thus use quotation marks in place of the more common
comma
that sets off direct quotes: “Tolstoy never said that ‘war is hell.’ It was Clausewitz who said, ‘War is hell.’ “Note that the second example—with a comma—requires
capitalization
of the first word of the quoted
sentence.
The first example quotes only a fragment of speech and introduces it with” ‘that,’ which means that no capitalization is required.

Infinitive.
The main or root form of a
verb
plus
“to”
constitutes the grammatical form of a verb called an infinitive.

Infinitives can be used in many ways, including as
adjective, adverb,
or
noun phrases:
“To err is human.” They also often appear with
auxiliary
verbs: “It is going to rain.”

When infinitive phrases appear as
objects
of verbs, the
subjects
of those
phrases
are in the
objective case:
“We asked the cab driver to move.” Although the case of “cab driver” in the example is not apparent since most
nouns
do not change form in English objective
case,
putting a
pronoun
into the
sentence
reveals what has happened: “We asked her to move.”

Another peculiarity of infinitives is their cohesiveness—
their need to stand together with their supporting “to” for
clarity.
This has led to a “rule” that bars “splitting” the infinitive with words falling between the “to” and the main verb. But the
rule
cannot be slavishly followed, as many unsplit infinitives sound awkward or pretentious: “I want quickly to reach our goal.” The example is correct (as would be: “I want to reach our goal quickly,” though slightly different in meaning and slightly less awkward). “I want to quickly reach our goal” is acceptable in most circumstances, although it probably shouldn’t appear in school papers. If your sentence simply won’t work without splitting an infinitive and you are worried that breaking the rule will bother your
audience,
you might revise your statement to avoid the infinitive altogether: “I want our goal reached quickly.” See
split infinitive.

When infinitive phrases begin a sentence and are not its subject, they are usually followed by a
comma:
“To reach our goal quickly, we need to work hard.” As with all such phrases
(prepositional phrase,
adverbial phrase, and
interjections), usage
varies, allowing some shorter phrases that “fit” a sentence more closely to stand without a comma. However, the
inversion
that occurs when infinitive phrases lead a sentence rarely allows the comma to be dropped.

When using infinitives in
titles
or other emphasized material that is capitalized, do not capitalize the “to” unless it is the first word: “The article was called ‘Working to Reach Goals.’ ” See
capitalization
and
emphasis.

Inflection.
Inflection is the change in word forms to reflect changed grammatical roles—for
case, number, tense, comparison,
or for any other reason. “Her” and “him” are
inflected forms of
“she”
and
“he”
—the
objective case—
just as
“were”
is an inflected form of “to be”—the
past tense
plural or
subjunctive.

Inside of.
In formal writing there is no reason to add
“of
to any
preposition
like “inside” or “outside.”

Instead of.
Preposition
governing the
objective case:
“My assistant went instead of me.”

Insure.
See
assure.

Intensifier.
Words that are added to emphasize statements are sometimes called “intensifiers.” More specifically, there are two main classes of intensifiers:
adverbs
and intensive
pronouns.
See
emphasis.

Virtually any adverb modifying an
adjective
can be said to intensify it, but the term is usually reserved for such words as “very”: “The apple is very red.” Lesser and greater degrees of intensification are possible with words like “somewhat” or “extremely.” See
modifier.

Intensive pronouns work like intensifying adverbs, adding force to other pronouns or
nouns:
“The tiger itself ate the kill.” Compounds of “self” are the commonest intensive pronouns, as in this example.

Interface.
Except in discussions of computer technology, “interface” as
noun
or
verb
is probably best avoided as jargon or a
cliché.
WRONG: “We need to interface on this problem.” RIGHT: “We need to meet on (talk about) this problem.”

Interjection.
Words that appear intrusively in a sentence and that carry some force or charge of feeling are called “interjections”: “Oh my, what a nice day!”

Such words are usually set off in
commas
wherever they appear in the
sentence,
and the sentence that includes interjections can end in an
exclamation point
to further emphasize the statement: “We don’t, of course, want that to happen!” This example could have ended with a
period.
It would be hard to justify omitting the commas from the example because the interjection is fairly forceful; but other sentences with milder interjections do so: “It is therefore clear what happened.” “Therefore” in the example is an interjection that could have been enclosed in commas but is perfectly clear as shown. See
emphasis.

Interrogative.
Words that signal questioning in a sentence are called “interrogatives”: “how,” “what,”
“when,”
“where,” “which,”
“who,”
“whose,” “why,” and the like. Interrogative
sentences
usually end in a
question mark:
“How are you feeling?”

Just as interrogative words can function in a sentence that is not a
question
(“I told how I felt and what I wanted.”), so questions can be formed without interrogative words, by changing the
order of words,
adding question marks, and so on: “Are you feeling well?” The most common way to indicate a question besides the question mark is to invert the word order of a sentence, moving a
verb
to the initial position, as in the example (see
inversion).
Very often the verb moved to the front of a sentence to make a question is an
auxiliary
verb: “Did the pupils write well?”

But interrogative forms can also be produced more
crudely, without inversion or interrogative words: “Working hard?” The question signal here is the shortness and fragmentary nature of the sentence (see
fragment),
along with the question mark. Longer sentences that lack interrogatives or changed word order but are followed by question marks are not really questions, usually, but statements in which the writer has no confidence. Such superfluous questions should be avoided.

Into.
Preposition
governing the
objective case:
“The arrow whizzed into the target.”

Intransitive.
Verbs
that indicate action taken on an
object
are said to be
transitive:
“My neighbor chopped wood.” Verbs that do not suggest action transmitted to an object are said to be intransitive: “My neighbor spoke.” In the latter example, the verb is intransitive because there is no object even though “speak” can function as a transitive verb with an object: “My neighbor spoke French.” While many verbs can be either transitive or intransitive in a sentence, some are always intransitive: “My neighbor relented.”

Inversion.
To invert something means to turn it around or over. Grammatical inversion means turning around the
order of words
to create
emphasis
or a different meaning, such as a
question,
an order, or some other
rhetorical
effect (effect on the presentation and reception of words): “Is that so?” “Prove it!” “To demonstrate such a thing would be difficult.”

Each of the sentences in this example is inverted from the “normal” order of
subject, verb,
and
object
to make a
different meaning or to call attention to itself. The first sentence is a question, the second is an
imperative,
and the third is a rhetorical inversion meant to vary the pace or rhythm of writing or to draw attention to the words moved to the front or the end of the sentence. In the last sentence the writer emphasizes “demonstrate” as the first word and “difficult” as the last, perhaps calling attention to a higher standard of proof, such as scientific argument, and how hard it is. Or perhaps the intention was simply to avoid another bland “it is …” sentence—“It would be difficult to demonstrate such a thing”—in which the key concepts of proof and difficulty are lost in the middle of the statement. See also
expletive.

With other purposes in mind, the last sentence in the example could be inverted in other ways: “Such a thing would be difficult to demonstrate.” Here, the emphasis is on the thing that needs proof, which is unstated in the example but, according to the writer of this sentence, something to be reckoned with. Another variant: “Wouldn’t it be difficult to demonstrate such a thing” could reasonably end with either a question mark or an exclamation point, depending on what the writer was trying to do—raise doubts about how hard the task would be (which could be done ironically to suggest that the person being addressed might find it difficult, or straightforwardly, to wonder about the degree of difficulty) or express warning or sympathy about the task proposed. See
irony.