21st Century Grammar Handbook (21 page)

Morale.
See
moral.

More, most.
These words are the irregular comparative forms for three
adjectives: many, much,
and
some.
See
comparison.

Moreover.
“Moreover” is a
conjunctive adverb
suggesting exception or addition.

Most.
See
more.

Mr.
Men addressed formally, as in a business letter, are usually called “Mr.” This
title
appears directly before their last names unless they are well known to you or the person you are addressing: “Dear Mr. Sirota: It was a pleasure to talk to you and Mr. Wolff about our products. Our company’s representatives, Ms. Patel and Mr. Rachinsky, will call on you next week to continue our discussion.” The title, or honorific, “Mr.” is rarely spelled out as “Mister” unless special attention needs to be drawn to the title itself: “He sees himself as Mister Gish, but I just call him Jim.” The intent of such usage is usually
ironic.

Mrs.
See
Ms.

Ms., Miss, Mrs..
Recently, the designations given to women to indicate their marital status have undergone immense changes. In many instances “Miss” (the title traditionally applied to an unmarried woman or a girl) has become unacceptable and is felt to be derogatory. In the same way, the term “Mrs.,” traditionally applied to married women, conveys a concern with marital status that is unnecessary and may be considered offensive.

For these reasons, the term “Ms.” came into being as a kind of contraction of “Miss” and “Mrs.” It is intended as a direct equivalent to “Mr.” in brevity and age, class, and marital status neutrality. Its use has become widespread,
and “Ms.” should be considered the preferred term of address. When the woman in question has expressed a clear preference, it should be honored: “Jane Jones prefers to call herself ‘Mrs. Jones.’ ” See
sexist language.

Much.
“Much” forms its comparatives irregularly: much, more, most. See
comparison.

Myself.
See
me
and -
self.

Namely.
The
conjunctive adverb
“namely” is used to specify relations between
clauses.

Names.
When things or people have words that identify them as specific individuals, those words are called “names”: “Jan served on the battleship
North Carolina
sailing in the Pacific and spent leisure time reading
War and Peace.”
Names of things and people are usually marked in some way to distinguish them from more general
nouns
—by
capitalization
or by
italics
(or both). There are several categories or types of names that are treated somewhat differently.

Personal names are capitalized: “John and Mary are here.” When
common nouns
are used as personal names, they are capitalized as well: “Father is here, but Mother is in Detroit.” Common nouns that refer to relatives are not capitalized when they stand alone, but are capitalized when they have personal names added to them: “My uncle is dead, but Aunt Mary is still with us.” Non-English names are sometimes not capitalized, particularly parts of last names: “Ludwig van Beethoven’s symphonies were being played.” Honorific titles are also capitalized when parts of names, but not
prepositions, conjunctions,
or
articles
in
them: “Prince Joseph of Holland and the Low Countries.” See
capitalization
and specific languages.

Place names are capitalized, including common nouns that are part of the names: “Mount Hood and Lake Zots are in Oregon State. The state of Oregon has Hood and other mountains, as well as Zots and other lakes.”
Prepositions, conjunctions,
and
articles
that are parts of place names are not capitalized: “Lake of the Woods.” Check non-English words in
dictionaries
or other reference works to determine which parts of them are capitalized in place names. See also
capitalization.

Vessels and vehicles of various kinds, along with machines, brand names or models or products, and the like, can have names that follow the
capitalization
rules of personal and place names: “I took my Toshiba on the Learjet and on the train.” Named ships, planes, and other vehicles and vessels have capitalized and italicized names: “We sailed on the
Queen Mary,
then flew on the
Spirit of Los Angeles,
a DC-10.” See also
italics.

Literary, artistic, architectural, engineering, and other products of human endeavor can have names. Such names and
titles
are usually capitalized, and they are italicized if they
are the result of individual effort. “I was reading
Pride and Prejudice
in the shadow of the Boulder Dam.” As in most names,
prepositions, conjunctions,
and
articles
are not capitalized in such names unless they are the first word of the name. In some
languages
names of works have only initial capitals unless they include other words that are capitalized in their own right (e.g.,
Russian).
Check relevant reference books to be sure. See
italics
and
capitalization.

Governments, companies, religions, associations,
languages,
and other things or groups of people can also be named specifically enough to warrant capitalization: “The bill on English as the national language went to Congress, sponsored by Republicans and the National Association of Scholars, as well as by the Baptist Synod of Arkansas.”

Almost anything can be named, and almost all such names merit capitalization if not italicization.

N.B.
This
abbreviation
of the
Latin
words “Notabene” is “N.B.” It means note well or pay attention. Neither the abbreviation nor the Latin phrase is welcome in most modern, standard writing.

Negatives.
Words that convey some sense of “no” or “not” to a
sentence
are said to be “negatives.” The sentences in which they occur are negative sentences: “I will not do it.”

The most common negative words are
“no,” “not,”
“never,”
“nothing,” “nobody,” “none,”
and “no one.” Their presence in a sentence usually signals that it is negative. Note that negatives are frequently contracted into other words, particularly verbs: “I won’t do it.” Even though the full word “not” is not visible in this sentence, the sentence is still negative. See
contractions.

There are quite a few common mistakes that are made with negative words. The most common are misplacement of negatives (see
misplaced modifiers)
and
double negatives.

Just as it is easy to allow
modifiers
to slide into positions in
sentences
in which it is less than clear what the modifiers refer to, so negatives (a kind of modifier) often pop up in the wrong or less than helpful places. WRONG: “The class reads never the books I’d want.” The example is unclear about who reads or wants what and when. BETTER: “The class never reads the books I’d want them to read.”

Only one negative word can occur in a
phrase
or
clause:
“to nobody” “give it to nobody.” When two negatives appear in the same phrase or clause, there is an error. WRONG: “I did not give it to nobody,” “I never gave it to nobody,” “Nobody never gave it to me.” The variations (and the instances of their occurrence) are all but endless. Particularly in longer clauses or phrases, careless writers
tend to forget that a negative appeared earlier and that another is out of place later. Just as common are the kinds of errors in the examples, evidently because writers forget that “nobody,” “never,” and “nothing” are negatives that can’t be doubled in a clause or phrase.

To avoid this all too common mistake, proofread and revise with care, looking especially for the longer negatives in combination with each other or shorter negatives. When you find mistakes like those in the examples, change one of the words to positive form: “I did not give it to anybody,” “I gave it to nobody,” “I never gave it to anybody,” “Nobody ever gave it to me.” Sometimes, as with the last clause in the example, a positive rephrasing is not possible for one of the negatives: “nobody” can’t become “anybody” or anything else and make sense with the rest of the clause. Larger rewrites are then necessary: “Nobody ever gave me anything,” or something of the sort, depending on what you mean. See
revision.
Never use the negative contraction
“ain’t”
in
standard English
statements.

Remember that some words can be made to have a negative sense without becoming negatives and thus are not subject to the rules of double negation. This happens when “negative”
prefixes
or
suffixes
are added to the beginnings or ends of words: “nonstarter.” The example is a word that can appear with true negatives in phrases, clauses, or sentences because its “negative” sense is merely a connotation or suggestion of the particle added to it. It is not, in other words, strictly speaking a negative: “Nonstarters never get going.” The example is correct. WRONG:
“Nonstarters never do nothing.” RIGHT: “Nonstarters never do anything.”

Neither, neither … nor.
Remember that the negative
adjectives
and
conjunctions
“neither” and “neither … nor” cannot be used with a second
negative
in the same
sentence.
WRONG: “Neither one of them never arrived.” RIGHT: “Neither one of them ever arrived.”

Neither … nor.
See
neither.

Nevertheless.
This
conjunctive adverb
suggests reservations in the relationship between
clauses.

Nobody.
“Nobody” is a singular
indefinite
pronoun: “Nobody is home.” WRONG: “Nobody are responsible for quality.” See
pronoun.

Nominative.
Words that function as the
subjects
or
subject complements (predicate nouns
or
adjectives)
of
sentences
are in the nominative
case.
Such words are not marked from their normal or main form, which is in fact the form that “names” (or “nominates”) the basic form of the word from which others are made. The nominative is also called the subjective case, since its main function is to serve as subject or subject complement.

None, no one.
Do not confuse these words, both of which are usually singular. “None” is an
indefinite
pronoun that means not one: “None of the executives travels often.”
“No one” is an indefinite
pronoun
that means single person: “No one travels more than the chairperson.”

Nonrestrictive clause.
Clauses
that appear to be added to
sentences
for supplementary, nonessential explanation are called “nonrestrictive.”

They are set off in the sentence by
commas
: “The actor, who drove a Ferrari, was the star of a soap opera.” Here the information about the car the soap opera star drives is considered ancillary, additional, and therefore nonrestrictive. The
“who”
clause is thus set off in commas. If the commas are omitted, the meaning of the sentence changes to suggest that more than one actor is being talked about, and the only way to distinguish which one is the soap opera star is to note who drives a Ferrari. This “who” clause is then a
restrictive clause
and is not set off in commas.

How can you tell if a clause is nonrestrictive or restrictive? There is no hard-and-fast
rule.
However, the essential question is whether the main action or condition of the sentence is understandable without the clause. In the example, the actor is a soap opera star (and we know it) whether or not we know what kind of car the actor drives. It might be interesting that it’s a snappy sports car; but it does nothing to change our understanding of the main point being conveyed: the actor is a soap opera star. We might also learn in nonrestrictive clauses that the actor is tall, blond, and speaks fluent French. All those points would not change the basic fact of the actor’s starring role.

When the commas are taken out of the sentence, the nature of the clause changes. Somehow we can grasp the identity of the soap opera star only by knowing what kind of
car the star drives. Apparently other actors and stars drive other cars, and that is what sets them apart from the soap opera star. The information is essential to understanding the main point of the sentence and is therefore part of a restrictive clause.

Because
punctuation
varies with the type of clause, it is important to understand and master this abstract grammatical category. Without good comprehension of it, you are prone to make errors that might embarrass you.

Besides punctuation, you must also consider proper
pronouns
when writing clauses that might be restrictive or nonrestrictive. It is wrong to begin nonrestrictive adjectival clauses (modifying
nouns
or
noun phrases)
with
“that.”
WRONG: “The building, that is standing in ruins, is old.” RIGHT: “The building, which is standing in ruins, is old” or “The building that is standing in ruins is old.” The examples show that nonrestrictive adjectival clauses must begin with “which” or some other
relative pronoun.
The choice of pronoun is an additional signal to the reader that the information in the clause is not as important as other statements in the sentence and is therefore nonrestrictive.