Month: April 2008

“WOOD BASE HIGH END FURNITURE”

Adjectives, Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Hyphens, Nouns

I saw this in a television commercial.

Problem:
Hyphens and a comma are missing.

Explanation:
The noun “WOOD” and the noun “BASE” are used together as a modifier of the noun “FURNITURE”, so “WOOD” and “BASE” must be hyphenated together.

The adjective “HIGH” and the noun “END” are used together as a modifier of the noun “FURNITURE”, so “HIGH” and “END” must be hyphenated together.

We end up with two modifiers — “WOOD-BASE” and “HIGH-END” — of the noun “FURNITURE”, so we insert a comma between the two modifiers to get the solution.

It seems that the advertising copywriter fell prey to today’s prevalent copywriting style of avoiding hyphens and commas at all costs.

I believe that this style is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis. It’s simpler to leave out the hyphens and comma than to include them.

Solution:
“WOOD-BASE, HIGH-END FURNITURE”

“… when the couple said a guy went up to them …”

Common English Blunders, Verbs

I heard this on Fox26 local news yesterday morning.

Problem:
The verb “went” is inappropriate here.

Explanation:
Mixing up “came” and “went” is a common English blunder.

  • The verb “to come” implies that someone or something is approaching the speaker or writer.
  • The verb “to go” implies that someone or something is moving away from the speaker or writer.

The TV anchor on Houston’s Fox26 news was acting as a journalist who was reporting what a couple said.

In this case, the journalist indirectly quoted what the couple said.

Assuming that a journalist should not impose bad grammar on anyone, especially in an indirect quotation, we can infer that the direct quotation would be this grammatically correct form:

  • “… when,” the couple said, “a guy came up to us …”

In contrast, here is the grammatically incorrect form of a direct quotation:

  • “… when,” the couple said, “a guy went up to us …”

The reason that changing “came” to “went” would make the direct quotation grammatically incorrect is that the two people are recounting their experience at the time of the approach by “a guy”, and at the time of the approach — from their perspective of being in the location that the guy was approaching — the guy “came” to them, not “went” to them.

Converting the grammatically correct form of the direct quotation back to the indirect quotation, we get the solution.

Solution:
“… when the couple said a guy came up to them …”

“If” vs. “Whether”

Common English Blunders, Conjunctions

I saw a personal email message the other day that illustrates well the difference between “if” and “whether” — two conjunctions that are not synonyms.

Problem:
Writing the conjunction “if” in place of “whether” — even in informal writing — can confuse readers.

Explanation:
I wrote about these two conjunctions back in January, but I have since found a simple example that illustrates why “if” is dangerous as a substitute for “whether”.

The example appeared in an email message from a woman who was arranging a party:

  • “Please let me know if you’ll be coming to my party.”

Changing the order of the sentence, we get:

  • “If you’ll be coming to my party, then please let me know.”

This implies that the message writer was not asking to hear from message readers who would not be attending her party.

However, I talked to the message writer and learned that she wanted to hear from everyone who got her email message. This would ensure that she had confirmation either way — “Yes, I’ll be coming to your party.” or “No, I won’t be coming to your party.” — from each of the message recipients.

The message writer should have used “whether” instead of “if” in her sentence to ensure that she got confirmation either way (“yay” or “nay”):

  • “Please let me know whether you’ll be coming to my party.”

Solution:
Be careful with using “if” as a substitute for “whether” in whatever you write — even personal email messages. Otherwise, you might not get the results that you desire.