Verbs

“layed 3 pallets of sawd”

Misspellings, Nouns, Verbs

I saw this yesterday on an invoice.

Problems:
1. The verb is misspelled.
2. The number could have been expressed in a word.
3. The word following “of” is misspelled.

Explanation:
The invoice related to some landscape work that we had contracted for our home.

Granted, landscapers do not have to be good spellers, especially if they are good landscapers.

But bad spelling does not help one’s image with consumers.

The first problem was that the landscaper thought that the preterite of the verb “lay” should be spelled L-A-Y-E-D.

That is a good guess by a kindergartner, but it is a bit embarrassing to come from a forty-something-year-old adult.

Some might say that the second problem is not truly a problem, especially when it comes to invoices and accounting.

I would counter-argue that it is helpful to follow the general rule for a small number — that it should be written as a word, perhaps followed by the number in parentheses.

The third problem — the misspelling of the word after the preposition “of” — was severe enough that it confused my wife.

She told me that she kept wondering what was meant by S-A-W-D. After I pronounced this made-up word, it became clear what the landscaper was trying to say.

Solution:
“laid three (3) pallets of sod”

“swings that raise and lower from the ceiling”

Common English Blunders, Prepositions, Verbs

I heard this expression last evening on a Travel Channel television program.

Problems:
1. The verbs are incorrect.
2. A preposition is missing.

Explanation:
The TV program was reviewing night life in Las Vegas.

One of the featured locations was a night club in which performers sit and stand on swings hung from the ceiling.

The narrator claimed that an exciting feature was that the club had “swings that raise and lower from the ceiling”.

The first problem is that the verbs “raise” and “lower” are transitive verbs — that is, verbs that require both a direct subject and one or more objects — whereas intransitive verbs — that is, verbs that do not take an object — are required here.

Examples of transitive verbs include “cut” and “hit” and “put”.

Examples of intransitive verbs include “die” and “rot” and “sit”.

“Swings that raise and lower from the ceiling” requires intransitive verbs, and “rise” and “fall” are the appropriate corrections to “raise” and “lower”, respectively.

These corrections give us “swings that rise and fall from the ceiling”.

I believe that this use of “raise” and “lower” as intransitive verbs is connected to the use of “lay” as an intransitive verb — as in “Please lay down now!” — through a popular but incorrect assumption that transitive verbs are interchangeable with intransitive verbs.

The second problem is a lack of parallelism. It makes no sense to say “rise from the ceiling”, so the first and second verbs may not share the preposition “from”.

Instead, the verb “rise” requires its own preposition in relation to “the ceiling”. That required preposition is “to”.

I believe that the omission of “to” after the first verb is related to the common English blunder of omitting all prepositions but the final one in a list of verbs in a sentence. My impression is that this blunder comes from speakers and writers not thinking ahead, perhaps because they were not taught about the importance of parallelism in sentences.

Solution:
“swings that rise to and fall from the ceiling”

“‘Spring Awakening’ brakes all the rules …”

Verbs

I saw this headline in a full-page ad.

Problem:
The verb is incorrect.

Explanation:
The full page ad by Broadway Across America appeared in the weekly Houston Press.

The ad was for a stage show titled “Spring Awakening”.

The full headline was “ELECTRIFYING! ‘Spring Awakening’ brakes all the rules and dares to be as bold as it is beautiful.”

It was attributed to the San Francisco Examiner.

A quick search with Google did not find the quotation in the San Francisco Examiner.

But the search did return this article title at chron.com (the website of the Houston Chronicle): “Spring Awakening: a musical that breaks all the rules”.

In other words, the Houston Chronicle used the verb “break” — spelled B-R-E-A-K — which is correct, whereas the Houston Press ad used the verb “brake” — spelled B-R-A-K-E — which is incorrect.

I cannot say with certainty whether the error was typographical or a sign of true ignorance.

But I would lean toward the error being a typo because the two verbs are homophones. A slight bit of distraction while typing will cause the best of us to type one word when we mean to type another word!

Solution:
“‘Spring Awakening’ breaks all the rules …”