Brooklyn Comedy Company

Scott Meyer’s Basic Instructions is usually funny, but this strip also has a touch of actual phonics. Or maybe I should say “phonetics.” The word of interest is in the second panel; it’s “schwa.”

The schwa looks like an upside-down lowercase e. That’s ə. You won’t find it in your ASCII chart, though. You have to use html or something else to make it, such as find it on a web page someplace, and do a copy and paste. The decimal html schwa is “&#601” and if you prefer hexadecimal, it’s “&#x0259” but enough of this technical stuff.

Just recognize that that upside-down e us pronounced “uh,” like the right-side up “e” in “the.”

A few weeks back I complained about using transitive verbs intransitively. You can see it here. It’s pet peeve day three.

Some verbs can go either way—with or without a direct object. The humor here is because she’s using the verb “change” intransitively, and he’s using it transitively:

When you create a compound structure in a sentence (such as a compound predicate, which we have here), you need to be careful. Both parts of the compound (both sides of the conjunction) should have the same structure. Look at the second panel in this Buckles:

He says the hair provides protection as well as holding the heat in. “Provides” is not the same verb form as “Holding,” so the two parts of the sentence aren’t parallel. Bad. Restate the sentence with “and” instead of “as well as” and the non-parallelness is easier to see. The hair provides protection and holding in the heat? Nah. It should be “provides protection as well as holds in the heat.”

You have a way around this, by the way, if you don’t like that way of saying it. Replace “as well as” with “while.” “While” turns the second phrase into an adverb, which modifies the verb without trying to be parallel to it. “Provides protection while holding in the heat.” That works!

PS—This error is not uncommon, by the way. I just ran into it in a Scientific American article:

Scientists think that its unusually low density causes impacts to indent the surface rather than excavating it.

Should be “excavate.”

A while back in Facebook I invited my readers to share a pet peeve about language usage. One reader (Hi Walter!) suggested that maybe know-it-all tech writers count as pet peeves. I know he was kidding because he’s a tech writer, but he has a point. Correcting someone’s language unasked tends to be irritating.

Almost everyone in the US speaks English, and most of us consider ourselves to be pretty good at it. We’re native speakers, right? Doesn’t being a native speaker make us automatically correct whenever we speak?

True, native speakers may coin new words whenever they like, but speaking tends to be more casual than writing, especially than technical (expository) writing. Sometimes we play fast and loose with the rules when we speak. That sort of informality isn’t a good idea in writing, though, especially when you explain something. Confucius said it well:

If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant. If what is said is not what is meant, then what ought to be done remains undone.

So what’s the problem? The problem is correcting someone’s language unasked. I think the habit of volunteering unasked-for advice in any field irritates people, not just unasked language advice.

I said this before, but I’ll say it again:

I resolve not to correct anyone’s language unless they ask.

You can kid me about it, though.

People think that being terse makes good technical writing, especially in instructions, and even demanded in Army documentation.

• Concise is good. Conciseness is leaving out unnecessary words.
• Terse is bad. Terseness is when you leave out necessary words but the reader is supposed to be able to figure it out anyway.

You see terseness when the instructions leave out “the.” For example a recipe might say, “Pour flour into bowl.” In the context, both the flour and the been have been mentioned, so the reader is expected to understand what the instruction means.

This doesn’t always work, and besides, it’s not smooth to read. Hence this Diamond Lil:

Now in this comic, the missing word isn’t “the,” but you get the idea.

The rule: don’t assume your reader knows what you’re writing about.

Today’s pet peeve is misuse of “literally.”

When you use “literally,” you’re supposed to mean something like “actual,” “real,” or “in truth.” You’re not supposed to mean “nearly,” figuratively,” or “sort of.” So Jeremy plays a trick on us here by managing to use “literally” literally, not figuratively, Sara’s first opinion notwithstanding.

The rule: “literally” doesn’t mean “figuratively” or “almost.”

By the way, you should literally write those thank-you notes.

I took this from an interview with two comic strip writers (artists?) whom I enjoy and respect, Hilary Price and Rina Piccolo.

Rina is speaking:

Anyway, the stories are centered around the theme of apartments. Or at least most of the stories are centered on apartments and apartment living. Some are based on real stuff from real life, and some are fiction.

Correct is “centered on.” The center is a point, so it can’t be around something.

I included that third sentence to point out a good technique: Don’t repeat yourself if you can help it. Maybe that’s why she used the two versions of “centered.”

At the risk of being repetitious, here’s another example of the difference between the indicative and the subjunctive.

Here’s the rule: The subjunctive is contrary to reality. Not true; hypothetical, if you will. With the indicative, you are presumably describing reality, in other words, the truth.

Dustin’s friend is not good with words, so the subjunctive, “were better” is correct. Too bad he didn’t get the girl.

The  point of a headline is to get someone to read what follows, so the more sensational, the better. I could take about any headline nowadays: newspaper, magazine article, or on-line item for an example. Expository writing has the goal of explaining as plainly and accurately as possible. So here’s an example of a headline appropriate for the day:

I leave it as an exercise for the reader to re-write a headline as a piece of good old plain exposition. Post some in the comments.

As a rule, you should put similar parts of a sentence together. For example, if a sentence has two subjects, put them together.

Tom and Dave played tag.
S               S        V       DO

What happens when you don’t put them together? You get confusion!

Tom played tag and Dave
S        V     DO           ?

Huh? Is “Dave” some new kind of game that Tom played? After all, it’s right next to the direct object.

That example is trivial, perhaps, so here’s an example from real life:

Access in divisional and functional areas is too broad in some systems, increasing security risks for potential misappropriation, due to IT [the Information Technology department] owning systems instead of the business areas.

Look at the part after “due to.” “IT” is the subject, “owning” is the verb, and “systems” is the direct object. What is “business areas”? I don’t think IT would be owning business areas, so let’s rewrite the sentence so you can tell that “business areas” is another subject:

Access in divisional and functional areas is too broad in some systems, increasing security risks for potential misappropriation, due to IT instead of the business areas owning systems.

That makes more sense! Go thou and do likewise.