R&R: Raves And Rants From Multi-Published Author Amanda Cabot

The Final Rant

As the title says, this will be my final rant or at least my final scheduled rant. As much as I’ve enjoyed discussing grammatical errors and seeing your reactions to the posts, I’m reaching the end of my list of subjects. And, just as importantly, I discovered a book that explains grammar far better than I could hope to. If you haven’t already read Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer, I suggest you put it on your absolutely-positively-must-read list. It’s both entertaining and informative.

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Today’s post will be a potpourri, filled with items that have annoyed me but weren’t substantial enough to warrant individual posts.

Mismatches

The rule is simple. A singular subject requires a singular verb. If the subject is plural, the verb must also be plural. Then, why did I find the following in print?

·         A little spit and shine on the outside and some renovations on the inside was all that was needed.

   We clearly have a plural subject here – “spit and shine” plus “renovations” – so the verb should also be plural.

What do you think about this sentence?

·         Gone were the boyish good looks and in its place was stunning rugged appeal.

I have no problem with the singular verb in the second half of the sentence, since the subject of that clause is “stunning rugged appeal,” which is singular, but I take exception to “in its place.” The author obviously knew that “good looks” was plural, because she used “were” in the first clause. Why, then, didn’t she say “in their place”?

Improbable Dialogue Tags

You know what I mean by dialogue tags, don’t you? They’re the “he said/ she saids” that precede or follow a line of dialogue. Correct dialogue tags include “whispered, asked, exclaimed” and a host of other verbs, all of which describe an aspect of speaking. Sometimes, though, I encounter sentences like the following.

·         “Jane packed your bag,” Susan nodded to the nylon suitcase in the corner.

·         Steve smiled, “Your dog is climbing on the chair again.”

What’s wrong with these? A person cannot nod or smile a line of dialogue. Correcting these errors is simple: substitute periods for the commas, creating stage directions rather than dialogue tags.

Misplaced Clauses

We’ve discussed clauses in the past, but a refresher never hurts. To avoid ambiguity or sometimes amusing errors, clauses need to be placed next to the nouns they modify.

·         Mother predicted an angel would fall out of the sky meant just for Jake.

Did the author mean to say that the sky was meant for Jake? I doubt it. The meaning would have been unambiguous if the author had said, “an angel meant just for Jake.”

Here’s another:

·         She forced herself not to look in Antonia’s direction who was nearly twenty years Michael’s junior.

Not only is this awkward, but the direction is NOT twenty years younger than anyone. Why didn’t the author simply say, “in the direction of Antonia, who was …”?

Miscellaneous Errors

·         The both of them were seated at the table.

What’s wrong with that? “Both” is a pronoun. It does not – repeat after me, it does NOT – need an article before it. You wouldn’t say, “the either of them,” would you? The sentence should begin with either “Both of them” or “The two of them.”

·         She reverted her gaze back to the path.

Does that bother you? “Revert” means to return, so there is no need to add the word “back.” It’s superfluous.

Anachronisms

We’ll end with one of my pet peeves, an anachronism. This is from a book that takes place in an aristocratic London household in 1861. The duchess is addressing a servant and asks, “What part of ‘no’ was not clear?”

Did you laugh? I did, but I also stopped reading the book at that point and made a mental note to avoid everything written by the same author. That’s hardly the reaction the author wanted, but it is the reason I’ve written these posts. I don’t want you to make mistakes that will cause readers to laugh for the wrong reasons.

Grammar is important. I’d go so far as to say that good grammar is the hallmark of a professional author, and that makes it essential. If you’re not confident that your grammar is correct, read Dreyer’s English or hire an editor, but, please, please don’t make me laugh at your mistakes.

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~Amanda

Bio:

Amanda Cabot’s dream of selling a book before her thirtieth birthday came true, and she’s now the author of more than thirty-five novels as well as eight novellas, four non-fiction books, and what she describes as enough technical articles to cure insomnia in a medium-sized city. Her inspirational romances have appeared on the CBA and ECPA bestseller lists, have garnered a starred review from Publishers Weekly, and have been nominated for the ACFW Carol, the HOLT Medallion, and the Booksellers Best awards. A popular workshop presenter, Amanda takes pleasure in helping other writers achieve their dreams of publication.

Find Amanda:

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Amanda's Latest Book:

A young woman with a tragic past has arrived in town . . . and trouble is following close behind

Ten years after her parents were killed, Evelyn Radcliffe is once more homeless. The orphanage that was her refuge and later her workplace has burned to the ground, and only she and a young orphan girl have escaped. Convinced this must be related to her parents’ murders, Evelyn flees with the girl to Mesquite Springs in the Texas Hill Country and finds shelter in the home of Wyatt Clark, a talented horse rancher whose plans don’t include a family of his own.

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R&R: Raves & Rants With Amanda Cabot

Me, Myself, and I

I know that I promised you another lesson on commas this month, but when I saw what felt like an egregious error in a writer’s magazine, I decided it was time to rant again. I won’t identify the magazine, nor will I give you a direct quote, because I don’t want to embarrass anyone, but the essence of the sentence that made me want to crumple the page and toss it into the wastebasket was, “Members of the audience asked myself many questions.”

Did that bother you? If you’re a grammar purist, it should have.

Why? Myself is a reflexive pronoun. So, too, are yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, and themselves.

Are you rolling your eyes at the term “reflexive pronoun”? Yes, I know this is grammar-speak, but a brief definition may help you understand the reason for my rant. According to my dictionary, “reflexive” means “directed or turned back on itself.” The same dictionary defines “reflexive pronoun” as “a pronoun referring to the subject of the sentence, clause, or verbal phrase in which it stands.” The key element in this definition is “referring to the subject.”

Reflexive pronouns can be used in a sentence as either direct or indirect objects, to indicate aloneness, or for emphasis. Let’s look at an example of each.

·         When I finished the chapter, I decided to reward myself with a chocolate milkshake.

In this case, “myself” is a direct object. Although it would, in theory, be grammatically correct to say “to reward me,” the reflexive pronoun is infinitely preferable.

·         When I finished the chapter, I made myself a chocolate milkshake.

Here, “myself” is the indirect object. I (subject) made the milkshake (direct object) for myself (indirect object.)

·         When I finished the chapter, I made a chocolate milkshake by myself.

Do you see the difference between this example and the previous ones? I haven’t told you whether the milkshake is for me or someone else. Instead, by saying “by myself,” I’ve made the point that I did this alone rather than having help.

·         I made the milkshake myself.

While this is similar to the previous example, there’s a subtle difference. In this case, I’ve used “myself” for emphasis. If I’m accustomed to either buying milkshakes or asking someone else to make one, the addition of “myself” tells you this is a big deal.

What do these examples have in common? In each case, “myself” refers back to the subject, which is “I.” These are all correct uses of a reflexive pronoun.

Now, let’s examine the sentence that started this whole discussion, “Members of the audience asked myself many questions.”

·         What is the subject of this sentence? If you answered “members of the audience,” you get a gold star.

·         What role does “myself” play? The correct answer is “object.”

·         So, what’s wrong with the sentence? Very simply, “myself” is the reflexive form of “I”, but since the subject of the sentence is not “I,” it’s misused here. Perhaps the author thought she was using “myself” for emphasis or to make herself seem important. In my opinion, she sounded a bit pompous by substituting the incorrect “myself” for the simple and correct “me.” The only way to make this sentence correct and still use a reflexive pronoun would be to say, “Members of the audience asked themselves many questions.” That, of course, changes the meaning of the sentence.

Let’s look at another erroneous use of a reflexive pronoun.

·         Susan and myself will answer questions after the lecture.

Do you see the problem? “Myself” is being used as part of a compound subject. If you return to the original definition, a reflexive pronoun refers to the subject; it is not the subject. This sentence should have been “Susan and I will answer questions after the lecture.”

Me, myself, and I. The rules are simple.

·         “I” is the subject of a sentence.

·         “Me” is the object, either direct or indirect.

·         “Myself” is a reflexive pronoun and can only be used when the subject of the sentence is “I.”

Clear? I hope so.

~Amanda

 A lifetime of reading and writing, not to mention a host of teachers who believed that good grammar was one of the essentials of life, have given Amanda Cabot such firm opinions about the printed word that I asked her to share some with us in her Raves and Rants posts.  

Although her working career was in Information Technology, Amanda achieved her dream of selling her first novel before her thirtieth birthday and is now the author of more than thirty novels as well as a number of books and articles for Information Technology professionals.  

Her most recent book, A Tender Hope, is the final book of the Cimarron Creek trilogy.

Find all of Amanda's books, newsletter info and social media links here.

R&R: Raves and Rants with Amanda Cabot

A Case of Pronouns Challenge

We’re not going to have a rant or even a rave this month. Instead, for a change of pace I’m giving you a quiz or – to make it seem less like we’re in school – a challenge. The challenge is two-fold. First, identify the sentence that uses pronouns correctly. Secondly, find and correct the errors in the others.

HINT: If you need a prompt, check out last month's post on pronouns here. 

Leslie loves comments, so I suggest leaving your responses as comments. I’ll stop in occasionally to see how you’re doing.

1. He filled the golden cup for he and his wife to share.

2. Thanks to whomever had brought it from the cellar we have a good supply of wine.

3. This is the usual time for your father and I to take a walk.

4. Some of he and Uncle Sam’s friends came to visit him.

5. Before anyone realized whom she was, she’d left the party.

6. The employees who planned the conference hadn’t been prepared for our reluctance to attend early morning events.

7. Their granddaughter who they were raising had the curliest hair I’d ever seen.

8. He smiled when he thought about the future with he and Maggie growing old together.

9. She stared at the clock, amazed when she saw that it’s hands had stopped.

10. The agreement between he and James wouldn’t be affected by the merger.

Next month I’ll have another rant for you, this one about the much-maligned passive tense.

~ Amanda

A lifetime of reading and writing, not to mention a host of teachers who believed that good grammar was one of the essentials of life, have given Amanda Cabot such firm opinions about the printed word that I asked her to share some with us in her Raves and Rants posts.  

Although her working career was in Information Technology, Amanda achieved her dream of selling her first novel before her thirtieth birthday and is now the author of more than thirty novels as well as a number of books and articles for Information Technology professionals.  

Her most recent book, A Tender Hope, is the final book of the Cimarron Creek trilogy.
Find all of Amanda's books, newsletter info and social media links here.

R&R: Raves and Rants For November ~ The Truth About Lies

The Truth About Lies

If you thought we were going to talk about falsehoods today, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed.  No fibs are involved; we’re not even going to discuss the verb that means to tell a falsehood.  Instead, we’re going to explore two verbs that I’ve seen misused so often that I no longer want to scream when I see the mistakes.  Now I simply nod and say, “Oh, yeah.  That mistake.  Again.”  As you’ve probably guessed, the verbs that are the subject of this month’s rant are “to lie” as in “to recline,” and “to lay” as in “to place something somewhere.”

Warning: this next sentence may make you roll your eyes unless you’re a grammarian, but it’s a necessary one.  “To lay” is a transitive verb; “to lie” is intransitive.  What’s the difference?  A transitive verb requires an object.  Not only does an intransitive verb not require an object, but it’s incorrect if used with one. 

Here’s an example.  Chickens lay eggs, then lie on the straw.  See the difference?  Of course, you do.

The confusion normally occurs when dealing with the past and past perfect tenses.  If you look at this chart, you can see why some people make mistakes.

Infinitive	Present	Past	Past Perfect
To lie	Lie	Lay	Lain
To lay	Lay	Laid	Laid

No one ever said English was an easy language to learn, and the fact that the past tense of the intransitive verb (“to lie”) is the same as the present tense of the transitive one (“to lay”) proves that.

Using that chart, what’s your assessment of this sentence?

She gazed at the flowers she had lain on the table.

If you shuddered and said that “lain” should have been “laid,” you passed the test. 

What about this one?

At the end of the day, he had been exhausted and had laid on the bed.

Another error!  He didn’t lay anything on the bed.  Instead, he was the one lying on it, so “laid” should have been “lain.” 

How would you write that sentence using the past tense rather than the past perfect?  

If you said, “At the end of the day, he was exhausted and lay on the bed,” you’d be correct.

Let’s say we have a character who’s exhausted by the simple action of placing a rose on a table.  Here’s how we’d describe her actions.

Present Tense: I lay the single rose on the table, then lie on the fainting couch.

Past Tense: I laid the single rose on the table, then lay on the fainting couch.

Past Perfect Tense: I have laid a single rose on the table more times than I can count, and each time I have lain on the fainting couch as soon as I finished.

Clear?  I hope so.  I also hope you’ll come back next month when we discuss the common comma. 

~Amanda

A lifetime of reading and writing, not to mention a host of teachers who believed that good grammar was one of the essentials of life, have given Amanda Cabot such firm opinions about the printed word that I asked her to share some with us in her Raves and Rants posts.  Although her working career was in Information Technology, Amanda achieved her dream of selling her first novel before her thirtieth birthday and is now the author of more than thirty novels as well as a number of books and articles for Information Technology professionals.  

Her most recent release is A Borrowed Dream the second of the Cimarron Creek trilogy.

Find all of Amanda's books, newsletter info and social media links here.

R&R: Raves and Rants For July ~ Perfect Possessives

Amanda is back with July's Raves & Rants.

Perfect Possessives

  

Welcome back for another rant.

Last month when we talked about apostrophes, I mentioned that one of the primary uses of an apostrophe is to indicate a word’s possessive case.  Since the rules for creating possessives are simple, you might think it would be rare to find errors.  Unfortunately, that’s not the case, which is why I’m ranting about that today. 

I continue to be shocked at the number of incorrect possessives I’ve found in published books.  I know you don’t want your book to be one of those that I’m tempted to hurl against a wall, so let’s talk about the correct way to form possessives.

We’ll start with the simplest rule, the one for single nouns. 

The possessive of a single noun, whether it’s a proper or a common noun, 

is made by appending an apostrophe and an s to that word. 

Did you take note of the last example?  That’s one of the most common errors I find.  Charles is a singular noun, and the rule of adding an apostrophe and an s applies to it.  I grind my teeth every time I read Charles’, which is why I fought and won an argument with one of my editors who hadn’t learned the rule and changed all my Charles’s to Charles’.  I no longer write for that publisher, but that’s another story.

The possessive of plural nouns is almost as simple, although there are two parts to the rule.  

Part One: The possessive of a plural noun that ends in s 

is formed by adding an apostrophe.

Now that you’ve learned this rule, do you find anything wrong with the following sentence?

“We’re having supper at my parent’s house.”

 

That was a bit of a trick question.  It’s perfectly correct if you have only one parent, but in that case, wouldn’t you be more likely to say “my mother’s” or “my father’s” rather than “my parent’s”?  This is another error that I find far too often.

On to the second part of the plural noun rule.  

The possessive of a plural noun that does not end in s 

is formed by adding an apostrophe and an s.

  

In other words, since there’s no final s, you form the plural the same way you would for a singular noun.

You wouldn’t say childrens’, would you?  I hope not.  I don’t like ranting, and that would definitely provoke one.

I’ve talked about misplaced and misused apostrophes, but there’s another side to this problem.  Here are two examples I found in recent reading.  (I’ve changed the wording slightly to protect the guilty.)

“Rather than face Mrs. Dobbs anger, she closed the door softly.”

“The same people were present at the Sartors today.”

What’s wrong with these?  Congratulations if you noticed that they were both missing apostrophes.  Perhaps these were nothing more than typos, but I suspect that the authors weren’t sure how to make the possessive and decided to err on the side of no apostrophe.  Wrong decision!

How would you correct them?  Did you say, “Rather than face Mrs. Dobbs’s anger …” since there is only one Mrs. Dobbs, and “present at the Sartors’” because we’re dealing with a plural noun there?  If so, double congratulations. 

And on that note, I’m going to end this rant.  I hope you’ll come back next month when we’ll address the troublesome twos.

~ Amanda

A lifetime of reading and writing, not to mention a host of teachers who believed that good grammar was one of the essentials of life, have given Amanda Cabot such firm opinions about the printed word that I asked her to share some with us in her Raves and Rants posts.  Although her working career was in Information Technology, Amanda achieved her dream of selling her first novel before her thirtieth birthday and is now the author of more than thirty novels as well as a number of books and articles for Information Technology professionals.  Her most recent release is A Borrowed Dream, the second of the Cimarron Creek trilogy.

Find all of Amanda's books, newsletter info and social media links here.

R&R: Raves and Rants from Multi-Published Author Amanda Cabot

I'm so pleased that Amanda Cabot is going to be a monthly contributor to this blog. I've always admired her mastery of grammar as I suffer from grammar-itis.

Thank goodness we have folks like Amanda around to help us.

Take it away, Amanda.

Welcome to R&R.  No, we’re not going to talk about rest and relaxation today.  R&R is shorthand for “One Writer’s Raves and Rants.”

When L.A. invited me to write a monthly column, she suggested I discuss grammar, perhaps because she knows that I’ve been known to throw books across the room – at least figuratively – when I encounter basic grammatical mistakes.  She might also have made the suggestion because she knew I once wrote a column whose original title was “In Defense of the Semicolon.”

 

Even though I suspect most of you are rolling your eyes, wondering if you’re going to be subjected to a discourse on that much maligned punctuation mark, I can assure you that there will be no semicolons … at least not today.  Furthermore, as the column’s title implies, there will be more than rants about grammatical mistakes here.  I’ll also talk about things that I see other authors doing well.  But today, we’re talking about grammar, and I’m going to rant about the misuse of the apostrophe.

I can’t imagine writing without apostrophes.  They’re used for contractions and to indicate a word’s possessive case, but – except in one extremely limited instance – they are NOT used to make a word plural.  (Did you notice how I used apostrophes in that sentence?  Those are the correct usages.)

Now, let’s start the rant.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen sentences like the following in published and supposedly edited books.  “They’re having dinner with the MacLean’s.”

What’s wrong with that?  If this were a book set in Scotland where the head of the clan is called “the MacLean,” the only problem might be that it’s missing a noun at the end of the sentence.  Perhaps the author meant to say that someone was having dinner with the head of the clan’s daughter.

Unfortunately, 99.9% of the time when I see a sentence like this, it’s a mistake.  A big one.  In all likelihood, the author’s intent was to say that someone was having dinner with several people whose last name was MacLean.  But our grammatically challenged author didn’t know that the correct way to form the plural of MacLean is very simple – MacLeans. 

No apostrophe! 

The same rules that apply to common nouns apply to proper ones like names.  The plural of chair is chairs, not chair’s.  The plural of horse is horses, not horse’s.  Why would anyone think that the plural of MacLean is MacLean’s or that the plural of Smith is Smith’s?  There’s only one reason I can imagine, and that’s that they didn’t know any better.

What if you were having dinner with several people whose last name is Simmons?  How would you form that plural?  No, it’s not Simmons’.  The answer is Simmonses.  If that seems awkward, I agree.  That’s why I changed one of my characters’ names from Simmons to something that did not end in an “s.”

We’re almost done.  Remember that I said there is one extremely limited instance when an apostrophe is used to create a plural.  Do you know what it is?  Lowercase letters, but only if the apostrophe is needed for easy comprehension. 

Consider the first letter of the alphabet.  I doubt anyone would misunderstand, “The child wrote a full line of As.”  But what about “a full line of as.”  Clearly, you need something to distinguish the word “as” from the plural of “a.”  That’s where our helpful apostrophe comes into play.  The same thing happens with the letters “i” and “u,” but those are the exceptions that prove the rule.

So, repeat after me.  Apostrophes are almost never used to make a word plural.

End of rant.

~Amanda

A lifetime of reading and writing, not to mention a host of teachers who believed that good grammar was one of the essentials of life, have given Amanda Cabot such firm opinions about the printed word that I asked her to share some with us in her Raves and Rants posts.  Although her working career was in Information Technology, Amanda achieved her dream of selling her first novel before her thirtieth birthday and is now the author of more than thirty novels as well as a number of books and articles for Information Technology professionals.  Her most recent release is A Borrowed Dream, the second of the Cimarron Creek trilogy.

Find all of Amanda's books, newsletter info and social media links here.