In the vernacular we are often a bit lazy and say ‘can I do something or other?’ rather than ‘may I?’.  If we use ‘can’ it really means that we are asking if we are able to do something, whereas ‘may’ indicates that you are asking permission. 

Here are some examples you may wish to consider:

·         Q:  ‘Can I go to the park with the boys please, Mum?’

·         A:  ‘Yes you can, but I don’t give you permission.’  (What a grump, eh?)

·         Q:  ‘Please may I go to the park with the boys, Mum?’

·         A:  ‘Yes you may, Ian, but make sure you’re home by 5.00 o’clock as it’ll be getting cold by then.’

·         Q:  (…thinks) ‘Can I sing out loud now?’

·         A:  ‘Yes I can, my voice has returned now that I’ve thrown off nasty cold and cough I had.’

·         Q:  ‘May I sing out loud now?’

·         A:  ‘Oh yes please do, the baby always laughs when you sing – perhaps it’s because you are so off-key.’

Have a look at the sentence I used to introduce the examples.  I wouldn’t have said that you ‘can’ consider the articles as I would very much like you to look at them!  ‘May’ is more inviting in this instance.

Which or That or Who – Which one is used where?

‘Who’ refers to people: we shouldn’t say

·         ‘Ian was the boy that wanted to go to the park.’  We would, however, say

·         ‘Ian was the boy who wanted to go to the park.’

I’ve always found ‘which’ and ‘that’ much more difficult.  We often find that we have those pesky little mental blocks, but at last I have found something to help me remember when to use which one!

‘That’ is used for essential things and ‘which’ for the ones which aren’t so necessary.   There are some things that must be done and others which may be done (later, perhaps – if at all).

If you think about it from another angle you can see how easy it becomes. 

·         ‘Which cake would you like?’

·         ‘I’d like that cake please.’

In the first example you are given a choice – the response, however, brooks no argument.  So when you are writing that article, about which you have pondered long and hard, I hope this gives you something to consider.  Good luck with all of these.

‘Please can I stop reading this article now?’  ‘Yes you can, and you may.’

‘Please may I stop reading this article now?’  ‘Yes you may!’

An essay is, to my understanding, a piece of (usually) prose used to promote an idea or to inform an audience—and that subject could be anything under the sun, or much further away for that matter.  According to the ever-handy Wikipedia (and its reference to the author Monsieur Michel de Montaigne) the word essay comes from the French ‘to try’.  M de Montaigne was attempting to put his thoughts into some order with pen and paper – actually probably quill on parchment or vellum, come to think of it.  Since then essayists have been busy writing essays.

I love to write; it’s fun, challenging, interesting, time-consuming and it can involve research.  I write short stories (since they are usually fictional they are not classed as essays, per se) and some factual stuff too.  I write chapters (of books) and these can often be standalone works so they could be classed as essays.  There is an overlap between essays, short stories and articles.  The line seems very blurred, and blurry, to me.

As I mentioned in a previous article, I learnt about essays while at school from the deliciously readable Charles Lamb’s Dissertation upon Roast Pig.  The word ‘dissertation’ is now mainly used for long, involved academic works written to assist with the earning of a PhD.  I’m therefore led to believe that over the years the meaning has changed as Charles Lamb’s work is neither that lengthy, academic, nor was it, I’d hazard a guess, used to further his academic career.  I also suspect that different cultures have varied the term over the years and that the cultural usage has changed since the nineteenth century.

The word ‘thesis’ is now used in the academic field for those wishing to propose an original point of view for their work, in the written form.  (A thesis can also be oral—the proposition of a thought.)  There is much angst and hair-pulling towards the end of academic years as students endeavour to pull these vitally important (to them and their lecturers) works together.   One wonders how much of the work is reviewed thereafter and used for the benefit of us all.  Someone I know wrote an interesting, lengthy and thoroughly researched thesis into effects of fire on timber: how long it took for charring to eliminate the threat of further combustion; how thick the beams of timber had to be to withstand what temperatures; what happens to the beams when charred (does it lose its strength etc).  I am not sure that anyone took this research and knowledge any further—such a pity as it is innately valuable…

So go ahead, write your short stories and articles and, if you wish, call them essays.  Write your books.  If you wish to write your thesis that is highly commendable.  You don’t have to be at an establishment of higher learning to research and write one, but it helps to be able to bounce the ideas, suppositions and the parameters off those in the know.  Your dissertation will take you to exalted realms and you can then call yourself ‘Doctor’. 

Good luck with your writing.

Here is another couple (yes, ‘couple’ is a unit so is singular!) of English words which have been known to cause confusion.

Let’s have a look at how they should be used:

·         We each received a piece of cake.

·         We both received a piece of cake.

In the first sentence we learn that the recipients of the cake had one piece each, but the second sentence it tells us that they had one slice between them and had to share it – and that could be seriously annoying if it was your favourite cake.

·         We each decided to take the dogs for a walk and were delighted when we met up unexpectedly.

·         We both decided to take the dogs for a walk so knew that they could play together.

In the example above you’ll see that in the first sentence it was a surprise when the dog-walkers met up as they had decided – separately – to take the pooches out.  In the second sentence they’d got together to discuss giving the dogs a run together.

·         Please give them each a diamond ring for their extraordinary contributions.

·         Please give them both a diamond ring for their extraordinary contributions.

Hoo boy – now there will be some arguments!  In the first sentence they each receive this most welcome gift; whereas in the second sentence what on earth will happen to the ring?  Perhaps they will sell it and then split the difference.  Where is King Solomon and his wisdom when you need him?

·         Each of the chickens laid an egg today.

·         Both of the chickens laid an egg today.

In these two sentences it’s clear that all of the chickens in the first sentence – maybe there are 20 of them – have earned their keep; but in the second sentence the two chickens laid eggs.

I hope this gives you something to consider when writing your papers, articles, copy or your novel.  Watch this space for the next instalments.

 When do I use ‘I’, when do I use ‘me’ and when do I use ‘myself’ if I wish to be correct?

‘I’ is a pronoun referring to the speaker or writer.  If you really want to know, it’s a subjective pronoun.
‘Me’ is also a pronoun referring to the speaker or writer.  In this case it’s an objective pronoun.
‘Myself’ is also – you guessed it – a pronoun, but it is the ‘reflexive’ or ‘intensive’ form of ‘I’ or ‘Me’!

Great – that’s sorted then.  Clear as mud…  Okay, now let’s get down to brass tacks.

If you are telling someone about what you have done you say, for example:

• ‘I have been to the doctor today because I have a sore throat.’

  You can see that ‘I’ is the subject of the sentence.  Then you could say:

• ‘The prescription they gave me tastes disgusting.’

In this case ‘prescription’ is the subject and ‘me’ the object.  And then:

• ‘If I was by myself I’d throw it away, but you are here and you won't let me.”

You can, if you think about it, see that ‘myself’ is almost a ‘reflection’ of what ‘I’ was doing – hence reflexive.  And:

• When you say ‘I, myself, think it’s a waste of time producing something so revolting.’

That’s really laying down the law and being ‘intense’ about it.

There is confusion about when we should say ‘I’ and ‘me’ but if you take away the other people in the sentence(s) it becomes really easy to see where the errors lie.  For example:

• “I went to see the doctor.”  This means more or less the same thing as:
• “Lucy came with me to see the doctor.”

But we wouldn’t say:

• ‘Me went to the doctor’, and we certainly wouldn’t say
• ‘Lucy came with I to see the doctor’!
• Nor should we say ‘Lucy and myself went to the doctor’ (although I have heard similar).

 Here’s another one:

• ‘Since we won the Lottery, life has become much easier for my wife, family and me as we have been able to pay off all our debts.’  (Lucky things…)

We wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) say:

• Since we won the Lottery life has become much easier for my wife, family and I.’

If we take away ‘wife and family’ you can see that it doesn’t sound right for the speaker to say:

• ‘Since we won the Lottery, life has become much easier for I.’

Nor, for that matter should we say:

• ‘Since we won the Lottery life has become much easier for myself.’

This is because there is nothing to ‘reflect’ off or be’ intense’ about.
 

Yeah, I know, picky, picky!  However – remember that if we communicate clearly with one another we are much more likely to be clearly understood and to get our message across without any errors.
 

Grammar is really just putting things in the right order and therefore lessening the risk of being misunderstood.  Remember, too, that the English language constantly evolves and who knows what the rules might be in a decade or so…

 One of my friends, a successful published author, has asked me to write about my process for proofreading and editing.  Oh bliss, oh joy!  Or is it?  I will have to bare my soul so that you, dear reader, will be able to follow my journey into the minutiae of proofreading.  She has asked that I give you an outline of how I approach my work; i.e. that of correcting and proofing copy for personal use or for publication.

 To ensure that the proofreader’s work is less onerous, and therefore less costly, it’s best if you present your work in double-line spacing.  I am happy to receive it in that format either electronically or in hardcopy (ebook versus tree-book).  If you want your work proofread electronically, facilities such as Microsoft® Track Changes are a boon both to you and the proofreader.  If you want a physical hard copy there is room for notations and comments in the margin.  The wonderful thing about Track Changes is that it does away with the need for knowledge of all the arcane proofreading symbols used in the past – I bet that does your heart good, doesn’t it?

 So how do I start?  Well, when I receive the document I sit down and read it through.  Initially I make a note of, and fix, the obvious typos, spelling errors, and punctuation changes required.   I find that if I try to read it to get a general sense of the work, before I undertake that first process, I am constantly side-tracked by these things I ‘need’ to resolve.  Once I have it in some sort of order – and appealing to my sense as a reader – I then go over it again, and again, and again, and again in order to make sure that the sequence, the timelines, the dates, are consistent; that goes for style, tense, names and characters too.  Then I read it through, out loud, to myself.  Hearing it makes an enormous difference, even though it’s best to do it while you are alone, or with just the dog for company; you know what they say about people who talk to themselves…

 After that I print it.  Then I go over it again!  It’s amazing what you find when you actually have the work in your hands.

 In between these reviews, the reading and the printing, I am in touch with the author to keep them informed of progress and of any changes I suggest.  My modus operandi is to keep a running page of comments and to add to that as I work through the manuscript; then I email the comments page to the author with the altered MS.  My aim is never to alter the manuscript unduly and make it unrecognisable to its creator, or to be heavy-handed – after all you, the author, are the one with the brains and imagination to bring the work to life.

These aren’t actually homonyms (words which sound the same, but have different meanings) as they sound slightly different.

Adverse or averse? 

I fear an adverse reaction from people averse to being told which is correct.  No I don’t, it just seemed to be a good way to start this piece.  I’ve often seen these two words transposed – and, because pedants like me notice things like that, it bugs me!  Adverse is something to do with opposition (or an adversary) – this helps click those mnemonics into play.  If you are averse to something it means being less than thrilled with whatever it might be; think of having an aversion to something.   Here are a couple of examples:

• John had an adverse reaction to the medicine prescribed. He was averse to making another visit to that doctor, since no account of his allergies had been taken.
• The snow contributed to the sense of unease felt by the family; they did not want to drive in the adverse conditions. Louise was averse to leaving the warmth of the sitting room.  The blizzard continued to rage and they had no wish to dice with death on the roads that night.

 Weary or Wary?

I’ve seen two instances recently where individuals have transposed the words.  I suppose I am wary of upsetting them if I mention it, as perhaps they were weary when they wrote the pieces.  Wary means beware; be careful; approach with caution.  Weary means tired; exhausted; beaten down.

• I was wary of saying anything as he seemed so sure of his facts – despite the fact that I knew he was incorrect.  I was weary after such a stressful day and the thought of confrontation filled me with trepidation.
• Jennifer was weary.  Her new job drained her of energy.  She was wary of going to her new boss to complain, as the woman was a bit of harridan.

 Repel or Rappel?

Okay, hands up if you know the difference.  (Think: insect repellent.)  Repel: to stop something, to keep something away.  Rappel: to do something I would never do – i.e. leave the comfort and safety of my feet and scoot backwards down a mountain, cliff face or building with just a rope between me and safety/sanity.  (Rappel is an alternative word for ‘abseil’.)

• Ralph sprayed himself with something containing citronella to repel the insects which were starting to bite now that the evening was closing in.  He was thinking of the descent he had to make in the morning; the rappel on the outside of the sky-scraper – and all because he was raising money for charity!  What had he let himself in for?
• One of the sailors was to rappel into the pirates’ boat in an effort to sink it before they could climb aboard.  The captain shouted: ‘Repel boarders!’ as the crew drew their swords and made sure their pistols were primed. 

 And finally (for this session, anyway!)…

Brought or Bought?

You won’t believe it (well, you probably will) but in our local newspaper only yesterday was an article which confused the two words.  And there was another incident, just days ago, where the same mistake was made…  Brought – from the verb to bring.  Bought – from the verb to buy. 

• Peter brought the groceries home and showed me what he had bought.

‘Look what I bought today!’ I shouted with glee as I brought the bounty into the room.

‘Cast’ is an irregular verb (yep, there’s a grammatical catch) and it stays the same whether it’s in the future, present or the past tense.  It means to throw, e.g. cast the stone, cast about (to look at, or for something), castaway.  People who go fishing cast their lines.

The original meaning of broadcast dates way back when, and it’s to do with agriculture; specifically planting seed.  The farmer had a bag – probably slung over one shoulder – containing seed.  Into the bag he put his hand and scattered the seed as wide as he could.  In fact he cast it broadly.  Okay?  Easy to see why he broadcast the seed, isn’t it?  Now we no longer plant seed in such a haphazard and wasteful way, using complex pieces of machinery instead so it’s not much used as an agricultural term these days. 

However, broadcast has remained and we use it daily when referring to the media, particularly electronic media where information is scattered far and wide and not at all haphazardly, but with lots of marketing knowledge, information, and statistics to back it up. 

• ‘Did you see the broadcast last night when the Flavour of the Month celeb was asked those embarrassing questions?’
• ‘I listened to the broadcast of the President’s speech.’

Similarly forecast is used in relation to the weather, the stock market etc, and we learn that forecasts are made re crops, hospital beds, chickens to be purchased… Businesses make forecasts re their projected profits.

• ‘We are interested in the weather forecast as we have a camping trip planned for next weekend and a downpour would put a dampener on it.’
• The gloomy forecast from the financial pundits put people in a spin before the GFC but many had foreseen it and had moved their funds to areas of relative monetary safety.

The ‘fore’ part of the word comes from the same source as ‘to the fore’ and ‘before’, meaning to the front or forward (see the second example above where I use ‘foreseen’).  The old-fashioned and hardly ever used (thank goodness!) ‘heretofore’, which roughly means that from this time forward, is a word soon to be consigned to the museum with me, I suspect.

I’m not sure why we need to add another syllable – wouldn’t we be looking at taking them away in our busy world?!

Present tense

Lay

·         Chickens lay eggs.  That is, they actually place them somewhere – that ‘somewhere‘ could be the pot plant just outside the front door, the chair on the back deck or, better yet, in the nesting box.  (For the grammarians among you, the chickens are the subject of the sentence and the eggs are the direct object.)

·         We lay ourselves down on our beds at night.  That’s because we place ourselves on the bed.   Think of the 18thC children’s prayer (or for heavy metal fans, who are sure to read this page, part of the lyrics of Iron Maiden’s Sandman): Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep…  However, we go and lie down on the bed (very muddling). 

Lie

·         The chickens lie in the sun and stretch out their wings.

·         I am going to lie down and have a snooze as it’s been such a busy day.  (I don’t go and ‘have a little lay down’.)

The past tense of these also causes some confusion.  Let’s alter the examples above.

Laid/Lain

·         The chickens laid nine eggs today.  Yes, and I found all nine of them in the nesting box for a change.

·         We had lain ourselves down to sleep at last; but we were so tired that we didn’t hear the alarm in the morning. 

And here’s something even more confusing:

Lay (past tense)

·         The chickens lay in the sun for about half an hour this afternoon.

·         I lay down for a snooze and woke when it was already dark.  The dog was getting very hungry.

The past tense of lie (as in tell a porky-pie) is lied; we don’t use ‘lied’ when talking about placing something somewhere. 

ü  ‘He lied to me about the number of eggs.  He felt guilty that his dog had eaten so many.’

X     ‘He lied down on his bed.’  (Aaagh, that’s like the crunching of a gear-box!)

(You can use the word lay in the context of ‘laying the table’, but many people say ‘set the table’ thus removing any mistakes, we hope.  You set things down – the cutlery, crockery etc – just as you lay things down.)

 There are websites sites providing Email Etiquette tips, but briefly: 

·         Make sure that you are using a word processing package, if possible, to send important emails – this will check the spelling for you. 

·         Remember to use some form of greeting.  If you just launch into the message the recipient may well find that a tad confronting.

·         KISS – keep it short and simple (that’s a more polite definition of the anagram than the other one!).  For work-related emails you need to bear in mind that the reader will have many items popping into their inbox and to which they have to respond.  For personal emails from your home PC/laptop/Blackberry etc, you can say whatever you like and, more importantly, what the recipient would like to hear. 

·         Think about the emails you receive which you love and which you open with excitement and anticipation; and then think about those which make you hurt and resentful.  Which emotion would you like to send?  (Be careful; what goes around, comes around.)

·         Remember that dreadful mistakes have been made because someone has responded to an email and hit the ‘Reply to All’ button instead of just ‘Reply’.   Jobs have been lost because of a nanosecond’s indiscretion… 

·         Don’t use capital letters in the body of the email as it’s considered to indicate shouting.

·         If you use bold or italics, make sure that you are using them correctly (check websites for advice).

·         When signing off, make sure that, even if the email contains information the recipient might not be happy to receive, you finish on a friendly note using a conventional ‘Regards’, ’Sincerely’, or similar.

·         Keep your signature line reasonably short without too much clutter – too much info overwhelms the reader. 

Good luck with your messages!

We lived on a farm in the English countryside, and it was a small child’s dream.  We had a mixed farm, with crops and animals.  We grew spring wheat and barley, flax and oats.  We had pigs and dairy cattle for a while (and later one lone house cow), chickens, beef cattle and sheep; I had the ultimate in animals, my own pony. 

In springtime, of course, come the young of the animal kingdom.  The cattle lived on the downland and more or less looked after themselves.  They didn’t generally require too much assistance or extra warmth as the calves arrived after the ewes lambed.

The lambing took place in one of the barns not far from the farmhouse with the barn divided into pens constructed of wattle hurdles for the lambing ewes.  The sheep were brought in at night from late February so that the loss of lambs to the cold was lessened.  The ewes appeared to relish the warm straw on which their lambs were born and most quickly bonded with the new arrivals.  Occasionally one would be rejected by the mother, or a twin – or sometimes even a triplet – and would be pushed away.  We used the ancient practice of covering the rejected lamb with the skin of a lamb which had died and this was often effective in encouraging a bereaved ewe to accept the rejected babe. 

Sometimes nothing worked and that’s when we had lambs in the house.  For many years there was a coterie of lambs in the laundry area (luckily tiled with flagstones and not an absorbent floor-covering).  These bottle-fed little ones were always delighted to see us approaching with the warm bottles filled with cows’ milk and when they began to suckle their little tail stumps would literally whirr with delight.  One year we had orphaned twin lambs and their names were Greedy and NotSo, for that was the nature of each…

Of course things went wrong too; farming is not a pastoral fantasy-land with happy, forelock-tugging peasants basking in the glow of a pat on the head from the land-owner, fat and cuddly animals, and plentiful food.  The days I remember with such affection and delight were not easy ones.  Rationing resulting from WWII was still in place and it affected every aspect of our lives.  When farm machinery broke down it was not necessarily that easy – nor is it today I surmise – to find replacement parts readily.  There was, needless to say, no such option as hopping online and purchasing the needed bit; it was a question of ringing the dealer, ordering it over the phone, waiting and hoping that the dealer could locate it, and then waiting again until it was ready for collection or delivery.  Ploughshares sheared off when they struck the many rocks in the soil – these are sarson stones and come to the surface as the soil it turned and tilled over the years; tractors ran over sharp objects and the tyres were punctured; harrows and seed drills lost bits every now and then. 

This is how I approached the essay entitled ‘Spring’ rather than dwelling on the pretty bits.  Aged 13, I thought it was a novel approach to discuss the breakdowns amongst the primroses, violets and bluebells; the death of lambs and the feeding of the greedy, windy orphans; the birth of a litter of kittens in the middle of some crisis and the escaping of the herd of beef cattle.  It was not well received.  The English harridan carpeted me, tore the work to shreds and told me she thought I was trying to be ‘clever’ – well you would, wouldn’t you?  My multi-page essay, the one in which I had invested so much time and effort, was apparently all for nought.  I don’t remember any other essays I wrote, but this one, so effectively ridiculed and rejected, has remained with me always.

The morals of the story are: a) be careful how you treat a child’s work, b) temper your work for the audience, or c) stick to your guns and realise that you have created something worthwhile and continue with your writing!