The Vine: April 30, 2004
Dear Sars,
I love reading The Vine. I have a grammar question for you. In the following examples, which are correct and why? A. I enjoy working with students heartily.
B. I heartily enjoy working with students.
C. I enjoy heartily working with students.A. I have completed nearly my project.
B. I have nearly completed my project.
C. I nearly have completed my project.
A. I am quickly walking to the bus.
B. I am walking quickly to the bus.
C. I am walking to the bus quickly.
Thanks,
Jelunky Hebert
Dear JH,
Adverbial placement is usually more a matter of fine-tuning the overall meaning of the sentence than it is a matter of correct or incorrect, but the placement can affect what the adverb in question actually winds up modifying. Let’s get to the examples so that that makes some sense.
In the first set, B is the best choice. A and C both imply that it’s the working that is done heartily, not the enjoying of that work; in order not to cross up your verb phrases, you need to put “heartily” before “enjoy.”
The second set is closer to what I meant above; A is out, because it sounds like a poor translation, but B and C mean the same thing. Again, B is the best choice, not because it’s “more correct” but because C is apparently following the hoary rule stating that you shouldn’t separate the parts of a verb phrase, so it’s a bit stiff.
And the third set is the closest of all to what I meant, because each one is perfectly fine. There is in fact a slight difference in meaning between A and C, which both emphasize the bus aspect, and B, which focuses more on the walking itself (i.e. modifying “walking” only, versus modifying the entire phrase). I’d go with B, again, because it flows marginally better than the other two.
When you’re not sure in a situation like this of where in the sentence a word should go, ask yourself what you’re trying to say and where the word best does that for you.
Hey Sars,Thanks for keeping me entertained many a long day with your fabulous site. Now I have a grammar question: what is the difference between “gracefully” and “graciously”? And how should each be used properly?Yours,
Gracious, graceful, and grateful as hell if you can sort this ‘un outDear G3,
Ooh, good one. I believe “graceful” refers primarily to physical grace, and “gracious” to emotional poise or generosity, but let’s see what the books say.
The dictionary agrees with me…sort of. The 11C defines “graceful” as “displaying grace in form or action : pleasing or attractive in line, proportion, or movement.” Meanwhile, “gracious” means “marked by kindness and courtesy,” but then the second part of that definition is listed as “GRACEFUL.” Still, the remainder of the definition is stuff like “URBANE,” “characterized by charm, good taste, generosity of spirit,” and “MERCIFUL, COMPASSIONATE,” so my guideline is more or less correct. The usage note says that “GRACIOUS implies courtesy and kindly consideration.”
Garner’s only note on either is to mention that W. transposed “gracious” and “grateful” several times in a speech. Heh. So, it would appear that a figure skater is graceful on the ice, but gracious in defeat.
Sars,I’m a second-year English student who is having some SERIOUS grammar issues. My professors have taken to writing, “This should be an A paper, but…you are have the grammar skills of a 12-year-old” (I’m paraphrasing here) on the backs of my papers. This is becoming a serious issue that’s affecting my GPA and my sanity.I was hoping that you could suggest some resources for my grammar issues, preferably ones that start off with the basics, and progress to more advanced concepts as I go through the book.Thanks,
Hello. My name is Jane and I have a Grammar Problem…
Dear Jane,
Anyway. I would pick up a copy of the Garner and read through it; you don’t have to read the whole thing from cover to cover, but look at some of the larger entries. He explains things fairly clearly and covers almost every question you might have.
But the problem, I suspect, isn’t so much that you have questions as that you don’t — you don’t have a sense for how the language is supposed to work, which leaves you unaware of your mistakes, and on that note, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that I don’t believe you can learn that from a single book; you learn it from reading hundreds of books and magazines, and absorbing how the language looks and sounds.
The good news is that you actually give a shit, which in my view is ninety percent of the battle won, seriously. The serial semicolon is not hard to explain, if the explainee doesn’t care about sentence flow, I could go over it a hundred times and not get it to sink in. If you’re open to learning and you can gut out some of the more arid terminology, you’ll make progress.
So, grab a Garner. Grab a Zinsser while you’re up (that one you should read in its entirety, along with The Elements of Style. But if you really want to apply stuff in your own writing, go to one of the professors who wrote a comment on your paper and ask her to recommend a tutor — maybe your school has a writing center, or maybe the prof has a grad student she trusts to help other students out with this stuff.
And be mindful of your writing. Read parts of your papers out loud to yourself to see how they sound versus how you want them to sound. Try to develop an ear for the language. It takes some training, but even if it’s not an innate talent for you, you can develop your language instinct enough that it doesn’t work against you.
Dear Sars,I’m writing to ask about the correct usage of “whence.” To my understanding,
“whence” is kinda like “where,” with a “from” built in. Like, “whence cometh
my help” means “where does my help come from.” For starters, is that even a
correct understanding of the word?My new favorite song (“Growing On Me” by The Darkness — easily the greatest
song ever written about pubic lice) includes the line “I want to banish you
from whence you came.” But shouldn’t it be “I want to banish you to whence
you came”? (Of course, this assumes that I’m interpreting “whence”
correctly, which might not be accurate, depending on the answer above.)Please advise, and thank you for your vast stores of knowledge and active
interest in the English language.
Not Proud, But Happy
Dear Happy,
That understanding of “whence” is mine too — as opposed to “whither,” which implies a built-in “to” (i.e. “whither goeth my help”).
Based on that, I’d think “from whence you came” is a redundancy, but you hear people use “whence” with an extra “from” all the time, so it’s possible the usage has shifted. Let’s have a look…
Well, Garner says pretty much what I just said, but the shift evidently took place four hundred years ago, because he adds that even Shakespeare employed the “from whence” locution. In fact, Garner recommends adding the “from,” claiming that “from whence is less stilted than whence alone, which requires a greater literary knowledge for it to be immediately understandable.” I don’t love that he’s sanctioning the kind of usage laxity that gave “irregardless” a career in print, but I guess if it’s good enough for Dickens…oh, wait, I hate Dickens.
Anyway, the point: “from whence” isn’t incorrect, but in another note elsewhere, Garner recommends avoiding archaisms like “whence” and “thither” entirely, on the grounds that they sound pretentious. Eh. “Thither” is fun to say. Your call.
Hey Sars,Quick question: semicolon — good or evil? I say evil, everything I
learned about writing says that semicolons should be used as rarely as
possible; I learned they are sort of…pretentious. (Ironically, I can’t
seem to write this letter without using one.) I also say that periods
(that is, starting a new sentence, because it’s a new thought) are more
powerful. My friend (stupid art history student) says, “semicolons can be
just as powerful as separating two sentences with a period, and with a
semicolon, there isn’t as much ‘oh look at me, I have a deep thought and
I had to put it into a whole new sentence that’s only two words!!'”Please solve this argument. The phrase in question is: “But then I left,
and I realized that I could never leave Buffalo. It’s home. I want to go
back.” I say that is the correct way, she says it should be “But then I
left, and I realized that I could never leave Buffalo; it’s home. I want
to go back.”Many thanks,
Buffalonian English Major
Dear BEM,
In theory, I agree with your friend, but in practice, I think you’re both missing the point. A semicolon isn’t interchangeable with a period — it’s why we have both of them instead of just one. The semicolon lets you pause between two distinct but related thoughts without separating them as strongly as a period would; it lets you list things in clause form, with more muscle than a comma (like so); it’s a critical piece of punctuation.
Now let’s try the preceding paragraph without semicolons, shall we?
“In theory, I agree with your friend, but in practice, I think you’re both missing the point. A semicolon isn’t interchangeable with a period. It’s why we have both of them instead of just one. The semicolon lets you pause between two distinct but related thoughts without separating them as strongly as a period would. It lets you list things in clause form, with more muscle than a comma (like so). It’s a critical piece of punctuation.”
Do you see the difference there? The periods change the tenor of the paragraph; it makes choppier and heavier at the same time. Every clause has a heft. It sounds like a speech. It’s not good or evil — it’s about what you want the writing to do, and if you want a sentence or a series of sentences to have a certain sonorous punch, sure, separate them all with periods, but if you don’t vary your sentence structure with a semicolon now and then, the prose begins to drone.
The example you cite illustrates my point perfectly. Again, neither one is incorrect (and to tell you the truth, I’d chuck the semicolon and use a long dash instead, just because a dash implies a drawn conclusion more strongly). It just depends on what you want the sentence to do. If you want to point up the “it’s home” clause, yes, the best way to do that is to phrase the whole thing in short sentences, which gives each one more punch. On the other hand, if you want to point up the relationship between Buffalo and the sense of home, a semicolon is the better choice.
The semicolon isn’t pretentious; it’s necessary connective tissue. Thinking every phrase in a series calls for a full stop? That’s pretentious, so leave it to Hemingway and embrace the semicolon, because avoiding it is going to hurt your writing.
Tags: grammar
“and to tell you the truth, I’d chuck the semicolon and use a long dash instead, just because a dash implies a drawn conclusion more strongly”
Frankly, I would have used a colon, but a dash works too.