The Grammar Logs
#590

This sentence appeared recently on the front page of Canada's national daily newspaper the Globe and Mail:

"The government is expected imminently to scrap a second visit to northern Europe planned by Governer General Adrienne Clarkson..."

Some of my colleagues (I am an editor) and I are trying to figure out what's wrong with this sentence. We think it has to do with how the adverb "imminently" is being used. My feeling is that, as written, the sentence implies it's the expectation which is imminent, rather than the action (ie. scrapping a second visit).

Just as the adverb "recently" in your initial sentence reflects immediately on the verb before it, "appeared," the adverb "imminently" tries to modify the verb "is expected," which, as you point out, doesn't make sense (or at least is not the writer's intention). The writer will have to find another way of getting imminence into this sentence: beginning with "in the near future" or "soon" or something like that.

I am writing a story in past tense and am really confused about what to do when I want to segue into a "flashback." Since my story is written in past tense, and everything in the flashback occured before my story, it seems that I should place a "had" before every verb in the flashback. Is this correct?

Ex: When Joe had tried to start the lawnmower, he had pulled the cord until it had stretched taut and then had let it recoil back into the machine.

And if the flashback is long, a bunch of hads makes it cumbersome. So can you make the first couple of verbs in your flashback past participles (to orientate your reader) and then just start writing in simple past, or is this a tense switch that would be incorrect?

Ex: After the baby had started walking, Nancy had decided to put up gates. She placed one in each entryway...

Thank you very much.

Your instincts serve you well. Yes, a couple of past perfect verbs will indicate to the reader that a time shift has occurred; then you can shift back to your simple past tense (which is actually a kind of fictional present). If you need a good model for this, look to a fellow Illinoisan — pick up a short story by Ernest Hemingway, "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," and note how easily he shifts the reader from time frame to time frame using the past perfect tense (and then letting go of it, exactly as you suggest).

Can I say "the report will analyze the challenges facing Canadian unions"? If "report" is the subject, can it "analyze" something? Also, can I use "challenges facing Canadian unions" instead of "the challenges that Canadian unions face"?

You might be better off saying that the report presents an analysis of something. Or start your sentence with the subject "This analysis." The sentence might also present a good opportunity for the passive voice: "the challenges faced by Canadian unions" (but your rewrite is also an improvement).

Please tell me the difference of the following two sentences.

• "You will be subjected to security check-up."
• "You will be subject to security check-up."

Use the second version. "Subject," in that sentence, means simply that you will be under the influence of a later action (the checkup [which I would spell without the hyphen] ), as in "The mayor's plan is subject to discussion." But subjected to probably means that you will suffer the duress of an imposed action (it tends to imply something much more unpleasant).

Checking on propriety of using What's for what has, like What's love got to do with it?

Any contraction like this, of course, is going to be casual, but "what's" can mean either "what is" or "what has," just as "it's" can mean either "it is" or "it has." You would find it in a sentence like yours or in something like "What's she been doing lately?"

I need to understand the appropriate uses of the often confused words: let and leave.

What is a good rule of thumb to remember the different uses?

I don't know any rules of thumb here, but the two verbs don't have much to do with each other except in two special uses. In the old nursery rhyme, "Little Bo Peep," Ms. Peep was urged to "leave them [the sheep] alone, and they'll come home." Burchfield notes that that rhyme was largely responsible for "leave" being used where "let" would have been more appropriate. "Leave," he says, is a slightly lower "social register" than "let" in that context. So much for Bo Peep. The two verbs are virtually interchangeable (in any social register) in the phrases "Leave/let well enough alone" and "leave/let him/it be."

Authority: The New Fowler's Modern English Usage edited by R.W. Burchfield. Clarendon Press: Oxford, England. 1996. Used with the permission of Oxford University Press.

What is the difference between:

• 'Clearly, he couldn't see where he was going' and
• 'He couldn't see clearly'

The second sentence is a remark about his visual acuity. The first sentence does not necessarily say anything about his powers of perception. Perhaps someone's hand is over his eyes — but obviously (for some reason) he can't see where he's going.

Do nominative absolutes require participles?

Nearly always, a nominative absolute will contain a post-noun participial modifier, as in "The game being postponed, we decided to go to a movie, instead" (the absolute phrase in italics). Martha Kolln, however, gives this example: "The man stood laughing, his weapon at his hips." (Clearly, there is a kind of "being" understood in that sentence.)

Authority: Rhetorical Grammar: Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical Effects by Martha Kolln. 3rd Edition. Allyn & Bacon: Boston. 1996. p. 200.

Two teachers cannot agree on whether sprightly is used as an adverb or adjective in this sentence. Most of the dictionaries don't mention that sprightly can be used as an adverb.

Ephram walks sprightly down the street.

It's definitely functioning as an adverb in that sentence. The problem is that the adverbial use of "sprightly" is virtually extinct; it is listed as "rare" in the Shorter OED. I don't know why a wordy phrase like "in a sprightly manner" would come to take its place, but it has. Or else you have to find another word for sprightly Ephram's manner of walking.

Authority for this note: Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Fifth Edition. Oxford University Press, New York. 2002.

I see the constant usage of the following phrases as introductions to a paragraph in business memos/letters -

• As you are aware,.....yada yada yada
or

• As you may know,.....yada yada yada

The problem is that I am not aware or I don't know. What are these considered to be? Are they necessary? Is this bad grammer or just bad writing? My opinion is that they should not be used as an introductory phrase to a paragraph. What is proper?

This reminds me of an English professor who once warned me about using "obviously." If it's obvious, he said, why are you bothering to expound upon it? And if it isn't obvious, you've just insulted someone. The two phrases you mention will, all too often, either patronize readers or make them feed bad because they are not, in fact, aware or in the know. It's not exactly bad grammar: just a case of padding, slipshod thinking, that totters on the verge of bad manners.

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