The Grammar Logs
#592

What is a blend and a digraph and give examples.

A digraph is a combination of any two vowels that make a single sound, like the "ou" of "loud" and "ea" of "bread." A blend is a combination of any two or more consonants at the beginning of a syllable, like "tr" in "trick" or "bl" in "blend."

I am confused about a specific use of lay/lie. I understand that you lie on the beach and that you lay a book on a table, and I get the tenses when using sentences similar to those. However, I get lost when I see something like this (with *lie* meaning *situated*):

"So he looked for possible sites where he could land the airplane. Straight ahead *lay* a swamp."

In present tense, it would be *lie.* So since he's looking in the past, then it should be *lay.* But I'm not positive because there's a good chance the swamp is still there (he's in Georgia)...so should I use *lie* for present tense? For another example, I would say, "The Mississippi River lies west of the Appalachian Mountains"; I wouldn't say, "The river *lay* west of the Appalachian Mountains" even if I'm telling a story in the past tense.

Or would I?

All that matters to the reader is that the swamp WAS straight ahead of the pilot, so use the past tense "LAY" there. Or use a more interesting verb: "straight ahead, he saw steam rising from the waters of Okefenokee." As for the MIssissippi River, yes, it's still lying there, in the present, but you'd still use the past tense if your reader is back there in that earlier time frame. A present tense verb would be quite disconcerting. If it sounds odd to you, bring in another verb to bolster that sense of pastness, as in "He knew the Mississippi lay west of . . . ."

The Dance Studio is a small business with cash flow concerns of their own.

The above sentence is flagged by my grammar processor as "Reflexive pronoun use - consider revising." What is reflexive pronoun use and what would a better sentence look like?

I often tell my writing students that they should regard their computer's grammarchecker as a kindly uncle — he means well, but he doesn't always know what he's talking about. There is no reflexive pronoun in that sentence, nor should there be. (A reflexive pronoun is something like "He hurt HIMSELF doing that backflip.") There is a pronoun problem here: the plural "their" is referring to the singular "small business" and should be replaced with the singular possessive "its."

My question is about when to use the word blew as the past tense of blow. Would you say "I blew dry my hair" or "I blow dried my hair"? What the difference in these statements?

You blew out the candles on your birthday cake, but you blow-dried your hair. The verb is "blow-dry" and the past tense happens to the "dry" part of it, not the "blow" part of it. I was surprised, incidentally, to see that my dictionary uses a hyphen in that verb.

By permission. From Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, 11th edition © 2003 by Merriam-Webster, Inc. (www.Merriam-Webster.com).

The person in charge of style at the scientific publisher for whom I have worked for almost 20 years recently came up with a "rule" about comparisons. According to her, one cannot compare one thing. For example, she would find "The efficiency of substrate incorporation into A cells and B cells was determined" incorrect; she insists it must be "The efficiencies of … were determined," because one cannot compare one thing. I say this is incorrect (and nonsense to boot), but I'd better have competent authority behind me before I challenge it. Can you help me? She keeps making changes like this on the papers I edit and teaching it to new copy editors, which makes me shudder!

Would this editor insist that the furnitures in room 1 and room 2 be removed? You are measuring the efficiency of something (whatever the hell substrate incorporation is) in A cells and you're doing the same thing with B cells, but that doesn't give you efficiencies: it just gives you two measurements of the same thing, efficiency. The notion that waves of Maryland copy editors refusing to acknowledge the existence of non-count nouns will overtake the entire nation is frightful, indeed.

• Go Senators.
• God bless Canada.

the two sentences above are used frequently. Are they both in the imperative mood? Should there be a comma after the first word, then? Are you addressing or commanding? How would you describe these sentences?

They are both exhortations, a kind of command, and in both sentences, someone is addressed. In a brief utterance of this kind, however, the comma is frequently omitted and the sentence is read without pause. You wouldn't have to add much to need the comma. "Go forth, RedSox, and vanquish the Yankee enemy." or "God, please bless Canada." If you created a banner with "Go, Senators," it would never make it on television.

I was saying "Without further ado" before introducing someone and was told this is not proper. It is actually insulting. Can you set me straight??

I suppose, if you think about what the phrase means, it can be a bit insulting. "Ado" means "business," which is not insulting, but it also can mean "unnecessasry botheration about trivial matters" (my paraphrase), which suggests that everything you've said about this person has been a kind of silliness — not at all, of course, what you meant to suggest. You can either count on the fact that probably no one will give it an instant's thought (with the singular exception of the person who brought it your attention), or you can simply delete the phrase from your introductions (which seems like a good idea, now that I've thought about it).

A sign at our county fairgrounds reads, "Fairgrounds closes at dark." Should it read, "Fairgrounds close at dark?"

"Fairgrounds" can function as either a singular or plural word — like "barracks." I would have used the plural "close," myself, but "closes" is not incorrect. It depends on whether you're thinking of the fairgrounds as one thing, the place in its totality, a singular conglomeration of various venues, or are you thinking of THEM as all those venues at which various things happen.

Is my puctuation correct?

I am asking that each of us "Do more in 2004!"

We have a problem there because "each of us" is singular and that doesn't work very well with the plural verb "do." If you want to keep the "do more in 2004" — because of its neat rhyme and rhythm — we'll have to change it to "I am asking that all of us "Do more in 2004!" or "I am asking that each of us must "Do more in 2004!"

When exactly do you use "so" and when do you use "such"?

Example:

• Globally, my school is a world of so beautiful children.
• Globally, my school is a world of such beautiful children.

Can I use the form of the first sentence, or is it grammatically incorrect? Why?

The first sentence is incorrect. You can use "so" as an adverbial intensifying modifier, as in "the children in my school are so beautiful," but it doesn't work when the noun being modified follows the adjective "so beautiful children." For that we need the adjective "such." We use "such" to qualify noncount nouns or a plural count nouns, as in "He hardly deserved such abuse" and "To earn more such rewards, continue to work hard." When "such" is used with a singular count nouns, we include an indefinite article, as in "I have never before seen such a mess," but we leave out the article when such is preceded by another modifier, as in "No such contract was ever signed." The use of "such" when no comparison can be implied is often criticized. For instance, some authorities would object to "She's such a beautiful child" (meaning "she's a very beautiful child"), because no comparison to other children is even implied. That idiom is so widespread, however, that it is acceptable in all but the most formal writing.

By permission, From Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage © 1994 by Merriam-Webster, Inc. (www.Merriam-Webster.com).

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