The Grammar Logs
#598

Querying use of conjured, as opposed to conjured up.

• 1. Jacqueline described the Kennedy household and administration in terms that conjured images of royalty.
• 2. Jacqueline described the Kennedy household and administration in terms that conjured up images of royalty.

Are both correct or only one of them?

They are both correct. "Conjured," as near as I can tell is a bit more mystical. If I sit here and conjure a ghost, one might very well appear — if I do things correctly and get lucky. However, I might sit here and conjure up images of all kinds of things, and that's just a trick of the imagination. I would us the "up" in that sentence.

I read the following sentence in a local English newspaper:

"The Cabinet will issue a statement to the City government on Monday to request the approval's withdrawal......"

The City has approved something but the Cabinet wants the City to withdraw the approval. I wonder whether the use of "approval's withdrawal" is appropriate.

It's rather unusual to form the possessive of an inanimate object with the "'s" possessive form. It does happen, with something like "the heart's desire," "two years' notice," etc., but it's relatively rare, and we're usually better off using the "-of" genitive formation, as in "the widthdrawal of the approval." The sentence seems about to be swallowed by a sense of its own importance, and I'm wondering if

On Monday, the Cabinet will ask the City to withdraw its approval of _________

wouldn't do the job.

Would you please tell me how to distinguish between "intuition" and "instinct"?? They both refer to "one's natural feeling." And which one would be better for the sentence below??

My ________ was telling me that something terrible was going to happen.

Burchfield says this about the differences between these two words:

At the philosophical level, the differences between the two words remain subtle and continue to be topics for perpetual discussion. In general use, it is hardly a matter of concern whether intuition is restricted to 'angelic and spiritual beings'. Rather is it is perceived as a valuable faculty possessed by human beings alone, and meaning 'immediate apprehension by the mind without reasoning'. Instinct, by contrast, is the pattern of behavior in most animals in response to certain stimuli; and a similar capacity in human beings to act without conscious intention. Animals cannot reason, it is argued, but have only instincts; human beings have both instincts and intuitions.

I would use intuition in that sentence.

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. p. 410.

Should you say...He put the part in crookedly or crooked?

Also, with the word act, why is it sometimes followed by an adverb and sometimes an adjective? As in he acted strangely, foolishly, selfishly, differently, dumb, stupid, and weird.

If you google this phrase, you'll find 16 returns for "put it in crooked" to zero returns for "put it in crookedly." That proves nothing, but shows you how I spend my time. There's a reason for this, I think. "Put it in crookedly" is apt to suggest that the action was done in a crooked fashion; "put it in crooked" means that the object was crooked after the action had taken place, and that is the intent. Now, as for "acting stupid / acting stupidly," I think the reason you're apt to find an adjective after this verb is that it acts as a linking verb, and linking verbs connect subjects to adjectives. Consider how close "act" is in meaning to its known linking associates like "appear," "seem," and "look." (Google this, and you'll find over 13,000 returns for "act stupid" versus 930 for "act stupidly.")

Does the word Resume require apostrophies above the e's, we are using it in a title: Background Résumé for...

I have found it listed both ways and so I am not sure which is correct for a title.

In England, you will find the word résumé written with accent marks (not apostrophes) over both e's, which is how the French would write this French word. In the United States, however, it is often written with an accent mark over only the second "e," as in resumé, and sometimes you will see it written without an accent mark at all. According to the dictionaries, that is acceptable, but even the New York Times manual recommends both accent marks.

Authority: The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage. by Allan M. Siegal and William G. Connolly. Times books: New York. 1999.

Does the phrase, "high cholesterol foods, alcohol, and cigarettes that are inherently unsafe and known to be unsafe by ordinary consumers, are not to be subject to product liability lawsuits," mean that "all" high cholesterol foods, alcohol, and cigarettes are inherently unsafe and known to be unsafe, or does it just mean "some" high cholesterol foods, alcohol, and cigarettes are inherently unsafe and known to be unsafe? What are the rules that govern the use of "that are?"

All that we can tell from this sentence is that those foods, alcohol, and cigarettes that are both "inherently unsafe" and deemed to be so by us common folk are not subject to product liability lawsuits. It probably is referring to the manufacturers of those products, since no one ever made a dime suing a dangerous vegetable or poorly made martini. A product that is unsafe but that is regarded as safe by the general public doesn't fit under this rubric.

When putting a physician's name and title (for example, Dr. Smith) in print, is it permissible to separate the name from the title when the margin will not permit them to be on the same line? For example -

It is with great pleasure that we announce the winner for the award is Dr.
Smith.

I thought I remembered the "do not separate" rule, but I have exhausted every resource I can find to get an answer to this and have almost concluded that it must have been a nursing instructor of mine's pet peeve not to separate the two. Hope you can help! Thanks, Pauletta

It's a good idea to keep certain kinds of word groups together, not to break them at the end of a line. This would include title and surname, month and day, month and year, number and abbreviation, page and number, number and unit of measure, etc. So keep your "Dr." and "Smith" together. If it's a really long title, you can break between the title and name or even between words in the title, as in "State Assistant / Commissioner."

If you are often confronted with questions like this, you need to get hold of a copy of the Gregg Reference Manual.

Authority: The Gregg Reference Manual by William A. Sabin. 9th Edition. McGraw-Hill: New York. 2001. Used with the consent of Glencoe/McGraw-Hill. p. 230.

Which sentence is correct...#1 or #2?

• 1. Our goal is to make the city a place to stay, not just a place to come to.
• 2. Our goal is to make the city a place to stay, not just a place to come.

The sentence has already fallen apart in the initial clause. Making the city "a place to stay" sounds like you're trying to fix the city in position so it won't move. I think you need to say, "Our goal is to make the city a pleasant place in which to reside [or 'make a home'?], not just a place to visit."

At first the princess worked ________ with the tools.    [clumsily]

This was a 4th grade worksheet item for a friend. The directions were to use comparative endings to make it correct. The options were add er or est to short adverbs, or, if it ended in ly or was longer, put more or most. The answer was "most clumsily", but I disagree. The rationale was that it compares more than one (the first time as compared to the second, third, fourth, etc.) However, it just doesn't "sound" right to me. I would think that it would be "more clumsily" because you're really just comparing then and now. What do you think and is there some rule that I'm not applying correctly? Thanks a million and I love your site. I recommend it to a ton of parents and students!

I think both "more clumsily" and "most clumsily" work here. "More clumsily" would suggest that the princess is more adept at this moment (at whatever moment is being considered) than she was "at first." And "most clumsily" would suggest that "at first" she was really, really clumsy (which apparently [based on how the quiz is graded] was the intent of the writer).

Is almost or most a better use in this sentence?: " The number of staff increased to an all-time high by hiring in most every department."

The use of "most" where "almost" would also work is a widely accepted, standard usage in American English. I gather from my resources that it is regarded as kind of folksy and backwards in England.

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

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.

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