ISSUE #9

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011

Clarity in Words
David Brewster - Freelance Writing & Editing

Two rules you need to unlearn period.

How much have you retained of the grammar you learnt at school? Im guessing not a lot at least not in a formal sense. Dominant clauses, past participles and future perfect tense? If you can define all those you probably dont need to read on. Strangely, although most of us left a lot of grammar behind when we walked out of our final English exam, there are other English lessons which have stuck fast despite their being wrong or now out-of-date. I see quite a few of these at play when I edit other peoples work copyediting articles, proofreading books and so on. Ill cover a few of them on-and-off over coming newsletters, but to get started, lets have a look at the full stop (aka period). There arent many things that can go wrong with the use of the full stop but there is one persistent mistake and one common myth. First the mistake: the use of two spaces after a period. Back in the day, when we used typewriters, it was standard practice to use two spaces after a full stop. This was because typewriters used monospaced fonts in which each letter took up the same amount of space on the page regardless of its width so an i was effectively as wide as a w. Double spaces at the end of a sentence served to emphasise the full stop and improve readability. In the computer age, this extra space has become redundant. We now use proportional fonts an i is narrow while a w is wide so a double space at the end of a sentence is no longer needed for readability. In fact it creates too much space and looks disproportionate on the page or screen. The bottom line: if double spacing the end of a sentence is your routine, its time to break the habit. And now the common myth: that you should never use a conjunction, particularly an and or but, at the start of a sentence. This seems to be a rule that a generation or two of English teachers thought wise to expound, but which has no basis. In fact, most of the grammar books I have consulted on this go out of their way to debunk this myth. And they, like the Bible, use conjunctions at the start of sentences quite often. The consensus on this is that using and or but to start a sentence is perfectly valid in most cases and it can be useful for rhythm or to emphasise a point. Just dont over-do it. It is regarded as slightly informal, though these days formal writing, in this sense, is about as common as a black bow tie. So theres your challenge for the next month or so. Catch yourself in the act of double spacing after a full stop, give yourself a gentle smack and delete one of the offending spaces. And let your hair down by giving yourself permission to start a sentence with but.

A QUESTION FOR YOU

Looking ahead to 2012 (yes, it is closer than you think), I am planning to increase the amount of education work that I do. I thoroughly enjoy the opportunity to help people revisit their grammar and punctuation, and their writing skills more broadly. The question is, what is the most effective way to do this? Id like your input, please. What are some of the things you and your colleagues could benefit from learning on the writing/grammar front? At one end, it could be something like choosing the appropriate tone for a given situation the email vs. the letter, for instance and how to write in that tone. At the other end it could be stuff like the topic of this newsletter: basic grammar and punctuation usage which has been lost or confused along the way. Also, what would work best? Faceto-face workshops, emails, webinars ... something else? In short: what would you like to learn and how? Drop me an email at david@clarityinwords.com or add a comment on Facebook: clarityinwords.com/facebook. It would be great to hear from you.

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