Is the word themself a word? In fact, not in current standard English, though given how pronouns work and don’t work at times in the language, one can understand why writers may be tempted to call it into service. A student recently found himself using this new word, and his inadvertency gives us the opportunity …
Author Archives: rultimo
The Three Concerns
What is the difference, do you think, between these two sentences: I am going to study for an exam tonight and I am going to be studying for an exam tonight. The two statements mean roughly the same thing, but close reading and careful thinking rarely settle with rough answers. The two sentences are not …
Comma Yes? Comma No?
No topic in the craft of English composition raises more questions than the comma. The difficulty lies in the fact that there are so many reasons we may need, or not need, to place a comma somewhere in a sentence: sometimes the comma will help us be clear about what we’re saying, and sometimes it …
Participles, Weeds, and Light
Is there a grammatical mistake in this sentence: Too much partying, his parents believed, was the cause of Sam’s poor performance at school, leading to him putting his academic record at risk. In fact, there is only one outright grammatical complaint to be made, though that might not be enough to trim the sentence nicely. …
Hoping for a Future Past
The simplest of questions sometimes are the trickiest to answer. A friend asked me this past week to explain why we use the past participle to refer to a future circumstance, as we do, for example, in the sentence I hope you get accepted. The question gives us the chance to review what’s involved in …