My local grocery store recently posted this sign at its front door: Due to unprecedented Coronavirus related supply and delivery disruptions, along with heightened customer demand; we will not be issuing rain checks. This somewhat icy decree continues, in fact, for another 21 words, but the first section here will be enough to illustrate a …
Author Archives: rultimo
Direct Address
A large senior health center in my neighborhood recently hoisted over its main entrance a banner that reads: Thank you team, for fulfilling our mission. Many of us, unfortunately, were first taught to punctuate by following our breath: put a comma where you breathe, we were told earnestly and often. This is excellent advice at …
Because
One of the good, reliable rules of English punctuation is that no comma is required after a main clause when a subordinate clause follows. So, for example, I’m going to go biking this weekend if it doesn’t rain. Clauses are made subordinate when they begin with a subordinating conjunction (when, since, if, after, although, because …
Closely Reading Santayana
I happen to admire the thought and language of George Santayana, an American philosopher of Spanish background who died in 1952. Santayana is probably best known for his novel, The Last Puritan, a best-selling book in 1936 which was eventually nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. The protagonist of the story is Oliver Alden, and in …
For a While or For Awhile?
Here is a simple sentence with a deceptively simple mistake: I spoke to her yesterday for awhile. The problem is common enough that it often passes unnoticed, but something is stirring in the concluding prepositional phrase. There is the old adage that writing is rewriting. Let’s apply the adage. A phrase, we remember, is a …