Conjure up this scene in your mind for a moment: You’re attending a public meeting of some sort, and after a long and tedious presentation, someone says, I just don’t understand what, or whom, will be helped by this new policy? I read a sentence like that the other day, and because it was written …
Author Archives: rultimo
Comma Because
A lot can depend on a simple comma, particularly when the word because is involved. Consider this unassuming sentence: Because he had forgotten to take his key, he had to break a window to get back into his house. Should there be a comma here? Let’s sort this out. One sure thing about grammar and …
Design Work
A friend of mine tried his hand recently at writing a short story, a focused and well-constructed four pages about a young man’s preoccupation with beauty and the meaning its unexpected displays might reveal. Here are his opening two sentences: Done properly, stocking shelves can be the work of an artist. In the morning Michael …
Fact or Possibility?
Is this sentence correct? Many countries now require that one have substantial savings in the bank before retiring there. The word one is a singular pronoun, so shouldn’t the verb be has, not have? It should not and here’s why. The sentence illustrates what is called the subjunctive mood, and before that imposing terminology tempts …
In or Into and a Little More
Let’s see what we can say about one of the knottier knots that tie modern English grammar together: when do we combine the words in and to and write into? Which of these, for example, is the better choice: never give into temptation or never give in to temptation? The words in and to can …