Quickie Post: Collective Nouns and Verb Agreement

Collective nouns name an entire group. You use them to write about the whole and to say things that apply to each of the members individually. When you apply a collective noun to a group, you treat it as singular even though it refers to any number of people.

“The Navajo people has a rich and complicated history.” Here, “people” refers to the entire tribe described by the adjective “Navajo”. Thus it operates as a collective noun.

“An army marches on its (collective) stomach.” Each soldier has one and each must be fed or the group as a whole will not act (or hold together, for that matter). If the object is not common to every member of the group then you would have to specify which members your were writing about. You end up with a specific, if undefined, number of people.

Be aware of the difference between collective nouns like army or team or media and specific groups like the Green Berets, the Chicago Bears, and reporters. Keep your collective nouns singular and your favorite sports team can take care of themselves.

Choosing Your Pronouns: An Introductory Rant

Over the past twenty-five years, or so, I have noticed an increase in the substitution of incorrect pronouns. Simple mistakes I can understand, but this burgeoning habit comes from a more insidious source.

In attempts to sound more formal and intelligent, flaky celebrities have been uttering (as haughtily as possible) sentences such as, “Bobby D came to the club with she and I, but we only drank Red Bull.” Disregarding the level of Bull in that sentence, it’s simply, grammatically, wrong.

It’s bad enough to hear people on television and in movies starting sentences with, “Me and Julie are…”. How much worse to hear people deliberately use “I” as an object because they want people to take them seriously? And for the worst thing of all, people emulate how famous people talk.

Celebrities behave badly and speak poorly; they have for a hundred years. There exist only so many avenues for a poor grammar aficionado to address their lax grammatical and “vocabularial” standards. I hereby take a stand against the pronoun abuse that becomes more and more prevalent.

I will post my pronoun manifesto in sections over the coming two weeks. If you cannot wait for more information, click “pronouns” in the tag cloud to the left and join the movement. Vive la resistance!

A Vocabulary Breadcrumb Trail

Today I share yet another trail of language-related sites that I recently followed. You never know where you'll end up, when you start on the Web. I've removed the back-tracking for brevity's sake.

For those of you who enjoy sharing your love of words with others, head over to My Favorite Word and read just that. People submit their favorite words and a reason why they love them.

Evan Morris and Kathy Wollard cull the entries and post them by letter in batches of a dozen. Recent entries include multifarious, smitten, and absquatulate. How can you resist the call of the wild vocabulary?

In their link list, you find World Wide Words from Michael Quinion. You can move from single words to turns of phrase and a pronunciation guide. Mr. Quinion also offers to answer your questions, should you not find them already addressed in the extensive index.

Should you wish to further expand your knowledge, follow the link from World Wide Words to the proudly proscriptivist Vocabula Review. This is a monthly e-zine covering a wide range of writing and language topics.

You can enter their writing contest (for $20 and by May 30th, annually), explore the Department of Elegant English, and read about improving your writing. Indulge your inner curmudgeon and expand your knowledge at the same time.

As a final step in today's breadcrumb trail, head from The Vocabula Review language links page to a fun list called, “Complex statements for the simple-minded...” Snicker over such gems as “A Plateau is the highest form of flattery.” You may find a few of the examples jejune or trite, but the list serves as a good reminder that being cute can bite you in the butt, when you're writing.

Back to Basics: Conjunctions

Three types of conjunctions link words, phrases, and clauses into coherent sentences. You don't need to know the “technical” terms, but understanding how they work will help you use them more effectively. You can also eliminate run-on sentences where you've used them for evil rather than good.

Co-ordinating Conjunctions

The FANBOYS coordinate words and sentence parts to explain to your readers how they interact or relate to each other. I know I've written it several times, but for those who don't know “who” the FANBOYS are, I'll specify: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so. “Bob and I went to the movie theater but nothing appealed to us.” Here “and” links Bob and me together while “but” tells you how the independent clause that follows relates to the first half of the sentence.

Subordinating Conjunctions

While you can coordinate just about anything, you can only subordinate dependent clauses. It comes to me that I should write a post about the difference between clauses and phrases. In short, when you have a few words that include a related noun and verb but don't constitute a full sentence, you have a dependent clause.

You'll need an independent clause to create a full sentence, and a subordinating conjunction to tell your audience how the to two relate. Such words as if, after, because, when, and while show readers how the dependent clause fits into the action of a sentence. “Until you find your shoes, Shelly will loan you her slippers.” “Until” explains for how long Shelly is willing to loan you those slippers.

Correlative Conjunctions

Should you find a pair of conjunctions in your sentence, you are likely to have used correlative conjunctions. They only appear in twos because their job is to coordinate two equivalent items. When you write, “I bought not only the complete series but the soundtrack as well,” you are using “not only” and “but...as well” to explain to your readers how these elements relate to each other. Would you like more examples? “Either you understand correlative conjuctions or you don't.” “I danced to both the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Squirrel Nut Zippers.”

“Whether I post this or delete it, I better understand conjunctions.” In this example, “whether” acts as both a correlative and a subordinating conjunction. As I wrote, the technical terms do not matter. Knowing that the first part of the sentence is dependent, needs a conjunction to link it, and requires a second element to be complete matters more than being able to call those pieces by their names.

Happy New Year, All!

I had intended to do an exciting...something for my 200th post today, but instead I worked on my complete template overhaul. So instead, allow me to post my best wishes for the new year and a promise that big changes are afoot, here at One Step Forward.

By the way, if you're a Blogger template expert and are willing to lend a hand, I'll gladly accept and will give you credit on the new deisgn. Drop me an e-mail through the link on the left. Thanks!