A Sense of Style Flashcards

Question

the effect of “john is honest” vs “john is very honest”

Answer 1

Don’t turn descriptors from categorical to gradual out of habit

Answer 2

In classic prose, the writer must work to keep up the impression that his prose is a window onto the scene rather than a mess of words.

Answer 3

It doesn’t create novel images in the reader’s mind to interact with but lets the reader fall back on recitation which results in limpid prose.

Answer 4

Make sure what you say makes visual sense

Answer 5

In classic prose the writer is directing the gaze of the reader to something in the world they can see for themselves. And good writers reach for fresh similes and metaphors that keep the reader’s cortexes lit up

Answer 6

They cannot be seen by the naked eye. metaconcepts: concepts about concepts. aspirational level, prejudice reduction model,

Answer 7

turning a word into a noun. adding suffix —ance, —ment, —ation, —ing instead of affirming an idea, you affect its affirmation. Zombie nouns, they have no subjects, used in passive construction. Often pronouns i you me are helpful. One never loses track of oneself. Facilitates the conversational style that classic style reccomneds.

Answer 8

allows the writer to direct the reader’s gaze.clears minor characters from readers attention. Readers attention often starts out on the entity named by the subject of the sentence. passive and active lets the writer shift which is in the reader’s mental spotlight.Avoid it without a specific purpose. Reader is forced to imagine an effect without a cause.

Answer 9

metadiscourse, signposting, hedging, apologizing, professional narcissism, cliches, mixed metaphors, metaconcepts,zombie nouns and unnecessary passive

Answer 10

The main cause of incomprehensible prose is the difficulty of imagining what it’s like for someone else not to know something that you know The better you know something, the less your remember how hard it was to learn.

Answer 11

Never attribute with malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Answer 12

s little better than no explanation at all. sometimes a second is useful allowing the reader to triangulate meaning.

Answer 13

not its use, but what it is. when we learn something, we think more about the use we put it to, and less in terms of what it looks like and what it is made of.

Answer 14

Show a draft of your writing to people who are similar to your intended audience and find out whether or not they can follow your writing.

Answer 15

Only after formulating a thought, often poorly, can a writer then free up the cognitive resources needed to make the sentence grammatical, graceful, and , most important, important and transparent to the reader.

Answer 16

The code that translates a web of conceptual relations in our heads into an early to late order in our mouths. the rules of syntax, along with the rules of formation, make up english grammar.

Answer 17

A code for information, and a sequence of mental events.

Answer 18

Verbs:marry, write, jump, think Nouns (and pronouns): man play, she he Prepositions: In, around, underneath, before, until Adjectives: Big, red, wonderful, interesting Adverbs: slowly, frankly, impressively Articles and other determinators: The, a, some, this, that, many, one, two, three Coordinators: and, or, nor, but, yet, so Subordinators: that, whether, if, to Each word is slotted into its place according to its category,because the syntax specify to the order of categories. head: core of the sentence object: the noun phrase following the verb. All verbs have subjects, determiner: which one, how many Determiner and modifiers are not interchangeable Noun: ability to appear after a determiner, the requirement to have an oblique rather than direct object, the ability to be marked for plural number and genitive case.

Answer 19

give language its power to communicate the links between ideas. but this comes at a cost, which is the extra load it imposes on memory. It takes cognitive effort to build and maintain all those invisible branches and its easy for reader and writer alike to fall back into one thing after another.

Answer 20

The easiest way to repair an unbalanced coordination is to zero in on the second coordinate and then force the first coordinate to match it by sliding its quantifier into a more suitable spot.

Answer 21

Strip a sentence down, find the gap and reconstruct the deep structure.

Answer 22

adornment of a noun phrase with a marker that advertises its typical grammatical function, such as nominative case for subjects, genitive case for determiners, and accusative case for objects, objects of prepositions, and everything else Nominative pronoun: he she we they and who used for subjects Accusative pro: him her us them and whom used for objects

Answer 23

he is imposing not one but two demands on the readeR: understanding the word, and fitting it into a tree.

Answer 24

have, bring, put and take—often do nothing but create a slot for a zombie noun.

Answer 25

good writers often use long sentences, but they do it by arranging the words so that a reader can absorb them a phrase at a time, each phrase conveying a chunk of conceptual structure. Even when sentence structure gets complicated, a reader can handle it, because the geometry is mostly right branching. In a right branching tree, the most complicated phrase inside a bigger phrase comes at the end of it, that is, hanging from the right most branch This mean that when the reader has to handle the complicated phrase, her work in analyzing the other phrases is done and she can concentrate her mental energies on that on

Answer 26

a modifier phrase can be moved to the beginning—in Sophocles’ play, Oedipus married his mother. Front loaded modifiers can be useful in qualifying a sentence, in tying it to information mentioned earlier, or simply in avoiding the monotony of one right branching sentence after another. As long as the modifier is short, it poses no difficulty for the reader. dangerous if the modifier becomes complicated, with one branch packed inside another.

Answer 27

is that the order in which thoughts occur to the writer is different from the order in which they are easily recovered by a reader.

Answer 28

a syntactic tree lingers in memory for a few seconds after the words are gone, and during that time it is available for the reader to use in parsing the next phrase.

Answer 29

reading a sentence aloud can pinpoint confusing syntax

Answer 30

Say the sentence out loud. Punctuate a sentence properly. Keep words that add syntactic structure: that, which, who subordinators and relative pronouns. The— a clear marker of a noun phrase. Avoid placing words next to one another that mimics another meaning: the man who hunts ducks out on weekend. if this is unavoidable, set up a context in which the reader can easily parse the right interpretation of the word. Structural Parallelism: a syntactic tree lingers in memory for a few seconds after the words are gone, and during that time it is available for the reader to use in parsing the next phrase.

Answer 31

Readers like to absorb words into the phrase they are working on for as long as they can, rather than closing off the phrase and figuring out somewhere else to place the incoming words. Since readers tend to link a phrase to the words that came just before it, they will misunderstand a sentence when the writer had a more remote association in mind. the man who hunts ducks out

Answer 32

Writers need to look in both directions, and shunt phrases around to keep them from dangerous liaisons with an inappropriate next door neighbour.

Answer 33

force him to put the subject before the verb and the verb before the object.

Answer 34

either by a prepositional phrase on the right or by a naked noun on the left: data on manufacturing, manufacturing data strikes by teachers vs teacher’s strikes.

Answer 35

its cognitively taxing to work on a big heavy phrase while holding in memory an incomplete bigger phrase it’s part of. A big heavy phrase is easier to handle if it comes at the end, when your work assembling the overarching phrase is done and nothing else is on your mind. light before heavy

Answer 36

more precise version of “put emphatic words of a sentence at the end” . People learn by integrating new information into their existing web of knowledge, They don’t like it when a fact is hurled at them from out of the blue and they have to keep it levitating in short term memory until they find a relevant background to embed it in a few moments later. Topic then comment and given then new orderings are major contributors to coherence.

Answer 37

Passive Voice: agent of the event can go unmentioned. it allows the doer in the sententence to be mentioned later than the done to. Helps implement two principles of composition when they would otherwise be stymied by english syntactic structure. Passive allows a writer to postpone the mention of a doer that is heavy, old news, or both. Can unburden memory by shortening interval between filler and gap. avoid active when a heavy phrase with new information is forced into the beginning of a sentence just because it happens to be the agent of the action and that’s the only place an active sentence will let it appear.

Answer 38

``` Basic Order: Oedipus met Laius on the road to Thebes Preposing: On the road to Thebes, Oedipus met Laius ``` Basic Order: The servant left the baby whom Laius had condemned to die on the mountaintop Postposing: The servant left on the mountaintop the baby whom Laius had condemned to die. Double Object Dative: Jocasta handed her servant the infant Prepositional Dative: Jocasta handed the infant to her servant Basic Construction: A curse was on the kingdom Existential: There was a curse on the kingdom Clause as Subject: That Oedipus would learn the truth was inevitable Extraposed Clause: It was inevitable that Oedipus would learn the truth ``` Basic Construction: Oedipus killed Laius Cleft: It was Oedipus who killed Laius It was Lauis whom Oedipus killed ``` Basic Construction: Oedipus killed Laius Pseudo Cleft: What Oedipus did was kill Laius

Answer 39

Some verbs have a counterpart which narrates the same scenario but fills its grammatical slots (subject, object, oblique object) with different role players (the mover, the thing moved, the source, the recipient)/ The menu of verbs can give the write several options on where to place a given new, light, or heavy phrase. jocasta gave the infant to her servant-- The servant received the infant from Jocasta She robbed her uncle of a cigar-- She stole a cigar from her uncle Morris sold a watch to Zak-- ZAK bough a watch from Morris I substituted margarine for the lard— I replaced the lard with margarine The vandals fled the police-- The police chased the vandals The goalie sustained an injury from the onrushing forward-- The onrushing forward inflicted an injury on the goalie

Answer 40

A writer’s job is to encode a web of ideas into a string of words using a tree of phrases.

Answer 41

How to Ensure that readers will hasp the topic, get to the point, keep track of the players and see how one ideas follows from another.

Answer 42

we don’t know why one clause follows another. not a syntactical problem. Whenever one sentence comes after another, readers need to see a connection between them. Hunger for coherence that drives the entire process of understanding language. Building an orderly tree and placing given before new information apply to paragraphs and books as well as sentences.

Answer 43

by chunking different aspect of an idea, allowing a reader to keep a smaller amount of information in his mind as he reads through—juggling less chunks a visual bookmark that allows the reader to pause, take a breather, assimilate what he has read, and then find his place again on the page. Carve a notch above a sentence that does not elaborate or follow from the one that came before.

Answer 44

a scheme for stringing the units into a natural order that allows readers to anticipate what they will encounter next.

Answer 45

nor is a paragraph, section, chapter or book. All of them contain links to other chunks of text. The challenge to the write is to use lexical and syntactic resources so that a reader can graft the information in a series of sentences into his web of knowledge without getting tangled up in either.

Answer 46

With the writer and reader being clear about the topic. This corresponds to the small territory within the vast web of knowledge into which the incoming sentences should be merged. A reader must know the topic of a text in order to understand it.

Answer 47

A reader also needs to know the point of the text. he needs to know what the author is trying to accomplish as she explores the topic. Behaviour is often only understandable once you know the actor’s goals. Writers often resist telegraphing their point at the outset. they shouldn’t

Answer 48

in view of the reader, as actors or object, think about forming a sentence and how an object will effect the arc of coherence for the reader. It is always easier for a reader to follow a narrative if he can keep his eyes on a pro who is moving the plot forward, rather than on a succession of passively affected entities or zombified actions.

Answer 49

Use temporal modifiers and passive voice to alter the sentences and keep the subject of the topic string in view for the reader.

Answer 50

Entities being introduced for the first time: indefinite article—a, some, or appear without article at all—plural unknowns known entities—the this that these those, or a genitive noun

Answer 51

Pronouns such as he, she they and it, do more than save keystrokes, they tell the reader this entity is known.

Answer 52

naming the same thing with different names. confusing to the reader. ``` Wording should not be varied capriciously, because in general people assume that if someone uses two different words they’re referring to two different things. And wording should never be varied when a writer is comparing or contrasting two things. But writing should be varied when an entity is referred to multiple times in quick succession and repeating the name would sound monotonous or misleadingly suggest that a new actor has entered the scene. When wording is varied, only certain variations will be easy for the reader to track. the second label is acting as pseudo pronoun, so it should mimic pronouns in two ways. it should be more generic than the original noun, applying to a larger class of entities. Also, the second label should easily call to mind the first one, so the readers don’t have to rack their brains thinking about what the writer is referring to. ```

Answer 53

Zombie (anticipation, cancelation) nouns exist in the english language because they serve the same role as the pronouns, definite articles and generic synonyms we have just examined: They allow a writer to refer to something a second time (in this case a situation or event) without tedium or confusing repetition. The problem with zombie nouns is that knowledge cursed writers use them on first mention because they have already been thinking about the event, so they find it easily summarized by a noun. They forget their readers are encountering the event for the first time and need to see it enacted with their own eyes.

Answer 54

Consistent thread of sentence topics Orderly way of referring to repeated appearances, The logical relationship between one proposition and another. Examples, explanations, violated expectations, elaborations, sequences, causes, and effects are arcs of coherence that pinpoint how one statement follows from another. Not so much components of language as components of reason, identifying how one idea can lead to another in our train of thought.

Answer 55

Resemblance, contiguity in time or place, cause or effect

Answer 56

a statement makes a claim that overlaps in content with the one that came before it. The most obvious are similarity and contrast. typical connectives similarity: and, similarly, likewise, too contrast: But, in contrast, on the other hand, alternatively similarity and contrast link two propositions that are similar in most way but differ in at least one way. They call the reader’s attention to the similarities or difference. These relations may be conveyed without using a a connective word: all the writer has to do is write the statements using parallel syntax and vary only the words that indicate the difference. Many writers blow the opportunity and capriciously vary the wording as they compare two things. Rule of one variable: parallel syntax is just the rule of one variable applied to writing. If you want readers to appreciate some variable, manipulate the expression of that variable alone while keeping the rest of the language unchanged.

Answer 57

A single event is described in first a generic way and then in specific detail. There are four relations that fall into two neat pairs, depending on which event the author wishes to mention first. Elaboration: (typical connectives: that is, in other words, which is to say, also, furthermore, in addition, notice that, which, : colon) Exemplification—a generalization followed by one or more examples (typical connectives— for example, for instance, such as, including) Generalization—one or more examples, followed by generalization (typical connectives: in general, more generally) Exception—can be introduced either generalization first or exception first. Generalization first—(however, on the other hand, then there is) Exception first—(Nonetheless, nevertheless, still)

Answer 58

a before and after sequence, with some connection between the two events. typical connectives Sequence: and, before, then before and after Sequence: after, once, while, when after and before can also choose whether to prepose a temporal modifier or leave it in its place: after the cold weather arrives, the herons head south vs the herons head south after the cold weather arrives. English speakers tend to be more concrete and naturally assume that the order in which events are mentioned is the order in which they took place. It’s good for a writer to work with this bias and describe events in chronological order: she showered before she ate is easier to understand than she ate after she showered.Or after she showered, she ate is easier than before she ate, she showered. However, sometimes this is useful: if the spotlight of attention has been lingering on a later event, and now the writer must introduce an earlier one, the imperative to mention given before new trumps the imperative to mention early before late. i.e. if you had been staring at the wet footprints leading to the breakfast table and were seeking an explanation, it would be more helpful to hear before Rita ate, she showered than After Rita showered, she ate.

Answer 59

Cause and Effect A writer can state the cause first or the effect first, and the causal force can either make something happen or prevent it from happening Coherence relation typical connectives result and, as a result, therefore, so (cause—effect) Explanation because, since, owing to (effect-cause) Coherence Relation Typical Connectives Violated expectation but, while, however, nonetheless (preventer-effect) Failed prevention despite, even, though (effect—preventer)

Answer 60

so and so believes such and such. Attribution is typically indicated by connectives like according to and stated that. Important to make clear to the reader you are attributing vs arguing for or against the position you are explaining.

Answer 61

A coherent text is one in which the reader always knows which coherence relation holds between one sentence and the next. Coherence expands beyond individual sentences and also applies to entire branches in the discourse tree. Several propositions may be interconnected by a set of coherence relations, and the resulting chunk is in turn connected to others.

Answer 62

Connectives obvious way to do this is to use the appropriate connectives. writers can leave out the connectives when the connection is obvious to the reader: herons live in the northern united states;similarly, herons live in most of Canada. Too few connectives, however, can leave the reader puzzled as to how one statement follows the last.

Answer 63

depends on the expertise of the reader. Figuring out the right level of explicitness for coherence relations is a major reason that a writer needs to think hard about the state of knowledge her readers and show a few of them a draft to see if she got it right. Its always guesswork, but there is a guideline: humans are cursed with attributing too much of their own knowledge in others, which means that overall there is a greater danger of prose being confusing because it has too few connectives than pedantic because it has too many, when it doubt, connect. If you do indicate a connection, though, do it just once.

Answer 64

Coherence Connectives. they are the cement of reasoning and one of the most difficult yet most important tools of writing to master.

Answer 65

More than mechanical decisions such as keeping the topic in a sentence position and choosing appropriate connectives, coherence depends on impressions that build up in a reader over the course of reading many paragraphs and that depend on the author’s grasp of the text as a whole. Three contributors to coherence: clear and plausible negation, a sense of proportion, and thematic consistency.

Answer 66

psychologically, a negative statement (4 is not odd) is fundamentally different from an affirmative statement (4 is even) To hear or read a statement is to believe it, at least for the moment. For us to conclude that something is not the case, we must take the extra cognitive step of pinning the mental tag false on a preposition. Any statement that is unfledged is treated as if it is true. As a result, when we have a lot on our minds, we can get confused about where the false tag belong or forget about it entirely. In that what is merely mentioned can become true. The cognitive difference between believing a proposition is true (which requires no work beyond understanding it) and believing that it is false (which requires adding and remembering a mental tag) has enormous implications for the writer. The most obvious is that a negative statement such as "the king is not dead” is harder on the reader than an affirmative one like “the king is alive”. Every negation requires mental homework, and when a sentence contains many of them, the reader can be overwhelmed. Even worse a sentence can have more negations than you think it does. Many have the concept of negation tucked inside them: few, little, least, seldom, though, rarely, instead, doubt, deny, refute, avoid and ignore. The use of multiple negations in a sentence is arduous and bewildering. Writers often fail to keep track of negations when too many of them are in a sentence.

Answer 67

A negation is easy to understand when the proposition being negated is plausible or tempting. a whale is not a fish vs a herring is not a mammal barack obama is not a muslim vs hilary clinton is not a muslim. Statements that deny a plausible belief are easier to understand than statements that deny an implausible belief. Negative sentences are easy when the reader already has an affirmative in mind or can create on on short notice, all he has to do is pin a false tag to it. But concocting a statement that you have trouble believing in the first place and then negating it, requires two bouts of cognitive heavy lifting. When an author has to negate something that a reader doesn’t already believe, she has to set it up as a plausible belief on his mental stage before she knocks it down. Or, when a writer wants to negate an unfamiliar proposition, she should unveil the negation in two stages: 1. you might think 2. but no You also need to make the negation unambiguous, which requires nailing down two things: its scope and its focus. the scope of a logical operator such as not, all or some consists of the exact proposition it pertains to.

Answer 68

Whenever a sentence has a logical operator and it remains stuck to the auxiliary verb, readers may be left in the dark about the scope of the negation and hence about what the sentence means. Putting the operator next to the phrase it defines eliminates the scope ambiguity Here’s the rule— Never write a sentence of the form “x not y because z” as Dave is not evil because he did what he was told. It should be either Dave is not evil, because he did what he was told, where the comma keeps the because outside the scope of not, or Dave is evil not because he did what he was told (but for some other reason) where the because occurs next to the not, indicating that it is within its scope.

Answer 69

When a negative element has wide scope (that is, it applies to the whole clause), it is not literally ambiguous, but it can be maddeningly vague. The vagueness lies in the focus of the negation—which phrase the writer had in mind as falsifying the whole sentence. I didn’t see the man in the gray flannel suit: It could mean I didn’t see him; amy did etc etc I didn’t see him, you just thought i did I didn’t see him, I was looking away I didn’t see him, I saw a different man I didn’t see a man in a gray suit, It was a woman I didnt see a man in a gray flannel suit, it was brown I didn’t see a man in a gray flannel suit, it was polyester I didn’t see a man in a gray flannel suit, he was wearing a kilt More often, the context makes clear which affirmative statement was plausible in the first place, and hence which one the writer is going through the trouble of denying. But if the subject matter is unfamiliar and has many parts, and if the writer doesn’t set the reader up by focusing on one of those parts as a fact worth taking seriously, the reader may not know what he should no longer be thinking.

Answer 70

An important principle in composition is that the amount of verbiage one devotes to a point should not be too far out of line with how central it is to the argument. If a writer believes that 90 per cent of the evidence and argument supports a position, then something like 90 percent of the discussion should be devoted to the reason for believing it. If a reader is spending only 10 percent of his time on why its a good idea, and fully 90 percent on why he might reasonably think its a bad idea—while the writer insists its a good idea, the the reader’s mounting impressions will be at cross purposes with the author’s intent. Of course writers have to deal with counter arguments and counter evidence. But if there are enough of them to merit an extended discussion, they deserve a section of their own whose stated point is to examine the contrary position. A fair minded examination of counter evidence can then occupy as much space as it needs , because its bulk will reflect its importance within that section. This divid and conquer strategy is better than repeatedly allowing counter examples to intrude into the main of an argument while browbeating readers into believing a certain way.

Answer 71

Writer, after laying out her topic, will introduce a large number of concepts which explain, enrich, or comment on that topic. These concepts will centre on a number of themes which make repeated appearances in the discussion. To keep the text coherent the writer must allow the reader to keep track of these by referring to each in a consistent way or by explaining their connection. The writer should refer to each theme in a consistent way, one that allows the readers to know which is which. Clear writing requires the writer making each themed thread explicit to the reader. A theme coheres not just because it is localized in a string of consecutive paragraphs, but because it refers to the theme using as et of transparently related terms: Criminals, criminal warfare, crime, fun, profit, gangs, mafias, thus, mercenaries, violence, desertion, run vs Ordinary men, training honour, glory, reputation, shame, loyalty, code, and believe in a cause. We don’t have to puzzle over what the words in each cluster have to do with each other, the threads that connect them are obvious.

Answer 72

a ordered tree of sections within sections, crisscrossed by arcs that track topics, points, actors and themes and held together by connectors that tie one proposition to the next. lIKE other designed objects, it comes about not by accident but by drafting a blueprint, attending to details, and maintaining a sense of harmony and balance.

Answer 73

Thematic coherence is often a byproduct of classic style, particularly the imperative to show rather than tell. vivid examples can be extrapolated and made clear more than arguing over amorphous terms. You can help stake out the cognitive territory for the claim by showing it in action.

Answer 74

Folklore. Don't be terrified to use it.

Answer 75

they don’t just modify nouns, but can appear to complements to verbs, as in this seems excellent, we found it boring, and I feel tired. Can also show up as an adjunct to a verb phrase or clause, as in she died your and they showed up drunk.

Answer 76

adjective, verb

Answer 77

Modifier, Complement

Answer 78

nothing wrong with beginning a sentence with a coordinator.—And because, but, or so also. Coordinators are among the commonest coherence markers, and they may be used to begin a sentence whenever the clauses being connected are too long or complicated to fit into one long mega- sentence. Most commonly because ends up at the beginning of the sentence because it introduces an explanation that has been preposed in front of the main clause. It can also kick off a single clause when the clause serves as the answer to a why-question. The question can be explicit, as in why can’t i have a pony? because i said so. It can also be implicit in a series of related assertions that call for a single explanation. Between you and I: Coordination phrases don’t follow the logic of ordinary headed phrases. Avoid between you and I, because it makes many readers bristle, but it is not a heinous error

Answer 79

may has a slight edge in permissibility, when may is preferable, but the two words can be used more or less interchangeably.

Answer 80

Rule decrees that the implied subject of the modifier (one doing the checking, turning etc) must be identical to the overt subject of the main clause (it, the view,). Copy editors would change checking into the hotel, it was nice to see a few of my old classmates in the lobby. to Checking into the hotel, I was pleased to see a few of my old classmates in the lobby. some dangling modifiers should be avoided, but they are not grammatical errors. The problem with dangling modifiers is that their subjects are inherently ambiguous and sometimes a sentence will attract a reader to the wrong choice. ensure that any modifiers you include are not ambiguous, and in formal writing, perhaps keep an eye open for them and correct the obtrusive ones

Answer 81

most verbs that take subjectless complements- try in alice tried to calm down are governed by an ironclad rule that the forces the overt subject to be identical to the missing subject. That is, we have to interpret alice tried to calm down as : alice tried to get alice to calm down, not everyone else or someone else to calm down. No such rule for modifiers.

Answer 82

Long and uncomplicated subjects are best left unmarked, whereas simpler ones like pronouns work well in the genitive—“i appreciate your coming over to help:

Answer 83

If-then: Formula for writing clear conditionals, becomes clear when you recognize two distinctions. First is that english has two kinds of conditional distinctions: If you leave now, you will get on there on time (an open conditional)—open possibility. With these conditionals you can use pretty much any tense in the if an then clauses, depending only on when the relevant events take place or are discovered. Open conditionals in the present tense and remote conditionals in the past tense. If you left now, you would get there on time (a remote conditional).—Counterfactual, highly improbable, one that the writer thinks is unlikely to be true but whose implications are worth exploring, Remote conditionals are the finicky ones, though their demands are not as arbitrary as they first seem. The formula is that the if-clasuse must have a past tense verb, and the then clause must contain would or a similar auxiliary such as could, should or might. if only she would have listened to me, this would never have happened to If only she had listened to me, this would never have happened. The job of the conditional would is to explain what ought to happen in the make believe world; it does not set up that world, a task that is reserved for the if clause and its past tense verb. This is true for counterfactuals in general, nit just for ones that are found in if-then constructions: I wish you would have told me about this sooner. I wish you had told me about this sooner. Rationale behind the formula: past tense not a past time, past tense us typically used to refer to past time, but it can also be used with a second meaning, factual remoteness. That’s the meaning it expresses in the if-clause. the other half of the conditional, the then clause follow the past tense, factual remoteness meaning. if you leave now you can get there on time. If you left now, you could get there on time If you leave now, you will get there on time If you leave now, you would get there on time. In a remote conditional: The if clause contains a verb which sets up a hypothetical world, the then clause explores what will happen in that world, using a modal auxiliary. Both clauses use the past tense to express the meaning of factual remoteness.

Answer 84

past tense of a past tense form is called the pluperfect, is formed with the auxiliary had. When the event occurs in the past and is a remote conditional, the clause needs to be in the pluperfect: If you had left, earlier, you would have been on time. vs If you left earlier, you would be on time.

Answer 85

writers are free to use like or such as, mindful only that as is a bit more formal. Same with using like or such as when introducing examples.

Answer 86

Nothing wrong ending a sentence with a preposition. However sometimes it is better to pied pipe a preposition to the beginning of a sentence, then strand it at the end. Has some formal benefits, or when among many small grammatical words, where it is easier to get the preposition settled before we deal with the peppering of structure. 4. Select the construction that allows you to end a sentence with a phrase that is heavy or informative or both. The problem with stranding a preposition is that it can end the sentence with a word that is to lightweight to serve as its focal point, make the sentence deflate at the end. A preposition should be stranded at the end of sentence when it contributes a crucial bit of information as in—music to read by, something to guard against, thats what this tool is for. Or when it pins down the meaning of an idiom, as in, it’s nothing to sneeze at. She’s a woman who can be counted on.

Answer 87

the accusative case is the default in english, and it can be used anywhere except in the subject of ill tensed verb, those we have hit me, give me a hand, who, me? what, me get a tattoo?. It is he, vs it is him is strictly one of formal vs informal style.

Answer 88

common error in student writing is to shift the tense from a main clause to a subordinate one even when they refer to the same period. She started panicking and got stressed out because she doesn’t have enough money vs She started panicking and got stressed out because she didn’t have enough money A reader can get vertigo when a writer flip flops within a sentence between persons, voices, or types of discourse (direct quotation vs indirect report set off with that”. Sticking to the right vantage point is the first step in getting the tenses to come out right, but there is more to it than that. A writer also has to harmonize the tenses according to a scheme called sequence tenses, tense agreement, or backshift.

Answer 89

First, past tense is not the same as past time. used for past time, remote possibilities, a back shifted event in a sequence of tenses. I mentioned i was thirsty I mentioned i am thirsty ``` Second principle: back shifting is not mandatory, which means that violating sequence of tense rules and keeping the reported content in the present tense is not always an error. Breakthrough sequence in which the embedded verb breaks out of the story line of its clause and is located in the real time of the writer and reader. This sequence feels more natural when the state being spoken about is not just true at the time that the speaker was speaking but true for all time, or at least undoubtedly true at the time that the writer is writing and reader is reading. Would be odd to say—the teach told the class that water froze at 32 degrees farenheit. ``` Third principle is that indirect discourse is not always introduced with an expression like he said that or she thought that. Sometimes it is implicit in the context. Free indirect style—narration of the author incorporates the interior monologue of a protagonist-- Renee was getting more and more anxious. what could have happened to him? did he leap from a building? A writer can do the opposite, too, and interrupt this narration of an indirect discourse with an aside directed at the reader, which breaks out of the back shifted tense and into the present: Mayor mention said the turnpike authority, which is responsible for the maintenance of the tunnel, had set up a committee to investigate the accident. Final key to using sequences of tenses is that the past tense forms of can, will, and may are would, could, and might, and these are the forms to use in back shifting: amy can play the bassoon vs amy said that she could play the bassoon Paul will leave on tuesday vs Paul said that he would leave on tuesday The pluperfect uses the auxiliary had, so when the back shifted verb refers to a past time, had is summoned into action: he wrote it himself He said he he had written it himself

Answer 90

Either can be used with no harm done. Shall seems to be used most commonly in the first person and in non future uses such as permission—shall we dance? and determination—we shall overcome

Answer 91

The advice to split infinitives is downright pernicious, leading to bad writing. don’t do it. No reason to move an adverb from the position before the main verb, in fact the spot in front of the main verb is often the natural resting place for an adverb. especially when the the modifier is a quantifier or a negation such as not or more than. When the adverbial modifier is long and heavy, or when it contains the most important information in a sentence, it should be moved to the end, just like any other heavy or newsworthy phrase: Flynn wanted to more definitively identify the source of rising iq scores vs Flynn wanted to identify the source source of the rising IQ scores more definitively It’s a good habit to consider moving an adverb to the end of the verb phrase. If the adverb convert important information, it belongs there. If it doesn’t (just, really, actually) it can sometimes be omitted altogether. Finally, in many cases a quantifier naturally floats leftward away from the verb, unsplitting the infinitive: It seems monstrous to even suggest the possibility vs It seems monstrous even to suggest the possibility Is it better to never have been born? vs Is it better never to have been born? The unsplit version seems more more elegant but this could be due to unconscious bias.

Answer 92

Both prepositions that take on a clause as complement. The question is whether they may also take a noun phrase as complement. The answer is yes. The difference is style: than I is more suited for formal writing. Than me to writing that is closer to speech. The two elements being compared should be grammatically and semantically parallel. the condition of the first house we visited was better than the second—compares the condition with the house. Repair would be was better than that of the second. Finally, the causal version can be ambiguous: Biff likes the professor me— more than I, leaving a bit more —more than i do.

Answer 93

odd to use that with a nonrestrictive clause, as in the pair of shoes, that cost a thousand dollars, was hideous. Real question is whether to us a relative or non restrictive relative clause. If a phrase which expresses a comment about a noun can be omitted without substantial changing the meaning, and if it would be pronounced after a slight pause, be sure to set it off with commas or dashes or parentheses. If on the other hand, a phrase provides information about a noun that is crucial to the point of the sentence, and if it is pronounced within the same breath as the noun, don’t set it off with punctuation. Some guidelines suggest a switch to which when the relative clause is separated from the noun it modifies.

Answer 94

depends on subject or object: she tickled him can turn into who tickled him? and she tickled whom? Whom pompous in short questions and relative clauses.Move the who word back to its original position in the tree and choose who or whom accordingly.

Answer 95

Either a burrito or nachos are served, either nachos or a burrito is served. Recast the sentence: they serve either nachos or burritos.

Answer 96

between is used for a relationship of an individual to any number of other individuals as long as they are considered two at a time, whereas among is used for a relationship of an individual to an amorphous mass or collectivity. each other and one another use interchangeably.

Answer 97

Singular “they” really means “X” in an expression like “for all x, if x is an american, then x should not be under a cloud of suspicion because of x’s appearance”. Singular they is less accepted in formal than informal writing. a clear indefinite noun phrase like "a man” makes the apparent plurality of they stick out and should be avoided. Two escape hatches for the singular pronoun trap: the easies is to express the quantified description as a plural which makes they a grammatically honest pronoun. every writer should shorten their sentences—> writers should shorten their sentences. 2. Replace the pronoun with an indefinite or generic alternative and count on the reader’s common sense to fill in the referent: every body begins to have their vexation becomes everybody began to have a vexation.

Answer 98

Main job of punctuation is to eliminate the ambiguities and garden paths that would mislead a reader if print consisted of only vowels, consonants and spaces. Punctuation restores some of the prosody to print and provides hints about the syntactic tree that determines a sentences meaning. Problem for the writer is that punctuation indicates on in some cases, syntax in the other and neither consistently every where

Answer 99

The first of the comma’s two major functions is to separate parenthetical comments about an event or a state—the time, place, manner, purpose, result, significance, writer’s opinion, and other by the way remarks—from the words that are necessary to pin down the event or state itself. they specify information that is necessary to make the sentence true. this is the key to understanding where to put commas in other constructions. Commas set off a phrase that is not an integral constituent of the sentence, and which as a result is not essential to understand it meaning. Susan visited her friend theresa vs susan visited her friend, theresa.

Answer 100

narrow down the referent of a noun, like nested circles in a venn diagram, whereas strings of modifiers with them just keep adding interesting facts about it, like overlapping circles.

Answer 101

Commas however, do more than indicate a syntactic break (marking a phrase that is not integrated into the larger phrase) together with the corresponding semantic break (marking meaning that is not essential to the meaning of the sentence). It also signals a prosodic break: a slight pause in pronunciation. often these breaks line up: a supplementary phrase, the kind that calls for a comma, is typically preceded and followed by a pause. But often they do not line up and this require care on the part of the writer to place them correctly. when the supplementary phrase is short a speaker naturally skates right over it to the next phrase in the sentence, and the current rules of punctuation give writers the option of going with the sound and leaving the commas out. Too many commas too close together can give a sentence a perky jerky feel.

Answer 102

a comma may not separate the elements of an integrated phrase (such as a subject and its predicate) no matter how badly its narrator may want to take a breath at that juncture.

Answer 103

Also, since a sentence may have many levels of branching while english provides only the puny comma to separate them all on the page, a writer may choose to keep the comma in reserve to demarcate the major branches in the tree, rather than dicing the scenario into many small pieces that the reader must then reassemble.

Answer 104

There isn’t much variety, everything looks the same. There is no trail, visitors must hike up the creek bed. when the two are conceptually linked but the writer feels no need to pinpoint the coherence relation that holds between them, they can be joined with a semicolon; the semicolon is the all purpose way to eliminate the comma splice.

Answer 105

When the coherence relation is elaboration or exemplification (when one is tempted to say that is, in other words, which is to say, for example, here’s what i have in mind, or voila!) they may be linked with a colon: like this

Answer 106

When the second sentence intentionally interrupts the flow of discussion, causing the reader to snap up a writer can use a dash—dashes can enliven writing, as long as they are used sparingly. And when the writer pinpoints the coherence he has in mind with an explicit connective such as a coordinator (and or but yet so nor) or a preposition (although except if before after because for) a comma is fine, because the phrase is a mere supplement.

Answer 107

are themselves supplements of the clause they precede. The clause with the adverb is a free standing sentence; consequently it cannot be joined to its predecessor with a comma.

Answer 108

Oxford comma sometimes avoids the garden paths that, when absent, it can sometimes create: Among those interviewed were merle haggard’s two ex-wives, Kris Kristofferson and Robert Duvall. Unless house style forbids it, you should include oxford commas.

Answer 109

dont pluralize with an apostrophe, pronouns do not use apostrophes. singular possessive: mother’s son plural possessive: mothers’ son.

Answer 110

is not using words to convey their meaning but merely mentioning them as words. if you use quotation marks for emphasis, readers will think you are unschooled or worse. “now is the winter of our discontent”. —logical punctuation “now is the winter of our discontent.” — american punctuation

Answer 111

Look things up. try to restrict the things you write to things that are true. Second, be sure your arguments are sound. If you are making a factual claim, it should be verified in an edited source— one that has been fact checked by disinterested parties. If you are making an argument, it should proceed from premises that reasonable people already agree upon to your newer or more contentious assertions using if-then steps. If you’re making a moral argument— a claim about what people ought to do— you should show how doing it would satisfy a principle or increase a good that reasonable people already accept. Third, don’t confuse an anecdote or a personal experience with the state of the world. Fourth, beware of false dichotomies, though its often fun to reduce a complex issue to a war between two schools of thought, it is often not a path to understanding. Most of our ideas are so crude that we can make more progress by analyzing and refining them against each other than pitting them flat out to see which one is superior. Finally, arguments should be based on reasons, not people. avoid ad hominem attacks. “It’s not about being right, it’s about getting it right”

Answer 112

“The standard form of a clause, in which the actor or cause (if there is one) is the grammatical subject: A rabbit bit him (as opposed to the passive voice: He was bitten by a rabbit).”

Answer 113

“The grammatical category of words that typically refer to a property or state: big, round, green, afraid, gratuitous, hesitant.”

Answer 114

“A modifier which adds information about the time, place, manner, purpose, result, or other feature of the event or state: She opened the bottle with her teeth; He teased the starving wolves, which was foolish; Hank slept in the doghouse.”

Answer 115

“The grammatical category of words that modify verbs, adjectives, prepositions, and other adverbs: tenderly, cleverly, hopefully, very, almost.”

Answer 116

“A prefix or suffix: enrich, restate, blacken, slipped, squirrels, cancellation, Dave’s.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 117

“Alterations of the form of a word to match some other word or phrase. In English a present-tense verb must agree with the person and number of the subject: I snicker; He snickers; They snicker.”

Answer 118

“A foot with a weak-weak-STRONG meter: Anna LEE should get a LIFE; badda-BING!; to the DOOR.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 119

“The noun phrase that specifies what a pronoun refers to: Biff forgot his hat; Before Jan left, she sharpened her pencils.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 120

“A small category of words which mark the definiteness of a noun phrase, including the definite article the and the indefinite articles a, an, and some. The Cambridge Grammar subsumes articles in the larger category determinative, which also includes quantifiers and demonstratives like this and that.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 121

“A special kind of verb which conveys information relevant to the truth of the clause, including tense, mood, and negation: She doesn’t love you; I am resting; Bob was criticized; The train has left the station; You should call; I will survive.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 122

“Changing the tense of a verb (usually in indirect or reported speech) to match the tense of the verb of speaking or believing: Lisa said that she was tired (compare with Lisa said, “I am tired.”) Traditionally called sequence of tenses.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 123

“The marking of a noun to indicate its grammatical function, including nominative case (for subjects), genitive case (for determiners, including possessives), and accusative case (for objects and everything else). In English, case is marked only on pronouns (nominative I, he, she, we, and they; accusative me, him, her, us, and them; and genitive my, your, his, her, our, and their), except for genitive case, which can be marked with the suffixes ’s on singular noun phrases and s’ on plural ones.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 124

“The phrase type that corresponds to a sentence, whether it stands alone or is embedded in a larger sentence: Ethan likes figs; I wonder whether Ethan likes figs; The boy who likes figs is here; The claim that Ethan likes figs is false.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 125

“A word, phrase, or punctuation “mark that signals the semantic relation between a clause or passage and one that preceded it: Anna eats a lot of broccoli, because she likes the taste. Moreover, she thinks it’s healthy. In contrast, Emile never touches the stuff. And neither does Anna’s son.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 126

“A phrase that is allowed or required to appear with a head, completing its meaning: smell the glove; scoot into the cave; I thought you were dead; a picture of Mabel; proud of his daughter.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 127

“A phrase consisting of two or more phrases with the same function, usually linked by a coordinator: parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme; She is poor but honest; To live and die in LA; Should I stay or should I go?; I came, I saw, I conquered. ”

Answer 128

“The grammatical category of words that link two or more phrases with the same function, such as and, or, nor, but, yet, and so.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 129

“A semantic distinction marked by the determiner of a noun phrase, indicating whether the content of the head noun is sufficient to identify the referent in context. If I say I bought the car (definite), I am assuming that you already know which car I’m talking about; if I say I bought a car (indefinite), I’m introducing it to you for the first time.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 130

“A verb derived from a noun: He elbowed his way in; She demonized him.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 131

“The part of a noun phrase that helps determine the referent of the head noun, answering the question “Which one?” or “How many?” The determiner function is carried out by articles (a, an, the, this, that, these, those), quantifiers (some, any, many, few, one, two, three), and genitives (my mother; Sara’s iPhone). Note that determiner is a grammatical function; determinative a grammatical category.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 132

“The object of the verb (or, if the verb has two objects, the second of the two), usually indicating the entity that is directly moved or affected by the action: spank the monkey; If you give a muffin to a moose; If you give a moose a muffin; Cry me a river. discourse. A connected sequence of” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 133

“ A sequence of syllables pronounced as a unit and with a specific rhythm: The SUN / did not SHINE. / It was TOO / wet to PLAY.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 134

“The technical term for what is loosely called “possessive” case, namely the case of a noun which functions as a determiner, such as Ed’s head or my theory. Marked in English by the choice of certain pronouns (my, your, his, her, their, and so on) and, with all other noun phrases, the suffix’s or s’: John’s guitar; The Troggs’ drummer. .

Answer 135

The form of the verb with the suffix –ing, often functioning like a noun: His drinking got out of hand.

Answer 136

A traditional grammatical term covering the ways in which the head of a phrase may determine the grammatical properties of other words in the phrase, including agreement, case-marking, and the selection of complements.

Answer 137

A class of words that are interchangeable in their syntactic positions and in the way they are inflected: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, determinative (including articles), coordinator, subordinator, interjection. Also called a part of speech.

Answer 138

The role that a phrase plays including subject, object, predicate, determiner, head, complement, modifier, and adjunct.”

Answer 139

“The word in a phrase that determines the meaning and properties of the whole phrase: the man who knew too much; give a moose a muffin; afraid of his own shadow; under the boardwalk.”

Answer 140

a weak strong meter: michelle, away, to bed

Answer 141

The first of two consecutive objects of a verb, usually indicating a recipient or beneficiary: if you give [a moose] a muffin;cry [me] a river

Answer 142

“The plain, untensed form of the verb, sometimes (but not always) appearing with the subordinator to: I want to be alone; She helped him pack; You must go.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 143

“A verb that does not allow a direct object: Martha fainted; The chipmunk darted under the car.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 144

“The clause that expresses the principal assertion of a sentence, and in which subordinate clauses may be embedded: She thinks [I’m crazy]; Peter repeated the gossip [that Melissa was pregnant] to Sherry.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 145

“Words that refer to the current discourse: To sum up; In this essay I will make the following seventeen points; But I digress. ” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 146

“The auxiliaries will, would, can, could, may, might, shall, should, must, and ought. They “convey necessity, possibility, obligation, future time, and other concepts related to modalities.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 147

“Aspects of meaning relevant to the factual status of a proposition, including whether it is being asserted as fact, suggested as a possibility, posed as a question, or laid out as a command, a request, or an obligation. These are the meanings expressed by the grammatical system for mood.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 148

“An optional phrase that comments on or adds information to a head: a nice boy; See you in the morning; The house that everyone tiptoes past.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 149

“Distinctions among the grammatical forms of a verb or clause that convey the semantic distinctions of modality, including the distinctions between an indicative statement (He ate), a question (Did he eat?), an imperative (Eat!), a subjunctive (It’s important that he eat), and, for the verb be, an irrealis (If I were you).” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 150

“The smallest meaningful pieces into which words can be cut: walk-s; in-divis-ibil-ity; crowd-sourc-ing.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 151

“A noun formed out of a verb or an adjective: a cancellation; a fail; an enactment; protectiveness; a fatality.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 152

“The grammatical category of words that refer to things, people, and other nameable or conceivable entities: lily, joist, telephone, bargain, grace, prostitute, terror, Joshua, consciousness.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 153

“A phrase headed by a noun: Jeff; the muskrat; the man who would be king; anything you want.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 154

“A complement that follows a verb or preposition, usually indicating an entity that is essential to defining the action, state, or situation: spank the monkey; prove the theorem; into the cave; before the party. Includes direct, indirect, and oblique objects.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 155

“An object of a preposition: under the door.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 156

“An if-then statement referring to an open possibility, one that the speaker does not “know to be true or false: If it rains, we’ll cancel the game.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 157

“A form of the verb without a tense, which generally needs to appear with an auxiliary or other verb. English has two: the past participle, used in the passive voice (It was eaten) and perfect tense (He has eaten), and the gerund-participle, used in the progressive present tense (He is running) and in gerunds (Getting there is half the fun). Most verbs have regular past-participle forms, formed by the suffix –ed (I have stopped; It was stopped), but about 165 have irregular forms (I have given it away; It was given to me; I have brought it; It was brought here). All gerund-participles in English are formed with –ing. ” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 158

“One of the two major voices in English. A construction in which the usual object appears as the subject, and the usual subject is an object of by or absent altogether: He was bitten by a rabbit (compare the active A rabbit bit him); We got screwed; Attacked by his own supporters, he had nowhere else to turn.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 159

“A form of the verb used to indicate past time, factual remoteness, or backshift: She left yesterday; If you left tomorrow, you’d save money; She said she left. Most verbs have regular past-tense forms, formed by the suffix –ed (I stopped), but about 165 have irregular forms (I gave it away; She brought it). Also called the preterite. ” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 160

“The grammatical distinction between the speaker (first person), the addressee (second person), and those not participating in the conversation (third person). Marked only on pronouns: first person I, me, we, us, my, our; second person you, your; third person he, him, she, her, they, their, it, its.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 161

“A group of words that behaves as a unit in a sentence and which typically has some coherent meaning: in the dark; the man in the gray suit; dancing in the dark; afraid of the wolf.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 162

“The grammatical function of a verb phrase, corresponding to a state, an event, or a relationship which is asserted to be true of the subject: The “The boys are back in town; Tex is tall; The baby ate a slug. The term is also sometimes used to refer to the verb that heads the predicate (e.g., ate), or, if the verb is be, the verb, noun, adjective, or preposition that heads its complement (e.g., tall).”

Answer 163

“The grammatical category of words that typically express spatial or temporal relationships: in, on, at, near, by, for, under, before, after, up.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 164

“A small subcategory of nouns that includes personal pronouns (I, me, my, mine, you, your, yours, he, him, his, she, her, hers, we, us, our, ours, they, them, their, theirs) and interrogative and relative pronouns (who, whom, whose, what, which, where, why, when).” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 165

“A word (usually a determinative) which specifies the amount or quantity of a head noun: all, some, no, none, any, every, each, many, most, few.”

Answer 166

“A clause that modifies a noun, often containing a gap which indicates the role the noun plays inside that phrase: five fat guys who __ rock; a clause that __ modifies a noun; women we love __; violet eyes to die for __; fruit for the crows to pluck __. ”

Answer 167

“The grammatical function of the phrase that the predicate is saying something about. In active sentences with action verbs it corresponds to the actor or cause of the action: The boys are back in town; Tex is tall; The baby ate a slug; Debbie broke the violin. In passive sentences it usually corresponds to the affected entity: A slug was eaten.”

Answer 168

“A mood, marked mainly in subordinate clauses, which uses the plain form of the verb, and indicates a hypothetical, demanded, or required situation: It is essential that I be kept in the loop; He bought insurance lest someone sue him. ” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 169

“A clause embedded in a larger phrase, as opposed to the main clause of the sentence: She thinks I’m crazy; Peter repeated the gossip that Melissa was pregnant to Sherry.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 170

“A grammatical category containing a small number of words that introduce a subordinate clause: She said that it will work; I wonder whether he knows about the party; For her to stay home is unusual. It corresponds roughly to the traditional category of subordinating conjunctions. ” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 171

“A loosely attached adjunct or modifier, set off from the rest of the sentence by pauses in speech and by punctuation in writing: Fortunately, he got his job back; My point—and I do have one—is this; Let’s eat, Grandma; The shoes, which cost $5,000, were hideous.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 172

“The component of grammar that governs the arrangement of words into phrases and sentences.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 173

“The marking of a verb to indicate the time of the state or event relative to the moment the sentence is uttered, including present tense (He mows the lawn every week) and past tense (He mowed the lawn last week). A tense may have several meanings in addition to its standard temporal one; see past tense. ” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 174

“A sentence topic is the phrase that indicates what the sentence is about; in English it is usually the subject, though it can also be expressed in adjuncts such as As for fish, I like scrod. A discourse topic is what a conversation or text is about; it may be mentioned repeatedly throughout the discourse, sometimes in different words.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 175

“A verb that requires an object: Biff fixed the lamp.” Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 176

“The grammatical category of words which are inflected for tense and which often refer to an action or a state: He kicked the football; I thought I saw a pussycat; I am strong. Excerpt From: Steven Pinker. “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.” iBooks.

Answer 177

A phrase headed by a verb which includes the verb together with its complements and adjuncts: He tried to kick the football but missed; I thought I saw a pussycat; I am strong.

Answer 178

The difference between an active sentence (Beavers build dams) and a passive sentence (Dams are built by beavers).

Answer 179

“Also called morphology: the component of grammar that alters the forms of words (rip → ripped) or that creates new words from old ones (a demagogue → to demagogue; priority → prioritize; crowd + source → crowdsource).”

Answer 180

Helen Sword’s nickname for an unnecessary nominalization that hides the agent of the action. Her example: The proliferation of nominalizations in a discursive formation may be an indicsion of a tendency toward pomposity and abstraction (instead of Writers who overload their sentences with nouns derived ”

A Sense of Style Flashcards

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