Balancing correlative conjunctions
Home > Articles by: clive

Balancing correlative conjunctions

by Bill Ball

 

Correlative conjunctions are used in pairs to link two equal grammatical elements in the same sentence. The main pairs are 'both.. .and', 'either... or',  'neither.. .nor', and 'not only.. .but also'. in sentences containing any of these pairs, the items linked should be of the same grammatical type: noun/noun, adjective/adjective, phrase/phrase, clause/clause, etc. in other words, the two parts of each pair should balance.

Here are three examples where the first correlative in each pair (both, either, not only) has been incorrectly placed.

She is the author both of novels and textbooks.

It is either necessary for you to go to the gym or to exercise at home.

We not only need to show how it was done but also why it was done.

We know what these sentences mean, of course, but is that sufficient? in the first sentence, 'both' is followed by the preposition 'of, but 'and' is followed by the noun 'textbooks'. In the second, 'either' is followed by the adjective 'necessary', but 'or' is followed by the infinitive 'to exercise'. in the third, 'not only' is followed by the verb 'need', but 'also' is followed by the adverb 'why'.

It is interesting to note that if we were to take out 'both' in the first sentence, 'either' in the second, and 'not only' in the third, the sentences would then be above grammatical suspicion. Surely, therefore, if we are to make use of these correlative conjunctions, we should at least make sure that we place them where they belong.

Here is one way of correcting our examples.

She is the author of both novels and textbooks.

It is necessary for you either to go to the gym or to exercise at home.

We need to show not only how it was done but also why it was done.

The correlative parts in each sentence now balance. In the first, 'both' and 'and' are followed by nouns; in the second, 'either' and 'or' are followed by infinitives; and in the third, 'not only' and 'but also' are followed by clauses.

By the way, in the 'not only.. .but also' construction, the 'also' is not obligatory. Indeed, it is frequently omitted:

We need to show not only how it was done but why it was done.

Clause analysis

by Bill Ball

 

It is assumed for the purposes of this article that the reader will have a reasonable knowledge of the various grammatical elements of the English language that are known collectively as 'parts of speech'. The traditional parts of speech are verbs, adverbs, adjectives, nouns, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections. 'Interjections' are usually included even though they are often single-word exclamations, such as Bravo! Oh! and 'Hurrah!, that are 'thrown' into a sentence without playing any part in its grammatical construction.

Within the sentence structure there will be groups of words that that are known as phrases and clauses. Phrases, such 'in the mood' and 'at the top of her voice', are groups of two or more words that do not include a finite verb. A clause, on the other hand, always contains a finite verb. In simple terms, a finite verb is a verb that has a grammatical subject, as in, for example, 'He goes' and 'She has left', where 'He' and 'She' are respectively subjects of the verbs 'goes' and 'has left'. The main non-finite parts of the verb are the infinitive (to go etc.) and the present and past participles (going, gone etc.).

There are two types of clause: main and subordinate. A main clause normally makes sense on its own, and often functions as a complete sentence in its own right. A subordinate clause always depends on another clause (frequently the main clause) for its real meaning.

We should note from the outset (a) that a main clause does not always appear at the beginning of a sentence, which in turn means that a subordinate clause does not always follow the main clause (b) that one clause sometimes breaks into the middle of another clause, as in, for example, 'He is, although he does not know it, an idiot', as an alternative to 'He is an idiot, although he does not know it.

A subordinate clause is equivalent to an adjective, an adverb or a noun in another clause (hence adjective clause, adverb clause, noun clause). Here are a few notes with simple examples, which I hope will help to make this clear.

 

Adjective clauses

An adjective clause is the equivalent of a simple adjective: it qualifies a noun or pronoun in another clause. It is always introduced by a relative pronoun (mainly 'who', 'whom' whose' 'which', 'that') or a word that acts as a relative pronoun, such as 'where' or 'when'. Here are three examples:

  1. 1 The man who broke the bank was a crook.
  2. Here is the book which you lent me.
  3. I have seen the house where he was born.

The main clauses are respectively 'The man was a crook', 'Here is the book', and 'I have seen the house'. The adjective clauses are:

  1. I 'who broke the bank', qualifying the noun 'man'.
  2. 2 'which you lent me', qualifying the noun 'book'.
  3. 3 'where he was born', qualifying the noun 'house'.

 

Adverb clauses

An adverb clause is the equivalent of a simple adverb: it modifies a verb, an adverb or an adjective (usually a verb) in another clause. It is introduced by such words as 'if,' because', 'unless',' than',' after',' while',' although',' when', 'where' and 'as'. Here are three examples:

  1. I I will go when I am ready.
  2. 2 She will succeed because she works hard.
  3. 3 The match will be cancelled if it rains.

The main clauses are respectively 'I will go', 'She will succeed' and 'The match will be cancelled'. The adverb clauses are:

  1. 1 'when I am ready', modifying the verb 'will go'.
  2. 2 'because she works hard', modifying the verb 'will succeed'.
  3. 3 'if it rains', modifying the verb 'will be cancelled'.

 

Noun clauses

A noun clause is the equivalent of a simple noun, and is usually introduced by such words as 'how', 'what', 'that', 'where', 'when', 'whether', 'who' and 'why'. The noun clause may be (a) the subject or object of a verb (b) in 'apposition' to a simple noun (c) the object of a preposition. Here are four examples:

  1. How he did it is not known.
  2. I asked him why he could not repair the puncture.
  3. The rumour that he has left is not true.
  4. I will sell it for what it is worth.

The noun clauses are:

  1. 'How he did it', as subject of the verb 'is'.
  2. 'why he could not repair the puncture', as object of the verb 'asked'.
  3. 'that he has left', in apposition to the noun 'rumour'.
  4. 'what it is worth', as object of the preposition 'for.

It was mentioned above that a main clause may stand on its own as a complete sentence. Main clauses may also be joined together by what are known as co­ordinating conjunctions (and, but, or etc.):

The man was injured and he was taken to hospital. I phoned him but there was no reply.

Each of the four clauses (joined here by 'and' in the first example, and 'but' in the second) could stand on its own as a separate sentence.

It is important to note that some words can be used to introduce more than one type of clause. For example, the word 'when' can introduce an adjective clause (The day when he arrived), an adverb clause (They were pleased when he arrived), and a noun clause (When he arrived is not certain). It is the function of the clause in the sentence (not necessarily its initial appearance) that determines its type.

Many sentences are of course more involved than the examples we have looked at so far, but the principles of clause analysis outlined above will apply equally to every sentence, however long or complicated it might be. Here are three examples:

  1. 1 Her son went to London after he had completed his studies because it was easier to find a job there.
  2. 2 As the rain had stopped, we decided to go for a walk in the park, which was only a short distance away.
  3. When he was asked how he had received his injury, he said that he had fallen over.

In the first sentence, the main clause is 'Her son went to London'. The other clauses are 'after he had completed his studies' and 'because it was easier to find a job there', both adverb clauses modifying the verb 'went in the main clause.

In the second sentence, the main clause is 'We decided to go for a walk in the park'. The other clauses are 'as the rain had stopped', an adverb clause modifying the verb 'decided' in the main clause, and 'which was only a short distance away', an adjective clause qualifying the noun 'park' in the main clause.

In the third sentence, the main clause is 'He said'. The other clauses are (a) 'when he was asked', an adverb clause modifying the verb 'said' in the main clause (b) 'how he had received his injury', a noun clause object of 'asked' in the adverb clause had fallen over a noun clause object of 'said' in the main clause.

I hope that these notes and examples will be of some use to you. However, I have to say that in reality clause analysis is no more than a mechanical exercise that helps, but only helps, to show us how the English sentence works. Studying how established writers fashion their own sentences will be much more useful than breaking down each sentence into clauses. Indeed, in your reading you will almost certainly come across sentences that seem to defy analysis.

No doubt there will be errors or omissions in this article. If so I won't let it bother me. As long as we don't take clause analysis too seriously we should find that it is both interesting and instructive.

It can also be fun at times, you know.

Causative theme in English

by David Wulstan
The causative is found in Hamito-Semitic languages and in Sanskrit; but it is not often acknowledged as occurring in Indo-European languages generally. Crystal (Cambridge Enc. of Language, 93) calls the causative a tense, a description which Semitic scholars would certainly dispute. Jespersen (Essentials of Eng. Gramm., p.117), in discussing the difference between the transitive and intransitive use of verbal forms, points out that certain transitive verbs (‘to grow corn’), when used intransitively (‘corn grows’), “must be considered a causative”.

He goes on to list “two cases [where] we have separate verbs for the intransitive and the corresponding transitive (causative) use”, instancing sit, sat, sat and lie, lay, lain (intrans) as against set, set, set and lay, laid, laid (trans. = causative). The matter is, however, more complicated than Jespersen supposed in his somewhat confused treatment.  Granted that in various registers of speech (including that of the poets) these forms are sometimes confused (J cites Byron’s ‘there let him lay’), there are reasons for such misprisions: those of us who mistake ‘he was hung at Tyburn’, for the correct ‘he was hanged’ deserve some sympathy: the morphology and syntax are by no means clear. This is because thematic and ‘strong’ causatives have a system of ablaut, which is extremely confusing in modern English, for these forms often sound like the past tense or participle of the ordinary verbal theme.

To define the causative: oremus is ‘let us pray’ in Latin. Although Latin exhibits some instances, the language as we know it does not typically have a causative theme; so the subjunctive mood is used here, instead. In classical Greek, this or the optative mood might have been be used (although Greek, too, had a few separate causatives). In Hebrew, however, the causative theme proper would come into play, the significance of which would more accurately be rendered ‘cause us to pray’. In English, the foregoing phrase is not a thematic causative, as it is formed from a modal verb. Similarly, ‘make that horse canter’ is syntactically but not morphologically causative.

It might be argued that ‘waken’, ‘gladden’, and so on are thematic causatives, the -en being a causative suffix, as ‘envision’, ‘entrap’ have apparent causative prefixes. I do not know the answer as to whether these (or ‘glorify’, ‘mesmerise’ and the like) are thematic causatives, but for the moment they will be excluded. True, Sanskrit nayati ‘lead’ has the causative nāyayati ‘cause to lead/to be led’, but it is regular. So far as may be divined, the English (deriving from the Germanic) causative theme is based on vowel-gradation similar to that found in ‘strong plurals’ (mouse-mice).

When set is used as the causative of sit, it derives, as the OED says, from the OE (sęttan) and Gothic (satjan), causative of *setjan (sitjan), whence also settle, verb and noun (these, and one or two further references to OE etc, are due to the OED/NED) If one ‘sets’ the table, however, the phrase is a species of synecdoche, meaning that the setter is causing the silver and glass to ‘sit’ in its appropriate place.

Other uses of ‘set’ as in ‘setting the Maths Paper for the Upper Set’) are not really related. Curiously, the Latin sĕdeo, sēdi, sessum means ‘to sit’ whereas sēdo, -āvi, -ātum is causative, ‘to settle’. All of these words (including Greek cognates) are related to Sanskrit (in which, by chance ‘sit’, ās, is not recorded in its causative form). What the dictionaries (and Jespersen) do not tell us, however, is that sat may also be causative: ‘I sat him down’. It is this usage which gives rise to the solecism, ‘I was sat in the corner’ i.e. sitting rather than having been unceremoniously made to sit.

That ‘lay’ is the causative of ‘lie’ is acknowledged by the dictionaries (to lay a hedge or an egg is to cause it to lie); to lay down one’s life is a more metaphorical locution, but hardly obscure. A coin may have lain under hedge or hen, but it was caused to lie by whomsoever left it there, accidentally or not: the problems arise with speaking of the past, as to whether the coin was laid or layed.

Similarly, to fell a tree is to cause it to fall. But if the woodman fell, his falling to the ground would have been an accident, perhaps occurring when the tree had already been felled. So it befell (this time with a prefix) that he had to recover from his fall. Latin has cădo, cĕcĭdi,cāsum for ‘to fall’, but caedo, cĕcīdi, caesum for the causative. Ordinary ablaut makes ‘wend’
(OE wenden) the causative of ‘wind’ (winden – in the sense of following a winding path).

The verb ‘rise’ (rising, rose, had risen) has two causatives, ‘to raise’ (raising, raised, had been raised) and to ‘rouse’ (rousing, roused, had been roused – the British Army bugle call for ‘Rouse’ differed from that of ‘Reveille’). Here the morphology is reasonably straightforward, but with the proviso that the forms ‘arise’ and ‘arouse’ lurk in the wings:  indeed, a connexion with hawking is the origin of ‘rouse’ (probably Anglo-Norman). To ‘drench’ in the agricultural sense of ‘cause (a sheep) to drink’ is more technical (Dryden says A Drench of Wine … the Patient’s Death did cause); it may be surmised that ‘ferry’ developed similarly as a specialised term in connexion with ‘fare’ in the sense of ‘travel’.

The problem with ‘hanging’ (apart from our estimable habit of hanging the present participle with the sense of a gerund) is not that the causative present sounds like the ordinary past (fell being both the causative of fall and its past tense). It is a particular quirk of the English language that the general verb derives from OE hangian and variants, referring to the ‘base of the neck’, but that it became confused with the Norse causative hęngia which intruded into northern English as henge.

So ‘you shall hang by the neck…’ or ‘shall be hung, drawn and quartered’ are correct pronouncements; ‘was hung at Tyburn’ is not. The name Stonehenge rightly implies that the monument comprises stones which were caused to hang; similarly, any unfortunate ‘hanged at Tyburn’ suffered from the permanent causative rather than the more fleeting indicative.

The Coverdale version of Ps 137:2 reads ‘As for our harps, we hanged them up: upon the trees that are therein’. This makes the hanged look like the causative (which it is not in this instance, the Hebrew qt. l form meaning ‘we hung’ – suspendimus organa – the instruments in question were kinnôrôt – lyres), but the inflected (-ed) and strong past tense with ablaut (hung) meant much the same in the English of the period, and hanged is found persisting in the equivalent place in the Authorised Version of King James.

Whether or not this psalm-verse played a part in the longevity of the longer hanged as an alternative past tense to hung is questionable; but it would not have helped to lessen the confusion between the indicative and causative usages of hanged. Moreover, the somewhat inconsidered pronouncements of Jespersen and Crystal, mentioned at the beginning of this
note, will not do.

A postscript. A recent lecture to which I was subjected made me realise that some treatments of linguistics bear the same relationship to philology as astrology has to astronomy. Several manifest idiocies were trotted out by our linguisticist priestess, but not the one which should be stamped upon firmly, the notion that ‘it’s me’ is incorrect. In the Camb. Enc. of the Eng. Lang. (page 203) Crystal asserts that as ‘me’ is the objective “where Latin-influenced grammatical tradition recommends the subjective” and thus the schoolmasterly ‘It is I’ (also commended in his Making Sense of English Usage, 1991, which prompts the suspicion that there is a disastrous misprint in its title).

Apart from Crystal’s subjective use of the word ‘objective’, French has more to do with the idiom than Latin, for ‘me’ in this instance is not the accusative, but the emphatic, as in ‘ç’est moi’. Oddly enough, in 1388 ‘Je suy je’ was the object of derision, in the words Chastillon contrefaisoit son langage (see Lebsanft, 2005, 365 apud Gärtner & Günter, Überlieferungsund Aneignungsprozesse im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert... Trier).

Substitute and replace

Substitute does not mean Replace

by Ted Bell

There is some confusion among many people about the wordssubstitute and replace. These words are not interchangeable; they refer to the same process, but there is a difference between them. It is really quite a simple difference, a matter of the writer's or speaker's point of view.

If you substitute B for A, then you replace A by B.

 

It is important to use the prepositions for and by strictly in this way. If instead you use with, confusion is not just possible but very likely. Unfortunately it is not uncommon to find with used both with substitute and replace, and the result is hardly ever satisfactory. Thus you may see: "Cornflour in this recipe may be substituted with breadcrumbs" and "Breadcrumbs in this recipe may be replaced with Cornflour". In each case the meaning is far from clear. It is much better to avoid using with.

It is also a pity that B can be described as either the substitute or the replacement for A, and yet there is no corresponding word for A (unless you were to use the rather clumsy "person (or thing) replaced"). This probably compounds the original difficulty. The confusion between substitute and replace seems to be at its worst among football writers, some of whom appear to use words without really thinking about them. How else could anyone produce such a sentence as "Bloggs was substituted at the last moment"? This really is nonsense. Even by reference to the context it may be impossible to tell whether Bloggs was the player being substituted or was the player being replaced.

In any case, why should the reader have to struggle to get at the writer's meaning? It is of course one of the glories of the English language that scholars can argue about the exact meaning of a line of Shakespeare, for instance, and many accept that, with such a writer, where there are two interpretations both may be intended. But for most of us, and certainly for journalists, it is better to steer a more precise course. It is better because the object must always be communication.

My husband and I

"My husband and I": a matter of personal pronouns

By Ted Bell

The question of whether to say or write "my husband and I" or "I and my husband" is not a matter of grammar but one of modesty or politeness. It is usually considered good form not to put oneself first. However, this may be why many people think that they must always talk of "my husband and I" and never of "my husband and me". In different situations, either of these expressions may be right, and there is a simple way of deciding which one to choose. It is correct to say "My husband and I are going to a party". It is also correct to say "A neighbour has invited my husband and me to a party".

Try dealing with each person separately. "My husband is going to a party and I am going to a party; a neighbour has invited my husband to a party and a neighbour has invited me to a party". You would never write "he has invited I", though you might hear this said in deepest Devon.

In grammatical terms, the noun husband can be the subject or the object of the sentence and the form does not change, but in the case of a pronoun (in this instance the first person singular pronoun) we use I for the subject and me for the object. If the first person plural were to be used, we would say "We are going to a party" and "a neighbour has invited us to a party". The complete list of personal pronouns which vary in this way is:

I / me he / him she / her we / us they / them

There is no variation with you, it or one.

As well as this subject/object use, we need to use the object form of any personal pronoun after prepositions such as for, with or in front of. The test above can still be used: "for my husband", "for me", "for my husband and me".

Incidentally, the French have personal pronouns similar to ours (such as je for I, me - pronounced muh - for me, nous for we / us);but they also have some emphatic pronouns of which moi is the most used. So it would be perfectly proper for a French speaker to refer to "mon mari et moi, nous ...". It could be that in a century or so we shall use me in this way in speech, but I doubt very much whether it will be written.

But the peculiarities of English do prove difficult for non-native English speakers. Thus the chef Raymond Blanc in an article in the Daily Telegraph (2 April 2011) describes his mother making "a traditional French breakfast ... for my brothers and I". What a pity this was allowed to appear without its being corrected to"...my brothers and me". Is it conceivable that the chef, who in his native tongue would have written "pour mes frères et moi", wrote the correct words in English and that some foolish person altered it to "for my brothers and I"? Surely not.

Verbless Sentences

By Bill Ball

Although there have always been verbless sentences in English, many grammarians of old insisted that a sentence had to contain at least one 'finite' verb. Examples of finite verbs are 'is', as in 'The weather is fine', and 'plays', as in 'He plays tennis'. The word 'finite' broadly means 'having a subject'. In the above examples, the subjects of the verbs are 'The weather' and 'He'.

So what does a 'verbless' sentence look like? Here are a few examples:

A wonderful achievement.
Of course not.
Now for those other matters.
So far so good.

Verbless sentences are usually preceded by 'normal' sentences, without which the verbless sentences would have no real meaning. Using 'Of course not' as the verbless sentence, here is an example that includes a 'normal' preceding sentence:

Do you know who I am? Of course not.

'Of course not' is short for 'Of course I do not know who you are', which is what many of the grammarians of old would have insisted on. Indeed, there are still some people today who would condemn verbless sentences, even though they are and always have been acceptable English.

It has to be admitted, however, that verbless sentences should never be used in formal writing (legal documents and the like) or by schoolchildren or students in their school or college work. It is often said that it is acceptable for established writers to commit occasional grammatical errors, because they have learnt all the rules and therefore have the right to modify them to suit their purpose if they so wish. That may be so, but there is one 'rule' that says that verbless sentences should be used sparingly and with good taste. Any writers who choose to ignore this rule (for whatever reason) do so at their own risk.

Verbless sentences should not be confused with 'interjections', which are words that are 'thrown' into a sentence without playing any part in its grammatical construction. They are usually single words but can also be phrases. They are normally followed by an exclamation mark (!). Examples are:

Oh!
Behold!
Alas!
My goodness!
Dear me!
Good for you!

'Get off of my cloud'

Beware of 'OFF OF!'

On the 30th November 1965, Rock legends - The Rolling Stones - released their memorable hit 'HEY! YOU GET OFF OF MY CLOUD.' Did they unwittingly start a trend in the way many of us now speak some forty five years on?

If I could have my way.... By Douglas Hitchman

It could be argued that the Rolling Stones had a valid excuse for writing the lyric "Hey! You! Get off of my cloud" to fit the music, but I have noticed over several years that the practice of adding 'of' to the adverb 'off' has increased considerably.

I find that this really grates with me and I wince whenever I hear it spoken, for it usually is spoken, seldom written. "She fell off of her horse"; "He got off of the train" to my mind would sound so much better if the 'of' were to be dropped.

Less common is the addition of 'from' following 'off' as in "I wish you would leave off from doing that", but in my mind no less clunky in usage.

Taken to an extreme, I suppose, one could make an "off of colour remark" or " go off of duty", or perhaps even "go off from duty", but here we enter the realms of absurdity - I hope.

Another misuse of 'of' occurs to me, and that is the use of "should of", "could of", "would of" etc. though this is more likely to be mispronunciation of the contracted "should've", "could've" and so on. Phonetically they are similar.

I believe that the practice has its origins in the United States of America which, I suppose is no surprise.

There are many such anomalies dotted throughout the English language and they doubtless may be ascribed to the inevitable and inexorable evolution of the language.

All I would ask is that people should listen and mark such digressions, and in so doing make a mental note to use correct English where ever possible.

During the process of setting up this page, we came across some variants of the song title mentioned above including: '.....Get Off From My Cloud' and '.....Get Offa My Cloud.'

The Hyphen Puzzle (part 2)

In the first part of this guide, we looked mainly at examples of compounds where hyphens should not be used. Here, now, are my further suggestions and comments.

1. Two-word compound adjectives (not containing adverbs) usually need hyphens when they are used attributively:

  • A red-hot poker.
  • An ivy-covered cottage.
  • His old-fashioned suit.
  • A load-bearing wall.

So, too, do compounds such as 'out of tune' and 'up to date':

  • An out-of-tune piano.
  • Where are the up-to-date figures?

But when they are used predicatively ('The poker is red hot', 'The figures are up to date'), hyphens would not usually be necessary.

2. The prefix 'ex' (where it means former) requires careful handling. It does not matter whether we write 'ex-footballer' or 'ex footballer', or 'ex-model' or 'ex model'; but if the prefix is followed by more than one word we have to be careful. For example, 'ex-marine biologist' could be a biologist who used to be a marine; and 'ex-fighter pilot' could be a pilot who used to be a fighter. The solution is to hyphenate only the words following the 'ex' (ex marine-biologist, ex fighter-pilot). Some authorities suggest using two hyphens (ex-marine-biologist, ex-fighter-pilot); but as 'ex' here means former it does not need a hyphen after it.

3. The hyphen must be used to distinguish, where necessary, between those words that begin with 're' and those that are prefixed by 're' (meaning once more). Here are some examples:

Reform (abolish etc) but Re-form (form again).
Relay (a race etc) but Re-lay (lay again).
Resign (from an office etc) but Re-sign (sign again).

(The much quoted example, 'All the professionals have resigned and will be available for next week's match' will serve its purpose here).

4. Sometimes the absence of hyphens can lead to ambiguity:
Twenty three year old horses
Fresh cream cakes

Does the first example mean that the horses are twenty-three-years old, that there are twenty horses that are three-years old, or that there are twenty-three year-old horses? Does the second example mean Fresh-cream cakes, or Fresh cream-cakes?

5. The most important problem with hyphens is that the authorities cannot agree whether simple compound nouns consisting of a noun preceded by a noun used as an adjective should be hyphenated or not. Here are some examples with the noun 'water' used in this way. I have deliberately left out hyphens:

Water bed Water melon Water meter Water lily Water main Water pipe

Some authorities would hyphenate some of these compounds and others would not. The inconsistency is staggering; and it is the same with countless other simple compound nouns where the first word is a noun used as an adjective. Two examples will be sufficient: 'House' as in 'House agent', and 'Ice' as in 'Ice skater'.

The simple fact is that when these compounds are used on their own in the predicate they should never be given hyphens. Are any of the following less easy to read without hyphens?

  • Have you seen my water bed?
  • Pass me the water melon.
  • Are you the house agent?

As attributes of course they may well require hyphens, but never as simple compounds.

I think I have covered the main problem areas with hyphens. Other one-off situations will frequently arise, and we must then decide for ourselves whether to hyphenate or not. For example, we do occasionally have to decide whether to hyphenate 'designations of rank or office' Please check the dictionaries and other authorities for these examples (and many others) to witness firsthand the chaos that Fowler referred to all those years ago:

  • Vice Chairman
  • Attorney General
  • Field Marshal
  • Lieutenant Colonel

I would not use hyphens in any of them. On second thoughts, and having reminded myself that hyphens are essential if they are needed for clarity, perhaps 'Vice Chairman' could suggest that the Chairman is into vice. 'Vice-Chairman' can have its hyphen.

The falling-of-the-accent rule of Fowler has some merit; but on balance it is better to ignore it and rely on the less complicated advice given in this article. Hyphens would then be used only when they are necessary as an aid to being understood.

See previous page

The Hyphen Puzzle

by Bill Ball

You may have already studied the Punctuation Guide within this website, but here, we take a closer look at one particular aspect - HYPHENS

Writing in 1926 in 'Modern English Usage', Fowler said, 'The chaos prevailing among writers or printers or both regarding the use of hyphens is discreditable to English education'. If our national newspapers are anything to go by, the chaos is still with us today. But is the education system really to blame? For once, I do not think that it is. Fowler's own article on the hyphen that followed the opening sentence quoted above was so difficult to understand that he probably unwittingly added to the chaos. Sir Ernest Gowers saw fit to rewrite the article completely in his revision of the book some 40 years later.

The simple truth is that there are no clear-cut rules to guide us; and without rules how can the correct uses of the hyphen be taught? Experts often disagree amongst themselves, and even when they do agree they frequently do not follow their own advice. Now, here are some of my suggestions and comments.

  1. Hyphens should not be used unless they are necessary to help the reader to understand what the writer intended. Most authorities agree with this but seem unable to agree what 'necessary' means.
  2. Hyphens should never be used where the first word of any two-word compound adjective is an 'ly' adverb, as in, for example, 'A truly magnificent performance' or 'A richly deserved prize'. In the preface of the 1994 reprint of 'The Oxford Modern English Dictionary', the executive editor, Julia Swannell, uses the phrase 'a conveniently-sized book'. It is the duty of an adverb to modify (or qualify) the word next to it; and in 'conveniently-sized' the adverb does not need the prop of a hyphen to show that the following word is related to it. This example was taken at random, and is in no way meant to be a criticism of Julia Swannell. I could have taken examples from scores of other sources. 
  3. Where the first word of the compound adjective is an adverb that does not end in 'ly' (much, most, very etc), the hyphen should still not be used unless the adverb might otherwise be mistaken for an adjective with the same spelling. In 'A little-known actor', for example, 'little' is indeed an adverb, but the hyphen is necessary because without it 'little' could be taken to be an adjective, that is, a little actor who is known, rather than an actor who is little known. In 'A very pretty lady', on the other hand, 'very' is also an adverb, but because there is no possibility of confusion with the adjective 'very' the hyphen should not be used.
  4. Where the compound adjective contains more than one adverb, there is still no need for hyphens, although some authorities would no doubt argue that there is. In 'The most frequently used websites', for example, 'most' modifies 'frequently', and 'frequently' modifies 'used'. There is absolutely no need for hyphens here as the meaning is crystal clear without them. Any temptation to use a hyphen or hyphens in this type of compound should always be resisted.

Hyphens can be ugly things, especially when they are used to avoid repeating a word, as in, 'full- and part-time teachers' for example. What on earth is wrong with 'full-time and part-time teachers? Hyphens are also a nuisance to writers and printers alike, and we should do without them wherever possible. The modern compound 'e-mail', for example, could easily lose its hyphen, and in fact I have always used it as a single word (email). Many other two-part compounds that are presently hyphenated ('bail-out', 'tip-off' etc) could also be made into single words, and their hyphens would not be missed. The authorities must be encouraged to view the loss of some of their hyphens as a step forward and not a step backward.

So far we have looked mainly at situations where hyphens should definitely not be used. This is because there are more errors committed by putting hyphens in where they are not needed than there are by omitting them when they are necessary as an aid to being understood. Situations where hyphens are necessary, desirable or optional will be dealt with in the second part of this article. In readiness for part two, it will be useful if we just remind ourselves of the meanings of a couple of words that are often used by authorities when discussing hyphenated compounds. The words are 'attributively' and 'predicatively'. Compounds are used 'attributively' when they are placed before their nouns, and they are used 'predicatively' when they are contained in what is said about the subject of a sentence. In 'The bleary-eyed man', the compound adjective is used attributively, and in 'The man is bleary eyed' it is used predicatively.

Grammatical Attraction

by Bill Ball

There is physical attraction and there is grammatical attraction. A relationship based on physical attraction alone is often a disaster waiting to happen. Grammatical attraction does not usually lead to a disaster but it can easily lure us into grammatical error.

Grammatical attraction mainly occurs when the verb of a sentence or a clause is 'attracted' into the plural (or
the singular) by a word or words even though the true subject is singular (or plural). Here are a few simple examples that should help to make this clear. They have been made up for the occasion, as real-life examples are often full of clutter that would serve only to distract us. It is the clutter by the way and not the ignorance of the writer that probably causes the error in the first place:

1 New players is the only answer.
2 A catalogue of mistakes were the reason for his dismissal.
3 The manager, with three of his players, have already been charged.
4 I am not one of those who likes swimming.
5 There is tea, coffee and other drinks in the kitchen.
6 Here is the man whom I believe is responsible.

In the first sentence, 'New players' is the chosen subject as it has been placed first and the singular verb 'is' should be plural. Turn the sentence round with 'The only answer' as the chosen subject and the verb would then correctly be singular: 'The only answer is new players'. In the example, the verb has been 'attracted' into the singular by the singularity of the second half of the sentence.

In sentence 2, we have a similar error but for a different reason. The chosen subject is the singular 'A catalogue' but here the 'attracter' (or 'attractor') is not the second half of the sentence, which is singular anyway, but 'mistakes'. The verb should be 'was'.

In sentence 3, the subject looks at first sight to be plural; but 'with' is a preposition not a conjunction so that the true subject is just 'The manager'. The verb therefore should be 'has', but has been attracted into the plural by 'with three of his players' even though the commas around the phrase emphasise its separation from the true subject.

Sentence 4, or something like it, was always a favourite of the examiners in our English exams when I was at school. The grammarians would correctly say that 'who' here is a relative pronoun with 'those' as its 'antecedent', and that since 'those' is plural the following verb must also be plural ('like') to agree with it. I would say that if we simply turn the sentence round ('Of those who like swimming I am not one') we can see that the verb should indeed be plural. The verb has been attracted into the singular by 'one'.

In sentence 5, the true subject is 'tea, coffee and other drinks' , which is plural; but the verb has been attracted into the singular in the mistaken belief that the introductory 'There' is subject, which it is not. The 'tea' has also probably had something to do with it. The verb should be 'are'.

In sentence 6, there is no problem with the verbs but 'whom' should be 'who'. If we take out 'I believe', which is probably the attracter here, we shall see clearly why 'whom' is wrong.

The error in this type of sentence will probably ensure that 'whom' will not be completely banished from the language for some time. Whether that is a good or a bad thing I am not absolutely sure.

The lesson to be learnt from grammatical attraction is that we should read each sentence through before we go on to the next one. But that is probably too much to expect of those writers who are in too much of a hurry to stop and think that they might just have been lured in by grammatical attraction.