Daniel Kies Department of English College of DuPage
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Contemporary English Usage

Style and Usage Issues in Modern English

Preface & Table of Contents

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!	In development Dear Please bear with me as I add new pages about the roles of grammar and usage in the written language. The new pages will go online as I developed them. Ugly drafts and all. Please share your thoughts about this project. Some discussion with readers would be very helpful.

Preface

Writing creates magic.

Umberto Eco (1992) and Michael Olmert (1992) both recount a tale from John Wilkins (1694) — the English prelate and scientist. In 1641, as Wilkins tells the tale, an Indian servant was sent to deliver a basket of figs. He ate several figs on the way, and when he arrived at his destination, he was accused of stealing.

Wilkins continues, After this, being sent again with the like Carriage, and a Letter expressing just the Number of Figs, that were to be delivered, he did again, according to his former Practice, devour a great Part of them by the Way; but before he meddled with any (to prevent all following Accusations) he first took the Letter, and hid that under a great Stone, assuring himself, that if it did not see him eating the Figs, it could never tell of him; but being now more strongly accused than before, he confesses the Fault, admiring the Divinity of the Paper ….

I like Wilkins' phrase, the Divinity of the Paper. However, to me, magic seems the better word.

Writing binds both space and time. Through writing, we can feel the love of friends and family ten thousand miles away. Through writing, we can receive the grace of Emily Dickinson and Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, although they lived many years before us. If that is not magic, what is?

I write these pages with four audiences in mind:

1. prospective English language arts teachers (especially grades 6-12), who wish to know more about the scope of the task they will soon undertake in their classrooms,
2. general readers, who want to know more about the most common editing problems in contemporary English,
3. practicing composition and writing instructors, who want to know more about how language study (linguistics) can add to their teaching of writing at the college/university level, and
4. all the readers and writers who have ever noticed that a phrase or a sentence written in one particular way is so much more effective, communicative, powerful than in any other way — and wanted to know why.

Those of us drawn to the teaching of writing have felt the gravity of Wilkins' phrase, the divinity of paper. Those of us who wish to improve our writing have too — even if we measure our paper in pixels now rather than inches. I dedicated these pages to all of us who sense that pull.

When most people use the word grammar, they are really talking about usage. Those two are not the same. The latter is concerned with discovering the best ways to express one's self. The former is the study of the language itself — an empirical study that is bias-free and non-judgmental.

from Goals and aims.

Table of Contents

1. Goals and aims
2. What do we mean by the word grammar?
   1. Prescriptive and descriptive grammar
   2. Pedagogical grammars
      1. School grammars
      2. Developmental grammars
      3. Other therapeutic grammars
   3. Scholarly grammars, linguistics, and language study
   4. "Why teach grammar at all?"
3. Usage rules
   1. "But it's in the dictionary!" — Language authorities and language disputes
   2. The origins of usage problems
      1. Language changes over time
      2. Language changes over distance
      3. Language changes over mode of transmission
   3. On the intelligence of human error
   4. Grammatical usage v. style advice
4. Standards in English
   1. Standardization through regulation
      1. English-only movement / Official English movement
   2. Standardization and "interoperability"
   3. Usage and abusage
5. Sentence structure problems
   1. The relationship between sentence structure problems and punctuation
   2. Clause and sentence boundaries
      1. Recognizing sentences
      2. Recognizing clauses and their boundaries
   3. Comma splices (also known as comma faults)
   4. Run-on sentences (also known as fused sentences)
   5. Sentence fragments
6. Punctuation
   1. No comma after introductory element
   2. No comma in a compound sentence
   3. No comma in a nonrestrictive modifier
   4. Possessive apostrophe error
   5. Lack of comma in a series (Oxford comma)
   6. Unnecessary comma with restrictive element
7. Agreement problems
   1. Subject and verb
   2. Pronoun and antecedent
   3. Other agreement problems
      1. Heads and modifiers
      2. Heads and determiners
8. Case problems
   1. Case problems with nouns
      1. Genitive case and possessive apostrophe errors
   2. Case problems with pronouns
      1. Confusion of subject and object forms of pronouns
      2. Confusion of object and genitive forms of pronouns
9. Commonly confused and misused words — a compendium
   1. Using the wrong word
   2. Vague pronoun reference
   3. Wrong or missing inflected endings
   4. Wrong or missing prepositions
   5. Tense shifts
   6. Unnecessary shifts in person (also known as Point of view shifts)
   7. Confusing it's and its
10. Word choice and writing style
    1. Word level choices
       1. Hypernymy
       2. Metonymy
       3. Hedges and boosters
       4. Nominalization
       5. Scope and range of reference
    2. Phrase level choices
       1. End-weight
       2. Balance
    3. Clause level choices
       1. Word Order Choices and their Effects on Meaning
          1. Basic word order
          2. Marked themes
          3. Voice in the clause
          4. It clefts
          5. Wh- clefts
          6. Nominalization
          7. Semantic (participant) roles
          8. Information focus
          9. Given and new/Perspective and Theme
          10. Existential there sentences
       2. Rhythm and emphasis
       3. Agency
    4. Choices beyond the clause level
       1. Using our knowledge of the grammar to improve writing style
          1. Cohesion
          2. Coherence
       2. Genre awareness
       3. Audience awareness
11. Usage and abusage
12. The decline and death of the English language

References

Eco, U., Rorty, R., Culler, J., & Brooke-Rose, C. (1992). Interpretation and overinterpretation. Ed. Stefan Collini. Cambridge University Press.

Olmert, M. (1992). The Smithsonian Book of Books. Smithsonian Institution.

Wilkins, J. (1694). Mercury, or, The secret and swift messenger. Shewing, how a man may with privacy and speed communicate his thoughts to a friend at any distance. 2nd ed. London: Printed for Richard Baldwin.

Next: 1. Goals and Aims

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