I'm so excited to welcome MM Pollard, known as the Queen of English. I love her classes.
Getting the Words Right by MM Pollard, editor, Black Velvet Seductions and the MM in Workshops with MM
Getting the Words Right by MM Pollard, editor, Black Velvet Seductions and the MM in Workshops with MM
©MM Pollard, December, 2012
As you sit at your desk
searching your brain for that perfect word, do you ever image a famous author
sitting at his or her desk, typing away, every word perfect?
Sorry, but that never
happened for any famous author I’ve studied or taught. Hemingway told
interviewer George Plimpton for the Paris
Review that he revised the last page of A
Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times. When Plimpton asked him what stumped
him, Hemingway said, “Getting the words right.” (Theodore A Rees Cheney, Getting the Words Right, p. 10)
I advise writers to get the
words right, not to strive for the perfect word. I promise you’ll have more
hair if you switch your thinking just a little. Besides, getting the right word
is hard enough, thanks to confusing word groups like “affect” and “effect,” but
you already knew that, didn’t you?
I have chosen a few confusing
words that drive writers crazy. Before you ask, I do have a workshop on
confusing words in August, 2013, and again in December, 2013. Check out my blog
at http://queenofenglish.wordpress.com for more information on this workshop and on many others.
Before I go on, let me tell you
a true story. I was on a book seller’s website browsing for an e-book to add to
my Nook Color when I found an intriguing romance title. I clicked on it and up
came the blurb from the back cover of the book. I was about to buy the book
when I read the last sentence (I’m paraphrasing here): Can the heroine’s love
save the hero from his decent into madness, or will her love doom her to
madness as well?
I didn’t buy the book. If the
editor and author couldn’t find a mistake on the back cover, I didn’t feel
confident that the story inside the covers would be mistake-free.
When I read a romance, I want
to lose myself in the story. I become the heroine. I can lust for the hero all
I want, and it doesn’t bother my husband one bit. Nothing takes me out of the
story quicker than a mistake like the one in the blurb I gave as an example.
Did you find the mistake that
cost that author a sale? I’ll give the answer in this post later.
Here’s the list of words I will
cover here.
fewer and less
decent, descent, and dissent
anxious and eager
My biggest pet peeve I have as an editor in
this category is fewer and less.
If you use these two words correctly,
you’ll be ahead of most of the English-speaking population. You’ll hear these
words mixed up on even TV news programs and in publications.
Here’s the rule:
Use few,
fewer, fewest to refer to objects that can be counted. Use little, less, and least to refer to things that can’t be counted, with a singular
noun (countable or noncountable), with time, distance, and sometimes money.
EXAMPLES
Basic
rule: noncount noun
I have less flour now that I have baked
three cakes.
You
can’t count flour.
count
noun
I baked fewer cakes today than I did
yesterday.
You
CAN count cakes.
Less
with a singular noun, count or non-count:
I baked one less cake today than I did
yesterday.
Less is correct because CAKE is singular.
I had less time to answer the questions
because I was late for the test.
Time
is a non-count noun. Think amount here.
Money
vs. dollar bills:
I have less money after spending some in
the soda machine.
Money
here is a non-count noun. Think amount here.
I have fewer dollar bills in my wallet now
that I left a tip.
You
CAN count dollar bills.
With
time and distance:
It took less than two hours to fry the
turkey.
Think
of less than two hours as one unit
of time.
That distant planet has fewer hours in its
day than earth has.
Here,
we are talking about many individual periods of time – hours, not one unit of
time made up of many hours.
Here’s a confusing threesome—another pet peeve of
mine and of an editor with Entangled Publishing
Decent, descent, and dissent – These three words sound very much alike, but have very
different meanings.
Decent is an adjective and means
honest. A decent person is an honest
person.
Descent is a noun and means a downward
slope or family origin. The missile’s sudden descent worried the soldiers on the ground. Darwin wrote about the descent of man.
Dissent is a noun and means a
disagreement. If students had been on the rules committee, there would have
been no dissent.
Remember my example from the
book blurb? The mistake is here. Do you see it?
Yes, decent should have been descent.
Another one of my pet peeves—the mistake most
commonly made
Anxious and eager – These two are my second biggest pet peeves in this
category. DON’T USE THESE WORDS AS SYNONYMS. If you are anxious about something, you don’t want it to happen. If you are eager about something, it can’t happen
too soon for you.
Many people think these words
are interchangeable. They aren’t. Using one for the other can change your
story. Let me show you what I mean.
Sandy waited anxiously
in baggage claim for Tommy. He was coming home from Afghanistan after being
gone for six long months. During those months, she had kept her secret out of
her letters and phone calls. Not telling him had been easy. Facing him today
would be hard.
She saw him coming down the ramp. How would he take the news?
Unsure of the answer, she bit her lip and crossed her arms over her swollen
stomach.
Second paragraph – same
situation, changes result from eager’s meaning.
Sandy waited eagerly in
baggage claim for Tommy. He was coming home from Afghanistan after being gone
for long six months. During those months, she had kept her secret out of her
letters and phone calls even though it had been the hardest thing she had ever
done. She had wanted to wait until they were face to face.
She saw him coming down the ramp. He waved his hand and had a big
grin on his face. What would he think of the surprise? she wondered.
She gently patted her swollen tummy. He’s love the surprise just
as much as he loved her.
If I swapped anxiously and eagerly, I would be guilty of misleading the reader. The details in
the passage would seem to contradict the first sentence. Writers who mislead
their readers through the misuse of words don’t keep their readers for long.
That’s it – my three biggest pet peeves as an editor and trouble for
most writers.
Okay, let me ask you a question? Want to win something? How about a pdf
of Apostrophe Anxiety and MM’s Cure for
It? Here are four rules that take
the anxiety out of using apostrophes. Promise.
I will e-mail my cure for this dreaded yet common condition among
writers to all who leave in a comment words that drive them to tear their hair
out, bite their nails, reach for the bottle--only joking about the last one. I
hope, anyway.
Deadline to win is December 20, 2012.
ABOUT MM Pollard
As a copy
editor for Black Velvet Seductions for three years and now acquisitions editor,
MM Pollard has read many entertaining and thought-provoking stories. She has
also found common mistakes in the fundamental skills of writing.
With
fifteen years of experience teaching English serving as a resource of knowledge
and a life-time love of teaching and of language, MM began presenting workshops
in February, 2011. She has presented workshops for many RWA chapters, Savvy
Authors, Writers Online Classes, and in her own virtual classroom. MM is
excited to have over thirty workshops scheduled for 2013. Check out her blog for more details.
Also
check out her new forum for
free workshops and advice on using English correctly. If you
aren’t a member of Lefora.com, you’ll first have to register as a member. It’s
free, too.
MM has
helped many writers improve their language and writing skills through her fun
workshops. MM is sure she can help you, too, master the fundamentals of
English.
MM Pollard, editor, Black Velvet Seductions
Workshops with MM
