More English Faux Pas and How To Avoid Them

Because Your English Should Reflect Your Intelligence.

(Eli Reusch, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED)

You are applying to grad schools. It is time to write your wedding vows or help a very special couple with theirs. You are writing your first Substack post.

Sometimes proper English really matters.

Last Sunday MartyG Reports analyzed some of the most common English faux pas. But English is abused in so many ways that no single post or pair of posts can list them all.

Below are more examples of common mistakes. Once again, special attention has been paid to those that Microsoft Word can not or may not detect for you.

Improper Use of the Colon (:)

Do not use a colon to separate a verb or preposition from its object.

In this regard, the coders who made the first popular email programs did the colon a disservice. Nowadays it is common to see “To: …” and “From: …”

Properly, a colon may be used 1) to separate an independent clause from a list or other explanatory, enumerative, or intensifying clause or clauses; 2) to introduce a quotation; 3) to separate hours from minutes; or 4) to open a letter or memorandum to a particular person or persons. For example,

1. The First Amendment safeguards five inalienable rights: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to petition the government for the redress of grievances and freedom of peaceful assembly.

2. Patrick Henry famously said: “Give me liberty or give me death!”

3. The meeting is at 3:30 P.M.

4. Letters that began “Dear John:” were rarely good news.

The following examples are incorrect:

1. I would like you to: take out the garbage and do the dishes.

2. To: Stephen

Instead write them as follows:

1. I would like you to do two things: take out the garbage and do the dishes. (It would also be correct to write, I would like you 1) to take out the garbage and 2) to do the dishes; or, I would like you to take out the garbage and do the dishes.)

2. To Stephen:

Capitalize the first letter after the colon if 1) it begins a proper noun, 2) it begins a clause that is often written by itself or 3) the colon introduces multiple sentences.

1. Santa has seven reindeer: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and Rudolph.

2. In the 90s, Coors light had a successful slogan: Tap the Rockies.

3. Running a successful restaurant is difficult: One must prepare great food. One must charge competitive prices. One must keep a clean kitchen.

Unhyphenated Compound Adjectives

If a compound adjective is at all ambiguous, use hyphens to resolve any ambiguities.

USA Today, for example, ran a headline Twitter Disbands Trust and Safety Council.

My friend Donny reasonably inferred that Twitter had disbanded two things: 1) its trust and 2) its safety council.

Had USA Today instead written Twitter Disbands Trust-and-safety Council, Donny would have gotten the right idea: Twitter had a single council on trust and safety, which it had disbanded. (Assuming Trust and Safety Council was a proper noun, USA Today also could have quoted it, Twitter Disbands “Trust and Safety Council.”)

Here is another example: “The Pentagon has pushed for more powerful weapons.”

One could interpret this to mean the Pentagon wants more weapons that are powerful, i.e. a wider array of powerful weapons, not that it wants weapons that are more powerful than those it already has. To communicate the latter unambiguously one would write: “The Pentagon has pushed for more-powerful weapons.”

“Than Me” Versus “Than I”

“She loves him more than me” means that she loves him more than she loves me.

“She loves him more than I” means that she loves him more than I love him.

Nowadays it is common to read or hear “She loves him more than me” when the writer or speaker means “She loves him more than I.”

Similarly, “She loves him more than us” means that she loves him more than she loves us.

And “She loves him more than we” means that she loves him more than we love him.

I, he, she, we and they are nominative pronouns. They perform actions or exist in particular states. Me, him, her, us and them are object pronouns. They belong on the receiving end of prepositions and transitive verbs.

Conclusion Part Deux

MartyG Reports is committed to demystifying English for non-English majors. Subscribe, below, and feel free to comment with questions or suggestions.