Common English Faux Pas Part 3

Elevate Your Impact By Elevating Your Language

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You are speaking in front of an audience for the first time in a long time. You have traffic court. Or your significant other is introducing you to your future in-laws.

Sometimes proper English really matters.

This is part three of MartyG Reports’ series on common English faux pas and how to avoid them. A full syllabus is available at this link here.

Once again, special attention has been paid to issues that Microsoft Word can not or may not always catch for you.

People Versus Persons

If a group has three people then two go home, how many people remain? One people?

But if a group has three persons then two go home, one person remains.

Use persons for countable groups. Use people to refer to a large group of unknown or indeterminate number that shares common culture or other qualifiers, e.g., the American and Canadian peoples have a large land border.

How best to remember it

Remember, detectives look for missing persons, not missing people. A missing people is a job for an archaeologist or anthropologist.

Fewer Versus Less

It is best not to interchange fewer and less.

Use less for things that can not be concretely counted. One has less water after a drought.

Use fewer for things that may be quantified in a straightforward manner. One has fewer apples after making a pie.

Most of the time use fewer before plurals like jewels, cars and facts, and use less before mass nouns like money, gasoline and information.

But some words require special attention. One has less paper after printing a 100-page document, but one has fewer papers after rolling a joint.

How best to remember it

Remember that the express checkout sign at the grocery store would be better written “Twelve Items Or Fewer.”

Unnecessary Participles

Students often pad their language when, e.g., a teacher requires an essay be at least three pages. Elsewhere less is almost always more.

Thus good writers and speakers cut unnecessary participles. Consider the following sentence:

Contrary to folklore, Einstein had excelled at math and physics from an early age.

It is better written or said this way:

Contrary to folklore, Einstein excelled at math and physics from an early age.

Though sometimes necessary, in this example the participle “had” adds to nothing but the word count.

When in doubt, try removing the participle to see whether it is necessary.

While and Although Versus Though

The word while deals primarily with timing, not facts.

Consider the following sentence:

While the diners finished their plates, the chef wondered if he should have added less garlic.

Interpreted literally, it means that the chef reconsidered the amount of garlic during the time when the diners finished their plates. In contrast, the following sentence unambiguously expresses that the chef had concerns despite the empty plates:

Though the diners finished their plates, the chef wondered if he should have added less garlic.

Similarly, avoid although when though suffices.

Acronyms Versus Initialisms

Acronyms and initialisms are both formed by taking the first letters of a series of words, e.g., NASA for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and D.O.J. for the Department of Justice.

Classically speaking, however, acronyms are pronounced like words, and initialisms are pronounced one letter at a time. So, how is a reader to know that NASA is not pronounced en-ay-ess-ay or that D.O.J. is not pronounced like the beginning of dojo?

Use periods for initialisms but not acronyms. Readers who see D.O.J. are more likely to pronounce it one letter at a time, and readers who see NASA are more likely to pronounce it as a word. Your readers may not thank you, but they will better pronounce the acronyms and initialisms in your writing.

Conclusion

American schools tend not to teach these principles. Those who master them thus have a special advantage when language matters most.

Subscribe, below, for part four next Sunday.