In the Beginning…

By now, we have accepted as conventional wisdom the 100-year-old idea Less is more; we don’t do nuance thanks to the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) Principle; our lives have reflexively accepted a 140-character limit; but let’s look at how More is more and better, sometimes.

One of the easiest, poetic, and fruitful writing tools is anaphora, the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses. A famous example is:

• We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender. Winston Churchill

However, this device has a different name when the repetition happens at the end of successive clauses: epistrophe.

• There ain’t any answer. There ain’t going to be an answer. There never has been an answer. That’s the answer.  Gertrude Stein
  

• Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. . . . . An’ when our folk eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build–why, I’ll be there. John Steinbeck

All I ask is be careful using repetition. A fussy panda will pounce when if you write There is…There is…There is…. While it’s perfectly cromulent, Big Grammar says you cannot start a sentence with the word there. It’s a weak subject for a sentence, which is often true. There is a picture of Kim Kardashian on the cover of People. Start the sentence with the strongest subject: Kim Kardashian’s picture is on the cover of People. or People put a picture of Kim Kardashian on its cover.

Repetition is handy, but practice carefully and often.

Active Voice v. Passive Voice

Most people wouldn’t recognize the difference between voice even if it sat, full weight, on their faces. I promise: after reading this post, you’ll be able to identify active voice and passive voice.

You may ask, “Sam, why do I have to know the difference?” The point of this blog is to strengthen your writing, so it’s important to know the rules whenever you need to beat fussy pandas to the punch. Passive voice makes them recoil; for they complain it’s indirect and insincere writing. Personally, writing is either articulate or inarticulate. I don’t care which voice you use as long as you get your point across concisely. Still, use passive voice rarely.

Now, let’s identify the difference we came here to identify. The following two examples express the same incident, however, in different voice:

• The dog bit the boy.
• The boy was bitten by the dog.

To spot active voice: first, ask yourself: “Who or what is performing the action (the verb) of the sentence?” Here, the dog is performing; i.e., biting. Therefore, the dog is the primary actor. Second, active voice always has the primary actor at the beginning of the sentence. With this know-how, which would you think is active voice? Correct! The first example is active voice.

In the second example, the boy isn’t biting anyone, despite how hilarious/disturbing it would be if he did.  The receiver or object of the action (who’s “passive” in the sentence) becomes our focus because of the instinctual aspects of English syntax instead of the actor who’s completing the action.

The only rule you have to remember: active voice has the primary actor at the beginning of the sentence. If you need further examples, send me a question.

The Correct Use of Who/That

Despite being an opponent of Big Grammar, I believe it’s important to know the rules to break them effectively. One rule people don’t know they’re breaking is the correct use of Who/That.

How to Use Who

Strictness of Grammar demands who be used when referring to a person. For instance, “The baker who baked this cake should charge less.” A fussy panda cringes when reading “The baker that baked this cake…” Rightfully so, because Grammar insists “that” be used when referring to a thing.

While grammatically incorrect, the sensibility of the sentence is effective for someone who knows the rules and might be clever enough to catch the speaker’s subliminal contempt for the baker’s skill.

How to Use That

That =  thing. “The dog that scared me is over there.” Here’s where the confusion surfaces: if we give a thing a proper name–let’s call this dog, Fido–then reformist grammarians will permit the use of who, “Fido, the dog who scared me, is over there.” Fussy pandas, however, will continue much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

As I’ve said, Grammar is more art than science.

Quick Grammar 1: When to Use Who/Whom

Grammar is more art than science because language changes with each generation. However, one thing hasn’t changed for a long, long time: English syntax, the placement of words.

As native English speakers/readers, we have expectations for the alignment of words: the Subject appears first followed by a Verb; and, if we feel like it, an Object completes the thought. The subject is clear in the mundane sentence “Cow eats grass.” Let’s transpose a bit, and the meaning turns comic or becomes an argument against genetic modification when we read, “Grass eats cow.”

Now that we know grammar is innate–thanks Noam–let’s look at the pronouns Who and Whom. Who is a Nominative, aka subject pronoun. Whom is an Objective, aka object pronoun. Next time you read a sentence, find the verb to determine where the word choice is located. Do you need to place the pronoun before the verb (subject pronoun) or after the verb (object pronoun)?

Quick Quiz

1. (Who/Whom) sat in the dentist’s waiting room?
2. You ate lunch with (who/whom)?

If you’re still having trouble, try switching another set of nominative/objective pronouns He/Him for the ones causing all the trouble. Let the letter “m” in him remind you of the letter “m” in whom. Now, read the two quiz questions using He/Him:

• He sat in the dentist’s waiting room?
• Him sat in the dentist’s waiting room?

The one that sounds right is the correct usage. In other words, the correct answer is “Who sat in the dentist’s waiting room?” Can you decide which word is correct for the second question? In future, we’ll discuss when to use who or that.

Ellipsis: an Act of Omission

Skip this brevity lesson if your deadline is near. However, in order to reach an instructor’s assigned number of words in an assigned essay, many student writers will be very, very, very excessive with their wording when completing essays (30 words).

Since Ernest Hemingway’s stories poured from 1920s Paris, stinginess with words has become the expectation. We’re Americans; we’re busy.

Warning: a report some consider concise may be confusing to others. It’s best to start simply; i.e., asyndeton. As the previous asyndeton examples show, the meaning isn’t lost. In fact, the message arrives faster. Always keep that point in mind: is the meaning sharper with my style.

Another simple application: edit phrases into words. Reduce in order to to to, advance notice to notice, or combined together to combined. As Thomas Jefferson said, “When I can replace the phrase with the word, I use the word.”

Strategically break the rules of grammar with possessive nouns. For example, “Everybody’s friend is nobody’s.” Grammar insists the object owned must follow the owner; i.e., “Everybody’s friend is nobody’s friend.” The former sample is short, so readers don’t require much explanation. It also contains wit. The latter example offers, as Gertrude Stein might call, a village explainer’s sensibility. Good, if you’re a village; bad, if you’re not.

Say What?

Conjunction Junction, what, may I ask, is your function? These tiny connectors have an enormous impact when used excessively, polysyndeton, or not at all, asyndeton.

Polysyndeton has many famous biblical passages, especially when listing all the begatting done by nomadic Semetics after a hard day of sheep hearding. This rhetorical device bestows your words with hypnotic power, the slow motion of ritual and seriousness. Your readers or listens or eavesdroppers might start dovening as the repetition lulls their consciousness.  Deuteronomy is the book of lists; however, Genesis has many fine examples: “And they came to the place which God had told them of; and Abraham had built an alter there, and bound Issac his son, and laid him on the alter upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the Angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here I am.” Polysyndeton makes this horrifying passage almost beautiful because we are caught by the rhythm not the action.

The antidote to polysyndeton is asyndeton. Whereas the former rhetorical device slows the action, asyndeton quickens eyes, hearts, minds. Famous examples include: “I came, I saw, I conquered.” by Julius Caesar; and “That government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” by Abraham Lincoln; and, finally, “Been there. Done that.” uttered by a Jerry Springer guest, I suppose.

As always, the trick to rhetoric is using it with such skill that your audience is not aware of its presence. In other words, don’t seek compliments of its use; otherwise, you fail.

As I was saying…

Two rules for blogging: 1) offer something of value 2) be consistent with your audience. Since I’ve broken these two rules, I will make amends by commenting on a subject I’ve been studying for 30 years: writing.

My pet peeve is other’s pet peeves. I especially find troubling the peeved who swoop upon poor writing. More often than not, these posts illustrate the wrong way to write. Why so negative, panda? Let’s take a look at a positive example since we don’t have to reinvent the wheel–Shakespeare and Co. already did the heavy lifting!

Rhetorical Device of the Week: Enallage (rhymes with “knowledge”) 

This is an easy and great device to capture attention because it’s an obvious grammatical error–often a misuse of subject-verb agreement.

In the 1930s, Joe Jacobs, boxing manager, heard his man lost the decision; he grabbed the ring announcer’s mic and shouted, “We was robbed!” Well, yes, I’d say!

His grammar would definitely receive an admonishment from a snug-sphinctered grammarian. Regardless, here we are 80 years hence reveling in this uncouth utterance with wonder, “Why didn’t I say that?” Believe me: for the next two days, you’re going to replay this episode in your mind at least three times.

If you want to drive a point home, it doesn’t hurt to hurl an enallage strategically. For instance, you include an enallage and they does a double take. You do run the risk of sounding like Popeye the Sailor, but at least people stop to listen because you’re forced them. Use wisely and sparingly.

Why am I writing!

In March 2009, the Walgreens Corporation in Deefield, IL, laid-off 1,000 workers. I was one of them. The odd thing about it: I’m still not bitter. Oh, I’m angry about the income I lost, the seniority I lost, the contacts I lost, and the general sense of well-being one receives by being employed. However, I understood it, in a sense,  like “The Turk” tells Michael, “What happened to your father was business.” I suppose I suffered from old-fashioned thinking too.

Anyway, I floundered looking for a meaningful, well-paying job. Because it wasn’t happening in this economy, I was losing faith and started feeling desperate. A break: my wife hands me an article about this retraining program in Chicago, started by Mayor Daley. Unemployed white-collar workers will be retrained to re-enter the workforce. What have I got to lose? After completing three interviews, two applications, two tests, one background check, and one drug screen, I’m one of the 800 applicants  chosen for this six-days-a-week, six-month pilot program. In the end, only 175 are chosen.

It’s amazing. Split into three segments, one service-based learning; another employee-based learning; and, lastly, a classroom where my final grade will be passing a certification test. I applied for the digital media training–thinking it would show me how to use Flash or something in animation. Wrong. I’m learning e-Marketing and SNS. I’m a total convert, so now I’m blogging like a maniac. It didn’t hurt that I was a communications teacher for 5 years and wrote a comedy revue for Second City two years ago.

I reinvented myself before, and I’ll do it again. I hope I don’t disappoint you.