Prepositions, the Busy Ps
Grammar Queen, can you please explain what a prepositional phrase is and why it’s important?
Why, of course I can explain. The root word of preposition is position. Thus, a preposition is a part of speech that helps a verb by explaining some aspect of the positioning of the verb. The “pre” is simply alluding to English syntax; other languages have postpositional phrases. Shrug.
A prepositional phrase is the preposition and the verb’s object (a noun) with any modifiers stuck in there to make the sentence descriptive.
I originally learned about prepositions with the mouse and house analogy. A preposition describes a mouse in relation to a house. It can be in the house, on the house, under the house, around the house, etc. This is a little simplistic, but it certainly works for garden-variety prepositions. Is it possible to come up with exceptions? Please, I think I was seven when my mother used this teaching tool.
Why is it improper grammar to end a sentence with a preposition? Well, a preposition is a transitional word connecting the verb and its object (normally a noun). So a preposition without the rest of its prepositional phrase is a bridge to nowhere. However, transformational grammarians (the quantum physicists of grammar) agree that in modern usage, the prepositional object can be implied. They also don’t have difficulties with split infinitives, so take that with a pinch of salt.
Why are prepositional phrases important? They’re the rest of the sentence after the verb.
Oh, and if you want to understand the title of this post, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4jIC5HLBdM
I do not understand why The Powers That Be ever took Schoolhouse Rock off the air. It, well, rocked.
-Val, sometimes a grammar queen, but usually just a grammar geek
Spelling Counts
Misspelling a word can alter the meaning of an entire sentence. The advent of spell-checking software has made accurate spelling easier, but it is not a panacea. When a typographical error or spelling error results in another word, spellcheck is useless.
Take the increasingly common misspelling “loose.” Loose is an actual word, of course, but it’s becoming a common misspelling of the word “lose,” with sometimes humorous results (that were meant to be serious).
For example, here’s a sentence from a review of Little Brother by Cory Doctorow on the Boise Speculative Fiction Writers blog (thank you, w0pht, for permission to use it):
This novel preaches the gospel of open encryption and free speech that this country is rapidly loosing to political fear mongering and civil rights trashing.
A single letter has changed the intent of a serious sentence describing a political climate of increased censorship of word, deed and thought. With the error, it reads (to me) as if open encryption and free speech have been unleashed, like Shakespeare’s dogs of war, to prey upon fear mongering and civil rights trashing: quite the opposite of the writer’s intent, though not a bad idea.
If you’re thinking w0pht is grammar challenged, please rest assured this was simply a typographical error in a blogpost. And buy his short story in the new anthology Barren Worlds from Hadley Rille Press, because I can’t use his typo and not plug his new book. I’m getting an autographed copy at his reading, 2 p.m. on July 26 at the Rediscovered Bookshop.
–Val
Quantization, Less, Fewer, and the Number Six
This one is for free, because this is an error I’ve been seeing far too frequently of late.
In my real life, I’m not just a grammar geek—biting the heads off dangling participles!—I’m also a techno-geek. Relevance, you ask? Actually there is some.
Quantization is the quality of existing as individual packets of something, or existing as a continuous mass. This relates both to quantum mechanics, where light is made of particles called quanta, and to grammar. Yes, grammar. Stop rolling your eyes.
Specifically, it relates to the use of less and fewer. “Less” is used for non-quantized nouns and adjectives, while “fewer” is used for quantized nouns and adjectives. Confusingly, “more” is used for both quantized and non-quantized nouns and adjectives. You’re safe with “more.”
As an example, consider peanut butter. Peanut butter is non-quantized. If you have peanut butter and give some away, you have less peanut butter than you started with. However, if your peanut butter is in jars, it’s different; jar is a quantized noun. You can have “six jars,” but you cannot have “six peanut butter.” “Six peanut butter” is such blatantly bad grammar that even Microsoft Word can pick it out as such.
Some nouns, such as “mess,” are non-quantized until they are made plural. It would be correct to write “less mess” or to write “fewer messes,” but “fewer mess” makes no more sense than “fewer messy.” Messy, of course, being a non-quantized adjective.
How can one tell the difference between a quantized noun and a non-quantized noun? Assign a number to it, as in “six peanut butter,” which we have established doesn’t work. “Six blue” likewise shows that the noun is non-quantized. However, “six mistakes” clearly shows that the construction “less mistakes” is grammatically incorrect.
I’ll stop now, before brains begin to throb. Thank you for your kind attention.
—Valerie
Grammar Queen?
What’s that? You’ve noticed that it’s been two weeks and no Grammar Queen? That means you’ve visited the site and haven’t left a comment or question for our Grammar Queen to answer. It’s your fault. At least that sound good to me. Way better than that life got in the way and I haven’t had a chance to post anything. Anyone have some brie for my whine?
So the first and best tip the infamous Grammar Queen gave me on grammar was this: Valerie said get a copy of Strunk and White. The Elements of Style is the powerful, little book on grammar.
Whole cow and Holy Cow, a great book.
So, send in a comment with a challenging grammar question.
Grammar Queen – Further or Farther
Dear Grammar Queen:
How about further and farther???
Thanks for the help,
Annalise Russell ~*~Romance Through The Centuries~*~
Blog: www.annaliserussell.wordpress.com
THE PLEASURE OF HIS BED, September ‘08 Kensington
Annalise,
Farther is used for literal distance, as in, “farther down the road,” while further is used for figurative distance, as in, “further back in time.”
Here’s a quick way to remember which is which: if it has an “a” in it, it’s for Actual distance. Hokey, but it helps me. 
–Valerie aka GQ
The Impotence of Proofreading by Taylor Mali
A very funny video about proofreading.
Grammar Queen – Lie versus Lay
This week’s question is from multi-published author and chapter mate Charlene Teglia:
Valerie rules! Now can you explain lay/lying/lie/laid because I once saw a beautiful, brief, clear explanation and now cannot find the bloody thing. And I am forever getting this one wrong.
Charli
www.charleneteglia.com
Well, lie and lying are actions you perform with your own body. Lay and laid are actions you perform on other objects. For example, hens lay eggs, but you lie down for a nap.
Is that the sort of thing you had in mind?
Valerie aka Grammar Queen
Yes! Exactly! Thank you.
So if a cat is lying across my keyboard, that’s correct? Because it’s performed with its own body. I mean, I didn’t lay the cat there.
Charlie
Grammar Queen – compound adjectives
As promised are resident Grammar Queen will answer and post grammar tips once a week. To get us started I asked her:
Dear Valerie Robertson, i.e. Grammar Queen,
Okay, I’m having trouble wrapping my head around the use of hypthens.
The truck’s driver sat, knuckle white and red faced in the blue truck like a patriotic statue.
Is red faced really redfaced or red-faced? How about knuckle-white? Or am I over thinking this?
Amberly,
I think what you’re having difficulty with is compound adjectives. When two or more words modify a noun as a group (but not individually), then they need to be hyphenated. For example, “white-knuckled and red-faced furious,” where white-knuckled and red-faced both modify furious. Or you could go whole hog and write it as, “white-knuckled-and-red-faced furious.”
Of course, this _is_ English, so there are exceptions: If one of the modifiers is an adverb (the -ly endings are a dead giveaway), the compound adjective doesn’t need to be hyphenated.
There’s also a really obscure case that mostly applies to software manuals, but if one component of the compound adjective is itself a made up of more than one word, the multiword phrase isn’t hyphenated internally (these are usually command strings or program proper names). It just doesn’t come up much in fiction, but it’s in the Chicago Manual of Style.
The first example I could think of was “DDR SDRAM” which is a particular type of computer memory chip. So if you’re discussing a DDR SDRAM chip or a DDR SDRAM module (the actual thing you put in a computer to upgrade the memory), DDR SDRAM isn’t hyphenated, although it modifies the noun chip or module as a phrase.
The other time you would want to hyphenate a word is when you need to make a pronunciation differentiation: co-op vs. coop, or un-ionized vs unionized.
In your example, the word ‘white’ modifies ‘knuckled,’ so you don’t need a hyphen, and the word ‘red’ modifies ‘faced,’ also not needing a hyphen. To require hyphens, you need another word in there that both phrases modify/describe without the individual words in the phrases describing it.
Clear as mud?
Val,
Who could talk about this stuff all day long, because she’s just that sick and twisted…
Good thing Valerie is twisted. Post your grammar questions in the comments or send them to infocbc@yahoo.com attn: Grammar Queen and we’ll post the answers here.
