The Left Stuff...?

The Right Word for
the Proper Occasion
in Good English

Such confusion.  I mean why be simple when we can be complicated? In the past couple of weeks, my students have been writing some things which have frankly left my head scratching or face twitching with either confusion or curiosity...often both!  Using language means that you give your ideas and, in principle, the person to whom you are speaking understands the same idea as the one you were thinking of.  In practice, it can be a whole different thing.

Below are five different issues that I have encountered lately and they all have to do with conveying the exact message that you wish to.  Have a look.

A.  Objectivity vs. Subjectivity

English has a lot of ways of indicating precision.  In many circumstances you want to choose a word that does not let your speaker know what your opinion is.  In other circumstances, you do want to give your opinion and let your speaker know of your approval (or otherwise).  And in still others it does not matter.

The chart below will help you find the right word, or the accurate word, or the word that is good for your individual situation.

most objective	accurate ≠ inaccurate OR correct ≠ incorrect OR proper ≠ improper OR appropriate ≠ inappropriate
ô	What is the correct time?
	right ≠ wrong
	It’s the right time to do this.
	good ≠ bad
most subjective	I had a really good time at the party.

However, some of these words can be confusing.  Look at the examples below and see how one word can lead to many, many problems.

        I.        B. Mean What you Say / Say What you Mean

By avoiding certain words and favoring others, you are not only being more precise but also ensuring that your reader understands what you want to express exactly, without any ambiguity.  For example, in www.dictionary.com, the word right has 61 different definitions or cases!  Let’s look at this (very bad) example:

Incorrect:  Two choices for going right:  do you take the right right or the wrong right?

Incorrect: I choose the right right right away.

The different colors indicate a different definition or meaning of the word right.  But all the same context or example?  Methinks not.  The solution to all of this confusion?  Substitute more suitable, accurate or semantically appropriate words:

Correct:  Two choices for going right:  do you take the first right or the second right?

Correct:  I choose the first right immediately.

C. Grammatical Insecurity?

Confusion in use of words can also come from grammar.  Now, I am a huge lover of grammar and its innate sense of organization and structure.  However, if we follow proper grammatical guidelines, we soon realize that some words must be doubled grammatically, especially in compound or complex sentences (see blog posts) or even in one case in conjugating a verb properly.  In these cases we either:

Change the word:

Whatever that is is a problem.

He thinks that that idea is preposterous.

These sentences are grammatically correct, but sound deathly silly to the people with whom you are speaking.  Below, I have colored each part of each sentence according to whether it is dependent or independent, but the first sentence also presents a compound noun as a subject.  This means the sentences look like:

Whatever that is is a problem.

He thinks that that idea is preposterous.

The only independent clause that can function by itself as a full sentence is then, "That idea is preposterous," since all of the others are fragments.  But do we really need all of the words?  The answer is, "not really, no."

Whatever that is is remains a problem.

He thinks that that idea is preposterous.

In the first example we keep the subject whole and change the main verb of the sentence from the non-descript be to something wholly more readable in remain.  In the second example we drop the relative pronoun that and keep the demonstrative adjective that which must be attached to idea for us to keep a lid on what kind of idea the speaker is referring to.

Got it?

D. Change the Pronunciation

As you may imagine, speaking is different from writing which, obviously you may say, also means that writing is different from speaking.  In other words, what you write might not always be necessary when you speak.  What can appear proper on a page may sound silly in your mouth.  So just change the way you speak, either through contraction or volume.  

Each first sentence below is grammatically correct but sounds a bit silly when it is spoken.  Each second sentence provides you with a solution to this predicament.  In each case the most important of the two words is in boldface:

Before he had had a chance to speak, the conversation moved on. =>

Before he’d had a chance to speak, the conversation moved on.

She believes that that painting is a forgery. =>

She believes (that) that painting is a forgery. =>

She believes that that painting is a forgery.

The second sentence of the second example shows you how to lessen your pronunciation to allow for a double word to be pronounced.  Otherwise just drop the relative pronoun as we did in Part C of this post.

E. Proper Punctuation Avoids Confusion

Adding or changing punctuation can help you in avoiding confusion both in writing and in pronouncing your text.  One of the most common (and funniest) examples is given here, where the author has clearly forgotton something:

Let’s eat children!

Now that's just gross!  Obviously the author is addressing a group of youngsters at mealtime and not cutting them up in her/his plate.  Latin and Russian, among other languages, had ways of dealing with this by creating an entirely different case (e.g. subjective, objective, possessive in English) called the vocative case, which was used when addressing or calling out to someone.  

To correct this?  Nothing simpler:  just add a comma!

Let’s eat, children!

In another example we don't know what goes where, which means that we have what we call a squinting modifier (see blog page on Modifiers).  This means that one of the words could either go with the word before it or the word after it, but we don't know which.  Look at this example:

Most of the time travelers worry about their luggage. 

So what about travelers?  Here are two illustrations of how travelers can lead to confusion.

Most of the time travelers worry about their luggage. =>

People who travel in time?

Most of the time travelers worry about their luggage. =>

People who are concerned? 

The answer?  Proper punctuation!  If you preceed the example with an adverbial (adverb phrase) you can always insert a comma after it to indicate to your reader

Most of the time, travelers worry about their luggage.

This solution means that your reader or the person to whom you are speaking can clearly match which word goes where and understand what you mean(t).  Many of my students have heard my injunctions against abuse of commas and the timeless rhyming advice that my late grandmother -- a school teacher in a one-room schoolhouse in the American Midwest -- gave me years ago:  "When in doubt, leave it out."  In these cases, however, it is best to err on the side of clarity.

:-)