Write Your Novel!: grammatical errors

Showing posts with label grammatical errors. Show all posts

Grammar: the absolute basics --

Get this much "down" if you do nothing else!

We've put the essential ground rules in a nutshell. Be aware, there's more ... there's a lot more ... but you should find more than enough right here to get you on the right track, and if you do need more, we'll recommend some excellent reference books. (If this were soccer, you'd know the size and shape of the field, length of game, number of players, how to score and maybe two offside rules. Of course there's more — but you might not need it!)

What's in this post?
Is it singular, or are they plural? Help
If it was ... if it were ...? What goes on here?
Do I say I, or me?
Either, or, neither, nor ...say, what?
Can, may or might? And what's the diff?
Possession: adventures with the Dreaded Apostrophe
Pluralizing: more misadventures with the Apostrophe
It's ... its ... its' ... which is it?
Their ... there ... they're ... which is right?
Whose or who's or whose's? A little help here!
Controlling pronouns before they run berserk
Splicing together phrases and clauses to make sentences
Subjects, objects ... and what's this predicate business?
That or which ... which is it?
On which side of the bracket does the punctuation fall?

It's ... its ... its' ... which is it?
Understand the difference between them, and it's simple:

It's is a contraction. It's short for it+is. You use It's to say, "It's a beautiful day;" "it's a crying shame;" "Mike said it's in the cupboard;" "Jim's bike? It's broken;" "it's being mended;" "it's got two flat tires." "It's not a good idea." "It's time for tea." "It's too late for talking." "Then, it's all over?" "But it's only just started!"

Its shows possession: my, your, his, her, our, their ... its. Notice, NONE of the words showing possession have an apostrophe. Not one of them. So, it's easy to tell when to use Its, because it has no apostrophe. Like this:

"Its paint was cracked." "She had a bike, but its wheel was buckled." "Jim said its door was yellow." "Yes, but its knob was green." "Its wires were burned out." "Its tail feathers are white." "Its aroma was delicious." "The song was lovely, its melody soared." (In these examples, Its is standing in for the noun. A house, a door, a bike, a radio, a bird, a pot of soup; a song.)

Its' is a typographical error. Never use it, because it doesn't mean anything at all. It's the ultimate booboo: gibberish. A mix-up between your fingers and the keys. 'Nuff said.

Pluralizing: billboard's ... billboards ... hotdog's ... hotdogs ... house's ... houses ... help!

More fun with the apostrophe. Relax: it's easy. You already know, after reading #1, that the apostrophe shows possession. What is does NOT show #151 not ever! -- is the plural, of anything! (Singular is one of something; plural is two or more.) All you have to do, to avoid this incredibly common gaff is, never, never use the apostrophe when you mean "two or more." Like this:

Their ... there ... they're ... which is right?

All three are correct, in context. When you're copy editing, all you need to do is make sure the right word is used for the right context. Fortunately, it's so easy!

Their is a possessive pronoun. (A pronoun is a word which stands in, like an understudy, for a noun. 'It' can be the standin for a lamp, an elephant, and the planet Mars. 'She' can be the standin for two year old Gemma, your great-grandmom, and the starship Enterprise. 'They' can be used to stand for a bunch of flowers, ten battleships, and the Hell's Angels. Pronouns are the most flexible words in the language, and some of them show how a noun "owns" or "possesses" something. "The girl's bike = her bike." "Jim's book = his book." "The car's wheels = its wheels." "The boys' exams = their exams." The personal pronouns in this particular word list are "my, your, his, her, its, our, and their." Simply add a noun to any of them, and you can't go wrong.) So, their is only ever (ever!) used to show how a bunch of people or things "possess" something else. Stick to this, and you can't go wrong. "Their religion." "Their tourism industry." "Their Size 14 dresses." "Their industrial-strength titanium frames." "Their tiny, delicate petals." "Their warped camshafts." "Their photon torpedo banks." "Their painted fingernails." Easy.

There is a word with two jobs.

The first job is where "there" is used as a preposition. (Prepositions are words which show the position of objects in space. Under, over, in(side) out(side), before, behind, between, above, below, here ... there.) So, "The football stopped over there." "Our house is there, on the corner." "There are the girls." "The frog was there, on the rock." "I saw him standing there." "She said, 'There it is, under the table." He answered, 'I don't see it there.'" "'But the book is there,' she insisted. 'I put it there!'" "Jim saw the Klingons, hiding in wait there." So, in this context, use There to show the position of objects in space. Never use "their" or "they're," and you can't go wrong.

Second job performed by "there" ... it shows the existence of things. Like this:

There is; there are; there were; there will be; there aren't any; there are six; there were 43; there haven't been any since May; there won't be any until August; there isn't a chance; there can't be a sound; there wasn't any trace; there is a whole load of them; there is at least a million; there was one when I got here. So, in this context use there only (only!) to show the existence of things.

They're is a contraction. It's short for they+are. "They're" is never (never!) used for any other purpose. Stick to this, and you'll be right ever time. Like this:

"They're on their way home, I see them there on the road." "They said they're coming back, as soon as their car is fixed." "I talked to Jack and Sam, they're finished the job." "We called them last night, they're on the morning train." "The two dogs are fighting, they're going to get hurt this time." "Six cars are racing on the road, they're driven by maniacs." "Four flights have been cancelled today, they're waiting for fog to clear." "Daniel and Jack won't be back tonight, they're busy." "Their plane is late, so they're going to take a cab home, we don't have to wait there."

Attack of the killer pronouns!

Take a look at these sentences. Each contains one pronoun and two or three nous. The problem is, you're left guessing which of the nouns the pronoun stands in for, and the sentences become ambiguous. One of the most important copy editing jobs is to watch out for ambiguity, turn the muddy into the clear. Pronouns can get you into a lot of trouble! Like this:

Try this:

The trick is to see the ambiguity, and then look for ways to either invert the sentence to make the potential for ambiguity go away; you can also replace the pronoun with a similar word which will do the job just as well, and prevent over-use of the original noun. Copy editing give you the opportunity to revise to your heart's content. (In the examples above, the car = the vehicle; home = the building; lunch = his meal; the crate = the heavy box; the white cat = the Persian. In the other examples, the sentences have been turned inside out to weed out the potential for killer pronouns.

Subjects and Objects: it's war!

Every sentence has a subject. If it doesn't have a subject, it's not a sentence! (Put your copy editing hat on here.) The 'subject' of a sentence is the entity that performs the verb. Think of the subject as the owner of the verb. Like this:

First step: pick out the verbs. (A verb is an 'action' word. It can be the only word in the entire sentence that indicates what is actually HAPPENING! In the examples above, the verbs are...

Sings ... running ... wants ... jumped ... arrived ... worked ... terrorized ... arrested.

(NOTE: the verbs are in different tenses, but don't worry about this. They're all verbs, and at this moment, that's what counts.)

Now, figure out who's performing each verb. Who owns it?

The boy ... The elderly man ... A beat-up red car ... A small brown puppy with big, bright eyes ... Mother's cat, a young Persian called Nostradamus ... Two girls from Nebraska ... A regiment of door-to-door salesmen ... Six badly behaved children with execrable manners ... Eight people.

Notice how subjects can be simple ("The boy" and "eight people"), and either singular or plural. The subject can be a whole bunch of people ("A regiment") ... and the subject can get complicated, as in the case of Nostradamus!

The subject of the sentence is all the words used to describe the subject, gathered together:

These, above, are not sentences, even though they're long. They're fragments. To make a sentence, you need add a verb:

(Do you still have your copy editing hat on? Good!) Now, what about the object of a sentence. Not all sentences have objects. Very short ones can be complete without them:

But the instant these short, choppy little sentences start to grow and express more ... you get an object. The object is the entity or object that is affected by the verb. It has the verb performed on it, or done to it. Like this:

In the above examples, the verbs are:

arrived ... smashed ... escaped ... struggled-to-catch ... win ... parked ... stood ... crying-out.

And if you're looking for the subject, it's easy now: the subjects of these simple sentences are the parts that are NOT the verbs or the objects! (Jack and Daniel ... the little girl ... five puppies ... Two policemen ... Charles ... The driver of a yellow Gogomobile ... the Gogomobile ... Stockton.

So far, so good. Look for the verb; whatever, or whoever performs ("owns") the verb is the subject, and whatever gets the verb wreaked upon it is the object. The copy editing process is coming along fine.

Now things get interesting. There's a good deal more material involved in long, complicated sentences, and you have to make absolutely sure all this material is properly tagged and organized. If you get lazy and inattentive, you can end up with hilarious, fall-down-laughing copy editing results, like this:

The trick is simply to arrange the sentence to keep all the appropriate material gathered together. While you're learning, go through a sentence and "tag" the various parts. Underline the verb, highlight the subject, and then when you've identified the object, round up all the material belong to it:

A comb with celluloid teeth ... a table with antique legs ... a house with a nasty case of termites ... a drill with a three-meter cord ... a guitar with bright steel pegs.

The other subject/object battle you can easily get into while copy editing is this: in long sentences, a fight can develop over who owns the verb. When sentences become very long and complex, you can find yourself hunting around trying to sort out who owns what. The easiest "fix" for this malady is to break the sentence down into two, three or even more smaller ones. Shorter sentences are easier to control ... often, they're also easier to read, and they can pack a "punch" in the narrative, which longer, flowing sentences don't have. This is where copy editing can actually cross back over and line into creative writing. The border between the two blurs out.

For example, here's a long, rambling sentence, and the copy editing cure for it:

A good distance offshore, where the water becomes very deep because the continental shelf drops off into the abyss, two small trawlers (which had, an hour before, put out of the port of San Cristobal) set their nets, with the obvious intention of catching any assortment of the shallow-water pelagic fish which abound in those seas, when the sky darkened with thunderclouds and a storm came up, so suddenly and so violently — with massive winds and a barrage of hail — that both the boats were half swamped before the captains could secure them, and only one skipper could broadcast a Mayday signal over the shortwave ahead of the predictable disaster.

Structurally, the sentence is sound, but it rambles from one topic to another, and another: the coastline, the trawlers, the fishing grounds, the storm, the disaster. In the middle of such a sentence, you can struggle to see who or what owns which verb, and it's all too easy to get into a muddle. Good copy editing should always be performed with the reader in mind, not the writer! Make the story easy to understand, and people will stay with you, keep reading and buy your next book!

Try this:

A good distance offshore, the water becomes very deep because the continental shelf drops off into the abyss. Two small trawlers had, an hour before, put out of the port of San Cristobal. They set their nets, with the obvious intention of catching any assortment of the shallow-water pelagic fish which abound in those seas. The sky darkened with thunderclouds and a storm came up, suddenly and violently, with massive winds and a barrage of hail. Both boats were half swamped before the captains could secure them, and only one skipper could broadcast a Mayday signal over the shortwave ahead of the predictable disaster.

In the second "take" on the same material, it's split up into five sentences. The copy editing was very effective. The material is not easier to read, and much easier to control. Subjects and objects are easier to pick out. Be vigilant: by all means write in fluid sentences which sound good in the ear, but ... know when enough is enough! Take pity on your readers.

There is one more rambling-sentence problem which we'll touch on here, and cover properly elsewhere. It's called the "run-on" sentence, and this is something you need to be keenly aware of, so that you can steer well clear if it. The "run-on" is a long, long sentence which has no business being a sentence at all. It's actually several shorter sentences which the writer has spliced together with commas and semi-colons, in order to simulate the "sound" of fluid sentence construction. In fact, the sentences have nothing to do with each other and should be separate.

In the following example, each sentence is complete, even though some of them are short and choppy. They're also unconnected! You can glue the whole lot together with comms, semi-colons and conjunctions (the "ands" and "buts"), however ... you shouldn't, because these sentences address different topics:

They came to rest seven miles outside the town. The sun was hot. Charlotteville was on the horizon. A tribe of gypsies had pitched camp by the well. James was sweating in the heavy tunic. Worried about his father, Marcus remained intent on the town they had just left. With an expert flourish of the bow, a gypsy fiddler began a lively folk tune. The horses were tired, and in need of rest.

Here it is as a run-on sentence. This is what you DON'T want to to:

They came to rest seven miles outside the town, the sun was hot, Charlotteville was on the horizon, a tribe of gypsies had pitched camp by the well, and James was sweating in the heavy tunic — worried about his father, Marcus remained intent on the town they had just left, and with an expert flourish of the bow, a gypsy fiddler began a lively folk tune, and the horses were tired, and in need of rest.

You can glue anything together with the glue of punctuation and conjunctions, but in many instaces, you should't. The trick is to split up the material and keep topics together. Identify your subjects, objects and verbs, and keep them under control. This is better:

They came to rest seven miles outside the town where the sun was hot, making James sweat in the heavy tunic. The horses were tired, and in need of rest. Worried about his father, Marcus remained intent on the town they had just left, but Charlotteville was on the horizon. A tribe of gypsies had pitched camp by the well, and with an expert flourish of the bow, a gypsy fiddler began a lively folk tune.

We'll be looking at run-ons in greater detail in another post, but for now ths example will give you a good grasp of what you want to do ... and what you don't!

That ... or which ...? So, which is it?

At least in this contexthis one is an easy fix. (NOTE: there are many and complex rules governing "that" and "which," but in this case ... trying to work out which one to use, when they seem at first glance to be interchangeable! ... it's not so complex. At this moment, with this particular problem, you're hunting for a "five minute fix" to solve the "that/which battle" -- you only need to know one rule. Elsewhere on the site, we'll examine clauses, and subordinate clauses and a lot of material which can get fairly confusing. The fact is, however, when you just need a "that/which quick-fix," you don't want all the rest. For now, scoop the icing off the top; come back for the rest of the cake later.)

"That" and "Which" have many uses in English. One of their jobs is to glue sentences together in a specific ways. Both of them take short, choppy, awkward, ugly sentences and make them longer, smoother sentences. However, THAT and WHICH are used in different ways, in different contexts. They're not interchangeable at all! So ... which would you use, and when, and why?

Take a look at these examples.

All the above examples use WHICH. The examples below use THAT. Take a look at them, then we'll work out the rule:

Notice, in the first set of examples, two awkward little sentences have been glued together to form one better-sounding sentence, using WHICH. They may sound better when conjointed with WHICH ... but they are actually complete and coherent on their own. Read them through again... "Bats are amazing creatures." This makes perfect sense, and the sentence is complete, like "He had an ace up his sleeve." And "Don't overlook the force of the wind." The sentence comes to a full stop -- done. It's followed by another short sentence with amplifies it, but it'll stand on its own. WHICH is used to turn two choppy, awkward little sentences into one smooth sentence.

Notice, in the second set of examples, two concepts are joined using THAT ... but neither concept is a complete sentence on its own. Like this:

"He used the kind of language" is not a complete sentence. "It would get anyone slapped" is a sentence, but it has an "it" in there, and the "it" makes the sentence utterly ambiguous, if it's separated from the previous sentence fragment and taken out of context. "It" could be face-pulling, a rude gesture, a teeshirt with a crude cartoon, bad behavior -- or bad language. You would use THAT to join a sentence fragment (it's a fagment because it won't stand on its own as a sentence without more added) and a qualifying concept.

"The huge black dog" is not a sentence, but a fragment, like "The only science," and "It could only be the car" and especially, "Mrs. Bailey made more tea, but it was a single lingering lamington" ...! Each of these incomplete fragments needs to be welded to another, qualifying concept, in order to make proper sense. The glue you use to stick them together is WHICH."

(CAVEAT: this is the quick fix! There's a lot more to "that" and "which" than can be covered here, but by far the most common mistake is in mixing them up when you're looking for the right glue to stick short, choppy sentences together. With a firm grasp of this one rule about the that/which battles, you'll about the vast majority of errors. Bookmark this page and return when you need full, in-depth information. Or, subscribe to our newsletter. It's free, and every week or two we'll tell you which pages just went on line at Write Your Novel, detailing which pesky subjects. Visit us again when what you need is "up" ...!)

On which side of the bracket does the punctuation fall?

This at least is simple. Once you see the rule, all errors vanish, never to return. In the course of your copy editing, watch out for two kinds of sentences which contain parentheses (brackets):

1) The sentence is entirely inside the brackets;
2) The sentence is partly inside, partly outside the brackets.

The rule is this: If ALL the sentence is inside the brackets ... so is the punctuation. If part of the sentence is OUTSIDE the brackets, so is the punctuation. Like this:

Johnny had been in Mexico (working for his Uncle Joe), for six months.

(For some reason, Barbara had never thought of this.)

The mountains (up as far as the Swiss Alps) were white with snow.

(Seven dollars seemed like too much to pay.)

If wishes were horses (as my grandpa used to say), we'd all be cowboys.

(Jim would have preferred to see the Clint Eastwood movie, but decided not to say so.)

And now, with sounds of evil chuckling:
Turn page to Grammar: when to break ALL the rules!

Correct grammar? Me?! You have got to be kidding!

Correct Grammar: a framework to which everything else is pegged

Grammar is the process by which verbal chaos is turned into order. A mish-mash of garbled sounds and idea turns into prose ... then the prose is processed further, and becomes poetry. Fiction, non-fiction, journalism, blogging, the work of the diarist — everything starts with turning chaos into order — an idea the Ancient Greek ancestors of our own language would have loved. In fact, the parts of speech were first identified by a Greek scholar who worked at the Library of Alexandria.

Letters flow together to make words: nouns, proper nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, pronouns, possessive pronouns, prepositions, the definite article and indefinite articles ... think of them as birds in a flock. Each bird has its own job to do within the flock, and every bird is great the job. Like birds which wheel together to form the flock, Words flow together to make sentences ... but again, inside the sentences are "globs" of words which perform different jobs to make the sentence go. Phrases, independent clauses, subordinate clauses, conditional clauses, and the cases and tenses —

Before the panic sets in, STOP! Take some deep breaths. Grab a cup of tea. (Coffee, if you prefer. Some brain-food on the side is a good idea. Your brain "thinks" on carbohydrates. You need an excuse to go for a cookie? Here it is, ready-made!)

What you need right here is a GLOSSARY OF GRAMMAR. A short-version which states, simply and clearly, what all the confusing stuff means. First: nail down what it all means. Second: see how it's all used. Third: practise using it. Done.

So let's begin with an A-Z of Fundamental Grammar which demystifies the subject ... and then we'll look at how it goes together. Trust us: it's not as bad as it looks.

CAVEAT: The subject of grammar is vast. It fills books ... thick books with small type. In fact, the subject is much too vast to be tackled on a webpage like this! However, we can get you off to a flying start and recommend some extremely good reference works, into which you can delve for more detail, if or when you need it. On this page you will find all the grammar you should need to take an extremely good crack at bullet-proof fiction writing; but if you need more — you'll know. And we'll tell you exactly where to go for the rest. Right here, right now, we're going to hit the high points, the "must haves" of grammar.

So --

Let's get up close, personal and physical with this beast:

The A-Z of Grammar

(Lite Edition!)

ACTIVE VOICE
The subject performs the verb upon the direct object. The GIRL baked the COOKIES. The BOY washed the DISHES. The MAN took out the TRASH. (See Passive Voice.) Use of the active voice makes for writing which is much more involving and exciting; editors have a passion for it.

ADJECTIVE
A describing word added to a noun to better define it. A SMALL house. The GREEN ball. A BATTERED car.

ADJECTIVE CLAUSE
A complex adjective made up of two or more words. The UNBELIEVABLY BADLY DRESSED woman. An ENORMOUSLY RICH AND VERY ELEGANT woman.

ADVERB
A describing word added to a verb to better define it. He drove MADLY. She sang BEAUTIFULLY. It won EASILY.

ADVERBIAL CLAUSE
A complex adverb made up of two or more words. They were CAUTIOUSLY, CAREFULLY shopping for socks. We watched CLOSELY AND SINGLE-MINDEDLY.

ANTECEDENT
One statement preceding another, and used to modify it. "Some children are well behaved, and their parents don't know how lucky they are." "Hospital is a place for sick people ... and their nurses and visitors, of course."

AGREEMENT
The process of making the subject, verb and object agree, in term of their number (singular or plural). The dog barks. Two dogs bark. Six kids riding bikes. An orchestra tours. A team plays. The orchestra on its stage. Ten girls in for different cars ... two girls, both in the same car. A herd in its paddock. A herd stampedes. One cow. Three cows run. One sheep, two sheep. A flock of sheep graze in its meadow.

AUXILIARY VERB
See modal.

CLAUSE
A set of related words, contained within a sentence, containing a verb. "The chorus came onstage, singing like a troupe of angels." "I watched the car drive away, its exhaust streaming oil smoke.

COLLECTIVE NOUN
A noun which, though singular, implies a group: A collection. A swarm. A multitude. A school (of fish). A flock. A pod (of dolphins). A pride (of lions.) A herd.

COMPARATIVE
Two words comparing the state of quality of something. GOOD, BETTER ... FINE, FINER ... BAD, WORSE ... TERRIBLE, MORE TERRIBLE ... LOVELY, LOVELIER. (See Superlative.)

COMPOUND ADJECTIVE (or complex)
Two words used as an adjective, and normally hyphenated into a "super adjective." Big-eyed Stares. His thick-crust pizza. Many-colored robes. Fast-growing plants. Gap-toothed grin. A broken-down car. One badly-written novel.

COMPLETE SUBJECT
The noun plus all its modifying words, as a group. All shops on the mall. Every boat in the harbor. Jim's three dogs. The biggest, roundest apple pie. Mom's all-time favorite movie.

COMPOUND SUBJECT
An instance where the same verb has two subjects, both of whom become one. Cats and dogs love summertime. Men and women go to the movies. Women and children leave first. Girls and women shop for dresses. Kids and dogs are always playing. Cars and bikes share the same road.

CONDITIONAL CLAUSE
A set of related words within a sentence, which pivot on a condition. "We're going to the movie, if we can get tickets." "I worried about him, if he were safe." "He arrived at night, as if he were unaccustomed to traveling by day."

CONJUNCTION
Words used to stick together words, or word-groups (clauses and phrases), and even sentences. And, plus, but, yet, if, though, for, because, not that. "Jim saw the movie, AND afterwards went for coffee." "Mandy was caught in the rain, BUT she had an umbrella." "Jack walked Butch, THOUGH he hates dogs."

CORRELATIVES
Pairs of related connectives, showing the relationships between things or people: either/or; neither/nor; both/and; not only/but also; whether/or. Either John or Jim is responsible. Neither Jane nor Sally was there. Both Mickey and Donald are cartoons. Not only Tweetie, but Sylvester too. I asked whether Bob or Jack was at home.

DIRECT OBJECT
See Object. See also Indirect Object.

FUSED (RUN ON) SENTENCE
Two or more sentences joined together with little or no punctuation, when the sentences are topically unconnected and should be separate.

FUTURE TENSE
The form of a verb setting its time frame in the future. Jack will be at the show. I will be able to attend. The team will be competing. The two boats will be leaving. A platoon will be deployed.

HISTORICAL PRESENT TENSE
A way of referring to past events in the present tense, such as when describing events in a movie or drama. "Judah ben-Hur is a chariot-racing legend." "Macbeth is a character in torment." "Achilles fights the best warriors at Troy." "Hector fights well, but is defeated."

IMPERATIVE
A verb stripped to its stem and used as an order. Go! Fire! Shoot! Duck! Drive! Stop! Help!

INDEFINITE CLAUSE
A statement, or statements, following the restrictive "if," which is/are joined to the first part of the sentence with "were," not "was." If wishes were horses, we'd all be cowboys. If Mary were wise, she'd have bought the book. I told him, if John were taller, he'd have reached that candy bar and eaten it first!"

INDIRECT OBJECT
The thing or entity indirectly affected by the verb. The boy brings the books to the TEACHER. Mom made a cup of tea for ALICE. Two cats were stalking mice in the GARDEN. Helen brings the books to Roger. Mom baked a peach pie for the kids. The man driving the tractor plowed the field. The teacher wrote complex algebra on the blackboard, boring the class.

INDEPENDENT CLAUSE
A clause (see) which can function independently of the rest of the sentence.

INFINITIVE
The form of the verb which is absolutely unrestricted by any condition or modification. No noun, pronoun, tense or case is applied to it. To swim. To fly. To jump. To read. To feast. To watch. To dig. To play.

INFINITIVE PHRASE
A phrase using the infinitive of a verb. She wanted to go home. They wanted to play too. The dogs were loosed to run. The artist longed to paint her portrait. A writer wants only to write a great book (and get paid for it!).

INTERROGATIVE
A word which forms a question. Why? What? When? How? Which? Whose? Yes? Why not?

MODAL (VERB)
The verb's "helper" or "support" term, which expresses the possibility, probability, ability and imperative nature of the verb. MUST go; CAN'T play; CAN study; SHOULD be arriving; MIGHT be writing; MAY attend; WILL paint; SHALL call.

MODIFIER
The word, or word group, which sets limits on (restricts) a noun or verb. She danced very badly. His limited pilotal skills. Palomino horses. Cars painted red. Guys wearing big cowboy hats.

NOUN (Common Noun; see also Proper Noun and Collective Noun)
A naming word, defining a "class" of thing. A TABLE. Four CHAIRS. Two DOGS. The MAN. An AIRCRAFT. The HELICOPTER. Three tall TREES. Two white CATS. (See Proper Noun)

NOUN CLAUSE
Two or more words, used together, to amplify the simple noun. The ball. The big, blue ball. The fish. The small, silver, fast-swimming fish. A horse. A big, sleek, chestnut-red horse.

OBJECT
The thing or entity which is affected by (acted upon) by the verb. The boy sang the SONG. The cat ate the FISH. The lady baked the COOKIES. (See also Indirect Object.)

PARENTHETICAL ELEMENT
A group of words which express material or thoughts digressing from the main flow of the sentence. "She came from Chicago (the last city I'd have imagined), and had a hard time settling here." "The dog had a bone (not the best thing for them to eat), and wouldn't give it up."

PASSIVE VOICE
The form of a verb where the subject has been inverted: The story was written by Jeremy. The cake was sliced by Mother. The cat was bathed by John. The resulting wounds were stitched by Doctor Paul. (See Active Voice)

PAST TENSE
The form of the verb setting its time frame into the past. Jim was late. Mandy was unable to play. I had been delayed. It was a disaster. Bradley had been fired off the job. The dogs dug up the yard. The boat sank on the reef. The birds ate every grain.

PERIODIC SENTENCE
Sentence structure where the gist, or thrust, of the sentence, rather than leading is, is used last. On Five Mile Reef, long after dark, the boat sank. Just before dawn, when the sky is pink, the cockatoos come to the pond. On Kenya's Lake Victoria, Maria was thrilled to photograph the flamingos.

PHRASE
A set of related words without a subject, grouping within a sentence. "Like the sea, his eyes were blue-green." The big white cat, wanting to play, pounced on my feet." "Aunt May is still a lovely woman, and well past seventy" "Tom was being an idiot, which was quite usual." PLURAL
Two or more things or entities. Two boys. Three girls. A regiment of cleaners. A handful of flowers. A bunch of idiots. An army of students. Swarms of bees. Clouds of flies. Masses of books. Piles of unwashed socks. A pod of dolphins. A pride of lions. Three prides of lions. A pack of wolves. Two packs of wolves. (See Collective Noun.)

PLURAL
Two or more of something. Dogs. Horses. Six policemen. Five gold rings. Three men and a baby (= 4 individuals). Four weddings and a funeral (= 5 individuals). Dark Lords of the Sith.

POSSESSIVE PRONOUN
A stand-in word, contextually taking the place of the possessive form a common or proper noun. Jim's = HIS. Joan's = HER(S). Mary's and Robert's = THEIR(S). The car's = ITS. Also MY, MINE, OUR(S), YOUR(S).

PREDICATE
Literally, all of the sentence except the subject! Everything the sentence has to say about the subject.

PREFIX
A syllable add the beginning of a word, to modify (usually to reverse) its meaning. INeffective. UNsurprising. UNdue. INsubstantial. INdefinite. UNcariing. (See also Suffix.)

PREPOSITION
A word which fixes the position of a thing or entity in space and time. On, in, behind, before, above, below, beyond, beside, between... "Behind the washer." "Under the car." "In the cupboard." "Below average." "Between the pages."

PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE
A preposition fixes the position in space and time of a thing or entity, which is the subject of the preposition. A prepositional phrase is the preposition with its subject, and any modifying words. "Behind the beat-up car." "Under the old music stand." "In the big, fancy box." "Beside the tired old gentleman."

PRESENT TENSE
The form of a verb setting the time frame to the present. I run. I am running. He is riding. She is shopping. He throws. He drops. It is coming. It stops. We are reading. They write.

PRONOUN
A stand-in word, contextually taking the place of a common or proper noun. I, me, him, her, it, they, them, we, us. (See possessive pronoun.)

PROPER NOUN
The specific noun, Capitalized, referring to one thing or entity only: Susan; Roger Smith; Detroit; the Commonwealth of Australia; Voyage of the Beagle; Hamlet; Star Wars; My Fair Lady; Mickey Mouse; Felix the Cat; Rover; my dog Butch.

QUALIFIER
To all practical purposes, very like a modifier (see); often used as an "intensifier." Like a modifier: He was OFTEN early; she was FREQUENTLY out of synch; it was RARELY good enough. As an intensifier: She was EXTREMELY clever. He was the GREATEST athlete. It was ABSOLUTELY the worst time.

RECIPROCAL PRONOUN
Pairs of words (compound pronouns) which stick together like bacon and eggs and show a relationship. Each other; one another.

RELATIVE CLAUSE
A clause (see) leading off with a relative pronoun (read on!) ...

RELATIVE PRONOUN
A pronoun (see) which leads off relative or subordinate clauses (!). Subordinate "structures" within a sentence depend on the rest of the sentence to make sense (see Independent clause). Who, whom, whose, whoever, that, which, whichever, what, whatever. "He spoke of his sister, who is in Ontario." "Bob is in class today, which is amazing." "I brought the whole kaboodle ... whatever a kaboodle is." "Maud pointed out Janet, whose car was double-parked." "Tell me about the sweater which is on that chair."

RESTRICTIVE
An adjective (see) which restricts the scope of the noun (see) to which it is applied. All STRAY dogs will be impounded. LOUD music must be turned down. The blue dresses WHICH SHRANK were discarded. The shop's FIRE DAMAGED stock will be sold at sale prices.

RUN ON (FUSED) SENTENCE
Two or more sentences joined together with little or no punctuation, when the sentences are topically unconnected and should be separate.

SENTENCE
A module of spoken expression which is complete within itself, and makes sense independent of any other material.

SENTENCE FRAGMENT
An arrangement of words which does not make an independently sensible sentence; it needs more to make sense as a sentence.

SENTENCE MODIFIER
A term or phrase which modifies the gist of a sentence, according to external criteria. "He is a good student, in my opinion." "Though some people disagree, Singapore is a great tourist destination." "In lieu of better evidence, the court accepted his testimony." "Bill's cat notwithstanding, felines are a fastidious species."

SIMPLE PAST TENSE
The simplest reference to actions in the past: I RAN; Bob SANG; we ARRIVED; she WANTED; they TOOK.

SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE
The simplest reference to actions in the present: I RUN; Bob SINGS; we ARRIVE; she WANTS; they TAKE.

SIMPLE FUTURE TENSE
The simplest reference to actions in the future: I WILL RUN; Bob WILL SING; we WILL ARRIVE; she WILL WANT; they WILL TAKE.

SINGULAR
Only one of something. A cat. One boy. The dog. That house. This tree. A beautiful garden. An untidy street. The other girl. My feeling. Our thought. His blue teeshirt. Their cottage in Exeter.

SPLIT INFINITIVE
The subject of a lot of debate recently, on how intelligent this point of grammar is! Decades ago, the infinitive TO GO was split into TO boldly GO (Star Trek), and has been iconified. The fact is, "To go boldly" just does not sound the same (or as punchy), and many people contend that the "don't split infinitives rule" should be dropped. "To come quietly" is an UNsplit infinitive, like "To write beautifully." NOTE: spoken dialog (shown within speech marks) is often written in dialect, reflecting actual spoken forms. In this instance, split infinitives are of no account, since they are part of the character's speech patterns, and his/her dialog is used to define who he/she is."

SUBJECT
The entity which performs, or owns, the verb. The DOLL actually FELL downstairs. My DOGS always BARK at strangers. Four MEN in the club area ARE FIGHTING over politics.

SUBORDINATE CLAUSE
See Relative clause. Subordinates (clauses and phrases) depend on the rest of the sentence to function, and begin with relative pronouns (see). "Mary told me everything, which pleased me." "He insisted it was alien, whatever he meant by that!" "She arrived with her Mom, who drives a red Jaguar."

SUFFIX
One or more syllables added to the end of a word to modify it: hapLESS; useLESSLY; conformITY; pluralITY; lightLESSNESS; lightING; sadLY; ineptITUDE; educationALLY; fractionAL; fantasticALLY; vanishING; bookISH; childISHLY; pointEDLY; swimmINGLY. (See also Prefix.)

SUPERLATIVE
A word, or words, describing the most attenuated of something. BEST. WORST. LONGEST. SHORTEST. MOST BEAUTIFUL. LOVELIEST. MOST HORRIFIC. FASTEST. SLOWEST. MOST AWE-INSPIRING. MOST BORING. (See also Comparative.)

TAG QUESTION
A suffix to a sentence, turning a statement into a question. He's coming home at five, ISN'T HE? Your cat is a Persian, RIGHT? It's a great film, DON'T YOU THINK?

TENSE
The exact form of a verb which defines its time frame: Past tense; present tense; future tense. The verb itself changes (ie., Present tense becomes simple past tense: sing ... sang; bring .. brought; beg ... begged), and is accompanied by changes in the noun and pronoun forms: I was told; we were sent; they were sanctioned; Julia had to leave.

VERB
An action, or "doing" word. Running, jumping swimming, singing, riding, talking, wanting, feeling, thinking, breaking, mending.

VERB PHRASE
Two or three words attached to a a verb, amplifying it. Whipping UP (cookies). Running AFTER (someone). Flying OVER (hills). Ie., the verbs have become complex, or compound: To whip up; to run after; to fly over.

VOICE
The form of a verb which differentiates between the passive and the active (See). (Active: The man parks the car. Passive: The car is parked by the man.)

Now, you at least know what people are talking about when they say incomprehensible things about sentence structure! Read through the Grammar Glossary, but don't even try to memorize it. However, refer back to it when you read through the section below.

Hang tight: you're almost there. It'll all start making sense, and here is a great thought: When you understand something, you don't have to remember it. You just know. That's our object here. Grammar made doable. (Okay, nothing's going to make it easy, but we can break your fall!)

Turn page to
GRAMMAR: The Absolute Basics ... get this "down" if you do nothing else!

Grammar? Who in the heck needs it, anyway?

Grammar...without it, the language unravels!

Grammar. What in the world is it? You certainly can't see it, touch, smell or taste it. But you hear it, and the worse it is, the more of it you seem to hear! Bad grammar is at the root of a lot of jokes. When spoken language goes ridiculously wrong, humor of the unintentional kind won't be far behind.

On the other hand, good grammar is one of a small handful of factors which have, for centuries, set the aristocracy apart from the rest of mankind. Not long ago, only the sons of rich men could go to school. Many were taught by monks ... girls were rarely taught at all. Literacy was the privilege of the wealthy and scholarly. Grammar — being the framework on which every word we speak is hung — was one of the qualities peculiar to ladies and gentlemen, because only they were given the opportunity to learn it.

Like anything else that is rare, proper language, good grammar, soon became a status symbol. You could be shabby, not own a horse, much less a piece of land, but so long as you spoke well, the classes of the nobility would accept you into their ranks. You were 'people like us,' or PLU. It was an elite club, where the entry card was your ability to use the language properly. And it all begins with grammar.

In movies, we get a big laugh out of the "local yokel." In the street, face to face with friends and acquaintances, we tend to overlook lapses in grammar. The spoken word is gone in a heartbeat; who remembers? But what a writer commits to paper achieves a kind of immortality...

In other words, your booboos will come back to haunt you! As an aspiring writer, you have one big goal: to impress the heck out of editors, agents and publishers. If you can impress them enough, they'll publish your work, and you'll earn. Eventually, you'll earn enough to give up the day job and write for a living.

One of the criteria on which you'll be judged — on page one of your submission! — is your grammar. You can't afford to make any, or many mistakes. If your creativity is "off the scale," you'll be forgiven for the odd lapse here and there; an editor will straighten out a few mistakes in grammar. However, if you make too many of these lapses, the editor, agent or publisher won't keep on reading your manuscript for long enough to discover how brilliant your fiction really is.

There is only one solution to this problem. Good grammar. Either learn it yourself, or recruit your friends (if you do conscript friends, make very sure they know what they're doing ... if they don't, the manuscript will simply be full of their errors, instead of yours). The third option is to pay for professional editing, and although you can certainly do this, please do read our caution, on the freelance editing page. Of you haven't yet read it, go there and scan it now ... this page will be here when you come back!

For the purpose of this page, then, we'll assume you've made the commitment to being the consummate professional. It's not a five-minute journey from "wannabe" to "best-seller," but the trip can be a lot of fun. No one ever said any of it had to be boring.

So: you're on this page to get a stranglehold on the gentle art of grammar. Right? Right.

In that case, let's grab the fundamentals and throttle them!

Turn page to
Correct Grammar: a framework to which everything else is pegged

Grammatical errors:
shoot them down

Grammatical errors are like dropped stitches in knitting, or forgetting the salt in cookery, or using the wrong size nails in carpentry: the end result is a flaw. A shelf fell down; a dish tasted odd; the knitting pattern went wrong. Copy editing is the process of picking up the stitches, salting the pot, and fixing the cupboard!

Grammer is a huge subject, much too broad for a single page. However, anyone who is experienced in copy editing will tell you, there's a particular handful of gaffs which are so common, made so often by so many people, they comprise about 75% of all the copy editing booboos you'll see. Therefore, if we fix those few, it's safe to say we'll be down to only 25% of the gremlins left to be hunted down. That's under control. I can look at the last, pesky 25% in an in-depth PDF, downloading from this page (in due course: bookmark this, and come back soon!), but for now, let's get after those gremlins that have seriously out-stayed their welcome.

Your computer won't be able to help much here. You can get grammatical checking programs, but these are a mixed blessing. They read your document and make suggestions. Most will be right; some will be glaringly wong. You'll still have to know the difference ... when to accept the program's suggestion, and when to reject it.

THE SEVEN MOST COMMON GRAMMATICAL ERRORS
... and how to avoid them.

Serious, nuts-and-bolts copy editing starts here, so get out your pencils and let's make a start.

#1: It's ... its ... its' ... which is it?

Understand the difference between them, and it's simple:

It's is a contraction. It's short
for it+is. You use It's to say, "It's a beautiful day;" "it's a crying shame;" "Mike said it's
in the cupboard;" "Jim's bike? It's broken;" "it's being mended;" "it's got two flat tires." "It's not
a good idea." "It's time for tea." "It's too late for talking." "Then, it's all over?" "But it's only just
started!"

Its shows possession: my, your, his, her, our, their ... its. Notice, NONE of the words
showing possession have an apostrophe. Not one of them. So, it's easy to tell when to use
Its, because it has no apostrophe. Like this:

"Its paint was cracked." "She had a bike, but its wheel was buckled." "Jim said its door was yellow." "Yes, but its knob was green." "Its wires were burned out." "Its tail feathers are white." "Its aroma was delicious." "The song was lovely, its melody soared." (In these examples, Its is
standing in for the noun. A house, a door, a bike, a radio, a bird, a pot of soup; a song.)

Its' is a typographical error. Never use it, because it doesn't mean anything at all. It's
the ultimate booboo: gibberish. A mix-up between your fingers and the keys. 'Nuff said.

#2: Billboard's ... billboards ... hotdog's ... hotdogs ... house's ... houses ... help!

More fun with the apostrophe. Relax: it's easy. You already know, after reading #1, that the
apostrophe shows possession. What is does NOT show #151 not ever! -- is the plural, of
anything! (Singular is one of something; plural is two or more.) All you have to do, to avoid this
incredibly common gaff is, never, never use the apostrophe when you mean "two or more."
Like this:

One billboard; two billboards.

One dog; half a dozen cats.

One horse; herds of horses.

One book; a whole library of books.

One mug of soup; twenty mugs of soup.

One piece of cloth; ten bolts of cloth.

One pilot; an air force filled with pilots.

One doctor; more doctors than you could guess.

One lawyer; more lawyers than can be employed.

One flower; fields filled with flowers of all kinds.

One lawnmower; fields of mown grass without flowers.

One man; two men riding bikes.

One fish; fifty fish in the fish shop windows;

One sheep; fields full of sheep.

One goose; a gaggle of geese;

One woman; crowds of angry women.

One child; several children;

One cargo; several cargoes on various ships.

One zero; three zeroes and a one make a thousand;

One star; ten thousand stars in tropical skies.

One foot; several feet but only two boots.

#3: Their ... there ... they're ... which is right?

All three are correct, in context. When you're copy editing, all you need to do is make sure the
right word is used for the right context. Fortunately, it's so easy!

Their is a possessive pronoun. (A pronoun is a word which stands in, like an understudy,
for a noun. 'It' can be the standin for a lamp, an elephant, and the planet Mars. 'She' can be the
standin for two year old Gemma, your great-grandmom, and the starship Enterprise.
'They' can be used to stand for a bunch of flowers, ten battleships, and the Hell's Angels. Pronouns are the most flexible words in the language, and some of them show how a noun "owns" or "possesses" something. "The gir's bike = her bike." "Jim's book = his book." "The car's wheels = its wheels." "The boys' exams = their exams." The personal pronouns in this particular word list are "my, your, his, her, its, our, and their." Simply add a noun to any of them, and you can't go wrong.)

So, Their is only ever (ever!) used to show how a bunch of people or things "possess"
something else. Stick to this, and you can't go wrong. "Their religion." "Their tourism industry."
"Their Size 14 desses." "Their industrial-strength titanium frames." "Their tiny, delicate petals." "Their industrial-strength tartan underwear." "Their warped camshafts." "Their photon torpedo banks." "Their painted fingernails." Easy.

There is a word with two jobs.

The first job is where "there" is used as a preposition. (Prepositions are words which show the position of objects in space. Under, over, in(side) out(side), before, behind, between, above, below, here ... there.) So, "The football stopped over there." "Our house is there, on the corner." "There are the girls." "The frog was there, on the rock." "I saw him standing there." "She said, 'There it is, under the table." He answered, 'I don't see it there.'" "'But the book is there,' she insisted. 'I put it there!'" "Jim saw the Klingons, hiding in wait there." So, in this context, use

There to show the position of objects in space. Never use "their" or "they're," and you can't go wrong.

Second job performed by "there" ... it shows the existence of things. Like this:

There is; there are; there were; there will be; there aren't any; there are six; there were 43;
there haven't been any since May; there won't be any until August; there isn't a chance;
there can't be a sound; there wasn't any trace; there is a whole load of them; there is at least
a million; there was one when I got here. So, in this contect use There only (only!) to show the existence of things.

They're is a contraction. It's short for they+are. "They're" is never (never!) used for any
other purpose. Stick to this, and you'll be right ever time. Like this:

"They're on their way home, I see them there on the road." "They said they're coming back, as
soon as their car is fixed." "I talked to Jack and Sam, they're finished the job." "We called them
last night, they're on the morning train." "The two dogs are fighting, they're going to get hurt this time." "Six cars are racing on the road, they're driven by maniacs." "Four flights have been cancelled today, they're waiting for fog to clear." "Daniel and Jack won't be back tonight, they're busy." "Their plane is late, so they're going to take a cab home, we don't have to wait there."

#4: Attack of the killer pronouns!

Take a look at these sentences. Each contains one pronoun and two or three nous. The problem is, you're left guessing which of the nouns the pronoun stands in for, and the sentences become ambiguous. One of the most important copy editing jobs is to watch out for ambiguity, turn the muddy into the clear. Pronouns can get you into a lot of trouble! Like this:

Try this:

The trick is to see the ambiguity, and then look for ways to either invert the sentence to make the potential for ambiguity go away; you can also replace the pronoun with a similar word which will do the job just as well, and prevent over-use of the original noun. Copy editing give you the opportunity to revise to your heart's content. (In the examples above, the car = the vehicle; home = the building; lunch = his meal; the crate = the heavy box; the white cat = the Persian.
In the other examples, the sentences have been turned inside out to weed out the potential for killer pronouns.

#5: Subjects and Objects: it's war!

Every sentence has a subject. If it doesn't have a subject, it's not a sentence! (Put your copy editing hat on here.) The 'subject' of a sentence is the entitythat performs the verb. Think of the subject as the owner of the verb. Like this:

First step: pick out the verbs. (A verb is an 'action' word. It can be the only word in the entire sentence that indicates what is actually HAPPENING! In the examples above, the verbs are...

Sings ... running ... wants ... jumped ... arrived ... worked ... terrorized ... arrested.

(NOTE: the vebs are in different tenses, but don't worry about this. They're all verbs, and at this moment, that's what counts.)

Now, figure out who's performing each verb. Who owns it?

The boy ... The elderly man ... A beat-up red car ... A small brown puppy with big, bright eyes ...
Mother's cat, a young Persian called Nostradamus ... Two girls from Nebraska ...
A regiment of door-to-door salesmen ... Six badly behaved children with execrable banners ...
Eight people.

Notice how subjects can be simple ("The boy" and "eight people"), and either singular or plural. The subject can be a whole bunch of people ("A regiment") ... and the subject can get complicated, as in the case of Nostradamus!

The subject of the sentence is all the words used to describe the subject, gathered together:

These, above, are not sentences, even though they're long. They're fragments. To make a sentence, you need add a verb:

(Do you still have your copy editing hat on? Good!) Now, what about the object of a sentence. Not all sentences have objects. Very hort ones can be complete without them:

But, the instant these short, choppy little sentences start to grow and express more ... you get an object. The object is the entity or object that is affected by the verb. It has the verb performed on it, or done to it. Like this:

Here's more, with the object in capitals:

In the above examples, the verbs are:

arrived ... smashed ... escaped ... struggled-to-catch ... win ... parked ... stood ... crying-out.

And if you're looking for the subject, it's easy now: the subjects of these simple sentences are the parts that are NOT the verbs or the objects! (Jack and Daniel ... the little girl ... five puppies ... Two policemen ... Charles ... The driver of a yellow Gogomobile ... the Gogimobile ... Stockton.

So far, so good. Look for the verb; whatever, or whoever performs ("owns") the verb is the subject, and whatever gets the verb wreaked upon it is the object. The copy editing process is coming along fine.

Now things get interesting. There's a good deal more material involved in long, complicated sentences, and you have to make absolutely sure all this material is properly tagged and organized. If you get lazy and inattentive, you can end up with hilarious, fall-down-laughing copy editing results, like this:

The trick is simply to arrange the sentence to keep all the appropriate material gathered together. While you're learning, go through a sentence and "tag" the various parts. Underline the verb, highlight the subject, and then when you've identified the object, round up all the material belong to it:

A comb with celluloid teeth ... a table with antique legs ... a house with a nasty case of termites ... a drill with a three-meter cord ... a guitar with bright steel pegs.

The other subject/object battle you can easily get into while copy editing is this: in long sentences, a fight can develop over who owns the verb. When sentences become very long and complex, you can find yourself hunting around trying to sort out who owns what. The easiest "fix" for this malady is to break the sentence down into two, three or even more smaller ones. Shorter sentences are easier to control ... often, they're also easier to read, and they can pack a "punch" in the narrative, which longer, flowing sentences don't have. This is where copy editing can actually cross back over and line into creative writing. The border between the two blurs out.

For example, here's a long, rambling sentence, and the copy editing cure for it:

Structurally, the sentence is sound, but it rambles from one topic to another, and another: the coastline, the trawlers, the fishing grounds, the storm, the disaster. In the middle of such a sentece, you can struggle to see who or what owns which verb, and it's all too easy to get into a muddle. Good copy editing should always be performed with the reader in mind, not the writer! Make the story easy to understand, and people will staty with you, keep reading and buy your next book!

Try this:

In the second "take" on the same material, it's split up into five sentences. The copy editing was very effective. The material is not easier to read, and much easier to control. Subjects and objects are easier to pick out. Be vigilant: by all means write in fluid sentences which sound good in the ear, but ... know when enough is enough!

Take pity on your readers.

There is one more rambling-sentence problem which we'll touch on here, and cover properly elsewhere. It's called the "run-on" sentence, and this is something you need to be keenly aware of, so that you can steer well clear if it.

The "run-on" is a long, long sentence which has no business being a sentence at all. It's actually several shorter sentences which the writer has spliced together with commas and semi-colons, in order to simulate the "sound" of fluid sentence construction. In fact, the sentences have nothing to do with each other and should be separate.

In the following example, each sentence is complete, even though some of them are short and choppy. They're also unconnected! You can glue the whole lot together with comms, semi-colons and conjunctions (the "ands" and "buts"), however ... you shouldn't, because these sentences address different topics:

Here it is as a run-on sentence. This is what you DON'T want to to:

You can paste anything together with the glue of punctuation and conjunctions, but in many instaces, you should't. The trick is to split up the material and keep topics together. Identify your subjects, objects and verbs, and keep them under control. This is better:

I'll be looking at run-ons in greater detail elsewhere, but for now ths example will give you a good grasp of what you want to do ... and what you don't!

#6: That ... or which ...? So, which is it?

At least in this contex this one is an easy fix. (NOTE: there are many and complex rules governing "that" and "which," but in this case ... trying to work out which one to use, when they seem at first glance to be interchangeable! ... it's not so complex. At this moment, with this particular problem, you're hunting for a "five minute fix" to solve the "that/which battle" -- you only need to know one rule. Elsewhere on the site, we'll examine clauses, and subordinate clauses and a lot of material which can get fairly confusing. The fact is, however, when you just need
a "that/which quick-fix," you don't want all the rest. For now, scoop the icing off the top; come back for the rest of the cake later.)

"That" and "Which" have many uses in English. One of their jobs is to glue sentences together in a specific ways. Both of them take short, choppy, awkward, ugly entences and make them longer, smoother sentences. However, THAT and WHICH are
used in different ways, in different contexts. They're not interchangeable at all! So ... which would you use, and when, and why?

Take a look at these examples.

All the above examples use WHICH. The examples below use THAT. Take a look at them, then we'll work out the rule:

And now, the simple rule which makes sense of all this!

Notice, in the first set of examples, two awkward little sentences have been glued together to form one better-sounding sentence, using WHICH. They may sound better when conjointed with WHICH ... but they are actually complete and coherent on their own. Read them through again ... "Bats are amazing creatures." This makes perfect sense, and the sentence is complete, like "He had an ace up his sleeve." And "Don't overlook the force of the wind." The sentence comes to a full stop -- done. It's followed by another short sentence with amplifies it, but it'll stand on its own. WHICH is used to turn two choppy, awkward little sentences into one smooth sentence.

Notice, in the second set of examples, two concepts are joined using THAT ... but neither concept is a complete sentence on its own. Like this:

(CAVEAT: this is the quick fix! There's a lot more to "that" and "which" than can be covered here, but by far the most common mistake is in mixing them up when you're looking for the right glue to stick short, choppy sentences together. With a firm grasp of this one rule about the that/which battles, you'll about the vast majority of errors. Bookmark this page and return when you need full, in-depth information. Or, subscribe to our newsletter. It's free, and every week or two we'll tell you which pages just went on line at Write Your Novel, detailing which pesky subjects. Visit again when what you need is "up" ...!)

#7: On which side of the bracket does the punctuation fall?

This at least is simple. Once you see the rule, all errors vanish, never to return. In the course of your copy editing, watch out for two kinds of sentences which contain parentheses (brackets):

The rule is this: If ALL the sentence is inside the brackets ... so is the punctuation. If part of the sentence is OUTSIDE the brackets, so is the punctuation. Like this:

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Take a tip: get a lasso on the English language, right here:

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Grammatical errors:
shoot them down