I make so many technical grammar mistakes in my writing because I hear the dialogue/manner of speech more clearly! I'd love to know more about verbal nouns because I cannot get my head around these! Also, is it incorrect to have 'their' in the following sentence: "The neighbouring property has a cherry tree in their garden.". Somebody picked up on this - saying it should be 'the' and I am happy to agree with them, but I don't know exactly why, and I would really like to understand the mechanics! #somanyquestions :)
Hi Rachel - There's always a gap between how we actually use language, and how it has been codified into rules and structures. "their" in that sentence is incorrect because "they" refers to plural things (With the exception of the very old - and very recent - use of "they" to refer to single people who we don't want to be specific about "he" or "she").
I think your uncertainty is because "neighbours" could be several people. But in this sentence, it's not people, it's a single house, with "neighbouring" just working as an adjective describing the house.
SO, all of these are correct:
The neighbours have a cherry tree in their garden. (assuming there are several neighbours)
The neighbour has a cherry tree in her garden. (if you know or care that she's female. Similarly with "his garden")
The neighbour has a cherry tree in their garden (if you don't know or care about their gender, or indeed if they are non-binary.
The neighbouring property has a cherry tree in its garden.
(if you want to make the point that it's the garden belonging to that particular house: the "its'" is a "possessive pronoun", i.e. it's to do with owning things. It's the equivalent for non-human things of "his" or "her". While we're at it - you may well know this - notice that "its" doesn't have an apostrophe, because it's not a contraction of "it is".)
The neighbouring house has a cherry tree in the garden.
(if you're not bothered to give it the extra possesive force of "its". After all, who else's garden could it be?)
Hope that helps? And thanks for the thought about verbal nouns. I'll stash it for a future post, if that's OK.
Ah, your super-power is confirmed (though I doubt you needed me to tell you this). I get it now. So clear! Thank you :) I will go with 'the' and have the satisfaction of knowing exactly why! Look forward to achieving similar 'got-it' status on verbal nouns, as and when, as and when. Thank you :)
Ha! You're welcome. The verbal nouns one is really, really interesting, though I suspect it'll turn into one of those mega-posts that take me forever to get round to.
Yes. As with all non-standard ways of doing things, their effect diminishes the more they're used. Either that, or it becomes an irritating tic which gets MORE irritating, the more it's used.
Not that many centuries ago either - things really start getting codified in the 18th century, and even more when universal basic education comes in. But, equally, communication only works with a shared set of conventions, whether they're radio telemetry protocols, or punctuation. A writer can do whatever they like with commas, but if the readers don't mentally read what the commas do in the prose the way the writer does, they just won't feel effect the writer wants to them to feel.
One of the greatest poems in the English Language begins with "And"
I've just looked through Draft 5 of our current novel and there are plenty of sentences beginning "And...". Most of these are direct speech so I don't think this is a problem if that'd be how those people would have spoken.
However I've found an example where the female narrator shows her new best friend a wonderful book her father had given her:
...when Father had said on my birthday, “I know you do not care for jewels, but perhaps you will find this jewel is worth having,” I was speechless for love, joy and tears.
When I told Elizabeth, she replied, “My dear friend, your father surely loves and understands you. You have no idea how rare and precious that is for girls like us.” And I was, again, speechless.
Now I could change this to: "Again I was speechless" or something like that. But I don't think that (or similar) would be an improvement.
I agree, I don't think it would be an improvement. The "and"-beginning version reads very naturally. Narrative voice always has one foot in how people actually speak - perhaps particularly when it's first-person. I nearly put that in the post, but decided that narrative voice is a whole nother topic (as I used to put it as a child, and still sometimes default to) which needs a whole nother blog post.
To go deeper into the late 13th C language we've now translated two lovely poems which we was were written by our Alice later in her life (and were certainly written by *someone* in that culture). They are prepared to use And at the beginning of a sentence, eg
Wilt thow truliche the to me take,
And alle other for me forsake?
And I wille geve the grette honoure,
Gold inought, and grete tresoure.
Ne make ye never bost of me!
And yff thou doyest, be ware beforn
For thow has my love forlorn."
etc.. I have found 5 instances (possibly 6) in a poem of 538 lines.
Sounds about right! And, arguably, an "and" after a question isn't quite the same - because in speech, a question can be part of a bigger sentence. David Crystal also makes the point that in speech we don't actually divide things so clearly into sentences as the grammarians began to do, as a way of teaching rhetoric. No punctuation in early manuscripts at all. Punctuation is the product of written culture.
So it does. I think it gives the song a conversational feel - that Sinatra or whoever is continuing a conversation. Which is REALLY interesting, now I come to think of it: It stokes up the sense of defiance which that song is all about. He's not singing to the air, he's arguing back at someone who says his life's been a failure, or whatever ... Would be interesting to look for other songs which work like that.
Oh, that's fascinating. And also about writing - Anka saying the voice (in the language sense) is quite different from his own. People tend to assume that when song writers (and poets) say "I" they mean themselves...
I'm rather fond of sentence fragments all round, and of conjunctions introducing sentences, though your point about overuse and tics is well taken. The text has to feel right when you read it, and that often works best with occasional fragments and the odd piece of extracurricular punctuation. Fiction has a slightly different grammar from formal writing. Free indirect style allows the way we actually think and speak to bleed a little into the exposition. I think even some non-fiction can benefit from a grammar approaching that of certain styles of novel. The voice of the author coming through a little more than strictly formal grammar would allow can encourage a rapport with the reader. I guess that, as you say here, the trick is in using any such technique subtly. Just enough, no more.
Julian, thank you - I just LOVE the idea of "extra-curricular punctuation". I usually say "non-standard" or something, which is much duller. May I borrow it?
Also - you're absolutely right that fiction requires a more flexible sense of grammar/syntax/punctuation than formal writing. In fact, I'd go further than that, and say that fiction is storytelling, and storytellers spoke long before they wrote. So the narrative voice of any kind of storytelling (including non-fiction) always has (mixed metaphor alert!) one foot in how people actually speak, and only the other foot in how they work the conventions ("rules") that make communication possible in their society. And each writer is at liberty to alter the mix of the two to their story's best advantage, including the extremes at either end of the spectrum. (It's my morning for mixed metaphors, clearly!)
And yes, with any special effect the law of diminishing returns does set in. For example, Dickens and Thackeray both slip into present tense sometimes *for a specific effect*. But it's very recent that present tense has become standard for fiction, to the point where many readers don't specially notice it. And arguably that's a shame (or at least something to examine one's defaults about), because we no longer have that special effect in our toolkit.
Oh please feel free! I've borrowed plenty of your ideas before now so it seems only fair!
I really like how you have framed this. Perhaps all writing is storytelling and we are forever reaching between actual voices and the practicalities of written communication. I don't think I'd seen quite so clearly before that we're always trying to balance the two.
I was very struck, a few years back, when I gave a talk about academic writing at a conference for postgrad historians, and at one point spoke of it as narrative, and therefore "storytelling". The doctoral students were slightly horrified; it was the senior historians who nodded.
I commented on IG, Emma, that my MA tutor applauded my use of And and But at the start of some of my sentences: a 'bold move' they said, but organic in its use because of how we speak and most of my writing is close third-person free indirect.
While reading this I did wonder how close we might be arriving at the use of 'Like' beginning a sentence, as this is a word which is peppered throughout language these days - I'm still trying to embrace it myself because I find it grates - as did the launching of every spoken sentence with the word 'So...' a few years back, but I'm gradually softening to that, so...
I am actually rather fascinated that an MA tutor would think that starting sentences thus was "bold" - dare I say it sounds as if they themselves grew up, creatively speaking, in a rather rule-bound environment?
"So" has been there for a long time, hasn't it. I suppose "like" is a bit more surprising because it's not a joining word is the obvious sense that So, Therefore, Because are ... but as I type that, I realise that it sort-of is: it surely comes from "it is like", as in "X is like Y"?
Essentially, the sort of "like" or "so" which starts a sentence is "phatic utterance", isn't it - communication which is more about connecting speaker and listener, than in expressing a meaning. It's an opener, a throat-clearer, a "listen" or "I'm starting to speak" or "my turn".
In my more pedantic moments, whenever I see/hear someone using the word 'like' I argue with them (in my head) if they've properly thought about what they're saying and how they're using the word (their answer: probably not) because if it's used in its correct way, they're saying "it's as though..." or "similarly..." or "I liken this to..." but really they're using it more as a filler.
Re: So, I asked someone once if they'd noticed how often they started their sentences with this word. She explained this had been how she'd been trained to speak to an audience; it had been suggested that when public speaking, beginning with the word "So..." gave their brain and pulse a chance to pause and breathe.
"they're using it more as a filler." ... "beginning with the word "So..." gave their brain and pulse a chance to pause and breathe."
Fascinating! And I think these things are connected, aren't they? The "So" is also about the speaker's brain to get into the right mode, as well as the listener's. A bit like the "press any button to wake up the display" mode on so much modern electronically-controlled equipment. It doesn't actually matter which button. (Don't get me started on my washing machine being like that... )
I'm all for bending and breaking 'rules' if it will improve a sentence, paragraph etc. The opening 'And' of 'My Way' is good because the line will deliver a particular message. I think the potential problem when starting too many sentences with 'and' - whatever too many means - is that the writing sounds portentous in a not-so-good way. Having said that, I'm sure skilled fiction writers could strengthen a voice with repetitions of sentences starting with 'And'.
I think this is all very true: something that works subtly if you use it every now and again, can lose its power if you use it often (especially without testing each time whether it's really the most effective option at that point) - and even become an irritating tic. But when frequent use is an annoying tic, and when it becomes an effective element in a voice-y narrative, is a subtle distinction, and possibly quite a subjective one: different readers will feel differently.
I make so many technical grammar mistakes in my writing because I hear the dialogue/manner of speech more clearly! I'd love to know more about verbal nouns because I cannot get my head around these! Also, is it incorrect to have 'their' in the following sentence: "The neighbouring property has a cherry tree in their garden.". Somebody picked up on this - saying it should be 'the' and I am happy to agree with them, but I don't know exactly why, and I would really like to understand the mechanics! #somanyquestions :)
Hi Rachel - There's always a gap between how we actually use language, and how it has been codified into rules and structures. "their" in that sentence is incorrect because "they" refers to plural things (With the exception of the very old - and very recent - use of "they" to refer to single people who we don't want to be specific about "he" or "she").
I think your uncertainty is because "neighbours" could be several people. But in this sentence, it's not people, it's a single house, with "neighbouring" just working as an adjective describing the house.
SO, all of these are correct:
The neighbours have a cherry tree in their garden. (assuming there are several neighbours)
The neighbour has a cherry tree in her garden. (if you know or care that she's female. Similarly with "his garden")
The neighbour has a cherry tree in their garden (if you don't know or care about their gender, or indeed if they are non-binary.
The neighbouring property has a cherry tree in its garden.
(if you want to make the point that it's the garden belonging to that particular house: the "its'" is a "possessive pronoun", i.e. it's to do with owning things. It's the equivalent for non-human things of "his" or "her". While we're at it - you may well know this - notice that "its" doesn't have an apostrophe, because it's not a contraction of "it is".)
The neighbouring house has a cherry tree in the garden.
(if you're not bothered to give it the extra possesive force of "its". After all, who else's garden could it be?)
Hope that helps? And thanks for the thought about verbal nouns. I'll stash it for a future post, if that's OK.
Ah, your super-power is confirmed (though I doubt you needed me to tell you this). I get it now. So clear! Thank you :) I will go with 'the' and have the satisfaction of knowing exactly why! Look forward to achieving similar 'got-it' status on verbal nouns, as and when, as and when. Thank you :)
Ha! You're welcome. The verbal nouns one is really, really interesting, though I suspect it'll turn into one of those mega-posts that take me forever to get round to.
I'm fine with writers starting sentences with But and And unless it's a whole bunch of sentences in a row like that.
Yes. As with all non-standard ways of doing things, their effect diminishes the more they're used. Either that, or it becomes an irritating tic which gets MORE irritating, the more it's used.
Language is constantly evolving. We can't get stuck with forms that were codified centuries ago if those no longer work.
Not that many centuries ago either - things really start getting codified in the 18th century, and even more when universal basic education comes in. But, equally, communication only works with a shared set of conventions, whether they're radio telemetry protocols, or punctuation. A writer can do whatever they like with commas, but if the readers don't mentally read what the commas do in the prose the way the writer does, they just won't feel effect the writer wants to them to feel.
One of the greatest poems in the English Language begins with "And"
I've just looked through Draft 5 of our current novel and there are plenty of sentences beginning "And...". Most of these are direct speech so I don't think this is a problem if that'd be how those people would have spoken.
However I've found an example where the female narrator shows her new best friend a wonderful book her father had given her:
...when Father had said on my birthday, “I know you do not care for jewels, but perhaps you will find this jewel is worth having,” I was speechless for love, joy and tears.
When I told Elizabeth, she replied, “My dear friend, your father surely loves and understands you. You have no idea how rare and precious that is for girls like us.” And I was, again, speechless.
Now I could change this to: "Again I was speechless" or something like that. But I don't think that (or similar) would be an improvement.
I agree, I don't think it would be an improvement. The "and"-beginning version reads very naturally. Narrative voice always has one foot in how people actually speak - perhaps particularly when it's first-person. I nearly put that in the post, but decided that narrative voice is a whole nother topic (as I used to put it as a child, and still sometimes default to) which needs a whole nother blog post.
Thanks.
To go deeper into the late 13th C language we've now translated two lovely poems which we was were written by our Alice later in her life (and were certainly written by *someone* in that culture). They are prepared to use And at the beginning of a sentence, eg
Wilt thow truliche the to me take,
And alle other for me forsake?
And I wille geve the grette honoure,
Gold inought, and grete tresoure.
Ne make ye never bost of me!
And yff thou doyest, be ware beforn
For thow has my love forlorn."
etc.. I have found 5 instances (possibly 6) in a poem of 538 lines.
Sounds about right! And, arguably, an "and" after a question isn't quite the same - because in speech, a question can be part of a bigger sentence. David Crystal also makes the point that in speech we don't actually divide things so clearly into sentences as the grammarians began to do, as a way of teaching rhetoric. No punctuation in early manuscripts at all. Punctuation is the product of written culture.
... as does one of the greatest songs (My Way)
So it does. I think it gives the song a conversational feel - that Sinatra or whoever is continuing a conversation. Which is REALLY interesting, now I come to think of it: It stokes up the sense of defiance which that song is all about. He's not singing to the air, he's arguing back at someone who says his life's been a failure, or whatever ... Would be interesting to look for other songs which work like that.
The history of that song (written by Paul Anka for Sinatra) is quite interesting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Way
My friend Ned Phelps sung it at his 90th Birthday party.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Phelps
Oh, that's fascinating. And also about writing - Anka saying the voice (in the language sense) is quite different from his own. People tend to assume that when song writers (and poets) say "I" they mean themselves...
I'm rather fond of sentence fragments all round, and of conjunctions introducing sentences, though your point about overuse and tics is well taken. The text has to feel right when you read it, and that often works best with occasional fragments and the odd piece of extracurricular punctuation. Fiction has a slightly different grammar from formal writing. Free indirect style allows the way we actually think and speak to bleed a little into the exposition. I think even some non-fiction can benefit from a grammar approaching that of certain styles of novel. The voice of the author coming through a little more than strictly formal grammar would allow can encourage a rapport with the reader. I guess that, as you say here, the trick is in using any such technique subtly. Just enough, no more.
Julian, thank you - I just LOVE the idea of "extra-curricular punctuation". I usually say "non-standard" or something, which is much duller. May I borrow it?
Also - you're absolutely right that fiction requires a more flexible sense of grammar/syntax/punctuation than formal writing. In fact, I'd go further than that, and say that fiction is storytelling, and storytellers spoke long before they wrote. So the narrative voice of any kind of storytelling (including non-fiction) always has (mixed metaphor alert!) one foot in how people actually speak, and only the other foot in how they work the conventions ("rules") that make communication possible in their society. And each writer is at liberty to alter the mix of the two to their story's best advantage, including the extremes at either end of the spectrum. (It's my morning for mixed metaphors, clearly!)
And yes, with any special effect the law of diminishing returns does set in. For example, Dickens and Thackeray both slip into present tense sometimes *for a specific effect*. But it's very recent that present tense has become standard for fiction, to the point where many readers don't specially notice it. And arguably that's a shame (or at least something to examine one's defaults about), because we no longer have that special effect in our toolkit.
Oh please feel free! I've borrowed plenty of your ideas before now so it seems only fair!
I really like how you have framed this. Perhaps all writing is storytelling and we are forever reaching between actual voices and the practicalities of written communication. I don't think I'd seen quite so clearly before that we're always trying to balance the two.
I was very struck, a few years back, when I gave a talk about academic writing at a conference for postgrad historians, and at one point spoke of it as narrative, and therefore "storytelling". The doctoral students were slightly horrified; it was the senior historians who nodded.
I commented on IG, Emma, that my MA tutor applauded my use of And and But at the start of some of my sentences: a 'bold move' they said, but organic in its use because of how we speak and most of my writing is close third-person free indirect.
While reading this I did wonder how close we might be arriving at the use of 'Like' beginning a sentence, as this is a word which is peppered throughout language these days - I'm still trying to embrace it myself because I find it grates - as did the launching of every spoken sentence with the word 'So...' a few years back, but I'm gradually softening to that, so...
I am actually rather fascinated that an MA tutor would think that starting sentences thus was "bold" - dare I say it sounds as if they themselves grew up, creatively speaking, in a rather rule-bound environment?
"So" has been there for a long time, hasn't it. I suppose "like" is a bit more surprising because it's not a joining word is the obvious sense that So, Therefore, Because are ... but as I type that, I realise that it sort-of is: it surely comes from "it is like", as in "X is like Y"?
Essentially, the sort of "like" or "so" which starts a sentence is "phatic utterance", isn't it - communication which is more about connecting speaker and listener, than in expressing a meaning. It's an opener, a throat-clearer, a "listen" or "I'm starting to speak" or "my turn".
In my more pedantic moments, whenever I see/hear someone using the word 'like' I argue with them (in my head) if they've properly thought about what they're saying and how they're using the word (their answer: probably not) because if it's used in its correct way, they're saying "it's as though..." or "similarly..." or "I liken this to..." but really they're using it more as a filler.
Re: So, I asked someone once if they'd noticed how often they started their sentences with this word. She explained this had been how she'd been trained to speak to an audience; it had been suggested that when public speaking, beginning with the word "So..." gave their brain and pulse a chance to pause and breathe.
"they're using it more as a filler." ... "beginning with the word "So..." gave their brain and pulse a chance to pause and breathe."
Fascinating! And I think these things are connected, aren't they? The "So" is also about the speaker's brain to get into the right mode, as well as the listener's. A bit like the "press any button to wake up the display" mode on so much modern electronically-controlled equipment. It doesn't actually matter which button. (Don't get me started on my washing machine being like that... )
I'm all for bending and breaking 'rules' if it will improve a sentence, paragraph etc. The opening 'And' of 'My Way' is good because the line will deliver a particular message. I think the potential problem when starting too many sentences with 'and' - whatever too many means - is that the writing sounds portentous in a not-so-good way. Having said that, I'm sure skilled fiction writers could strengthen a voice with repetitions of sentences starting with 'And'.
I think this is all very true: something that works subtly if you use it every now and again, can lose its power if you use it often (especially without testing each time whether it's really the most effective option at that point) - and even become an irritating tic. But when frequent use is an annoying tic, and when it becomes an effective element in a voice-y narrative, is a subtle distinction, and possibly quite a subjective one: different readers will feel differently.