In Plain English
Pet Peeves of Improper English Usage
Father's English usage pet peeves rub
off on author, who's developed a few of her own.
By Mary Barnard Ray
- Yes, it is me.
- The author infers that the five previous cases were
incorrectly reasoned.
- I am nauseous at the thought of rewriting.
- This total is different than the total I calculated.
- He made a verbal promise, but put nothing in writing.
- The training of new employees routinely covered the importance of
washing off hands before returning to work.
If I used any of these phrases in my father's house, I always
received either a barked-out correction or a patient lecture. My father
was an English teacher of the Old School. In the ranking of
transgressions against family honor, grammar and usage errors fell
somewhere below stealing but above insolence. So naturally I was the
only child in my first grade class who could use who and
whom properly. Just as naturally, I was naive enough to explain
this to my new classmates. Once.
At that time, I learned that being aware of your audience is more
important to communication than grammatical correctness. I subsequently
tried to convince my father of this point. Twice. This provided me with
a reinforcing experience related to the importance of being aware of
your audience.
Thus I became an English teacher with pet peeves that I am too polite
to mention - except to my students, my children and the safely anonymous
readers of this column.
Mary Barnard Ray is a legal writing lecturer and
director of the Legal Writing Individualized Instruction Services at the
U.W. Law School. She has taught writing workshops and offered individual
sessions for law students; she also taught advanced writing and
commenting and conferencing techniques in the training course for the
legal writing teaching assistants. She has taught and spoken nationally
at many seminars and conferences of legal and college writing
instructors. Her publications include two coauthored legal writing
books, Getting It Right and Getting It Written and Beyond
the Basics, published by West Publishing Co.
Technically, use I after any form of the verb to be
in the sentence. The reasoning behind this is that to be is a
linking verb, the verbal equivalent of an equal sign (=). Thus a linking
verb makes the object of the verb equivalent to the subject, and thus
I is the appropriate form. Use me when you are the
recipient of an action (direct object) or the recipient of an object
that receives the action (indirect object).
- Yes, it is I. You may give me that confidential
message over the telephone.
Some grammarians have given up on teaching this distinction, but they
still remember it. So you will earn grammar status points with any of
them when you get it right.
Use imply when referring to the writer, document or other
entity that makes the indirect suggestion or expression. Use
infer when referring to the reader or entity that interprets
that indirect suggestion or expression from the communication.
- I inferred that you were implying a failure on her
part.
Use nauseated when you mean that something makes you feel
sick. Saying you are nauseous would mean that you make others
feel sick.
- I was nauseated because the smell of cooking milk is
nauseous to me.
The clearest choice with different is to use different
from. Although some sources allow different than when it
is used elliptically to replace a longer phrase, like than that in
which it is ..., none of the examples I have seen make sense or
seem like necessary constructions. In contrast, all sources say
different from is a correct choice.
- Minnesota law on this point is different than Wisconsin
law.
Misuse of verbal is rampant and could create serious
ambiguities in some legal situations. For that reason, this error rises
above the usual level of concern. Verbal means using words, in
contrast to nonverbal. Oral is the word that contrasts
with written. Thus the correct wording would be as follows.
- He made an oral promise, but put nothing in writing. She
responded nonverbally, nodding her head but saying
nothing.
Finally, as my father used to say, "If you wash off your
hands, what will you use to hold your fork?" (I really do not recommend
saying this to your children, although you will be tempted.)
- I am going to wash my hands so I can wash off the
germs.
Do you have some pet peeves of your own? If so, here's your chance to
have your say. Send your top pet peeves to: Ms. Ray, c/o Wisconsin
Lawyer, P.O. Box 7158, Madison, WI 53707-7158. We'll include a
selection of your peeves in a future column.
If you have a writing problem that you can't
resolve, send your question to Ms. Ray, c/o Wisconsin Lawyer,
State Bar of Wisconsin, P.O. Box 7158, Madison, WI 53707-7158. Or, email your question. Your
question and Ms. Ray's response will be published in this column.
Readers who object to their names being mentioned should state so in
their letters.
Wisconsin
Lawyer