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