by Ben Yagoda
8. [She has on authentic Native American moccasins made directly from Navajo women.]
Ouch.
9. [Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas.]
How he got in my pajamas, I don’t know. (The above quote and rejoinder were both uttered by Groucho Marx in the film Animal Crackers, written by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind.)
As the Groucho quote indicates, verbal ambiguity is at the root of a lot of humor, some of it funny and some not very. But if you’re just trying to get your point across, this is a problem. Fortunately, in most cases, the problem can be addressed and resolved simply by reading aloud, or, more generally, mindfulness. If, every time you put down a sentence, you go over it unhurriedly, you’ll learn to pick up on any ambiguities or confusion. To fix them, just shuffle and reshuffle the elements of the sentence, as if you were putting together a bouquet of flowers. Eventually, you’ll come up with more than one reasonable and pleasing alternative, from which you can choose the one you like best.
Interestingly, the confusions in the above examples all stem from the same basic problem. A noun (A) is followed and modified by a relative clause or prepositional phrase (B) and then by another element (C). This appears to be a particular calamity in English, in which nouns are largely uninflected (that is, they take the same form whether they are subjects or objects) and modifying or descriptive phrases have to come after the noun. Friends who’re more knowledgeable than I tell me that in German and ancient Greek, you can create a construction along the lines of “about-blogging panel” or “wily, with-a-wicked-curveball veteran” or “in-my-pajamas I.”
In English, you have to move stuff. In the first three examples, the problem is the placement of the time (1 and 2) and place (3) elements. By shifting them around, I came up with:
Last week, I visited the house I grew up in.
Ashley put up a new garage door yesterday; she has to paint it by tonight.
Gannett is sponsoring a panel about blogging, to be held in the Perkins Auditorium.
In example 4, the trouble stems from breaking up a noun phrase, rarely a good idea:
Lincoln University has dropped a controversial three-year-old rule requiring students with a Body Mass Index of 30 or more to take an exercise class.
And in 5, the problem is confusion over which of two nouns—we or the film—belongs with the verb went.
We saw the Oscar-winning film, then went home.
Number 6 becomes a wily veteran, known for his wicked curveball, who was finishing a twenty-two-year career…Wait! I just found another misleading thing about the sentence! Blyleven played for five different teams, not just the Angels. So let’s make it…a wily veteran, known for his wicked curveball, who was pitching for the Angels, the last stop in his twenty-two-year career.
The last one I almost hate to fix, because it so brutally drains the humor out of a classic line, but that’s why they pay me the medium bucks. So apologies to Groucho, and here goes:
Last night, while I was wearing my pajamas, I shot an elephant.
6. WHAT IS THE WHAT? OR, THE TROUBLE WITH VAGUE PRONOUNS
a. Who He?
A mindful writer tracks his or her antecedents and tidies up the campsite to make sure there isn’t any ambiguity.
[Raymond met Chris Bruce while he was attending the boot camp as YouDee in 1998.]
I can’t correct it because I don’t know if Raymond or Chris was attending the camp as YouDee (which, or who, is the mascot of the University of Delaware). If R., then it could be, Raymond met Chris Bruce while attending the boot camp as YouDee. If C.B., then I would write, Raymond met Chris Bruce while Bruce was attending…
b. There Is/There Are
We all are fond of the expressions there is and there are because they come naturally and often seem to fit whatever bill needs fitting, but they lead to limp sentences. Following the logic of item III.C.2., if a sentence with a weak subject is bad, a sentence starting with There are is even worse—it doesn’t even have a subject.
Fortunately, a fix is usually pretty easy. A lot of the time, you just get rid of the There are and a relative pronoun (who, that), and voilà. For example, There are five poets who have given readings at the school this year becomes Five poets have given readings at the school this year.
My rule of thumb is that there-are constructions are okay if you can replace the is or are with exists or exist. E.g.: There are twenty-five three-star restaurants in Rome. Not only does that work, but trying to change it forces you to use verbs that come off as trying much too hard, e.g., Twenty-five three-star restaurants grace Rome or Rome is host to twenty-five three-star restaurants.
It takes just a little bit more work when, as is often the case, there is a blanket thrown over some unsightly vagueness.
[In terms of this coming year for entering freshman there has been a question of difficulty of entry for out-of-state students.]
Compared to last year, the Admissions Office selected a lower percentage of out-of-state applicants for admission in the fall.
[Lieutenant Brian Henry explained that there are specific jurisdictional agreements associated with the Newark Police Department and campus police.]
I can’t fix that one because I don’t know what the “specific jurisdictional agreements” are. And without knowing that, you cannot write a not-bad sentence on the subject.
c. It
The eighteenth-century English writer William Cobbett called it “the greatest troubler that I know of in language. It is so small, and so convenient, that few are careful enough in using it.” One of the troubles is ambiguity, as in these examples:
[When it comes down to it, students enjoy spending a little time at home, with little being the key word.]
Students enjoy spending a little time at home, with little being the key word.
[While it seems like a good idea in theory, many students are concerned about the future possibility of not having a car on campus if it becomes too expensive.]
Having a car on campus seems like a good idea in theory, but it often ends up being just too expensive.
[In his speech about the first year of his administration, President Harker said it is no longer acceptable to go it alone.]
In his speech, President Harker said the university could no longer afford to act alone.
Even when the meaning is clear, it spawns limp writing and wordiness.
[It is hard to play the guitar as fast as Clapton.]
Playing guitar as fast as Clapton is hard.
[It is true that the Democrats lost many House seats in 2010, but it’s also true that they still control the Senate.]
Although the Democrats lost many House seats in 2010, they still control the Senate.
d. This, That, and the Other
This is an indispensable word in movie titles (what would the Billy Crystal–Robert De Niro movie series do without it?) and in conversation, where, to me, it gives the impression of the speaker brandishing something held in his or her hands. However, most writing books recommend extreme caution when using this in print, especially naked. For the most part, I agree. In writing, you don’t have the use of your hands, and the word just sits there, often raising more questions than it resolves. A student wrote:
[In 1827, following a furious debate in Parliament, in which each party made an eloquent case and the Prime Minister resigned, slavery was outlawed. This had an immediate effect on the country’s politics.]
I circled the word This, drew a line to the margin, and wrote in big letters, “WHAT?” That is, was the writer referring to the debate, the cases made by the parties, the resignation, or the new law? My hunch is that she didn’t really know, and used this to mean, basically, “all the stuff I just said.” That is not not-bad writing.
Here’s a reliable tip. As in the previous sentence, that often comes off as a little more precise and forceful than this, so it can be slipped in without doing any damage. You didn’t hear it from me.
e. Wha
t
Starting a sentence or dependent clause with what is usually a form of throat clearing and ersatz suspense that really just creates wordiness and an unnecessary use of the verb to be. Moreover, what is singular, and so in cases where it stands for a plural (as in the first example below), awkward conjugation choices ensue.
[What this university needs are is better professors.]
This university needs better professors.
[What he wanted to stress was that credit cards are dangerous.]
He stressed that credit cards are dangerous.
7. WHEN YOU CATCH A PREPOSITION, KILL IT
Pardon me for paraphrasing the title of one of my books, which I stole from Mark Twain: “When you catch an adjective, kill it.” Adjectives can indeed be a problem. They are the prime culprits of telling-not-showing, which I feel is the single biggest general prose misstep. They can be wordy and sleep inducing, especially when mashed together in pairs or triplets.
But in my experience, prepositions are worse. Prepositions, of course, are the part of speech indicating relationship: in, of, to, with, from, under, over, and so on. They are absolutely necessary, but they are inherently weak and often imprecise. Calling someone a person with plans or a man of his word leaves so much open to speculation! Moreover, after a certain point, prepositions turn a sentence into a drawn-out blah. They actually do bring a sort of rhythm with them, but it’s an unfortunate, numbing rhythm, the anapest. This is the duh-duh-DUM-duh-duh-DUM of limericks and “’Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house.” Lastly, prepositions are also often the perpetrators of the sorts of ambiguities and confusion described previously in the book.
My general rule is to allow one preposition per sentence, or two at the most. Any more than that and you have to cast an extremely cold eye.
The problem is, prepositions flow so naturally out of one’s fingers! As proof that they happen to the best of us, I give you a sentence—part of a review of a reality show called Sweet Home Alabama—by Ginia Bellafante, a TV critic for the New York Times and one of the top writers at the paper. (I’ve underlined the prepositions.)
[Here Devin, a pretty, blond student in a cowboy hat at the University of Alabama, is made to select from 20 bachelors, 10 of them “country,” and the rest mostly from the Northeast or Los Angeles.]
How to fix? Well, of the six prepositions, the real culprits are the first two, in and at; they, and the unfortunate prepositional phrases they initiate, trail behind Devin like a pair of tired, shambling dogs. The last three are innocuous, though the repetition of from isn’t ideal. I’m also struck that the sentence is pretty long. So…
Devin, a pretty, blond University of Alabama student who is almost always seen in a cowboy hat, is made to select from 20 bachelors. Half are “country,” and half come from Los Angeles or the Northeast.
Better, right? A description of how often she is shown in a cowboy hat (which I admittedly made up) is funnier, more precise, and more vivid than the vague in. The transplanted U of Alabama reference illustrates the way you can often strengthen a sentence by rejiggering a prepositional phrase and putting it before the noun. Thus The owner of the shop becomes The shop’s owner or The shop owner; a guy with a bald head becomes a bald guy.
As I said, English is not German, where complex and endless adjectives can be constructed, so sometimes you have to figure out exactly how a string of prepositions can be condensed.
[I said hello to a friend with a T-shirt with a picture of Bart Simpson on the front.]
I said hello to a friend in a Bart Simpson T-shirt.
8. to Use to Be or Not to Use to Be
a. Abstract Nouns
Preposition abuse is often linked to a couple of other weak sisters of language: the verbs to be (often in the form of the passive voice) or to have, the definite article (that is, the), and abstract nouns, especially ones ending in -tion. The problem is especially vexing in my field, academia. But you also find it in government, business, and various other outposts of bureaucracy, where passing the buck and generally not saying what you mean is valued. In this (admittedly extreme) example, abstract nouns are in bold, to be verbs in [brackets], thes in italics, and prepositions underlined.
Going forward, the solution to the dissatisfaction [will be] a reconsideration of the initiative that [was] offered by the administration.
(I threw in a current cliché, going forward, just for fun.)
So much mealymouthed dancing around the subject, so little meat. The point, such as it is, seems to be:
Students have made it clear that they hate the new policy, so the administration will change it.
Here’s a simple two-part way of sussing out if a to be verb is a problem.
1. If the back half of the sentence takes the form to be + pos-sessive/article/identifier + noun or to be + adjective, you’re probably okay. Using song titles again, that would give you:
We are the world.
The song is you.
You’re the top.
The lady is a tramp.
The gentleman is a dope.
I am the walrus.
You are so beautiful.
We are family.
2. However, if the sentence takes the form noun + to be + prepositional phrase or to be + noun + who/that/which + verb phrase, there’s a strong chance it could be beefed up, usually with a stronger and more specific verb. For example:
[Obama is the beneficiary of the union’s donations.]
The union gave money to Obama.
[Rizzotti is the student who won this year’s citizenship award.]
Rizzotti won this year’s citizenship award.
b. The Passive Can Be Used, but Not Always
Don’t use the passive voice is one of those rules—like change “the fact that” to “that” or don’t use fragments—that many writing books are a bit too quick to proclaim. The passive can be deployed quite effectively. The previous sentence is an example, I would submit—certainly of the passive voice, but also of not-at-all-bad writing. Not only is it perfectly okay as is, but if you switched to active, you would produce a dull monstrosity along the lines of: Many writers deploy the passive voice quite effectively. Who are these faceless writers? (Take a memo: we’re adding many to the list of words that should be avoided if possible.)
Putting the matter in general terms, the passive is fine if your emphasis is properly on the object of the verb, rather than the subject, or if a quality of the subject isn’t knowable. The passive President Kennedy was shot earlier today is better than the active An unknown gunman shot President Kennedy earlier today.
The passive is a problem if and only if it leaves in its wake an insistent question that begins with the word Who? The classic non-apology-apology was made famous, if not originated, by Ron Ziegler, President Nixon’s press secretary, in 1973, in reference to what he had previously said about the Washington Post’s Watergate coverage: “We would all have to say that mistakes were made in terms of comments.” That quote went down in history because Ziegler tried to fudge the key point: who made the mistakes?
Scientific writing apparently demands the passive voice. However, in other forms, it should be used sparingly. In the passage below, it appears four times in three sentences.
[Because the peppercorns were contaminated (1) with the bacteria, a recall was issued (2) on all of the contaminated salami. 1.3 million pounds were recalled (3). The product was destroyed (4) under supervision by specialists.]*
In my judgment, 1 is fine, 2 is bad, and the last two are borderline. But the passage can only sustain one passive, so I would get rid of 3 because it’s easily changed. So a possible rewrite could be.
The Centers for Disease Control issued a recall on all contaminated salami, and eventually, 1.3 million pounds were recalled. CDC specialists destroyed the meat.
9. WHAT THE MEANING OF “IS IS” IS
Redundant is almost always hurled as a negative epithet indicating repetitiveness or tautology,
but it can be an effective rhetorical device. Shorn of all redundancy, Shakespeare’s “most unkindest cut of all” would be pretty vanilla and the ad slogan “Raid Kills Bugs Dead” would become the ho-hum “Raid Kills Bugs.” Meanwhile, Gertrude Stein’s “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose” would have to be completely erased because the quotation is nothing but redundancy. (Completely erased is redundant as well—something is either erased or it isn’t. But I felt like I needed the emphasis provided by completely.)
Most of the time, however, redundancy is mindless and bad, an instance of a writer reflexively putting down multiple words all denoting the same thing. It’s tough to prove, but I have little doubt that redundancy is on the upswing, a manifestation of the wordiness and clunkiness that characterizes much writing these days. An example—in spoken English, certainly—is the phrase is is. A second is is usually (though not always—see the fourth word of this sentence) both redundant and superfluous. I just searched the phrase is is on National Public Radio’s Web site and was presented with 1,810 hits. The most recent are:
And the media loves those hundred-million-dollar numbers. The reality is is that it’s worth a lot less—35.5 million guaranteed. (Sports correspondent Stefan Fatsis, on All Things Considered.)
But the truth is, is it’s no longer insurance if the government says they’re always going to bail you out. (Representative Ron Paul, on Talk of the Nation.)
