Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day

The core words in a sentence are the subject and the verb. They are related both in sense and in grammar. And related words should go together. If you separate them too much, the sentence goes asunder — e.g.: o “Jurors’ need to hear that testimony again just minutes before reaching a verdict puzzled experts.” …

Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Subject-Verb Separation. Read More »

Miscellaneous Entries *submittal (= [1] the act of submitting; or [2] something submitted) is a needless variant of “submission” — e.g.: “Town code requires members to act on applications within 180 days of submittal [read ‘submission’ or ‘their being submitted’].” Jonathan McNeilly, “New Rite Aid Plans Rejected in Henniker,” Union Leader (Manchester, N.H.), 1 May …

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Part A: “one in five”; “one of every five.” When the first number is “one,” this construction takes a singular: “one in three is not admitted,” “one of every five achieves a perfect score,” etc. Part B: Decades. Decades customarily take plural verbs: “the 1930s were a tough time in America.” The following is unidiomatic: …

Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Subject-Verb Agreement (9). Read More »

Today: Plural Subject Intended to Denote Area or Statistic. Some writers fall into the habit of implicitly prefacing plural nouns with understood words such as “the idea of,” “the field of,” or even “the fact of.” To be sure, some of these wordings are perfectly idiomatic {mathematics is where my talent lies}. But the habit …

Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Subject-Verb Agreement (8). Read More »

Today: “more than one is;” *”more than one are.” The phrase “more than one” generally takes a singular verb, not a plural one {more than one was there} — even though the sense is undeniably plural. If the noun is supplied before the verb, the construction is necessarily singular {more than one woman was there}. …

Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Subject-Verb Agreement (7). Read More »

Part A: Plural Units Denoting Amounts. In American English, a plural noun denoting a small unit by which a larger amount is measured generally takes a singular verb — e.g.: o “Five hours are [read ‘is’] enough time.” o “Fifteen minutes pass [read ‘passes’] more quickly than you might think.” Part B: “one and one …

Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Subject-Verb Agreement (6). Read More »

Today: Misleading Connectives. The phrases “accompanied by,” “added to,” “along with,” “as well as,” “coupled with,” and “together with” do not affect the grammatical number of the nouns preceding or following them. When such a phrase joins two singular nouns, the singular verb is called for — e.g.: o “For example, he says, America’s declining …

Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Subject-Verb Agreement (5). Read More »

Today: Compound Subjects Joined Conjunctively. If two or more subjects joined by “and” are different and separable, they take a plural verb — e.g.: o “At the same time, the democratic process and the personal participation of the citizen in his government is [read are] not all we want.” Charles P. Curtis Jr., Lions Under …

Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Subject-Verb Agreement (4). Read More »

Today: False Attraction to Predicate Noun. Occasionally a writer incorrectly looks to the predicate rather than to the subject for the noun that will govern the verb. The “correct” way of phrasing the sentence is often awkward, so the writer is well advised to find another way of stating the idea — e.g.: o “You …

Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Subject-Verb Agreement (3). Read More »

Today: False Attraction to Noun Intervening Between Subject and Verb. This subheading denotes a mistake in number usually resulting when a plural noun intervenes between a singular subject and the verb. The writer’s eye is thrown off course by the plural noun that appears nearest the verb — e.g.: o “The stalled barges and the …

Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Subject-Verb Agreement (2). Read More »

Today: The General Rule. The simple rule is to use a plural verb with a plural subject, a singular verb with a singular subject. But there are complications. If a sentence has two or more singular subjects connected by “and,” use a plural verb. Yet if the subjects really amount to a single person or …

Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Subject-Verb Agreement (1). Read More »

Miscellaneous Entries. sty (= an inflammation on the eyelid) is the standard spelling. (*"Stye" is a variant form.) The plural is “sties.” Another word spelled “sty” (= a pen for pigs) also has the plural “sties.” stylish; stylistic. “Stylish” = in style, in vogue {a stylish hat}. “Stylistic” = (1) having to do with style …

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This term, originally from golf, is best spelled “stymie.” It can function as a noun {a serious stymie}, but more commonly it’s a verb — e.g.: o “Danielle Odom brings quiet pathos to the damaged little girl — though the tongue-twisting lines she’s handed once she arrives in heaven would stymie virtually any child actor.” …

Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: stymie; *stymy. Read More »

So spelled. *"Stupify" is a fairly common misspelling — e.g.: o “Insurance agents will stupify [read ‘stupefy’] their clients with [obscure] notations.” James W. Johnson, Logic and Rhetoric 197 (1962). o “Drugs like heroin and cocaine typically stupify [read ‘stupefy’] and immobilize the user.” Richard Morin, “New Facts and Hot Stats from the Social Sciences,” …

Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: stupefy. Read More »

“Stultify” formerly meant “to attempt to prove mental incapacity.” By modest extension, it came to mean either “to make or cause to appear foolish” or “to put in a stupor.” E.g.: “Rote liturgy can stultify as well as edify.” Daniel B. Clendenin, “Why I’m Not Orthodox,” Christianity Today, 6 Jan. 1997, at 32. Then, by …

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So inflected. The form *"striked" is erroneous — e.g.: o “The No. 8 Hillbillies striked [read ‘struck’] next when Jack McDaniels returned an interception 97 yards to knot the score at 7.” “N. Marion Breezes over Huntington,” Charleston Gaz., 22 Nov. 1997, at B4. o “As recently as the late Sixties, British post-war race relations …

Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: strike / struck / struck. Read More »

So inflected. The past participle “stridden” (attested in the Oxford English Dictionary from 1576 to 1970), as well as its variant form “strode” (attested from 1817 to 1963), rarely appears today. Another past-participial form, *”strid,” was current before 1800, but it is now obsolete. The form “strode” can be either the simple past or the …

Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: stride / strode / stridden. Read More »

Though *”stricken” often appears as a past participle, grammatical authorities have long considered it inferior to “struck.” It’s archaic except when used as an adjective {a stricken community}. The past-participial use is ill-advised — e.g.: “A noncompete agreement that bans a person from ever setting up a competing company in the same geographical location will …

Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: stricken. Read More »

Language-Change Index. The third edition of Garner’s Modern American Usage reflects several new practices. Invariably inferior forms, for example, are now marked with asterisks preceding the term or phrase, a marking common in linguistics. The most interesting new feature is the Language-Change Index. Its purpose is to measure how widely accepted various linguistic innovations have …

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stratum. The plural is “strata” — which should not be used as a singular but sometimes is. E.g.: “By contrast with the atmosphere of, say, Sinclair Lewis’s ‘Main Street,’ in which an afternoon call or the purchase of a shirtwaist might occasion endless talk among every strata [read ‘stratum’] of a community, minding our own …

Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Miscellaneous Entries. Read More »