Now that I’m not a therapist any more, I’m allowed to reveal my preferences. News flash: I like some English usages better than others. A few actual flagrant errors have become my pet peeves.

Apostrophe Abuse.

“The cat licked it’s paw.” #%*#! The word “it’s” means, “it is” or “it has.” The evil example just quoted actually means, “The cat licked it is paw.” I don’t think anyone ever intends to write that. By contrast, the word “its” means, “belonging to it,” as in, “The company issued its annual report.” There is no such construction as “its’” – a monstrosity which I have actually seen with my own eyes.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen used to have a running item in his column sharing the apostrophe abuses collected and sent in by his readers, whom he called “the ‘Postrophe Posse.” Alas, he has gone to that great compositing room in the sky and is no longer here to marshal defenders of the apostrophe. At present, those who wish to express their indignation over the mistreatment of this harmless, innocent mark may find solace in the Apostrophe Protection Society (http://www.apostrophe.fsnet.co.uk/ ), a group of stalwarts that originated in England .

Verb Vice

“I was laying there taking a nap.” Grrrr. The sentence should read, “I was lying there,” since the verb is intransitive (does not take an object). Languages change over time, and I grudgingly acknowledge that we’ve lost this battle. Even educated people make this mistake. I always wince inwardly when I hear it, though, since to me it sounds like fingernails on a blackboard, and probably always will.

Fluff

“That said” to sum up previous statements before going on to the next one. This apparently harmless locution is an example of wordiness. It means, “I just said what I just said.” No kidding.

Submit your own pet peeves! Email us here

The following uplifting sentiment is included to foil the notion that blog categories must be strictly obeyed.

Ben Franklin, who early in life was a printer and later

a renowned author (and many other things), wrote his own pious epitaph:

The body of

B. Franklin, Printer

(Like the Cover of an Old Book

Its Contents torn Out

And Stript of its Lettering and Gilding)

Lies Here, Food for Worms.

But the Work shall not be Lost;

For it will (as he Believ’d) Appear once More

In a New and More Elegant Edition

Revised and Corrected

By the Author.

If you’ve been told that you’re not a strong writer, you’re not alone. Education has declined in many places in the last few decades, and it is possible to receive a high school or even a college degree without learning how to write. Many students arrive at college or graduate school believing that they know how to write well, and are surprised that their instructors do not agree.

Some years ago, the APA Monitor, the official monthly publication of the American Psychological Association, published a long article about remedial programs in many colleges nationwide (Murray, 1997). Grade inflation, insufficient academic requirements in high school, and a wide variation in the quality of high school teaching were named as possible causes of the academic problems that many students face in college.

A. Bartlett Giamatti, president of Yale University , lamented that many Yale students “cannot handle English — cannot make a sentence or paragraph, cannot organize a paper, cannot follow through — well enough to do college work” (quoted in Paul, 1996, p. 28). If some Yalies can’t write, is it surprising that others are struggling?

Unfortunately, the problem is not always solved at the undergraduate level. Some colleges confer degrees on students whom they did not teach to write. If you are among these, it is not entirely your fault. However, it is your responsibility to improve your writing, making it correct, clear, and coherent, if you really want to succeed as a writer.

This part of my website is for writers who are interested in using several non-fiction styles. There are at least two non-fiction English languages in print: the scholarly, academic writing of researchers and experts, and the easy-going, colloquial prose of popular writers. It’s useful to be fluent in both. Suppose you’ve written a non-fiction best seller and want to prove your case to a reluctant community of scholars. If you’re Bilingual in English, you could present the same material in a way that they appreciate and are more likely to trust. Or suppose you’ve made a major scientific discovery and you want the world to know about it. The world will not read your dense factual logical treatise, but if you’re Bilingual In English, you might just produce a readable, friendly version of it that the masses gobble up by the thousands.

A best-seller about punctuation? Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynn Truss was a best-seller in 2003. A best-seller about physics? A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking, has sold over 9 million copies.

Are you fantasizing yet?

Well, I’m an author with many half-gestated projects in my computer, not to mention embryos in my notebooks, ova scribbled in the margins of other people’s books…. you get the idea. The problem is that I keep getting new ideas before I can finish the old ones. New ideas are seductive because you haven’t hit the hard part yet. I used to think of the neglected half-written projects as moribund or dead, but one day I read about the kangaroo trick, whose scientific name is embryonic diapause.

[Since we're referring to a pause in the action, not a cessation or death, this word makes more sense than the similar word "menopause." That symptom-rich doorway to liberation should be called "menostop."]

I also started this blog. Some of the best entries come from the “previously dead” files. What a joy to resurrect them! It was like hunting for Easter eggs in my hard drive.

Here’s an even more amazing feat: Let’s say Mom Kangaroo finishes building her baby (the internal phase, that is). It moves to her pouch and begins nursing. If some time later a second kangaroo baby is born while the first is still nursing, the mother kangaroo can simultaneously produce two different formulas of milk, one to suit the needs of each offspring.

Now that’s what I call multi-tasking.

The writer in me rejoiced. There’s a precedent in nature. My staccato writing process is not a sign of failure, but DIAPAUSE! Like a good kangaroo (or armadillo, or badger, or roe deer*), I can time the births — pet my outlines, wrestle with almost-finished chapters, set one idea aside so I can pay attention to a newer one — knowing that all of them are alive and there’s enough time for them all!

* Believe it or not, about a hundred other mammal species can do the same thing–and some people have the nerve to call them “dumb animals”! If genetic engineering were up to me, we’d insert some Diapause DNA in our own genes.

There are even types of diapause. My favorite is obligate diapause (obligate means they have to do it). That’s the trick I’ve been describing – the creature can wait (or shop, if you prefer) for favorable environmental conditions. So when I’m dawdling and my husband wonders if I’m producing anything, I can always moan, “Geez! I’m having obligate diapause!”

If you have some half-developed projects partway down the authorial fallopian tube, halted in mid-gestation, welcome to the world of cosmickangaroo!