Dr. Alfonso Valenzuela
ALIMENTOS FUNCIONALES QUE CONTIENEN CLA
Guideline: Use good grammar—but you don’t need to know hundreds
of grammatical terms .
Half in jest, the 1995 (fi rst) edition of this book off ered the notion of grammarphobia — an irrational terror of grammatical terminology.
Th e condition seemed common, I surmised, among both those who
underwent grammar lessons at school and those who did not: the fi rst group of suff erers might regard grammar as just one more abstract rit- ual to be endured while the sun shone outside; the second might see it as a magical key to successful writing, unreasonably withheld from them by malevolent educationists — especially, in the UK, from 1960–90. Since then, the Web has spawned numerous websites for grammarphobes and the disease appears to be spreading.
Th e UK government’s concerns about grammar have led it to
announce that from 2013 all 11-year-olds will face an explicit grammar test in English exams. Here are three typical questions:
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Circle the word that describes how William played on the fi eld: ‘William played badly on the fi eld.’ Ans: badly.
•
Complete the sentence with a contraction that makes sense: ‘If you give me the recipe . . . buy the ingredients on the way home.’ Ans: I’ll or we’ll (etc.)•
Put the baker’s words into direct speech: ‘Th e baker said he hoped to sell all the bread by lunchtime.’ Ans: ‘I hope to sell . . .’.Yet, a litt le grammar goes a long way. To write well, you don’t need much beyond well-taught primary-school (sixth-grade) grammar of the kind that would help you pass the above test, and it’s also helpful to
know a few grammatical terms if only to get the most out of books like this. So this chapter gives a brief glossary of the terms in most common use, and closes with some sentences that include typical grammatical errors likely to cause readers to stumble and backtrack. When reading it, remember that many words change their grammatical character depending on their role in a sentence. Just because ‘progress’ is a noun in this sentence:
We will make progress on the project next week.
doesn’t stop it becoming a verb in this one:
I have progressed further than expected.
Adjective A word of description. In ‘local residents have demanded safer streets’, ‘local’ and ‘safer’ are adjectives describing their respec- tive nouns.
Adverb Most adverbs end in - ly such as certainly , quickly , sadly , proba-
bly , but non - ly forms include oft en , soon , away . Th ere are two types. First, verb-phrase adverbs that say how the action in the verb takes place, such as the words underlined here:
Th e politician quietly but fi rmly argued for more investment in the railways.
Second, sentence adverbs that show the speaker’s att itude to what’s being said:
Understandably , the miners demanded bett er pay and conditions. Th e coal- owners, not surprisingly , refused.
Clause A group of words, oft en not a complete sentence, containing
such things as a doer and verb. Th ere are two clauses in: ‘If there
were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.’
Contraction A word with one or more lett ers missing and replaced by an apostrophe, for example: don’t (do not), won’t (will not), haven’t (have not), can’t (cannot), I’d (I would or I should, or I had). In informal and semi-formal business writing, contractions can add a
(you will), you’ve (you have), there’ll (there will), there’re (there are),
and you’d (you would or you had), will be diffi cult for people with
very low literacy (see chapter 23 ) and look odd in formal lett ers and reports. If you use them, make sure the apostrophes go in the right places.
Conjunction A word that links two or more words, sentences, or clauses, for example: but , when , and , yet , if , although .
Doer Th e person or thing doing the action, also known as the agent. In
‘Th e writer signed the contract’, ‘writer’ is the doer.
Grammar Th e body of rules and conventions by which words are
grouped in a way that is meaningful to other people. For example, the sentence ‘Paris look a beautiful city’ is ungrammatical—if stand- ard English is the criterion—as it breaks the rule that a singular doer must govern a singular form of the verb. Non-standard English uses diff erent grammar, which can be just as eff ective in the right circum- stances. Bob Marley, the Jamaican reggae musician (died 1981), sang of his ancestors: ‘Pirates, yes they rob I/Sold I to the merchant ships/Minutes aft er they took I/From the bott omless pit.’ Usage
changes over time: Queen Victoria (died 1901) wrote ‘Th e news
from France are very bad’ because ‘news’ was the accepted plural then. Grammar also changes from place to place: in British sports commentary, national and local teams tend to be plural—‘England are winning 2-0’—while in Australian commentary, teams are usu- ally singular.
Imperative Th e form of the verb that gives commands, for example:
go , eat , push , don’t jump , let them go , let me see , don’t be deceived .
Infi nitive Th e basic form of the verb, made up of to plus the verb word.
Present-tense infi nitives include to go , to eat , to dream . Past-tense infi nitives include to have gone , to have eaten , to have dreamt . Passive- voice infi nitives include to be eaten , to be att acked . See chapter 11 for split infi nitives.
Nominalization A noun phrase formed from a verb, for example preparation (from to prepare ), renewal (from to renew ). See chap- ter 5 .
Noun A word that signifi es a person, thing, place, activity, or quality, for example axe , beacon , carrot , dam , eating , fr ill , gerbil , happiness . Proper nouns are specifi c names of people, places, and the like: Christmas , Canberra , Canada , Caroline .
Object Th e thing to which some action is done: ‘We destroyed the
ship .’
Paragraph A sentence or group of sentences separated in some way from the rest of the text and dealing with a particular part of the topic being discussed.
Participle Th e present participle adds - ing to the verb, hence going ,
fi nding , sleeping . Th e past participle adds - d or - ed to most verbs, as
in worked , decided , starved . See chapter 4 for the way other past par- ticiples are formed. A hanging or dangling participle is said to exist in sentences like this: ‘Although generally frowned upon, the land- owner may request the quashing of a fi xed parking notice at any time.’ As ‘frowned’ is the past participle of ‘frown’, traditional gram- mar requires it to agree with the nearest subject in the sentence, in this case the landowner. So it sounds as if the landowner is being frowned upon by a lot of people, whereas the real meaning is that quashing fi xed parking notices is generally frowned upon. Because dangling participles create this kind of ambiguity, they are them- selves generally frowned upon. Sometimes, though, the ambiguity is more imagined than real because the context provides such a clear meaning that only a pedant would fi nd fault.
Particle Many words that act as prepositions can also be adverb parti-
cles. In ‘Th e relationship was broken off ’ and ‘My car has broken
down’, the words ‘off ’ and ‘down’ are particles. You can tell this because they lack objects. See Preposition.
Plural More than one. ‘Frogs’ is the plural of ‘frog’, which is singular. Where optional plurals are available for words of Latin or Greek origin, it’s usually bett er to favour the English. Hence referendums not referenda , forums not fora , stadiums not stadia , formulas not for-
mulae , bureaus not bureaux . But criteria not criterions , phenomena
Preposition A word that usually comes immediately before a noun or pronoun, such as in , down , up , under , of , with , by , to , fr om , at : ‘My car rolled down the hill and under the bridge.’ Prepositions have objects, ‘hill’ and ‘bridge’ being the objects in that sentence. See Particle. Pronoun A word that stands in place of nouns, for example he , she , it ,
him , you , I , me , they , anyone .
Sentence A statement, question, exclamation, or command— usually starting with a capital lett er and ending in a full stop—which is complete in itself as the expression of a thought. Grammarians dif- fer on what constitutes a sentence, but it is easiest to think of it as a
fi nished utt erance that makes sense in its context. Th us it will usu-
ally have a fi nite (fi nished) verb. Th ese, for example, are sentences:
Having succeeded in its fi rst two years, my business will keep growing. Referring to your lett er of 21 January, I can see no cause for alarm. My business will succeed, no matt er what [where ‘happens’ is implied].
But these are not sentences:
Having succeeded in its fi rst two years. Referring to your lett er of 21 January.
My business will succeed, no matt er what anyone [where it’s not clear how the sentence would be completed].
Examples like the following can be classed as sentences even though they lack verbs, provided they make sense in context. (It’s a style oft en
heard in political speeches.) Th e verbs are implied and shown here in
square brackets:
[Th is is] Not so.
[Th at would happen] Over my dead body. [Th is has been] A great success for all concerned . Singular See Plural.
Subject Th e noun or pronoun that agrees with the verb. In ‘My ele-
phant needs water’ and ‘Th e computer has been struck by lightning’,
readers a favour if you usually keep to a minimum the gap between the subject and the verb.
Tense Th is refers to when an action occurs:
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Present tenses: he goes ; he is going ; she survives ; she is surviving .•
Conditional: she would go ; they would see .
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Future tense: he will go ; she will survive .
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Past tenses: he went ; he has gone ; he was going ; he had gone ; she survived ; she has survived ; she was surviving ; she had survived .Verb Verbs express an action ( eat , sleep ) or a mental state ( know , believe ), so they are oft en described as doing words. A more accurate description is time-action words because the action takes place in past, present, or future time. In active-voice verbs, the doer normally comes in front of the verb: Goats destroy vegetation ; Pigs might fl y . In passive-voice verbs, the doer normally comes aft er the verb: Vegetation is destroyed by goats , or is not present at all. See chapter 4 for more on this.