27 Steps: #23-25

23: WATCH YOUR SPELLING! Keep a dictionary at your elbow. A structural linguist (you will encounter quite a few of that deadly species in your life) might arguer that it’s all right for spelling to be chaotic because it’s the “meaning” that’s important, but a crusty, cranky traditionalist like me must insist that bad spelling is one of the plagues of humankind. A few commonly misspelled words: separate, accommodate, dissension, occurred, blatant, definite, dominant, predominant, ascendant, descendant, decadent, proceed, precede, secede, receive, perceive, prominent, influential, insistent, resistant, inadvertent, prevalent, consensus, ambience, camaraderie, collectible. Common confusions: Complement-compliment, imminent-eminent-immanent, infer-imply, affect-effect, secede-succeed. A computer spell-checker can be helpful, but remember that computers don’t know proper word usage and can’t help you all with homonyms—words that sound alike but spelled differently and have different meanings—such as plain, plane; course, coarse; tail, tale; oar, or; bale, bail; sale, sail; pail, pale; sight, site.

24: “Quote” is a verb; the noun form is “quotation.” So that one “quotes” (verb form) and what one quotes is a “quotation” (noun form). I admit that this is probably another of the many losing battles against incorrect usage.

25: Please DO NOT use “impact” as a verb or adjective as in “It will impact our situation,” or “Our situation has been impacted.” “Impact” is a noun, as in “It had an impact on our situation,” but even then much overused and best forgotten about—unless you are dealing infected wisdom teeth or lower-intestinal tract distress.

PS: In regards to #25, here's a fun game: Listen for the word, "impact." You'll start hearing it everywhere. Sometimes several times in one sentence. I watched a political debate last year and counted "impact" ten times in five minutes.

27 Steps: #20-22

20: Plural versus plural-possessive: On mailboxes and who knows where else, you’ll see a proper noun, such as “the Wilkins,” turned into “The Wilkin’s.” That’s really stupid, because the use of the apostrophe changes the name! The correct plural-possessive form of “the Wilkins” is “the Wilkins’.”

21: And don’t drop apostrophes, however much state departments of transportation may be trying to eradicate that particular punctuation mark – as in road signs that say “Horns Mill Road” and “Wilsons Road.” Next time you see such a barbaric highway sign or mailbox (unless, of course, it happens to be on your own parents’ mailbox), tell ‘em about it! Stand up for proper usage! Be one of the courageous few still holding the line against linguistic nihilism!

22: Avoid hyper-ventilating adjectives, such “fantastic,” “awesome,” “tremendous,” “terrific,” or “unbelievable.” And try to use “great” much more sparingly than many people – especially in show business and sports—are inclined to do. When you think about it, how many truly “great” of anything have you ever encountered? For me, at latest count, it was exactly two. And most of those were strictly personal anyhow.

27 Steps: #19

In general, minimize use of extended quotations. Brief quotations, broken up and worked in with your own prose, can be quite effective in livening up and illustrating what you have to say. But speak for yourself; do not quote at length and try to depend on others to speak for you.

27 Steps: #18

Note: This is one of my top pet peeves.

Minimalize passive voice, as in “The puck was shot into the goal.” WHO shot the puck into the goal? Much better writing would be “Sakic shot the puck into the goal.”

27 Steps: #17

Understand that “like” is a preposition, not a conjunction. So that, for example, it IS correct to say “It tastes like garbage” but NOT correct to say “it tastes like garbage usually tastes.” Or maybe, “I felt like throwing up,” versus “I felt like I was going to throw up.” The first is correct. The second is not.

27 Steps: #16

Contrary to the practice sanctioned by our British friends, in US usage, commas and periods go inside quotation marks; semicolons and colons go outside. For question marks, well, it depends.

27 Steps: #13-15

My apologies for missing the last couple steps. I've been without Internet for the past few days and was unable to post. So, without further ado...

13: Avoid tense-switching. Write about events that took place in the past in the past tense. Do not write in the past tense a while, then switch to the present tense, then back to the past, and so on. In writing about books, plays, movies, and poetry, however, you can use the present tense, as in "Judy Kutulas maintains that...."

14: Generally avoid using abbreviations such as “WWII” or N.Y.,” although in some cases, where you’ve used the complete form earlier, such as “NASA” or “CPUSA,” it’s all right. Never use “etc.” in formal writing.

15: A “novel” is NOT a work of history but a work or imaginative fiction. NEVER NEVER NEVER refer to a work of non-fiction historical writing as a “novel.”

27 Steps: #12

With respect to item 11, especially avoid the comma splice, which is the use of a comma to separate two independent clauses without the use of a semicolon or a conjunction (such as "and," "but," "for"). Example: "I like this class, the teacher is a sweetheart." That would be a comma splice -- incorrect usage. Put a semicolon in there or an "and" or other conjunction between the comma, and it's correct usage. Examples: "I like this class, and the teacher is a sweetheart." Or: "I hate this class, but the teacher is a sweetheart." Or: "I like this class; the teacher is a sweetheart."

27 Steps: #11

Use commas, semicolons, and colons properly; if you don't know proper usages, then please learn.

27 Steps: #10

"In depth" is likewise, and besides that, a grossly overused term. Use it sparingly - or better still, NOT AT ALL.

27 Steps: #9

"A lot" is TWO words, regardless of what somebody who ought to have known better may have let you assume up to now.

27 Steps: #8

Do not write (or say, for that matter) "might of," "would of," or "could of." Proper usage is "might have," "would have," and "could have."

27 Steps: #7

Do not confuse "lose" and "loose."

27 Steps: #6

Do not confuse "to" and "too," at the risk of driving almost any literate person straight up the nearest climbing wall.

27 Steps: #5

Do not confuse "led," as the past tense of "to lead," versus "lead," which is a base metal, as in "Get the lead out of your pants."

27 Steps: #4

Learn proper usage of "lay" and "lie." Down in the elementary grades of the US schools, people used to be taught the basic distinction: Animate objects "lie" (as in "recline"); inanimate objects "lay." Examples: "He is lying on the couch," versus "Your book is laying on the table."

27 Steps: #3

Do not confuse "whose" and "who's." Again, possessive pronoun versus contraction. And while few people living in the United States today understand the proper usage "who" and "whom," a person aspiring to gain one or more university degrees (or a high school diploma) at least ought to try.

27 Steps: #2

Don't confuse "it's" and "its" -- an especially dreadful mistake. "Its" is the impersonal possessive pronoun; "it's" is the contraction of "It is."

Do's and Don'ts: Twenty-seven Steps to Becoming More Literate

As an aspiring teacher, and someone who thinks that good writing is essential to becoming an active and effective member of society, I decided to reproduce this document, "Do's and Don'ts: Twenty-seven Steps to Becoming More Literate." I wish I could take credit for compiling this list, but alas, I cannot. My professor adapted this from one of his former professors and I, in turn, will adapt them for my blog. Each day, I will post a new step. Some are short and simple, like this one; others are not. By the time I have all of them posted, if you take them all to heart, you too will be more literate. So, without further ado...

1. Don't confuse "their" and "there."