Words Fail Me (7 page)

The writer might mean this:
Since the new branch is so popular, it is
here
we should spend our resources, not on the underused main library.
Or this:
Since the main library is underused, it is
here
we should spend our resources, not on the popular new branch.
Those sentences may not be graceful, but their meaning is obvious. When
here
or
there
could refer to more than one place, rearrange the sentence to make clear which place you mean. Otherwise the reader will be nowhere.

We can run into the same sort of trouble with
now
and
then.
Here's part of an e-mail that an insurance agent might receive after a fender bender:
The roads were slippery even before the rain turned to sleet, and it was
now
the car began to skid
. When is
now?
Did the car start to skid before or after the rain turned to sleet?

Here's one interpretation:
The roads were slippery and it was
now
the car began to skid, even before the rain turned to sleet.
Here's another:
The rain turned to sleet on the slippery roads, and it was
now
the car began to skid.

Two more words,
this
and
that,
can also be used to indicate time and place. And like the others, they can be misread:
The Hotel Pierre is in the East Sixties, and this is where she'd like to stay.
Where is
this
? In the hotel, or in the neighborhood?

We can clear things up by dropping
this
:
The Hotel Pierre is in the East Sixties, where she'd like to stay.
Or:
She'd like to stay at the Hotel Pierre, which is in the East Sixties.

Incidentally, these words (
here
and
there, now
and
then, this
and
that
)can trip you up in other ways, as well. For more on them, and on other kinds of illogical writing, see chapter 17.

As is often the case, what's good for a single sentence is good for the whole enchilada. Get used to thinking about time and place with each sentence you write. Then you'll be less likely to muddle the larger picture. You'll keep the wheres and the whens straight from paragraph to paragraph, section to section, chapter to chapter.

Now, where was I?

How about it? And while we're at it, let's talk about
us
—also
he, she, him, her, they,
and a slew of similar words, the small conveniences that refer to things or people we'd rather not mention by name.

These words are called pronouns because they're substitutes for nouns (
pro
means "for" or "in place of"). Most of the time we can decipher the shorthand and figure out what
it
is and who
they
are. When the words in a sentence are in the right order, there's no doubt about
it
. Even when the word order is iffy, logic and context usually help us fill in the blanks—but don't count on it.

This sentence leaves no doubt:
The La-Z-Boy is moth-eaten, so Homer's replacing
it
. Here,
it
can only mean the La-Z-Boy.

Add another noun, though, and the shorthand is blurry:
The upholstery on the La-Z-Boy is moth-eaten, so Homer's replacing
it
.
Is it
the La-Z-Boy or the upholstery? Will the mystery noun please stand up? You might mean this:
The upholstery is moth-eaten, so Homer's replacing the La-Z-Boy.
Or this:
The La-Z-Boy is moth-eaten, so Homer's replacing the upholstery.

It
is one of those creepy-crawly words that sneak up on writers. Every time you write it, imagine a reader asking, "What is it?" If
it
isn't obvious, either ditch it or rearrange the words.

Be careful with sentences like this, with two or more nouns in front of an it:
Philippe kept his opinion of the painting to himself until
it
became popular.
Until what became popular, the painting or his opinion? Make sure the reader knows what
it
is. Try this:
Until the painting became popular, Philippe kept his opinion of
it
to himself.
Or in case he's an art critic:
Until his opinion of the painting became popular, Philippe kept
it
to himself.

If you'll pardon the déjà vu all over again, here's one more example:
Yogi's book about the World Series was sold even before
it
was completed.
Before what was completed, the book or the World Series?

One way to fix the sentence is to drop
completed
and use a more precise verb that clears away the fog:
Yogi's book about the World Series was sold even before
it
was written.
Another solution is to add
he,
making clear who did
it
:
Yogi's book about the World Series was sold even before he completed
it.

If one shorthand word can gum up a sentence, imagine what a whole pack can do. Try to identify the pronouns in this pileup:
Fred told Barney he'd ask a neighbor to feed
his
pterodactyls, but
he
forgot,
they
died, and now
they
aren't speaking.

Whose pterodactyls? Who forgot what? Who (or what) died? Who's not speaking to whom? When you use pronouns, you know the cast of characters. Readers won't know and shouldn't have to guess. This might be what the writer means:
Fred said he'd ask a neighbor to feed Barney's pterodactyls, but the neighbor forgot, the pets died, and now Fred and Barney aren't speaking.
It's not elegant, but at least we know who did what.

Even a short sentence can be confusing if it has a mystery pronoun:
Duke said Boomer broke
his
nose.
Since two guys are mentioned, we don't know whose nose was broken—Boomer's or Duke's. If Boomer took the blow, we could write:
Duke said Boomer broke
his
own nose.
If Duke's face was rearranged, we might say:
Duke said
his
nose was broken by Boomer.
(A passive verb comes to the rescue.)

Those solutions aren't as economical as the original sentence, but clarity comes first. Sometimes we can solve a pronoun problem by using a different verb altogether:
Duke
accused
Boomer of breaking
his
nose.

Oh, one more thing about fuzzy pronouns. Don't substitute
the former
and
the latter
to make your meaning clear (
Duke said Boomer broke
the latter
's nose
). The result is annoying and pretentious. A good rule of thumb is to avoid the kind of pompous language used by people you'd like to punch in the nose.

Mrs. Trotter, my fourth-grade teacher in Des Moines, once wrote a sentence on the blackboard—"The family sat down to dinner"—and asked us to imagine the scene. Then she added a word—"The
Hawaiian
family sat down to dinner"—and asked us to picture the scene again. Everything changed: the room the people were in, what they looked like, the clothes they wore, the food they ate. (This was before the Big Mac and Pizza Hut homogenized the American diet.)By adding only one word,
Hawaiian,
she transformed the whole sentence. I've never forgotten that lesson in what an adjective is and what it can do.

Words that modify—or change—other words are
miraculous inventions. Plain old
family
could mean any family at all. When you modify it with an adjective, in this case
Hawaiian,
you've narrowed the possibilities—ruling out, say, Japanese and Swedish and Nigerian families—but you've also widened the meaning, adding a flavor that wasn't there before. You've made a word, family, smaller and larger at the same time. If that's not a miracle, I don't know what is.

Modifiers come in two basic varieties—those that describe things and those that describe actions. What adjectives are to nouns (words for people, places, ideas, and other things), adverbs are to verbs (words for actions).

To appreciate the power of an adverb, imagine a sentence without one:
The family rose from the table.
Then imagine these:
The family rose
sullenly
from the table. The family rose
jubilantly
from the table. The family rose
drunkenly
from the table.
Only one word,
rose,
is modified, yet the entire picture changes.

You can see why modifiers are so popular with writers. Tack on a modifying word or phrase and you get noticeable results with very little work. While you should know how to use modifiers, though, you should also know how not to use them. A skillfully placed modifier can bring a dull sentence back from the dead, but an inept one can be fatal. Think of these tools as weapons: load carefully, conserve ammunition, and always know where they're pointed.

It's no crime to be fond of adjectives and adverbs. Some writers, however, are so enamored that they can't resist slipping in a modifier wherever possible. Every thing and
every action—every noun and every verb—is dressed up with a descriptive word or phrase, like cutout clothes on a paper doll. A simple sentence—
Her face glistened in the moonlight
—is not good enough. It has to be dolled up:
Her
tear-stained
face glistened
palely
in the
shimmering
moonlight.

Adjectives (
tear-stained,
shimmering)and adverbs (
palely
) are meant to make writing colorful and lively. But too many of them can have the opposite effect. Every time you use a modifier, ask yourself whether you need it: Are you telling your readers more? Do they need to know it? Does it do what
Hawaiian
did for
family
or what
sullenly
did for
rose?
Try getting by without the modifier, and if it's not missed, lose it.

Vivid writing doesn't have to be propped up by a lot of modifiers. This sentence from
The Witchfinder, a mystery
by Loren D. Estleman, has almost no modifiers, but it still gives me goose bumps: "In a little while the streetlights would blink on and then the headlamps, a set at a time like bats awakening, and the city would turn itself darkside out like a reversible jacket, shaking out the creatures that breathed and bred in its folds." Think of all the adjectives and adverbs Estleman might have used and wisely didn't.

Statesmen aren't known for rhetorical austerity, but Abraham Lincoln passed up many chances to use modifiers when he wrote the opening of the Gettysburg Address: "Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

Of course, he was in a hurry, writing in a train and all,
Or so we're told. A writer with more time on his hands might have put it this way: "Fourscore and seven fateful years ago our doughty fathers gamely brought forth on this bonny continent a spunky new nation stoutly conceived in steadfast liberty and pluckily dedicated to the bracing proposition that all men are created utterly equal in perpetuity."

Which version do you like?

Some of us are programmed to dole out modifiers in twos, others in threes, producing prose that has a monotonous regularity. If we're wired for twos, each adjective or adverb is sure to be followed by another. If we're programmed for threes, each modifier is robotically followed by two more.

The result is assembly-line writing:
Lucy's
swollen, red
cheeks threatened to burst as she stood at the
swift, relentless
conveyor belt and
wildly, desperately
stuffed
more
and
more
chocolates into her mouth.

Now let's crank it up a notch:
Lucy's
swollen, red, aching
cheeks threatened to burst as she stood at the
swift, relentless, heartless
conveyor belt and
wildly, desperately, futilely
stuffed
more
and
more
and
more
chocolates into her mouth.

If you consistently use modifiers in irritating, monotonous, and singsong patterns, break the habit promptly, decisively, and completely.

Speaking of singsong patterns, here's another—the echo effect. That's what you get when you use a modifier that
jingles or rhymes. Think of combinations like
prudent student, delightfully frightful, better sweater, stunningly cunning, ruthlessly truthful, mottled bottle
—don't stop me, I'm on a roll
—abysmally dismal, feral ferret, cruelly grueling, bizarre bazaar, fearful earful, terse nurse.

Rhyming modifiers come in two varieties: premeditated and unpremeditated. You can easily avoid unpremeditated ones by going over your writing, mentally listening for unintended sound effects. As for the premeditated ones, they aren't necessarily bad. A writer might use an echo effect because it's pleasing (
nicely spiced
), humorous (
doubly bubbly
), or unavoidable (
prime time
). Jingles and rhymes are also used for emphasis or for catchiness in names and titles (
Weed Eater, Roto-Rooter, Famous Amos
). Unfortunately, some combinations that may have been just right the first few times around have grown tattered around the edges:
dream team, true blue, gender bender, white knight, low blow, deep sleep, brain drain, hell's bells.