21st Century Grammar Handbook (24 page)

Similarly, a lead paragraph that contains short, simple sentences should probably be followed by more paragraphs of about the same length and containing sentences of approximately the same size and type. Building across several paragraphs to longer (or shorter) sentences will certainly work, as will signaling a change by adding a subheading or some other device to alert readers to an impending shift in length. But unless you prepare readers for a length imbalance or are striving for emphatic effect by abruptly imbalancing lengths, your writing will probably profit from having elements of roughly the same length perform roughly the same function.

6.
The principles outlined in guideline five—of preparing for or signaling changes in parallelism in length—can be applied to all other alterations in roughly equivalent structures, tones, and so on. Let your reader know you are moving from something set in the
past tense
to
future tense
action; make it clear that what follows is no longer
active voice
description but
imperative
mood suggestion or command; or raise a flag that what follows is
subjunctive
because it is speculative while what came before was
passive
because it was scientific and impersonal. Subheadings, explanatory sentences, section numbers, and many other devices can be used to make your intentions clear and give your readers a better chance to assimilate your new direction and tone.

7.
Use your imagination. Parallelism is a device for
writing well. It can be accomplished or played against in many ways. Think up a new trick your
audience
hasn’t seen before.

Parentheses.
One set of
punctuation
marks commonly used to set off
interjections
or supplemental materials is parentheses: “The dogs (a Doberman, a beagle, and a boxer) bounded into the show ring.”

Parentheses are a rather strong way of separating elements of a sentence. Less forceful are
commas,
while
dashes
are as emphatic or more so than parentheses. All three could have been used in the example, with slightly different meanings resulting. In general, parentheses suggest the information they enclose is supplementary and not particularly germane to the overall sense being conveyed.

Parenthetical expressions work differently with punctuation, depending in part on the independence of the thought they enclose. If a full sentence is within parentheses, all its punctuation is also within the parentheses, including—and especially—the end punctuation, whether
period, question mark,
or any other ending mark: “(You better believe that!)”

When parentheses enclose
phrases, clauses,
or even whole
sentences
within other sentences, the parenthetical expressions are treated as words in themselves that end with the last parenthesis. All punctuation required by the sentence outside the parentheses falls just there—outside the parentheses: “The train (the 7:42 from Trenton, which is always late), slowly approaching the platform, made its way into the station.” In the example a comma follows the last parenthesis because it is needed to set off the following
nonrestrictive phrase.
Had the example required a
semicolon
to mark the end of an independent clause, say, or a
colon
to introduce a
list,
or a period to mark the end of the sentence, all these marks would have fallen properly outside the parentheses.

The same rule applies to any
quotation marks
if the parenthetical expression is being quoted. If the quote ends before or begins after the matter enclosed in parentheses, then the quotes would not enclose the parenthetical matter: “‘Hi (sort of),’ he said ironically.” But: “‘Hi,’ he said (ironically I thought).” In the first example the parenthetical phrase is part of the quoted speech and is within the parentheses. In the second example the parenthetical clause is within the double quotation marks of the example itself but not part of quoted speech and therefore outside the single quotes that mark it.

Parenthetical expressions within sentences may have any internal punctuation needed to make them grammatical and understandable. Thus the example about the train could have read: “The train (the 7:42 from Trenton, which is always late!), slowly approached. …” Similarly, the enclosed matter can include quotation marks independent of or related to what is being quoted in the main sentence: “‘Hi,’ he said (‘irony?’ I wondered).” Here the parenthetical phrase includes an internal quotation and question mark. If this sort of sentence leads to a pileup of punctuation around a parenthesis, it is best to revise rather than expect a reader to figure it all out: “‘Hi (or should it be’ Howdy?”), “he wondered.” The example can be followed, but why ask that much of a reader? See
revision.

Capitalization
rules also vary with the extent of material enclosed in parentheses: full sentences fully set off by parentheses begin with capital letters, but full sentences within other sentences and inside parentheses normally do not capitalize the first word: “She spoke so naturally (and she spoke with care and point!), so calmly, that I felt relieved. (False comfort, it later proved!)” Although there is an end punctuation mark shown for the sentence that is in parentheses but not capitalized, no end punctuation need be shown for such sentences set off within a sentence. The second sentence, fully enclosed in parentheses and not within a larger sentence, must have end punctuation within the parentheses and must be capitalized.

Parentheses need not come in pairs. They can be used singly to set off
numbers
in a
list
when the numbers begin a new line: “Here are the main points:

• 1) …
  

• 2) …”
  

If a numbered list is wholly within text and lines don’t begin with numbers, it is better to use both parentheses: “Here are the main points: (1) …, (2). …” Numbered lists like the first example are better without the first parenthesis because the number is more visible.

Should it become necessary to set off material within a parenthetical aside or addition to a sentence, do so in
brackets’.
“The substance (a carbonic compound [C-N] is volatile.” Another level of enclosure within brackets returns to parentheses. Unless you are writing high science, it is usually best to revise a sentence that gets so
complex, moving main sentence and parenthetical additions to it into two or more
subordinated
statements without parentheses-brackets-parentheses alternations that become hard to follow.

Participle.
Verbs
have two forms called participles, past and present.
Past participles
are made by adding “ed” to most main verbs: “paint, painted” “walk, walked” and “kick, kicked.” There are, however, many
irregular verbs
whose past participles are not predictable from the main form and need to be checked in a reference source: “be, been” “do, done” and “write, written.”

Present participles are formed by adding “ing” to the main form: “be, being” “walk, walking” “do, doing.” See
conjugation
for more details on forming participles. Participles have a multitude of functions:
adjectives,
parts of other verb forms, and so on.

By themselves participles can modify
nouns:
“I saw a painted barn and a walking horse.” Here “painted” and “walking” are, respectively, past and present participial adjectives. In this adjectival function, participles work just as do other
adjectives,
requiring
adverbs
to modify them, linking together in compounds, and so on: “Standing on a hill surrounded by softly billowing clouds, I looked at a cheerfully painted, extravagantly decorated, and oddly structured barn.” See
modifier
and
compound words.

Several
tenses
are formed by adding
auxiliary
or helping
verbs
to participles: “I was painting the barn after I had walked a mile.” See the entry on tenses and the related entries on specific tenses for more information on the formation, names, and functions of tenses made from participles; see also
conjugation.

Parts of speech.
The parts of speech—the grammatical elements that go into sentences—are listed below. Each one has its own entry explaining what it is, what rules are associated with it, and how it is properly and improperly used. The entries also include examples of good and bad
usage,
discussions of how to improve writing by using specific parts of speech or using them better, and references to other entries that are related to each part of speech.

Modifiers
of nouns are called
“adjectives.”
They are words or groups of words that add qualities to
nouns
of all kinds, including
noun phrases.
Adjectives commonly come just before the nouns they refer to, but they can also appear removed from the noun, particularly when they stand in the
predicate
of a sentence with a
linking verb:
“The red barn is large.” Both “red” and “large” are adjectives modifying or related to “barn.”

Modifiers
of
verbs
and
adjectives
are called
“adverbs.”
They are words or groups of words that add qualities to
adjectives, adjectival
phrases,
verbs, and verb phrases of all kinds. They appear most often near the word they affect but can be located almost anywhere in a
sentence.
Many adverbs end in
“-ly”
but not all do: “I am very glad to hear that you almost finished the job today.” Both “very” and “almost” are adverbs, the first modifying an adjective (“glad”), and the second qualifying a verb (“finished”).

Linking words or groups of words are called
“conjunctions.”
They stand between or introduce elements of
sentences
in various ways. There are four different kinds of conjunctions
(conjunctive adverbs
and
subordinating conjunctions, coordinating conjunctions,
and
correlative conjunctions),
each with a somewhat different function.

Words or groups of words introduced into a sentence without such introductory or linking words as
conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns,
and the like are called
“interjections.
” Because such statements have no supporting words to join them to the rest of the
sentence,
they are often set off by
punctuation
of some sort to indicate their separateness from the rest of the sentence: “Indeed, the boat (always known to be leaky) was sinking.” Both “indeed” and the phrase in
parentheses
have been interjected into the example.

Words that name things or living things in a general way are called
“nouns.”
The word “noun” is a noun itself, as is “word” in this sentence (and “sentence” too). Nouns that name specific individual things or living beings are called
“proper nouns”
and are usually capitalized to distinguish them from
common nouns:
“Fritters was a cat, and Chris is sad that the pet died.” The proper nouns in the example are “Fritters” and “Chris,” while the common nouns are “cat” and “pet.” See
capitalization.

Another type of word that links other words together in relationships is called a
“preposition.”
In the preceding
sentence, “of
and
“in”
are prepositions that “govern” nouns. Prepositions can also link
pronouns, phrases, clauses,
and other sets or kinds of words: “I found three errors in what you said.” The
object
of the preposition “in” in the example is the clause that follows it. Pronouns that are the object of prepositions often change form to show that they are in the
objective case:
“The librarian handed the book to her.”

Words that stand in place of nouns are called
“pronouns.”
There are eight kinds of pronouns, explained in further detail in the entries on pronouns and each individual variety of them:
demonstrative, indefinite, intensifier, interrogative,
personal pronoun, reciprocal pronoun, reflexive pronoun,
and
relative pronoun.

Words or groups of words that express actions, conditions, or the like are called
verbs.
In the previous sentence there are two verbs: “express” and
“are.”
By changing their form, verbs indicate the
number
and
person
of
subjects
acting or existing—how many people or things are involved, and whether they are you, me, or them. Verbs also show the time when things happened
(tense),
whether the action was or could be extended to an
object (voice),
and the speaker’s attitude, intent, or purpose
(mood).
Please see the various entries on all these aspects of verbs for more details and examples.

Passive.
There are two
voices
in English, active and passive. The
active voice
defines sentences in which action is transmitted directly or implicitly to another thing or person, an
object:
“The artist paints pictures. The artist paints.” Both
verbs
are active, though with the second no object is stated directly.

When the sentence
subject
is the recipient of the action, and an agent of the action is stated directly in a
prepositional phrase
(or implied), the sentence is said to be in the passive voice: “The picture was painted by the artist. The picture was slashed.” Both verbs in these examples are passive.