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How a Car Wash Led to a Grammar Lesson – and a Valentine’s Day Life Lesson

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A Car Washing Adventure

From time to time it is necessary, living in a snowy city, to give my car a respite from the salt that eats away at it for much of the winter.  During my last visit to Octopus Car Wash, as I waited for my car to get spit out the other end of the car wash, I discovered a wall full of greeting cards, many of them by a local Wisconsin greeting card company, Byrne & Schmidt Greetings.

What a great idea!  I love browsing humorous and clever greeting cards and went to work picking out cards to give to my friends and family for upcoming holidays.

Leave it to me to find a grammar issue in one of the birthday cards.

Squirrel Birthday Poem Insure Ensure

Squirrely Grammar Lesson

Squirrely Grammar

On the front of one card, I found a picture of a squirrel holding an oversized acorn under each arm. The title:  A Squirrel Birthday Poem.  The first three lines of the poem:

Happy Birthday to you,

You can bet your sweet butt

To insure you a great birthday

I opened the card to find the last two lines of the poem:

I’d give my left nut.

I laughed.  And I also got inspired to write about the difference between “ensure” and “insure.”  My first reaction was that “insure” had been used incorrectly here and that the correct verb was “ensure.”  As I did my research, I learned that I was only partially right about that assessment.

The Essay Expert Gets a Grammar Lesson:  Assure, Insure, Ensure

Associated Press style does indeed dictate that “ensure” means to make sure something happens and that “insure” means to issue a life insurance policy.  Other authorities, however, state that it is acceptable to use the two interchangeably, though “insure” does more often relate to monetary insurance and “ensure” more often relates to a non-monetary guarantee.

About.com has a great article about these distinctions, and covers the word “assure” as well.  See Assure, Ensure, and Insure:  Commonly Confused Words by Richard Nordquist.

I’m not going to go into detail about the difference between all these words.  I do want to point out that regardless of his or her proper word choice, the greeting card writer took artistic license in omitting the verb in the sentence.  A correct sentence would have read, “To insure that you have a great birthday….”  The way it read, “To insure you a great birthday” doesn’t make sense.  We can insure a car or a house, or insure *that* something happens, but we can’t ensure a person something.

And Now for the Valentine’s Day Life Lesson…

Nevertheless, I am more interested in the fact that I was so sure the word choice in the card was incorrect that I almost wrote a blog article about the difference between insure and ensure without doing my research.  What a great lesson in being willing to be wrong!

I often think I’m right about a lot of things, not just grammatical issues.  Things like how clean a kitchen should be, or what habits are healthy and not, or what is the best way to do just about anything.  Sometimes being right is not the best way to sustain healthy relationships.  And sometimes I’m just plain wrong.  I can assure you of that.

It’s Valentine’s Day.  Is there anything you’re sure you’re right about with your loved ones?  Are you willing to consider the possibility that there’s another right answer out there in the world besides yours?

Please share your thoughts on grammar and on being right.  I’d love to hear your comments!

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Posted in Articles by Brenda Bernstein, Grammar Tips, Grammar Tips | 9 Comments »

The President Makes Grammatical Errors Too! Tenet vs. Tenant and Obama’s Tucson Speech

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I got an email from my friend Seth Nowak on January 13, 2011 reporting, “Obama said ‘tenent’ in his speech last night.  One term president.”

The speech to which Seth was referring is the moving, poignant speech Obama delivered following the shooting rampage in Tucson.  Obviously Seth was joking to me, The Essay Expert, that a small error like mixing up “tenet” with “tenant” would affect (not effect) Obama’s approval rating.Obama Tuscon Arizona Speech Tenant Tenet

Just a few days before, I had corrected Seth when he said “tenent” (or “tenant” — he was speaking not writing, so I can’t be sure) when he meant “tenet.”  Thus he could not help but notice Obama’s slip of tongue.

To clarify, “tenet” means “any opinion, principle, doctrine, dogma, etc., esp. one held as true by members of a profession, group, or movement.” A tenant, on the other hand, is a person, a group of persons, or an entity occupying a space, usually a rental space (my definition).

“Tenent” is not a word in modern English, though in the interests of full disclosure, it is listed on dictionary.com as “Obs.” (Obsolete).  It does not appear anywhere in the dictionary on my shelf, Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (copyright 1987, the year I headed to college – and if that’s not obsolete, I don’t know what is).

Obama’s spoken sentence was as follows:

“They were fulfilling a central tenant[sic] of the democracy envisioned by our founders.”

The transcriber was kind to our President.  The text “tenant[sic]” does not appear in the transcription; instead, the official version in The New York Times reads, “They were fulfilling a central tenet….”

Tenet vs Tenant

The day before Obama’s speech, I had put “tenant/tenet” on my list of Top 10 Grammatical Errors of 2011 (scheduled for publication in December 2011).  Why?  Because inside of one week in January, not including Obama’s speech, I heard “tenant” used incorrectly twice: once by Seth as reported above, and once in a draft of a law school application essay.  I won’t quote that essay here for reasons of confidentiality, but here’s an example of a sentence in a draft law school application essay I received a year ago:

“The general tenants of my thesis was that developing a national childcare system would contribute to the economy and better the lives of all Canadians.”

This sentence has two problems:  First, she meant “tenet”; and second, even if “tenants” were correct, the verb “was” is singular whereas “tenants” is plural.  This client was not accepted into any Canadian law schools, despite the fact that her errors were corrected.  She did get accepted in England.

The moral of the story:  If you want to get into law school, or be elected for a second term, get straight about the difference between “tenet” and “tenant.”  I understand that “n” sound just wants to come out somehow, but try to keep it in check.

So what do you think?  One term or two?  Perhaps that’s really the important question here.

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Posted in Articles by Brenda Bernstein, Grammar Tips, Grammar Tips, Professional Writing, Writing Tips | 4 Comments »

Top 10 Grammar and Spelling Errors from 2010!

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In the past year as The Essay Expert, I’ve seen a lot of grammar and spelling errors. Here are some of the most common. Let’s toast to learning something new in 2011!

10.  Lose vs. Loose. You lose your keys or your mind. Your belt might be loose, or you might let loose on the weekends. Click here for more: Common Spelling Mistakes:  Lose vs. Loose

9.  Lead vs. Led. A common resume mistake is to write “Lead” as a past tense verb. “Led” is the past tense of “lead.” If your position was in the past, start your bullet with “Led” (a great past tense power verb!)

8. Who vs. that. People are “who”; things are “that.” Don’t say, “I know a guy that can fix your car.” Say, “I know a guy who can fix your car.”

7.  I vs. Me. Don’t say “My dad really loves my sister and I.”

You woulTop 10 Grammatical Errors 2010dn’t say “My dad loves I”; you would say “My dad loves me.” So why would you change “me” to “I” just because he loves your sister too? The correct sentence would be “My dad really loves my sister and me.” For more examples, see Common Grammatical Errors:  Between You and Me.

6.  Then vs. Than. “Then” relates to time. When? Then (it rhymes)! “I got up, then made my coffee.” “Than” is a comparison word. “This paper is longer than it’s supposed to be.”

5.  Affect vs. Effect. “Affect” is most often used as a verb:  “How did his words affect you?” “Effect” is most often used as a noun: “What effect did his words have on you?” There are limited exceptions to each of these generalities. “Affect” can mean someone’s countenance or attitude: “His pompous affect repelled us.” And “effect” can be a verb if used to mean “implement”: “His goal was to effect change in the legal system.” If you go with “affect = verb, effect = noun,” you’ll be right 99% of the time.

4. Periods and commas placed outside quotation marks. In the U.S., commas and periods always go INSIDE the quotation marks. In many other countries, they only go inside when they are part of the quotation. I even see people putting periods and commas outside the quotation marks when they are part of the quotation! That last one I don’t understand. Here’s my article on the topic, The Quandary of Quotation Marks.

3.  Comma splices. An example of a comma splice is “Last year I got great grades, I even won an award.” In this sentence, you need to replace the comma with a period or semicolon to correct it, or add an “and” after the comma. For my article on this aspect of using commas and semicolons, click here:  How to Use Commas and Semicolons.

2.  Apostrophes used to make plurals. The plural of brother is brothers. The plural of Smith is Smiths. When making a plural out of a noun or proper noun, there is no need for an apostrophe! Brother’s is the possessive of brother, e.g. “I covet my brother’s car.” Smith’s is the possessive of Smith, e.g., “Mr. Smith’s house is painted purple.” I talk about this issue a bit more in Why It’s Important to Write Right in the Legal Profession.

1. Its vs. It’s.  This one is the hands-down winner! Today I even saw, on a blog, “Would apple sell its’ products for $10?” The rule: It’s means it is and the apostrophe creates a contraction, just as in can’t or don’t. Its is the possessive of it and does NOT take an apostrophe. And its’ is not a word. It’s simple! My article on this topic is located here: Common Spelling and Grammar Errors: It’s vs. Its

My great hope is that this list will be different for 2011. Can you help make it happen?

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Posted in Articles by Brenda Bernstein, Grammar Tips, Grammar Tips, Writing Tips | 18 Comments »

Grammar and Writing Tips – Correlative Conjunctions: Can You Both Have Your Cake and Eat it too?

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If you are writing a college essay, resume or cover letter, you will benefit from this grammar tip on structuring sentences using correlative conjunctions.  A correlative conjunction is a conjunction used with another conjunction that is necessary to complete the thought.

“Both/and” is a popular correlative conjunction pair.  (Other common examples are either/or and not only/but also.)  The word “both,” when used as a correlative conjunction, is always paired with the word “and.” For example, “I like both John and his dad.”

Grammar CrackersHere’s the tricky part of correlative conjunctions:  The objects or actions they refer to, i.e., the items that fall both before and after the second conjunction (in this case “and”) MUST be parallel in construction.  They must, for example, be two nouns or two verbs or two of the same SOMETHING.

In the examples above, “John” and “his dad” are both nouns and are thus parallel; “before” and “after” are both prepositions and are thus parallel.  Here are some more correct ways to use “both/and”:

CORRECT:  That day I saw both the sunrise and the sunset. [“the sunrise” is parallel to “the sunset.”]

CORRECT:  That day I saw the sun both rise and set. [“rise” is parallel to “set.”]

What people often do is to insert their conjunctions in the wrong place.

Fix-it Example #1:

INCORRECT:  Why is it so hard to accept that someone can both be a woman and a doctor?

See how the phrase after “both” (“be a woman”) is not parallel to the phrase after “and” (“a doctor”)?  “Be a woman” is a verb phrase, but “a doctor” is a noun phrase.

How can we fix it?  Just move the word “both”:

CORRECT:  Why is it so hard to accept that someone can be both a woman and a doctor? [“a woman” is parallel to “a doctor.”]

Fix-it Example #2:

INCORRECT:  I was interrogated for hours both in Italian and English. [“in Italian” is not parallel to “English.”]

CORRECT:  I was interrogated for countless hours in both Italian and English. [“Italian” is parallel to “English.”]

Fix-it Example #3:

INCORRECT:  I’ve always been committed to progress both in my knowledge and skills. [See the error?]

CORRECT:  I’ve always been committed to progress in both my knowledge and my skills. [“my knowledge is parallel to “my skills.”]

Fix-it Example #4

INCORRECT:  I realized I could use this skill both to help myself and the entire student body.

CORRECT:  I realized I could use this skill to help both myself and the entire student body.

These errors are often hard to catch in your own writing.  They are extremely common!  I recommend doing a search for the word “both” in your document. Did you use your correlative conjunctions correctly?  Let us know what you found!

Need more writing help?  Contact The Essay Expert for a FREE 15 minute consultation.

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College Essay Topic #3: 7 Essay Tips for Writing a College Application Essay About a Famous Person

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Writing a college admissions essay about a famous person is similar to writing about your grandmother, it’s tricky to write about a famous person.  You risk writing a short academic paper rather than a true personal statement.

Here are 7 tips for keeping your essay about a famous person interesting (note: the first two tips are very similar to the tips for writing about your grandmother!):

1.       Focus on you, not on the famous person.  Write your thoughts and opinions about the person.College Essay about Famous Person

2.       If you find you have written more than one sentence in a row that is all about the famous person instead of about you, add the word “I” or “me” to at least one of the sentences!

3.       Do NOT copy information from the internet about the person and put it in your essay.  It will be crystal clear to the admissions committee that you did not write that part of the essay, and it is extremely easy to copy and paste text and put it into Google.  If anything pops up in the results containing that text, you will NOT get into college.

4.       Think about the first time you heard about the famous person, saw the person on television, read a book by the person, or saw the person’s artwork.  What were your thoughts in that moment?  How did the person, book or artwork affect you?

5.       What happened next?  Did you go research more about the person?  Did you start reading every book by the person?  Did your friends and family start giving you books about the person or his or her work?

Tell the story as it progressed of what you learned about the person, and about what kept you interested.

6.       Talk about how your understanding of the person’s influence or work changed over time.  As you matured, did you start to gain a deeper understanding or see things from a different perspective?  Share the details of this process.

7.       Tell us how this person or work has had an impact on your life.  How are you different because of your contact with and knowledge of this person?

As you can see, writing about a famous person can actually be very personal.  The personal side is what will keep the attention of the admissions committee members.  Remember, they are just as capable as you are of using Google and Wikipedia to find out about a famous person’s life.  What they want to read about is your unique experience.

For examples of successful college essays, The Essay Expert recommends Accepted!  50 Successful College Admissions Essays by Gen and Kelly Tanabe.

Still not sure how to write a great college application essay about your sport?  Contact The Essay Expert for a FREE 15 minute consultation.

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College Essay Topic #2: 7 Essay Tips for Writing a College Application Essay About Your Sports/Athletic Involvement

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Almost as popular as the “My Grandmother” college application essay is the essay about sports.  If you are planning to write a sports essay, you risk boring the admissions committee as much as would a mediocre ballgame.

Here are some tips to make sure your college application essay about your sports involvement makes a good impression:

1.       Whatever you do, do NOT write an entire play-by-play essay about the “Big Game” – even if you scored the winning touchdown or home run. This topic is way overdone.  You can certainly write a paragraph about the game, but then move on to another aspect of your sports involvement.

college essay about sports2.       Consider writing about the experience of being on a team.  What does it take on a day to day basis?  What have you learned?  How have you grown?  How have you balanced your commitment to sports with your academics?

3.       Don’t be afraid to write about your shortcomings.  If you start in a place where you didn’t know something, or where you weren’t on your best behavior, or even where you were injured, then you have somewhere to go/grow to.

4.       Consider writing about your particular role in the team dynamics.  Do you have a leadership role?  If so, what’s your leadership style and how does that style show up in other parts of your life?

5.       Consider writing about what it takes to play your particular position.  Offense?  Defense?  Pitcher?  Outfield?  Team play or individual sport?

What metaphors can you draw from the position you play or from your strengths in the game?

Do you find yourself playing a similar role in life to the one you play on the court or the field — or maybe even the opposite role?

For instance, if you play offense, do you end up being aggressive about winning or going after things in other aspects of life?  Or has playing offense taught you strategies to defend yourself or your positions in life?

6.       Stay humble even if you are a big winner!  You can share impressive facts and showcase your talent as long as you really share something about what you’ve learned and how you’ve grown.

7.       Talk about people and other topics that interest you, not just about the game.  If you’re all about the game, you don’t show your ability to interact with future classmates and you miss out on opportunities to sell yourself to the committee.  Colleges are looking for leaders – and leadership takes more than winning a game.

For examples of successful college essays, The Essay Expert recommends Accepted!  50 Successful College Admissions Essays by Gen and Kelly Tanabe.

Still not sure how to write a great college application essay about your sport?  Contact The Essay Expert for a FREE 15 minute consultation.

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Posted in Articles by Brenda Bernstein, College Admissions, College Admissions Essay, Writing Tips | 2 Comments »

Does the GEICO Gecko Need a Grammar Lesson?

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Today I heard a GEICO commercial that included a line something like this:

“To show our appreciation, call within the next 15 minutes…”

Geico Gecko Grammar HelpThis sentence contains a grammatical error!  Was it intentional?

The thing is, these sorts of sentences are all-too-common in the writing I see every day.  GEICO might have intended this one, or the error may have been an oversight…  but many of my clients make these errors frequently and unintentionally.

You may be saying to yourself, “WHAT grammatical error?  Looks okay to me!”

Let me explain.

Take a look at the the first half of GEICO’s sentence: “To show OUR [Geico's] appreciation…”

Ask yourself, who is the natural subject of this sentence?  What would naturally follow from the first half of the sentence?  If you think carefully, you’ll see that it would be something relating to whom?

To GEICO of course!  GEICO is the natural subject of the sentence.

A grammatically correct sentence might read, “To show our appreciation, we are offering you a NEW CAR with FREE insurance for the vehicle’s lifetime!”

Now *that* would be a great sentence.  Yes, I like that sentence.

Another alternative would be to write a different first half of the sentence that would naturally lead toward making the customer the subject of the sentence.  For instance:

“To show YOUR appreciation, call us within the next 15 minutes and tell us how adorable the gecko is!”

I’d call to praise the gecko in an instant.  He’s pretty cute.  And he gives great car insurance.  If he looked at me just right with those beady little eyes, I’d probably even forgive him for having his grammar a little mixed up.

Do you think the GEICO gecko needs grammar help? Or do you think GEICO’s ad people made this error intentionally?  Please take our 1-Question Survey and/or share your opinion below.

And if you need writing help, please contact The Essay Expert for a FREE 15 minute consultation.  We’ll make sure you don’t make it into someone else’s grammar rants.

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College Essay Topic #1: 7 Essay Tips for Writing a College Application Essay About Your Grandmother

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One of the most popular topics for the college application essay is “My grandmother.”  If you are planning to write an essay about your grandmother, you have a challenge ahead of you.

How will you make your essay stand out amongst all the other grandmother essays?

How will you make the admissions committee remember your essay and not just yawn over it?

Here are some essential tips to write a college application essay about grandma:

1.       Focus on you, not on your grandmother.   When you wrote your first grade school essay about grandma, it was all about grandma.  Now it’s gotta be all about you. Write about your experience, your thoughts, and your opinions as they relate to your grandmother.

2.       If you find you have written more than one sentence in a row that is all about your grandmother instead of about you, add the word “I” or “me” to at least one of the sentences!

3.       Use very specific examples of conversations you had with your grandmother.  That way you can’t possibly write the same essay someone else has written.

4.       Know your starting point and ending point, and show growth.

Perhaps your grandma used to give you help and advice, and now that you are older you have become her advisor.  Perhaps you used to judge certain things as negative that you now see as positive.  Or maybe you didn’t understand something as a young child that you now understand.

Any growth or changes of perspective are great to write about.

5.       Keep it real.  Although a certain amount of description is necessary, if you get overly flowery with your language you’ll lose the reader’s attention.

6.       Consider writing about an object or activity that is related to your grandmother, but isn’t directly your grandmother.

For instance, let’s say your grandma was a gardener.  You could write about an aspect of gardening as your theme, so your grandmother would be part of the essay but not the sole focus.  Grandma may have taught you about gardening and you may have used some of those lessons in other parts of your life.  Your essay would then be about gardening as a metaphor.

7.       Want to write about grandpa instead?  He’s less popular but the same principles apply.

For examples of successful college essays, The Essay Expert recommends Accepted!  50 Successful College Admissions Essays by Gen and Kelly Tanabe.

Still not sure how to write a great college application essay about your grandma (or grandpa)?  Contact The Essay Expert for a FREE 15 minute consultation.

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Writing Tips for Kids: Text More to Be a Better Writer?!

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Many people have requested my commiseration on the issue of texting (text messaging) and the demise of the English language.  Isn’t it horrible, they say, how this new form of writing where “hmwrk” means “homework,” “4wrd” means “forward” and “2mro” passes for “tomorrow” has destroyed the ability of our youth to spell properly?

Well, at least one study of pre-high school students in Great Britain, as reported by the BBC, has shown that using texting lingo and chat abbreviations is not a problem for the future integrity of the English language, and that it might actually help students learn to spell properly.  After all, it takes some actual thought to spell “4wrd” in this creative way and to understand why it can be spelled this way at all.  Rather than blindly copy words letter for letter without thinking, students must understand why they are spelling words the way they are spelling them.

I personally love the abbreviations and language of texting.  It’s a language all 2 itself.  And it’s nearly impossible to make a spelling or grammatical error, so I get a rest from my otherwise constant grammatical vigilance.  Perhaps the best part is that texting makes writing fun!  (NB:  “fun” is a noun, not an adjective, in that sentence.)

I have no difficulty switching from txtng one moment to writing in full English sentences the next.  If as I suggested, txt-speak is its own language, why would young people, who learn languages with so much more ease than do their adult counterparts, have any more difficulty than I do in becoming “bilingual” in text message shorthand and formal English?

I’m pleased that my opinions on this subject are not wholly unsupported.  The aforementioned BBC News article reported “rather than damaging reading and writing, ‘text speak’ is associated with strong literacy skills.”  In fact, the more fluency a student had with informal “text-speak,” the more skills that student was found to develop in formal English writing.

This report was an interim installment and further information will be released in 2011.  4 now, however, I am encouraged and will continue to txt away.  U might want 2 encourage ur kids 2 do it 2.

Want to be sure your writing has the right tone, formal or informal, for what you need? Contact The Essay Expert. We <3 gr8 writing!

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Writing Tips: How to Use Commas and Semicolons Part 2

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Need some writing help with how to use commas and semicolons? Check out Part 1 of this series if you haven’t already, then read on for more punctuation rules and how to fix a comma splice.

Semicolons are the proper punctuation marks to use when you want to connect two strings of words that could stand on their own as full sentences, but that are so closely related that you want to make them part of the same sentence. If you read my article last week, you saw some examples of that.  Here’s how it works:

The following word strings could all stand as sentences on their own:

  • In high school I was certain of my academic strengths.
  • The daughter and younger sister of doctors, I excelled in math and science and dreaded every English course I was ever forced to take.
  • Addison’s Disease is a chronic adrenal insufficiency that leads to liver failure, kidney failure, effusions, and in some cases, death.
  • I was determined that it would not kill my brother.

When you put a comma between two sentences, it is called a “comma splice” and it is an incorrect way to use a comma! The following is an INCORRECT use of a comma:

[INCORRECT] In high school I was certain of my academic strengths, I excelled in math and science.

See how each of the two parts of the sentence can stand on its own?

  • In high school I was certain of my academic strengths.
  • I excelled in math and science.

You can fix a comma splice in one of three ways:

1.  Replace the comma with a period:

[CORRECT] In high school I was certain of my academic strengths. I excelled in math and science.

2. Add a conjunction, such as “or” or “and,” after the comma:

[CORRECT] In high school I was certain of my academic strengths, and excelled in math and science.

3. If the sentences are closely related, replace the comma with a semi-colon:

[CORRECT] In high school I was certain of my academic strengths; I excelled in math and science.

Conversely, if you have two parts of your sentence that do NOT stand on their own, it is INCORRECT to connect them with a semicolon. Here are two examples of an INCORRECT use of a semicolon:

[INCORRECT] Finally you can convert all those friends on Facebook into something useful; spreading the word about your skills, experience and what a great hire you would make.

Can you see that while the first part of this sentence is a sentence (“Finally you can convert all those friends on Facebook into something useful.”), the second part of the sentence is NOT a sentence (“Spreading the word about your skills, experience and what a great hire you would make.”).  Therefore  it is INCORRECT to divide them with a semicolon; a comma would have been the correct punctuation mark to insert between them.

Another example:

[INCORRECT] The Justice Action Center would allow me to study and work in anti-discrimination law and criminal law; a few areas for which I have gained a passion.

Again, the second part of this sentence, “a few areas for which I have gained a passion,” does NOT stand on its own as a sentence, so we need a comma.

If you use your ear here, you’ll HEAR the difference.  Read the sentences aloud, and you will hear an upward inflection after the word “useful” in the first example and “law” in the second example. This upward inflection indicates what?  You got it. A comma.

Here are the correctly punctuated sentences:

[CORRECT] Finally you can convert all those friends on Facebook into something useful, spreading the word about your skills, experience and what a great hire you would make.

[CORRECT] The Justice Action Center would allow me to study and work in anti-discrimination law and criminal law, a few areas for which I have gained a passion.

Are you working on an academic paper, cover letter, college application essay, or other writing project? Do you still have questions about whether you’ve used commas and semicolons correctly?  Contact The Essay Expert for professional writing help!

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