December 2010 Archives

The grammar scold

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   Apropos of nothing to do with photography, my inner grammar scold is going to lay out 8 language irritants.  I still remember diagramming sentences through all my years in grade school, and I'd like to see that discipline return. Maybe I've just turned into a crusty curmudgeon, yearning to see beautifully crafted sentences everywhere I turn. Actually, I'd settle for barely readable emails with proper punctuation.  My son Scott writes for Fortune magazine (his latest piece on a driven investor named Bruce Berkowitz is here), and I'm glad to see he's become a chip off the old linguistic block.

     Here's round one from this grammar scold.

1. Impact is a noun.  Use the word 'affect' as a verb.

2.  'None' is singular

3.  Let's have a ten year moratorium on anyone using the word 'literally'

4.  Use fewer when you can count objects, less for weight or concepts

5.  Moratorium also on: boots or anything else on the ground, the word 'like'

6.  I couldn't care less, not I could care less

7. Keep the word only right next to what it's modifying: eg: He tried to keep only 3 apples, not, He only tried to keep 3 apples.

8.  You grow crops.  You do not grow a business.  You help a business to grow.

       Happy sentence diagramming!
A lot of stock images come pretty cheap these days.  It's called microstock.  But are these photos of any use to a company on its website?  Jim Pickerell writes that there is a lot less than meets the eye with microstock.  See his post here:

Study: Bargain Stock Photos Don't Help Websites Sell

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