Grammar Wall of Shame #1

Mistakes happen, I get it. But sometimes the mind boggles. Here are three recent examples of either poor writing or poor editing, two from The Globe and Mail, and one from The Guelph Mercury.

Exhibit 1: It's vs Its

   

No explanation necessary.

***

Exhibit 2: Hyphenation creates adjectives, not nouns

   

In this case, the hyphens are not required:

Any suggestions for getting off the beaten path?

If the writer wanted to create an adjective, then by all means go for those hyphens:

Any suggestions for a getting-off-the-beaten-path adventure?

***

Exhibit 3: Parallel structure gone wrong

Parallel structure adds depth and style to sentences, and it's a useful tool for constructing lists, but it must be used correctly or the sentence implodes, as it does above.

Kids, parents, young professionals, and seniors all have a plethora of activities at their disposal to entertain themselves with, create new social networks in, and to improve their health.

Think of it as a list with bullet points - and remember that in a list, each bullet point must follow the same structure.

Kids, parents, young professionals, and seniors all have a plethora of activities at their disposal to:

• entertain themselves with
• create new social networks in, and
• to improve their health.

Item one is okay (although ending with a preposition is a bit awkward...)

Item two is okay (follows the same structure as the first item in the list)

Item three uses a different structure: it starts with to (i.e. infinitive form) and it doesn't use the preposition ending. One of these things is not like the others, and that's how parallel structure breaks down.

And don't get me started on plethora...!

Take care, writers (and editors); you're giving me way too much material for my Grammar Wall of Shame.

Writing, and a walk in the woods

A walk in the woods last October...

My day started with a walk in the woods.

I’m very lucky to live in a neighbourhood that is minutes from real-world, untouched-by-lawnmower nature. Sure, I have lots of trees in my good-sized yard, lots of grass – well, actually, lots of weeds – and birds that come to my feeder when they’re not swooping out along the cedar hedge and calling down from one of the tall maples at the back of my property.

But getting away from houses and cars and people can be hard in most residential areas, so I’m lucky. A five-minute walk from my back door and I’m looking at a farmer’s field. Twenty minutes later I’m crossing a dam over Guelph Lake and the Speed River, heading onto trails that can keep me away from Where People Live for a few hours. Heck, the other day I walked for a few minutes down the streets of my neighbourhood and turned off into the trails that meander towards the lake, or along the nature area tended by the monks at Ignatius College. I can cross busy Highway 6 (the Hamilton to Georgian Bay route) and disappear into the woods and farmland of the College’s wild (in places), cultivated (in others), and welcoming property.

I’m lucky. I don’t know about you, but I need nature. It calms me, warms or cools me, and - especially - feeds my creativity.

Weather doesn’t matter (although I’m not that great at floundering through snow, and my snowshoeing technique is pretty lame and inefficient). Rain, wind, snow, sun, heat – bring it on. Nature copes, and so do I.

My trusty steed

Walking in the woods, or riding my bike on trails away from cars and people, I find my creative mind starts to burble below the surface. The To-Do List fades away as something else takes over that space behind my eyes. (You know, the eyes are looking at a creek and tall grasses, but in that space I'm seeing someone searching for clues. Clues to what? Who is this person? Wait a minute, it's a teenager, and he's - no, look again - she's frantic...burble, burble, burble...). Movement of the body begets movement of the mind. Walking down a busy street can have the same effect, of course, but there's something magical about getting away from pavement, from technology, from noise. Instead - trees, water, birds, wind. Nature.

So my day started with a walk in the woods. Now, please excuse me. Ideas rising to the surface...

Grammar errors that drive me nuts #1: Pronoun agreement

Pronoun agreement.

Oi.

If the teacher is talking, don’t interrupt them.

Nope.

If the teacher is talking, don’t interrupt him or her.

Correct, if somewhat clunky.

In the effort to be gender neutral, too many writers break the bonds of correct usage and resort to using a plural pronoun with a singular noun.

Teacher (singular)

Them (plural)

His or her (singular)

Better to rewrite the sentence:

If the teacher is talking, it’s best not to interrupt.

It’s a simple rule that everyone needs to learn:

Singular noun requires a singular pronoun.

And that brings us to one of those tricky parts of the rule:

Everyone needs their umbrella today.

Nope.

Everyone needs his or her umbrella today.

Indefinite pronouns (such as everyone, everybody, everything, someone, somebody, something etc) are singular and require a singular pronoun.

So,

Everyone is happy. (Not Everyone are happy).

Everything has its place. (Not Everything has their place).

And the trickiest of all the indefinite pronouns in “none”.

None of the cars is washed.

None is washed.

I know, I know. You’re dying to say “None ARE washed.” Well, go ahead. But you would be grammatically incorrect.

It’s a minefield, but you can remember it this way:

Indefinite pronouns that end in “one”, “body” or “thing” are singular. One. Replace the word with a singular pronoun like “her” or “he” or “it” and test it.

For example:

Everyone had their umbrella becomes,

He had their umbrella. (Hunh?)

Pay attention now, and see how often newspapers, broadcasters and the general public get it wrong.

Pronoun agreement. A grammer geek’s dream!

Writing, basketballs, and rain on a tarp

Outdoor office - and just on the other side of that
hedge are basketballs....

There was a debate on CBC’s "The Next Chapter" recently about whether it’s better to write with music playing in the background or not. Some writers can work while a musical sountrack plays in the background, and some can’t.

I can’t.

Well, not completely true. I can – if the music doesn’t have words, and if what I’m working on doesn’t require the streneuous stretching of my creative muscles.

A friend of mine writes to jazz. I know another writer who has the CBC French station Espace Musique playing (she doesn’t understand French, so it’s all just a tapestry of lovely cadences and music to her).

But sounds of any sort are a problem for me. They have to be just right, or I’m distracted. At their worst, sounds can irritate me. Forget any kind of productive writing when the dog is barking, for instance. Or – my favourite – when the neighbour kids start bouncing their basketball on their driveway, just a few metres from our open windows, or the deck, where I love to work in the summer.

Basketballs – they are symbolic of the intrusion that unwanted sound makes into my writing life. They’re bounced by people, and I like to write in solitude. They make a repetitive, reverberating, rhythmic pattern of sound not unlike the maddening drip of a leaky faucet or, as I like to describe it, Chinese water torture.

And it is torture for me. Bounce, bounce, bounce. 

I can feel anxiety rising every time I’m enjoying the natural sounds of my back deck, and I hear the neighbour’s door slam.

Someone has come outside.

Nothing, then…

Bounce, bounce, bounce, clunk (ball through hoop). Bounce, bounce, bounce, clunk. Over and over.

And over. And over.

But I’m the first person to say the sounds of kids playing are good sounds (Hey, I’m a mother, after all). So as much as I would like to stand up on the edge of my deck and holler over the cedar hedge “Can you please give us a break over here?”, I don’t. Of course I don’t.

Instead, I shut up and went looking for an app.

No, not an app that yells at kids over the hedge. It’s an app that allows me to mask the annoying sounds around me with soothing natural sounds. That’s what it’s called – Nature Sounds.

And the Rain on a Tarp track is perfect. Percussive enough to cover the bouncing basketball, and familiar enough to invoke the sounds of rain on a tent roof, camping, solitude, nature.

It's a fabricated natural world, of course, but it works. Be gone, basketballs! Or that loud TV. Or traffic. Or people talking. Rain on a Tarp allows me to retreat to my own writing space, with a soundtrack that supports rather than disturbs.

A tent roof, camping, solitude, nature...

Open that door!

Open door on Writing Life - Today! Now!

So here’s the thing about my writing life. It’s uneven.

Yes, all the experts say writing takes commitment. That you just have to show up. That you need to apply yourself to it every day. That you shouldn’t wait for a muse to get it going. That it’s work. That it’s not just something you do in your spare time.

Yup. All true.

But my writing life is uneven. It’s rough. It’s something that ebbs and flows, and I ebb and flow with it. My creativity sometimes goes away.

Can that really happen? Yes, it can. It has happened to me more often than I would like to admit. It’s as if all the air in a balloon seeps out, and I’m left holding this weary, deflated piece of plastic on a string. Nothing there.

Why does this happen? Life. The many distractions and obligations of Life, and the people I share it with. I guess you could say that I compartmentalize. I sometimes feel the need to put my writing life in a room, where it will be safe, resting, and patient.

And I close the door. I’m actually quite good at it.

So Life goes on, but my Writing Life goes into a deep sleep, behind the door.

To be fair to myself, it’s not like I’m not writing – I’m writing a lot. In fact, that’s my job. I write stories about curling clubs, and curling people. I write news reports from the media bench at national and international events, and I produce media releases and marketing materials and corporate documents for my employer. Lots of variety. Lots of writing.

And while the deadlines loom and the obligations of my job pile up, my creative writinglLife goes to sleep behind that door. I miss it, oh yes I do. But I don’t have the time or energy to open the door and let it out.

Besides, it’s a bit like having secret treat stashed away, just waiting for the perfect moment to indulge myself.

But now it’s April, and there have been stirrings behind the door, recently. Little bumps in the night: whispers, characters, scenes. Quite exciting, actually! It’s like looking forward to going on a trip and enjoying the anticipation of dreaming up the itinerary. The places I’ll go! The people I’ll meet!

Now, today, I have my hand on the doorknob and the hinges are creaking. Yup. The door on my writing life is swinging open...

Google Alerts: Online Research for Dummies...like me!

Does the word "curling" ring a bell?
(Photo Jean Mills)

In my role as online content writer for the Canadian Curling Association, and as a past contributor to The Curling News, I am always on the lookout for stories featuring the people and issues that drive the sport. Yes, believe it or not, curling does have its intriguing celebrities and hot-button issues, and I'm always trolling for something new and interesting.

But you may have noticed this phenomenon: the sport of curling doesn't make it into the headlines - or even on to the sports pages - very often. On the internet, you have to know where to look. That's a lot of research time.

So to facilitate the research and fact-finding process, I subscribe to Google Alerts. It's like having your own electronic clipping service automatically send you links to articles that fit your search criteria. In other words: Online Research for Dummies.

To activate your own Google Alert, go to the Google home page. On the tool bar, select "More". From that list, select "Even More". A page with numerous Search options will appear, with Alerts at the top of the list. Simply click on it and follow the instructions to set up your own robo-researcher.

I have multiple alerts, all of them containing words/phrases that will pick up the stories I need to write my columns and stay on top of the news in the curling world. You might want to set an alert for, say, IT governance, or accounting jobs, or risk management. Or a certain writer or business leader. Or yourself! (But be warned - my classic old-lady name usually results in alerts for obituaries. And there are other Jean Millses out there who write about cool things like Wiccan, and early learning skills in young kids. You might find yourself associated with all sorts of unexpected activities. Just saying...).

Sometimes you end up with obscure items that don't seem to fit but do, actually, contain the words you set for your Alert. For instance, my "curling club" keywords sometimes turn up soccer stories from the UK: someone "curled" a shot into the net, or a particular football "club" just fired its manager. Sometimes the curling club just hosted a book sale or was the scene of a car accident. Oh well. All grist to the mill.

Easy to set up, easy to use, and a time-saver: Google Alerts is a great online tool that you can customize to suit your research needs.

Writer on the rails...

A few weeks ago I went on a trip that I've been dreaming about for a long time:

I rode The Canadian from Toronto to Vancouver. Yes, I was a writer on the rails!

Did I get much writing done? Not really. At least, not on paper.

Writer on the rails...

But what I did do was think. A lot. About what I was reading. About my writing life. About what I might write next, and whether I was up to the effort of rebuilding my fiction-writing life on top of a very busy paying-gig writing life. Writers need to do this sometimes. We need to stop, and think, and fill up that jug that we so quickly empty when we're working. Riding the rails for four days was a gift.

Hour after hour of gazing out a window at a changing landscape of trees, rocks and water. That was Northern Ontario which goes on forever...until you hit Winnipeg.  More hours of watching the rolling landscape gradually flatten into the prairies of Saskatchewan. Flat? Yes. Boring? Never! (I'm reminded of the story I heard from a friend: Family moves from Saskatchewan to BC, from the prairie to the mountains. Kids complain: "But we can't SEE anything! These mountains are in the way!")

Wine country in BC

Then the foothills, and the Rockies gradually rising up and surrounding the railway tracks. The Canadian doesn't do the loopy, side-of-mountain route that the Rocky Mountaineer does (tunnels, spectacular switchbacks). No, we followed rivers, and sometimes the Trans-Canada highway. We sat on sidings - frequently! - as freight trains, sometimes kilometres long and stacked with double container cars, took precedence over our tourist train. (No matter. No rush.) We saw May's "Super Moon" rise over Kamloops during a late-night stop. We watched the lush farmland around Chilliwack soak up the sun as we rocked by. And then into Vancouver, where urban and green hold hands in a unique landscape of cityscape, sea, mountain and rain forest.

So, did all those hours of watching and thinking clarify my writing life?

Not sure. But it didn't hurt. Riding the rails - taking time out to just sit. And think. And watch. And read. And luxuriate in it all.

It didn't hurt my writing life. Not a bit.

*******

Okay, I did do a little writing. And I mean a little...


The Canadian: Day One


View from the window:
Trees, water, and low grey clouds.
Nothing? Everything.


Watching for wildlife.
Beaver? Moose? Bear? Eagle? Nope.
Fellow travellers.


Train life: one long line,
See only the car in front -
'Til the curve. Then - all.

Looking back...