2
" Not long ago, I advertised for perverse rules of grammar, along the lines of " Remember to never split an infinitive" and " The passive voice should never be used." The notion of making a mistake while laying down rules (" Thimk," " We Never Make Misteaks" ) is highly unoriginal, and it turns out that English teachers have been circulating lists of fumblerules for years. As owner of the world's largest collection, and with thanks to scores of readers, let me pass along a bunch of these never-say-neverisms:* Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read. * Don't use no double negatives.* Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate; and never where it isn't.* Reserve the apostrophe for it's proper use and omit it when its not needed.* Do not put statements in the negative form.* Verbs has to agree with their subjects.* No sentence fragments.* Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.* Avoid commas, that are not necessary.* If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.* A writer must not shift your point of view.* Eschew dialect, irregardless.* And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.* Don't overuse exclamation marks!!!* Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.* Writers should always hyphenate between syllables and avoid un-necessary hyph-ens.* Write all adverbial forms correct.* Don't use contractions in formal writing.* Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.* It is incumbent on us to avoid archaisms.* If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.* Steer clear of incorrect forms of verbs that have snuck in the language.* Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixed metaphors.* Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.* Never, ever use repetitive redundancies.* Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.* If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, resist hyperbole.* Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration.* Don't string too many prepositional phrases together unless you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death.* Always pick on the correct idiom.* " Avoid overuse of 'quotation " marks." '" * The adverb always follows the verb.* Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives." , November 4, 1979; later also published in book form) "
8
" A long time ago, there was a little girl called Mary. Now Mary, she was warned several times not to go to her neighbor’s house. Her neighbor was a grandmother. But Mary hardly listened, so she snuck off one night to spy on her. She tried the front door first, and it creaked open. Then suddenly, she heard a squeaking noise upstairs. She followed it – climbed up the wooden stairs where half of it was already rotten. She heard the squeaking noise again. It was coming from the library. She opened the door and hid behind a couch. She peered out, and she saw the grandmother.” Dave paused to drain his cup of coffee before continuing. My heart thudded so loudly, I thought that everyone could hear it. “So Mary gasped in disbelief as she heard the squeaking noise again, and the grandmother’s rocking chair was not moving at all. Then the grandmother opened her eyes and looked directly at her, holding her gaze steadily and sharply, and then suddenly, BOO! "
― , The Pax Valley
11
" Not long ago, I advertised for perverse rules of grammar, along the lines of " Remember to never split an infinitive" and " The passive voice should never be used." The notion of making a mistake while laying down rules (" Thimk," " We Never Make Misteaks" ) is highly unoriginal, and it turns out that English teachers have been circulating lists of fumblerules for years. As owner of the world's largest collection, and with thanks to scores of readers, let me pass along a bunch of these never-say-neverisms:* Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read. * Don't use no double negatives.* Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate; and never where it isn't.* Reserve the apostrophe for it's proper use and omit it when its not needed.* Do not put statements in the negative form.* Verbs has to agree with their subjects.* No sentence fragments.* Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.* Avoid commas, that are not necessary.* If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.* A writer must not shift your point of view.* Eschew dialect, irregardless.* And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.* Don't overuse exclamation marks!!!* Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.* Writers should always hyphenate between syllables and avoid un-necessary hyph-ens.* Write all adverbial forms correct.* Don't use contractions in formal writing.* Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.* It is incumbent on us to avoid archaisms.* If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.* Steer clear of incorrect forms of verbs that have snuck in the language.* Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixed metaphors.* Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.* Never, ever use repetitive redundancies.* Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.* If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, resist hyperbole.* Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration.* Don't string too many prepositional phrases together unless you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death.* Always pick on the correct idiom.* " Avoid overuse of 'quotation " marks." '" * The adverb always follows the verb.* Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternat "
14
" . . . [A] creationist spy named Luther Sunderland snuck into a closed scientific meeting of the Systematics Discussion Group at the American Museum in 1981 with a hidden tape recorder. . . . My friend, the distinguished paleoichthyologist Colin Patterson of the British Museum in London, was talking about pattern cladism and how he had abandoned many of the assumptions about evolution that he had once held, including the recognition of ancestors in the fossil record. He was now only interested in the simplest hypotheses that were easily tested, such as cladograms. But, of course, taken out of context, it sounds as though Colin doubted that evolution had taken place, yet he said nothing of the sort! Colin was speaking in a kind of " shorthand" that makes sense to the scientists who understand the subtleties of the debate, but mean something entirely different when taken out of context. I was at that meeting and was stunned to read afterward about Sunderland's account of what had happened because I remembered Colin's ideas clearly and could not imagine how they could be misinterpreted. For decades afterward, Colin had to explain over and over again what he had meant, and why he did not doubt the fact that evolution had occurred, only that he no longer accepted a lot of the other assumptions about evolution that Neo-Darwinists had made. Unfortunately, Colin died in 1998 while he was still in his scientific prime, unable to continue fighting these misinterpretations of his ideas that continue to be propagated by the creationists. "
