7 You Know What I Meant Mistakes

7 You Know What I Meant Mistakes 7 â€Å"You Know What I Meant† Mistakes 7 â€Å"You Know What I Meant† Mistakes By Mark Nichol One can often stumble through a sentence that isn’t quite right and then backtrack to make sense of it and then, reasonably confident of its meaning, slog out again and continue on one’s way. Or one can waltz right through a sentence and keep right on dancing. Which technique do you prefer your readers to follow? (Hint: What would you, as a reader, rather do?) Don’t let â€Å"You know what I meant† be your byword for stringing trains of words together avoid these almost-right constructions. (Links to related posts follow each example.) 1. â€Å"The agency acquired the parcel in 1931, but at that time in the heart of the Great Depression public acquisition of the adjacent property was not feasible even though it grove was offered at a bargain price.† A sentence is allowed one em dash, which sets off one part of the sentence from another with a sudden break to indicate an abrupt change in direction or a surprising statement, or a pair of em dashes to serve as a more emphatic replacement for two commas or a brace of parentheses. If you find yourself with three em dashes, convert a singleton to a comma or use parenthetical alternatives for the pair; two’s company, but three’s a crowd: â€Å"The agency acquired the parcel in 1931, but at that time in the heart of the Great Depression public acquisition of the adjacent property was not feasible, even though the grove was offered at a bargain price.† (em dashes). 2. â€Å"Those who opt for military service would only serve as military police, truck drivers or in homeland-security posts.† In a list of items, use one preposition to serve the entire list, or pair each item up with its own preposition; opting for something in between violates the requirement of parallel structure. My revision makes â€Å"military police or truck drivers† a single compound list item. Note, too, the inversion of only and serve (and the resulting change of meaning): â€Å"Those who opt for military service would serve only as military police or truck drivers or in homeland-security posts.† (parallel list structure in a sentence) 3. â€Å"The film is less concerned with naval warfare than close-ups of the star’s face.† The lack of a parallel marker in the sentence makes the reader stumble, as if one has reached the top of a stairway before one expects to. (The statement appears to mean that the film is less concerned with naval warfare than close-ups of the star’s face are concerned about naval warfare, and the sentence should end with are no, wait, that’s not what it means.) The insertion of a second with to more clearly identify the juxtaposed parallel phrases â€Å"naval warfare† and â€Å"close-ups of the star’s face† guides the reader’s steps: â€Å"The film is less concerned with naval warfare than with close-ups of the star’s face.† (parallel phrase structure within a sentence) 4. â€Å"As an entrepreneur, name recognition is important and the new name is more recognizable.† The implication of this sentence is that name recognition is an entrepreneur. However, the intent is to communicate that the writer is an entrepreneur and that for that reason, it is important that the name of the person’s business stand out. To express this idea effectively, the introductory clause requires a personal pronoun; I have also inserted a comma before the beginning of the final clause to set it off more distinctly: â€Å"Because I am an entrepreneur, name recognition is important, and the new name is more recognizable.† (dangling modifier) 5. â€Å"The agency cites strong evidence linking a cold virus to the mysterious SARS that has killed seventeen people worldwide.† This sentence implies that more than one mysterious SARS exists, and the one in question is responsible for seventeen deaths. However, the writer is referring to the one and only SARS, which is mysterious and which has killed seventeen people. That reading is effected by the simple insertion of a comma and the change of the restrictive that to the nonrestrictive which: â€Å"The agency cites strong evidence linking a cold virus to the mysterious SARS, which has killed seventeen people worldwide.† (restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses) 6. â€Å"It would be something analogous to a YMCA (which stands for ‘Young Men’s Christian Association’).† This sentence indicates that a YMCA a building stands in for a spelled-out name. It is the initials, however, that substitute for the full name: â€Å"It would be something analogous to a YMCA (the initials of which stand for ‘Young Men’s Christian Association’).† (mistaking a name for an entity) 7. â€Å"Smith himself could not do the job because he had angered many supporters through his support of the reservoir project.† As (not) punctuated, this sentence implies that Smith could do the job, but not for the reason stated; another (unstated) reason explains his suitability. But what the writer means is that Smith could not do the job, and the dependent clause (the one beginning with because) explains why. A comma inserted before the clause clarifies that this latter interpretation is correct: â€Å"Smith himself could not do the job, because he had angered many supporters through his support of the reservoir project.† Better yet, invert the clauses, but trade the pronoun in the dependent clause for the person’s name: â€Å"Because Smith had angered many supporters through his support of the reservoir project, he himself could not do the job.† (punctuating before a dependent clause) Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Style category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:20 Great Opening Lines to Inspire the Start of Your Story5 Brainstorming Strategies for Writers90 Verbs Starting with â€Å"Ex-†

Free Essays on Wisdom And Age

Wisdom and age What is wisdom? Wisdom is traditionally associated with profound understanding and deep insight. Such understanding and insight is usually integrated with a wide variety of various life experiences. Wisdom is believed to be the relationship that exists between things (Teachings of Buddha). The term thing describes the relationship between objects and human beings. These relationships that exist between things have two common factors, the correlation and examination of prior experiences or relational values of that unique individual. The second is the concreteness that maintains a sense of wholeness among all things, this is related to an individuals perceptual views of the world around them. With that being said, wisdom does not require formal education or even an actual partaking in some life experiences. But it does require the cognitive ability to simplify multiple elements of larger more complex compilations. In an essence wisdom is the profound understanding of simplisti c components that requires relational examination between past experiences. Wisdom is extremely diverse and is completely derived from situational experiences based on prior experiences The Wisdom page). There are a few aspects I would like to cover concerning wisdom and age. These topics are pertaining to the mental processes involved in wisdom through age (Ardelt, 2000). Such topics are the developmental characteristics and brief comparison between intellect and wisdom. Another aspect is the improvement in wisdom influenced decision making despite other the decline of other mental capacities. Another examination between wisdom and age is a performance test that was given to both the youth and elderly (Straudinger, 1999). The two areas of interest remaining are concerned with quality of life and how wisdom is involved. Age, related to wisdom is ultimately the acquisition of life experiences. As the result age can provide t... Free Essays on Wisdom And Age Free Essays on Wisdom And Age Wisdom and age What is wisdom? Wisdom is traditionally associated with profound understanding and deep insight. Such understanding and insight is usually integrated with a wide variety of various life experiences. Wisdom is believed to be the relationship that exists between things (Teachings of Buddha). The term thing describes the relationship between objects and human beings. These relationships that exist between things have two common factors, the correlation and examination of prior experiences or relational values of that unique individual. The second is the concreteness that maintains a sense of wholeness among all things, this is related to an individuals perceptual views of the world around them. With that being said, wisdom does not require formal education or even an actual partaking in some life experiences. But it does require the cognitive ability to simplify multiple elements of larger more complex compilations. In an essence wisdom is the profound understanding of simplisti c components that requires relational examination between past experiences. Wisdom is extremely diverse and is completely derived from situational experiences based on prior experiences The Wisdom page). There are a few aspects I would like to cover concerning wisdom and age. These topics are pertaining to the mental processes involved in wisdom through age (Ardelt, 2000). Such topics are the developmental characteristics and brief comparison between intellect and wisdom. Another aspect is the improvement in wisdom influenced decision making despite other the decline of other mental capacities. Another examination between wisdom and age is a performance test that was given to both the youth and elderly (Straudinger, 1999). The two areas of interest remaining are concerned with quality of life and how wisdom is involved. Age, related to wisdom is ultimately the acquisition of life experiences. As the result age can provide t...

Mortgages Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Mortgages - Essay Example These compound problems have worked to create a situation in which many homeowners have found themselves holding on to high interest rate mortgages for homes that are worth less than they owe to pay off their mortgage. Such a situation is known as an â€Å"underwater† mortgage. Due to the fact that different political parties have sought to take advantage of this misfortune by seeking to capitalize on the rhetoric surrounding the issues as a way to drum up support for a given candidate, the problem has been exacerbated as the federal government has furtively toyed with different types of interventions only to do little if anything to ameliorate the root problem. Thus, this brief essay will consider whether homeowners with subprime mortgages should be allowed to force their lenders to renegotiate their terms. The answer to the question is somewhat more complex than a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. From a purely economic point of view, the individuals who agreed on the home loans at the bank’s terms and conditions have entered into a legally binding contract that they had every opportunity to review and seek to understand prior to signing on the dotted line. In this way, a degree of culpability must be accepted by those mortgage holders that initially accepted the terms and conditions, regardless of whether they were too lazy to take the time to read and fully understand them (Richardson 87). From the bank’s point of view, much of the problems associated with the high number of subprime mortgages that had to be completed were a result of the unnatural legislation (Dodd-Frank) that was forced upon the banks as a means to fulfill a certain type of quota with reference to those within society that would otherwise never be able to afford or quality to purchase/borrow a house of their own (LaCour-Little et al. 88). In this way, it is impossible to blame the entire situation on the financial institutions themselves as the governmen t had a heavy role in creating such a crisis in the first place. From the individual borrower’s point of view, the banks instituted extraordinarily high interest rates due to the fact that they considered these subprime borrowers to be of an extreme default risk (Hill 49). In a way, these extremely high rates were nearly self-fulfilling prophecies due to the fact that as soon as the economy began to cool, the first individuals that were going to feel the crunch were necessarily those that had borrowed to the max and were going to have hardship making sure that their high interest rate mortgage is paid every month. One might rightly question why it should be incumbent upon the financial institution to renegotiate a signed and legally binding contract that has already been agreed upon with a terms of either 15-30 years. The answer to such a question can actually be found outside of forcing the financial institution to renegotiate the loan terms (An et al. 546). As such, a litan y of refinancing offers exists for qualified individuals. Those rates that were common during the early 2000’s have dropped to record lows within the past several years. The issue with such refinancing offers is that they invariably require a large amount of start up costs associated with actually changing the loan from one lender to another.