Grammar Girl's 101 Misused Words You'll Never Confuse Again (Quick & Dirty Tips) by Fogarty Mignon

Author:Fogarty, Mignon [Fogarty, Mignon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2011-07-04T21:00:00+00:00

I Versus Me

The simple little pronouns I and me often give people fits when they’re combined with other

pronouns or names in a sentence.

I is a subject pronoun, so you use it when you are the subject of a sentence—the one taking action.

That fight … it was the first honest interaction you and I have had since we came back to work.

—Lisa Edelstein playing Dr. Lisa Cuddy in the TV show House

Me is an object pronoun, so you use it when you are the object of a sentence—the one receiving an

action—or when the pronoun follows a preposition such as between, of, or over.

Only a person who wanted to find the Stone—find it, but not use it—would be able to get it. That is one of my

more brilliant ideas. And between you and me, that is saying something.

—Richard Harris playing Albus Dumbledore in the movie Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

QUICK AND DIRTY TIP

Consider which pronoun you would use if it were the only one in the clause. That’s still the one you want even if there are other people

in the sentence, and it’s usually easier to see the right choice that way.

Impact

Although impact has taken root in the business world as a verb, as in Cutting prices will impact our

revenue, many people maintain that impact is proper only as a noun, meaning “effect.”

At a time when the public is rightly concerned about the impact of sex and violence on TV, this

administration is gonna protect the MUPPETS!

—Richard Schiff playing Toby Ziegler in the TV show The West Wing

Objectors believe that the verb impact means only “to hit,” and any other use is just irritating jargon.

Usually when you are tempted to use impact as a verb, affect is the better choice.

You don’t let other people’s problems affect you. You don’t let your own problems affect you. And it’s the

problems that make us interesting.

—Jesse Spencer playing Dr. Robert Chase on the TV show House

QUICK AND DIRTY TIP

If you can put an article such as an or the in front of impact, you are using it in the most proper way—as a noun.

Imply Versus Infer

Implying is something done by writers or speakers. Inferring is something done by listeners or

readers.

When you imply, you hint at something rather than saying it directly. Imply comes from an Old French

word that meant “to enfold.” You can think of an implied statement as hidden, or folded, into what

was actually said.

I’ve got a great cigar collection—it’s actually not a collection, because that would imply I wasn’t going to

smoke every last one of ‘em.

—Ron White, comedian

When you infer, you deduce some meaning that was left unsaid. Infer comes from a Latin word that

means “to bring in.” You can think of readers or listeners using their own interpretation to bring into a

sentence a meaning that isn’t explicitly stated.

We infer the spirit of the nation in great measure from the language.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

The incorrect use of infer to mean imply is so common that in a decade or so it may be considered

standard, but for now, careful writers and speakers continue to make a distinction.

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