Compliment or complement? Homophones, part one

What in the world are homophones? Homophones are words that share the same pronunciation but have different spellings--and different meanings. These pairs are different from homonyms, words that share the same spelling and pronunciation but have different meanings. "Compliment" and "complement" sound alike, but they different spellings and different meanings, so they are homophones. The word "tire" is a homonym--even though it is spelled the same way, it can mean a part of a car or bicycle, or it can mean fatigue. While you might not really care what these crazy things are called, you really should care about how a difference in spelling changes meaning.

Believe it or not, "compliment" and "complement" were originally used interchangeably. Over time, the two words have come to have two different definitions. I listed "compliment" first because it more commonly used. "Compliment" with an "i" is something nice you say to someone. For example, "I love your blog" is a compliment. The way I remember to use "compliment" when I write, "Thank you for that lovely compliment," is by thinking that I like to receive compliments, and there is an "i" in the correct choice.

"Complement" has to do with making something complete. My husband's willingness to do dishes complements my love of cooking. In other words, when we are in the kitchen together, our strengths allow us to complete the task. If you have a necklace or a tie that is especially effective with an outfit, it complements it. People also will write about a "full complement." For example, "Microsoft Office and Apple Works both offer a full complement of computer programs." If you are writing about things that complete, you need to use "complement," and complete has two "e's" in its spelling.

Did you notice that my explanation focuses on writing? When we talk, we don't need to think about the fact that there are two different spellings, but it is important to know the difference when you are writing because you want to make the best impression possible.

Again, here are my tricks: I like to receive compliments, but to complement is to make complete.

This blog on homophones is the first of a series. Do you have any demons that you would like me to slay? Leave a comment or send me a message, and I'll try to help.

The semicolon, part two

Now that you have had a few weeks to digest the first lesson on semicolons, I'd like to offer you an additional option for using this sometimes maligned mark of punctuation. In the 15th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (you all have copies on your desk, right?), there are six rules for the use of the semicolon. Here is Rule 6.60:
"In a series. When items in a series involve internal punctuation, they should be separated by semicolons."

Perhaps that rule isn't very clear. Let me try to explain just what it means. Have you ever been confused when reading a list? I would bet that the reason for confusion is because the writer included supplemental information in the list. What do I mean? It's easier to give examples than to explain.

Here is an example of a sentence that includes a confusing list:
Representing the United States are Joe Biden, Vice President, John Kerry, Secretary of State, Leon Panetta, Secretary of Defense, and Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education.

Mind you, the above sentence is grammatically correct. You certainly may use commas to separate the items in the list and their titles, but when you read the list, you have to wonder just how many people are in attendance. To make this list easier to follow, use a colon AFTER the descriptor. I've underlined the semicolons to make them stand out.

Representing the United States are Joe Biden, Vice President; John Kerry, Secretary of State; Leon Panetta, Secretary of Defense; and Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education.

Here is another example of using a semicolon in a series:
The trip includes stops in Dublin, Ireland; London, England; Paris, France; Rome, Italy; and Athens, Greece.

Another advantage of using the semicolon in this example is that it forces the writer to keep the list parallel. Notice that each item gives the name of city followed by the country rather than a hodgepodge of cities and countries. The reader knows exactly what the trip includes.

By using a different (and stronger) mark of punctuation to separate the items in a list, it is easier for the reader to grasp what you are trying to communicate. While it's easy to forget sometimes, our job as writers is to make our meaning clear. Punctuation is designed to help. If it doesn't help, then we need to either use punctuation differently or rewrite the sentence to make the meaning clear.

Letters that didn't make the cut

"12 Letters That Didn't Make the Alphabet," appeared in the The December 13, 2012 edition of Mental Floss. It should be required reading for everyone who loves language and its history. Do read it, and as you read, think about the reasons we still might encounter these graphemes as well as why we no longer teach them to children learning their ABC's.

M. Asher Cantrell gives us a look at letters/graphemes that have been discarded for a variety of reasons. For some, type setters found substitutions, but we still see them in specific situations. For example, if you have been to Williamsburg or watched movies set before the American Revolution, you will see the thorn in signs (for example, Ye Olde Tavern). While the thorn looks like a "Y," it should be pronounced with the strong "th" sound that appears at the beginning of its name. In this case, the language was becoming more streamlined. Printers didn't need to include another letter in their type drawers, but they were still able to convey the sound without any confusion. That is, they didn't have confusion back in the old days. Now, as often as not, people will pronounce the thorn with a "yuh" sound and say, "Yee oldeee tavern" and think they sound literate.

Some of these characters are still in use, but they are not included in our recitation of the alphabet song,  the ampersand (&), for example. It was the final letter of the alphabet before it was cast aside. Then, as now, "&" meant "and." According to Cantrell, because of its terminal position in the alphabet, people said, "and, per se, and," which eventually was changed to "ampersand." (Hmmm. Think about how we slur together "LMNOP" when we say the alphabet. I hope we don't lose any of those letters!) When we want to conserve space, we still substitute the ampersand for the word "and." For sign painters, it can add an interesting flourish and can help with spacing. Long before Twitter limited us to 144 characters in a message, we had telegrams where we paid by the character. In this case, the ampersand's brevity was allowed a place on our keyboard but not when we recited the alphabet.

Another letter that you have seen is the ash, the combination of AE that dates back to Old English. We still see it in churches and in words like aeon (eon) when a writer wants to lend a sense of age or gravity to a piece. The reader has to pause and recalculate the word, which gives the word and the surrounding text more weight. Most word processing programs include the ash under special characters (along with dingbats), so you, too, can integrate it into your writing. It's probably fortunate that it is a little more labor intensive to use the ash than an ordinary "a" or "e." Including it too often would take away some of its grandeur. It's a little like keeping your tiara in your jewelry box for special occasions. If you used it every day (just as if you wore your tiara with your jeans), it would become a joke.

The article goes on to describe nine other characters that have been dropped from our alphabet. I hope you will take time to read about them--and to check out other articles in Mental Floss. Let me know what you think!

The elegant semicolon, part one

The semicolon is a particularly elegant mark of punctuation. That is, it can be elegant when it is used correctly. The semicolon is often confused with its distant cousin, the colon. It is sometimes used instead of a comma. Many people don’t use it at all because they have forgotten the rules, if they ever learned the rules to begin with.

The most basic use for the semicolon is to separate independent clauses in a compound sentence. Ooops! The eyes of most readers just glazed over. What exactly is an independent clause? Let’s break it down: a clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a predicate. “Mary sings” is an example of a very simple independent clause. How is an independent clause different from a dependent clause? An independent clause expresses a complete thought. When you hear “Mary sings,” you might still have questions. What is she singing? Is she a soprano or an alto? Does she have a good voice? However, even with your questions, the writer did express a complete thought.

A dependent clause also has a subject and a predicate, but it can’t stand by itself. “When Mary sings,” is an example of a dependent clause. We are left holding onto a branch at the edge of a cliff wondering what happens when Mary sings. Does glass break? Do savage beasts become tame? We will never know until the writer revises the sentence to include a dependent clause.

A compound sentence, by the way, is a group of two or more independent clauses. Why would you put together two or more independent clauses? It’s a style thing. Joining the ideas together into one sentence makes for a more interesting sentence; it combines similar ideas; it changes the pace of a piece of writing. (Did you notice that I used semicolons here?)

OK. Now that you understand the difference between an independent and dependent clause, we can continue with our discussion of semicolons. When you want to make the link between two ideas even more conspicuous, use a semicolon between them. In my compound sentence in the last paragraph, I wanted to emphasize that there are several reasons for using a semicolon. Let’s look at three paragraphs, two without semicolons and one with semicolons.

Seth saw the snow. He ran to the garage. He took out his sled. He raced toward the hill. He threw himself down the incline. He felt the icy wind on his cheeks. He crashed into the snow fence.

Seth saw the snow, and he ran to the garage, and he took out his sled, and he raced toward the hill, and he threw himself down the incline, and he felt the icy wind on his cheeks, and he crashed into the snow fence.

Seth saw the snow; he ran to the garage; he took out his sled; he raced toward the hill; he threw himself down the incline; he felt the icy wind on his cheeks; he crashed into the snow fence.

When the writer uses only simple sentences, as in example one, the narrative is choppy. It sounds like something from a Dick and Jane reader from the 1950’s.

When the writer uses a conjunction plus a comma, as in example two, the writing sounds like a first grader telling a story. Each idea has equal weight, and it is left to the reader to find emphasis.

With the semicolons, as in example three, the narrative builds in intensity to the final independent clause.

Each is correct. The writer must decide the message s/he is trying to communicate.

Is there a rule? Yes. A semicolon is used to replace a period or a comma plus a coordinating conjunction.

Quiz: Who can name all the coordinating conjunctions? Leave a comment if you think you have them all!

That’s the first use of the semicolon. I’ll be back with other uses soon. In the meantime, keep writing!

Disincentificationing?

Did I make you blink? Yesterday morning someone on NPR actually used that word. I got so discombobulated at hearing the word that I don't remember anything else about the broadcast.

It reminded me of a similar experience when Colin Powell was on NPR speaking as Secretary of State. He used the word "incentify," and I went ballistic. I screamed, "Aren't there other perfectly good words out there without turning 'incentive' into a verb?" Later in the morning, I posed that very question to my AP Language & Composition students, some of the brightest kids in a school that is ranked among the top in the nation. We talked about synonyms (motivate? bribe? prod?), and eventually someone searched the internet for other uses of the word.

We found that Colin Powell did not coin the word. In fact, even back then we encountered hundreds of hits in Google. "Incentify" had been in use in business for several years, and it contains within its definition motivation that is extrinsic, unlike "motivation" alone where the source of reinforcement can be either intrinsic or extrinsic. My very bright students convinced me that the world needed a more subtle word for extrinsic motivation, especially since the word "bribe" (a word that also describes extrinsic motivation) has such negative connotations. Their research and logic allowed me to get off the ledge without jumping.

Mind you, I was not completely happy. "Incentify" is not completely transparent, after all. One use I found read something like this: "The CFO was incentified to reduce staff." Yes, someone received a bonus for finding ways to get rid of jobs, but doesn't the word incentify lessen the blow? 

Let's fast forward to yesterday. It was early, before 6:00. I hadn't had my morning cappuccino. I wasn't even completely dressed, for heaven's sake, and I heard plain as a bell this new word:

Disincentificationing.

Actually, it wasn't plain at all, and certainly not plain as a bell. It doesn't roll of the tongue. It doesn't make sense even without the "-ing." Eight syllables. Count 'em. What the heck does it mean? 

Yesterday I challenged my AP Lang & Comp students to find a more elegant way to express whatever idea the addled speaker might have been trying to communicate. I'm opening up the challenge to you, my gentle reader, as well. Is there a cleaner way to communicate "disincentificationing"? I'm dying to hear!

Give a little, take a little

Now that Labor Day is behind us, it's time for your favorite grammar person to take a stab at yet another grammar issue, one that many teens and adults "take" for granted. That's right: I'm going to write about the difference between "bring" and "take."

The word "take" is used in so many idioms that sometimes it gets used in place of the word bring. Maybe you have what it takes. We all know it takes one to know one, it takes two to tango, and sometimes you'll witness something that takes the cake. My students, I hope, will take notes. You get the picture.

Idioms involving "bring" add to the confusion. "Bring home the bacon" and "bring it on" are both examples of idiomatic usage of "bring" that violate the rules concerning these words.

What is the difference between the two words? It's pretty simple. You choose the word based on location and destination. "Take" is used when the object is going away from your location. "Bring" is used when the object is coming toward your location. For example, I will take my famous pork sandwich filling to the party. (I'm at home, and I'm going somewhere, in this case to a party, and the pork is going away from me.) If I am feeling under the weather, I might ask my husband to bring me a cup of tea. (In this case, the tea is coming toward me.) In school, I could ask a student to take a book to another teacher (the book is going from my room to different room, again away from me), or I could ask them to bring me their homework (the homework is in their notebooks, and it is moving toward me).

It might take practice to use "bring" and "take" correctly, but you will sound smarter if you make the effort!

Summer reading

What are you reading this summer?

When we visited Mylène in St. Thomas and stayed at the Ritz, I wanted to see what the other half read. While there were plenty of people texting, I saw no books. Zilch. Nada. Grandmothers, hipsters, vacationing business types, teens, no one had a book open. Maybe it was too hot to read, but I thought I would see a book or two and get an idea of how the rich were different from me in their taste for novels and non-fiction.

It isn't as if I don't have any ideas for books this summer. Right now I'm reading Wolf Hall (I know, I know, that was so last summer) and Edgar Sawtell. Waiting for Stone is waiting for me on my Kindle. There's a stack of books on my nightstand and a bigger stack in the dining room (don't you have stacks of books in YOUR dining room?), but I want to know what other people are reading; I want to be a part of your discussion about your books; I want to hear about books that are so good that I will want to drop what I'm doing right now and leap into a new book.

So, what are you reading? I'm counting on you!