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Posts related to technical and business writing.

 

Common mistakes ‘I’m not strong for…’ v. ‘I’m not good at…’

Friday, January 29th, 2010

Common mistakes ‘I’m not strong for…’ v. ‘I’m not good at…’

To express the idea of skill, use the phrase ‘good at…’ and then add the verb in the ‘ing’ form. For example, ‘I’m not good at cooking, so I eat out every night’. Another example, ‘Even though I’m not very good at singing, my friends make me go to kareoke’.

A common mistake I hear in Japan is ‘strong for/not strong for’ when ‘good at/not good at’ should be used.

The phrase ‘strong for’ appears when we are talking about physical properties, and then it appears with the word ‘enough’. For example, ‘This bridge is not strong enough for a heavy load’ or ‘Paper is not strong enough to use as a rope’.

An interesting sidenote is for when we want to talk about our own skill. We often add a modifier, like ‘pretty’ or ‘quite’ to the phrase ‘good at’. This helps give an impression of modesty. For example, ‘After taking evening classes in Italian cookery, I got pretty good at making pizza’ or ‘I worked in Spain for ten years, so I got quite good at conversing in Spanish’.

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Avoid labels that carry no meaning

Monday, December 7th, 2009

This post comes our list of “red flag” words and expressions, i.e., the ones we should think twice about to ensure correct usage.

“problem” Is the item being described clearly a problem? If so, is it necessary to label it a problem?

For example, “Increasing the size caused a problem of increasing the cost” can be stated more directly as, “Increasing the size increased the cost.”

The part that sounds wrong is

‘caused a problem of increasing the cost’

As we know that something more expensive is undesirable, the words ‘caused a problem’ sound unnatural. It’s thus better to simply say what happened,

‘Increasing the size increased the cost’

and cut any reference to ‘problem’.

So, is there any time when you might want to use the word ‘problem’? Not in a well-written piece of technical writing.

However, there is a famous exchange using this word, the one between astronauts Jack Swigert and Jim Lovell on Apollo 13 and ground control. It went like this:

Swigert: ‘Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.’
GC: ‘This is Houston. Say again please.’
Lovell: ‘Houston, we’ve had a problem. We’ve had a main B bus undervolt.’

In this case, there was a life-threatening problem, and the astronauts needed to make ground control immediately aware of the problem situation. They did this by using the word ‘problem’.

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Common mistakes: Making someone disappear

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

As this error came up in a class with an advanced student, I thought I should give you a quick reminder of how to use the indirect object.

What’s an indirect object? Imagine a table with a large bottle of beer in the middle. Seated at that table are Stanley and Tim. Stanley cannot reach the beer, and he’d like a refill. He says

‘Tim, pass the beer!’

That is, Stanley asked Tim to pass the beer.

Who is asking whom? Stanley is asking Tim. What does Stanley want to happen? Stanley wants Tim to pass him the beer. This situation involves two players and two actions.

Now let’s see what happens if we make Tim disappear.

‘Stanley asked to pass the beer’.

Well, now the sentence has a completely new meaning. If you take out poor Tim, then the story behind this sentence is

‘Stanley wants permission to pick up the bottle and to pass it to someone else’.

This sentence is grammatically correctly, but pretty unlikely! (The real Stanley would keep the bottle near his glass!)

Let’s look at this again:

‘Stanley asked to pass the beer’ = ‘Stanley wants permission to pick up the bottle and to pass it to someone else’.

The moral of the story is that you need to be careful with verbs describing requests. It’s especially tricky when there are two verbs and there are two or more players.

Some other examples:

‘Stanley asked his lawyer to transfer the ownership of his house to his daughter.’

Who asks? Stanley. Who transfers the ownership? The lawyer.

Contrast this to

‘Stanley asked to transfer the ownership of his house to his daughter’.

Here, we have the same problem. Stanley now seems to be asking permission, not giving an instruction to anyone.

‘Stanley asked to transfer’ = ‘Stanley wants permission to transfer’.

So once again, we have two verbs (asking and transferring) and two players (Stanley and the lawyer). Because the subject or subjects are often assumed from the context in the Japanese language, native speakers of Japanese tend to forget that, in English, subjects and verbs are like beer and edamame. They have to be presented together in the right combination.

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‘In case of’ v. ‘in the case of’

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Here having ‘the’ changes the meaning completely. The second phrase ‘in case of…’ is used to refer to an emergency or some unexpected plan. For example,

‘In case of fire, exit from this door’.

and

‘I’ll take an umbrella in case it rains’.

On the other hand, ‘in the case of’ is usually used to refer to a situation that the writer has already mentioned. For example,

‘In the case of a customer complaining, we would take action immediately’.

Another example is in reference to a legal case.

‘In the case of Kramer v. Jones, the judge ruled in favor of Jones’.

A common mistake that I see is people using ‘in case of…’ when they mean ‘in the case of’. Once again, ‘in case of’ refers to an unexpected or undesired situation, like rain or an earthquake, and ‘in the case of’ is used to refer back to a previously mentioned situation.

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‘Almost’ v. ‘Almost All’

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Here is a quick explanation of a common error I see in homework assignments.

We use ‘almost’ to stress that something is not identical to something else. The first is used to describe a near miss. Imagine you overslept and had to run to the station to catch your train. You break all the rules and run through the ticket gates and leap onto the train just as the door is closing. Phew! You made it! You would describe this situation by saying

‘I almost missed my train’.

The phrase ‘almost all’ or ‘almost every’ is used to mean ‘the majority’. For example,

‘Almost all pubs in England serve beer at room temperature’.

and

‘Almost all my Japanese friends go to see their family at Obon.’

Many people incorrectly use ‘almost’ to mean ‘the majority’. The funniest example of an incorrect sentence is ‘Almost Japanese people like rice’ – I’ve heard this, or versions of it, several times. See if you can figure out for yourself why it sounds funny in English.

The correct form is, of course, ‘Almost all Japanese people like rice.’

Here the distinction between ‘almost’ and ‘almost all’ one more time:

‘almost’ = something similar or close, but not identical.

‘almost all’ or ‘almost every’ = ‘the majority’.

Trying to explain rules and patterns of vocabulary can help you to remember them. If you would like to tell me why ‘Almost Japanese like rice’ sounds funny, please leave your explanation in a comment!

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‘All writing is rewriting’

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

Rewriting is a difficult but rewarding process.  The first draft, often painful and time consuming, is never good enough.  This post is about why we find it hard to rewrite and some strategies for the second pass.

  • ‘It’s a waste of time’

Reworking a piece can feel like going backwards, not forward. Cutting and changing is tough. I’m reluctant to change something I’ve worked so hard to produce. Recognize that the work you’ve done in the first draft reflects your first attempt to present the content.  The second draft shows how you refined and improved it. Often it helps me to have someone else point out where my meaning is not clear.

  • ‘I’ll lose key ideas’

There is a legitimate fear: that the rewrite will lose something.  This can be a problem if you are not careful. However, most people find that several cuts or reworkings are necessary. When we do our first draft we tend to duplicate ideas we are interested in. Conversely, we do not work hard enough to clarify points that already seem clear to us. A good rewrite brings greater flow and coherency to the draft.

  • ‘It’s not as interesting as doing the first draft’

I always prefer doing a first draft. Words seem so much more exciting when they appear on an empty screen. Rewriting doesn’t have the buzz of doing the first draft, of seeing words on a subject appear on the screen or the page. To stay interested in the second draft, step outside yourself, and imagine you are reading your work for the first time. Can  you make it simpler?  Connect ideas more smoothly? Give better examples?

  • ‘It’s tedious!’

Rewriting does take patience; but if you go steadily then you can get faster. I find doing as much as possible in one pass helps me be more consistent. A good way to improve your consistency is the Search and Replace function of Word. ( ‘Ctrl +H’).  This allows you to find every time a particular word or phrase comes up. The spellchecker function ( F7) is essential for catching problems with spelling and formatting.

A piece of dull stone becomes a vivid, sparkling diamond by lots of careful applications of the cutter. In the same way, lots of small careful changes to your first draft can turn it into a high quality piece of writing. The process is not glamorous, but the end result is something special.

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