7 The clerk wisely never dates anyone from work. You can eliminate the vague pronoun which in several different ways. Another possible correction: The clerk’s policy never to date anyone from work is wise. 8 The clerk quotes poetry because she’s hoping to become a literary critic; Jeffrey majored in literary criticism in college, so in theory he is a good match for her. In reality, they would hit the divorce court within a month, but the problem with the original sentence is the pronoun, not Jeffrey’s romance. In the original sentence it refers to nothing. Jeffrey didn’t major in literary critic (the expression in the original); he majored in literary criticism, an expression that replaces it in the corrected sentence. 9 In the original sentence, which refers to the fact that the day passed without incident. The pro- noun can’t replace an entire sentence. One possible fix: “The fact that the day passed . . . was a great relief to me.” 0 One what? The pronoun has no noun to refer to, just the verb eating. Reword to add some food (“. . . saw me eating an ice cream cone”) and the one will make sense. ! The pronoun everyone is singular, so it must be paired with his or her, not their. @ The pronoun this needs one noun to replace, not a whole sentence. Eliminate the pronoun with something like “The lunch packs were a . . . at me.” Mr. Levi Martin Associate Professor, English 103 Field Trip Report, 1/18/12 I left school at 10:03 a.m. with 45 freshmen, all of whom were excited about our visit to Adventure Land. The day passed without incident, which was a great relief to me. I sat in the Adventure Land Bar and Grille for five hours while the youngsters visited Space Camp, Pirates’ Mountain, and other attractions that are overrated but popular. The group saw me eating and said they wanted one too, but I replied that everyone had their his or her school-issued lunch. This was a disappointment, and several students threw them at me. We got on one of the vans that was were overdue for mainte- nance. The motor whirred loudly, and it scared the van driver. We drove to Makoski Brake and Wheel Repairs because the driver said their its exper- tise was what we needed. Makoski is also the only one of the many repair shops on Route 9 that take takes credit cards, which was helpful because I had spent all my money in the Adventure Land Bar and Grille. 16 36 66 26 46 5 6 76 96 86 0 7 153 Chapter 11: Choosing the Best Pronoun for a Tricky Sentence 17_599321 ch11.qxp 4/3/06 11:26 PM Page 153 # In the original, the pronoun them refers to nothing. Add “lunch packs” or “sandwiches” and you’re in business. $ The sentence should read “one of the vans that were,” not “one of the vans that was.” The pro- noun that is a stand-in for vans. % What does it mean? The motor didn’t scare the driver; the whirring sound scared him. But it should replace a noun. Fix this problem by saying that “the driver was scared” or a similar statement. ^ Their shouldn’t refer to a company. Try its. & This sentence should say that it was “the only one of the many that takes.” When you get into “only one of ____” territory, you know that the pronoun is singular and needs a singular verb. * What does which mean? The fact that the repair shop takes credit cards! The pronoun can’t replace all those words. Rewrite to eliminate the pronoun with something like “Makoski’s acceptance of credit cards was helpful because. . . .” 154 Part III: The Pickier Points of Correct Verb and Pronoun Use 17_599321 ch11.qxp 4/3/06 11:26 PM Page 154 Chapter 12 Traveling in Time: Tricky Verb-Tense Situations In This Chapter ᮣ Choosing the proper tense to summarize speech ᮣ Expressing unchangeable facts in the correct verb tense ᮣ Putting events in order with verbals I ’ve always been attracted to sci-fi movies in which the heroes move around through the millennia. I probably like fiddling with verb tense for exactly the same reason; standard English verbs allow writers and speakers to time travel. You may not have a chief engineer to warn you when the motor’s about to overheat, but you do have this chapter, which allows you to practice some tricky verb-tense situations. For example, did Arthur say that he has or had a cold? Did or does Mars qualify as a planet? And what effect do verbals — hybrid forms that are half verb, half another part of speech — have on the timing of events in a sen- tence? If you’re sure of all these issues, drop the book and play a round of miniature golf. If you’re not completely certain, try your hand at these exercises. Telling Tales of the Past Humans love to gossip, so I’m betting that your lunch table is filled with a ton of stories, many of which include summaries of what others have said or written. Because you’re telling (actually, retelling) something that already happened, your base of operations is past tense. Note the past-tense verbs in italics: She caught Arthur with Stella, but he told her that he was only tying Stella’s bow tie and not nibbling her neck. Then she said that Arthur brought her a box of candy with a note saying that no one else had eyes like hers. What’s wrong with the preceding example? Apart from the fact that Arthur was indeed nib- bling Stella’s neck, nothing. The verb tenses are all in the past because that’s where a sum- mary of speech resides. So even if she still has incomparable eyes, in this paragraph the verb had is better. (One important exception to the stay-in-past-tense-for-speech-summary rule is explained in the next section, “The Unchanging Universe: When You’re Stuck in the Present.”) A common error is to switch from one tense to another with no valid reason. I often hear statements such as this one (the verbs are italicized): So she sat home and waited for the phone to ring. He finally called. Then he says that the big dance is a waste of time and they will skip the whole thing! 18_599321 ch12.qxp 4/3/06 11:27 PM Page 155 Penalty box. If she sat and waited until he called (all past-tense verbs), the next three verbs (says, is, and will skip) should be in past tense also (said, was, and would skip). Take a crack at selecting the right verb from the choices in parentheses — circle your answer. Just to be sure you’re paying attention, I sneak in a few verbs that aren’t sum- mary of speech and therefore shouldn’t be in past tense. Q. During yesterday’s tryouts for the new reality show, Grammarian Idol Factor, Roberta (tells/told/will tell) the producer that she (likes/liked/will like) selecting pronouns while dangling 200 feet above the ground. A. told, liked. The first answer is easy. If the tryouts were yesterday, the fact that Roberta lied to the producer (she actually hates pronouns) has to be in past tense. Told is past tense. The second part is trickier. She may always “like” selecting pronouns, but in sum- mary of speech, past tense is the way to go (with one exception, which I note in the next section of this chapter). 1. The director of the show, Grammarian Idol Factor, explained to the candidates that he (has/had/will have) to select a maximum of 30 contestants. 2. Most of the contestants eagerly replied that they (want/wanted/would want) to make the final 30. 3. Roberta, who (likes/like/had liked) to play hard to get, screamed at the director that he (doesn’t/didn’t) have the faintest idea how to select the best applicants. 4. One who didn’t make the cut, Michael Hooper, told me that Roberta (is/was/had been) the clear winner of the first three challenges — the noun toss, the pronoun shuffle, and the verb race. 5. Michael also whispered something surprising: Roberta (fails/failed/had failed) the psychological screening. 6. Last week when the psychologist (asks/asked) Roberta her feelings about various parts of speech, Roberta said that the linking verbs (do/did) present a problem. 7. “Why (don’t/didn’t) you like linking verbs?” continued the psychologist. 8. Roberta explained that any form of the verb to be (annoys/annoyed) her. 9. “I (try/tried) to avoid any sentence with that sort of verb,” added Roberta. 10. She went on to say that adjectives (are/were/had been) her favorite part of speech. 11. The psychologist later reported that he (is/was/had been) worried about Roberta’s reac- tion to punctuation. 12. Roberta apparently said that commas (are/were/had been) “out to get her.” 13. She added that exclamation points (threaten/threatened/had threatened) her also. 14. The psychologist complained that quotation marks (hem/hemmed) him in and (make/ made) him feel trapped. 15. Roberta and the psychologist disagreed, however, when Roberta said that the semicolon (is/was) the best punctuation mark. 156 Part III: The Pickier Points of Correct Verb and Pronoun Use 18_599321 ch12.qxp 4/3/06 11:27 PM Page 156 16. The director said that he (doesn’t/didn’t) know what to make of Roberta’s punctuation obsession. 17. He declared that she (is/was) too unstable for a show that relies heavily on question marks. 18. The assistant director, on the other hand, whispered that Roberta (is/was) faking a punc- tuation phobia just to attract attention. 19. The camera operator added that he (knows/knew) many people who (are/were) truly ter- rified by commas and apostrophes. 20. In the final report on Roberta, the psychologist mentioned that she (is/was/had been) afraid of punctuation because of a childhood attack by a mad copy editor. The Unchanging Universe: When You’re Stuck in the Present Verb tenses express the march of time: past, present, and future actions. But some things don’t march; they stay in one, unchanging state forever. When you talk about these things, present tense is the only one that makes sense, no matter what else is going on in the sen- tence. Take a look at these examples: Wrong: Marty told me that the earth was a planet. Why it is wrong: What is the earth now, a bagel? The unchanging fact, that the earth is a planet, must be expressed in present tense, despite the fact that all other summarized speech should be in past tense. (See “Telling Tales of the Past,” the previous section in this chapter, for more information.) Right: Marty told me that the earth is a planet. Choose the correct verb from the parentheses in the following sentences. To complicate your life, I mixed “eternal truths” with changeable information. The eternal truths get present tense no matter what, but with the other stuff . . . you’re on your own. Q. Although Marty knew that 10 plus 10 (equals/equaled) 20, she wrote “15” on the test as a gesture of defiance. A. equals. In our number system (I’m not sure what they do on Mars), 10 added to 10 makes 20. No change is possible, so present tense is what you want here. 21. Marty’s job as a schoolteacher won’t last very long if she keeps telling her class that each molecule of water (has/had) three oxygen atoms. 22. Science has never been Marty’s best subject, but she did explain that water (covers/ covered) nine tenths of the planet. 23. I gently confronted her with the fact that land (makes/made) up about a quarter of the earth’s surface. 24. Marty sniffed and said that she (has/had) a cold and couldn’t think about the earth anyway. 25. We went out for a snack (bagels and cream cheese), and Marty told me that cheese (is/ was) a dairy product. 157 Chapter 12: Traveling in Time: Tricky Verb-Tense Situations 18_599321 ch12.qxp 4/3/06 11:27 PM Page 157 26. “Not the way they make it here,” I replied, pointing out that the product (is/was) mostly artificial. 27. Did anyone actually like guar gum, I wondered, and why (is/was) it on my bagel, pretend- ing to be cheese? 28. Marty put on her best science teacher’s voice and intoned, “Dairy produce (comes/came) from milk.” 29. “Do you know that guar gum (is/was) not naturally found in dairy?” I asked. 30. Marty shook her head and began to compute the tip, muttering that twenty percent of ten dollars (is/was) two dollars. 31. Ten years ago I took Marty to a restaurant that served only peanut butter, which (is/was) made from nuts. 32. Marty used to be a big fan of jelly, though she never liked strawberries because they (have/had) seeds. 33. Marty is such a fanatic about seeds that she once counted all the seeds on a strawberry before she ate it; there (are/were) 45. 34. Marty was very critical of the cuisine, even though she (knows/knew) almost nothing about cooking. 35. Marty at the time was following a vegetarian diet, which (does/did) not include meat. Tackling the Timeline: Verbals to the Rescue In Chapter 1 I explain the basic and “perfect” tenses of verbs (past, present, future, past perfect, present perfect, and future perfect). Here I drop you into a vat of boiling grammar as you choose the best tense for some complicated elements called verbals. Verbals, as the name implies, have a link with verbs, but they also have a link with other parts of speech (nouns, adjectives, and adverbs). Verbals never act as the verb in a sentence, but they do influence the sense of time that the sentence conveys. The three types of verbals are as follows: ߜ Gerunds look like the -ing form of a verb but function as a noun; that is, a gerund names a person, place, thing, or idea. (“I like smiling,” commented Alice, who had just had her braces removed. In this sentence, smiling is a gerund.) ߜ Infinitives are what you get when you add “to” to a verb. Infinitives may function as nouns or they may take a descriptive role. (“To be safe, Alice packed a few hundred rolls of breath mints.” In this sentence, to be is an infinitive.) ߜ Participles are the -ing or -ed or -en form of a verb, plus a few irregulars. They’re also the form of the verb that joins up with has, have, or had. Participles describe, often explaining what action someone is doing, but they never function as the actual verb in a sentence. (“Inhaling sharply, Elaine stepped away from the blast of peppermint that escaped from Alice’s mouth.” In this sentence, inhaling is a participle giving information about Elaine. The verb is stepped.) All three verbals give time information. The plain form (without has, have, having, or had) shows action happening at the same time as the action expressed by the main verb in the sentence. The perfect form (with has, have, having, or had) places the action expressed by the verbal before the action of the main verb. 158 Part III: The Pickier Points of Correct Verb and Pronoun Use 18_599321 ch12.qxp 4/3/06 11:27 PM Page 158 . Land Bar and Grille. 16 36 66 26 46 5 6 76 96 86 0 7 153 Chapter 11: Choosing the Best Pronoun for a Tricky Sentence 17 _59 9321 ch11.qxp 4/3/06 11:26 PM Page 153 # In the original, the pronoun them. credit cards was helpful because. . . .” 154 Part III: The Pickier Points of Correct Verb and Pronoun Use 17 _59 9321 ch11.qxp 4/3/06 11:26 PM Page 154 Chapter 12 Traveling in Time: Tricky Verb-Tense. that the big dance is a waste of time and they will skip the whole thing! 18 _59 9321 ch12.qxp 4/3/06 11:27 PM Page 155 Penalty box. If she sat and waited until he called (all past-tense verbs),