Which normally operates as a relative pronoun acting as the subject of a relative subordinate clause, as in this sentence from a New York Times Sunday opinion on February 8, Bank Bailout, Redux:

But the pay curbs are minor in the grand bailout scheme, which will ultimately put hundreds of billions of tax dollars, if not trillions, on the line.

Normally the relative clause is set off by a comma to signal that it is commenting on a noun (scheme), not defining one. But occasionally it is set off by a dash--or even a period, as in this sentence, from the same opinion:

And such guarantees were presented as generally low cost and low risk. Which they are, until they aren't.

Following that sentence is this one, opening the next paragraph:

Which brings us back to the huge sums it will eventually take to repair the banking system.

Here, I would argue, which is no longer relative, because it lacks a clear antecedent, but substantive. I'd replace it with that.

That brings us back to the huge sums it will eventually take to repair the banking system.

So, the opening which operating as a substantive should always be replaced by that.

Here's a headline from the New York Times Business Day (January 3, 2009):

Data Shows Manufacturing Is Suffering In All Corners

The word data is the plural of datum, so the verb should be plural: show. But as many arbiters of usage point out, the singular datum is almost never used, so why not treat data as a collective singular noun? Because it is still useful to differentiate a true plural from the collective singular.

The New York Times piece cites many numbers: for the manufacturing index, new orders index, employment index, purchasing managers index, and so on.

It then continues:

The worsening data, combined with a stream of company profit warnings, production cuts and layoffs, raises the pressure on policy makers to step up their efforts to bolster their economies.

Those data are specific and countable not general and collective, so the verb should be the plural raise--as in the January 7 Wall Street Journal's World Watch:

Data Raise Likelihood of Big Interest-Rate Cut

When to use the singular? Good data is a good thing. And at CDI data is almost always plural.

Consider this, from the New York Times, which generally avoids the serial comma but routinely uses a comma after an adverbial prepositional phrase:

In the case of A.I.G., the virus exploded from a freewheeling little 377-person unit in London, and flourished in a climate of opulent pay, lax oversight and blind faith in financial risk models.

Why be sparing with the serial comma and generous with commas after introductory phrases? (And why use a comma after London?)

In February, A.I.G.'s auditors identified problems in the firm's swaps accounting.

The Economist is more sparing:

On September 18th it was appointed by Lehman Brothers' unsecured creditors to defend their interests.

With each passing day the news about China's tainted-milk scandal gets worse.

But with a long introductory phrase it rightly uses a comma:

On September 18th at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, hosted Jin Jing, the handicapped Chinese Olympic torchbearer who had been accosted by pro-Tibet protesters in the French capital in April.

As Chris notes, that last example is a doozy of a sentence, with two appositives separated by commas in addition to the introductory prepositional phrase comma.

His rule of thumb for adding a comma to an introductory prepositional phrase is to pay attention to how the last word of the prepositional phrase could be read (or misread) with the next word. If the prepositional phrase ends in a word that could be perceived as a modifier of the next word, confusion will no doubt ensue.

Meta adds the following, from a Washington Post obituary on February 16 by Adam Bernstein for Steve Fossett (a court had finally declared the then still-missing Fossett officially dead):

In July, he was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame.

In 2002, he traveled 18,827 miles

Over the next decade, he spent millions of dollars

Along the way, Mr. Fossett was credited with being the first

In 1998, a thunderstorm with hail ended his balloon flight

In 2005, he set an aviation record for solo, nonstop flight

She notes that any of these commas could have been spared without any loss of clarity. And changing usage (yes to serial commas, no to short introductory phrase commas) would likely save lots more space--the original reason behind the loss of the serial comma in newspapers and magazines. She would venture that introductory prepositional phrases appear far more frequently than series do.

Style is style, so there are no rights or wrongs, even with departures from style.

Our preference at ClearWriter is to be sparing in using commas after introductory prepositional phrases. We'll be collecting examples to see when using a comma helps readers and when not.

Future posts on introductory words, phrases, and clauses will deal with conjunctions, appositives, clauses, infinitive phrases, and more.

Source for examples: New York Times, Sunday, September 28, 2008, The Economist, September 27th, 2008, and The Washington Post, February 16th, 2008.

Rham Emanuel, in an opinion in the September 5 Wall Street Journal, wrote:

During the Clinton administration, median household income increased by more than $6,000. Under President George W. Bush, median household income decreased nearly $1,000.

Why increased by but not decreased by, which would have been parallel? Or why not increased more than and decreased nearly, which also would have been parallel?

The preposition by is unnecessary in such cases, yet many writers tack it on thanks to habit and common usage.

I prefer not using the by.

I also prefer using rose and fell (or went up and came down) to increased and decreased.

So, I would edit the two sentences to read:

During the Clinton administration, median household income rose more than $6,000. Under President George W. Bush, median household income fell nearly $1,000.

Gerunds are verbal forms (-ing) acting as nouns, naming actions, implying actors. The actors are in many cases not stated. But when they are, they demand a possessive pronoun (my, his), not an objective personal pronoun (me, him).

Consider this sentence from a leader in this week's Economist on an Iranian student protester who escaped to America:

The regime did not want to be blamed for him dying behind bars, he says, so he was allowed out for treatment.

The gerund dying demands the possessive his in the phrase: for his dying behind bars.

The preposition for seduced the writer into using him rather than his.

The gerund dying demands the possessive his in the phrase for his dying behind bars because the object of the preposition for is dying. In the Economist example, him is the object of the preposition for; dying behind bars becomes a participial phrase modifying him. Imagine the (illogical) sentence without the nonessential participial phrase:

The regime did not want to be blamed for him, so he was allowed out for treatment.

I used to see the error only occasionally. Now I see it almost always.

A good test is to plug in first-person pronouns, both objective (me) and possessive (my), and to see how the gerund phrase works:

The regime did not want to be blamed for me dying behind bars...

The regime did not want to be blamed for my dying behind bars...

The first sentence is unidiomatic, the second grammatical.

In some sentences the possessive is superfluous because the gerund's actor is obvious, as in a sentence I heard last night on the News Hour:

By him showing up, he signaled to the attendees at the NAACP convention that he would listen to their concerns and consider their advice.

By showing up, he signaled to the attendees at the NAACP convention that he would listen to their concerns and consider their advice.

Two earlier postings covered these and those, the plurals of this and that, as demonstrative pronouns. Today's covers this and that as singular demonstrative pronouns. (Curiously, Fowler has no entries for them in this or that form.)

Their use in distinguishing time, order, or nearness is straightforward.

This is a pleasant meal.

That was a pleasant meal.

I prefer this to that.

But where this and that are demonstrative pronouns referring to an earlier sentence, matters can become more complicated. Consider this except from a piece in The Economist called 'Time to buy.'

But neither government bond markets nor commodities can in any sense be described as being near a bottom.

In short, this does not look definitely like the kind of low from which very good long-term returns can be made. That may be because the market has a lot further to fall; Morgan Stanley suggests that, if the superbear argument is correct, equities could drop a further 50%. But that will surely require some kind of economic news of the kind seen in the 20^th century.

The present tense (does not look) governs the use of this in the first sentence. And present tense (may be) would indicate the use of This in the second sentence as well, but having already used this in the preceding sentence, the writer switches to That to avoid repetition and possible confusion over the antecedent. Future tense (will surely require) would indicate the use of this in the third sentence too, but distance in time (seen in the 20^th century) indicates that, overriding tense.

Here are a few more from a piece in The Economist on chemical sensors, 'Gas, gas, quick boys.'

In this way the components of the sample separate from one another. Each component is puffed onto the nanotubes, where it sticks to the carbon atoms. This, in turn, causes the conductivity of the nanotubes to change--how much is a characteristic of each gas.

What is needed is a cheap way of detecting such gases and, having raised the alarm, of identifying which gas is involved so that anyone who has succumbed can be treated.

And that is what a team of chemical engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, led by Michael Strano (pictured on the left), think they have created.

Present tense dictates the use of This in the first pair. It should also dictate the use of this in the second.

Perhaps the writer felt that that would be more demonstrative than this. Or perhaps the writer preferred the word with an abrupt finish over the one with a hiss, a preference I'm beginning to note.

For more on that, view http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo1XFz0kac0.

 

The demonstrative pronoun these can precede a noun as an adjective: these apples are ripe. Or it can stand alone as a substantive, acting as a noun: these are ripe.

Consider this pair of sentences from a recent Economist:

In a bid to salvage his reputation, Mr Badawi has belatedly started keeping the bold promises of reform that he made on coming to office in 2003. Foremost among these was curbing corruption within the government.

Here, these is the object of the preposition among, acting as a pronoun and standing for promises.

These can often stand alone as the subject of a clause, if it's clear what these refers to (see below). But these works less well as the object of a preposition or of a verb form. I usually switch to the pronoun them, which for me works much better.

'the bold promises of reform that he made on coming to office in 2003. Foremost among them was curbing corruption'

If it's not clear what these or them refers to, I insert the noun, switching these from a substantive to a demonstrative adjective ('Foremost among these promises').

Another usage is as follows:

 The case studies come next. These are straightforward and require mainly copyediting.

My colleagues Meta, Elaine, and Chris would write they, because these implies the existence of those, as though there's another set of book elements that are not straightforward. If there is another set, these would be acceptable, though I'd probably stick with they. Nick has another view (see his comment on this post).

One problem with the standalone substantive is that it usually forces the reader to stop and go back to look for the noun it refers to.

Less of a problem is announcing the noun:

These, then, are the reasons for taking the new threats seriously.

A nice rhetorical flourish.

But why not write those, then, are the reasons? More on this next week.

Many writers, even economists and statisticians who should know better, confuse percent and percentage point and thus their readers.

 
The abuse is common with rates, such as those of GDP growth:

 
Brazil's GDP growth increased by 2.5 percent in 2007.

 
If Brazil's GDP growth had been 5 percent in 2006 and increased by 2.5 percent, the growth rate for 2007 would be 5.125 percent. But if growth increased by 2.5 percentage points, the growth rate for 2007 would be 7.5 percent. A big difference.

 
The differences between two percentages are thus measured in percentage points not in percent, used for ratios and shares.

 
Consider these differences in the shares of three categories of voters from Wednesday's Washington Post:

 
An estimated 2 million Democrats voted, nearly triple the number who turned out in the past two presidential campaigns in the state. Clinton ran up big margins with her core constituencies, winning white voters with incomes under $50,000 by 32 points, voters over age 65 by 26 percent, and Catholic voters by 38 percent, more than countering Obama's strong showing among black voters and higher-income whites in Philadelphia and its suburbs.

 
For the 32 points, the writer should have made it clear that they are percentage points (this wasn't a basketball game that Clinton won by 32 points, with a score of 120-88).

 
And the 26 percent and 38 percent are plainly wrong. Both should have been percentage points, shortened to points if the first use had been 32 percentage points, specifying the kind of points.

 
If the margin among voters over age 65 had been 63 percent of the total to 37 percent, that would be 26 percentage points. But if Clinton had won those voters by 26 percent, her margin would have been 11.8 percentage points (0.37 x 0.32 = 0.118) and her share of the total 48.8 percent (0.37 + 0.118).

 
(Percent comes from the Latin per centum, by the hundred.)

Many writers wrongly see some pairs of words as synonyms, alternating between them randomly or using one in ways that violate convention or ignore its origins. Reminding me of this was Henry Kissinger's use of historic in a recent opinion piece in the Washington Post:

Essentially tactical issues have overwhelmed the most important challenge a new administration will confront: how to distill a new international order from three simultaneous revolutions occurring around the globe: (a) the transformation of the traditional state system of Europe; (b) the radical Islamist challenge to historic notions of sovereignty; and (c) the drift of the center of gravity of international affairs from the Atlantic to the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

I won't comment on the sentence's length (67 words), on the use of two colons, or on the use of letters (a, b, c) to indicate the three (1, 2, 3) revolutions. I will stick instead to the use of historic. Kissinger may have used historic to avoid repeating traditional.

Historic's seeming synonym is historical. The difference? Historical is history's ordinary adjective, meaning of history. Historic means memorable or dramatic, but I don't believe that Kissinger was thinking of memorable notions or dramatic notions.

Would anybody misread the second revolution? Yes. I would. Does distinguishing the two seeming synonyms make a difference? I believe that it does. So does Fowler in Modern English Usage: 'the use of one in a sense now generally expressed by the other is a definite backsliding.'

Historic also means assured of a place in history, as with historic accord or historic building. Grammarians also use historic as a technical term, as with the tense, historic present, the use of the present tense to relate events that occurred in the past..

Here are three other seeming synonyms routinely abused:

Comprise (embrace) and constitute (make up), as in 'The whole comprises the parts, and the parts constitute the whole.'

Imply (suggest to the reader or listener) and infer (conclude from the writer or speaker), in 'Are you implying that we should act on this? And may we infer from what you say that we should act on this?'

Masterful (domineering) and masterly (skillful), as in The Economist's take on Saddam Hussein's gulf war strategy: 'more masterful than masterly.' True, some dictionaries have a second definition of masterful that is the same as that for masterly, reflecting the words' early history as synonyms and the practice of most dictionaries of recording usage rather than pronouncing on proper usage. (I still shudder at the Merriam-Webster New Collegiate Dictionary's including prioritize as a verb.)

There are countless others. See Edit Yourself and the ClearEdits compare function.

Note

My colleague Meta pointed me to Merriam-Webster, for the definition of masterful:

Some commentators insist that use of masterful should be limited to sense 1 in order to preserve a distinction between it and masterly. The distinction is a modern one, excogitated by a 20th century pundit in disregard of the history of the word. Both words developed in a parallel manner but the earlier sense of masterly, equivalent to masterful 1, dropped out of use. Since masterly had but one sense, the pundit opined that it would be tidy if masterful were likewise limited to one sense and he forthwith condemned use of masterful 2 as an error. Sense 2 of masterful, which is slightly older than the sense of masterly intended to replace it, has continued in reputable use all along; it cannot rationally be called an error.

Samuel Johnson's dictionary gave both meanings for masterly:

1. Suitable to a master; artful; skilful.

2. Imperious; with the sway of a master.

(He did not include masterful.)

And this is what Fowler (the 20^th century pundit?) writes in Modern English Usage for masterful, masterly:

Some centuries ago both were used without distinction in either of two very different senses: (A) imperious or commanding or strong-willed, and (B) skilful or expert or practiced. The differentiation is now complete, -ful having the (A) and -ly the (B) meaning, and is nicely observed in The presentation in each case was masterly (perhaps in a few rare instances a trifle too masterful) and always the playing was crystal clear.

I agree with Fowler (and Meta) that the distinction is useful (I won't comment on his use of A and B). If someone were to write, Diana Vishneva's performance was masterful, how would I to know whether it was an expert performance or an imperious performance?

Masterful in the (B) meaning may survive because of the clumsiness of forming an adverb from the adjective masterly: masterlily. Masterfully clearly is less clumsy.  

Sentence fragments, shunned by rigid writers and grousing grammarians, often mimic speech and thus pick up the pace of your writing. Unexpected, they can command attention to strong points and comments. Here's an example from a recent New York Times article on revitalizing Starbucks:

But revitalizing the Starbucks experience is not going to be enough. Not even close.

The full sentence would have been:

But revitalizing the Starbucks experience is not going to be enough. It will not even be close.

Stripping the subject and verb from the front and leaving the fragment drives the reader straight to the point.

Here's another example from the ClearWriter archives:

The marriage of America and the rest of the world is just that. A marriage, for better or worse.

The more conventional version might have been:

The marriage of America and the rest of the world is just that, a marriage for better or worse.

A small difference, but a difference. Because the fragment is unconventional, it draws more attention to the point than the conventional version does. Just be sure that the passage merits the attention.