Grammar and Punctuation

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chapter three

A. COMMON GRAMMAR ISSUES

1) A Complicated Rule You Didn’t Realize

YouKnew

People who are learning English as a second (or further) language

are explicitly taught rules that native English speakers learn largely

by intuition, if they learn them at all.

A neat little example that has been doing the rounds is the rule

of syntax about modier order — that is, the sequence in which

adjectives must be placed in front of a noun in order to produce a

well-formed sentence.1 According to Mark Forsyth, there is a strict

order of adjectives, organized by type:

opinion size age shape colour origin material purpose NOUN2

1 Cassie Werber, “How Non-English Speakers Are Taught this Crazy English

Grammar Rule You Know but Have Never Heard Of” (7 September 2016),

Quartz (blog), online: https://qz.com/773738/how-non-english-speakers-

are-taught-this-crazy-english-grammar-rule-you-know-but-youve-never-

heard-of; “Hidden in Plain Sight” (24 September 2016), Johnson (blog),

online: www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21707509-most-people-

dont-know-they-know-most-grammar-they-know-hidden-plain-sight.

2 The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase (London,

UK: Icon Books, 2013) at 39.

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Guthrie's Guide to Better Legal Writing

So, in Forsyth’s example, it would be normal to talk about a lovely

little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife — but unidio-

matic to change that order in any way. (Are knives generally rect-

angular, though? Pointy perhaps.) You wouldn’t often have all eight

types of adjectives modifying your noun, but the sequence of all

(or only some) is, he says, absolute and invariable: “if you mess

with that order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac.”

Try it out: it actually works (most of the time, anyway). A strange

little old syntactical rule would sound odd if you reordered the adjec-

tives, wouldn’t it?

Forsyth’s theory is also borne out by English grammar books for

speakers of other languages: see, for example, Raymond Murphy’s

English Grammar in Use: A Self-Study Reference and Practice Book for

Intermediate Students, which uses the examples nice new house and

beautiful large round wooden table (you could add dining before table

and everything would still be OK).3

Forsyth also points out that some of the English rules we think

we know don’t always hold true: there are forty-four words that fol-

low that old chestnut I before E except after C, but 923 exceptions to

the “rule” including common ones like their, being, and eight. (Some

of those exceptions come o the table if you add to the rule the

kicker except when used like AY as in “neighbour” or “weigh.”)4

Example: Seize the weird glacier after you commit a feisty heist with a

beige foreigner.

2) Avoid the Adverb

The novelist Graham Greene — a master of lean, mean prose —

called adverbs “beastly.”5 (In spite of the –ly ending, that’s an

adjective.) Think of the adverb quite, which is either ambiguous or

3 Raymond Murphy, English Grammar in Use: A Self-Study Reference and Prac-

tice Book for Intermediate Students (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University

Press, 1994).

4 The Lost Lectures, “Marc Forsyth — An ‘Unruly’ Look at the English

Language” (12 November 2013), online: YouTube www.youtube.com/

watch?v=v0bds2vFg0M.

5 Ways of Escape (Toronto, ON: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1980) at 225.

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Chapter Three: Grammar and Punctuation

weak: quite good can mean “better than expected,” “something a bit

less than good,” “actually good,” “very good.” In any case, it lacks

oomph. Or indeed very, which the nineteenth-century newspaper

editor William Allen White called “the weakest word in the English

language.”6 Very true.7

In legal writing, adverbs are often used as qualiers or llers.

I’m thinking of words like generally, clearly, unfortunately. In opin-

ions, generally may have a valid place as a signal of potential uncer-

tainty in the law (although even there it can be overused when it’s

a substitute for actual analysis). In an article or blog, try to elim-

inate generally. You’re not writing an opinion (and there will be a

boilerplate disclaimer saying that your piece is not to be taken as

legal advice anyway), so all it does is soften your impact.

If you must say clearly, odds are the point isn’t clear at all. The

word is just padding — or an attempt to make the best of a bad job.

Even worse is unfortunately, which I see a lot in student memos

(Unfortunately, there appears to be no case law on point . . .). It’s not

unfortunate, it just is.

And please don’t misuse literally as a mild form of emphasis. It

means “as opposed to guratively.” It would be correct to say I have

literally got to run if the starting gun for your ten-kilometre race is

about to go o; incorrect if all you mean is “I must go.”

The adverb is unavoidable when you want to modify an adjec-

tive. Our American friends notwithstanding, it is wrong to say real

good; it must be really good — but always think whether the adverb

adds anything, or just weakens the eect.8

6 See The Guardian and Observer Style Guide, “V” (5 November 2015), The

Guardian, online: www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-v.

7 See also Ross Guberman, “Adverbs on Trial: Innocent on Two Counts,

but Guilty on Three More” (13 November 2014), Legal Writing Pro (blog),

online: http://legalwritingpro.com/blog/adverbs-on-trial-innocent-on-

two-counts-but-guilty-on-three-more; Jacob Gershman, “Why Adverbs,

Maligned By Many, Flourish in the American Legal System” (8 October

2014), The Wall Street Journal, online: www.wsj.com/articles/why-adverbs-

maligned-by-many-ourish-in-the-american-legal-system-1412735402.

8 See Georey Nunberg, Going Nucular: Language, Politics, and Culture in Con-

frontational Times (New York, NY: Public Aairs, 2004) at 280.