The Turner Ink blog contains rants, bloopers, observations and opinions. It also has handy tips on grammar and punctuation such as colons: semicolons; and full stops. As well as some very useful ‘how tos’. Feel free to leave comments. Be nice though.

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Archive for the 'Grammar tips' category

Licence or license to thrill?

11th
Jan
by Sarah Turner

Ok, this one gets me running for the dictionary every time: when to use licence and license or practice and practise.

Practice with a C is a noun. And practise with an S is a verb. (S and V are close together in the alphabet which is a good way of remembering, I guess.) So,

There’s a new doctor’s practice opened up near me
He runs a legal practice

The girl practised her piano playing
We need to practise our free kicks

And the same goes for licence and license. Licence with a C is a noun. And license with an S is a verb. So,

I need a television licence
I’ve got my driver’s licence with me

You are licensed to run this bar
How to become a licensed contractor

Of course just to confuse matters our pals across the pond use practice with a C for the noun and the verb and license with an S for the noun and the verb.

In fact when the James Bond movie Licence to Kill came out in 1989 the US studio wanted to change it to the American spelling, license. But (I’m pleased to say) the Brits said no. Rather amusingly the original title of the movie was Licence Revoked but a survey showed that 50% of Americans didn’t know what revoked meant. I’m saying nothing.


Tags: american spelling
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Dangly bits…

21st
Nov
by Sarah Turner

I love the expression dangling modifier. But what is it? And is it catching?  

A dangling modifier refers to a phrase which doesn’t have a grammatical connection to the rest of the sentence. This can have hilarious consequences. Ok, it can be vaguely amusing: 

Having been kicked in the air, the baby caught the ball.

What was kicked? The ball or the baby? To avoid the dangling modifier the sentence needs to be changed to: 

When the ball was kicked in the air, the baby caught it.

Got it? Good.


Tags: dangling modifiers
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Splitting the infinitive: to boldly go and all that

15th
Oct
by Sarah Turner

‘To boldly go’ says Captain Kirk. But I wonder if he ever worried about splitting the infinitive. Probably not. Not with all those aliens around to keep him occupied. 

The infinitive of a verb is made by adding to. So, to go, to pay, to eat. And splitting the infinitive is when a word (normally an adverb) is plonked between the to and the verb; ‘To boldly go’ being one of the most famous.

Purists tut and huff at this. They think the infinitive should never be split and a sentence should always be rewritten. And this works to a point.

Have a look at the following examples. In the first one the infinitive is split. 

He told me I had to quickly finish my lunch

And in the second, the sentence has been moved around but it’s retained its meaning. 

He told me I had to finish my lunch quickly

So let’s apply this to Captain Kirk. Would ‘to go boldly’ or ‘boldly to go’ have the same resonance? No it wouldn’t. So the rule of thumb is: move the sentence around to avoid the split infinitive if you can. But if it sounds really rubbish – ignore the rule of thumb.

And by the way Shakespeare split infinitives all the time. And if it’s good enough for ol’ Will, it’s good enough for the rest of us. And James T Kirk.


Tags: splitting the infinitive
Posted in Grammar tips | comments icon No comments yet »

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