C. Grammar and Spelling

Grammar is the physics of writing. In order to communicate clearly, we must all obey the basic rules of forming sentences and spelling words.

9. Subject-Verb Agreement

If grammar is physics, then subject-verb agreement is Newton's First Law. It's fundamental and a very simple thing really, but so many students in my experience don't do it right I feel the need to comment on it here. This is it in a nutshell:

1. Certain subjects (the person or thing doing the action in a sentence) go with certain types of verbs.
2. For instance, a subject like "he/she/it" or the equivalent (called "third-person singular") requires a present-tense verb that ends in -s, for example: the student understands, she learns, it does.
3. Other forms which are not third-person singular take present-tense verbs that do not end in -s, for example: I have, they know, you learn.

This is true only of verbs in the present tense (i.e. when the action of the verb is happening at the present moment). Most other tenses don't employ the -s at all: she saw, he will see, Caesar used to see.¹ It's really very simple and should be automatic for most English-speakers: I read, you read, but he reads.

Compound Subjects

It's my experience that students most often fail to follow the rule of subject-verb agreement when a subject is compound (two separate subjects linked by a conjunction such as "and"): "You and Mark learn," "she and I are," "knowing, understanding and teaching represent different stages of learning." In this case, because there are two (or more) third-person singular nouns acting as the collective subject, the subject is plural—one and one make two—and thus the verb doesn't end in -s.

Even more complex subjects only make matters worse: "The various myths of creation found in different societies around the world and their similarity are intriguing." Here, the subject is compound—"myths" and "similarity"—and thus it is plural. So again, there is no -s on the verb.

Worse yet, this rule is reversed with the conjunction "or": "Julius Caesar or Augustus Caesar is said to be the first Roman emperor." Since it's either "Julius" or "Augustus," the subject is singular—one or one is still one—and thus there's an 
-s on the verb. When "or" joins a singular and a plural subject, the verb agrees with the one nearer to it: "The Senate or, later, the Senate and the tribunes are seen to have controlled Republican Rome, according to most Roman historians." Here the plural subject ("tribunes") is closer to the verb and so the verb is plural ("are"). If, in contrast, the singular subject is closer, the verb will agree with it: "The Senate and the tribunes or, earlier, the Senate alone is seen to have controlled Republican Rome, according to most Roman historians." The singular subject ("Senate") is closer to the verb which as a result is singular ("is").

All in all, it is vital you make sure the subjects and verbs of your sentences agree. Especially when you write more than a simple subject, check the agreement of the verb with the subject. Remember this will be a problem mainly with the present tense. Listen to your common sense. Most English speakers do this by nature correctly.

10. Dangling Participles

Adjectives ending in -ing (and sometimes -ed) are called participles and must be used with care. Consider the following sentences:

The robber ran from the policeman, still holding the money in his hands.
After being whipped fiercely, the cook boiled the egg.
Flitting merrily from flower to flower, the football player watched the bee.

The grammatical problem here rests with the -ing and -ed words used in these sentences: "holding," "being whipped," and "flitting." They are all participles, a type of verbal form that modifies nouns. The antecedent—that is, the noun to which the participle refers—must be clear to the readers in order for them to understand what's being said. Otherwise, an action may be ascribed to the wrong player, such as "flitting" to athletes who do not as a rule flit. That's called a "dangling participle," because it's left "dangling" without a clear antecedent.

Just as with compound subject-verb agreement when "or" links two or more subjects (see #9), proximity shows the link between a participle and its antecedent in English. In other words, the participle goes with the noun closest to it, either directly preceding or following it and the words which go with it in the sentence. In the example above, "flitting" is clearly intended to go with "bee"—bees, after all, naturally flit—but because the closest noun to "flitting" is "the football player," the sentence seems to suggest that the athlete is doing the flitting, not the bee. The sentence should read "The football player watched the bee flitting merrily from flower to flower." Can you see how to correct the problems with the dangling participles in the other two examples?

In academic writing, dangling participles can cause serious misunderstandings, which is why I dwell on them here. Consider the following sentence: "After winning the Peloponnesian war, Athens was ruled briefly by the Spartans." By juxtaposing "winning" and "Athens," the sentence implies that Athens won the Peloponnesian War, which is wrong. The Spartans won the war. The sentence should be rephrased so that the participle is closer to the Spartans than to Athens: "After winning the Peloponnesian War, the Spartans ruled Athens briefly." Or, you can just rewrite the sentence and not use a participle: "After the Spartans won the Peloponnesian War, Athens was briefly in their control." Remember that precision is at a premium when writing history!"—or better, "when you're writing history."

Note on "Considering" and "Focusing"

Difficulties frequently arise from the misuse of two common participles, "considering" and "focusing," which often end up dangling. Consider this: "Considering the Assyrians' brutal policies toward foreigners, their catastrophic fall in 612 BCE comes as no surprise." What exactly is the writer of this sentence saying? "Considering" means literally "thinking about." So, who is doing the "thinking" in this sentence? Because "fall" is the noun nearest "considering," the sentence implies that the "fall" is doing the "thinking," which makes no sense. "Falls" can't think; they just happen. Clearly the writer means to say that modern people are "considering." Thus, the statement needs to be rephrased: "Considering the Assyrians' brutal policies toward foreigners, no one can be surprised by their catastrophic fall in 612 BCE." Now, people are doing the "thinking," which is always good.

Another participle often entangled in similar trouble is "focusing." This example is taken directly from a student's paper: "While still focusing on the Greeks, the Persians were also a major civilization in antiquity." Do you see the problem here? As the Persians built their civilization, do you think they were "focusing" on Greece? That is, were they "focusing," i.e. "looking at," the Greeks when they were building Persia? Obviously not. So can you correct this sentence in such a way that the participle isn't "dangling"?*

11. Pronoun Referents

I read this recently in a paper:

"Caesar was a powerful military general with a huge army at his feet that made him the great ruler he was."

Wait a second there! What is it that made Caesar "a powerful military general"? The writer means—or, at least, I hope he means!—that it was Caesar's army "that made him the great ruler he was." But, as the sentence stands, "that" goes with Caesar's "feet." Am I to conclude that, according to this author, Caesar's feet made him a great ruler? As a friend of mine said when I showed him this sentence, "Well, no wonder he had so little trouble crossing the Rubicon River!"

The sentence when read as it's written—and technically it's the only way to read the sentence!—contains a factual error, since I can assure you that, while Caesar's life included many amazing feats, his feet were not among them. This type of error is common in student papers. The basic problem here is that the referent of a pronoun—that is, what the pronoun refers to—is unclear. So, make sure it's self-evident what every "that" or "this" refers to in your writing, or "who" or "they" or any pronoun you use.

What is a Pronoun?

The definition of a pronoun is "a word used in the place of or as a substitute for a noun." The most common pronouns in English—and the ones which cause most problems in terms of their referents—are who/whom, he/him/his, she/her, it/its, or they/them/their.

Here's an example where the referent of a pronoun is unclear. "Sparta attacked Athens, and they won." Who are "they"? While it may seem to the writer like he's saying the Spartans won, the sentence itself doesn't say that, at least not the way it's written. It says "Sparta," which is a city, and as a city is not a "they" but an "it." By the same logic which claims Sparta equals "they," one might infer Athens is also "they." The statement could, then, be taken to mean the Athenians won when the Spartans attacked, which is historically incorrect. So, as always, in order for me to assess what you know, I have to see precisely what you mean. And that means making it clear what "it" or "they" or any pronoun you use refers to.

There's a simple way to test whether your pronouns are right. Since a pronoun stands in place of a noun, look back over your sentence and see what's the last possible thing to which any pronoun you've written might refer—singular or plural—and if the last possible thing is the proper referent, your use of the pronoun is correct. For instance, if you write "The Spartans attacked Athens and they won," since the closest plural noun to "they" is Spartans, your sentence is correct because the Spartans did, in fact, win the Peloponnesian War.

12. Spelling

I once had to edit a text by a full professor who spelled Freud persistently as 'Fraud.' When I asked him whether he was making a point, he blandly replied that 'spelling isn’t my thing.'

Recantly I must of scene a hunderd things like theze in studants' papers:

"History is felled with information."
"Today Joan of Arc is a heron."
"The Roamins got their name because they roamed around a lot."

The use of correct spelling indicates that you are semi-litterate. I, however, do knot ask that much of you. If you misspell a word, I will correct it and hope you lern the correct spelling as soon as possible. I recognize that everyone misspells the occasional word—I certainly do!—and that is no basus on which to assess your knowledge, especially of something as important as the past. Still, good spelling makes you look competant, an important first step toward being persuasive.*

However, my complacency about misspelling does not extend to the specific names and terms you've been assigned to learn in this course. Those, especially the ones in your reading assignments, I expect everyone to know how to spell correctly. If you have paid careful attention at all, the spelling of the important names, terms and events from history should present no problem. They are, in fact, a good gauge of how well you've studied, and I will treat them as such, as a barometer of your efforts to master the course material.

Furthermore, all teachers have pet peeves that make them see "read." Certain misspellings are mine:

Wrong	Right
emporer	emperor
competant	competent
calvary	cavalry
thrown	thone
air	heir
of	have (as in "would have")
there	their (as in "belonging to them")
their	there ("in that place")
then	than (as in "more than")
heros	heroes
seige	siege
durring	during
seperate	separate
lead	led (past tense verb, "to lead")
tryed	tried
milatary	military
pharoah	pharaoh
writting	writing
conquorer	conqueror
amoung	among

Iffen your gowing too mispell theze wurds, than pleese bee moar orriginal then ta misspel em thiss weigh. Kay?

13. Possessives and Plurals

English has an odd convention, a remnant of medieval times and something we might all be better without, but it has become traditional and so, whether or not it should be discarded, it will not be done away with easily. It is the apostrophe signifying, among other things, possession: Mark's, Cleopatra's, Greece's. It shows that "Mark," "Cleopatra," or "Greece" possesses something (or is closely associated with it).*

The situation becomes complicated with nouns, particularly names, which end in -s, such as Augustus, Achilles or Pope Pius. In making these possessive, standard English practice today presents a choice about whether or not to add an (extra) -s along with the apostrophe and, as far as I'm concerned, either is acceptable: Augustus' or Augustus's, Achilles' or Achilles's, Pope Pius' or Pope Pius's. If, however, the noun ends in -s because it's plural, there is not a choice. You add only the apostrophe: the Greeks' culture, these peoples' conflict, the three kings' gifts. The only major exception to the rule that possessives in English use an apostrophe involves certain possessive pronouns, such as its, hers, ours, theirs, which don't use an apostrophe.**

This is so simple, and yet so many students get it wrong so often I think there must be something else at work here. Perhaps the problem stems from the apostrophe itself which does not correspond to anything in spoken discourse. In other words, to judge only from the way we speak there's no way to tell whether or not to put an apostrophe in. And while most students are aware of the use of apostrophes in English, sometimes they become confused about whether a noun ending in -s should use one or not, that is, whether the noun is possessive or plural. Both, after all, have -s on the end!

If that's your problem, ask yourself this. Is the noun owning something (or being associated with it)? If so, it's possessive and you should add an apostrophe: Marcia's book, Cleopatra's asp, Greece's mountains. All these things (book, asp, mountains) are the possessions of (or in close relationship to) Marcia, Cleopatra and Greece. If, on the other hand, the
-s word is not in possession of the other thing, it's plural and does not require an apostrophe: the gods controlling Babylon, the rains in Spain, the punishments paid for sin.

So, it is worth memorizing these two simple rules:

1. If a noun owns something or is closely associated with it, it's possessive. Use an apostrophe. [Exception: pronoun forms like its, hers, whose, ours, yours, and theirs]
2. If not, it's plural. Don't use an apostrophe.

14. Present-Tense Verbs

The tense of the verb in a sentence reflects the time at which the action is set. In historical studies that is, by definition, in the past. The vast majority of verbs used in history papers are past-tense (e.g. came, saw, conquered). When the topic is literature, however, it's a different matter. The action which takes place in works of fiction exists in a timeless world. So, in describing characters or recapitulating the plots found in literature, it's best to use the present tense.

Here's how to construct tenses properly for both types of paper.

Literary References

When describing the action or characters in a work of literary fiction, use the present tense: "At the midpoint of The Odyssey, the hero Odysseus journeys to the realm of the dead." It's best in this case to use the present tense ("journeys"), because stories like Homer's epics exist in a timeless realm where they can happen over and over again each time we read them. The present tense highlights the vividness with which they re-occur whenever they pass through our minds and, because they're works of fiction, they can and do relive with every re-reading.

This isn't necessarily true of the authors themselves, however. Discussing Homer, not his epics, calls for the past tense, because he's dead and can't come to life the way his works can. So, when writing about the man, you should speak in the past tense ("Homer composed his epics spontaneously in performance"), in contrast to recapitulating the tales he told ("The theme of Achilles' anger runs throughout The Iliad.") or recording his activity as a narrator ("Homer narrates the death of Hector."). Thus, literary papers usually entail a balance of past-tense and present-tense verbs.

History References

Conversely, past-tense verbs should dominate history papers because the vividness of the present tense pertains less to the discussion of history than it does to literature. While it's possible to describe the historical past in the present tense, such a posture belongs more naturally to casual conversation than formal writing. That is, when a speaker is trying to make his account of something which happened in the past seem more real to a listener, he may use the present tense, saying, for instance, "So, yesterday I'm standing in line at this store and some man comes in and robs it!" Here, a past action ("yesterday") is being expressed in the present tense ("I'm standing," "comes," "robs"), with the speaker acting as if both he and the listeners were there when the event occurred.

The use of past tenses, on the other hand, makes it seem as if the speaker is more aloof and remote from what happened: "Yesterday I stood in line at a store and a man came in and robbed it." Because of the past tenses ("stood," "came," "robbed"), the speaker appears to care less about the past actions he's relating. Thus, to avoid the sense that they are neutral and unconcerned, speakers often use the present tense when relating a past action, since it lends the story a sense of being right there right then. After all, that's what the present tense is, by definition, "right here right now."

The problem with "right here right now" in writing assignments for a history class is the writer doesn't have to engage the reader in the story. The writing has the reader's full and undivided attention at all times, because I'm the reader and I'm totally involved—I guarantee it!—in whatever you have to say. Nor do you need to encourage me to see the past vividly. I do that naturally, because it's my job and I love it. So, for your writing assignments in a history course, please don't use the present tense, when describing the past. Use the past tense, instead.

The Past Tense

Furthermore, to the same extent that the present tense is unnecessary in this particular context, the past tense is helpful. By stating the facts of history rather coolly in the past tense you appear calm and collected, which, in turn, makes your judgment seem more sober and reasoned. You don't look excited or excitable, and that's a good thing for a historian who's trying to convince others to see the past a certain way. Arguments in this arena work better when they appear to come from cool heads.

Let's look at how this works. Say you're describing Charlemagne's troubles with his Saxon neighbors, and you compose your words in the following way, using the present tense:

"As a result, almost every year of his reign Charlemagne is forced to go and vanquish the Saxons yet again and has to re-Christianize them on the spot."

It's very vivid, isn't it, quite intense even? But it doesn't sound very critical or reasoned. Now, say you use the past tense:

"As a result, almost every year of his reign Charlemagne was forced to go and vanquish the Saxons yet again and had to re-Christianize them on the spot."

Less exciting, true, but it seems more composed, less agitated or swept away with passion—or bias. And that makes for more dispassionate and thus more persuasive historical writing. By appearing aloof, you're simply more likely to win over your readers, in this arena at least.

Mixing Past Tenses and Present Tenses

Including present-tense verbs in historical, academic prose can also lead to trouble when, as is inevitable, you must at some point revert to past-tense verbs. Here's what it sounds like when you mix present and past tenses:

"Almost every year of his reign Charlemagne is forced to go and vanquish the Saxons again and has to re-Christianize them on the spot. It was a serious problem and he never completely resolved it."

The contrast between the present-tense forms ("is forced," "has to re-Christianize") and past-tense forms ("was," "resolved") is something short of graceful. Moreover, to vacillate between these can be disconcerting to your readers. I mean, are we supposed to imagine we are right there alongside Charlemagne suffering his troubles, or viewing him from a safe historical distance and reflecting calmly upon his tribulations with the Saxons?

The answer is simple. If your paper is part of a historical study and you must by definition spend the majority of your time in the past tense, it's best just to stay there as much as possible. Whatever you do, try not to flip back and forth between past and present verb forms.

When the present tense is necessary in all types of formal writing

There are some notable exceptions to the rule of excluding present-tense verbs in academic prose. When modern scholars are drawing conclusions about the past, their words should be expressed in the present tense. Despite the fact that the data are taken from history, the opinion exists now and should be stated as such.

For example, while it's true that Caesar ruled long ago, the conclusions which current researchers infer from the surviving evidence about his life and reign are modern, living things. Thus, "Caesar's generalship leaves behind the impression of the right man at the right moment in history." In other words, if your point is that some thesis about the past exists today, state that opinion in the present tense: "This promotes the idea that . . ." or "Justinian's failures suggest that the internal disarray of the Byzantine Empire was his responsibility because . . ."

This applies not only to what we think, but also to what we see and how we see it. So, for instance, "The Bayeux Tapestry depicts William the Conqueror as having a fair and justified claim to the English throne . . ." or "The Magna Carta argues for the strong sense of feudalistic duty the English barons felt incumbent upon them . . ." It is also true of places which may have been the site of some important event in the past but still exist in the present, e.g. "The site of battle lies to the east of Rome." In sum, present-tense verbs are appropriate in historical argumentation, so long as the writer is discussing matters like geography or the current state of research, things that exist in the modern world.

Notes

1. Some irregular verbs, such as "to be" and "to have," have -s in their past-tense forms, but they are relatively few and should be automatic to native English speakers: she was, he has had (versus you were, they had). ↩