As we round out 2015, my next posts will give you another crack at improving a few sentences selected from the past year. Good luck with your review test.
1. If your going to consume a record amount of hors d’oeuvres, maybe you should lay off of the desserts.
2. I hope you can manage in the office next week with Betsy and I both going to Cincinnati at the same time.
3. The principal reason I held a meeting with the Marketing staff was because we need a new liason with Channel 7.
The answers haven’t changed
1. If your going to consume a record amount of hors d’oeuvres, maybe you should lay off of the desserts.
A. “Your” is wrong, of course. We want the contraction “you’re.”
B. The hors d’oeuvres are individual items we can count, so the correct word is “number,” not “amount.”
C. The preposition “of” is clutter after “off” – just as it almost always is after “inside” and “outside” (http://bit.ly/1K8U).
D. “Hors d’oeuvres” was a decoy; it’s spelled correctly. Award yourself bonus points if you knew that.
If you’re going to consume a record number of hors d’oeuvres, maybe you should lay off the desserts.
2. I hope you can manage in the office next week with Betsy and I both going to Cincinnati at the same time.
A. Yes, it would be “Betsy and I” in “Betsy and I are going,” but here we want “Betsy and me.” “With” is setting up a prepositional phrase, and “me” is an object of the preposition. (You don’t need to be a grammar whiz to get this right; just decide which sounds better: “with I” or “with me.” Bingo.)
B. Watch out for the redundancy of using “both” and “same” together, as in “We both went to the same high school.” Then just work out which one you want to remove.
I hope you can manage in the office next week with Betsy and me both going to Cincinnati (or with Betsy and me going to Cincinnati at the same time).
3. The principal reason I held a meeting with the Marketing staff was because we need a new liason with Channel 7.
A. “Principal” is a decoy. The “-al” ending is correct when we mean “main” or “chief.”
B. Watch out for the fat phrase “held a meeting.” Just say “met.”
C. No need for the initial cap in “Marketing.” It’s not the full name of the department; it’s functioning as an adjective.
D. Watch out for the “reason … because” redundancy. Use one or the other. (Opting for “because” is usually shorter: The reason I tapped Ann was her overall attitude. I tapped Ann because of her overall attitude.)
E. “Liaison” is misspelled.
F. The initial cap in “Channel 7” was a decoy. It’s right because that’s the official name, along with the station’s call letters.
I met with the marketing staff principally because we need a new liaison with Channel 7.
In addition to presenting workshops on writing in the workplace, Norm is a writer, editor, and writing coach. His 100+ Instant Writing Tips is a brief “non-textbook” to help individuals overcome common writing errors and write with more finesse and impact. Learn more at http://www.normfriedman.com/index.shtml.