Nominalizations

When we change an adjective, an adverb, or a verb into a noun, we make a nominalization, as in the following examples:

1) The student succeeded.
2) The student had success.

3) She will jog this afternoon.
4) She will go for a jog this afternoon.

5) The President and Prime Minister met at 15:00 and signed the documents.
6) The President and Prime Minister had a meeting at 15:00 and put their signatures on the documents.

In the first, third, and fifth sentences, "succeeded," "will jog," "met," and "signed" are the verbs.  In the second, fourth, and sixth sentences, "had," "will go," "had," and "put" are the verbs.  The actions "success," "jog," "meeting," and "signatures" become items or things.

While short sentences like the previous examples may not be difficult to understand, sentences with nominalizations often obscure meaning in two ways.  First, they tend to be longer.  You will notice that sentences 1, 3, and 5 are shorter than 2, 4, and 6.  Second, nominalizations move the action one step further away from the agent who acts, as Joseph Williams effectively illustrates by nominalizing a children's story (verbs in italics; actions hiding in nouns underlined):

Once upon a time, as a walk through the woods was taking place on the part of Little Red Riding Hood, the Wolf’s jump out from behind a tree occurred, causing fright in Little Red Riding Hood. 

We naturally would tell that story in this manner.

Once upon a time, Little Red Riding Hood was walking through the woods when the Wolf jumped out from behind a tree and frightened her.

The point is that readers usually expect subjects and verbs to be next to each other, the former a flesh and blood character, the later an action; readers can more readily envision an agent acting when his or her action is a specific verb rather than hidden in a noun (i.e. "met" instead of "have (a meeting)," "sign" instead of "put (a signature)," etc.).

Nominalizations are not always bad; however, you need to be aware of which ones are helpful and which ones simply lengthen your sentences.  We have many common nominalizations that readers readily understand:

nominalization	verb
analysis	analyze
abortion	abort
evolution	evolve
decision	decide
question	question
conclusion	conclude
failure	fail

Resources

Helen Sword from the New York Times did a great piece on nominalizations, calling them Zombie Nouns. Lessons 3 and 4 in Joseph Williams' Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace are excellent resources.  Claremont has a handy PDF.

should have + past participle

We use should have + the past participle (eaten, taken, gone, been, seen, walked, etc.) to express regret over a past action or to illustrate that an action that occurred was the wrong one. 

“The football game was great.  Manchester City dominated for whole game, but they lost.  They should have won,” said Tom.

“I didn’t see the game,” replied Paul. “I had tickets, but I gave them away.  I should have gone.”

“Yes, you should have.  I lost my voice from singing with the crowd: I shouldn’t have sung so loudly, but I couldn’t help myself.”

A usage that I have been hearing and seeing more and more frequently is “should have + simple past”—which is incorrect:

I should have went to the game. (incorrect)

I should have gone to the game. (correct)

You should have saw that movie. (incorrect)

You should have seen that movie. (correct)

He should not have ate that final piece of pizza. (incorrect)

He should not have eaten that final piece of pizza. (correct)

Remember that “should (not) have” must always be followed by a past participle.  Here is a list of some commonly confused past participles:

verb	past simple	past participle
arise	arose	arisen
awake	awoke	awoken
be	was/were	been
become	became	become
begin	began	begun
blow	blew	blown
break	broke	broken
choose	chose	chosen
do	did	done
drink	drank	drunk
eat	ate	eaten
fall	fell	fallen
forbid	forbade	forbidden
forget	forgot	forgotten
forgive	forgave	forgiven
give	gave	given
go	went	gone
grow	grew	grown
hide	hid	hidden
know	knew	known
run	ran	run
see	saw	seen
show	showed	shown
sing	sang	sung
steal	stole	stolen
swear	swore	sworn
tear	tore	torn
write	wrote	written

Resources

The Grammar in Use series by Cambridge University Press has numerous exercises for most grammatical problems (Unit 32 in Grammar in Use by Raymond Murphy and Roann Altman addresses the modal “should” in its various forms); the series runs from Basic to Advanced, so it can help with most problems.

Commas with Restrictive and Non-restrictive Clauses

“Who” is a relative pronoun that refers to people: “who” replaces a person’s name (e.g. Peter, Paul, Mary), a person as represented by a common noun (e.g. my doctor, our friend, an astronaut), or people as represented by a pronoun (e.g. he, she, they).  “Who” can begin both restrictive and non-restrictive clauses—groups of words that provide more information about the person whom “who” has replaced. 

Restrictive clauses provide essential information, information that is essential to the sentence and could not be removed without drastically changing the sense of the sentence.  Non-restrictive clauses provide additional information, information that could be removed and the sentence would not lose much sense.  Restrictive clauses do not need commas; non-restrictive clauses do.  The following examples show the difference.

Restrictive clause: The person who used to be the principal at my high school is now the principal at my son’s school.

If we removed “who used to be the principal at my high school” from the sentence, our readers might not understand it. For instance, “The person is now the principal at my son’s school” would leave readers wondering about the identity of “the person.” “Who used to be the principal at my high school” is therefore essential because it specifies the person for the readers.  Because the clause with “who” is essential to the sentence, we do not put commas around it.

Non-restrictive clause: Joe Peterson, who used to be the principal at my high school, is now the principal at my son’s school.

If we removed “who used to be the principal at my high school” from the sentence, our readers would still understand it:  “Joe Peterson is now the principal at my son’s school” still makes sense. “Who used to be the principal at my high school” only tells us a bit more about Joe Paterson.  Because the clause with “who” is non-essential to the sentence, we put commas around it.  (Think about non-restrictive clauses as parenthetical asides.)

Though the next two examples may appear to be identical, the commas make a significant difference when we think about them relative to the previous examples:

My wife who is 34 years old works in the Marine Biology Department.

My wife, who is 34 years old, works in the Marine Biology Department.

If “who is 34 years old” is essential to the sentence (as in the first example), I would appear to be a polygamist: in many cultures, I can only legally have one wife.  The sense of the sentence is that I have at least two wives; one of them is 34 years old.  It is more likely that “who is 34 years old” is only additional information about my one wife, and the clause should therefore be placed in commas (as in the second example).

References

Hacker, Diana.  A Writer’s Reference.  5^th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s: 2003.

Honegger, Mark.  English Grammar for Writing.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin: 2005.

Sabin, William A. and Sheila A. O`Neill.  The Gregg Reference Manual: Third Canadian Edition. Toronto: Magraw-Hill Ryerson, 1986.

Epistrophe

Epistrophe is a rhetorical and poetic effect where a word or phrase is repeated at the end of successive phrases, clauses, sentences, or lines.  Epistrophe can occur in prose or in verse.  1 Corinthians has a rather well-known example:

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I away childish things.  (1 Cor. 13:11)

The result is an emphasis on "(as) a child," which will then juxtapose sharply with "as a man." 

Epistrophe occurs frequently in verse, as here three different times in Act 2, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's Richard III:

Children: Oh for our father, for our dear lord Clarence!

Duch. of York: Alas for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!

Q. Eliz.: What stay had I but Edward? and he's gone.

Children: What stay had we but Clarence? and he's gone.

Duch. of York: What stays had I but they? and they are gone.

Q. Eliz.: Was never widow had so dear a loss!

Children: Were never orphans had so dear a loss!  (2.2.72-78) 

In this stichomythia, these line ends seem like lamenting refrains for the evil that Richard has visited upon these characters.

Numerals or Words?

When should you spell numbers and when should you use numerals?  The answer depends on the style guide that you use.

The Chicago Manual of Style calls for numbers between one and one hundred to be spelled:

In nontechnical contexts, the following are spelled out: whole numbers from one through one hundred, round numbers, and any number beginning a sentence.  For other numbers, numerals are used. (9.3)

The MLA Handbook states that in pieces of writing that infrequently use numbers (i.e. the Humanities), numbers that are either one or two words should be spelled and numbers of three or more words should be in numerals:

One, thirty-six, ninety-nine, one hundred, fifteen hundred, two thousand, three million, but 2½, 101, 137, 1,275. (3.5.2)

In more scientifically based papers, MLA requires writers to represent any number followed by a technical unit of measurement as a numeral: “16 amperes, 5 millimeters” (3.5.2).

The general rule for APA is to use words for numbers zero to ten, but numerals for numbers ten or greater: 11, 200, 5000 (4.30).

Works Cited

The Chicago Manual of Style. 15^th ed. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2003.

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 7^th ed.  New York: MLA, 2009.

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. 6^th ed.  Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2009.