grammar – A Pretty Taste for Paradox

lanas-aphrontistery:

quazza:

i am reminded that english is a flawed language every time I am forced to use “that that” in a sentence

All the good faith that I had had had had no effect on the outcome of that sentence

today on Writer’s Corner With Mica, we have ReedPop regretting the necessity of respecting my wishes. HEY @ REED EXHIBITIONS, just because you think a word looks fancy doesn’t mean you’re using it correctly. “We regret that you no longer wish to receive email from us, but we respect your wishes” is what you were going for.

Regrettably, the clause that follows “regrettably” is the bad thing that is to be regretted, not the clause preceding it. See this example, courtesy of vocabulary.com:

“Regrettably, few weapons in the history of warfare, once created, have gone unused,” Lynn said. (Forbes)

tonight on Writer’s Corner With Mica, I just discovered that my hand lotion is free of parabens, sulfates, vegans, and cruelty

tonight on writer’s corner with mica, we have a fun word mixup– ADVERSE vs AVERSE:
what’s wrong with this picture?
“I am rather adverse to the idea of giving up the pastime entirely, as I am sure you know.”

you guessed it! that should be averse, not adverse. ‘Adverse’ is something negative that HAPPENS whereas ‘averse’ is something a person can BE.
an easy way to remember it is if you can substitute “bad” in your sentence, you mean “adverse” (“examine the experiment’s adverse effects”/“examine the experiment’s bad effects”), but if you can substitute “opposed”, you mean “averse” (“she was averse to the idea of hunting”/“she was opposed to the idea of hunting”).

….actually tbh although ‘adverse’ is great and useful, ‘averse’ sounds awkward in almost any sentence, even used perfectly (unless it’s used in its weird hyphenated form (“risk-averse” is the most common usage)). Normally I’m all for promoting English’s less commonplace words but…. imo skip averse unless you’re doing a period piece. And even then use sparingly.

tonight’s writing tip: using “deign”

what NOT to do (courtesy of an otherwise decent fanfic):
“He must have come home, but I had yet to be deigned with his presence.”

a person (subject) deigns (condescends), but a person (object) cannot BE deigned, and deign takes the preposition “to” (never “with”)

our example, when corrected, becomes the much more graceful:
“He must have come home, but as yet had not deigned to grace me with his presence.”