Little words, big problems
By Doug Fisher
Maybe it's creeping "Foxification" – that staccato, drop-all-the-helping-verbs
style prevalent on the cable channel. But lately it seems we're casting
adrift two old friends of the language – "to" and "that."
Sentence: The prosecutor declined comment.
Q: "Sir, would you like a bit more comment?"
A: "No, I'm pretty full. Maybe just a sliver of obfuscation?"
This one seems to go in cycles, and in the latest zeal
to cut words, it looks to be headed for a periodic zenith.
Let's see if we can bring it back to Earth.
The correct form is declined to comment.
Declined can be a transitive or intransitive verb. When
transitive, it wants an object – comment. But you aren't saying
the person didn't want any more comment. You are saying, in effect, the
person declined to give any comment. Think of "to" as
the shortening of that gangly phrase and you'll get it right. Of course,
if you'd use the more conversational "would not comment," it
wouldn't be a problem.
(Dropping that "to" sends Microsoft Word's grammar checker into
suggesting the nonsensical "prosecutor-declined." Word is hardly
definitive, but if it's having a breakdown, it's a good bet something
is wrong with your sentence.)
Sentence: Lehman says it is proud of its role in helping provide credit
to consumers who might otherwise have been unable to buy a home.
Lehman can be proud of helping Jim or Jane or the Smiths
get credit. But the better phrase is helping to provide credit.
In addition to signaling the intransitive verb, the infinitive
provides a smoother read. In this, English is a bit idiomatic;
the past participle, helped, does
not seem to grate on the ear without the "to" (he helped
[to] raise the barn) as much as the present participle, helping, does.
While leaving to out of a sentence can leave a reader feeling
that something is slightly off-kilter, forgoing that can produce
momentary misunderstanding. Bryan Garner, one of the most cited observers
of modern English usage, calls it a "miscue." It's seldom good
because when readers pause to parse things, even momentarily, you risk
losing them.
These miscues most often stem from dropping that with verbs that
can be transitive or intransitive. Some of the more common
ones:
- Warned
- Concluded
- Decided
- Pointed out
- Added
Warned illustrates the problem:
Sentence: The prosecutor warned the inmate was a flight risk.
Did the prosecutor say to the inmate, "Warning, you're a flight risk," or
did the prosecutor turn to the judge and say, "Your honor, this person
is a flight risk"?
The first one has the prosecutor warning the inmate – the momentary
miscue. To get the prosecutor warning the judge, we again
need a signal that the verb is intransitive, and the conjunctive that serves
the purpose.
In this case, a paper got it right: The association denied that its
members are engaged in a job action.
The AP Stylebook lists other verbs it says usually need
the conjunctive "that": advocate, assert, contend, declare,
estimate, make clear, point out, propose and state. The key here is "usually." Many
can go either way depending on meaning, function and ear.
(For example: He asserted his claim to the gold/He asserted
that his claim to the gold was valid.)
Estimate seems the most likely candidate to drop "that": He
estimated 20,000 people were there does not seem likely to cause much confusion.
And, as I've written before, that should be used with "and" or "so" in
special cases:
- Where attribution leads the sentence
and controls all that follows: City leaders promised the work would be done
by Monday and that everything would return to normal.
- When you have a "clause of
purpose": She saved for years so that she could buy the brass bed. (The
late Wilson Follett called using that "unassailable" here,
but given our propensity toward elliptic writing, we
often drop it. At least don't use a comma.)
The hardest thing for some journalists, after years of
being told to excise these words from copy, may be learning
that these two short words are not our enemies.
