Grammar is great. You should learn the basics of good grammar and stick to them.  It’s not that hard. Just remember that grammar is supposed to add clarity to your communication. Not confusion. So if it comes to a choice between clear communication and “correct” communication, always choose clarity – even if you have to break a grammar rule now and then. Here are three rules that are very breakable. I’ll explain why.

1. Feel free to boldly split infinitives.

Infinitives are action words with a to in front of them. To dance. To write. To listen. To go. Word nerds used to teach that, to be grammatically correct, you should never insert a word between the to and the verb after it. Some still believe this. Gene Roddenberry wasn’t convinced. His Star Trek series immortalized the most famous split infinitive of all: “To boldly go where no man has gone before.” And his split infinitive was absolutely acceptable. Over a decade ago, the New Oxford Dictionary of English declared the no split infinitives rule to be a fallacy.

So where did the spilt infinitives myth start? It all goes back to classical Latin. In Latin, an infinitive is one word, not two (e.g., the Latin word meaning to write is scribere), so it’s impossible to split a Latin infinitive. Grammar gurus back in the 1700s decided that, if Latin infinitives couldn’t be split, then English ones shouldn’t be. Now we know better.

2. Ending a sentence with a preposition is nothing to worry about.

Prepositions are words such as about, in, at, over, by, under, for, through, or between. They tell you the position of one thing in relation to another. “The phone is on the table.” The meeting ends at noon. Now you can see why prepositions are called prepositions – they’re in the “pre-position” of their object; they come before it.

In English, however, a preposition can sit all alone at the end of a sentence with no word coming after it. For example, “Next time you’re in the area, feel free to stop by.” It’s perfectly okay to the end the sentence with by. I suppose you could even end your sentence with two prepositions, “Feel free to boldly stop by, where no man has stopped by before.“

So, where did people get the idea that you couldn’t end a sentence with a preposition? You guessed it. Latin. For reasons that would take too long to explain, the preposition thing is important in Latin. And since academics of old considered Latin to be the ideal language, they thought the same rule should apply to English. They were wrong.

There is, however, one thing you should know before you start slinging prepositions all over the place. Never use a preposition if it isn’t needed. For example, “Where’s the meeting at?” The at is completely unnecessary. The sentence would be much cleaner and just as meaningful if it simply asked, “Where’s the meeting?” If you don’t need a preposition, take it out.

3. Is it even okay to use sentence fragments? Yes.

It’s even acceptable to use the occasional sentence fragment. Like this one. You just don’t want to overdo it. A real sentence is a complete thought with a subject and a verb. “Dogs bark.” That’s a sentence. Fragments are pieces of sentences. “Woof!” Fragments are used to answer questions or to add emphasis. They work best when they’re conversational and natural. I like them, because they break up the rhythm of your writing and can provide relief after a long, wordy sentence.

Finally, just remember that your grammar and style should always fit the occasion. Suits and ties for weddings. T-shirts and shorts for a day at the lake. Classical grammar for formal proposals. Jazz for advertising copy. Overall, the best business writing is both professional and conversational. So, stick to the fundamentals of good grammar, but make sure your wording is easy on the ear.

I completely empathize with anyone who struggles over the uses of affect and effect – words that sound the same, but aren’t. I gained my empathy for the spelling confused by traveling to England for a couple of weeks. The weeks turned into months and the months eventually added up to nine years. This was long enough for me to marry a lovely English rose, begin my professional life as writer, and become nearly fluent in a second language (British English). But the experience completely wrecked my spelling.

On losing my ability to spell.

Working as an advertising copywriter in an English ad agency, I had to learn British spelling and grammar. When I finally moved back to the States with my lovely English rose, the spelling troubles began in earnest. Now I was an American, working for an American ad agency, but writing like an Englishman. I couldn’t remember which words and usages were British and which were American. Sure, the obvious ones were easy: center is American…centre is British. But to this day, I still get hopelessly confused over spellings such as traveling and travelling. (If you’re wondering, one “l” is American, and two are British – I just looked it up.)

All this transatlantic confusion has given me heartfelt compassion for anyone who struggles with words that sound the same, but mean different things. One of the most frustrating examples for most people is affect and effect. So, I thought I should give you an easy way to remember which is which.

Affect or effect? Which should it be?

To figure out when to use affect and when to use effect, all you have to do is remember these two phrases: “Affect acts,” and “Effect ends.”

Affect acts.
Affect is an action word…a verb. It does stuff. It makes an impact. It acts. Here’s an example: “The new hiring freeze affects every department in our company.”

Effect ends.
Effect is a thing…a noun. It usually means the end result. “We’re already seeing the effects of the new hiring freeze in our department?”

So, affect acts, and effect ends.
Make sense? Here’s another example:

The new design will affect production.
(The new design will do something…it will act.)

Faster production will be the effect of the new design.
(Faster production is the effect of the new design…it’s the end, the result.)

That’s it. Affect acts, and effect is the end result. The aa and ee make this easy to remember. Here’s one more example so you can make sure you’ve got it:

Your suggestion is affecting sales positively.
(The suggestion is acting…it’s doing something. It’s affecting sales.)

Your suggestion is having a positive effect on sales.
(What’s the end result of the suggestion? A good effect.)

Are there any exceptions to this rule?
Sadly, yes, there are exceptions to everything. However, with affect and effect, the exceptions are fairly rare. I’ll explain them here for those of you who really want to know. But if you have something more important to do, you can stop reading now. Thanks and goodbye.

Now, for anyone still reading, here are the two main exceptions:

1. Effect can sometimes be used as a verb. In business writing, the one example you run into most often is the phrase, to effect change. “The new manager effected major changes in our department.” In business writing, if effect is used as a verb, it’s almost always paired together with the word change.
2. And yes, affect can be used as a noun, but only if you’re a psychologist talking about your client’s display of emotions. “Her inappropriate affect worried the doctor.”

This is really is all you need to know about affect and effect for everyday business writing. I hope these tips will have a positive affect effect on your future writing.

The I/me mix-up. You hear it a lot these days. People are in a hurry. They’re talking fast. So they mix up words like “I” and “me”. It’s easily done. But when it pops up in your writing, you’ve got a problem. Word mix-ups distract your readers. It’s like showing up at the office wearing one black sock and one white sock. You may have something important to say, but no one’s listening because they’re all staring at your feet. Thankfully, there’s a very easy way to avoid the I/me thing without having to memorize a lot of complicated grammar rules.

Remember your substitute teacher.
At 3000messages, we’ve spoken before about using a “substitute teacher” to answer grammar questions. The idea is to substitute one word for another. Instead of memorizing a grammar rule, you try swapping out words. This works very well when you can’t decide whether to use “I” or “me”, ”he” or “him”, ”she” or “her”.

Most people have problems with these words when two or more of them are together in the same sentence. A good example of this is the question: “What’s wrong with him and I?” How do you know if this sentence is correct? Use your substitute teacher.

1. Start with your original sentence: “What’s wrong with him and I?”

2. Take one person out of the sentence. Now it reads: “What’s wrong with him?”

3. Okay, that sounds good.

4. Now try the same sentence with the other person taken out: “What’s wrong with I?”

5. Yuck. The sentence sounds really weird. Nobody says, “What’s wrong with I?” They say, “What’s wrong with me?”

6. This means the sentence should read: “What’s wrong with him and me?”

See what happened?
You decided not to say “What’s wrong with him and I?” simply because you would never say, “What’s wrong with I?” All you had to do was try the sentence with some words taken out. (You didn’t have to know that the pronoun is in the objective case, not the nominative case, because it’s the object of the preposition. Whew!)

Here’s another quick example, just to make sure you’ve got it.

1. Start with the sentence: “Her and Sanjay will be at the meeting.“

2. Take out one of the people, and you’ve got: “Her will be at the meeting.”

3. This sounds wrong. So you change it to: “She will be at the meeting.”

4. Now put the other person back in: “She and Sanjay will be at the meeting.”

5. Perfect. Your mother would be proud.

That’s it. Now you know what’s wrong with him and I.

It’s a common mistake. And even though MS Word seems to correct it automatically, it still pops up in a lot of places (but not alot of places). Fortunately, there’s a very easy way to remember what to do about it. When you can’t decide whether to use “a lot” or “alot”, use your substitute teacher. Here’s what I mean….

Instead of saying “Thanks a lot”, substitute the word “lot” with another word. You could say, “Thanks a bunch” or “Thanks a million.” Get the idea? You would never write “Thanks abunch” or “Thanks amillion.” So never write “Thanks alot.” Actually, the whole substitute idea is extremely helpful with all kinds of grammar questions. I call it, “The Substitute Teacher”. And I’ll show you more ways to use it in future blog postings.