Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
grammar, word from wooden letters
‘Common sense should come into it, and so too aesthetics. Think of how the prose flows. If a sentence is long and inelegant, change it.’ Photograph: Anna Berkut/Alamy
‘Common sense should come into it, and so too aesthetics. Think of how the prose flows. If a sentence is long and inelegant, change it.’ Photograph: Anna Berkut/Alamy

‘Different from’ is correct and ‘iconic’ is meaningless: what I know after two decades as a subeditor

This article is more than 2 years old
Susan McDonald

When it comes to grammar, everyone has a pet peeve – and it’s not just nerdy nitpicking. Let us know in the comments what yours are

After more than two decades as a subeditor, I know language is alchemy and there’s no exact prescription for good writing. But I also know grammar is central. Meaning can turn on a single word or punctuation mark and a little fine-tuning can prevent ambiguity and inconsistency. Just read this sentence and tell me grammar doesn’t matter:

After being whipped fiercely, the cook boiled the egg.

Almost everyone has a grammatical pet peeve, and commas attract a lot of attention. When they’re needed, they’re essential – compare “I’m sorry I love you” and “I’m sorry, I love you”. But haphazard or unwarranted commas can be distracting and even misleading.

Jonathan Franzen wrote a whole essay on the “irritating, lazy mannerism” of comma-then, as in: “He dims the lamp and opens the window, then pulls the body inside.” I sympathise but I’m personally more irritated by comma-but and comma-too.

The Guardian style guide is clear on the Oxford comma (comma-and in a list); it’s definitely not needed in “he ate ham, eggs and chips”, although an essential distinction between these two sentences:

I dedicate this book to my parents, Martin Amis, and JK Rowling.

I dedicate this book to my parents, Martin Amis and JK Rowling.

But I give punctuation champion Lynne Truss the last word: “Don’t use commas like a stupid person. I mean it.”

On non-comma matters, F Scott Fitzgerald thought the exclamation mark was “like laughing at your own joke” and should be done away with, and Milan Kundera claimed he once left a publisher for trying to change his semicolons to full-stops. (I’m a big fan of the semicolon; it encourages the reader to linger a little longer on the thought before it.)

And Proust cringed at cliches: “It’s quite true that the sun is on fire at sunset, but it’s been said too often.”

Some of my personal bugbears come up more regularly than others.

“Compared to” is different from “compared with”. Use the first if you want to liken one thing to another, the second to contrast.

And that reminds me: in my book “different from” is correct, “different to” and “different than” are not.

“Who” and “whom” are both needed but not interchangeable. The same goes for less/fewer, like/such as and imply/infer.

And there’s a simple rule for “that” v “which”: if the sentence needs the (restrictive) clause the word is connecting it to, use “that”, otherwise use “which”. (Some of the grammarati point to an irregular restrictive “which” that can replace “that” but I’m yet to be convinced.)

If all of this sounds like so much nerdy nitpicking, I concede some arcane rules are just begging to be bent, although I would still argue you have to have a good reason.

The Guardian says it’s fine to split infinitives because “stubbornly to resist so can sound pompous and awkward”. Ditto on ending a sentence with a preposition. And while strictly plural, “data” can take a singular verb, as in “data shows”, because how often do you come across “datum” anyway?

Common sense should come into it, and so too aesthetics. Think of how the prose flows. If a sentence is long and inelegant, change it. Sometimes I use an en dash or even parentheses to break up a string of commas. And don’t dangle a verb at the end of the sentence, far from its subject. “How high will emissions from the project proposed for the northern region and the existing plants in the south and west be?” is just ungainly.

Words should sound right too. If you’re torn over whether the possessive of James takes a second S after the apostrophe – James’s – say it out loud. To quote Joan Didion, grammar is “a piano played by ear”.

Some words have lost their meaning from overuse. I once edited out three appearances of “iconic” on a single day; “unforgettable”, “infamous” and “emblematic” stepped in admirably.

Others become unusable if they’re loaded with an agenda. Politicisation is dangerous. As Orwell said: “If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”

Language matters. It matters how laws and treaties are written, and whether coal is “phased out” or “phased down”. It matters that news is truthful and that literature inspires.

Language reflects – and can even define – who we are. So a little respect, please, for its rules.

Susan McDonald is a news producer for Guardian Australia and a freelance writer

Most viewed

Most viewed