- Susan Weiner Investment Writing

Fewer subordinates, please

December 1, 2020/in grammar/by Susan Weiner, CFA

If you’re a boss, you may think the more subordinates you have, the better. But if those subordinates are subordinate clauses, too many subordinates will sap the power of your writing.

Subordinate clause defined

A subordinate clause—also known as a dependent clause—is “… a group of words that contains a subject and verb but does not express a complete thought,” according to the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL). As OWL notes, “A dependent clause cannot be a sentence.”

Subordinating conjunctions, such as “for, as, since, therefore, hence, consequently, though, due to, provided that, because, unless, once, while, when, whenever, where, wherever, before, and after” often alert you to the existence of a subordinate clause, says the Grammarly Blog’s discussion of subordinate clauses.

As Joe Moran says in First You Write a Sentence, “The subordinate clauses are servants to the main clause, and the sentence makes sense only when you have untied it all.”

The problem with subordinate clauses

Subordinate clauses are OK in moderation. But used to excess, they can exhaust the reader when they run on and on before the reader reaches the heart of the sentence.

As Moran says in First You Write a Sentence, “If the subordinate clauses extend into ten words or more, and become longer than the main clauses, reading them is a grind.” You’re asking a lot of your reader when you start with a long dependent clause.

Subordinate clause example

Here’s an example of a sentence that starts with a subordinate clause about Fed meetings. I use this example in my investment commentary webinar:

With only two more Fed meetings remaining in 2007 (on Oct. 31 and Dec. 11), the issue remains whether the Fed’s unexpectedly aggressive 50 basis point cut in the fed funds rate last week was intended to shock the markets to restore confidence or, they are concerned that the underlying economic conditions are worse than most of us think.

A more reader-friendly approach is to start your sentence with the main idea. Then, use a word like “and,” “but,” or “so” to add the information that you might otherwise have put in a subordinate clause. It’ll be easier for your reader to absorb your information when it’s presented in this order.

When I rewrote the sample sentence above about Fed policy. I dumped the subordinate clause, figuring the information in it wasn’t important enough to retain. I divided the rest of the content into three sentences. That left me with:

The meaning of the Fed’s half-percent cut in short-term interest rates is not clear. The Fed may have made this large cut to restore confidence. Or, the Fed may be worried that the economy is in worse shape than most of us think.

Want to learn how I got from the “before” to the “after” version of that sentence? Check out my investment commentary webinar. It’s available on demand.

Look for subordinate clauses in your writing. See if cutting them strengthens your prose. If you can’t cut them, move them so it’s easier for readers to grasp your meaning.

Disclosure: If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I provide links to books only when I believe they have value for my readers.

MISTAKE MONDAY for October 26: Can YOU spot what’s wrong?

October 26, 2020/2 Comments/in grammar/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Can you spot what’s wrong in the image below? Please post your answer as a comment. Oh, how could The Wall Street Journal miss this? Does the newspaper not employ proofreaders?

I post these challenges to raise awareness of the importance of proofreading.

MISTAKE MONDAY for July 27: Can YOU spot what’s wrong?

July 27, 2020/in grammar/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Can you spot what’s wrong in the image below? Please post your answer as a comment. Don’t feel bad if you don’t identify it immediately. I had to check my notes to catch this one, even though I’d spotted right away when I made this screenshot months ago.

I post these challenges to raise awareness of the importance of proofreading.

MISTAKE MONDAY for February 24: Can YOU spot what’s wrong?

February 24, 2020/2 Comments/in grammar/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Can you spot what’s wrong in the image below? Please post your answer as a comment.

Spellchecking wouldn’t catch this error.

I post these challenges to raise awareness of the importance of proofreading.

I feel bad, or do I?

February 18, 2020/in grammar, writing/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Which is correct—“I feel bad” or “I feel badly”—when asked “how do you feel?”

I know “bad” is an adjective and “badly” is an adverb. However, I wasn’t sure which was correct in this case. So, I was interested in the entry for “Bad, badly” in Theodore Bernstein’s The Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to English Usage. Would it clarify the conflict of bad vs. badly?

Bernstein’s take on bad vs. badly

Bernstein says “bad” is correct because “’Feel’ is a copulative verb, equivalent in meaning to ‘am,’ and therefore is followed by an adjectival form (bad), not an adverbial form (badly).”

Copulative verb? I don’t remember hearing that term before.

Garner’s take

I turned to Garner’s Modern American Usage for his take. Garner says, “When someone is sick or unhappy, that person feels bad—not badly. In this phrase, feel is a linking verb, which takes a predicate adjective instead of an adverb.”

Predicate adjective is another unfamiliar term. But, I’m relieved to find that Bernstein and Garner agree on “feel bad.”

Garner cites a number of cases where major newspapers incorrectly used “feel badly” instead of “feel bad.” So, if you sometimes use the wrong form, you have company. (However, if you ever read my Mistake Monday posts, you know that newspapers make plenty of mistakes.)

Garner’s “Language-Change Index” estimates that the incorrect use of “feel badly” is at Stage 2, in which “The form spreads to a significant fraction of the language community but remains unacceptable in standard usage.” (My copy of Garners dates back to 2009. The stage may have changed since then.)

Now, how do you feel?

Disclosure: If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I provide links to books only when I believe they have value for my readers.

MISTAKE MONDAY for October 28: Can YOU spot what’s wrong?

October 28, 2019/2 Comments/in grammar/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Can you spot what’s wrong in the image below? Please post your answer as a comment. This one may stump you.

I post these challenges to raise awareness of the importance of proofreading.

Contractions: Use or avoid in formal writing?

August 13, 2019/2 Comments/in grammar/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Are contractions good or bad in formal writing?

I’ve had several clients whose style guidelines don’t allow the use of contractions. For my part, I didn’t believe in contractions at the start of my investment writing career. That’s what I’d learned in my high school English classes. I remember “fixing” all of the contractions in a portfolio manager’s commentary when I worked at Batterymarch Financial Management. However, I am now a fan of contractions.

Style guides for contractions

I found a statement against avoiding contractions in Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style. Benjamin Dreyer says of the rule against contractions:

This may be a fine rule to observe if you learned English on your native Mars, but there’s not a goshdarn thing wrong with “don’t,” “can’t,” “wouldn’t,” and all the rest of them that people naturally use, and without them many a piece would turn out stilted and would turn out stilted and wooden… Contractions are why God invented the apostrophe, so make good use of both.

Bryan Garner agrees in Garner’s Modern American Usage. He says of contractions, “…why shouldn’t writers use them in most types of writing?”

Garner also says, “The common fear is that using contractions can make the writing seem breezy. For most of us, though, that risk is nil. What you gain should be a relaxed sincerity—not breeziness.” He cites several authorities on writing to support his opinion.

Style guides against contractions

The online AP Stylebook (subscription required) says, “Avoid excessive use of contractions. Contractions listed in the dictionary are acceptable, however, in informal contexts where they reflect the way a phrase commonly appears in speech or writing.”

The Grammar Bible says, “Contractions may be appropriate and expeditious in casual writing, but they are to be avoided in more formal documents.”

Both Dreyer and Garner warn against more casual contractions, such as “should’ve,” which Garner calls a “casualism.”

What do YOU think about contractions?

I’m sure you use contractions in your daily speech, and probably even in your blog posts. But what about a white paper? It depends on your firm’s style.

Disclosure: If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I link only to books in which I find some value for my blog’s readers.

MISTAKE MONDAY for August 12: Can YOU spot what’s wrong?

August 12, 2019/2 Comments/in grammar/by Susan Weiner, CFA

Can you spot what’s wrong in the image below? Please post your answer as a comment.

This mistake is too common.

I post these challenges to raise awareness of the importance of proofreading.

NOTE: As of September, Mistake Monday will only be published once a month, on the last Monday of the month (for example, Monday, Sept. 30). I hope that you’ll continue to test your proofreading skills on Mistake Mondays.