Inhibit Vs Prohibit

Greg Landretti asks:

How about “inhibit” versus “prohibit”?

The first definition of inhibit in the OED gives “prohibit” as a synonym:

inhibit: trans. To forbid, prohibit, interdict (a person)

Several of the illustrations show inhibit being used where a modern writer would probably use prohibit. Here’s one:

By expresse words he was inhibited to beare armes without his own frontiers.

prohibit: trans. To forbid (an action, event, commodity, etc.) by a command, statute, law, or other authority

Perhaps owing to the influence of the psychology term inhibition, current usage usually associates inhibit with internal control and prohibit with external control.

inhibition: Psychol. A voluntary or involuntary restraint or check that prevents the direct expression of an instinctive impulse; also colloq., in looser use, an inner hindrance to conduct or activity.

Scientists fear that libel ruling will inhibit debate.

Most dogs need to learn to control or inhibit their behavior.

B.C. Government Says it Will Prohibit Mining in the Flathead.

New Hampshire Bill HB 1301 will prohibit no-fault divorce for parents with minor children.

The ability to inhibit one’s desires and impulses is an essential and desirable social skill. In some contexts, however, the word inhibited conveys a negative state, while uninhibited is seen as positive.

I find myself wishing I were not so inhibited.

The people from South Africa are known for the wonderful, uninhibited way in which they express their joy and happiness in life.

It was not until the twentieth century that freedom of the press came to be understood as guaranteeing an “uninhibited, robust and wide-open” public discourse.

sumber

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tips menulis: Is "into" after "invade" really necessary?

My ears pricked up when I heard the local weatherman say that rain was expected to “invade into the River Valley.”
Why, I wondered, hadn’t he said that rain was expected to “invade the River Valley? The verb invade includes the sense of “into.”

invade: transitive verb. to enter in a hostile manner, or with armed force; to make an inroad or hostile incursion into.

The word derives from Latin invadere “go into, fall upon”
As a transitive verb, invade takes a direct object:

[There was a] French plan to invade Britain in the 18th century
Stink bugs expected to invade W. Va. homes this fall

Invade may be used intransitively:

If they [aliens] invaded I think that they would pacify every part of the planet …
What’ll we do when they invade?

The OED lists a construction that uses on, upon, or into after invade, but doesn’t illustrate the use more recently than 1814.
The construction to invade upon someone’s privacy has the familiar ring of custom, but the construction “invade into” sounds like careless writing.
Here are some examples of the “invade into” construction in which the sentences would be made stronger by dropping the “into.”

Brazilian pepper constantly trying to invade into Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary
[Should] media invade into celebrities private life or not?
Why can’t Canada sometime try to invade into the USA?
You will learn basic techniques on how to invade into others’ dreams
When computers started to invade into the field of training,

This use of the unnecessary “into” seems to be especially common in medical writing:

individual malignant cells can invade into the stroma
Per cell, more mites invade into shorter and narrower cells
Tumors arising from adjacent organs can also invade into the bladder
the bacterial cells that adhere to and invade into cancer cells. …
cancer occurs when a tumor has the potential to invade into a different tissue

In each of these examples, the word intrude would seem to be a better choice, and one that works comfortably with “into.”
I suppose that a writer might see some stylistic reason for adding the “into” after invade, but in most cases, invade is all you need.

sumber

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Tips menulis Novel: What's yout Novel's Log Line

The term log line (also spelled log-line and logline) is usually associated with movies, but the wise novelist will learn how to write one.

In the context of writing (as opposed to measuring a ship’s rate of speed), a log line is the succinct summary of a story. According to the Wikipedia article,

The log line first came into use and was recognized as a separate form during the old studio days of Hollywood. The studios had script vaults in which they stored screenplays. Readers wrote a concise one line summary of what the script was about either on the cover of the script, on the spine of the script, or both. The log line on the spine of the script allowed people to read the log lines of scripts that were stacked without having to unstack them.

Some of the examples of log lines given on various sites are “movie tags” rather than true log lines. The difference is that a movie tag is an advertising hook used to intrigue a viewer, while a log line is a selling tool intended to persuade an agent or producer to read a manuscript.

Here are two movie tags I found offered as “good examples of log lines”:

To enter the mind of a killer she must challenge the mind of a madman. – The Silence of the Lambs
On every street in every city, there’s a nobody who dreams of being a somebody. – Taxi Driver

An effective log line will contain these three essential elements:

the main character
what the main character wants
what must be overcome for the character to succeed

In other words, an effective log line will include protagonist, goal, and antagonistic force

These log lines from the Internet Movie Data Base meet these criteria better than the examples of the same movies given above:

A young FBI cadet must confide in an incarcerated and manipulative killer to receive his help on catching another serial killer who skins his victims. – The Silence of the Lambs
A mentally unstable Vietnam war veteran works as nighttime taxi driver in a city whose perceived decadence and sleaze feeds his urge to violently lash out, attempting to save a teenage prostitute in the process. -Taxi Driver

But even these log lines are less than effective as selling tools.

Both state the protagonist. The one for The Silence of the Lambs also states the protagonist’s goal, but it fails to include the antagonistic force: the killer’s hypnotic influence on her mind. The one for Taxi Driver states neither the protagonist’s goal nor the antagonistic force.

The most important element of any story is the protagonist’s goal. Once the main character has a goal, the story ensues from the obstacles that come between the protagonist and that goal.

Screenwriters are advised to write the log line before writing the script. That’s probably good advice for the novelist as well.

If you need a log line to serve as a starting point for a novel, or just want a little amusement, check out Brian Stokes’s Random Log-line Generator.

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Word Count and Book Length

A novelist of my acquaintance insists that the only way to estimate the number of words in a book is to multiply the number of pages by 250.

That was the formula in the good old days when Courier was the only typeface and typewriters were King.

Now we have computers and word processing software. It’s no longer necessary to estimate according to the 250-words-per-page formula. All we have to do is use the WP tool that shows Word Count.

Publishers want to know the overall length of your book. An approximate word count (round numbers) based on what your WP tells you enables them to estimate costs and other factors involved in printing a book.

Novels for adult readers fall between 80,000 and 120,000 words. A novel of 50,000 would be the absolute minimum for some genres and, unless you are Ken Follett or some other established author, you should view 100,000 as the maximum. (Yes, exceptions for a first novel can be found, but writers who depend upon being The Exception are handicapping themselves unnecessarily.)

Every genre has its own length preferences. Novels intended for the adult market will be longer than those targeted at children and young adults. A young adult novel will run between 20,000 and 40,000 words. In terms of adult mainstream fiction, that length would be considered a novella.

TIP: Don’t compose your novel with skinny margins, single-spacing and some off-the-wall font and then make formatting changes when you’re ready to market the completed manuscript.

Draft your novel in standard format from the start:

12-point Times Roman or 12-point Courier.
Double-spacing
Margins set to 1-inch all round
Indented paragraphs

NOTE: Don’t put extra spacing between paragraphs unless your intention is to indicate a shift of viewpoint or passage of time.

When you are ready to approach an agent or a publisher, study their guidelines carefully and submit your work exactly according to their preferences.

sumber

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Emblezzlement, Peculation, and Connotation

In a previous DWT post, Michael argues that there’s no such thing as a true synonym because a word’s connotation always colors its denotation.

Commenting on the article, a reader refuted Michael’s argument with the words peculation and embezzlement:

I have found one [an exception], and i dont know why it exists. Peculation; definition is “embezzlement” in other words peculation means embezzle embezzlement etc..so thus embezzlement and peculation are of identical meanings. Which makes no sense to me.

Technically, the words do mean the same thing: “taking money that belongs to someone else.” However, there is a useful distinction that many writers observe.

Embezzlement is used for the sneaky crime of a private citizen, while peculation applies to the act of misappropriation of money and contracts by persons in high places. Embezzlement is a crime against an employer; peculation is a betrayal of the public trust.

Ex-Macon teller pleads guilty in embezzlement
2 ex-Fort Peck employees guilty of embezzlement

every one of [the government] ministers has helped in tile work and is guilty of peculation on a gigantic scale…

The second governorship of Clive was marked by … the enforcement of stringent regulations against the besetting sin of peculation.

Although the connotations of many words are the same for large numbers of readers, personal associations can color the way a listener or reader reacts to a given word. For example, for most people the word mother probably carries positive connotations of warmth and nurturing. For the child of an abusive or mentally-ill woman, however, the feelings stirred by the word mother might be negative. Apart from such personal associations, words acquire connotations for us as we encounter them in our reading.

Vocabulary acquired from wide reading brings connotation along with denotation.

denotation: The meaning or signification of a term.

connotation: That which is implied in a word in addition to its essential or primary meaning.

A failing of present day education is the practice of teaching vocabulary chiefly by means of word lists or “vocabulary books.” Vocabulary lists should be used for review; children can best acquire a lasting vocabulary by reading books like Treasure Island and A Tale of Two Cities. A sense of the connotation of words is developed by reading the words in a variety of contexts.

sumber

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Explaining the Explanation Regarding "THAN HE"

My post about the use of than as a preposition left a reader wondering about some of the grammatical terms used in the explanation:

I’m…a bit unsure about the terms ‘demonstrative pronoun’, ‘conjunction’ and ‘preposition’ in this context. Could you please explain this a little more?

The terms being asked about are from this statement:

The OED has listings for than as a demonstrative pronoun and as a conjunction, but not as a preposition. However, it does include a note about the use of than as a preposition and states that this use “is now considered incorrect.”

demonstrative pronoun

English has four demonstrative pronouns: this, that, these, and those. Like any pronoun, a demonstrative pronoun stands for a noun. At the same time, it serves to point out or separate the noun it stands for from other objects:
This is the one I meant.
Those are yours.
May I have these?
Give me that!

The OED entry for than as a “demonstrative pronoun” documents an obsolete use in which than was used where we now use that.

preposition

English has many prepositions. They are those little words that show a connection of some sort between a noun that follows it and another word in the sentence:
That is the pen of my aunt. The preposition of relates “aunt” to “pen,” indicating ownership.
The cat sat on the mat. The preposition on relates “mat” to “sat,” indicating a spatial relationship.

The noun that follows a preposition is said to be “governed” by it.
I sat by my father. The noun “father” is governed by the preposition “by.”

When the word governed is a pronoun, the pronoun will be in the objective case: I sat by him. Him is the object form of he.

conjunction

Conjunctions are used to connect clauses or sentences:
You may go with your friends after you have finished your homework. After is a conjunction introducing the second clause which tells “when” about the verb may go in the main clause.

Conjunctions are used to co-ordinate words in the same clause:
Take your books and your papers. And joins book and papers, words of equal importance.

The conjunction than is used to introduce comparative clauses. The problem in the “than he/than him” controversy is that the second clause often remains unexpressed:
Charlie is taller than I.
You are kinder than he.

English speakers of a certain age have learned to provide the missing clause mentally:
Charlie is taller than I [am tall].
You are kinder than he [is kind].

Reader Rob Baker defends the use of the object form “him” after “than” in certain contexts:

Sometimes “than him” is correct:
She likes Johnny Depp more than he (does).
She likes Johnny Depp more than him (more than she likes him).

This is a valid defense of “than him.” However, the “correctness” of the second example depends entirely upon context. The speaker’s meaning of the “him” would be clear enough in conversation, but in writing, it would be ambiguous. It would also sound like nonstandard English.

Another reader, Gloson, offers this suggestion:

Just don’t use “than he” or “than him”. Simply just use “than he is”.

This is sound advice. In writing especially, if a few extra words are needed to make one’s meaning clear, why not use them? For example, the ambiguity of “She likes Johnny Depp better than him,” can be avoided by being specific: She likes Johnny Depp better than she likes Orlando Bloom.

The fact that this is my second post to include a discussion of “than he” vs “than him” should be a clue that this distinction is in the process of breaking down. Until than/him becomes universally acceptable, writers are wise to consider their audience before following the conjunction than with an object pronoun.

SUMBER

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Tips Menulis: Taller Than He

A reader questions the use of “than him” in the following statement:

From 1970 on, his secretary Marie-José Gros-Dubois, twenty years younger than him, was faithfully near his side.

Asks the reader,

Is this correct?—or should it say “twenty years younger than he”?

Whether “than him” is correct or not depends upon whether than is seen as a preposition or a conjunction.

Since I cannot think of than as anything but a conjunction, the use of “than him” in this sentence strikes me as non-standard.

The OED has listings for than as a demonstrative pronoun and as a conjunction, but not as a preposition. However, it does include a note about the use of than as a preposition and states that this use “is now considered incorrect.”

Merriam-Webster, however, defends the use of than as a preposition.

[than as a preposition is] used by speakers on all educational levels and by many reputable writers with the objective case form of the following pronoun when the first term in the comparison is the subject of a verb or the predicative complement after a copulative verb though disapproved by some grammarians except in the phrase than whom

Bottom line: If you’re writing for a British audience, don’t ever write “than him.” If you’re writing for an American audience, think twice about it. Written English is more conservative than spoken English. Speakers who think nothing of saying “She’s taller than me” in conversation may still cringe to see it in print.

sumber: Taller Than He

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