More on English usage

1
More on English usage

• For BDCOL Students

2
Plurality, Possessiveness, at al.

• Its means it is, while its means belongs to
  it. Its is not a word at all.
• The exploding Titan hurled its warhead farther
  than CINCSAC would have liked.
• Its easy to see how the F-15 got its nickname
  Rodan.
• The ABL program will be a fiasco unless its
  power problems can be solved.
• Its only a lot of reading if you do it.
• Similarly, there is no apostrophe in the
  possessives theirs, ours, hers, or yours.
• Yours, Mine, and Ours is not my favorite movie,
  but it is hers.
• As usual, the error was theirs, but we were
  blamed for it.
• Theres a subtle perfection in everything I do.
• Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, Theres no
  there there. I guess she never came here.
• Data, media and criteria are plural words (though
  treating data as singular gets more common all
  the time and is widely accepted now its so
  sad). One data point is a datum television or
  sand painting is a medium, and one of a set of
  criteria is a criterion.
• These data are presented in an unnecessarily
  confusing way.
• Force protection should not be the only
  criterion for judging military success.
• Their promotion criteria seemed mainly to
  involve alcohol tolerance and family influence.
• In effect, Schelling said that with nuclear
  weapons, the medium is the message.
• The media have blown my role in the food fight
  completely out of proportion.
• Lt. Cdr. Data is a medium, but Lt. Worf is an
  extra large.

3
More on plurals

• Plural nouns which end in s are made into
  possessive adjectives by adding an apostrophe.
  Singular nouns are normally made possessive by
  adding s, even if they already end in s (except
  for Jesus or ancient Greek or Roman names ending
  in -is or -es).
• He said he believed in states rights, but he
  was vague about what he meant by that.
• Strausss Also Sprach Zarathustra became one
  of Elviss trademarks.
• The AWACSs lack of defensive systems may be its
  Achilles heel.

4
Miscellaneous Pet Peeves

• To beg a question means to evade it or to pretend
  that it has already been answered, it does not
  mean to raise it. This is a very common error.
  To say someone is begging a question is a
  criticism.
• Focusing exclusively on target selection begs
  the question of why we are bombing at all.
• Your conclusions raise an interesting question
  would Linebacker II have worked in 1968?
• People do not try and do things, they try to do
  them. Try to remember this.
• The Pave Tack is down, so well have to try to
  bomb visually.
• Please try not to embarrass me in front of the
  IG team this time.
• If you really think that will work, try it, and
  well see what happens.

5
Feel and believe

• People feel emotions and sensations, they believe
  ideas and facts. At SAAS, you will often have
  occasion to write about what leaders and
  theorists believe, think, assert, maintain,
  argue, and predict, but rarely if ever will you
  need to discuss what they feel.
• Clausewitz believed that the defense was the
  strongest form of war.
• Stalin felt betrayed when Germany attacked,
  though it seems hard to believe.
• Napoleon felt ill on the day of Waterloo, but he
  expected that he would win anyway.
• I feel uneasy about my presentation. Will the
  general think it is worthless?

6
Reference

• Reference is not a verb! You do not reference
  things. Thats why the English language includes
  the time-tested and perfectly good word refer.
  (And try not to use evidence as a verb either.)
• For more information, refer to the specs in the
  technical manual.
• You may refer to the Dean as El Supremo, but
  address him as Your Magnificence.
• I cannot in good conscience write you a letter
  of reference.
• His frequent references to Spice Girls lyrics
  did not impress the Senate committee.

7
Impact

• Impact is a nice, chewy noun, but it makes a
  lousy verb except when referring to things like
  meteors, bombs, and wisdom teeth (and theres
  often a better choice even then). Interface is
  an occasionally useful noun that should almost
  never be used as a verb.
• The movie had a lasting impact on me, but it
  didnt influence my friends much at all.
• The impact of the crash destroyed the interface
  between the computers.
• The asteroid struck the Moon at a shallow angle,
  leaving an elongated impact crater.
• I asked her if she wanted to interface with me
  during the project, and she slapped me.
• Utilize is a non-word that you should never
  employ, its just a clumsy, three-syllable way of
  saying use (and the Air Force should be ashamed
  of ever having taught it to you).
• When the captain started talking about optimal
  asset utilization, we all tuned him out.
• Since you used the word utilize in your paper,
  you will have to rewrite it.

8
Often and nowadays

• Do not use the word oftentimes where often will
  suffice (which is pretty much everywhere), or say
  to include in place of including. If all the
  other officers jumped off a bridge, would you do
  it too?
• Air Force doctrine documents often include more
  bright colors than bright ideas.
• The CINC should be given greater authority,
  including the right to set his own ROE.
• BDCOL students LOVE the term nowadays for now
  or today.

9
Specialized Terms

• Scud is not an abbreviation, it is a NATO
  codename, like Fulcrum, Alamo, or Backfire.
  Therefore it should normally be italicized, not
  capitalized.
• The SS-1 Scud TEL is a lot cooler looking than
  the smaller FROG-7 launcher.
• It now appears that no Patriot ever actually
  intercepted a Scud warhead during the Gulf War.
• Russian exports of Flankers, SA-10s, and
  Kilo-class subs to China worry Taiwan.

10
Suffixes

• Postwar British military aircraft have names and
  alphanumeric suffixes, like Tornado GR.1.
  Theres also a Jaguar GR.1, a Harrier GR.1, and
  so on, so you cant just refer to a GR.1 unless
  the aircraft type is obvious from the context
  (its the same as calling an F/A-18D a D).
  Similarly, you usually shouldnt call a Mirage
  F-1 simply an F-1 the F-1 is a pointy
  Mitsubishi attack aircraft.

11
Semi-colon

• A semi-colon is used to separate related but
  complete sentences (or sometimes items in a long
  list). To separate a sentence from a related
  sentence fragment, you must use a colon or a
  comma instead.
• Someone once told me that if the engine says
  Pratt Whitney, the ejection seat better say
  Martin Baker suddenly I understood what he
  meant.
• Galtieri made one crucial strategic mistake
  underestimating Britains willingness to fight.
• The briefer finally got to the point, none too
  soon judging by the JFACCs expression.
• Ellipsis points (those three little dots that
  indicate a pause or mean you have left something
  out of a quotation) have spaces between them. So
  do consecutive initials in a persons name.
• Look at my throat . . . its as red as the
  Daily Worker and twice as sore.
• J. F. C. Fuller had three of everything,
  including Christian names.

12
Dashes

• An em dash () is longer than a hyphen (-). It
  can be written as two hyphens (--), or in Word
  you can make one with Insert Symbol or CTRLALT-
  (using the - key on the keypad) if AutoCorrect
  isnt doing the job. Dashes dont need spaces
  around them.
• The general looked at me--or, rather, through
  me--as she listened to my feeble explanation.
• They shot down every TBDbut to no avail, for
  the Dauntlesses had arrived overhead.

13
More Misuse of English learn the subjunctive!

• A term still violated constantly by every TV news
  writer in America May have means its possible
  that it did (or was) so, Im not sure. You
  should say might have if you mean if things had
  been different, it could have been so.
• That may have been the greatest mistake of my
  life, aside from volunteering for SAAS.
• Lowering the flaps may have made the
  differencewell know when we look at the tape.
• Lowering the flaps might have made a
  differencehe should have followed the checklist.
• If it werent for Chamberlain, the Confederates
  might have won the Battle of Gettysburg.
• They might not have died if the F-14A had real
  engines instead of TF30s.
• I guess it might have been better to have
  started drinking after my comps were done.