Write for Business - Blog

Lend means "to give or allow the use of temporarily"; borrow means "to obtain or receive for temporary use."

At Thursday's meeting, Rob asked to borrow a copy of the new manual. Laura was happy to lend it.

(From Write for Business, page 234, and Proofreader's Guide PDF, page 46)

The tense of a verb indicates when the action is taking place or when the condition exists.

Present Tense
Present tense indicates action that is happening at the present time or that happens continually.

More people work in the service industry than in any other industry.

Past Tense
Past tense indicates action that was completed in the past.

In the early twentieth century, heavy industry employed most of the workforce.

Note: Usually the past tense of a verb is formed by adding ed; however, many irregular verbs do not follow this pattern.

Future Tense
Future tense indicates action that will take place in the future.

Many workers wonder how social security will handle baby-boomer retirees.

(From Write for Business, page 246, and Proofreader's Guide PDF, page 58)

Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night;
God said "Let Newton be" and all was light.
- Alexander Pope

It did not last: the devil, shouting "Ho.
Let Einstein be," restored the status quo.
- J. C. Squire

Sir Isaac Newton was a genius. Faced with the problem of predicting a cannonball's trajectory, he invented calculus. At least, that's the way my college math prof told the story. From that starting point, Newton presented civilization with a clockwork image of the universe that saw God in His heaven and everything right with the world below.

Then Einstein came along, pointed out some gravitational anomalies involving Mercury's orbit around the Sun, and mucked things all up. Sure, he offered a unified theory to account for much of it, something to do with time stretching or compressing near the speed of light, but the image he offered of the universe is much murkier. And that's the one we're now having to live with.

Wired magazine's April 19 article "Breaking Things Down to Particles Blinds Scientists to Big Picture" presents another example of this dichotomy between learning by disassembly and by grasping at enormity. In that essay, Jonah Lehrer mentions science philosopher Karl Popper, from whom the "clocks and clouds" distinction is borrowed.

That distinction reminds me of another classification system - the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) - specifically it's Sensing/Intuition category. Another old college prof characterized the difference between those poles by describing a twenty-minute assignment to study his lecture hall. The pure "Intuitors," he said, would be back ten minutes early with a general description of the building's shape, size, color, and "mood." The pure "Sensors," he continued, would lose track of time altogether while counting the number of rows of bricks, how many bricks in each row, the mineral composition of each brick, and so on.

Which brings me to a new realization about approaches to writing and to teaching writing. Like Newton, clockmakers, and MBTI Sensors, some people look to grammar as building blocks, hoping to promote better writing by focusing on mechanics. Others, like Einstein, Lehrer, and MBTI Intuitors, envision writing as a fuzzy process, in which meaning is perpetually teased out by discovery.

Happily, Popper presents the world as both clocks and clouds, not either/or. For most purposes - such as carpentry - Newtonian physics is just fine. For a Mars mission, however, gravitational effects on time itself make more advanced mathematics essential. Similarly, writing can be improved quite a lot just by review of grammar and spelling. But larger, weightier topics require a messy immersion in some fogginess before anything begins to become clear.

Here's hoping that I've not left things too foggy in this blog post. As always, comments are welcome.

- Lester Smith

Voice of a verb indicates whether the subject acts or is acted upon.

Active Voice
Active voice means that the subject acts or does something.

The partners talked all afternoon.

Passive Voice
Passive voice means that the subject is acted upon. (Passive verbs always begin with a form of"be" - am, are, is, was, were, be, being, been, etc.)

Many topics were discussed.

FYI
In most cases, using active voice instead of passive voice will make your writing more direct, lively, and engaging. Reserve passive voice for special types of writing.

(From Write for Business, page 246, and Proofreader's Guide PDF, page 58)

Leave means "to depart from" or "to let something remain behind." Let means "to permit or allow."

Leave your work at the office. Don't let it ruin your weekend.

(From Write for Business, page 234, and Proofreader's Guide PDF, page 46)