Write Right - Defence Academy of the United Kingdom

Some rules that aren’t really rulesYou will hear various ‘rules’ banded about by so-called experts inEnglish. Most of these are not really rules at all and really fall into thecategory of ‘advice to beginners’.And and ButAnd and But may be used to begin either a sentence or a paragraph.And why not? If we followed the ‘rule’ we would deprive ourselves of 2 ofthe most useful words for connecting sentences smoothly.ContractionsContractions (don't, wouldn't, it's) should be used sparingly. Contractionslend themselves best to an informal style of writing. But shunningcontractions completely in official writing can have the effect of making itappear ponderous and remote.Repeating wordsIt is both natural and good that we should try to avoid repeating the sameword too often and too closely together. But more important than varietyis clarity. By being over-concerned with finding new words to describethe same thing we can end up confusing our reader.Split infinitivesWhen another word comes between to and the verb (to boldly go, tocarefully consider), that is a split infinitive. Split infinitives used to beconsidered a cardinal sin in good English; but there are some instanceswhere they may be justified. He was asked to discreetly drop a hintwould have a different meaning if changed to He was discreetly asked todrop a hint.Tail-end prepositionsA preposition expresses the relationship of one word with another (of,for, below). Normally sentences should not end with prepositions.However, many sentences do naturally end in this way and often thepreposition needs to be at the end. She is the most suitable person I can40