Every article I’ve read there has been awesome in its usefulness. (Cops aren’t big on theory. Theory can get you shot!) What got my attention, though, was his five-part series called “The Poor Man’s Polygraph:”

1. The Well… Technique
2. The Land of Is
3. Forced Response
4. Why Should I Believe You?
5. Parallel Lie

Short, to the point, extremely useful, easy to learn and implement. Go check it out!

The Poor Man’s Polygraph originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2011-01-14 (Friday).

The key thing about many of these items, and useful grammar and punctuation in general, is they’re not just fancy-schmancy rules. They are important rules that affect the meaning of what you say. I think most people would agree is an important component of communication–controlling the meaning of what you’re writing.

Some of them don’t affect meaning, but do make it easier and more pleasant for your readers. That means they’re more likely to read your email, spec, or marketing blurb, and thus get the information you’re trying to convey.

Here are the high points. She goes on to explain them (and beautifully, I might add) in the body of the article.

1. Use the word that is correct (the correct word, which helps your readers understand you, is always a good choice)
2. Wherever possible without sounding dorky, put only in front of the thing it applies to.
3. Keep your intransitive verbs off my body
4. Lay off using lie incorrectly
5. Dangling participles are as bad as you’ve heard.
6. Few and less and more (but is less more?)
7. Remember the comma.
8. Cut down on the parenthetical phrases
9. Forget you ever encountered ellipsis….unless you’re quoting a movie review…and leaving out the…bad parts…
10. Hyphenation is important.

(For what it’s worth, I disagree with her about the serial comma. I think it’s important to use it. There are times when it matters a great deal for sake of clarity, and in those times when it doesn’t matter, it does no harm. Good habits are good habits.)

Go read — and learn well! — the rest: Top Ten Useful Grammar and Punctuation Points I Learned as a Techwriter and in Life in General (and Three to Ignore)

Useful Grammar and Punctuation Points originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2010-07-10 (Saturday).

That IS a strong winter storm..

Behold… The World’s Funniest Typo! originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2010-07-7 (Wednesday).

O precious code, volume, tome,
Book, writing, compilation, work,
Attend the while I pen a pome,
A jest, a jape, a quip, a quirk.

To a Thesaurus originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2010-01-20 (Wednesday).

Your ability to make sense of Groucho’s words and Harpo’s pantomimes in an old Marx Brothers movie takes place in the same regions of your brain, says new research funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), one of the National Institutes of Health.

You can read the synopsis at Words, Gestures Are Translated by Same Brain Regions.

It Really Is Body Language originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2010-01-16 (Saturday).

In the spirit of a couple of recent posts on punctuation (the use of the comma and the apostrophe), I’d like to refer you to DumbLittleMan’s Guide to Colon Use.

The high points are the following nine, though there are a few more:

1. To introduce a list
2. To introduce direct speech
3. When showing an example
4. To offer a conclusion
5. To explain something more fully
6. To Introduce a subtitle
7. As a substitution for a conjunction
8. To link independent clauses
9. To Introduce a question

(Hey, I used one to introduce a list!)

Get the full story at The DumbLittleMan Guide to Colon Use.

The Proper Use of the Colon originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2010-01-15 (Friday).

Personally, I think it’s still too complicated. According to Michael D. C. Drout, professor of Linguistics at Wheaton College and author of several of my favorite Modern Scholar Series lectures from Recorded Books, the apostrophe’s job is to indicate that one or more letters are missing. When you understand that English used to have a dative case which was marked with the suffix “-es”, and that languages tend to “lose” the last unstressed vowel in a word over time, you understand why we tag possessives with “‘s” now.

For your amusement, check out Apostrophe Abuse.

End Apostrophe Abuse originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2009-11-13 (Friday).

That isn’t a slam on my co-workers, each of whom is a very intelligent person who communicates wonderfully in everyday informal speech. It’s just that my writing is better because I care more about it. My attitude is: if we want to be understood, we have to communicate clearly, even in writing; if we want to be taken seriously, we have to communicate clearly, even in writing; and if we want to think clearly, we have to communicate clearly, even in writing.

Even on Internet, where nobody knows you’re a dog, the way you present yourself and your language matters. It may matter even more online than in real life, because the way you use language is pretty much all you’ve got.

Consider this, too, while we’re at it: we’re NLPers. Neuro-Linguistic Programmers. As I’ve heard John Lavalle say, Linguistics is our middle name. If we’re going to call ourselves NLPers, we should pay attention to the L.

Today at Dumb Little Man, one of my favorite blogs, they posted an article on how to use the comma. There’s a great place to start. Here’s the list:

1. To glue two sentences together
2. To give additional information
3. Writing a series of three or more words or phrases
4. Non restrictive phrases
5. Demanding a pause
6. Setting off direct quotations
7. After conjunctive adverbs
8. Set off a direct address
9. Parenthetical phrases

For a fuller explanation and some good examples, go read The DumbLittleMan Guide to Comma Use.

Incidentally, here’s another good, albeit short, article from Dumb Little Man: Impress Your Clients, Boss and Colleagues: How To Improve Your Business Writing

As I come across more goodies like this, I intend to post them. If you’ve got a favorite article on the use of, say, semicolons, apostrophes, or quote marks, drop me a note in the comments.

Once and for all: how to use the comma originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2009-10-23 (Friday).

As Samuel Johnson once said, “I refute it thus!”

Thank you, Scott Adams.

Reframe away originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2009-09-26 (Saturday).

Thanks to a recent post on Language Log entitled Generalization and Truth, I’ve learned that the cited study is here: “The Mindlessness of Ostensibly Thoughtful Action: The Role of ‘Placebic’ Information in Interpersonal Interaction”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(6): 635-42, 1978.

I’ve also learned that the study didn’t exactly say what we’ve been told it says:

What I discovered was frequent misunderstanding of the 1978 paper’s results, involving both a different conclusion and a strikingly overgeneralized picture of the observed effects. Kahneman 2003 was merely the most prominent of these. So as part of my on-going exploration of scientific rhetoric…

For the details, go read Generalization and Truth at Language Log.

Can I make some copies? Maybe. originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2009-05-3 (Sunday).

Dr Sulzberger has found that the best way to learn a language is through frequent exposure to its sound patterns – even if you haven’t a clue what it all means.

“However crazy it might sound, just listening to the language, even though you don’t understand it, is critical. A lot of language teachers may not accept that,” he says.

Now, people who are good at learning languages have long said that immersion makes a massive difference, but they’ve never talked about why that’s the case. Dr. Sulzberger asserts that aural exposure to the language actually changes the brain, re-wiring it to understand what is being said:

Dr Sulzberger’s research challenges existing language learning theory. His main hypothesis is that simply listening to a new language sets up the structures in the brain required to learn the words.

“Neural tissue required to learn and understand a new language will develop automatically from simple exposure to the language—which is how babies learn their first language,” Dr Sulzberger says.

It’s an interesting idea, and it makes a lot of sense to me. You can read the rest of the article here.

And in the spirit of this snippet from the article:

“Teachers should recognise the importance of extensive aural exposure to a language. One hour a day of studying French text in a classroom is not enough—but an extra hour listening to it on the iPod would make a huge difference,” Dr Sulzberger says.

…by way of Lifehacker, here is a master list of free online language lessons.

A Revolutionary Approach to Learning Languages originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2009-04-5 (Sunday).

Dinosaurs and Metaphors originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2009-03-10 (Tuesday).

People confess to crimes they don’t commit. They do it a lot. What’s interesting about this research is that confessions—whether false or true—corrupt other eyewitnesses…

Yep. People will believe someone’s confession over their own experience.

How can we put this to work?

Schneier on Security: Confessions Corrupt Eyewitnesses

Confessions Corrupt Eyewitnesses originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2009-02-4 (Wednesday).

I have what may be good news. I just bought a copy from NLP Comprehensive’s online store. In an online chat with a CSR, I learned that they have more copies. $35 plus shipping.

The reason I say it may be good news is that I made the mistake of telling them how difficult it is to get copies of this book. The CSR, “Sharon”, said she’d have to check to make sure their stock was not “on hold for anybody”. So get Advanced Language Patterns Mastery while you can!

A Pointer to a Hard-To-Find Book originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2008-12-12 (Friday).

Skydiver Dies in Second Fatal Jump at Virginia Airport in 2 Months

Are you, like I was, wondering what happened to him in his first fatal jump? Or how he managed to make a second fatal jump?

I had to read the article to make sense of it.

I think they do that on purpose.

Ouch… Wait… What? originally appeared on NLPhilia Blog on 2008-11-5 (Wednesday).