A Word Please

June Casagrande If you're like most people, you worry that your grammar isn't good enough and that one day it will embarrass you. And, if you're like most people who read this column, you know that I'm on a lifelong mission to eradicate this worry.

It's not that I consider grammar unimportant. On the contrary. To me, it's very important. I just think that worrying about potential embarrassment is not the most constructive approach.

For one thing, most grammar fears are unnecessary. You can spend all day worrying that you don't fully understand the subjunctive yet still get it right by saying, "I wish I were taller."

But the biggest reason not to fear grammar embarrassment is that the very people who would ridicule you often have no idea what they're talking about.

To demonstrate, I did a Google search for the words "my biggest grammar peeve." It produced just 15 hits, which is encouraging news in and of itself. But the content of these hits is even more encouraging.

Here's the first one: "My biggest grammar peeve, however, is the use of the terms 'the fact that' and 'the fact of the matter is.'" The writer cites Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style," which commands, "omit unnecessary words." But the writer made a serious error: This issue has nothing to do with grammar.

A sentence can be as verbose as the day is long and still be perfectly grammatical. I would also point out, as I have before, that Strunk and White's book is not a list of universal rules.

It's a century-old classroom guide. So just because William Strunk Jr. told his Cornell students to omit unnecessary words doesn't mean it's a rule that applies to you and me.

Here's the next peeve on our hit list: "My biggest grammar peeve? Irregardless (THAT IS NOT A WORD!)" Personally, I hate "irregardless." It's the ugly love child of "regardless" and "irrespective" and has a power like few other words to make its users look bad.

But that doesn't mean it's not a word. "American Heritage Dictionary" and others list it as a "nonstandard" form of "regardless." It may be an icky word, but it's a word nonetheless.

Our third peeve is better: "My biggest grammar peeve is mixing up 'affect and effect." This is a good one to know. Affect is usually a verb, "Caffeine doesn't affect me." Effect is usually a noun, "Coffee has some side effects." But beware. There is a verb form that begins with an E and a noun form that begins with A.

The verb "effect" means "to bring about": "The candidates say they will effect positive change." The noun "affect" means, according to "American Heritage Dictionary," "feeling or emotion, especially as manifested by facial expression or body language."

Peeve number four also contains some good-to-know information: "Fewer and fewer people actually use the word 'fewer' any more. They all say 'less.'"

Some dictionaries will tell you that "less" can now mean "fewer." But the traditional distinction is still followed by many and therefore good to know. It is, use "less" for singular things and use "fewer" for plural things.

So you have less milk, less money, less respect, less beer and less soda but you have fewer cartons of milk, fewer dollars, fewer admirers, fewer beers and fewer sodas. There's some gray area, too. For example, "John walks less than four miles to work." Here the plural "miles" is really meant to describe a single distance. So "less" is better.

And with that, I hope you have fewer reasons to worry about your grammar.

-- June Casagrande is author of "Mortal Syntax: 101 Language Choices That Will Get You Clobbered by the Gram mar Snobs -- Even If You're Right." She can be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.