16 Substitutes for “Because” or “Because Of”

 

Many words or phrases can be used to set up an explanation. The most common is because (or “because of”), but others have their uses. Here are alternatives and a discussion of their uses and their merits.

1. As: As is a direct synonym for because (for example, “He opted not to go see the movie, as it had gotten poor reviews”), but it’s inferior.

2. As a result of: This phrase is a substitute for “because of,” not because, as in “As a result of his intervention, the case was reopened and they were ultimately exonerated.”

3. As long as: This informal equivalent of because is used to express the thought that given that one thing is occurring or will occur or is true, another is possible, in such statements as “As long as you’re going, could you pick some things up for me?”

4. Being as (or being as how or being that): This phrase has the same sense -- and the same formality -- as “as long as.”

5. Considering that: This phrase is essentially identical in meaning to “as long as” and “being as” and its variants.

6. Due to: Like “as a result of,” “due to” is a preposition, rather than a conjunction like because, and is used in place not of because alone but instead of “because of.” It applies specifically to an explanation of why something occurred or will or will not occur, as in “Due to the large number of applications, we cannot respond individually to each applicant.”

7. For: This substitute for because is reserved for poetic usage, as in “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

8. Inasmuch as: This phrase is a very formal equivalent of because, as in “Inasmuch as his account has been discredited, I wouldn’t believe anything else he says.”

9. In view of the fact that: This phrase is identical in sense to “inasmuch as.”

10. Now that: This phrase informally connotes cause and effect, as in “Now that you’re here, we can proceed.”

11. Out of: This phrase applies to explanations of emotion or feeling -- for example, “She asked out of compassion” or “Out of spite, I refrained from passing the message along.”

12. Owing to: This phrase is equivalent to “due to”; the two choices are more formal than “because of.”

13. Seeing that: This phrase is identical to “considering that.”

14. Since: This alternative to because is informal and is considered inferior because since primarily refers to elapsed time and the usage might be confused, as in “Since it had rained, we didn’t need to water the garden”; the reader might not realize until reading the second half of the sentence that the sense is causal rather than temporal.

15. Thanks to: This equivalent of “because of,” despite the wording, can apply to either a positive or a negative outcome; “Thanks to your meddling, we’re receiving much unwanted attention” demonstrates the latter sense.

16. Through: Through is a preposition; it takes the place of “because of,” as in “Through the efforts of these charities, the city’s homeless services have been reinstated.”

 

From: Daily Writing Tips If you would like a subscription to Daily Writing Tips please go to https://www.dailywritingtips.com/pro/?r=nal

15 Clichés To Avoid With a Ten-Foot Pole

Trite, hackneyed, tired — there are plenty of words to describe an overuse of clichés in your writing or speech. While they can be an easy way to express yourself, more often than not they're a crutch, a sign of linguistic laziness. Start digging deeper into your vocabulary and leave these 15 clichés behind.

What Is a Cliché and Why Is It So Bad?

A cliché is a phrase that has been beaten to death (that's a cliché). Because it’s been so overused, any significant meaning it may have had has been lost. Instead of adding color and interest to your writing, you often wind up sounding corny.

If you’re writing about how scrappy entrepreneurs are achieving success, that message was lost the minute you wrote “survival of the fittest.” Charles Darwin sounded original in his theory of evolution; you just sound clichéd.

How To Avoid Clichés

Words are powerful. But clichés are so overused they have lost authority. Unfortunately, clichés are so ubiquitous that you may not even realize when they sneak into your writing.

The best way to cut clichés out of your vocabulary is to proofread, proofread, and proofread again. Take a break and get away from your work before you take one last pass to remove clichés. Even better, ask someone to edit your work. An editor who isn’t too emotionally close to your prose can eliminate your clichés.

Removing clichés will tighten up your writing and make your work more specific and descriptive. Avoid flowery descriptions and instead strive to make your writing more accessible.

Pull out a thesaurus to find good alternatives. Instead of “in this day and age,” just say “today.” Avoid “pros and cons” and try a descriptor specific to your argument — maybe "assets and liabilities" or “costs and benefits” instead.

The hardest part about cutting clichés is they are so widely known they just fall off the tip of your tongue (cliché). If you spot any of these phrases in your writing, pull out your red pen (another cliché).

Writing on the wall

Whirlwind tour

Patience of Job

Never a dull moment

Sands of time

Paying the piper

March of history

Hook, line, and sinker

Long arm of the law

In the nick of time

Leave no stone unturned

Fall on deaf ears

Cool as a cucumber

Cry over spilled milk

Champing at the bit

Photo credit: Ananth Pai/ Unsplash

 

The Rule of Adjective Order

The rule of adjective order refers to the order in which adjectives are placed in a sentence. In other words, if you have more than one adjective describing a noun, this rule determines which adjective you should put first, second, third, etc.

As a note, some grammarians include “determiner” at the beginning of this list, but we’re excluding it because determiners are not really adjectives. Determiners are the articles or other limiters that start off the adjective list — things like a, an, the, our, my, etc.

1. Quantity or number — four, five, many, few

Quantity or number is as simple as it sounds. If there's an amount, it goes first. This is usually the easiest to identify.

2. Opinion — pretty, lovely, gross, boring, amazing, hard

Opinions are also called observations. They are adjectives that someone might consider biased. You may look at a painting and find it beautiful, but someone else might consider it ugly. A task that you find to be easy might be difficult for another.

3. Size — huge, small, mammoth, 5 feet tall, 36 inches wide

Size can be a judgment call, or it can also be a concrete, measurable descriptor. Whether or not it involves a number, size is tertiary in adjective order.

4. Shape — triangular, oblong, circular, straight

A shape adjective describes the physical configuration of something. It may refer to an actual shape or the general description of an object.

5. Age — five-year, 12-minute, young, antique, mature, modern, old

An age adjective tells you how old or young something or someone is. It can be a specific number or a general descriptor.

6. Color — purple, marigold, black, pale, sparkly

This one’s pretty obvious as well. It can be one of your standard ROYGBIV colors, or it can be a description of the quality of the color, such as "bright" or "translucent."

7. Origin — French, Italian, Martian, suburban

An origin adjective describes the source of something. Where did the noun come from? Generally this shows up as a proper noun, but it could be something like "rural" or "urban."

8. Material — gold, wooden, polyester, silk, plastic

Material refers to what the noun is physically made of. This can get a bit confusing if you're using a word like "gold," which could be a color or a material, or both.

9. Purpose — cooking, cleaning, hammering, sleeping

This is the last adjective in the order and is often considered part of the noun. It usually references what the item is used for and often ends in “-ing.” Think about a "roasting pan" or a "sleeping bag" or a "curling iron." This final adjective could also be a noun in an adjective form, such as a "coffee mug" or a "flower vase."

 

10 Varieties of Linguistic Siamese Twins

 

One of the most intriguing aspects of idiomatic phrases is their fixed nature, an aspect acknowledged in two terms for the class of idioms distinguished by the use of the conjunction and or the conjunction or between the constituent words: irreversible binomials and freezes. (They are also referred to as binomials or binomial pairs, or are identified by the colloquial expression “Siamese twins.”)

Ten sometimes overlapping variations of linguistic Siamese twins (which, because they are often clichés, should be used with caution) follow, including a category for triplets:

1. Binomials connected with and include “alive and well,” “nuts and bolts,” and “skin and bone.”

2. Binomials connected with or include “give or take,” “more or less,” and “win or lose.”

3. Binomials connected with other words include “dawn till dusk,” “front to back,” “head over heels.”

4. Binomials that contain opposites or antonyms include “days and nights,” “high or low,” and “up and down.”

5. Binomials that contain related words or synonyms include “house and home,” “leaps and bounds,” and “prim and proper.”

6. Binomials that contain alliteration include “friend or foe,” “rant and rave,” and “tried and true.”

7. Binomials that contain numbers include “four or five” -- note that the linguistic convention is to always state the lower number first (a figurative idiom is this category is “at sixes and sevens,” meaning “in a confused state”)

8. Binomials that contain similar-sounding words: “doom and gloom,” “out and about,” and “wear and tear.” This category includes rhyming slang, in which a word or phrase is slang code for a word that rhymes with the second binomial term in the phrase (even though only the first binomial term may constitute the slang) and is either random, as in minces, from “mince pies,” for eyes, or suggestive, as in trouble, from “trouble and strife,” for wife.

9. Binomials that contain exact or near repetition include “dog eat dog,” “kill or be killed,” or “neck and neck.”

10. Trinomials, which contain three terms, include “blood, sweat, and tears,” “left, right, and center,” and “win, lose, and draw.”

Take care, when using these clichés, to reproduce them correctly (unless you are deliberately -- and obviously -- distorting them for emphatic or humorous effect, as when referring to fashionably ripped jeans as “tear and wear”) so that erroneous usage does not have a negative impact on your overall message.

From: Daily Writing Tips

Transitive and Intransitive Verbs—What’s the Difference?

A verb can be described as transitive or intransitive based on whether it requires an object to express a complete thought or not. A transitive verb is one that only makes sense if it exerts its action on an object. An intransitive verb will make sense without one. Some verbs may be used both ways.

The word transitive often makes people think of transit, which leads to the mistaken assumption that the terms transitive and intransitive are just fancy ways of describing action and nonaction. But these terms have nothing to do with whether a verb is active or not. A better word to associate when you see transitive is transfer. A transitive verb needs to transfer its action to something or someone—an object. In essence, transitive means “to affect something else.”

Once you have this concept committed to memory, spotting the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs is quite easy.

How to Identify a Transitive Verb

Transitive verbs are not just verbs that can take an object; they demand objects. Without an object to affect, the sentence that a transitive verb inhabits will not seem complete.

Please bring coffee.

In this sentence, the verb bring is transitive; its object is coffee, the thing that is being brought. Without an object of some kind, this verb cannot function.

Please bring.

Bring what, or who? The question begs itself because the meaning of bring demands it.

Here are some more examples of transitive verbs and their objects.

The girls carry water to their village.

Juan threw the ball.

Could you phone the neighbors?

I caught a cold.

She loves rainbows.

Lila conveyed the message.

Each of the verbs in these sentences have objects that complete the verbs’ actions. If the objects were taken out, the results would be illogical and questions would be raised in the mind of the reader; for example, Lila conveyed. Conveyed what?

How to Identify an Intransitive Verb

An intransitive verb is the opposite of a transitive verb: it does not require an object to act upon.

They jumped.

The dog ran.

She sang.

A light was shining.

None of these verbs require an object for the sentence to make sense, and all of them can end a sentence. Some imperative forms of verbs can even make comprehensible one-word sentences.

Run!

Sing!

A number of English verbs can only be intransitive; that is, they will never make sense paired with an object. Two examples of intransitive-only verbs are arrive and die. You can’t arrive something, and you certainly can’t die something; it is impossible for an object to follow these verbs.

Transitive or Intransitive? Some Verbs Can Be Both

Many verbs can be classified as both transitive and intransitive depending on how they are used in a sentence.

Urged by the others, she sang.

She sang the national anthem at the hockey game.

After he cleaned up, he left.

He left the gift on the table.

To decide whether the verb is being used transitively or intransitively, all you need to do is determine whether the verb has an object. Does she sing something? Does he leave something? The verb is only transitive when the answer is yes.

When in doubt, look it up. In the dictionary, verbs will be listed as transitive, intransitive, or both right under the pronunciation key, and any possible differences in meaning between the two uses will be given as well.

Phrasal Verbs and Transitivity

Phrasal verbs can also be classified as transitive or intransitive.

Cindy has decided to give up sweets while she diets.

I hope Cindy doesn’t give up.

Give up is just one of many phrasal verbs that can be transitive or intransitive. Whether give up has an object or not will alter the meaning it conveys. The first sense of give up means “to forgo something,” whereas the second sense means “to stop trying.”

If we refuse to learn about transitivity, the Grammar Police will blow up our building.

When the Grammar Police confronted her about her verbs, she blew up.

The first sense of to blow up means to explode, whereas the second sense means “to express rage.”

Transitive or intransitive is just one of the many classifications a verb can have. Perhaps you will be inspired to read about more about the fascinating qualities of verbs.

 From:

Grammarly

Catherine Traffis

Basics

Three Cases of Complicated Parenthetical Punctuation

Inserting additional information into a sentence without careful consideration of sentence organization can create barriers to comprehension, especially when the parenthesis is complicated. Here are several sentences in which complex parenthetical phrases are not treated with care, followed by discussion and revision.
1. Consumers have the right to speak out or complain, and to seek compensation—payment or a replacement item—or redress—have a wrong corrected.
Here, the use of dashes to set off a pair of parenthetical phrases confuses the reader’s eye; use mirror-image parenthetical marks instead for a clearer picture of the sentence’s syntactical organization: “Consumers have the right to speak out or complain, and to seek compensation (payment or a replacement item) or redress (have a wrong corrected).”
2. They had an unwavering belief that they simply could not—or maybe more accurately stated, would not—be defeated.
Because “maybe more accurately stated” is a parenthesis within a parenthesis, a comma must precede as well as follow it: “They had an unwavering belief that they simply could not—or, maybe more accurately stated, would not—be defeated.”
3. If thorough controls are not in place, over time, as updates and changes are made to your environment, conflicts are likely to arise, posing varying levels of risk to your business and ultimately forcing you to revisit your design.
The number of commas in this sentence is excessive; when the phrase “over time” and the rest of the parenthetical phrase (ending with environment) is transposed, the comma between them becomes extraneous and the sentence structure is clearer: “If thorough controls are not in place, as updates and changes are made to your environment over time, conflicts are likely to arise, posing varying levels of risk to your business and ultimately forcing you to revisit your design.”

From: Daily Writing Tips

Neither... or?

From: Daily Writing Tips

Because I was taught a long time ago that either is used with or, and neither is used with nor, constructions like these bother me:

“Neither Mrs Thatcher or I, would have any time for the sisterhood approach” says Ann Widdecombe
No further details have been released, and neither Kim or Kanye have mentioned any engagement on Twitter.

Even though this is a rule of which I am absolutely certain, I did my usual warm-up research before writing about the errors in these quotations. I discovered that not everyone who writes about usage agrees on the immutability of this rule.
First I looked up neither in the OED. There I found an entry for neither...or. All it says is:

Numerous grammarians from the mid-18th century onwards criticize the use of or rather than nor as ungrammatical and improper.”

This note is followed by twelve examples of the use of neither...or from 1395 to 1997.
Next stop, Merriam-Webster:

neither: used as a function word before two or more words, phrases, or clauses joined by nor or sometimes by or...

In addition to allowing or in the regular definition, M-W gives a further nod to the neither...or usage in a note:

Although use with or is neither archaic nor wrong, the conjunction neither is usually followed by nor.

Leaving the dictionaries, I looked in at the Columbia Journalism Review where I found an article by Merrill Perlman which quotes various authorities and concludes with a litany of contradictory advice as to what is correct or incorrect usage with neither certain to leave any reader confused.
So, is “neither...or” all right to use? No, not in modern usage.
People who have the leisure and inclination to argue about such things are free to do so. Those who just want to write inoffensive standard English are advised to go with the conventional rule that either is used with or and neither is used with nor.
You don’t have to take my word for it:

If two or more particular things or people are being mentioned, neither is followed by nor, not by or...--Penguin Writer’s Manual (2002)

If You Want to Explain Your Science to the Public, Here's Some Advice

Recently, Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, urged scientists to share their problem-solving innovations with the public in more accessible ways, including by using vernacular languages. This kind of openness and accessibility is important and needed. While most scientists publish their work in academic journals, only ten people, on average, read a given article in its entirety; so clearly, the general public is not being reached that way.

Translating complicated concepts that are jargon-heavy into terms and ideas the public can understand is not always easy. But, increasingly, scientists, university and research institutions, government institutions, and others are trying to find ways to do it. Professional societies like the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Entomological Society of America offer a wide array of tools and programs like science communication courses and science policy fellowships to help scientists with dissemination. The National Academy of Sciences even recently released a report, “Communicating Science Effectively: A Research Agenda,” to help scientists effectively communicate their research. An example of an international effort is the Imagine Project initiative, through which scientists take their research out of the laboratory and share it with rural and indigenous communities in Africa and Latin America.

These are great initiatives, but many young scientists, including PhD students, post-doctoral scholars, and early-career scientists need more guidance in maneuvering the art of effectively disseminating their science to the public. I witnessed this need first-hand when I recently spoke at Emory University about my research on beneficial soil microbes and their use in agriculture; I mentioned however since I learning the art of writing opinion pieces through participating in a training offered through the Aspen Institute New Voices fellowship, I had written more than 60 opinion pieces that have reached millions of people. The audience of PhD students and post-doctoral fellows clamored to know how they could similarly write about their research for newspapers and reach the kinds of audiences their journal articles never do. I know they are not alone in that desire.


While there are other ways to disseminate academic research to the public, including writing research and policy briefs, sharing it on university and research institutions websites and blogs, my experience of this has been through op-ed writing. This is my advice to scientists who also want to use op-eds to reach the average person:

The first step is to connect the research you are doing or pursuing to a bigger theme. Is it the environment? Climate change? Public health? As an example, my research on beneficial soil microbes ties into several major themes including climate change, food security and soil health.
Secondly, it is important to find the story and storyline in your research. How do the results of your research creatively link and connect to the global challenges facing humanity? Once you have this lined up, it is time to write the piece.

Op-eds are centered around an argument: essentially you are arguing for or against something. So, you must decide on this before you can write the rest of your piece. The core argument should only be a sentence long and stated in a way that is convincing to your readers. Think as you decide on this: What do you want to share with the world? Is it new? Why is it new? Or what is new about it? How is it different from other arguments about the subject theme that have been shared before?

Next, you need to build your evidence to support your argument. Often there are at least three main points of evidence. These pieces of evidence can include statistics and research, quotes from experts in the field, anecdotes and personal stories and news articles. For researchers, this should be easy since your piece will be focused on research findings.


The “to be sure” paragraph is an important part of an opinion piece. In this paragraph, you preempt people who may discount your argument by acknowledging their viewpoint and then by bringing in even more evidence to back up your own argument. This allows you to acknowledge the other side, but still, support your own.

An element of an op-ed that differs greatly from academic writing is the news hook. While often this goes in the first paragraph of the piece, it does not always have to be placed there. What a news hook does is tie your argument and research to the current issues of the day to show how it’s timely and why your research matters right now. This also helps when pitching your piece to editors because they need to know what is new and timely about your piece before deciding to accept it. While a news hook could be a news story, it can also include new research and studies, a new piece of legislation, or a holiday or anniversary of an event or law. A recent personal experience can also be used as a news hook.

The final concluding paragraph is where you summarize all the paragraphs with a catchy and thought-provoking sentence. This is also where you can place your call to action. Why did you spend all that time doing your research? What do you want your readers and decision-makers to do?


Most importantly, always remember to keep everything short and to the point because many media outlets have a word limit that ranges from 500 to 900 words. And then your piece is ready to pitch!
When scientists write and share their work with the public inaccessible ways, that is when the magic happens and we can build bridges between research and society, engage the general public and develop a critical dialogue about the solutions science offers.


The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
 




Esther Ngumbi
From: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/.../if-you-want-to-explain-your-science- to-the-public-heres-some-advice/