You're writing "Mary was fucked by John." You /should/ be writing "John fucked Mary."
I can say what I need to say in half the words now.
Such a waste! I should have dropped myself from the story but stuck with the active voice and written "The data show that murder causes death." Notice the jarring effect of such forthright prose. Do the data really show that murder causes death? Atleast the writing lives up to the ideal of scientific objectivity: the focus is on what the data do or do not show.
"The data shows murder causes death" sounds fine to me, nothing jarring about that except that it's probably not true "the data shows murder is a cause of death" (murder doesn't cause all deaths usually depending on the locus).
Are you making the claim that the word "data" is singular? It's not. And when you use a collective noun, you use the singular form (datum, in this case).
Along this line, though, what does sound jarring to me is the recent trend among the tech lit (and maybe others) to use company names as plural, as in, "Microsoft are keeping quiet about their new product." This is totally non-standard. First of all, Microsoft is a singular entity, identified by its articles of incorporation. What these authors are doing is using a lazy shorthand for, "Members of Microsoft management are keeping quiet about their new product."
See, for instance, "The Bedford Handbook for Writers" http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/newcatalog.aspx?isbn=0312595...
W. IRVING Salmag. xviii. 366 My grandfather..took a data from his own excellent heart.
(Further proof that English is not Latin.)
Perhaps it's best to leave it at, "know your audience."
Final draft: "Murder kills."
If you want a whole lot more of those, I suggest Strunk & White: http://www.bartleby.com/141/
Pullum points out how silly most of the book is in this article: http://chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid-Grammar/2549...
A better respected book that wastes less time is Joseph William's Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace.
A short review, with some excerpts: http://econ161.berkeley.edu/Econ_Articles/Reviews/williams.h...
In today's culture people are barely capable of writing a sentence without losing half the vowels along the way, and god forbid you're American because you already lost half your U's before you were even born. Forget about adequate grammar, or even half-decent spelling.
White is a professional writers, and with everything there's one key thing to being talented and that's knowing when to break the rules. Breaking the rules when you know what you're doing can be amazing and produce awe-inspiring works, however breaking the rules because you're too ignorant to know they even exist certainly doesn't make you amazing and the only awe you'll inspire is stupidity.
The rules are very valuable, but any half-decent writer has already figured out the rules merely by reading.
My spell checker thinks that every time I write colour, endeavour, or glamour that I've made some grave error.
I really can't stand that, it doesn't allow me to change the preferences to English (which I was taught in school) or American English.
Btw, any piece about spelling contains at least one spelling error, yours is no exception ;)
I know! It's the irony of the world. No matter what, when you complain about a general lack of spelling there is always a spelling mistake, but you won't notice it until 5 hours later. It's like there's a frigging anti-spelling Nazi out there who hijacks your post just to screw with you.
God damn gremlins always plaguing English people :(
I keep a folder in my bookmarks of writing tips that I think are insightful. Here are a few:
* Elmore Leonard: http://www.kabedford.com/archives/000013.html
* Kurt Vonnegut: http://www.peterstekel.com/PDF-HTML/Kurt%20Vonnegut%20advice...
* E.A. Poe: http://www.eapoe.org/works/ESSAYS/PHILCOMP.HTM
Seriously, though: good bookmarks.
http://bit.ly/2wH4VC (link to Google Books)
I can say what I need to say in half the words now.
60%
(concise by one more character, unlike this footnote)