🦩 A glimpse of my "Writing with New Scientist" class: inversion 🦩

"In your essay, use inversion," said Irina never... until she did. Today.

I have developed a bit of a distaste for inversion. I blow a raspberry every time I see. "Not only... ." Russian people, especially teachers, misuse inversion. And they do so in two ways: 1) They use it for grammar only, with total disregard for the emphatic meaning; 2) They misplace the pesky "also." But let's put the first way aside for today. Let's turn our attention to "also."

Today, I gave my students the following three sentences and asked them to join the last two. Try your hand at it too before you continue reading.

📝 "Unfortunately, doing human caloric-restriction experiments is extremely difficult. First, people find it very hard to halve their energy intake for more than a few days at a time. Second, the experiment would also have to run for many years to assess whether it had any life-extending effect."

📝 And of course, I got this: "Not only is it very hard to halve their energy intake for more than a few days at a time, but also the experiment would have to run for many years to assess whether it had any life-extending effect."

But the pesky "also" does not go right after "but" - it goes before the main verb or after the verb "to be": "... , but the experiment would also have to ... ."

More examples:
- Not only do people work in jobs they hate, but they also earn peanuts.
- By trying to achieve their goals, not only can people avoid these negative consequences, but they can also fulfill their dreams and increase their overall well-being.
- Not only is this unethical, but it is also illegal in some countries.

OK, this takes care of one common mistake with inversion. But I'm not done with this grammar structure - I'll move one step at a time. 🦩