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Another problem with nouns results from using them as adjectives. Normally, there is no problem with such usage,
but you should watch for special problems. We have no problem with "liver disease" (even though the adjective
"hepatic" could be substituted for the noun "liver"). The problem aspect is illustrated by the following sentences from
my autobiography: "When I was 10 years old, my parents sent me to a child psychiatrist. I went for a year and a half.
The kid didn't help me at all." I once saw an ad (in The New York Times, of all places) with the headline "Good News
for Home Sewers.'' I don't recall whether it was an ad for a drain-cleaning compound or for needle and thread.

The problem gets still worse when clusters of nouns are used as adjectives, especially when a real adjective gets into
the brew. "Tissue culture response" is awkward; "infected tissue culture response" is incomprehensible (unless
responses can be infected).

You will impress journal editors, and perhaps your family and friends, if you stop committing any obvious spelling
and grammatical errors that may previously have characterized your speech and writing. Appendix 3 lists certain
words and expressions, commonly seen in scientific writing, that are often misspelled or misused.

Numbers

First, the rule: One-digit numbers should be spelled out; numbers of two or more digits should be expressed as
numerals. You would write "three experiments" or "13 experiments." Now the exception: With standard units of
measure, always use numerals. You would write "3 ml" or "13 ml." The only exception to the exception is that you
should not start a sentence with a numeral. You should either reword the sentence or spell out both the number and
the unit of measurement. For example, your sentence could start out "Reagent A (3 ml) was added" or it could start
"Three milliliters of reagent A was added." Actually, there is still another exception, although it comes up rarely. In a
sentence containing a series of numbers, at least one of which is of more than one digit, all of the numbers should be
expressed as numerals. (Example: "I gave water to 3 scientists, milk to 6 scientists, and beer to 11 scientists.")

I refer to "the rule" because this usage is indeed widely used. However, usage varies. The Chicago Manual of Style
(1993) specifies that one- and two-digit numbers (one through ninety-nine) be spelled

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out. The Style Manual Committee, Council of Biology Editors (1994), specifies numerals for anything that can be
counted (1 of its recommendations I do not care for).

Odds and Ends

Apropos of nothing, I would mention that English is a strange language. Isn't it curious that the past tense of "have"
("had") is converted to the past participle simply by repetition: He had had a serious illness. Strangely, it is possible to
string together 11 "hads" in a row in a grammatically correct sentence. If one were to describe a teacher's reaction to
themes turned in by students John and Jim, one could say: John, where Jim had had "had,'' had had "had had"; "had
had" had had an unusual effect on the teacher. That peculiar word "that" can also be strung together, as in this
sentence: He said, in speaking of the word "that," that that "that" that that student referred to was not that "that" that
that other student referred to.

The "hads" and the "thats" in a row show the power of punctuation. As a further illustration, I now mention a little
grammatical parlor game that you might want to try on your friends. Hand a slip of paper to each person in the group
and ask the members of the group to provide any punctuation necessary to the following seven-word sentence:
"Woman without her man is a savage." The average male chauvinist will quickly respond that the sentence needs no
punctuation, and he is correct. There will be a few pedants among the male chauvinists who will place balancing
commas around the prepositional phrase: "Woman, without her man, is a savage." Grammatically, this is also correct.
A feminist, however, and an occasional liberated man, will place a dash after "woman" and a comma after "her."
Then we have "Woman—without her, man is a savage."

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