Word Wise

Which Word When, part III

2010-04-30T13:34:58-05:00

historic, historical
If something is memorable or famous, it’s historic – the sinking of the Titanic was historic, the passing of the recent health care bill in the U.S. was historic, the opening of the Khalifa Tower in Dubai was historic. But if something merely has something to do with the subject of history, or even if something is merely in the past, important or not, it’s historical.

“All our great Presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
The historical evidence of my dinner from last night includes the dishes in the sink this morning.

further, furthermore
Further is a distance that can’t be measured. But furthermore means “moreover,” or as Webster’s II New College Dictionary says, “beyond what has already been stated.”

“We are here and it is now. Further than that all human knowledge is moonshine.” – H.L. Mencken
“Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite and, furthermore, always carry a small snake.” – W. C. Fields

percent, percentage
Use percent only when a numeral is in front of it. Use percentage when no number is given.

“I've learned it's always better to have a small percentage of a big success than 100 percent of nothing." – TV host Art Linkletter

"Web Site" No More

2010-04-16T16:10:16-05:00

Subscribers to the AP Stylebook online know that its e-mail updates are usually about minor changes that impact 2.3 people, tops. Today, however, AP sent an update that's actually really important (well, important to those us nerdy enough to find these sorts of things important in the first place):

Responding to what it says was "reader input," what had been “Web site” – two words, uppercase W – is now “website” – one word, lowercase.

Personally, I'm going to miss the old style.

Which Word When, part II

2010-04-16T07:15:00-05:00

peek, peak, and pique

To peek is to take a brief and sometimes secretive glance at something. A peak is the highest point of something. Pique, however, is a bit more complicated. Most dictionaries consider its primary definition to be “vexation or resentment resulting from wounded pride,” but in our business we generally intend it to mean its secondary or even tertiary* definition – that is, “to arouse or evoke interest.” (And, of course, add an acute accent to the final e – piqué – and you’ve got a polo shirt.)

Shane's interest was piqued after he took a peek at Jane’s plans to scale the highest peak in the Alps.

lead and led

A leader leads (present tense), a leader led (past tense), a leader has led (past participle). The mix-up of led and lead may be because the metal lead (Pb) is pronounced like led.

Though Morris had led the tour previously, it was Boris who would lead it today.

home and hone

People always want to hone in on things, and while the vocabulary police won’t toss you into the clink for doing so, you’re better off homing in instead. Traditionally, hone means “to make perfect or complete,” as in “Peri honed her skills as a landscape architect,” while home means “to proceed or direct attention toward an objective,” as in “Harry is homing in on stardom.” One way to easily remember the difference between hone and home is to think about the homing pigeon or a homing device.

That said, according to the Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, “The few commentators who have noticed 'hone in' consider it to be a mistake for home in. It may have arisen from home in by the weakening of the em sound to en or may perhaps simply be due to the influence of hone. Though it seems to have established itself in American English . . . your use of it especially in writing is likely to be called a mistake.”

* Tertiary is a good word to know. It means ”coming third in place, order, degree or rank.”

Which Word When? Part I

2010-04-11T13:56:58-05:00

bear and bare

"Bear" and "bare" are often mixed up when people write that they can’t bear/bare another minute of something. To bear something is to carry it. To be bare means to be unclothed and unshod or, like "bare" wood, unfinished.

Arabella simply couldn’t bear another second of seeing Ambrose bare.

classic and classical

As a noun, a "classic" is an important – and perhaps even influential – example, while as an adjective "classic" implies adhering to a standard of excellence. Technically speaking, "classical" has a narrow definition, describing things from ancient Greece or Rome, things from analogous ancient periods like the Tang dynasty, and formal concert music of any period. Except by the picayune, today classical is used to describe things of authority and excellence.

Among fashionistas, the Kelly Bag, from Hermès and named after Grace Kelly, is a classic example of chic, despite its not having any classical design references.

a while and awhile

"A while" means “a period of time”; "awhile" means “for a time” (when "for" is included, you’d never write "for awhile" because in essence you’d be writing "for for a while").

Algernon stayed awhile, though he did nothing but sleep for a while.

etc. and et al.

An abbreviation of et alii (“and others”), "et al." refers to people; "etc.," an abbreviation of et cetera (“and other things”), refers to things only.

Gwendolyn was joined by Jack, Gribsby, et al., all of whom brought along books, magazines, etc., for the cruise.

Here’s a reco for u

2010-04-02T14:13:57-05:00

It used to be that we wrote actual letters. Then we started e-mailing, which naturally caused us to write less formally. And now we text and IM, which has encouraged us to write even more informally (some might not call it writing at all). You can argue that a lot has been lost in this evolution but I want to comment on just one thing that’s been lost: syllables.

I'm not talking about lol and other typical online conventions. But increasingly, in business correspondence – especially in e-mail – people are writing convo instead of conversation, reco instead of recommendation, bc instead of because, que instead of question, vm instead of voicemail, u instead of you, mtg instead of meeting, and on and on.

The issue here is severalfold.

First, despite there being fewer letters, half-baked abbreviations like this can make your words harder to understand. Not everyone is going to immediately get that vm means voicemail. It forces people to stop and start as they go, and that makes reading unpleasant.

Second, even when these things aren’t unintelligible, they’re actually sort of disrespectful. They imply that you don’t think it’s worth your time or effort to tap out those few extra letters. And really, how much time and effort does it take to type convo versus conversation? If you are actually too busy to type entire words, then you need to have a heart-to-heart with your manager. There’s a work/life balance problem that needs attention.

Third, with all due respect, it’s just sort of jerky and sophomoric. Writing e-mail to colleagues and clients and others with whom you do business is not the same as texting your friends or passing notes in chem lab.

Good writers take into account the form in which they are writing, the place in which they are writing, the circumstances under which they are writing, the person to whom they are writing, and the person on behalf of whom they may be writing. No one’s asking that we return to the Queen’s English, but it’s not too much to ask that we say what we mean and spell it out when we say it.

It's a mod, mod, mod, mod world

2010-03-03T17:11:35-06:00

Everyone is familiar with the phrase “dangling modifier,” but hardly anyone knows what it means. A dangling modifier is a word or clause that modifies a word it should not, logically, modify.

For example, "Walking down the street, my hat blew off my head." It kinda sorta seems like it's sorta kinda right. Read it again s-l-o-w-l-y, though.

In fact, it says that my hat was walking down the street (“walking down the street” is attached to “my hat”), a neat trick I’d like to see but for now, anyhow, grammatically - and millinarily* - unsound.

A better way to write this sentence: As I walked down the street, my hat blew off my head.

The takeaway here: Make sure that a clause meant to modify a word in a sentence is attached logically to that word.**

* Yes, I made up that word, but you got it, right?

** As always, there are exceptions, phrases so common that they’re permitted to dangle. The most common may be “generally speaking,” as in “generally speaking, blondes have more fun.” Blondes aren’t doing the speaking, but the listener gets it anyhow.

Compound Interest

2010-02-19T07:06:06-06:00

A compound modifier is a single phrase – two words, sometimes three – that enlivens the noun it precedes: long-bearded hermit, six-headed grotesquerie, cardamom-laced crème brûlée, top-tier media.

Compound modifiers require a hyphen because without it the words fail to act together as a single descriptive and then, well, all hell breaks loose. Okay, maybe not, but things do get awkward and confusing.

When Aaron, in "Titus Andronicus," says, “What, what, ye sanguine, shallow-hearted boys!” he’s not referring to shallow boys or hearted boys, but shallow-hearted boys. When F. Scott Fitzgerald said “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function,” he wasn’t talking about a first intelligence or a rate intelligence but a first-rate intelligence. Without the hyphen the meaning is lost and the noun that follows is less interesting and colorful.

What’s worse, sometimes the meaning of the entire sentence is messed up. “He was a man-eating hippo!” tells me that the hippo eats people, “He was a man eating hippo!” tells me that a man was eating hippo. Big difference.

And yes, this being English, there are exceptions to the rule:

ly words do not take hyphens because the ly itself does the same job as the hyphen, connecting the modifiers in the reader’s mind. “I am a deeply superficial person,” said Andy Warhol, and we know exactly what he meant.
When the word “very” is the first modifier, as when Oscar Wilde said, “Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.”
If both words are proper nouns, as in “South American country”

Nine and a half times out of 10, when the compound modifier comes after the noun, no hyphen is used. Shakespeare could have referred to “boys who are shallow hearted” and Fitzgerald to an “intelligence that’s first rate.” The only time you might use a hyphen in cases like this is if there’s the potential that the compound modifier will be misinterpreted.

You Bet Djibouti - Updates to AP Style, Part II

2010-02-05T15:06:26-06:00

When I see a document refer to something going on in “London, England,” or “Detroit, Mich.,” I’m never sure if adding “England” and “Mich.” is a result of the writer’s ignorance (they don’t realize everyone knows where these places are) or arrogance (they know where these places are but assume others don’t) or just some misplaced duty to being complete. But many cities in the U.S., as well as around the world, do not require the larger locations appended to them and, in fact, look pretty silly when they are. Yes, there’s Paris, France, and Paris, Texas, and Philadelphia, Penn., and Philadelphia, Miss., so use common sense. If you have an event in Cairo, Ill., by all means be specific!

The AP Stylebook recently updated its list of cities in the U.S. and globally that stand alone, which is determined by the population of the city and metropolitan region, the frequency of the city's appearance in the news, the uniqueness of its name, and the chance that it’s almost synonymous with the state or nation where it’s located (when you hear Paris, do you think of Texas?).

In the U.S. these cities are:

Atlanta
Baltimore
Boston
Chicago
Cincinnati
Cleveland
Dallas
Denver
Detroit
Honolulu
Houston
Indianapolis
Las Vegas
Los Angeles
Miami
Milwaukee
Minneapolis
New Orleans
New York
Oklahoma City
Philadelphia
Phoenix
Pittsburgh
St. Louis
Salt Lake City
San Antonio
San Diego
San Francisco
Seattle
Washington

Here are those cities around the world. I’ve added an asterisk to those newly added.

Amsterdam*
Baghdad
Bangkok*
Beijing
Beirut*
Berlin
Bogota*
Brussels*
Cairo*
Copenhagen*
Djibouti
Dublin*
Frankfurt*
Geneva
Gibraltar
Guatemala
Hamburg*
Havana
Helsinki*
Hong Kong
Islamabad*
Istanbul*
Jerusalem
Johannesburg*
Kabul*
Kuwait City
London
Luxembourg
Macau
Madrid*
Mexico City
Milan*
Monaco
Montreal
Moscow
Munich*
New Delhi
Oslo*
Ottawa
Panama City*
Paris
Prague*
Quebec City
Rio de Janeiro*
Rome
San Marino
Sao Paulo*
Shanghai*
Singapore
Stockholm*
Sydney*
Tokyo
Toronto
Vatican City
Vienna*
Zurich*

Updates to AP Style, Part I

2010-01-29T09:12:55-06:00

While the Associated Press Stylebook is published annually, apstylebook.com sends out regular e-mail updates to subscribers. They’re not only a useful way to maintain standards but a reminder of both how the English language and the world in which it's spoken continue to change, as well. Here are some recent updates (and accompanying AP commentary) that you may find useful and will, no doubt, at least find interesting.

Marseille: Preferred spelling for the French city.
Q-and-A format: Use Q-and-A within the body of a story.
Waitlist: (n.), wait-list (v.)
Wal-Mart Stores Inc.: This is the official name of the company, which has headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. Use Walmart when referring to the retail stores.
CEO: Acceptable in all references for chief executive officer. Use chief financial officer and chief operating officer on first reference, and CFO and COO thereafter. Always spell out lesser-known "C-level" positions like chief administrative officer or chief risk officer.
G-20: Use a hyphen in the abbreviated form for the Group of Twenty, made up of representatives of industrial and emerging-market nations. A general description rather than the full name is preferred on first reference: Leading rich and developing nations.
New entries to the AP Stylebook: Abu Sayyaf, Al-Aqsa, Ashoura, hajj, Hamas, Haram al-Sharif, Hezbollah, hijab, iftar, intifada, Jemaah Islamiyah, kaffiyeh, niqab, Somali, Temple Mount and Wahhabi.
Abu Sayyaf: Muslim separatist group based in the southern islands of the Philippines. The name is Arabic for father of the sword.

AP announced updates on the words and phrases minimally conscious state, vegetative state, and coma, as well. Should you need this information, please let me or your family physician know.

The Wicked Which

2010-01-15T08:53:07-06:00

“Which” or “that”? That question, which has been on my mind lately, is more easily answered than you’d think. If you can tell what’s being referred to without the words “which” or “that,” use “which.” If you can’t, use “that.”

And that’s that.

For example, here‘s an instance where you can remove the “which” phrase and the original meaning of the sentence is still abundantly clear: “'Avatar,' which was in 3-D, will sweep the Academy Awards.” Lose the phrase between the commas – “which was in 3-D” – and you still understand the sentence. "'Avatar' will sweep the Academy Awards.”

But read this: “The movie that swept the Academy Awards was in 3-D.” Remove the “that” phrase – “that swept the Academy Awards” – and you’re left with “The movie was in 3-D,” which wasn’t the point I was making at all.

A few tips to remember:

Imagine “by the way” following every “which”: "Avatar, which [by the way] was in 3-D, will sweep the Academy Awards." The “which” adds a useful but not grammatically necessary piece of information. So, if “by the way” makes sense, use “which.”
If the phrase needs a comma, you probably want to use "which." Notice how commas bookend the "which" phrase above but not the "that" phrase. As Patricia O'Conner, author of Woe Is I, has written:

Commas, which cut out the fat,

go with which, never with that!

Don't Believe It

2010-01-07T12:41:06-06:00

Nothing’s better than drinking ABC brand of fruit juice while sharing a quiet walk with your dog along the ocean at sunset, so says the brand. Few experiences are as cherished by families as cross-country car trips to see Grandma, notes a brand that believes its products promote family togetherness.

Nothing's better? Few experiences are as cherished? Really?

I like fruit juice as much as the next guy, and the dog, ocean and sunset are a nice touch. But I can think of plenty of things I like better. And as for a 3,000-mile trek across this great land of ours, have you tried that lately, complete with one kid in diapers and two more strapped in back zonked out from too many videos or wired on candy? Fun such a trek may be at times, and memorable, too, but a week trapped in the car with the kids? Maybe those memories aren’t so cherished after all.

Phrases like “nothing’s better than” and “few experiences are as cherished” are typical of what we often write in press material. We use these empty superlatives because we’re trying to talk our readers – and probably ourselves – into believing that the product or event or service about which we’re writing is more important than it is. That if we write it, it will be so (hmmm, I never thought about it that way. . . nothing is better than drinking o.j. while walking Fido at sunset). But overplaying our hand as communicators is sure to backfire. Phrases like these ring hollow because they are hollow. As a reader I’m halted in my tracks; I know such and such isn’t the best whatever, and I know you know, and you know I know, and you also know I know you know. So just who are we kidding?

Overselling our clients' endeavors simultaneously undermines their objectives. If you feel like you have to make up stuff like this, think again – 99.99 percent of the time the products and services we represent as marketers have redeeming features or support good causes and ideas. They serve a purpose and it’s our job to communicate enthusiastically but truthfully about them.

Good writing is honest writing. And honest writing keeps things in perspective.

Dan Santow's 4th Annual Proofreadapalooza!

2009-12-18T12:12:14-06:00

“The true proof-reader,” wrote John Wilson, head of The University Press in Cambridge, Mass., “… should be a lover of literature, familiar with the classics of all languages, with the results accomplished by science, and indeed with every subject that concerns his fellow-men…. [he should be] a man of much patience, well versed in the art of deciphering incorrigible manuscripts.” Okay, that was in 1901, so aside from the totally un-PC gender-specificism of his thought, he’s being a bit of a proofreading drama queen, as well. Still, proofreading is an important skill to develop, especially if you’re in a communications business.

Since there’s no one method of proofreading that works for everyone, pick and choose from the following tips and create your own method – and then follow it each time you proof a document.

Proof but don’t read: When you read, you subconsciously fix the mistakes. There’s a fine line between reading and proofing – stay on the right side of it.

Tidy up your desk – you’re your own worst interrupter when things catch your eye.

Content-ment: Check that contents page numbers and headings match with the actual copy in the document.

Abbreviate to alleviate: Check that abbreviations have been defined at first use.

Bullet proof: Look to see that all your bulleted or numbered lists are formatted similarly.

The dating scene: Ensure that dates and days of the week match – if copy says Tuesday, Nov 7, make sure Nov. 7 is a Tuesday.

Divide and conquer: Divide your task into several parts, completing one before starting the next.

Check for errors in the spelling of names and places.
Check the accuracy of phone numbers, dates, addresses, times, and amounts of money.
Check for errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.
Check for transposed characters, omitted letters, and word division.

Forever format: To check formatting, scan the "edges" of the document and look for anything that doesn't look right. Then look at the overall page: Does it appear balanced? For example, is the text consistently justified or consistently left aligned? Make sure there's only one space after a period. Check page numbers and footnotes.

Hard knocks: Always proof from a hard copy. Don't try to proof a document from your computer screen; I promise that you'll miss errors this way.

A backwards glance: To proof for spelling, read the document backwards. When each individual word is looked at, outside the context of a sentence, you’re less likely to miss spelling errors. (However, reading backwards will not allow you to spot homophone errors – words that sound alike but are spelled differently: to/too/two, are/our, their/there/they're, and so on. You have to check these by skimming the paper forward.)

Once is never enough: After corrections have been made, proof the revised document. First check to see that all the corrections were made, then read over the document one more time to make sure you didn't miss something the first time around!

Know thyself... and thy own typical mistakes. Make a list of the errors you make repeatedly. Proofread for one type of error at a time. If commas are your most frequent problem, go through the paper checking just that one problem. Then proofread again for the next-most-frequent problem.

Time on your hands: Allow yourself some time between writing a document and proofreading so you can return to it with a fresh mind and eye.

Search parties: Use the search function to find mistakes you're likely to make. Search for "it," for instance, if you confuse "its" and "it's."

Circle back: Circle or highlight every punctuation mark. This forces you to look at each one.

Avoid interruptions: Move to a conference room and don’t take your BlackBerry. Forward your phone to voice mail. Turn off your iPod. Put down the Red Bull. Don't check blogs. Stop IMing your girlfriend. Stop texting your boyfriend. And please, no sexting while proofreading.

Color my world: Use a colored pen so your corrections stand out.

Cap and trade: SEPARATELY PROOF ANY TEXT THAT APPEARS IN ALL CAPS AND DO IT MORE PAINSTAKINGLY. TYPOS AND MISSPELLINGS ARE MORE DIFFICULT TO SEE IN ALL CAPS. I DON'T KNOW WHY, BUT IT'S TRUE.

Double, double, toil and trouble: Double check:

fonts that are unusual (italic, bold, or otherwise different)
proper names
little words: "or," "of," "it," and "is" are often interchanged
every number – dollar amounts, dates, page references, percentages, etc.

The humorist Dave Barry once wrote, “proofread carefully to see if you any words out." That said, there’s just nothing too funny about silly mistakes in an otherwise smart document. It undercuts you, your team, and your employer. Worse, it’s just plain embarrassing.

Finally, and I know this may be asking too much, but have fun, reward yourself and, if in the end a mistake creeps through, just learn from the experience and move on. Life’s short enough as it is.

Cigarette holder which wigs me/Over her shoulder, she digs me/Out cattin' that Latin doll

2009-12-11T11:26:06-06:00

Last week, after writing about et cetera, I received a flood of requests (okay, four) to address i.e. and e.g., two other common but frequently misused Latin abbreviations. Though from experience it seems to me that people often just choose one willy-nilly, it’s worth learning the difference since they are, in fact, different and we use them a lot.

Still, it can be hard to remember which is which. So I don’t mix them up, several years ago I taped the two with their meaning on my bulletin board at work. Take a look below and just ignore the fact that I also have photos of Mary Todd Lincoln and Evelyn Waugh on my bulletin board; it’s a long story.

i.e., the abbreviation of id est, means “that is,” or “in other words”
e.g., an abbreviation of exempli gratia, means “for example”

Here are a couple of mnemonic devices that may help you:

id est/in other words – both phrases start with an i
exempli gratia/for example – exempli and example both start with an e

Each of these abbreviations is followed by a comma: Septimus was interested in many things, e.g., English verse, French cuisine, and Italian paintings. You also need to precede these with either a comma, semicolon, or parenthesis. Note that since e.g. means “for example," which indicates an incomplete list, tacking on etc. would be redundant.

No one ever actually writes these terms in full. In fact, in the classic Dictionary of Modern English Usage, first published in 1926, of id est H.W. Fowler wrote that to do so “is now so unusual as to convict one of affectation.” Just imagine what you'd be convicted of today.

(If this post's headline confuses you, you must click here.)

It's a Puzzlement

2009-12-03T17:04:06-06:00

As movie musical lovers everywhere know, when the king in “The King & I” wants to show off his intelligence without having to actually go into any detail, he ends his boast by bellowing “et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.” In the 1873 book upon which the movie is based, The English Governess at the Siamese Court, the author Anna Leonowens used the now passé spelling, &c., when she wrote that the king delighted in “music of every description, and in taming of dogs, monkeys, &c., &c….”

In the real world we use the abbreviation of et cetera to mean “and so forth” or “and others.” But let’s use it correctly, as it was meant to be used, etc.

It’s etc., not ect.
As it means “and other things,” etc., avoid writing “and etc.”
Since it’s an abbreviation, it requires a period. And when it appears in the middle of a sentence, it requires a period and a comma, like in the sentence above.
Despite being an abbreviation of a Latin word, it is not italicized.
“And other things,” “and the rest,” and “and so forth” are perfectly good ways to say et cetera without using etc.
Because it does mean “and other things,” using it at the end of a sentence or phase that begins with “For example” or “such as” is redundant since both phrases imply that there are “others.” For example, I ate an apple tarte tatin, a gooseberry pie, and a pound of butter cookies. The implication here is that I ate even more.
Don’t use etc. more than once in a row unless you’re the King of Siam or Yul Brynner.

Letter Perfect

2009-11-25T08:04:34-06:00

Spell check lets you add words to your custom spell-check dictionary that aren’t found in the standard dictionary. Once added, spell check skips over them, accepting their spelling as is. If you use unusual words a lot – those that may be common in your business or with a particular client – then this feature is especially useful.

But it’s also easy to inadvertently add words that are, in fact, spelled incorrectly. It may be that at the moment the spelling - however unusual - works for whatever it is you are doing, or that you’re working so fast that you accidentally click “add word” when going through the spell-check process. (This is easy to do when spell checking a long document.) Once added, however, these words may never be caught by the spell checker again. To avoid this problem you need to erase your custom dictionary every few months. This will allow the spell checker to catch those misspelled words in the future.

Here’s how to do it:

Go to “tools” and click “options”
Choose “spelling and grammar” and then “custom dictionaries”
Follow the prompts to complete the modification

Remember, spell checks do not distinguish between homonyms - words that sound the same but are spelled differently, like bare and bear, their and they’re, current and currant, and gorilla and guerrilla (that last mistake is more common than you’d think). And they aren't mind readers either. Spell checkers don't know you meant to type the word "same" when you typed "sane," which is a typo I just caught while writing this post.

Spell checkers are important tools, but they are not substitutes for good, old-fashioned proofreading.