It’s the most capitalised time of the year, with plenty of Eves and Days and News to contend with, and as you browse the internet and the shop fronts, you’ll no doubt see plenty of interpretations of how to spell them all. To be fair, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day tend to be capitalised properly, but it’s New Year’s Day that causes confusion, probably with good reason. Do all three words start with a capital letter? Are any words capitalised? And that about that apostrophe? Here’s your guide.
Continue readingProofreading
My top twelve English corrections
English is always changing, so today’s common corrections can easily become tomorrow’s accepted forms. It’s precisely how we’ve arrived at where we are now. But there’s a core to the purpose of any language, and that is that we all understand it so we can communicate. We accept variations from the mean, but stray too far and meaning can change. Some people say we don’t need apostrophes as the meaning is always obvious from the context. I’d say that’s true 99% of the time, but there are always borderline cases where it can cause confusion, so it’s better to have a rule and accept that it might sometimes be disobeyed (wilfully or erroneously) than to simply abandon the rule altogether.
Continue readingWhat page am I on in Google Docs?
If you’re used to using Microsoft Word and glancing down to the bottom of the screen to see where you’re up to on a document, you’ll know how simple and intuitive it is:
Similarly, with Adobe Acrobat, you just have a quick look at your dashboard to get the page number:
But when you’re on Google Docs, there is no such counter active on the screen. So how are you supposed to find out what page you’re on in a document? It’s not immediately obvious, but it’s simple when you know how. On desktop computers, you just hover the cursor over the scroll bar on the right to see this pop up:
And there you have it. You’ll also see the current page number in the same place if you use the scroll bar to move through the pages, but that’s not much use if you just want to see the number of the page you’re working on.
Continue readingWhen does proofreading become copy editing, and editing copywriting?
All proofreaders have been asked to perform a quick proof, only to realise the job is more than correcting apostrophes. And all editors will have edited a job so much that a re-write would have been better. I’ve already covered the differences between proofreading and copy editing, but what happens in those grey areas?
Continue readingColons and semicolons: how to use them
Colons and semicolons are easy to confuse, and in my work as a proofreader and editor I see them misused daily. I’ll just go through the uses of each here.
Continue readingHow to reduce word count (or letter count) in a document
A relatively common task assigned to copywriters and editors is reducing word count or letter count. The motivation is usually:
- aesthetic (making the copy fit on the page more pleasingly);
- restriction (where certain counts are mandatory or advisory, for example in tweets or meta descriptions, or perhaps to make sure a booklet is exactly 32 pages long);
- simplicity (where the original is technical and heavy-going, but needs a simpler rendering for a general audience); or
- for readability (simply shortening rambling text to make it shorter and quicker to read).
Although the reasons for shortening copy might differ, the end product is consistent: to say the say thing with fewer words. Let’s have a look at how to do it.
Continue readingProfessional titles and positions – should they start with a capital letter?
People have always been flattered by having their positions start with a capital letter. It marks them out from their subordinates, and makes Persons look Very Important. Anyone from The Queen down to the Area Manager can access an exclusive capitalisation club that is ever out of bounds to the cleaners, sales assistants and copywriters of the world.
But at what point is it wise to stop? If the Area Manager is capitalised, should the Branch Manager? The Assistant Branch Manager? The Team Leader? And if the Chairman of Shell gets a capital, should the Chairman of Bob’s Plumbing Services (Bob)?
Continue readingCan you start a sentence with a conjunction?
“You must not start a sentence with a conjunction.” That has been the mantra of many an exasperated English teacher, especially since the oiks started getting state education. Any pupil brave, daft or naive enough to raise a hand and ask “Why?” would receive some explanation along the lines of “Because it is said.”
So now we’re all grown up, we’ll ask again – why? The honest answer is that there is no reason. It’s just an arbitrary rule that’s been passed through the ages. But all language is arbitrary, isn’t it? Words and letters are but abstract concepts. Understanding them can only come through the education of rules.
Continue readingOur changing language: are editors doomèd?
An article by David Shariatmadari in the Guardian has inspired a bit of a buzz these past few days. It’s about the mutability of language, and how the quest for perfect English is a forlorn one. Read “Why it’s time to stop worrying about the decline of the English language” here (it’ll only take about 15–20 minutes of your time).
Copy editors and writers are inextricably tied up with the changing language. In my 20+ years in the business alone, I’ve seen English change – new words coming in, words changing their meanings and so on. I like the concept described in the article about generational change; words and phrases (or particular usages) that seem normal to teens feel alien and “wrong” to the older generation. They probably forget that they caused equal consternation to their own parents’ generation back in the day with all their groovy talk.
Are we gatekeepers or facilitators?
What is the role of the copy editor faced with an ever-changing language? The instinctive answer would be to resist change, and to enforce correctness where we see grammatical wrongdoing. But that misses the point of language, which is to express meaning in the best possible way to the audience it’s aimed at.
Copywriters know that if we’re writing copy aimed at retired people, the language, pace and tone will be very different to copy aimed at students. It’s not because elderly people should be spoken down to; it’s just that the language they feel comfortable with is different. We are, after all, in the businesses of informing and selling; brands that share values with their customers have a head start over the competition.
As copy editors and writers are the ones who decide what material is put in front of readers, we therefore have a role in shaping language, but we must also take care to reflect it. If we try too hard to stick to the rules we were taught at school, we’re destined to get wronger and wronger as we grow. It’s a weird concept that people working with language can actually get less experienced as they get older, but it’s true of those who remain too set in their ways.
Thou shalt not …
A classic example is not starting a sentence with a conjunction. It’s a rule so drilled into the young me that it helped me to learn what a conjunction is. But look; I just went and did it. And I do it all the time. There are still those who complain about it, but they are swimming against the flow. Ultimately, just ask yourself: does starting a sentence with a conjunction actually damage English language? Or does it allow you to break concepts into bite-sized sentences with natural flow and pauses, rather like spoken English? It also removes the need to cumbersome words like “alternatively” or “additionally” every other sentence.
Now ask yourself if the word or phrase you’re uncomfortable with is as bad as starting a sentence with “Or”. It’s probably no better or worse.
So what’s the point of editors?
All this brings us to the crux of the matter. If nothing is right and nothing is wrong, why pay people copy edit or proofread your work?
All marketing is the act of persuading potential customers that your product or service is the one to choose. An important factor is showing you’re trustworthy, careful, diligent and conscientious. Customers notice things like sloppy grammar, overuse of buzzwords (especially when trying to appeal to a younger audience) and awkward sentences. OK, some customers will notice. But why try to appeal to half an audience when you can attract the whole?
Don’t forget, the change of language is glacial – it’s not in a state of flux. As the article shows, it tends to change a bit every generation, but there’s always a core rightness that stays the same. Over time, those foundations shift, but stray too far and you lose your audience.
Analogy Time
Think of the scene in Back to the Future where [spoiler] the prom audience is given a sneak preview of rock ‘n’ roll in a blues-dominated era and they love it. But as soon as Marty drags the genre forward to one of rock ‘n’ roll’s offsprings (80s heavy metal) they stop dancing and stare at the stage in disbelief.
Something familiar has been modified, but there are enough anchors to where it came from for it to be understood. But in real life, people needed to understand the grammar of rock ‘n’ roll before they were ready for heavy metal. It took about ten years to happen.[/spoiler]
Another analogy is Formula One motor racing. Every year, the rules change slightly. Tyres change. RPM is limited. Aerodynamics get new regulations. But nobody would say that it’s no longer Formula One, even though watching footage from the 1950s makes it look like a different sport. But it’s this year’s rules you have to obey; not last year’s.
Write and edit for the moment you’re living in, because that will invariably be right.
Be natural
Good copy editors and writers understand this, and don’t try and preserve their style of reading and writing in amber. In fact, we love observing and using the changing language. We understand that there’s a natural pace to change, and that forcing modernity is just as bad as forcing tradition.
Image: Nick van den Berg
Using “a” or “an” before an abbreviation
Should we say “an NHS doctor” or “a NHS doctor”? There are two schools of thought on this subject: “vocalisation of the abbreviation” and “vocalisation of the first word”.
Abbreviation verbalised
By this rule, if the abbreviation starts with a letter that starts with a vowel when vocalised, the article used is “an”; if it starts with a consonant-sounding letter, it takes an “a”. This would give “an NHS hospital” and “a BBC documentary”.
Vowel-sounding letters (take “an”): A E F H I L M N O R S X
consonant-sounding letters (take “a”): B C D G J K P Q T U V W Y Z
(Note: H is pronounced “aitch”, not “haitch”, although this rule might be becoming more fluid.)
Word verbalised
By this method, the first letter of the first word as it is read out determines whether “a” or “an” is used. Here we would have “a NHS hospital” (“a National Health Service hospital”), or “an UV lamp” (“an ultraviolet lamp”).
The second method can look and read quite awkwardly but is just about acceptable as long as the style is used consistently, or where abbreviations are commonly fleshed out in the head and in speech. (For the record, I don’t think either of the examples here qualify.) Since the first method reads more naturally in the head, it’s easy to slip into it when the second style is supposedly being observed. The first method is by far the more popular.
Acronyms
An acronym is an abbreviation that is read out like a word, such as NASA, OPEC, NATO, etc. So here we would always have “a NASA spacecraft”, etc. These will always be treated as words, not abbreviations, so will always take the appropriate indefinite article.
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