Editor's Corner

Friday evening was late museum and food truck night at Balboa Park, so we went over there with some friends. What a fabulous thing to do on a summer night! After each of us picked our truck of choice (Thai, German, Japanese, and New York Deli), we went to the Natural History Museum. While we were there, we went up to the photo gallery and that’s where the word nerds went wild!

All of the photos were of natural scenes, from the Grand Canyon to a single leaf. One of the photos had a “glow” to it. “It’s luminescent…or is that iridescent?” “I’m not sure, maybe it is phosphorescent?” Out came the phones and people started looking up words. I, on the other hand, started taking dictation so I could look these up for Editor’s Corner and report back on these light-related words that end in –scent (the adjective) or –escence (the noun).

And here we are today! From our friends at Merriam-Webster:

· bioluminescence: the emission of light from living organisms (such as fireflies, dinoflagellates, and bacteria) as the result of internal, typically oxidative chemical reactions.

· fluorescence: the emission by a substance of electromagnetic radiation especially in the form of visible light as the immediate result of and only during the absorption of radiation from some other source; also : the property of emitting such radiation.

· incandescence: the quality or state of being white, glowing, or luminous with intense heat <incandescent carbon> b : strikingly bright, radiant, or clear.

· iridescence: play of structural colors producing rainbow effects that is exhibited in various bodies as a result of interference in a thin film (as of a soap bubble or mother-of-pearl) or of diffraction of light reflected from a closely ribbed or corrugated surface (as of the plumage of certain birds) and is readily distinguished from the inherent colors of substances by its variation with the angle of incidence of the illumination.

· luminescence: an emission of light that is not ascribable directly to incandescence and therefore occurs at low temperatures, that is produced by physiological processes (as in the firefly), by chemical action, by friction, by electrical action (as the glow of gases in vacuum tubes when subjected to electric oscillations of high frequency or as the glow of certain bodies when subjected to cathode rays), by certain bodies while crystallizing, by suddenly and moderately heating certain bodies previously exposed to light or to cathode rays, or by exposure to light, or that occurs in radioactivity.

· phosphorescence: luminescence that is perceptible with characteristic rate of decay after the exciting cause ceases to act.

And an unscented photo from my uncle:

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services

Let’s face it—it can be confusing to know when to use hyphens. I won’t be able to cover everything you need to know about hyphens today, but I will explain why and when you need to use hyphens to string more than two words together.

When a string of words is used to describe a noun, and that string precedes the noun, those describing words are hyphenated. You might want to re-read that last sentence. It’s important because when you’re talking about whether to add hyphens, you need to remember that the describing words must come before the noun.

Take this sentence, for example:

· Her father was a behind-the-scenes manager.

The phrase behind the scenes precedes the noun manager, and it describes what kind of manager the father was.

If you were to place the phrase after the noun, you would not use hyphens.

· Her father managed her from behind the scenes.

Here’s another example:

· The movie was replete with over-the-top characters.

The phrase over the top precedes the noun characters, and it describes what the characters were like.

Again, if you were to place the phrase after the noun, you would not use hyphens.

· The movie was replete with characters that were over the top.

And here’s a final example that many people have trouble with:

· He had a four-year-old daughter.

· His daughter was four years old.

I hope you have a productive and fun-filled day!

Donna Bradley Burcher | Senior Technical Editor | Symitar®

8985 Balboa Ave. | San Diego, CA 92123 | Ph. 619.278.0432 | Extension: 765432

Symitar Technical Publications Writing and Editing Requests

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When I was a kid, I remember my mom and dad correcting my plural endings for certain Latin words. “It’s not cactuses, it’s cacti.” “A lot of mushrooms aren’t funguses, they’re fungi.” So, like an obedient child, I learned appendix/appendices, criterion/criteria, curriculum/curricula, etc.

Imagine my horror, then, when I was double-checking the proper plural of apex or something, and I found that the rules had changed over the past forty years. I don’t remember if it was the Chicago Manual of Style or one of the books they published, but I learned that there is a movement to get away from the Latin endings of the words. The thought is that since we’ve adopted the words as part of English, we should apply English rules to the plural. Conversely, if we were speaking Latin, then we’d use the Latin rules for the plural words.

I’m sharing chunks of the list over a couple of days, but if you want to see the complete list in order, go ahead and check out Daily Writing Tips. You can see from the list that both English and Latin endings are given, if they exist. You can be the judge of which endings you still hear more often.

Words ending in a, plural -s or -ae

· alga: algae or algas

· antenna: antennas or antennae (only antennae is correct for the sensory organs on animals; antennas in more common in other contexts)

· formula: formulas or formulae

· larva: larvae or larvas

· nebula: nebulae or nebulas: the former ending is employed in astronomy, and the latter applies in medical contexts

· vertebra: vertebrae or vertebras (vertebrae is sometimes incorrectly used to refer to a single vertebra)

Words ending in ex, plural -exes or -ices

· apex: apexes or apices

· index: indexes or indices

· vortex: vortices or vortexes

Words ending in eau, plural -eaus or -eaux

· bureau: bureaus or bureaux (the latter form is rare for this word and the other two in this category)

· château: châteaus or châteaux

· plateau: plateaus or plateaux

Words ending in ion, plural -ia

· criterion: criteria [KC – I guess we’ll just call this “Forever Latin.”]

· ganglion: ganglia or ganglions

Words ending in on, plural -a or -ons

· automaton:automotons or automata

· phenomenon: phenomena or phenomenons

Words ending in us, plural -uses or -i

· alumnus/alumna: alumni or alumnae (alumnus refers to a man and alumna to a woman, alumni pertains to men or to men and women and alumnae to women; alumni is often employed in the singular, and alum/alums are used informally as gender-neutral singular and plural forms)

· bacillus: bacilli

· cactus: cacti or cactuses

· focus: foci or focuses

· fungus: fungi or funguses

· hippopotamus: hippopotamuses or hippopotami

· locus: loci

· narcissus: narcissi or narcissuses or narcissus

· platypus: platypuses or platypi

· radius: radii or radiuses

· stimulus: stimuli

· syllabus: syllabi or syllabuses

· terminus: termini or terminuses

Words ending in oo, plural -oos

· cockatoo: cockatoos

· kangaroo: kangaroos

· zoo: zoos

Assorted

· cherub: cherubim or cherubs (the former alternative applies to angels and the latter pertains to depictions of winged children or to cherubic-looking people)

· rhinoceros: rhinoceroses or rhinoceros or rhinoceri

· seraph: seraphim or seraphs

And a great photo from Jane Gredvig. Happy Friday!

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services

I recently found myself trapped in car with a bunch of chatty eight-year-olds who questioned the origin of shut your piehole (shut your mouth). And no, I didn’t yell this phrase at them. They didn’t question the meaning of the phrase; they specifically wanted to know why the word pie was used instead of some other culinary treasure, like pizza, bacon, tater tots, or donuts. After listening to some zany theories, I decided to look into the etymology.

According to The Phrase Finder, the phrase shut your cakehole originated in the UK in the 20th century but is now considered archaic. Americans started using the equivalent, shut your piehole, in the ‘80s. It is unknown if piehole originated from cakehole.

Although the origin of shut your piehole is unclear, the word piehole is in the dictionary. You should probably avoid using this phrase or word during your next meeting. If necessary, you can use the phrase in your next cross-stitching project instead:

Jackie Solano | Technical Editor | Symitar®

8985 Balboa Ave. | San Diego, CA 92123 | Ph. 619.542.6711 | Extension: 766711

Symitar Documentation Services

A long time ago, when some of you were just tiny babes, I shared a list of collective nouns for animals with you. What do I mean by collective nouns? I mean that rather than saying “a group of geese,” we use a collective noun and call them “a gaggle.” Instead of a “bunch of bees,” we use the collective noun “swarm.”

As part of the San Diego Zoo’s 100th anniversary, Richard Lederer has being doing articles on words involving animals. Sunday’s article included the following collective nouns, which I’ve reformatted for easier reading:

· a barren of mules

· a bloat of hippos

· a business of ferrets

· a caravan of camels

· a cete of badgers

· a coalition of cheetahs

· a dazzle of zebras

· a dray of squirrels

· a leap of leopards

· a memory of elephants

· a mischief of mice

· an obstinacy of buffalo

· a pace of asses

· a pod of seals

· a pride of lions

· a route of wolves

· a shrewdness of apes

· a singular of boars

· a skulk of foxes

· a sleuth of bears

· a sounder of swine

· a tower of giraffes

· a trip of goats

· a troop of monkeys

· a warren of rabbits

For the remainder of the article, click here.

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Several of you have sent this link to me, so I think it must be one of your pet peeves. The subject is using other words instead of “very” all the time. The list sounds suspiciously like something Judge Judy would invent for the word “like,” which she chastises people for using every day.

This page might take a few seconds to load, but it contains quite a few alternatives to “very”:

http://www.proofreadingservices.com/pages/very

Enjoy!

Photo Contest (from May)

These two lovelies are from Katie Bennett.

Mmmm. Chicken seafood. My favorite!

Well, if they’re going to ask you to waste, at least they’re polite about it.

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services

Last week, I wrote about the word uncouth, which is an example of an unpaired word (a word that would appear to have a related word but does not). Here are four more unpaired words, all with the suffix -less. All definitions are from Merriam-Webster.

Feckless

Definition: weak, ineffective

Etymology: Middle English effect became Scottish feck, which gave us feckless (now standard English) and feckful (still chiefly Scottish).

Is feckful a word? Yes, but it’s not common outside of Scotland. The related words effective, efficient, effectual, and efficacious are more widely known.

Hapless

Definition: having no luck; unfortunate

Etymology: Old Norse happ ("good luck") became Middle English hap.

Is hapful a word? No. Instead, we say that someone favored by luck or fortune is happy.

Reckless

Definition: marked by lack of proper caution; careless of consequences

Etymology: Old English reccan became Middle English reck ("to take heed").

Is reckful a word? No, but reck is still around (it means "worry, care"), and so is the related word reckon.

Ruthless

Definition: having no pity; merciless, cruel

Etymology: Middle English ruen ("to rue") became ruthe, which became Modern English ruth ("compassion for the misery of another").

Is ruthful a word? Yes. It means "full of ruth."

Ben Ritter | Technical Editor | Symitar®
8985 Balboa Avenue | San Diego, CA 92123
619-682-3391 | or ext. 763391 | www.Symitar.com

Symitar Documentation Services

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My apologies to all of you who registered for my class on using Microsoft® Word; I had a dental emergency and have to reschedule the class for another day.

Today’s Editor’s Corner will be almost as brief as my class! I received this definition from Dictionary.com and I liked it, so I thought I’d share it with you.

Virgule

1. a short oblique stroke (/) between two words indicating that whichever is appropriate may be chosen to complete the sense of the text in which they occur: The defendant and his/her attorney must appear in court.

2. a dividing line, as in dates, fractions, a run-in passage of poetry to show verse division, etc.: 3/21/27; “Sweetest love, I do not go/For weariness of thee.” (John Donne)

I also liked this etymology, from the Online Etymology Dictionary:

(T)hin sloping line similar to a modern backslash, used as a comma in medieval MSS and still in modern text to indicate line breaks in poetry, 1837, from French virgule (16c.), from Latin virgula "punctuation mark," literally "little twig," diminutive of virga "shoot, rod, stick."

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

Symitar Documentation Services

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I learned a new word, smombie (thank you, Ron Fauset). Smombie is short for smartphone zombie. Smombies are people who are totally unaware of their surroundings. They walk around entirely absorbed in their smartphones (UrbanDictionary.com).

The word smombie made me think of word blending, or portmanteaus. A portmanteau is “a word or morpheme whose form and meaning are derived from a blending of two or more distinct forms (as smog from smoke and fog).” Portmanteau also means a trunk or suitcase that opens into two parts. The word portmanteau comes from porter “to carry” + manteau “cloak.”

Several websites give credit to Lewis Carroll for creating blended words and for calling these words portmanteaus (named after the two-part suitcase). You may recall Humpty Dumpty explaining words from the “Jabberwocky” poem to Alice in Through the Looking Glass. Humpty Dumpty compares the word slithy (slimy + lithe) to a portmanteau.

“You see it’s like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.”

Here are some more examples of portmanteaus. Don’t get mad at me, I didn’t make them up.

brunch: breakfast + lunch

bromance: brother + romance

carjack: car + hijack

chocoholic: chocolate + alcoholic

cosplay: costume + play

cronut: croissant + donut

emoticon: emotion + icon

Frappuccino®: frappé + cappuccino

frenemy: friend + enemy

froyo: frozen + yogurt

glamping: glamourous + camping

hangry: hungry + angry

mocktail: mock + cocktail

mockumentary: mock + documentary

moped: motor + pedal

motel: motor + hotel

Spanglish: Spanish + English

spork: spoon + fork

staycation: stay + vacation

Brangelina:

Jackie Solano | Technical Editor | Symitar®

8985 Balboa Ave. | San Diego, CA 92123 | Ph. 619.542.6711 | Extension: 766711

Symitar Documentation Services

Yesterday we discussed main clauses and sentences. Today I want to tell you a little bit about what happens when you are missing part of a sentence.

First, remember that a sentence requires at least a main clause. You need the subject, verb, and complete thought. If you are missing one of these things, you are stuck with a sentence fragment. Just like a garment fragment, unless you’re at the beach, a fragment is not enough to cover your needs!

Examples of fragments:

· From now until then.
(Missing a subject and a verb.)
I plan to spend money from now until then.
(I=subject; plan=verb)

· On the heads of Sydney and Ronnie.
(Prepositional phrase, possibly missing a subject and verb.)
Two small birds landed on the heads of Sydney and Ronnie.
(birds=subject; landed=verb)

· Swimming and running and other activities.
(Missing a subject and a verb.)
Camp offers swimming and running and other activities.
(camp=subject; offers=verb)

As you can see, it can be very confusing and misleading when you provide someone with nothing more than a sentence fragment. Here are some additional examples from one of your co-workers who is peeved by the use of fragments. Note that the speaker seems too busy to insert the subject: I. It’s only one letter, and you need to add it to make the sentence complete and prevent peevishness!

· “Need to let you know I can’t make the meeting.”

· “Thought I could win the race yesterday.”

· “Don’t know how to respond to her.”

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

Symitar Documentation Services

NOTICE: This electronic mail message and any files transmitted with it are intended
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