Editor's Corner

Hello!

Jackie’s out today, but she’s sent me this message and quiz to pass along to you. It contains a lot of topics we’ve written about in the past…good luck!

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Good morning! Let’s have some fun today. Here’s another quiz for you. Let’s see who’s been paying attention to Editor’s Corner.

Jackie

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The other day, one of you mentioned the frequency with which you were seeing people use the phrase “soft-peddle” intending to mean “de-emphasize.” If you look at that closely and really think about what peddle means, that is actually referring to “soft selling” something. Here are the three pedal/peddle/petal homophones (from the Grammarist), some common idiomatic phrases (from the Free Dictionary), and a link to an article on this topic from Oxford English Dictionaries.

Definitions:

§ Pedal always relates to bicycles, pianos, organs, boats, looms, sewing machines, and other machines. The pedals are the foot-operated components. The word also functions as a verb meaning to operate pedals. Its participles are pedaled and pedaling in American English. Outside the U.S., they are pedalled and pedalling.

§ Peddle is a verb meaning to sell or to travel about selling goods. It often refers to the sale of illicit goods.

§ And petal is easy. It is always a noun referring to one of the colored parts of a flower surrounding the reproductive organs.

Idiomatic Phrases:

§ (put) the pedal to the metal

To make something go forward or increase as fast as possible.

Ingrid put the pedal to the metal and finished writing her essay a day early.

§ back-pedal

To quickly and often abruptly reverse or retreat from one’s position or opinion on a given subject. Refers to pedaling backwards on a bicycle (done to apply the brakes on fixed-gear bikes), or to taking quick, backward steps, as in football or boxing.

The actor had to back-pedal when he let slip a racist remark during the press conference.

§ soft-pedal something

To play something down; to de-emphasize something. (Alludes to the soft pedal on the piano, which reduces the volume.)

Try to soft-pedal the problems we have with the cooling system. I won’t soft-pedal anything. Everyone must know the truth.

Link:

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/07/pedal-or-peddle/

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

Symitar Documentation Services

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Thanks to Ron Fauset for passing this article along to me, especially since I didn’t get my Sunday newspaper last week. Today’s grammar topic, the word only, is a subject that distresses many people—including me. I’ve read articles and essays on it and I have yet to find the perfect one to share with you. Until then, I will give you this piece from Richard Lederer, which offers an entertaining and informative view on the modifier only.

From Answers to Your One and Only Grammar Questions, in the San Diego Union-Tribune:

Dear Mr. Lederer: My complaint is about the oft misused word only. My late high school English teacher must ache in her grave about its misuse today versus what she taught us back in the 1940s. Would you please offer a definitive statement on the correct use of only? — Richard Jones

The placement of the modifier only is one of the trickiest procedures in English usage. The most famous example of its vagaries is the song title “I Only Have Eyes for You.” Formalists argue that the only is mislocated in this title and that the statement misleadingly implies “I have eyes— but no ears, noses or mouths— for you,” rather than “I have eyes for you— and nobody else but you.” They insist that only— like hardly, nearly, almost, scarcely, even and just— must appear right before the word modified, as in “I Have Eyes for Only You.”

In reality no intelligent listener or reader would misinterpret the song line “I only have eyes for you.” When only comes early in such a statement, the listener or reader is forewarned that the qualifier may be attached to almost any word that follows, and it is usually clear what that word is, as in this three-liner joke: Have you read the news that the government has decided to stop deporting unauthorized immigrants? Instead, they’re going to start deporting senior citizens. Turns out we’re easier to catch. They’ll only have to build a wall three-feet high. And we’re senior citizens, so we won’t remember how to find our way back home anyway.

I submit that, in the paragraph above, “They’ll only have to build a wall three-feet high,” with its “misplaced” only, is more effective than “They’ll have to build a wall only three-feet high.” In general, though, when equally natural placements of the modifier only are available, a writer should put the adjective or adverb immediately before the noun or verb it modifies. For example, after hearing or reading the sentence “He only died yesterday,” a listener or reader might well ask, “’Only died’? What could be worse?” Relocating the only to read “He died only yesterday” makes life easier for your listeners and readers.

So what’s the solution? God only knows. Or should that be “Only God knows”?

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

Symitar Documentation Services

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In my last post, I discussed vowelless words ("disemvoweled words"?). This week, let’s look at the other end of the spectrum: words without consonants.

Because (almost) all English words have at least one vowel, you might assume that there are many words with nothing but vowels. But the list is surprisingly short.

The one-letter words a and I are popular (the sixth and tenth most common English words, respectively), and there are a handful of all-vowel words that include the letter Y (like aye and eye).

What about words longer than one letter with just the vowels A, E, I, O, and U? Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary includes just nine:

• aa: rough scoriaceous lava
• ae: (chiefly Scottish) one
• ai: a three-toed sloth of the genus Bradypus of South America
• ea: (dialectical, England) river, stream
• eau: a watery solution (as of perfume)
• ee: (Scottish) eye
• io: a shout of joy or triumph; a large hawk (Buteo solitaries) that is the only indigenous raptorial bird of Hawaii
• oe: a violent whirlwind off the Faroe islands
• oo: a Hawaiian honeyeater of the genus Moho

Some sources, including the Guinness Book of World Records, include the word euouae, which describes a cadence in medieval music. Euouae comes from the Latin phrase seculorum Amen. Does a Latin mnemonic count as an English word? It’s playable in Scrabble®, and that’s good enough for me.

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

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It’s Friday and it’s National Grammar Day. What more could you ask for? (I know…a pony or a puppy!)

For fun, Jackie found this quiz for you from https://www.grammarly.com/plagiarism-checker. Just click this link and press Let’s Play to start your quiz!

For articles, grammar fun, and t-shirts, check out Grammar Girl’s website here.

Happy National Grammar Day!

(And here is your puppy!)

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services

Dear Editrix,

I’d like to know about a phrase I hear used fairly often, but I wonder if it is really proper English. The phrase is these ones. For example, “I gave John a choice of socks and told him he could wear these ones or those ones his brother likes.”

Please let me know more about these phrases,

Baffled Bill

Dear Baffled,

Your ear is not fooling you: these ones is not proper, grammatical construction. I found several articles online about this topic, but I think Grammar Girl’s answer and examples were the most concise. I hope this helps!

The word "ones" can be plural, as in "I like the red ones." You could even say "I like these red ones." Imagine that "ones" is standing in for the word "roses" or “apples." But "I like these ones" is redundant and incorrect. "These" is already standing in for the noun. You should say simply "I like these" instead.

The situation is the same with "those":

§ He likes those ones. (redundant)

§ He likes those. (better)

The phrases "this one" and "that one" don’t seem to bother linguists, but it doesn’t hurt to take a second look when you use the phrases to make sure that you aren’t being unnecessarily wordy.

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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Unfortunately, the Chicago Manual of Style didn’t give us much snarky Q&A to choose from this month. Here are the two fairly tame questions and answers I have for you about subject/verb agreement for today.

Q. I am unsure of how to handle subject-verb agreement in sentences that involve em dashes or parentheses. For example, “The president (and, to some extent, Congress) is committed to the policy” or “The president—and, to some extent, Congress—is committed to the policy.” Is it correct to treat the subject in each of these sentences as singular or plural?

A. Singular. Choose a verb as though the parenthetical “afterthought” weren’t there. (This is true if the afterthought is set off by commas as well.)

Q. When providing options between two or more singular items and one or more plural items, should a writer use a plural verb or a singular verb? For example: “When Mom or Dad or both [say/says] no, you’d better stop asking.”

A. Grab the nearest noun or pronoun in the series and use it to determine the verb:

· When Mom or Dad or both say no, you’d better stop asking.

· When your parents or the babysitter says no, you’d better stop asking.

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services

Today my gift for you is an article from our vacationing Donna. Enjoy!

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Good morning!

Today’s topic is the unnecessary future tense. No, I’m not referring to an episode of Star Trek or The X-Files. Sorry. I’m talking about grammar—again. I gathered much of today’s information from The Global English Style Guide by John R. Kohl (pp. 39-40).

The future tense includes the auxiliary verb will (as in I will enjoy my vacation!). You should use the future tense when you’re talking about something that happens only in the future as in this example:

· You cannot predict which record will be deleted because the internal sort might place either record first.

The problem is that many writers use the future tense when they’re not necessarily talking about something that happens only in the future, as this example shows:

· When you develop your application, test different values to determine which values will result in the best performance.

You can rewrite the previous example in present tense (removing the auxiliary verb will), and it still works:

· When you develop your application, test different values to determine which values result in the best performance.

To avoid using future tense unnecessarily, just ask yourself if the word will is necessary in your sentence. If it’s not necessary, remove it!

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Today you get a timely article about leap years, from Copyediting.com. Are any of you lucky enough to have a birthday only once every four years? If so, happy birthday youngsters!

Leap years have been part of the calendar for over two millennia, which means they (leap years and calendars both) predate English itself. So it should come as no surprise that a leap year has another name besides leap year.

The term bissextile is a hanger-on from ancient times to describe all things that have to do with that extra day added every four years. And, etymologically, the word bissextile is more clearly descriptive of what it is — at least, it would be if you were brought up in Rome 2,700 years ago.

Before the reign of Julius Caesar, Rome used a very flawed lunar calendar. In that old Roman system, the months were divided into day markers called calends (the first of the month, coinciding with the new moon), nones (the fifth or seventh day), and ides (the middle of the month). Individual days were referred to by how many days they fell before the calends, nones, and ides.

The Julian calendar, mandated by and named after Julius Caesar, was the first 365-day solar calendar. But Caesar and his astronomers recognized that a solar year wasn’t exactly 365 days long, and so every few years (and they had some calculation problems here), they added an extra day at the end of the year. This was still a time when the names of the months still made sense — the year began in March; December was, as the name implies, the tenth month; and the last two months of the year were January and February.

So under the Julian calendar, the leap day was added to the end of February. According to the old Roman system, that extra day was inserted after the sixth day before the calends of March, essentially making it the second sixth day, or bissextus, from bis-, twice or double, plus sextus, sixth.

Though both the old Roman lunar calendar and the Julian calendar have by and large been left behind, the words bissextus or bissext, the leap day, and their adjective form bissextile are still around, though not in common usage.

So, this Monday, February 29, wish your friends a Happy Bissextus!

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

Symitar Documentation Services

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When I was in kindergarten, my teacher made a wager. She would give one hundred dollars to any student who could name a word with no vowels.

Many students tried, but none succeeded. Most of the suggested words contained vowels. My contribution, the onomatopoeia grr, was rejected as "not a real word."

Grr is an interjection (an exclamation expressing an emotion). Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary does not have an entry for grr, but it does include three other vowelless interjections:

• hm/hmm/hmmm: used to express the action or process of thinking
• sh: used to urge or command silence or less noise
• tsk: used to express disapproval

The Oxford Dictionaries website includes grr ("used to express anger or annoyance"), and also the following interjections:

• brrr: used to express someone’s reaction to feeling cold
• mm/mmm: used to express contentment or pleasure
• pfft: used to represent a dull abrupt sound as of a slight impact or explosion
• psst: used to attract someone’s attention surreptitiously
• tch: used to express irritation, annoyance or impatience

Even if we accept my teacher’s stipulation that interjections are not real words, a student could have claimed the hundred dollars with the adjective nth (as in, "to the nth degree"):

• nth: numbered with an unspecified or indefinitely large ordinal number; extreme, utmost

The Oxford Dictionaries website also includes xlnt as an alternate spelling of excellent, to which I say pfft, grr, and tsk tsk. Even in kindergarten, I had some standards.

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

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