Editor's Corner

Good afternoon, folks! I promised I’d get into modal verbs one of these days and that day is upon us.

So what is a modal verb?

Modal verbs (also called auxiliary, helping, or defective verbs) are verbs that express things such as possibility, likelihood, obligation, permission, and ability.

What are the modal verbs in English?

From the McGraw-Hill Handbook of English Grammar and Usage:

What is so special (or defective) about modal verbs?

· In the present tense, they don’t require an “s” for the third person singular.

For example: “she will be there,” not “she wills be there.” With regular verbs, the third person singular requires an “s,” such as “she sells seashells,” or “he runs with abandon.”

· The modal verb must is the only verb in English with a present form but no past form.

· Modal verbs are followed by the infinitive of other verbs, without the “to.” (This may sound confusing because we call the infinitive the “to form” of a verb. “Infinitive” actually means the verb is not finite—it can’t be the main verb in a sentence.)

· For example:

o “You must come on Thursday,” not “You must to come on Thursday.”

o “She will write to you afterwards,” not “She will to write to you afterwards.”

· Modal verbs form questions by inverting words.

For example:

o “He can go” becomes “Can he go?”

o “She should run” becomes “Should she run?”

o “The weather will be good” becomes “Will the weather be good?”

Tomorrow: The softer, gentler side of modal verbs.

Mmmmm…a la mode!

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Per the JHA Style Guide for Technical Communication and Training, do not use check and uncheck as verbs to describe putting a check in a check box. Use select and clear instead.

Example:

· Clear the All caps check box and select the Small caps check box.

Thank you,

Jackie Solano

Technical Writer, Episys Technical Publications

Symitar®

8985 Balboa Avenue

San Diego, California 92123

Direct Line: 619-542-6711

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Here are the last few items from jury duty. J I also have a little treat for you at the very bottom of this email.

These definitions are from the following glossaries:

• http://www.sdcourt.ca.gov/portal/page?_pageid=55,1643485&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL
• http://www.glenncourt.ca.gov/court_info/glossary.html
• http://www.nycourts.gov/lawlibraries/glossary.shtml

• deliberations: This occurs after a trial when a jury goes into its assigned private room to think about and discuss evidence and testimony to help it reach a verdict. [KC – Also known as going from the jury box to a more enclosed box. All of the evidence and the twelve jury members are sent
  to a room and closed in to finally talk about the case. Up to this point, there is no chatting with anyone about what we’ve seen or heard. We all went around the table and had an opportunity to discuss what evidence and testimony seemed true and how we thought
  we might decide. Where there was misunderstanding or disagreement, we continued to discuss the evidence.]

• foreperson: A member of a jury, usually the first juror called and sworn, or a juror elected by fellow jurors, who delivers the verdict to the court.

• beyond a reasonable doubt: In a criminal case, the accused’s guilt must be established "beyond a reasonable doubt." Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is proof that leaves you with an abiding conviction that the charge is true. [KC – This was a criminal case, so the decision had to be unanimous. The prosecutor’s job was to prove that Mr. X was guilty
  beyond a reasonable doubt. If there was doubt, we were tasked to find him innocent.]

• verdict: The formal decision or finding made by a jury, which has been impaneled and sworn for the trial of a case, and reported to the court. [KC – Unfortunately for Mr. X, the jury found him guilty of having a blood alcohol level above .08 while driving. So that the jury doesn’t base the verdict on the defendant’s past or on potential
  punishment, sentencing is done at a separate time and the jury is not involved.]

I never forget a promise and I know I promised you more mondegreens (misheard song lyrics). While I was on jury duty, I went through two new books and started collecting some for you. Here are a few from The Ants Are My Friends by Martin Toseland.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Kara

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Today’s vocabulary and court terms are from days two through five of jury duty (at least in this case). I’ll have the final results for you tomorrow.

• admonishment: An authoritative statement made to the jury by the judge regarding their conduct as jurors. [KC – In plain terms, the judge reminds you each time that there is a recess, that you are not allowed to talk, text, or in any way communicate with anyone anywhere about the trial.]

• trial: The formal examination of a legal controversy in court so as to determine the issue. [KC – In this case, we were to hear evidence that would prove (or disprove) that this gentleman was driving with a blood alcohol level over .08.]

• counsel: One or more lawyers who represent a client. [KC – And this was where the circus began! The defendant (see below) had two lawyers. One was a gruff, obnoxious older man who looked like a Dick Tracy villain stomping around the courtroom.
  The other was also very abrupt and treated the prosecutor’s witnesses horribly, asking one police officer, “Was there a curb? Do you know what a curb is?” Yikes!]

• defendant: The party against whom the case is filed. The accused person or party; the person named as the wrongdoer in a criminal action. [KC – We will call him Mr. X.]

• prosecuting attorney: A public officer whose duty is the prosecution of criminal proceedings on behalf of the citizenry; sometimes referred to as "district attorney" or "city attorney."

• evidence: Any type of legal proof presented at trial through witnesses, records, and/or exhibits. [KC – Three police officers, two forensic experts, one former police chief, and a partridge in a pear tree.]

• direct examination: The first interrogation of a witness by the party on whose behalf the witness is called.

• cross-examination: Questioning by a party or his attorney of an adverse party or a witness called by an adverse party.

• testimony: An oral declaration made by a witness or party under oath.

• sidebar: Refers to a conference between Court and counsel held at the side of the bench and out of the hearing of the jury. [KC – I prefer salad bars to sidebars. There were many interruptions for these breaks, where the attorneys and judge conferred. It seems that they were conferring
  on the law and what was within the limits of what each party could say. But that is total speculation since we weren’t supposed to be able to hear anything over in the jury box.]

• sustain: To uphold or affirm or accept an objection.

• overrule: To disallow; to rule against an argument or objection made in the course of a trial or proceeding.

• motion: An oral or written request to the court made by a party for a ruling or order. [KC – We often heard “motion to strike” with regards to certain comments made by the witnesses.]

• hearsay: A type of testimony given by a witness who relates not what he/she knows personally, but what others have told the witness, or what the witness has heard said by others; may be admissible or inadmissible in court depending upon rules of evidence. [KC – In this case, when one of
  the lawyers would yell out “Objection! Hearsay!” it was usually because a witness was referring to information in a report or article that was not previously entered into evidence.]

These definitions are from the following glossaries:

• http://www.sdcourt.ca.gov/portal/page?_pageid=55,1643485&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL
• http://www.glenncourt.ca.gov/court_info/glossary.html
• http://www.nycourts.gov/lawlibraries/glossary.shtml

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

www.symitar.com

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Hello everyone!

After five days on jury duty, I have to say it is good to be back. During my time away, I collected a lot of things to share with you: questions about our language, emails from inquiring minds, passages from books I read, and grammar topics I want to touch on. Today and tomorrow, however, I will bring some of the legal vocabulary from my adventures in public service, directly to you. These terms are not in alphabetical order, but instead are in the order you might experience them while going through the process of serving on a jury for a trial.

The definitions are from the following glossaries and resources:

· http://www.sdcourt.ca.gov/portal/page?_pageid=55,1643485&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL

· http://www.glenncourt.ca.gov/court_info/glossary.html

· http://www.nycourts.gov/lawlibraries/glossary.shtml

The names have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty.

· jury summons: The papers sent to potential jurors that require their attendance in court for possible service on a jury. [KC – This is the mail you receive that makes you break into a sweat, hoping that it isn’t the same week you are supposed to be in the Bahamas.]

· civil case/civil suit: A lawsuit is called a civil case when it is between two or more individuals or corporations involved in a dispute and usually seeking a judgment awarding monetary damages. A civil case is an action brought to enforce, redress, or protect private rights. Civil actions include:

o General Civil (seeking damages over $25,000)

o Limited Civil (seeking damages under $25,000)

o Family Law

o Probate

o Unlawful Detainer (landlord/tenant disputes)

o Small Claims (seeking damages under $5,000)

· criminal prosecution/criminal case: The act of pursuing a criminal trial, where the state charges someone with a crime. A criminal case is an action brought by the government against a person who has broken the law. Criminal cases are separated into three main categories; felony, misdemeanors, and infractions. [KC – After sitting in a room with several hundred people, thirty-five of us were called to a department in the criminal court area of the San Diego Courthouse. We were told very little except
that this was a criminal case.]

· recess: A short break in the proceedings, with court resuming on the same day. [KC – I went out for a little walk. Two meth addicts tried to get me to buy a stolen bicycle for $10 in front of a Wendy’s. I told them I might get in trouble
for accidentally flashing people while riding a stolen bike and wearing a dress.]

· voir dire: Translated from French, the legal phrase means "to speak the truth" or "to see them say." Voir dire is the preliminary examination of prospective jurors by a judge or lawyer to decide whether that person can serve on a particular jury. [KC – Also known as the time where you get to share basic personal information (and any experience with the police or crime) with a room full of strangers.]

· challenges: The law authorizes the judge and the lawyers to excuse individual jurors from service in a particular case for various reasons. If a lawyer wishes to have a juror excused, he or she must use a "challenge" for that juror. Challenges, or reasons to dismiss a juror, are of two kinds:

o for cause: The law sets forth a number of reasons why jurors may be excused "for cause." For example, a juror who is related to or employed by one of the parties in the case may be excused for cause. There is no limit to the number of for cause challenges that may be used. [KC – The potential juror who said he didn’t trust the police under any circumstances but also decided the defendant was guilty before the jury was chosen was excused “for cause.”]

o peremptory: Each side in a case has a certain number of challenges that can be used without giving a reason. These are called peremptory challenges. Each side may ask the judge to excuse particular jurors. If a juror is excused, this does not imply something bad and does not mean the juror is not competent in any way. It frequently happens that a prospective juror will be excused in a certain case and later accepted in another. The number of peremptory challenges have been established by the Legislature.

· impaneling: the process by which jurors are selected and sworn to their task.

Tomorrow: the trial.

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

www.symitar.com

NOTICE: This electronic mail message and any files transmitted with it are intended
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together with any attachment, may contain confidential and/or privileged information.
Any unauthorized review, use, printing, saving, copying, disclosure or distribution
is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please
immediately advise the sender by reply email and delete all copies.

Per the JHA Style Guide for Technical Communication and Training,always title an image or introduce it with text that comes before the image.

Don’t assume that the reader understands your reasoning for placing images in your documentation.

Thank you,

Jackie Solano

Technical Writer, Episys Technical Publications

Symitar®

8985 Balboa Avenue

San Diego, California 92123

Direct Line: 619-542-6711

My dear Editor’s Corner readers,

How I miss you! I am still serving at the pleasure of Judge Judith Sheindlin (okay, it’s not really her) down at the courthouse. I had some big plans to get into a discussion of modal verbs, but there’s no time for that yet.

Instead, I will address a question I received twice in the last week. The question is: When you are talking about something that happens over and over again, is the word recurring or reoccurring?

According to Merriam-Webster:

recur

· to go back in thought or discourse

· to come up again for consideration

· to come again to mind

· to occur again after an interval: occurs time after time

As far as reoccur, it is not defined in Merriam-Webster as a single word, but as the prefix re plus the root word occur. We are left to assume it means "to occur again," but some resources say there is a distinction between the two.

From The Grammarist:

Recur vs. reoccur

· Something that recurs happens repeatedly, perhaps at regular intervals.

· Something that reoccurs happens again, but not necessarily repeatedly or at regular intervals.

For example, the sunrise recurs, and an unpredictable event that happens to occur more than once—such as an earthquake or a financial crisis—reoccurs.

More examples:

Recur

· Fresh off Golden Globe and SAG Award victories, the HBO drama will add this British actor in a recurring role on season two. [TV Fanatic]

· Seizures might recur as many as a hundred times a day. [Kilgore News Herald]

Reoccur

· In our view, Haiti’s traumatic crises will continue to reoccur unless resulting social, economic, and geographic imbalances are fundamentally changed. [Foreign
Policy]

In many circles, reoccurring is considered incorrect; some people think it is simply awkward. If you want to be safe, stick with recurring.

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

www.symitar.com

Hello everyone!

I am taking a quick break from my civic duty as a juror to write a quick Editor’s Corner for you.

As I was watching the show Boardwalk Empire last weekend, one of the characters used the term “for the nonce.” The show is set in 1920s Atlantic City—but this sounded very Shakespearean to me. “For the nonce” means “for the time being.” It’s actually been around since the 1200s, pre-dating our friend William Shakespeare by 400 years.

Okay! I have other things up my sleeve—I’ve been marking down mondegreens, eggcorns, and malapropisms (more on these later) to share with you upon my return—but for now I have to get back to the jury of my peers!

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

www.symitar.com

Anthropomorphism is attributing human characteristics or behavior to an inanimate object (things that are not human). Anthropomorphism is a form of a metaphor and can make your writing unclear and incorrect. We see anthropomorphism in documentation because a writer is trying to make complex information easier for the reader to understand. Instead of using anthropomorphism, work toward a clearer understanding of the content and another way to express it.

Here are some examples:

• Incorrect: This enhancement ensures compliance with Regulation Z.
• Correct: In this enhancement, Symitar modified the Episys database to remain compliant with Regulation Z.

An enhancement is incapable of ensuring anything because the term enhancement is the act of enhancing or state of being enhanced. The programming changes Symitar made are what ensure compliance.

• Incorrect: This field specifies how Episys advances the due date when a payment is made to a loan.
• Correct: Use this field to specify how Episys advances the loan due date when a member makes a payment.

The user’s input or the section in the field determines how Episys advances the due date.

• Incorrect: The system thinks you are inactive after 5 minutes and ends your session.
• Correct: If you are inactive for more than 5 minutes, the system ends your session.

The system can’t think. The user’s inactivity ends the session.

Sometimes it is acceptable to use anthropomorphism, as in the following examples (always use discretion):

• You end up with an awkward sentence trying to avoid using anthropomorphism
• You are writing about a hierarchical relationship, “a child object is said to inherit attributes from its parent or ancestors” (Microsoft Manual of Style)

Thank you,

Jackie Solano

Technical Writer, Episys Technical Publications

Symitar®

8985 Balboa Avenue

San Diego, California 92123

Direct Line: 619-542-6711

NOTICE: This electronic mail message and any files transmitted with it are intended
exclusively for the individual or entity to which it is addressed. The message,
together with any attachment, may contain confidential and/or privileged information.
Any unauthorized review, use, printing, saving, copying, disclosure or distribution
is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please
immediately advise the sender by reply email and delete all copies.

Good afternoon! I had a question recently about common abbreviations like info (for information) and sync (for synchronization). The question was, “Why did you change info to information—everyone knows what info means, right?” Well, most people who are fluent in English do. However, I can’t answer that question with a straight-up yes, because today, so much of what we write will be read by people for whom English is not their first language. We should always keep that in mind.

The real answer to that question is that I changed info to information because in professional writing, to retain a professional tone, we always spell these words out (it’s the same reason we avoid using contractions like can’t, I’ll, and should’ve in our technical documentation and our correspondences to clients). But that’s not to say that we don’t or shouldn’t use these abbreviated words (and contractions) in other situations.

So, just for fun, let’s talk about abbreviating, which is also called word clipping. When we talk, and when we’re engaged in casual or creative writing, we clip words in a few different ways.

We back clip (remove the last part of a word). For example:

· Info: information

· Taxi: taximeter

· Lunch: luncheon

· Gas: gasoline

We fore-clip (remove the first part of a word). For example:

· Bot: robot

· Roach: cockroach

· Phone: telephone

We middle clip (remove the first and last part, and leave the middle part of a word). For example:

· Fridge: refrigerator

· Flu: influenza

We play with words all the time. I love to do it too, but not when writing technical documentation and not when corresponding with clients. We always have to keep our audience in mind.

The examples of clipped words above are from an article written by Maeve Maddox at Daily Writing Tips.

Donna Bradley Burcher | Technical Editor | Symitar®

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