Editor's Corner

For the next couple of days, let’s have a look at some word pairs that are often confused and misused. The original list is from Daily Writing Tips; the examples are from me.

Childish/Childlike
Childish suggests immaturity behavior befitting a child, while childlike pertains to more positive qualities such as innocence and curiosity.

· Thomas was 30 years old, but his childish behavior prevented him from keeping girlfriends for long; most women couldn’t look past the messy eating, frequent tantrums, and diaper-wearing.

· Daisy’s most charming quality is the childlike way she approaches new experiences: with sheer joy and glee.

Inexplicable/Unexplainable
These words are nearly identical in meaning, but inexplicable has developed a unique connotation of an illogical or irrational quality, as in references to odd behavior or supernatural phenomena.

· To Mrs. Cumberbun’s millionaire friends, her choice to use disposable red SOLO® cups and paper napkins during the Winter Ball was inexplicable.

· The green, saucer-shaped object flying through the midnight sky was unexplainable.

Invaluable/Valuable
Something valuable has value; something invaluable has value that, because of its quality or intangible importance, cannot be quantified.

· “Babyface,” as they’d nicknamed the burglar, was known for wearing a doll mask and stealing the most valuable diamonds known to man.

· When I’m struggling for the right words, my lovely co-editor Donna offers suggestions that are invaluable to me. What would I do without her? J

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

www.symitar.com

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Hello all!

Today’s tidbit is from a pet peeve a reader has with the term “a lot.” This one’s easy:

· lot: a parcel of land

· Lot: A biblical character with a pillar of salt for a wife.

· a lot: often, much, to a considerable degree

· allot: to assign a portion to

· alot: This is not a word so don’t use it!

Now, time for a new contest!

Last week I mentioned I’d be doing another contest. The goal of this contest will be familiar: get the word out and find new subscribers for Editor’s Corner. The rules and prizes this time are a bit different.

· Prizes: I have two collections of mondegreens by Gavin Edwards. You can win either ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy or He’s Got the Whole World in His Pants.

· How to enter: All you have to do is talk to your friends and co-workers and see if they want to sign up for our daily language tips, tricks, tidbits, and trivia. Have your buddy send me an email to sign up and have them mention your name. For each person you send, I will enter your name in the drawing. Five friends? Five chances to win!

· Additional details: I’ll accept new names anytime, but the contest ends at midnight, Thursday, March 13. The winner for each book will be picked at random and announced Friday, March 14.

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

www.symitar.com

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Good morning folks!

Over the past couple of years, I’ve sent out several different articles on regional differences in terms. The last one was in November and it was called Nuts. My article included several maps from a study on language. For example, this map shows the differences in the way people across the United States pronounce “been”:

Look familiar?

This weekend, my husband found a follow-up to this study in The New York Times “Sunday Review” online. Several people involved in collecting the original survey data and making the language maps have set up a quiz which predicts where you’re from based on your answers. I think it is fascinating stuff! The results based on my answers? Considering I was raised in Seattle, I think they did a great job! (See my results below.)

If you want to take the test and read more about the study, check it out here! (Try Chrome if IE hasn’t been updated on your PC.) For some additional articles in Editor’s Corner, you can try Regional Ravings and Regional Differences.

Have fun!

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor

Happy Friday!

I have another set of mondegreens (misheard song lyrics) to start off your weekend with a chuckle. Today I’ve selected some that have a food theme. (Well, I guess the one about aspirin and gin doesn’t exactly fall into the traditional pyramid of balanced nutrition.) Next week I’ll have my final set of mondegreens for you, but I will also be giving away the series of books they are from. One is going to Renee Deane, who encouraged me to go on this mondegreen kick. That leaves two others…sounds like time for another contest! (Details and rules to follow.)

As before, these mondegreens are from books by Gavin Edwards: ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy, When a Man Loves a Walnut, and He’s Got the Whole World in His Pants.

Group/Singer (Song Title)

Mondegreen. (Actual song lyrics.)

Wham! (Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go)

Wake me up, and pour some cocoa (Wake me up, before you go-go)

The Rolling Stones (Beast of Burden)

I’ll never leave your pizza burnin’. (I’ll never be your beast of burden.)

The Steve Miller Band (Jungle Love)

The question to everyone’s answer is usually aspirin with gin. (The question to everyone’s answer is usually asked from within.)

Simon and Garfunkel (I am a Rock)

· I am a rock, I am an onion.

· I am a rock, I am in Thailand.

(I am a rock, I am an island.)

Rupert Holmes (Escape)

If you like bean enchiladas (If you like pia coladas)

The Eagles (Hotel California)

On a dark desert highway, Cool Whip in my hair. (On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair.)

Foreigner (Double Vision)

My mind is bacon, but my body’s Sizzlean. (My mind is racing’, but my body’s in the lead.)

The Ramones (I Wanna Be Sedated)

I want a piece of date bread (I wanna be sedated)

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

www.symitar.com

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Good morning!

Yesterday I wrote about the term “sea change,” and as someone reminded me, my misinterpretation of the phrase as “seed change” is called an “eggcorn.” We’ve talked about these before. The term is fairly new and it comes from a discussion about a woman who misheard the word acorn as eggcorn.

It’s not the same thing as a mondegreen (misheard song lyric) but it is similar. Today I will treat you with a few animal-themed eggcorns from the Eggcorn database.

They are presented in the following order:

<actual term> à <misheard term>

Definition of term or idiom (from Merriam-Webster or The Free Dictionary)

Examples using the eggcorn and where the examples were found

stark raving à stark raven

Definition: completely crazy; out of control

· Monsters from the Id have driven them stark raven mad. (sci.sceptic)

crosier à crow’s ear

Definition: The hooked staff carried by a bishop as a symbol of pastoral office.

· The 84-year-old John Paul was laid out in Clementine Hall, dressed in white and red vestments; his head covered with a white bishop’s miter and propped up on three dark gold pillows. Tucked under his left arm was the silver staff, called the crow’s ear, which he had carried in public. (International Herald Tribune, Apr 4, 2005)

Like a bull in a china shop à Like a bowl in a china shop

Definition: A very clumsy creature in a delicate situation; careless behavior in a sensitive situation.

· And she’s described in reports as a bowl in a china shop, but somebody of unassailable high ethics, and also as a direct, directly reporting to the then chief financial officer. (CNN.com, rush transcript, January 16, 2002)

Put the cart before the horse à Put the cat before the horse

Definition: To do things in an order that is not conventionally considered logical; to do things the wrong way.

· A population policy that is not predicated on the result of a credible census, in our view, is tantamount to putting the cat before the horse. (THISDAYOnLine.com, November 16, 2004)

· But perhaps to expect that the Attorney-General’s Office and the Government in general can eradicate corruption is to put the cat before the horse. (Daily Nation [Kenya], September 13, 1998)

scapegoat à escape goat

[KC – I love this one. I imagine making my getaway from the crime scene on my escape goat!]

Definition: A person who is unfairly blamed for something others have done.

· This replacement was an escape goat for a vindictive coward. (The Writer’s Association)

· In the eyes of most Somalis, these warlords are using Ethiopia as an escape goat to achieve their political agenda… (Somali News)

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor

A couple nights ago, during an insomniac haze, I grabbed a Money magazine to read and lull myself back to sleep. Instead of returning to the land of slumber, however, I was awakened by the phrase “affecting a sea change.” I’d heard this before, but honestly, I thought people were saying “a seed change” and that they were a little loco. I knew that they were talking about a major change, but I just couldn’t figure out what gardening had to do with it.

Shiver me timbers, here’s some information behind that phrase. From Merriam-Webster:

sea change (noun): a big and sudden change

archaic

1: a change brought about by the sea

2: a marked change: transformation <a sea change in public policy>

According to Wikipedia, by way of the Oxford English Dictionary, the term sea change:

…originally appears in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest in a song sung by a supernatural spirit, Ariel, to Ferdinand, a prince of Naples, after Ferdinand’s father’s apparent death by drowning:

"Full fathom five thy father lies,

Of his bones are coral made,
Those are pearls that were his eyes,
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change,
into something rich and strange,
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell,
Ding-dong.

Hark! now I hear them, ding-dong, bell." [KC-While Shakespeare was an amazing playwright, I can’t really sing praises for his songwriting.]

The term sea-change is therefore often used to mean a metamorphosis or alteration. For example, a literary character may transform over time into a better person after undergoing various trials or tragedies (e.g., "There is a sea change in Scrooge’s personality towards the end of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.")

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor

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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Oh my goodness. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I can take any more of these comma rules! Here are the last two I will share with you. If you forget any of these rules or want to read more guidelines on comma usage, check Purdue’s Quick Rules or Extended Rules for Using Commas. Now, I’m going to go up to the roof of the parking structure to celebrate the end of this lesson with a scream.

· Use a comma to shift between the main discourse and a quotation.

Examples:

o John said without emotion, "I’ll see you tomorrow."

o "I was able," she answered, "to complete the assignment."

o In 1848, Marx wrote, "Workers of the world, unite!"

[KC] Note the punctuation at the end of the phrases above (period, exclamation point) goes inside the quotation mark. For more on that topic see previous posts on “punctuation in quotes,” or wait with bated breath for future editions of Editor’s Corner.

· Use commas wherever necessary to prevent possible confusion or misreading.

Example:

To George, Harrison had been a sort of idol.

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor

Good morning!

Today’s Editor’s Corner is brought to you by DailyWritingTips. This list of animals with their corresponding adjectives may come in handy the next time you need to describe a co-worker’s animal-like behavior.

ant: formicine

ass: asinine

bear: ursine

bird: avian

bull: taurine

crow: corvine

dog: canine

dove: columbine

elephant: elephantine

fish: piscine

fox: vulpine

hornet/wasp: vespine

horse: equine

lion: leonine

peacock: pavonine

pig: porcine

seal: phocine

serpent: serpentine

sheep: ovine

swan: cygnine

tiger: tigrine

tortoise: testudine

wolf: lupine

viper: viperine

Here are some examples:

Bad writing brings out Kara’s taurine characteristics.

Ron guarded the cookies on the counter in a leonine manner.

Donna’s posture is cygnine-like.

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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It’s another mondegreen Friday! I think maybe it’s time to join up with a local karaoke bar to create a drink called the “Mondegreen” (though “Mondegreen Mondays” has a better ring to it) and let the singing begin! Today I’ve collected a few favorites with a common theme: critters! Whether there are animals in the songs or not, we seem to hear lyrics about dogs, cats, bears, lice (ick!), chicken, and more.

As before, these mondegreens are from books by Gavin Edwards: ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy, When a Man Loves a Walnut, and He’s Got the Whole World In His Pants.

Remember, mondegreens are misheard song lyrics. These are presented as follows:

Group/Singer (Song Title)

Mondegreen. (Actual song lyrics.)

Stevie Nicks (Edge of Seventeen)

Just like the one-winged dog (Just like the white-winged dove)

J. Geils Band (Freeze-Frame)

Flea spray (Freeze frame)

Sheryl Crow (All I Wanna Do)

Dry their shiny dachshunds (Drive their shiny Datsuns)

Traditional (Gladly, the Cross I’d Bear)

Gladly, the cross-eyed bear. (Gladly, the cross I’d bear.)

David Bowie (Suffragette City)

Don’t lean on me man, ‘cause you ain’t my type of chicken (Don’t lean on me many, ‘cause you can’t afford the ticket)

Smashing Pumpkins (Bullet with Butterfly Wings)

The spider marines, Siam’s steel-chested rabbit arcade. (In spite of my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.)

The Grateful Dead (Sugar Magnolia)

She paints my chicken when I sleep. (She pays my ticket when I speed.)

Jimmy Buffet (Margaritaville)

Wasting away in my gorilla suit. (Wasting away in Margaritaville.)

The Knack (My Sharona)

Mice aroma (My Sharona)

The Clash (Rock the Casbah)

Sherry don’t like it/Rock the catbox (The Sharif don’t like it/Rock the casbah)

Cher (Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves)

Gypsies, chimpanzees/And every night all the men would come around and lay the monkey down. (Gypsies, tramps, and thieves/And every night all the men would come around and lay their money down.)

The Rolling Stones (Street Fighting Man)

My name is Countess Gerbil (My name is called disturbance)

Elton John (Tiny Dancer)

Count the head lice on the highway (Count the headlights on the highway)

Elton John (Goodbye Yellow Brick Road)

Your cat just peed in your penthouse (You can’t plant me in your penthouse)

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

www.symitar.com

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,
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immediately advise the sender by reply email and delete all copies.

Good afternoon everyone! Here’s another comma lesson for you. This one should come in handy to almost everyone. Use commas in the following instances to set off certain types of information, such as geographical names or dates. Here are some of the items you can set off with commas and examples of where commas are appropriate.

And a comic strip which mysteriously appeared on my desk:

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor