I was reading a tidbit in the book SuperFreakonomics about laws with good intentions that end up hurting those they are designed to help. The example was a law recorded in the Bible which …required creditors to forgive all debts every sabbatical, or seventh year. I stopped here because the word sabbatical caught my attention. I always thought that a sabbatical was a break that teachers or other professionals took to write a book, travel, or heal from a mental breakdown. Then I wondered if it was related to the word Sabbath or if they were both related to the word seven.

The answer is that yes, a sabbatical is a break and it is related to the word Sabbath. They are connected to seven but not by their etymologies. Here are the details for those with inquiring minds.

sabbatical (noun): sabbatical year; leave

sabbatical year (noun): a year of rest for the land observed every seventh year in ancient Judea by allowing the fields and vineyards to lie without tilling, sowing, pruning, or reaping from autumn to autumn in accordance with a Levitical commandment. [KC The law mentioned in SuperFreakonomics was that on the seventh year debts were forgiven. The problem? Creditors stopped lending money during years five and six, driving the borrowers out of business and into starvation.]

sabbatical leave (noun): a leave with full or half pay granted (every seventh year) to one holding an administrative or professional position (as college professor) for rest, travel, or research

Sabbath (noun): the day of rest and solemn assembly observed as sacred to God by Jews and some Christian churches on the seventh day of the week from sunset Friday until sunset Saturday

Etymology: Middle English sabath, sabat, from Old French sabat, sabbat & Old English sabat, from Latin sabbatum, from Greek sabbaton, from Hebrew shabbth, from shbath to rest

Black Sabbath

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor

Good morning!

Today’s topic is based on the article “Take Care with Dysphemisms” by Mark Nichol.

Dysphemism is the use of a derogatory word or phrase instead of an inoffensive one.

Some examples are:

Snail mail for postal mail

Cancer stick in reference to a cigarette

Worm food or kicked the bucket for death

Pig for policemen

Quack for doctor

Shrink for psychiatrist

Old man for your father or husband

Old lady for your wife

Old bat for an elderly woman

Jalopy or beater for an unreliable car

Eat like a pig for a person who eats quickly or a lot

Dead tree edition for the paper version of a publication that can be found online

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/take-care-with-dysphemisms/

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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A very joyous Friday to you! On Monday, I have a treat for you from the third person in our editing group: Jackie Solano. Jackie provides our Technical Publications department with weekly “Nifty Nuggets” from our department’s handbook. She now desires a wider audience, so look for her first Editor’s Corner next week!

As for today, with some help from my friends at Wikipedia and Merriam-Webster, I have another three “nym” words for you: allonym, ananym, and anonym.

· allonym: a work published under the name of a person other than the author

From Greek allos (other) + nym (name or word)

Example (From Wordsmith.org):

An example of a work written under an allonym is The Federalist, also known as The Federalist Papers. This collection of 85 essays about the U.S. Constitution was written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison in 1787-1788. They chose to write under the name Publius in honor of a Roman official for his role in setting up the Roman republic."

· ananym: a pseudonym consisting of the real name written backwards

Latin, from Greek ana– (up, back, again) + –nym

Examples:

· Oprah Winfrey (media company “Harpo Productions”)

· Amos Heilicher (owner of Soma Records)

· Beatles (Seltaeb merchandising company)

· anonym: a false name, a pseudonym

French anonyme, from Greek anōnumos (without name)

Examples:

· Mark Twain is the anonym of Samuel L. Clemens

· Lewis Carroll is the anonym of Charles Dodgson

· The Brontë sisters each used anonyms to avoid the prejudice against female writers at the time:

o Anne Brontë – Acton Bell

o Charlotte Brontë – Currer Bell

o Emily Brontë – Ellis Bell

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I know we’ve covered homonyms and acronyms and perhaps some other “nym” words, but there are so many more out there to discover! The suffix –nym is from the Greek word for name or word (onoma). Here is a repeat and a couple of new ones for you.

· acronym: a word formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term

From Greek akros (beginning, tip, peak, summit)

Examples:

o light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (laser)

o National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

o radio detecting and ranging (radar)

o self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (scuba)

o sound navigation and ranging (sonar)

· antonym: a word of opposite meaning

From Greek anti (in opposition of)

Examples:

(The following words pairs are antonyms of each other.)

o hot, cold

o dark, light

o good, bad

· aptronym (also aptonym or charactonym): the name of a person aptly suited to their character or profession

From apt (suitable) + nym, several sources credited with coining the term.

Examples:

o Sara Blizzard, meteorologist

• Russell Brain, neurologist
• Margaret Court, tennis player
• Bob Flowerdew, gardener
• Kara Church [KC – more of an antonym than an aptronym :-)]

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor

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I hope everyone is feeling relaxed and rested after the three-day weekend. Here is the remainder of the article on self-editing that I sent last week from DailyWritingTips.

· Select the strongest nouns and verbs before you select adjectives and adverbs.
Words that modify nouns and verbs can enhance clarity of thought and vividness of imagery, but if they upstage the words they’re supposed to support, strengthen the actor and action words. When you do so, an adjective or adverb may no longer be necessary.

· Seek opportunities to use repetition for rhetorical effect while, at the same time, you watch for careless redundancy.
Take care that you don’t repeat yourself unless you do so to emphasize your point. [KC – In technical writing, you may explain a difficult topic at a technical level and then restate the information in plain language. Just make sure not to keep repeating the
same thing over and over using same words. I think that’s the equivalent of repeating the same thing to someone (louder each time) who doesn’t speak your language. No matter how many times you say it or how loud you yell it—the recipient is not going to get
it until you use language they understand.]

· Read your draft aloud to help you refine grammar and usage. If something doesn’t sound right to you, it probably doesn’t read right to your audience, either.
Recitation of your writing is time consuming, but that’s how you find the awkward wording or phrasing you didn’t stumble over in your silent review. [KC –This is often something we do as editors when we stumble on something that doesn’t make sense. You may think we are talking to ourselves, but we’re actually reading submissions
out loud to double-check their clarity. No comments from the peanut gallery!]

· Ask someone else to read your writing and critique it.
People you [ask] to read your draft need not offer solutions to problems of grammar, usage, organization, and logic; they can simply highlight problematic words, phrases, sentences, and passages, and offer more detail if necessary while leaving the problem solving to you. [KC – This point refers to personal writing and critiques. As editors here at Jack Henry, it is part of our job to correct grammar, usage, and problem sentences.
We may also offer advice on the structure and logic of a submission since we have experience in instructional design, presenting, teaching, and writing various types of articles. It’s our job to help you communicate as clearly and efficiently as possible!]

When Model-Netics goes wrong…

From F in Exams, by Richard Benson

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor

It’s been a bit of a holiday dry spell, but we’re quickly approaching a three-day weekend! Before you relax too much, here are the first three tips from a list of seven. The article is from a February post on DailyWritingTips.com, called “7 Tips for Editing to Improve Usage.”

How do you make sure you’re writing right? Crafting prose is mostly a matter of using the right words for the job. Here are some steps to help you achieve that goal.

1. Look up the definition of an unfamiliar word and be sure you understand the meaning before you use it.

It’s easy to deploy a word you’ve just read or heard, mistakenly believing you understand its definition or its connotation, only to confuse or accidentally mislead your readers. Always double-check a term you’ve never used before. (Consider doing the same with words you’ve used before and think you know.)

2. Search a thesaurus or a synonym finder for the precise meaning, taking care to notice the different connotations of similar words.

Flag stock words and phrases, and thumb or click through a print or online resource to select a more exact or accurate synonym. But be alert to seemingly similar words with distinct senses.

3. Keep your writing clear and coherent, and avoid pretentious or overly formal language.

Write to communicate, not to impress. Say what you mean, and mean what you say. Don’t dumb down, but don’t let your writing get in the way of your message. There’s a fine line between elegance and pomposity.

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

www.symitar.com

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Yesterday I had a request to bring this topic back for a refresher: When should we use “a while” and when should we use “awhile.”

The original article was written by Ali Hale, for DailyWritingTips.com.

A while is a noun meaning “a length of time.”

• “I slept for a while.”
  (compare with “I slept for a bit” and “I slept for three hours”)
• “I was away from my desk for a while.”

(compare with “I was away from my desk for two minutes”)

Awhile is an adverb, meaning “for a time,” or literally, “for a while.”

• “I slept awhile before dinner.”
  (compare with “I slept deeply before dinner”)

As you can see, the words can be used almost interchangeably in some cases – but a while needs to be accompanied by a preposition, such as “for” (“I slept for a while”) or “ago” (“I left work a while ago”). Awhile always means “for a while.”

My kind of answer to a math question:

From F in Exams, by Richard Benson

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Hello, everyone! Let’s have a look at the “R” words from the “Spelling, Vocabulary, and Confusing Words” article on grammarbook.com.

So, last night as my hubby, the dogs, and I settled in to watch some mad men and bad popes on TV, an ambulance raced by our house at full volume and full speed. “Don’t worry,” I said. “It wasn’t a fire truck, it was an aid car.” Ray asked, “A what? An “A” car?” He was already laughing at me when I responded, “No, an AID car. Like ‘first aid.’” And he laughed and laughed. “Is that one of those Seattle things like “license tabs”?

I went to work immediately to find the answer, and I was quite surprised. It seems that “aid car” is a solely Washingtonian term. Well, as long as they come when called, I guess it doesn’t matter too much what you call the vehicle.

As for “tabs,” it seems Washington has some company in referring to the validation stickers on your license plate as “tabs.” I found references to tabs for Missouri, Michigan, and Minnesota.

I guess there’s no moral to this story. It’s kind of like our discussion of pill bugs (or rolly-pollies)…I find it fascinating that we share a language, but have regional words and phrases that our compatriots don’t understand.

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor

Just a few minutes ago, I was asked a very interesting question: Where did the phrase “raring (or rarin’) to go” come from? I was stumped. Is raring even a verb? What does it mean? Here are some of the things I found out, using The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms and the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

Definition: full of enthusiasm or eagerness <ready and raring to go>; impatient.

Origin: Raring is an alternate form of the word rearing. In this case, the idiom is related to a horse “rearing up” on its hind legs when it is afraid or excited and is ready to run off.

Examples:

· He’s been raring to go to summer camp since the last day of school.

· Keesha and Mitchell have been raring to get to work on their science project.

· Our pony, Jebediah, whinnied and stood on his hind legs, raring to go for a long ride.

http://tinyurl.com/cnc82u8

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor