Editor's Corner

Today’s tally of answers:

BABBB – 52

BAAAB – 52

ABBAB – 3

ABAAA – 0

1. (B) In 1868, General Ulysses S. Grant ran for president.

Explanation: Capitalize a person’s title when it precedes the name.

2. (A) As a general, Ulysses S. Grant fought for the Union in the Civil War.

Explanation: Capitalize a person’s title when it precedes the name. Do not capitalize when the title is acting as a description.

3. (B) Best regards, Battista

Explanation: Capitalize the first word only of a complimentary close.

4. (B) Raul filed a complaint with the Environmental Protection Agency. The Agency was quick to respond.

Explanation: You may capitalize words such as department, bureau, agency, and office if you have already named them specifically in a previous sentence.

5. (B) The summer is such a lazy time of year.

Explanation: Do not capitalize names of seasons.

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

www.symitar.com

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I’m feeling a little evil today, so I’m sending out the quiz today rather than tomorrow.

The way this works:

· You choose the correct sentence from each group below

· Write down your answers

· Look for the voting buttons at the top of this e-mail

· Select the set of answers that you think is correct

· Wait until noon (or later, depending where you are) and all will be revealed!

Choose the correct sentence from each group:

Question #1

A) In 1868, general Ulysses S. Grant ran for president.

B) In 1868, General Ulysses S. Grant ran for president.

Question #2

A) As a general, Ulysses S. Grant fought for the Union in the Civil War.

B) As a General, Ulysses S. Grant fought for the Union in the Civil War.

Question #3

A) Best Regards,

Battista

B) Best regards,

Battista

C) best regards,

Battista

Question #4

A) Raul filed a complaint with the Environmental Protection Agency. The agency was quick to respond.

B) Raul filed a complaint with the Environmental Protection Agency. The Agency was quick to respond.

Question #5

A) The Summer is such a lazy time of year.

B) The summer is such a lazy time of year.

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Time flies when you’re having fun! Reading this sampling of time idioms from DailyWritingTips.com should fly by. (To see additional terms visit: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/15-idioms-for-periods-of-time/)

1. Banker’s hours: A relatively short duration (from the onetime tradition that banks were open for a limited number of hours compared to other businesses; therefore, one who keeps banker’s hours has a light work schedule)

2. Bat/wink/twinkling of an eye: variations of an idiom referring to a period of time so brief that it passes while one’s eyelid moves

3. Eleventh hour: occurring late in a given time frame (from the fact that the eleventh hour is the last in the day before midnight)

4. Flash: an instant (from the fact that a flash of flame is short lived)

5. Jiffy: an instant (perhaps from slang for lightning); also shortened to jiff [KC – “Jiffy…perhaps from slang for lightening”? Huh? More information please. Here is what I found as far as an etymology:
1785, "a moment, an instant," colloquial, origin unknown; said to be originally thieves’ slang for "lightning."

<![if !supportLists]>6. New York minute: a brief time (from the notion that minutes in the hectic milieu of New York City pass more quickly than those in more relaxed locales)

7. Small hours: the early morning (from the low numbers on the clock that indicate the time during that period) [KC – Never heard “small” hours. Maybe this is a regional thing? We always referred to the “wee” hours.]

8. Split second: a fraction of a second (from the notion that a second can be split, or subdivided); a split is also a fraction of the total elapsed time for a race

9. Trice: a short period of time (from a word meaning “pull”); often seen in the phrase “in a trice”

10. Witching hour: midnight or the middle of the night (with the connotation that unsettling or unusual things happen then, from the superstition that witches are about at that time)

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor

Today is the final e-mail about capitalization—at least for now. I’m returning to Grammar Girl’s write-up/podcast about capitalization in the corporate world. The last section is called “Pride Capitals and Ideal Forms.”

One mistake business writers often make is capitalizing words simply for emphasis or to augment their importance. [KC – This is particularly prevalent in some of our more technical documentation.] Such errant capitalization happens frequently in press releases and other promotional materials. Hyperbole is no stranger in that realm. Nevertheless, it does not make your pork rinds crunchier and tastier if you capitalize the words “Pork” and “Rinds.”

Murray Munn commented on the “Pork Rind” kind of capitalization on the Grammar Girl Facebook page. He calls them “pride capitals” and speculates that “What we admire, we capitalize.” For example, he says he often sees librarians write “library” with a capital L. [KC – I think “pride capitals” is a fantastic term. When you’re writing, consider whether
the topic is a common term or an actual product with a trademark or copyright. For example, “Blade Network Technologies^®” as opposed to “the network technology used at this company.”]

Murray isn’t far from the truth because sometimes it actually is okay to capitalize words we admire. In its section on Platonic words, the Chicago Manual of Style offers this:

“Words for transcendent ideas in the Platonic sense, especially when used in a religious context, are often capitalized. Good; Beauty; Truth; the One.”

So here’s the Quick and Dirty Tip on random or vanity capitalization: don’t.

Save uppercase for conventional uses such as a proper name or one of Plato’s lofty ideals.

When in doubt, look up a word to see whether its meaning varies depending on capitalization.

I hope you have a great holiday weekend!

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor

Instead of using Grammar Girl’s example for today’s topic (capitalization of department names) I’m providing you with information from the Chicago Manual of Style. This portion ofthe CMOS reviews groups, companies, department names, and other entities that are named using similar rules—the same rules we use here (at least at the Symitar branch of JHA).

The full names of institutions, groups, and companies and the names of their departments, and often the shortened forms of such names (e.g., the Art Institute), are capitalized. A the preceding a name, even when part of the official title, is lowercased in running text. Such generic terms as company and university are usually lowercased when used alone (though they are routinely capitalized in promotional materials, business documents, and the like).

Examples:

· the University of Chicago; the university

· the Department of History; the department

· the University of Chicago Press; the press

· the Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago; the board of trustees; the board

· the Art Institute of Chicago; the Art Institute

· the Beach Boys; the Beatles; the Grateful Dead, the Dead; the Who (but Tha Eastsidaz)

· Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band; the band

· the Cleveland Orchestra; the orchestra

· the General Foods Corporation; General Foods; the corporation

· the Green Bay Packers; the Packers

· the Hudson’s Bay Company; the company

· the Illinois Central Railroad; the Illinois Central; the railroad

· the Library of Congress; the library

· the Manuscripts Division of the library

· the Museum of Modern Art; MOMA; the museum

· the New York Stock Exchange; the stock exchange

· Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; SOM; the architectural firm

· the Smithsonian Institution; the Smithsonian

· Miguel Juarez Middle School; the middle school

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor

As we continue on with the topic of capitalization, the next lesson from Grammar Girl (www.quickanddirtytips.com) is about deciding when to capitalize job titles and job descriptions. Here is her advice, though I’ve changed the examples to make them simpler and more pertinent to us.

Note: One caveat before I start: if clients want to be addressed with uppercase titles or job descriptions, we generally don’t argue with them. 🙂 We’ll talk more about this and “pride capitals” later.

Rule – Part I:
If the title is an actual title—not just a job description—and it comes before the person’s name, it should generally be uppercase.

Examples:
Chief Executive Officer, Jack Prim
President of the United States, Barrack Obama

Rule – Part II:
If the title comes after the name, make it lowercase. In this case, it’s an appositive phrase serving as an identifier.

Examples:
Kara Church, editor at JHA, spends $100 on red gel pens in a writing frenzy…
Caesar Milan, dog trainer, is recommended by many movie stars with bad dogs.

Rule – Part III:
For a general job description, use lowercase, regardless of whether it comes before or after a name.

Examples:
The San Diego Zoo’s lead gardener, Fonzie Fatoosh, reports that the fruit fly population is under control.

The Fish Cave’s company spokesman, Lincoln “The Shark” McMahon, delivered the news about the “Lobster Extravaganza” bonuses.

Thursday’s Topic: Capitalization and Department Names

And from englishfails.com, kickin’ it old school:

Kara Church

Senior Technical Editor

As promised, I’m starting the week with the return to capitalization and as Grammar Girl says, “…its overuse and its misuse in the business world.” Today we’re starting with a portion of an article called “Meaning Is Key.”

One reason capitalization matters is that a word’s meaning can change depending on whether it’s uppercase or lowercase.

“See those three domiciles over there? Well, I live in the white house.” That’s quite different from, “I live in the White House [capital W, capital H].” That White House is where the president lives.

In English, we capitalize words that are proper nouns—that is, they describe a specific thing or entity. They could be a title, a name, or a specific place such as the president’s residence: [THEE] White House. [KC – As opposed to “thuh white house…” any ordinary house painted white.]

We lowercase words that are considered common nouns—that is, they can be used to describe many things, such as any one of the multitude of white colored houses in the world. [KC – As opposed to “thuh white house…” any ordinary house painted white. Some common nouns I often see capitalized by mistake here include: network, server, software,
core, documentation, department, service, etc.]

Tomorrow: Job Titles and Job Descriptions

(Excerpt from Grammar Girl at: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com)

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Today’s Q&A is brought to us by Grammar Girl (www.quickanddirtytips.com). Next week we’ll dig a little deeper and discuss capitalization of titles, department names, etc. You’ll be an expert in no time!

Question: Do you capitalize Service Call if it is being used consistently throughout a memo?

Answer: In English, we only capitalize proper nouns—nouns that are the name of something. In your sentence, "service call" seems descriptive; it doesn’t seem like a proper noun that needs to be capitalized.

Business people often capitalize words unnecessarily. It’s one of the more common errors I see, and "service call" in your sentence is a good example of the type of word or phrase people are drawn to errantly capitalize. [KC – This is common here, too. Many times people erroneously
capitalize words because they are an important part of a topic—not because are actually proper nouns.]

I hope you all have a good weekend!

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Happy Halloween!

I’ve selected a few Halloweenish words for you today and included abbreviated versions of their definitions from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

· bogeyman: a monstrous imaginary figure used in threatening children; broadly: a terrifying person or thing
Etymology: from bogey + man (bogey: goblin, specter, phantom; an object of dread, fear, or loathing)

· cadaver: a dead human or animal body usually intended for dissection
Etymology: from Latin, from cadere to fall

· crypt: a vault or other chamber wholly or partly underground; especially: a vault under the main floor of a church

· grim reaper (or Grim Reaper): death especially when personified as a man or skeleton with a scythe

· hocus pocus: 1) obsolete: juggler, trickster, sleight of hand 2) words or a formula used (as by jugglers) in pretended incantations without regard to the usual meaning 3) nonsense or sham used or intended to cloak deception <the hocus-pocus of city politics>; broadly: something that confuses, misleads, or is difficult to comprehend
Etymology: probably invented by jugglers in imitation of Latin

· jack-o’-lantern: 1) obsolete: a man carrying a lantern: a night watchman 2) a lantern made of a pumpkin or other vegetable so prepared as to show in illumination features of a human face

· mausoleum: 1) a magnificent tomb 2) a tomb for more than one person
Etymology: Latin, from Greek mausoleion, from Mausolos Mausolus died 353 B.C. ruler of Caria commemorated by a magnificent tomb at Halicarnassus

· phantasm (or fantasm): 1) illusion, deception 2) ghost, specter, spirit 3) a figment of the imagination, fancy, or disordered mind
Etymology: Middle English fantasme, from Old French, from Latin phantasma, from Greek, from phantazein to present to the mind

· specter (or spectre): 1) a visible disembodied spirit apparition, ghost, phantom 2) a ghostly and usually fear-inspiring vision of the imagination: something that haunts or persistently perturbs the mind
Etymology: French spectre, from Latin spectrum appearance, specter, from specere to look

(Photo of Chia Dog from thecutestdogever.com)

(Photo of Bat-Dog from http://familyfrugalfun.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/dog-in-Halloween-bat-costume.jpg)

Good morning! I hope Hurricane Sandy has miraculously missed everyone from JHA that is on the East Coast. The news says billions of dollars will be required to repair damages, so today we’re going to look at fifty different words for the green stuff, from Daily Writing Tips (www.dailywritingtips.com).

1. Bank: money
2. Benjamins: a one-hundred-dollar bill (in reference to the portrait of Benjamin Franklin that distinguishes it)
3. Big ones: multiples of one thousand dollars
4. Bills: multiples of one hundred dollars
5. Bones: dollars (origin unknown)
6. Bread: money in general (on the analogy of it being a staple of life)
7. Bucks: dollars (perhaps from a reference to buckskins, or deerskins, which were once used as currency)
8. Cabbage: paper money (from its color)
9. Cheddar (or chedda): money (origin unknown, but perhaps from the concept of cheese distributed by the government to welfare recipients)
10. Clams: dollars (perhaps from the onetime use of seashells as currency)
11. Coin: money, either paper or coinage
12-13. Cs (or C-notes): multiples of one hundred dollars (from the Roman symbol for “one hundred”)
14. Dead presidents: paper money (from the portraits of various former US presidents that usually distinguish bills of various denominations)
15. Dime: ten dollars (by multiplication of the value of the ten-cent coin)
16. Dough: money in general (akin to the usage of bread)
17-18. Doubles (or dubs): twenty-dollar bills
19. Ducats: money (from the Italian coin)
20. Fins: five-dollar bills (perhaps from the shared initial sound with fives)
21. Five-spots: five-dollar bills
22. Fivers: five-dollar bills
23. Folding stuff: paper money [KC – Not exactly creativity at its best.]
24. Greenbacks: paper money (from the color of the ink)
25. Gs: thousand-dollar bills (an abbreviation for grand)
26. Grand: one thousand dollars (as in “three grand” for “three thousand dollars”)
27. Large: thousand-dollar bills
28. Lettuce: paper money (from its color)
29. Long green: paper money (from its shape and color)
30. Loot: money (originally denoted goods obtained illicitly or as the spoils of war)
31. Lucre: money or profit (from the biblical expression “filthy lucre,” meaning “ill-gained money”)
32. Moola (or moolah): money (origin unknown)
33. Nickel: five dollars (by multiplication of the value of the five-cent coin)
34. Ones: dollars (also, fives for “five-dollar bills,” tens for “ten-dollar bills,” and so on)
35. Quarter: twenty-five dollars (by multiplication of the value of the twenty-five-cent coin)
36. Sawbucks: ten-dollar bills (from the resemblance of X, the Roman symbol for ten, to a sawbuck, or sawhorse)
37. Scratch: money (perhaps from the idea that one has to struggle as if scratching the ground to obtain it)
38. Shekels: dollars (from the biblical currency)
39. Simoleons: dollars (perhaps from a combination of simon, slang for the British sixpence and later the American dollar, and napoleon, a form of French currency)
40. Singles: one-dollar bills
41. Skrilla: money (origin unknown)
42. Smackers: dollars (origin unknown)
43. Spondulix: money (either from spondylus, a Greek word for a shell once used as currency, or from the prefix spondylo-, which means “spine” or “vertebra”; these have a common etymology)
44. Stacks: multiples of a thousand dollars
45. Tenners: ten-dollar bills
46. Ten-spots: ten-dollar bills
47. Two bits: twenty-five cents (a reference to pieces of eight, divisible sections of a Mexican real, or dollar)
48. Wad: a bundle of paper money
49. Wampum: money (from the Native American term wampumpeag, referring to native currency)
50. Yards: one hundred dollars

There are, of course, many other terms, dated or current, including borrowings of foreign terms like dinero.