Editor's Corner

Perhaps this is a better topic for a Monday, but I don’t want to be predictable. Here is a sampling of 20 Ways to Cry, an article by Mark Nichol.If you feel so inclined, the other ten ways to cry are at DirtyWritingTips. ()

1. Bawl: to cry out loudly and without restraint; also, to call out in such a manner

2. Blubber: to cry while making sounds of distress or pain, especially through pouted lips (hence the onomatopoeic word)

3. Caterwaul: to cry harshly; also, to noisily complain or protest

4. Howl: to cry out in grief; also, to cry out in laughter or anger

5. Lament: to cry out with grief; also, to feel regret or sorrow

6. Mewl: to cry softly or weakly, like a kitten

7. Pule: see whine

8. Squall: to cry out loudly in emotional distress — usually associated with infants or very young children [Or editors who have seen enough misplaced apostrophes and are pushed over the edge.]

9. Whimper: to cry softly and irregularly; also, to complain or protest as if whining

10. Whine: to cry in distress, or in a high-pitched, complaining manner; also, to complain

Idioms and slang synonymous with cry include “break down,” “burst into tears,” “choke up,” “crack up,” “dissolve into tears,” “let it all out,” “put on the weeps,” “ring the blues,” “shed (bitter) tears,” and “turn on the waterworks.”

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A big “thank you” to the welcoming folks in the Springfield, MO office—you put on an excellent conference (summit). In honor of our time together, I’ve put together this Editor’s Corner about standards. This is for every kind of writer, designer, coder, instructor, painter, crafter, dancer, sculptor, or any other type of artist out there. Read and rejoice!

Web standards, code standards, writing standards: whatever department you’re in, you are bound to hear that standards are killers of creativity. Or perhaps you are one of the people that feels stifled by standards? How can you create amazing and wonderful things when someone limits you? Here are some wise words from different fields and different resources that may make you think twice before you call your standards team a group of tyrants.

· Web designer Andy Rutledge says that web standards are “about quality, not compliance.” (http://www.andyrutledge.com/web-standards.php)

· A software designer from a “creativity and limits” blog (http://weblog.200ok.com.au/2007/05/limits-vs-creativity.html) shared these nuggets of wisdom:

o The creativity in software development comes from how you apply your knowledge of the language and patterns to solve a problem that brings value to your organization.

o The limits of a medium simply define the creative space. They don’t prevent people from being creative within that space.

o Every medium has limitations. Part of creativity is getting around them and coping with the problems.

· Scott Dadich, Creative Director for Wired magazine, wrote a great article on the topic. (“Design Under Constraint: How Limits Boost Creativity” worth reading in full at: http://www.wired.com/culture/design/magazine/17-03/dp_intro).

Here is an excerpt from the magazine:

You are looking at a box…A 16-by 10.875-inch rectangle containing precisely 174 square inches of possibility, made from two sheets of paper glued and bound together . . . D. J. Stout calls the science of filling this box with artful compositions of type and images "variations on a rectangle." That is, in any given issue of a magazine—this one, for example—subjects and stories will change, but as a designer, you’re still dealing with the same ol’ blank white box.

At Wired, our design team sees this constraint as our daily bread. On every editorial page, we use words and pictures to overcome the particular restrictions of paper and ink: We can’t animate the infographics (yet). We can’t embed video or voice-over (yet). We can’t add sound effects or music (yet). But for all that we can’t do in this static medium, we find enlightenment and wonder in its possibilities.

And a few quotes:

o “. . . designers understand the power of limits. Constraint offers an unparalleled opportunity for growth and innovation.”

o “Given fewer resources, you have to make better decisions.”

o “. . . the imposition of limits doesn’t stifle creativity—it enables it.”

So, as new PowerPoint and Word templates are rolled out over the next few months, embrace them! The styles, dimensions, and colors are taken care of, which leaves you time to produce thoughtful, creative, outstanding content.

Good morning from Springfield, Missouri! Today I’m going to revisit a topic I covered many moons ago, before we were such good friends: three common Latin terms. Those terms are i.e., e.g., and sic.

i.e. – id est (“that is”). In normal prose and much of our documentation we use the terms “that is,” or “in other words” instead.

e.g. – exempli gratia (“for example”). Instead of using e.g., we use “for example.”

Notes:

The English equivalents of i.e. and e.g. are preferable in formal prose, though sometimes the quickness of these two-letter abbreviations makes them desirable. Always put a comma after either of them.

sic – sic (“thus,” in full: sic erat scriptum, "thus was it written") is added immediately after a quotation and indicates that the quote has been transcribed exactly as found in the original source, complete with any erroneous spelling or other nonstandard presentation.

Note: Sic should be italicized.

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It’s been a busy week so I don’t have a quiz for you. Instead, I have a vocabulary lesson with some etymological information for your reading pleasure. I’ll be visiting the Springfield office next week and will do my best to torture you from afar with grammar (or up close and personal if you’re in Springfield). Have a great weekend!

Paramount vs. Tantamount (from DailyWritingTips.com)

What’s the difference between paramount and tantamount? The distinction is of paramount importance; it’s tantamount to being right or wrong.

Paramount, from the Anglo-French word paramont, derived from the Latin phrase per ad montem, literally translated as “up the mountain,” means “supreme.” It’s also used (rarely) as a noun to refer to a supreme ruler. Tantamount was originally a noun, translated into English from the Anglo-French phrase tant amunter, meaning “to amount to as much,” and means “equivalent.” It is seldom used—more’s the pity, because it is such a grand word—in such phrases as “tantamount to treason.”

This grandiloquence, and the word’s resemblance to paramount, may mislead writers into assuming it has a lofty sense like its counterpart.

As you might have guessed, the noun amount, meaning “sum,” also derives from the Latin word for mountain. Another word with the element -amount is catamount, a nearly obsolete synonym for cougar or lynx that is a compression of the term cat-a-mountain.

Closed-compound verbs with the root word mount include dismount (“remove oneself from a high position, as a horse or a piece of gymnastic equipment,” or “take apart”)—demount is a rarely used variant—remount (“get up on again,” or “revert”), and surmount (“climb,” “excel,” or “overcome,” or “be at the top of”).

Seamount is a noun referring to an underwater mountain whose summit does not reach sea level. (If it did, it would be called an island.) Dismount and remount also have noun forms; the former refers to the concluding movement in a gymnastics routine, and the latter denotes a horse that replaces a rider’s previous one.

An interesting side note: In archery, “lord paramount” and “lady paramount” are terms for an official in charge of an archery tournament, or for a ceremonial leader of such an event, equivalent to a parade grand marshal. The terms originated in the feudal era, when a lord paramount, one not subordinate to a member of the nobility of greater rank, was required to provide trained longbowmen in the event of war, and officiated at archery tournaments. (The title “lord paramount” is known to fans of the television series A Game of Thrones and the series of novels on which it is based.)

And to us folks from the Pacific Northwest, one of the most common “mount” words: The Canadian Mounties.

(This photo of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police brought to you by http://en.best2list.com/content/canada/canadian-history.)

Along with the “who/whom” issue, it seems we have a sister issue (or peeve for many of you). I will call this the “me/myself/I” issue and do my best to explain when to use the word “myself.”

Similar to the technique we use for figuring out if it is who/whom (by replacing the sentence with he or him and seeing which sound right), there’s a little trick for me/myself. For example, “If you want more information, contact Education, Mr. Singleton, or (me/myself).” Read the sentence and leave out Education and Mr. Singleton. In this case you’re left with “If you want more information, contact (me/myself).” Hopefully “me” jumps out as the correct answer.

When is it okay to use the word “myself”?

“Myself” is a reflexive pronoun, meaning it refers back to the subject of the sentence. For “myself” to work, it must be used to refer back to “I.” For example:

· I imagine myself flying on the trapeze without a net.

· When I have enough money, I’m going to buy myself a pony.

Other reflexive pronouns include: “himself,” “herself,” “yourself,” “itself,” “themselves,” etc. They refer back to the subject of the sentence, too. He/himself, she/herself/, you/yourself, and so on.

· He considers himself an expert cat wrangler.

· They regard themselves as the cream of the crop.

One other way to use “myself” is as an intensive pronoun. In this case, the pronoun “myself” is used to add emphasis to a statement. For example:

· I myself saw the intense hatred in her eyes. (dramatic emphasis)

· I made it myself. (So says the kindergartener when he shows his painted macaroni picture to his dad.)

I hope this helps. I did it myself!

*******

“I can’t stand people with a disregard for proper grammar. I mean, whom do they think they am?” – calehartmann (@calehartmann)

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Comprise and Compose

Comprise and compose are two words that many of us use incorrectly. So many of us misuse comprise, in fact, that the language may change to accommodate our mistakes. Until then, here are the rules for comprise and compose, according to a handful of different style guides. These selected paragraphs are brought to you by QuickandDirtyTips.com.

Comprise

It seems simple enough: “to comprise” means “to contain,” as in “The house comprises seven rooms.” In other words, this house has or contains seven rooms. When you use “comprise,” you’re talking about all the parts that make up something….

The important thing to remember when you’re using the word “comprise” is that the item that is the whole shebang comes first in the sentence; second come the items that are its parts. For example, you might say, “A full pack comprises 52 cards.” The pack is the whole shebang, so it comes first in the sentence. It would be wrong to say, “Fifty-two cards comprise a full pack.”

The Meaning of “Compose”

The fly in the ointment as far as the word “comprise” goes is the similar-sounding word “compose,” which means “to make up,” as in “Many ethnic groups compose our nation.”

Notice in this sentence that the parts come before the whole. If you wanted to start the sentence with the words “our nation,” guess which verb you’d have to use instead? Our friend “comprise”: “Our nation comprises many ethnic groups.” So, the parts compose the whole, but the whole comprises the parts.

“Is Comprised Of” and “Is Composed Of”

Now let’s talk about the phrases “is comprised of” and “is composed of.” One of these is allowed, and one is not. The one you can say is “is composed of,” so you could say, “Our nation is composed of many ethnic groups.” On the other hand, most grammar sources I checked agree that “is comprised of” is an incorrect phrase. Just as you can’t say, “The house includes of seven rooms,” you can’t say, “The house is comprised of seven rooms” (5). You have to say, “The house comprises seven rooms.”

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For your reading pleasure today, I have three basic rules for parentheses and punctuation. This information is from the Grammarbook.com website. (I have reformatted some of the text to make it easier to read.)

Parentheses

Rule 1: Use parentheses to enclose words or figures that clarify or are used as an aside.

Examples:

· I expect five hundred dollars ($500).

· He finally answered (after taking five minutes to think) that he did not understand the question.

Note: Commas could have been used in the above example. Parentheses show less emphasis or importance.

Rule 2: Use full parentheses to enclose numbers or letters used for listed items.

Example:

We need an emergency room physician who can (1) think quickly, (2) treat patients respectfully, and (3) handle complaints from the public.

Rule 3: Periods go inside parentheses only if an entire sentence is inside the parentheses.

Examples:

· Please read the analysis (I enclosed it as Attachment A.). [KC – This is a particularly ugly way to do it. I’d opt for the second or third example instead.]

· Please read the analysis. (I enclosed it as Attachment A.)

· Please read the analysis (Attachment A).

Today I offer you my wishes for a good weekend and the second half of Lynn Gaertner-Johnston’s job aid: Email Etiquette: 25 Quick Rules (syntaxtraining.com).

1. Review messages before forwarding them. Be sure nothing in them will embarrass the writer or readers.

2. Don’t hide behind email. To build customer, client, and employee relationships, don’t just type, pick up the phone and talk. To convey a sensitive message, use the telephone or meet in person for two-way communication.

3. Never include confidential or embarrassing information in email. It is too easy to forward it.

4. Use standard font sizes and colors for easy reading. Don’t use wallpaper, backgrounds, or interesting graphics to dress up your messages.

[KC –
Note: For those of you who
need a refresher on our e-mail standards, go to
JHA Today à Departments
à Marketing.
The first item in the left column (Email Standards 2011) explains the acceptable e-mail formats for JHA.]

5. Avoid smiley faces and clever emoticons like this one: {:- ). Your reader (the CEO? your new client?) may think such symbols are unprofessional.

6. Tell readers if you expect action from them. People read email too fast to guess at requests implied between the lines. If possible, include your request in the first lines of text so they can’t miss it.

7. Everyone has enough to read. Avoid copying people on messages they don’t want or need. [KC – Avoid “Reply to All,” particularly when you only need to reply to one person.]

8. Do not send a blank message with a file attached unless your subject explains the attachment. Readers often delete such messages, especially from outside the firm.

9. Learn the preferences of people you write to often. For example, does your manager want background or just the facts?

10. Reply promptly, considering the urgency and importance of the message.

11. When using email as a formal communication, treat it like a letter. Begin with a greeting (“Dear Ms. Chiu:”) and end with “Best wishes” or a similar close. These customs convey respect.

12. For messages within your company and informal messages to external readers, address the reader politely in the first sentence, like this: Liz, here are the reports. Or use one of these ways, with the message following beneath:

· Liz,

· Liz:

· Hi, Liz,

· Hi Liz,

· Dear Liz:

· Dear Liz,

13. After using your grammar and spelling checker, proofread. Then forgive your errors and those of others. Despite our electronic communications, we are all human.

KC – And one more rule: please don’t use all caps. Nobody likes feeling like you’re yelling at them through e-mail.

Photo from: http://www.addfunny.com/pictures/funny/229811.html

A long time ago, I had a request for some etiquette lessons (Mom, I hear you laughing). After getting additional details, I found that the requestor wanted e-mail etiquette for business writing. I may not know the difference between a fish fork and a fruit fork, but I think I can provide some helpful e-mail tips with the assistance of Lynn Gaertner-Johnston’s job aid: Email Etiquette: 25 Quick Rules(syntaxtraining.com). Today I offer you the first installment.

Note: In Episys eDocs we still use “e-mail” with a hyphen, but Ms. Gaertner-Johnston doesn’t, nor do many of the departments at JHA.

From Email Etiquette: 25 Quick Rules:

1. Begin with a precise subject. For example, write “Two Changes in Your Maui Itinerary” not “Travel Update.” Never leave the subject blank. If you are not sure what the subject is, you are not ready to send a message.

2. Think before you type. Decide why you are writing and what you want your readers to do. Then organize your thoughts. Don’t expect your readers to do the thinking for you.

3. Get to the point in the first two or three sentences. Be clear about your purpose. Don’t keep your reader guessing.

4. Insert essential information at or near the beginning. Otherwise, your reader may press Reply (or worse, Delete) before even seeing it.

5. Include your name and contact information at the end of your message and on attachments. Without it, readers may not recognize you as the writer, and they may be unable to reach you by phone or fax.

6. Keep your promises. Attach documents when you say you will, and be sure to attach the correct versions. Test hyperlinks to be sure they are correct and active.

7. Use standard punctuation, spelling, and capitalization to help readers understand your message quickly.

8. Change paragraphs when you change ideas. One-sentence paragraphs are acceptable.

9. Always insert a blank line between paragraphs. Big blocks of text intimidate readers. Intimidation = unread message.

10. Press Reply to say thanks only when the message merits a thank you or the sender needs acknowledgment that you received the message.

11. Don’t send “You’re welcome” messages. Although “You’re welcome” is expected in conversations, it is excessive in email.

12. Never criticize or blame in email. After you press Send, you have no control over how the message is received or understood.

[KC – My own favorite: Verify that you are sending your e-mail to the correct person. I know from experience that
Jackie appreciates photos of cute baby hippos and otter pups a lot more than
Jack Prim does.]

I’ve had several requests to explain the different combinations below. Rather than send them out separately, I’ve included this article from Daily Writing Tips (http://www.dailywritingtips.com/does-everyone-know-every-one/) that covers the whole passel at once.

Writers are sometimes confused about when to attach any, every, and no to one or body as a closed compound and when to treat one of these word pairs as just that: a two-word phrase. Here are guidelines and sample sentences for each combination:

Any Body/Anybody

The two-word alternative, which refers to people’s physical form rather than the complete body-mind package, might be used as an advertising-copy play on anybody, as in “We can get any body into shape,” but that’s rare; it might also appear as a modifier-noun pair that itself modifies another noun: “People with any body type are at risk.” Anybody is the default version when referring to unspecified people: “Is anybody there?”

Any One/Anyone

“Any one brand is as good as the other” points out that each brand has equal merit. “Anyone can see that I’m right” notes that any person, considered one by one among a class of all possible people, would agree.

Every Body/Everybody

When “every body” begins a sentence, the meaning is indistinguishable from when the closed compound is employed: “Every body in the room was tanned” differs only in emphasizing the physical forms of the people, while “Everybody in the room was tanned” focuses on the people who sport bronzed skins. In that case, because the distinction is so slight, the more comprehensive latter form prevails.

However, the phrase form is common in such wordplay-conscious constructions as “The Clothing Corral has attire for every body,” which, as in the previous example using the phrase, is nearly synonymous with its alternative (“The Clothing Corral has attire for everybody”) but calls attention to the corporeal manifestation of people, rather than their entire being, to make a point.

Every One/Everyone

When Tiny Tim declares, “God bless us, every one!” in A Christmas Carol, he’s emphasizing that he wishes blessings bestowed on each individual present. If Charles Dickens were to have declared that all the revelers in the Cratchit household repeated the statement in unison, he would have written something like this: “Everyone affirmed the blessing by repeating it as with one voice.” Everyone means “all of them.”

No One/Noone (or No-One)

“No one” is the only correct form in American English (and is fading in usage in British English), whether one is a pronoun or an adjective: “No one is home”; “There is no one right way to do it.” Noone and no-one are erroneous.

No Body/Nobody

The phrase refers to the lack of the presence of an animal’s living or dead physical form: “No body was lying in the room when I entered it this morning.” The compound means simply “no person,” and usually indicates a class of people whose commonality is their exclusion from another class: “Nobody saw it last night, either.” (Nobody can also be a noun meaning “nonentity, inconsequential person”: “Ever since his last film flopped, he’s been a nobody.”)

Summary

Note that in each case, the two-word phrase consists of a noun preceded by a modifier, and the one-word compound (with the exception of the noun sense of nobody) is a pronoun, a word standing in for a proper or common noun. The commonsense take-away is that use of the phrase forms are exceptional; usually, it’s the pronoun you’re looking for.