Editor's Corner

Hello folks. I apologize for a missing comma and a missing “the” in my last Editor’s Corner. It’s summertime and I think my brain was at the beach.

Today, I have the comma rules sequel for you! Get comfortable, grab some tea, pretend there is a stirring concerto playing in the background, and join me for rules five through eight.

Rule 5

Use commas to separate two or more coordinate adjectives that describe the same noun.

Okay. What the heck am I talking about? Uncoordinated? No, that’s me, not the adjectives. Here is a little bit of information on coordinate and non-coordinate adjectives:

You can decide if two adjectives in a row are coordinate by asking the following questions:

• Does the sentence make sense if the adjectives are written in reverse order?
• Does the sentence make sense if the adjectives are written with “and” between them?

If you answer yes to these questions, then the adjectives are coordinate and should be separated by a comma.

Examples:

• Joy was a clever, intelligent woman. (coordinate)
• Lanie has a giant bread box. (non-coordinate)
• I have two navy wool suits. (non-coordinate)
• The street was lined with large, green Sycamore trees and red, white, and blue flags. (coordinate)

Rule 6

Use a comma near the end of a sentence to separate contrasted coordinate elements or to indicate a distinct pause or shift.

Oh, for the love of Pete! Too much coordination required! Now it is contrasted coordinate elements. What am I talking about? Have a look:

Examples:

• He was merely ignorant, not stupid.
• The hippopotamus seemed very reflective, almost human.
• You and Maurice are close friends, aren’t you?

Rule 7

Use commas to set off all geographical names, the day and year in dates, addresses (except the street number and name), and titles in names.

Examples:

• Birmingham, Alabama, gets its name from Birmingham, England.
• My uncle lives at 234 Handyman Lane, Peoria, Illinois.
• December 22, 1979 was a momentous day in his life.
• Bono B. McDonald, MD, will be the principal speaker.

Note: When you use just the month and the year, no comma is necessary after the month or year: "The highest temperature in Springfield, Missouri, was 108° F, July 1986.”

Rule 8

Use commas wherever necessary to prevent possible confusion or misreading.

Example:

To Trevor, Noah was a generous man.

Commas are important!

Kara Church

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Technical Editor, Advisory

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/

Say hello to my little friend! No, not Al Pacino’s “little friend” in Scarface—my little friend, the comma! There are so many rules for this little piece of punctuation, I think it helps to review them now and then. Today we’ll look at half of my handy list and some examples. There are quite a few specific rules, but the following will give you a good starting point.

Rule 1

Use commas to separate independent clauses when joined by one of these seven conjunctions:

and, but, for, or nor, so, yet.

Examples:

• Today is a beautiful day, so I am going for a swim.
• I used conditioner on my hair, yet it is still tangled.

Rule 2

Use commas after introductory a) clauses, b) phrases, or c) words that come before the main clause. Common starter words for introductory clauses that should be followed by a comma include the following:

• after
• although
• as
• because
• if
• since
• when
• while

Examples:

• When I see puppies, it fills my heart with glee.
• I fell in love with him, because he sang me Green Day songs.

Rule 3
Use a pair of commas in the middle of a sentence to set off clauses, phrases, and words that are not essential to the meaning of the sentence. Use one comma before to indicate the beginning of the pause and one at the end to indicate the end of the pause. (You may remember a discussion about using parentheses and em dashes in a similar way. Just remember, this use is for nonessential information.)

Examples:

• Clause: This Saturday, which happens to be the Fourth of July, is the day new car arrives at the dealership.
• Phrase: There are a lot of rich people at this party. The donations, on the other hand, don’t reflect that at all.
• Word: Joanne’s cooking is beautiful. In this case, however, it looks like it came out of a can.

Rule 4

Use commas to separate three or more words in a series. Yes, this is the serial comma that some of you resist, but this rule is in our JHA Style Guide and in the Chicago Manual of Style. Learn to love it! Embrace it! If you haven’t met it, I’d like to introduce you to your new little friend!

Example:

• We love to serve fruit salad with cantaloupe, strawberries, watermelon, and grapes.
• Caleb, Vinay, and Piper are coming to help us move.

Note: The serial comma is the comma after the second-to-last term and before the conjunction. In the phrase “parameters, fields, and privileges,” the serial comma is the comma after fields.

Al Pacino as Tony Montana, with his “little friend” the Colt AR-15 assault rifle.

Kara Church

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Technical Editor, Advisory

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/

Good morning, everyone! Today’s subject is the importance of word choice. If you’re ready, let’s dive right in.

Good writing is about choosing the best words and organizing them in the most efficient way to make a clear point. As business and technical writers who want to provide easy-to-access information, we should always use the most common word (for instance, everywhere instead of ubiquitous). And we should choose words with a neutral connotation.

You probably won’t be surprised to learn that we editors try to reduce the usage of words that have a violent connotation: words like kill and execute (as in “you will need to kill the process” and “you must execute the command”). Yes, we do realize that these terms are common, and we cannot always change them, but we ask you to be aware, and when possible, to use neutral words like stop and run, respectively.

We also try to replace words that have an undesirable connotation, like impacted (as in “the member was impacted”—I think you can see the problem there). We almost always replace impact and impacted with affect and affected. According to our friend Grammar Girl, “Although impact has taken root in the business world as a verb, as in ‘Cutting prices will impact our revenue,’ many people maintain that impact is only proper as a noun. They believe the verb impact only means to hit, and any other use is just irritating jargon.”

Which brings me to my final point today and that is that you should always choose common terms over jargon. Not only does every industry have its own jargon (we have plenty in the financial industry) but every department in every company has its own jargon. Jargon is OK to use when communicating with the people in your small group, but it can be difficult for all the people outside your group (or for newcomers) to understand—so you should avoid it in your writing.

If you need more motivation to stop using jargon and ten-dollar words, think of me in front of my keyboard, crying, as I try to figure out what you mean.

Donna Bradley Burcher | Senior Technical Editor | Symitar®

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

About Editor’s Corner

Editor’s Corner keeps your communication skills sharp by providing information on grammar, punctuation, JHA style, and all things English. As editors, we spend our days reading, researching, and revising other people’s writing. We love to spend a few extra minutes to share what we learn with you and keep it fun while we’re doing it.

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Dear Editrix,

My friend was recently telling a story about her deceased husband and used the phrase “my late husband.” This is one I have heard often (e.g., my late parents, my late brother) and one I use regularly in my professional work. Do you know where it came from and why it is phrased as such?

Brittany

Hi Brittany,

I have wondered the same about using late in this way. I mean, the dead aren’t ever going to be late to tea again, are they? Let’s see where this euphemism comes from.

The Grammarphobia web site provides a very lengthy description with a lot of old English in it, so I’m going to cut and paste just the best bits of it for you.

…The sense you’re asking about (“designating a person recently deceased”) showed up in the early 15th century, according to the OED. The first known example in writing is from a petition dated sometime before 1422: “Elizabeth, ye Wyfe of ye seid late Erle.”

Here’s an adverbial example, from a 1435 will, that hints at the adjectival usage: “Thys is the will o Isabell Dove, lat [that is, “formerly”] the wyf of Thomas Dove”….

In the radio show “A Way with Words,” one of the hosts, Grant Barrett, provides this guidance, including how long you can use “late” to referred to someone who is dead.

Late Meaning Deceased

When is it appropriate to use the word late to describe someone who has died? Late, in this sense, is short for lately deceased. There’s no hard and fast time frame, although it’s been suggested that anywhere from five to 30 years is about right. It’s best to use the word in cases where it may not be clear whether the person is still alive, or when it appears in a historical context, such as “The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 in honor of the late John F. Kennedy.”

I hope that helps!

And I just found out that it isn’t just ‘possums and dogs that play dead. Bunnies can play dead, too!

ASPCA Alert: No animals were actually harmed during the writing of this Editor’s Corner.

Kara Church

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Technical Editor, Advisory

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/

Good morning and happy summer!

One of you recently asked me about the phrase “It’s been a minute.” No, we’re not talking about the 60-second minute on your clock, but the idiomatic phrase, which basically means “It’s been a long time,” or “It’s been a while.”

The first time I heard this, I was at the old coffee cart, and someone I hadn’t seen for a few months said, “Hey, Kara! It’s been a minute!” I was caught off guard, because I hadn’t heard this phrase before, but judging by the use and circumstance, I figured it out. Since then, I’ve heard it a lot, and it’s always from someone who hasn’t seen another person, or gone to a place, or done something…in a long time.

When I tried to find out where this phrase came from, I found song lyrics and sites I couldn’t visit because they are in the JHA “no-fly zone,” so I really don’t know exactly where it came from. I know it’s the name of Sam Sanders’s radio show on NPR, and Google tells us its “young and cool.” But the origin escapes me.

I found several references to a hot minute and a red-hot minute, which used to mean a very short time. The phrase hot minute is in text all the way back to 1847, but until the 1990s it meant fast. On English Stack Exchange, which I don’t always trust, they say that it changed to meaning “a long time” with The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ song “One Hot Minute.”

Then there’s also a New York minute, which used to mean fast and still means fast. According to the Grammarist:

In a New York minute means right away, immediately, quickly and without hesitation. As you may suppose, in a New York minute is an American idiom, but it did not originate in New York City. Rather, the expression in a New York minute is a reflection of how people in other parts of the United States view New York. Compared to many areas of the country, New York City life is extremely fast paced.

The term in a New York minute was first recorded in the mid-twentieth century in Piney Woods, Texas, though exactly where in the Southern United States this phrase originated is unknown.

Johnny Carson, a popular American entertainer of the 1980s described a New York minute as “the time it takes for the light in front of you to turn green and the guy behind you to honk his horn.”

These observations of life in New York City are for the most part good-natured, and perhaps even carry a note of admiration.

I don’t know about admiration, but I do know that I’m not asking any of the young, cool kids what time it is! A happy and safe holiday to everyone!

Kara Church

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Technical Editor, Advisory

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/

Good morning, folks!

Generally, I like to share lessons, new words, English information, and a wee bit of fun with you. Today, however, I’m feeling a little sad and a little grumpy, so I’m going to air some grievances, even though we are months too early for Festivus (infographic below).

You may be familiar with some of this information, because we’ve mentioned these items in past Editor’s Corner articles. Without further ado, here are some of our peeves.

When you are writing about a topic, here at JHA we ask that you do not ever use the wishy-washy (s) in parentheses. What do I mean? I mean that you need to be confident in your writing!

Incorrect: When I talked to Daisy, she said she would bring the game(s) and the snack(s).

Correct: When I talked to Daisy, she said she would bring the games and the snacks.

It’s the message that is important; don’t use feeble parentheses around the “s” and try to guess what might happen. Be bold. (Really, when did Daisy ever let you down?) For more, see this Editor’s Corner article.

Next is the ellipsis (plural: ellipses). This is punctuation that looks like three periods (…) but it is its own being. Ellipses are used, primarily, to indicate missing content. You do not need to add spaces before or after ellipses.

Incorrect: He told me to wait … he had a secret to tell me.

Correct: He told me to wait…he had a secret for me.

To see more on ellipses and meet Mrs. Wiggles, check out this quick article here.

And a little more about spaces. Don’t go crazy with them! Okay, we’ve done what we can to convince you to use only one space after a period, but it seems that some people decided that they needed to add those spaces before and after en dashes in number ranges and before and after slashes.

Incorrect: J told me that he planned to eat 10 hotdogs during the competition hours (6 p.m. – 7 p.m.).

Correct: J told me that he planned to eat 10 hotdogs during the competition hours (6 p.m.–7 p.m.).

For a lesson on hyphens and dashes, click here.

Incorrect: Bruno said he needs $1200 / month for rent.

Correct: Bruno said he needs $1200/month for rent.

We’ve been writing about this for years. For one of my favorite articles on slashes see Jackie Solano’s Nifty Nuggets article here.

Thank you for your attention! If you are one of those people who relates to these habits, I recommend that you look at the links and take them to heart. The editors will appreciate you thoroughly for it!

Kara Church

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Technical Editor, Advisory

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/

Good morning, gang!

Not long ago, I shared information about the 14 English Punctuation Marks. I received a few responses that led me down an interesting rabbit hole.

Thanks to Phil R.’s response, I found out that there are a multitude of names for the exclamation point. Phil told me that UNIX programmers use the nickname bang. I’ve heard people use this term before, and I like it. Not only is it shorter, but it just feels right since this piece of punctuation indicates strong feelings or shouting.

I did a little research and found that there are quite a few other nicknames for the exclamation point. According to Wikipedia, printers use screamer, gasper, slammer, and startler. Hackers use bang and shriek. The Brits often use pling.

And then Jane G. wondered why the very cool interrobang (a combination of the question mark and exclamation point)wasn’t included in the list of English punctuation marks. And call me silly, but for the first time I thought about why it’s called interrobang: interro is short for interrogation point, another term for question mark, and bang as I just mentioned is a nickname for exclamation point.

Some typefaces superimpose the question mark and exclamation point, like this:But it’s very common to use the two marks next to each other like this: ?! or !?. It doesn’t matter which order you use.

And although we do use interrobangs in our more informal writing, it is still considered unconventional or nonstandard. So, you’re not going to see it in Episys eDocs,but you might see it in marketing material, and you can certainly use it in your casual text messages, tweets, IMs, emails, letters to Aunt Ola, and holiday cards.

You want some examples of common use of the interrobang? Of course you do!

• You don’t like chocolate?!
• What the heck are you talking about!?
• You call that dancing, Donna?!

Enjoy another lovely day in paradise.

Donna Bradley Burcher | Senior Technical Editor | Symitar®

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

About Editor’s Corner

Editor’s Corner keeps your communication skills sharp by providing information on grammar, punctuation, JHA style, and all things English. As editors, we spend our days reading, researching, and revising other people’s writing. We love to spend a few extra minutes to share what we learn with you and keep it fun while we’re doing it.

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Don’t want to get Editor’s Corner anymore? Click here to unsubscribe.

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Today I have two phrases some curious readers have asked about. The first is about the phrase “Mind your p’s and q’s.” The inquirer said that she thought the phrase was from the UK (yes, indeed), and that it referred to minding your pints and quarts of liquor. As the World Wide Words (sorry, this link is now blocked at JHA) says, there are several explanations for the phrase:

In the UK, the phrase means to mind one’s manners or to behave properly. This reflects its historical meaning. However, in the US, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it can also mean to be alert, to be on one’s toes, to be on top form.

Many explanations have been advanced down the decades to explain this puzzling expression. It is said to be advice to a child learning its letters to be careful not to mix up the handwritten lower-case letters p and q, or similar advice to a printer’s apprentice, for whom the backward-facing metal type letters would be especially confusing. One has to wonder why p and q were singled out, when similar problems occur with b and d. Others have argued that, closely fitting the “mind your manners” sense, it might just have been an abbreviation of mind your pleases and thank-yous, a view advanced in particular by some dictionaries.

We may leave out of account more fanciful suggestions, such that it was an instruction from a French dancing master to be sure to perform the dance figures pieds and queues accurately, that it was an admonishment to seamen not to soil their navy pea-jackets with their tarred queues (their pigtails), or that it was jocular, or perhaps deadly serious, advice to a barman not to confuse the letters p and q on the tally slate, on which the letters stood for the pints and quarts consumed “on tick” [KC – “on credit”] by the patrons, even though men did indeed at one time consume beer by the quart.

To confuse the matter somewhat, we also have examples of a closely similar expression, P and Q or pee and kew. This was seventeenth-century slang and meant “highest quality”….

Investigations by the Oxford English Dictionary in 2007, when revising the entry, turned up early examples of the use of Ps and Qs to mean learning the alphabet. The first is in a poem by Charles Churchill, published in 1763: “On all occasions next the chair / He stands for service of the Mayor, / And to instruct him how to use / His A’s and B’s, and P’s and Q’s.”

With that, the article concludes that learning the alphabet is the origin of the phrase.

The second phrase that someone asked about, is “lo and behold.” This, again, has its origin in the UK. Phrases.org tells us, as you probably know, that it is an explanation to “draw others attention to something…considered startling or important.”

The origin is straightforward:

The word ‘lo’ as used in this phrase is a shortening of ‘look’. So, lo and behold! has the meaning of look! – behold!. Lo in this and its other meaning, which is more akin to O!, has been in use since the first Millennium and appears in the epic poem Beowulf.

Lo and behold, there are your answers! Enjoy your day and continue to mind your P’s and Q’s. (Your letters—not your pints and quarts until you’re done for the day!)

Kara Church

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Technical Editor, Advisory

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/

Oh my!

Dear readers, I provided you with an incorrect flauta photo yesterday, and only a brief explanation. I was told I would have to wear a “shame keyboard,” since my fingers produced an Editor’s Corner that was incomplete and incorrect.

What I sent you was a photo of rolled tacos, also called taquitos; these are smaller than flautas, and made with corn tortillas. Taquitos are also more common, eaten by the peeps on the street. Flautas are made with white flour tortillas and are more upscale and served for meals. (Thank you, Javier and Susan, you made me even hungrier!) As mi amigo said, “Rolled tacos are served in the House of Commons; flautas are served in the House of Lords.” I know, we’re not in England, but you get the gist.

Taquitos

Flautas

And then there’s the whole Schandeflote (shame flute). I thought it was a necklace indicating you were a bad musician—you know, a little gold flute on a chain. Silly me! We are talking German shame. This “necklace” is a device that buckles your fingers down to your instrument! Here is a picture from our coworker, Lori:

Thank you all for your feedback and the opportunity to learn even more about these words. Stay away from Middle Age German “jewelry” and buen provecho with your flautas!

Kara Church

Pronouns: she/her/ella

Technical Editor, Advisory

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

Editing: Symitar Documentation Services

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/

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Good morning, folks. Today I’d like to talk about some “F” words. I recently read an article about people confusing flaunt and flout. That’s not something I’ve noticed, but okay, we’ll go over the difference between the two. Half joking to myself, I thought “Why didn’t they add the word flauta to the list?” Then I got serious and found out a few things about all of these words—and then some.

Okay, flaunt means to display something, usually to make others envious or sometimes to show defiance. For example, “Jim-Jam flaunted his earnings by driving fancy cars and never wearing the same shoes twice.”

Flout means to disregard something. Merriam-Webster defines flout as “to treat with contempt.” An example might be “Anna knew the rules of the town were to dress warmly and conservatively; she flouted their preferences by wearing only bikinis covered in rhinestones or sequins.” The word flout supposedly comes from the word flute.

A flauta, is a Mexican dish made of a rolled tortilla, filled with meat and cheese, and fried. Flauta is also the Spanish word for flute, which the food resembles.

After reading these definitions, I went back to the Grammar Girl article that started all of this. She didn’t mention flautas, but she did mention flutes and a new term. Let me continue dragging you down this crazy road with me. The following is from Grammar Girl’s article on flout and flaunt (with some edits for space):

The origin of ‘flaunt’

Nobody knows for sure where we got “flaunt”…and I’m always surprised when I come across an unknown origin. How could we just not know? People research this stuff.

There are theories, of course. The one I like is that it comes from a Swedish dialect word “flankt” that means “loosely fluttering.” I like the visual image of fluttering your accomplishments in front of people, but the Oxford English Dictionary says the timing of the word entering English makes that origin unlikely. We really just don’t know.

The origin of ‘flout’

“Flout” is even more fun and weird. Dictionaries say it’s related to the word “flute”—like the instrument, but nobody is really sure why that is either. What would disregarding laws have to do with playing the flute. I triple checked just to be sure I was reading everything right.

One theory is that the sound of playing the flute might sound a bit like jeering or derisive whistling. For example, the Oxford English Dictionary says that the Dutch word “fluiten” means both to play the flute and to mock or deride something or someone.

What is a ‘shame flute’ or ‘Schandeflote’?

Then I came across a tidbit on Wikipedia about bad musicians being forced to wear a “flute of shame,” and I thought someone was just making things up. I mean, really…the flute of shame?

But I found things about it in a bunch of books in Google Books too, and it’s often associated with Germany in the Middle Ages where it was called the “Schandflote.”

“A shame flute dangling from a German musician’s neck mocked his professional abilities.” Apparently, it wasn’t a real flute—it just looked like a flute—and it somehow locked the musician’s fingers in a forced playing position.

The first citation in the OED for “flout” meaning “to jeer or express contempt for something” is from 1551, and from what I can gather, the shame flute was used to mock musicians around the same time.

I’ve never seen anyone make the connection saying the shame flute is the reason the word “flout” comes from the word “flute,” but it seems like a good theory, or at least a fun theory, because we got to learn about the shame flute!

Quick and Dirty Tip

Getting back to the original question, you should still use “flaunt” to talk about showing off and “flout” to talk about disregarding rules, and neither of them are a good thing. Don’t be a flaunter, and don’t be a flouter.

Kara Church

Pronouns: she/her

Technical Editor, Advisory

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

Editing: Symitar Documentation Services

Editor’s Corner Archives: https://episystechpubs.com/

NOTICE: This electronic mail message and any files transmitted with it are intended
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