Editor's Corner

There is a common mistake people make in relation to “tense” (past, present, or future) in a sentence. This mistake occurs when a sentence is written about something that happened in the past, but it involves something that remains true or important in the present. In cases like this, people make the mistake of making all verbs in the sentence past tense, but that’s not always the right thing to do.

Each verb in a sentence should reflect the tense that is appropriate for the specific phrase. I think an example will help.

The tense of one of the verbs in the following sentence is incorrect:

• The industry has grown quickly and has made valiant efforts to ensure that individual companies had a firm financial strategy in place.

The incorrect verb in that sentence is had. The goal of the industry is to ensure that companies continue to have a firm financial strategy. The goal is ongoing. So even though the industry has already “made valiant efforts,” they still have a firm financial strategy. The correct verb is have.

• The industry has grown quickly and has made a valiant effort to ensure that individual companies have a firm financial strategy in place.

Let’s look at another sentence with another incorrect verb:

• They spent all their lottery winnings without realizing what was involved in good financial planning.

The incorrect verb in this sentence is was. Good financial planning continues to be necessary. It didn’t stop being important. So, even though spent is a past tense verb, the verb was should be changed to is.

• They spent all their lottery winnings without realizing what is involved in good financial planning.

Even when you’re talking about something that already happened, if you’re including information that is ongoing or that is still true, you need to use present tense when it is appropriate.

Donna Bradley Burcher | Senior Technical Editor | Symitar®

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

Pony boy, pony boy,

Won’t you be my pony boy?

No? Okay fine. I still have a couple of horse-related sayings for you. The first one, from The Grammarist, is “straight from the horse’s mouth.”

Straight from the horse’s mouth describes information that has been received directly from a source of authority and has not been interpreted or diluted by a middleman. It is a source that may be trusted implicitly. The idiom straight from the horse’s mouth seems to have been coined around the turn of the twentieth century, used at first in horse racing circles. The idea is that a racing tip has been received from the race horse himself. Some believe that the phrase relates to checking the teeth of a horse to see what sort of physical shape the horse is in, and whether he is capable of winning a race. Today, the idiom is used in a wide variety of situations to mean learning information from an impeccable source. Note that the word horse’s is a possessive noun, and therefore requires an apostrophe before the s.

The second gift is a proverb from our equine friends is “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” Honestly, after looking at this picture, I sure wouldn’t dare look a horse in the mouth whether he was a gift or not. According to The Phrase Finder, here is the background on this familiar phrase, which means “don’t be ungrateful when you receive a gift.”

Proverbs are “short and expressive sayings, in common use, which are recognized as conveying some accepted truth or useful advice.” This example, also often expressed as “never look a gift horse in the mouth,” is as pertinent today as it ever was.

As horses develop they grow more teeth and their existing teeth begin to change shape and project further forward. Determining a horse’s age from its teeth is a specialist task, but it can be done. This incidentally is also the source of another teeth/age related phrase— long in the tooth.

The advice given in the “don’t look…” proverb is: when receiving a gift be grateful for what it is; don’t imply you wished for more by assessing its value.

As with most proverbs, the origin is ancient and unknown. We have some clues with this one however. The phrase appears in print in English in 1546, as "don’t look a given horse in the mouth", in John Heywood’s A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the prouerbes in the Englishe tongue, where he gives it as:

"No man ought to looke a geuen hors in the mouth."

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services

I’m not sure where I heard or saw the word aiguillette, but a few days after I looked it up, one of you intelligent readers sent me an email mentioning the term. Today, I decided to follow the white rabbit through the dictionary and etymology rabbit holes and see where I’d end up. Here is the tale of my trail, with Merriam-Webster at my side.

aiguillette

noun ai·guil·lette ˌā-gwi-ˈlet

specifically: a shoulder cord worn by designated military aides

mid-16th century: from French, literally ‘small needle,’ diminutive of aiguille.

Apparently, there is some kind of meat also referred to as an aiguillette, or else there are some crazy people posting photos and mismarking them. I saw cows, sausages, bird-like meat…honestly, I’m not sure what was going on. Anyway, here is a photo of the military shoulder cord, with the “small needles” at the very end.

aglet

noun ag·let ˈa-glət

1: the plain or ornamental tag covering the ends of a lace or point

2: any of various ornamental studs, cords, or pins worn on clothing

The English word aglet is from the French word aiguillette (above). These not-so-ornamental laces should look familiar to you. This, at the end of the shoe lace, is what we refer to as an aglet:

fourragère

noun four·ra·gère ˌfu̇r-ə-ˈzher

:a braided cord worn usually around the left shoulder; especially : such a cord awarded as a decoration to a military unit

Most of the fourragères look similar to the aiguillettes, but the majority of the photos were of a single cord and a less fancy look. Wikipedia provides this information:

“As a regimental distinction the fourragère should not be confused with the aiguillette (distinctive insignia of the aide-de-camp) which was introduced by Napoleon I and which it closely resembles (the aiguillette is merely a golden fourragère).”

And this is where the bunny and I gave up and got back to editing!

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services

Someone recently asked if the words percent and percentage can be used interchangeably. We typically use the word percent with a number and the word percentage when a number is omitted.

• There was an 8 percent increase in attendance these year.

Per the JHA Style Guide for Technical Communication and Training, use a numeral with the word percent, even if it is less than 10 (this is an exception to the rule of spelling out numbers zero through nine and using numerals for 10 and greater).

• What percentage of the students passed the class?

Now, you may be wondering when to use the word percent and when to use the % symbol. In technical and scientific writing, we commonly use the % symbol (no space between the numeral and symbol). In nontechnical writing, the word percent is commonly used. Whether you use the symbol or the word depends on what kind of documentation you are writing.

Jackie Solano | Technical Editor | Symitar®

8985 Balboa Ave. | San Diego, CA 92123 | Ph. 619.542.6711 | Extension: 766711

Symitar Documentation Services

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While reading about language recently, the topic of blended words (also known as portmanteaus) came up. These words are created from parts of two different words. A couple well-known examples of blended words are brunch (breakfast/lunch) and sitcom (situation/comedy). Some newer examples are Globish (global/English) and mansplaining (man/explaining).

I also read about blended words that are created from one whole word and part of another. An example of this is motorcade (motor/cavalcade).

And that took me to an article about splinterwords, which are created when a fragment of a word is used in the creation of new words. Some examples of splinter words are words that end in -holic, like shopaholic, chocaholic, and textaholic, all of which describe people who seriously or jokingly have addictive tendencies.

And finally, I read about clipping, which is the process of creating new words by dropping one or more syllables from a word. A few examples of clipping are cell (cellular phone), exam (examination), photo (photograph), and even words like veep (which derives from VP, which derives from vice president).

I love blended words; they are so imaginative (and sometimes humorous). While it’s true that we don’t always like how English is changing, we’re speaking and writing in a living language that is continuously evolving. Blended and clipped words are great examples of how fun change can be.

Donna Bradley Burcher | Senior Technical Editor | Symitar®

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

Dear Editrix,

Where does the phrase “Pardon my French” come from? Is it because the French swear a lot? Did well educated people used to curse in French? Why isn’t it “Pardon my German”?

California Cusser

Dear Cusser,

I found several articles on this topic, all with similar information. Here is a good answer from Mental Floss, by Matt Soniak.

Why Do We Say “Pardon My French” When We Curse?

My dad always used to preface the dropping of an F-bomb or a tangent of creative profanity with a request that listeners “pardon his French.” Surely you’ve known people who do this too or seen it in movies or TV. The idea is that the phrase excuses the speaker for using some coarse words under the coy pretense that they’re from a foreign language.

The phrase appears in the U.S. in this usage as early as the 1800s, and linguists think that it derives from a more literal usage. That is, English speakers dropped French words or phrases into conversation—whether to display their culture, refinement or social class, or because sometimes only a French phrase has that certain je ne sais quoi—and then apologized for it if the listener wasn’t familiar with the word or didn’t speak the language. An example of this usage pops up in the 18th–19th century British fashion magazine The Lady’s Magazine, or Entertaining Companion for the Fair Sex, Appropriated Solely to Their Use and Amusement in 1830: “Bless me, how fat you are grown! Absolutely as round as a ball. You will soon be as enbon-point (excuse my French) as your poor dear father, the major.”

The phrase may have been appropriated for covering foul language because it fits the habit of ascribing unsavory habits or objects to the French through nicknames in English. For example, "taking French leave" is leaving a gathering without saying goodbye and thanking the host…. [KC – He mentions a few other things named after the French, but they aren’t suitable for work or breakfast. And no, I am not talking about French Toast!]

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I’m glad I grew up speaking English because there are certain things that just come naturally. One of those things is different tenses of irregular verbs. Today’s post is dedicated to those of you who don’t speak English as your first language. Below is a selection of verbs in their infinitive, simple past, and past participle conjugations. I selected these because some are particularly odd, some are interesting, and some are very common but they make you scratch your head: for example, go—went—gone. How did that happen?

For more irregular verbs, see English Grammar Online.

This is how they Sonic?

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services

Have you ever been following a set of instructions and encountered a final step like, “Click OK to save your changes, or click Cancel”?

In years of reading software documentation (as a user, not an editor), I must have seen the phrase, “or click Cancel” hundreds of times, but I don’t remember ever choosing that option.

Technical documentation should be written to help users accomplish their goals. If you’re writing a document titled Setting Up a Printer, you can be certain that the reader’s goal is setting up a printer, not getting 99 percent of the way through setting up a printer and then abandoning the task.

This quirk seems limited to technical documentation. The navigation app on my phone doesn’t tell me, “Your destination is on the right. If you changed your mind and want to go home, make a U-turn in 200 feet.”

Similarly, I’ve never read self-undermining instructions in any of the following contexts:

• “Remove the engine oil cap and pour in six quarts of clean oil, or just pour the dirty oil back in.”
• “Hang the birdhouse from a tree, or rip out all the nails and throw the disassembled wooden pieces on the ground.”
• “Enjoy your sandwich, or scrape the mayonnaise back into the jar and put the bread slices in the cupboard.”

It is occasionally helpful to tell the reader how to abandon a particularly long task and complete it later. For example, you might write, “Click OK to submit the form. If you are not yet ready to submit the form, click Cancel. You can resume working on it the next time you log on.” But these situations are rare.

If you find yourself writing, “or click Cancel,” ask yourself whether that is something users might reasonably do. If not, leave that part out of the instructions.

Ben Ritter | Technical Editor | Symitar®
8985 Balboa Avenue | San Diego, CA 92123
619-682-3391 | or ext. 763391 | www.Symitar.com

Symitar Documentation Services

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,
together with any attachment, may contain confidential and/or privileged information.
Any unauthorized review, use, printing, saving, copying, disclosure or distribution
is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please
immediately advise the sender by reply email and delete all copies.

I was just watching Law and Order: SVU the other night and I found out that my favorite detectives have been there just about as long as I’ve been here at JHA. How is it that Mariska Hargitay looks so amazing and I look like a brunette Marian the librarian? (Maybe it has something to do with Mr. Universe being her dad and Jayne Mansfield being her mom?) Well, in honor of her 19th year as Olivia Benson, I have some legal terms to share with you today.

First, from The Grammarist:

Malfeasance is a wrongful or criminal act perpetrated by a public official or other person of authority. An act of malfeasance is done intentionally, disregarding the fact that the action is morally or legally wrong and will cause someone harm. The adjective form is malfeasant. The word malfeasance is derived from the French word malfaisance, which means wrongdoing.

Misfeasance is an act that is lawful, but performed in an unlawful, illegal or injurious manner. Generally, misfeasance is different from malfeasance in that the actor does not have the intent to harm, but the harm comes through the actor’s irresponsibility or negligence. The adjective form is misfeasant. The word misfeasance is derived from the French word mesfaisance, meaning to mis-do.

Nonfeasance is the failure to do something that one is legally responsible to do. Nonfeasance is an intentional failure to live up to one’s legal or moral duty in a given situation, a refusal to fulfill one’s obligation. The adjective form is nonfeasant. The word nonfeasance is derived from the French word faisance meaning an action, and the prefix non– which means not.

Next, an etymology from Google:

malfeasance:

late 17th century: from Anglo-Norman French malfaisance, from mal- ‘evil’ + Old French faisance ‘activity.’ Compare with misfeasance.

All these prefixes led me to wonder, is there a plain old word feasance? Indeed, there is. According to Google, it is also a legal term that means “the doing or performing of an act, as of a condition or duty.”

And finally:

Maleficent. Okay, that’s not a legal term. It’s the name of a fairy tale movie from 2014, though I’m betting the “mal” in the main character’s name also stands for “evil.”

Jayne Mansfield and Miklos “Mickey” Hargitay

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services

Recently, I wrote about how the natural evolution of language leads to changes in our English grammar rules and standards. Well, I’m not the only one thinking about this subject. Shortly after writing that post, I received an article from GrammarBook.com called “Rules Do Change.”

Like I mentioned before, rules and standards are changing due to the way people actually use the English language. You may have learned a rule in school that is no longer applicable. You may have even learned a rule that was never actually a real rule (like don’t split infinitives). I’m telling you this so that you’ll stop relying on the “I learned it in school” refrain. You may have learned it, but that doesn’t mean it’s relevant. Rules really do change.

Are you wondering what rules this GrammarBook.com article focused on? Well, it covered four rules we’ve gone over before here at the Editor’s Corner, but we still get a lot of questions, so they’re worth a review. I’ve abbreviated the text for your convenience. Read on, curious language lovers.

· Spacing after periods, colons, question marks and exclamation points

Originally, typewriters had monospaced fonts (skinny letters and fat letters took up the same amount of space), so two spaces after ending punctuation marks such as the period were used to make the text more legible. However, most computer fonts present no difficulty with proportion or legibility, so use just one space after a period, colon, question mark, or exclamation point at the end of a sentence. You will not be struck by lightning, we promise! [dbb – This may be one of the most controversial rules we enforce. I’m not sure why some people are so attached to two spaces, but, boy are they! And we always remove them according to JHA standards. It’s a maddening dance for everyone involved.]

· Quotation marks and punctuation

Today, in American English usage, the period always goes inside the quotation marks.

Example: Myrtle said the word “darn.”

· Forming plurals in English

As time has gone on, we have shortened some words and dropped the former plural form.

Example: The words memo and memos used to be memorandum and memoranda.

With the word data, we no longer see the singular datum used at all. Data is now often seen with both singular and plural verbs, although the word is considered strictly plural by purists.

Examples:
The data are being tabulated.
The data is useful to the scientists.

Yet other words still retain their original spelling and plural form.

Example: curriculum (singular) and curricula (plural).

· Beginning sentences with but, and, because

In “the old days,” you may have been scolded for starting a sentence with but, and, or because. But you wouldn’t have deserved that scolding.

Example:
Because of this bee sting, my arm is swollen.

We’ll be sure to let you know as rules and JHA standards change. But if you have a question about language rules, don’t forget to look it up on that fancy new internet thingamabob that puts knowledge literally at your fingertips. Just make sure to look for reputable resources and websites. Have fun storming the internet! (Shameless Princess Bride reference.)

Donna Bradley Burcher | Senior Technical Editor | Symitar®

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