Editor's Corner

Of the three dictionary publishers that choose a word of the year, only Oxford Dictionaries honors a brand-new word (Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com pick old words that experienced a spike in usage over the previous year).

It can be interesting to look back on Oxford Dictionaries’ previous word-of-the-year winners and see which ones have stood the test of time. Here are three nominees from 2008 that didn’t.

CarrotMob

This word has nothing to do with aggressively pushing healthy eating habits (“I gave him some okra he couldn’t refuse”). Instead, it refers to rewarding businesses with a carrot, not punishing them with a stick:

• CarrotMob, carrot mob: a flashmob type of gathering, in which people are invited via the Net to all support and reward a local small ethical business such as a shop or café by all patronizing it at the same time.

The most recent headline I found was from 2013: “Carrotmob Rewards Jonnies Sticky Buns for Going Fair Trade” (CBC, September 30, 2013).

There’s also a competing term for the same idea: buycott.

Frugalista

Of the three words on this list, this is the one I would be least surprised to hear—at least it’s possible to discern the meaning (a frugal fashionista).

• frugalista: a person who leads a frugal lifestyle, but stays fashionable and healthy by swapping clothes, buying second-hand, growing own produce, etc.

There are a few thrift stores named Frugalista, and a handful of writers adopted it as a pen name (including Natalie McNeal, who wrote a book called The Frugalista Files).

Though frugalista hasn’t caught on generally, the -ista suffix might have some staying power, also popping up in words like recessionista and stylista.

Moofer

Sounding like a portmanteau of moo and heifer, it’s no wonder this word didn’t stick around.

• moofer: a mobile out of office worker – i.e., someone who works away from a fixed workplace, via Blackberry/laptop/wi-fi etc. (also verbal noun, moofing).

I couldn’t find any recent examples of anyone using the word moofer in this sense, but at least one internet commenter is using it as a screen name.

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

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Good morning. Let’s talk “reflexive pronouns” today.

Pronouns that end in self (myself, etc.) and selves (themselves, etc.) are called reflexive pronouns.

Person	Singular	Plural
First person	myself	ourselves
Second person	yourself	yourselves
Third person	himself, herself, itself	themselves

They’re called reflexive because they always refer to a person or thing mentioned previously in the same clause. Here are some examples that use reflexive pronouns correctly:

• I baked the cake myself.
• You will have to drive yourself to the doctor.
• Jim thought of himself as an entrepreneur.
• The dog let itself out through the doggy door.
• We laughed ourselves silly.

People frequently use reflexive pronouns incorrectly. The rule is that you can only use the pronoun myself, when you’ve already used the subject I. It might also help to know that you should use a reflexive pronoun only when the subject and object in a clause are the same person (“I and myself” or “you and yourself” or “Jim and himself”).

The following examples are not correct because a reflexive pronoun is being used that does not refer back to a subject.

• The team consists of Jim and myself.
  (The pronoun myself does not refer to the subject I.)
  Correction: The team consists of Jim and me.

• Only the managers and yourself will see the list of potential employees.
  (The pronoun yourself does not refer to the subject you.)
  Correction: Only the managers and you will see the list of potential employees.

If you’d like to read more about reflexive pronouns, take a look at these previous Editor’s Corner posts:

• https://episystechpubs.com/2015/03/04/editors-corner-reflexive-pronouns/
• https://episystechpubs.com/2013/03/13/editors-corner-myself/

If you’d like to take a break from it all, and just spend a moment looking at something so cute it hurts, watch at this very short video of a baby elephant chasing birds.

Donna Bradley Burcher | Senior Technical Editor | Symitar®

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

The other evening, as my husband and I walked the dogs through the neighborhood, we got to a little pocket park and Ray tripped trying to catch an elusive Pokémon. I warned him, “Watch out for the stairs! Watch out, there are more stairs!” He responded, “I see them. And I call these steps.” And that was when I threw the first punch. No, I’m kidding. But then, I started wondering: “What’s the difference between steps and stairs?” We both started coming up with explanations and descriptions and examples of what was what, but then he turned to the real professional. “OK, Google. What’s the difference between steps and stairs?”

And here is the answer we received, from Merriam-Webster:

In perhaps their most basic uses, stairs and steps share a single meaning. Both refer to a series of steps—those "structures consisting of a riser and a tread," as the definition of step puts it. But how about in practical use: are they in fact applied differently?

When they’re outside, they’re more often called ‘steps’ than they are called ‘stairs.’

Steps lexically has the emphasis on the single structure that is the riser and the tread. The singular form step is the usual way to refer to the structure (evidence of "the bottom/top step" abounds while evidence of "the bottom/top stair" is scant, especially in American English). The fact that the movement signaled by each footfall is also called a "step" perhaps contributes as well. In its earliest known use, which currently dates to the turn of the last millennium, stair refers to what we would now call a set of stairs: you would go "up the stair" (but you’d say it in Old English) to get to the second floor. Step, on the other hand, in its earliest known use about 200 years previous, refers to the single structure that we would now also most often call a step.

There is no set of absolute rules for modern English that predicts when a series of structures consisting of a riser and a tread is called stairs and when it’s called steps, but we can make some generalizations based on use:

When they’re outside, they’re more often called steps than they are called stairs. We have, for example, far more evidence for phrases like "on the steps of the Capitol" than for "on the stairs of the Capitol."

When it’s full sets of the things in question, the phrase "flight of stairs" is far more common than "flight of steps." When the set is of an abbreviated sort, however—like when it connects two interior spaces at slightly different levels—steps is the usual choice: "steps down into the living room."

Stair is the term that appears in compounds having to do with architectural structures: staircase, stairway, stairwell.

Meanwhile step lends itself to figurative use, as in "every step of the process."

And that may not be all there is to say about steps and stairs, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services

This should keep you busy for a couple of days!

The following poem (or this portion of the poem) was sent to me by one of our technical writers, Todd H. The poem, called “The Chaos,” was written by a Dutchman named Gerard Nolst Trenité, a writer, traveler, and teacher from the late 1800s through 1946. According to Wikipedia,

“It includes about 800 examples of irregular spelling. The first version of 146 lines of text appeared in an appendix to the author’s 1920 textbook Drop Your Foreign Accent: engelsche uitspraakoefeningen, but ‘the most complete and authoritative version ever likely to emerge,’ published by the Spelling Society in 1993–94, has 274 lines.”

Here is the shorter version for your enjoyment.

Note: He uses British English spelling rules.

Dearest creature in creation,

Study English pronunciation.

I will teach you in my verse

Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

I will keep you, Suzy, busy,

Make your head with heat grow dizzy.

Tear in eye, your dress will tear.

So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,

Dies and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain.

(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)

Now I surely will not plague you

With such words as plaque and ague.

But be careful how you speak:

Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;

Cloven, oven, how and low,

Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,

Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,

Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,

Exiles, similes, and reviles;

Scholar, vicar, and cigar,

Solar, mica, war and far;

One, anemone, Balmoral,

Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;

Gertrude, German, wind and mind,

Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,

Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.

Blood and flood are not like food,

Nor is mould like should and would.

Viscous, viscount, load and broad,

Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation’s OK

When you correctly say croquet,

Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,

Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour

And enamour rhyme with hammer.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,

Doll and roll and some and home.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,

Neither does devour with clangour.

Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,

Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,

Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,

And then singer, ginger, linger,

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,

Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,

Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.

Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.

Though the differences seem little,

We say actual but victual.

Refer does not rhyme with deafer.

Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

Mint, pint, senate and sedate;

Dull, bull, and George ate late.

Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,

Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,

Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed,

People, leopard, towed, but vowed.

Mark the differences, moreover,

Between mover, cover, clover;

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,

Chalice, but police and lice;

Camel, constable, unstable,

Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,

Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.

Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,

Senator, spectator, mayor.

Tour, but our and succour, four.

Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Sea, idea, Korea, area,

Psalm, Maria, but malaria.

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.

Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,

Dandelion and battalion.

Sally with ally, yea, ye,

Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.

Say aver, but ever, fever,

Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.

Heron, granary, canary.

Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.

Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Large, but target, gin, give, verging,

Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.

Ear, but earn and wear and tear

Do not rhyme with here but ere.

Seven is right, but so is even,

Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,

Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,

Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation — think of Psyche!

Is a paling stout and spikey?

Won’t it make you lose your wits,

Writing groats and saying grits?

It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:

Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,

Islington and Isle of Wight,

Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough —

Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?

Hiccough has the sound of cup.

My advice is to give up!

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

Symitar Documentation Services

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I’m sure you’ve all heard the term Santa Ana Winds before, but do you know where the name came from? The definition of Santa Ana is a strong hot dry foehn wind from the north, northeast, or east in southern California.

I found an article in the Los Angeles Almanac that gives this explanation:

The original spelling of the of name of the winds is unclear, not to mention the origin. Although the winds have been commonly called Santa Ana Winds or Santa Anas, many argue that the original name is Santana Winds or Santanas. Both versions of the name have been used. The name Santana Winds is said to be traced to Spanish California when the winds were called Devil Winds due to their heat. The reference book Los Angeles A to Z (by Leonard & Dale Pitt), credits the Santa Ana Canyon in Orange County as the origin of the name Santa Ana Winds, thereby arguing for the term Santa Anas. This might be supported by early accounts which attributed the Santa Ana riverbed running through the canyon as the source of the winds. Another account placed the origin of Santa Ana Winds with an Associated Press correspondent stationed in Santa Ana who mistakenly began using Santa Ana Winds instead of Santana Winds in a 1901 dispatch.

Speaking of devil winds, the last round of Santa Anas tore down a part of my fence. Luckily, I had some old wire hangers that I used to temporarily put it back up. Don’t tell Joan Crawford though. 😊

Jackie Solano | Technical Editor | Symitar®

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

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Dear Editrix,

I was wondering, how and when did the zipper in my pants get the name “fly”?

Sincerely,

XYZ

Dear XYZ,

What a curious question! Apparently, though, you are not the only one out there wondering why there’s “a fly in your pants.” Maybe I wear too many dresses to wonder about such things, but here’s the best I could find, from Wikipedia:

A fly on clothing is a covering over an opening concealing the mechanism, such as a zip, velcro, or buttons, used to close the opening. An open fly is a fly that has been left unzipped or unbuttoned.

The term is most frequently applied to a short opening over the groin in trousers, shorts, and other garments. The term is also used for overcoats, where a design of the same shape is used to hide a row of buttons. This style is common on a wide range of coats, from single-breasted Chesterfields to covert coats.

Chesterfields

Covert Coat

Trousers have varied historically in whether or not they have flies. Originally, trousers did not have flies or other openings, being pulled down for sanitary functions. The use of a codpiece, a separate covering attached to the trousers, became popular in 16th-century Europe, eventually evolving into an attached fall-front (or broad fall). The fly-front (split fall) emerged later. The paneled front returned as a sporting option, such as in riding breeches, but is now hardly used, flies being by far the most common fastening. Most flies now use a zip, though button flies continue in use.

Note: I have refrained from including pictures of button flies, riding breech flies, and codpieces to maintain our “safe for work” G rating.

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services

Good morning! Today we’re going to tackle an often confusing word pair. There is a lot of confusion about when to use the word its without an apostrophe and when to use the word it’s with an apostrophe. And there is a lot of judgement when people get it wrong, too. This is a pet peeve for many people. However, it is understandable that some people are confused. The confusion stems from the rules about using apostrophes.

We use apostrophes for contractions:

• I’ve always wanted to go to Paris.
• You’re not wearing that to my company Christmas party, are you?

We also use apostrophes for possessives:

• That is John’s stapler.
• The Smith’s car is parked in the driveway.

However, its is an exception—its is a possessive that does not take an apostrophe (For example, “The dog happily wags its tail.”) So, understandably, people have trouble remembering whether the contraction or the possessive gets the apostrophe.

I think the best way to be sure that you’re using the right word is to remember that it’s has an apostrophe because it stands for two words: it is. That’s how I remember it. I hope that helps you, too.

Donna Bradley Burcher | Senior Technical Editor | Symitar®

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

Symitar Documentation Services

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Every now and then I receive an email complaining about people forgetting commas in salutations or asking if a comma is needed at all in a salutation. Here are some general rules when sending a letter or email.

Formal Correspondence

When you are writing a cover letter, an email, or something else you would consider formal to clients, you stick with a straightforward greeting and a colon. Some examples:

• Dear Mr. Sandbottom:
• To Whom It May Concern:
• To Ms. Colette Browning:

Less Formal Correspondence

Most other items fall in this category. Generally, you use a greeting, a comma, and then whatever ending punctuation seems most appropriate. For example:

• Hello, Monica.
• Happy Birthday, Brian!
• Hi, Sandy,
• Good Morning, Fuzzy!
• Can’t wait to see you tomorrow, brother!
• Hey there, Donna,

I hope this helps!

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services

One of our readers asked us about the words passed and past. While Donna and I have written a few articles on these two words, we haven’t done it recently. Here are articles from the past:

• https://episystechpubs.com/2012/07/18/editors-corner-passed-and-past/
• https://episystechpubs.com/2015/06/17/editors-corner-past-and-passed/
• https://episystechpubs.com/2016/11/07/editors-corner-the-past-has-passed/

And here is another article from the present at Daily Writing Tips, which covers some of the differences and how the two words are sometimes confused.

Past – Relates to location

The word past locates something in time, and sometimes in space. It can be
used as an adjective, noun, or adverb.

“Past” as an adjective

The first definition which the OED gives for past as an adjective is “Gone by in time; elapsed; done with; over.” For example:

· “The days for mourning are now past.”

When attributed to a group of people, past can also mean “Having served one’s term of office; former.” (OED)

· “All past presidents of the United States were male.”

And in grammar, we have more examples of past being used as an adjective, such as in “past tense” and “past participle”.

“Past” as a noun

The main meaning for the noun form of past, given by the OED, is “The time that has gone by; a time, or all of the time, before the present.”

• “In the past, standards were higher.”
• “We cannot live in the past.”

“Past” as a preposition

As a preposition, past can mean: “Beyond in time; after; beyond the age for or time of; (in stating the time of day) so many minutes, or a quarter or half of an hour, after a particular hour.” (OED)

• “It is almost half past five.”

It can also be used for location: “Beyond in place; further on than; at or on the further side of; to a point beyond.” (OED)

• “My house is the one just past the turning.”

“Past” as an adverb

The first meaning the OED cites for past being used as an adverb is “So as to pass or go by; by.” For example:

• “The ball sped past the goalkeeper.”

Passed – A verb in the past tense

Passed is the past participle of the verb “to pass”. It can be an intransitive verb (one which doesn’t require an object) or a transitive verb (one which requires both a subject and one or more objects).

“To pass” means “To proceed, move forward, depart; to cause to do this.” (OED) This can refer to movement forwards in time, in space, or in life (such as “to pass an examination”).

For example:

• “The weeks passed quickly.” (Intransitive: subject “the weeks” and no object).
• “I passed all my exams!” (Transitive: subject “I” and object “my exams”.)
• “He passed the ball well during the match earlier.” (Transitive: subject “He” and object “the ball”.)

When do “past” and “passed” get confused?

Often, writers muddle the words past and passed in sentences such as:

• “The heroes passed a village on their way towards the mountains.”

It’s common to see this written as:

• “The heroes past a village on their way towards the mountains.”

But the word should be passed, as (in this sentence) it’s the past participle of the verb “to pass”. An easy way to tell is to rewrite the sentence in the present tense, as though you’re describing something which is happening currently:

• “The heroes pass a village on their way towards the mountains.” or
• “The heroes are passing a village on their way towards the mountains.”

However, if you wrote:

• “The heroes walked past a village on their way towards the mountains.”

It’s correct to use past. The verb in this sentence is “walked”, and the “past” is acting as an adverb.

Whew! After all that, we need a puppy or two!

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services

Leonine is Merriam-Websters word of the day.

Heres the definition:

of, relating to, suggestive of, or resembling a lion

Heres the origin:

Leonine derives from Latin leo, meaning "lion," which in turn comes from Greek len. Len gave us an interesting range of words: leopard (which derives from len combined with pardos, a Greek word for a panther-like animal); dandelion (which came by way of the Anglo-French phrase dent de lionliterally, "lion’s tooth"); and chameleon (which combines len with the Greek chamai, meaning "on the ground"); as well as the names Leo, Leon, and Leonard. But the dancer’s and gymnast’s leotard is not named for its wearer’s cat-like movements. Rather, it was simply named after its inventor, Jules Leotard, a 19th-century French aerial gymnast.

And this is my Leo. He doesnt like Mondays.

Jackie Solano | Technical Editor | Symitar

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

Symitar Documentation Services

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