Check out this great piece, "8 words that may not mean what you think they mean." For the record, we concur with article author Laura Hale Brockway's directive to stop what you're doing and see this movie (The Princess Bride) immediately if you have not previously. That said, we have never been able to find what is incorrect in Vizzini's use of "inconcievable." Webster's give the definition as "impossible to comprehend." Contextually, it's just fine. That nitpick does not, in any way, detract from our enjoyment of this story!
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We have encountered this twice in recent weeks -- either a straight-up error, or the result of auto-correct undermining the writer's meaning: the acronym AIDS rendered as "Aids." One instance was in looking over a fundraising piece, the other when reviewing a medical information form from a dentist's office. All of the healthcare fields, and a few of the charitable/non-profit ones, need to be on the lookout for this specific error. Auto-correct saves us from a lot of mistakes...but opens up whole new possibilities for embarrassment. If there are acronyms that you use regularly in your line of work, make a Ctrl+F review of them part of your standard editing/revision process, in order to ensure that they are all properly capitalized. When abbreviating a multi-word name, the capitals are retained, partly as a clue that the resulting "word" stands for something else. "AIDS" represents the the term "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome." Hence, must always be given in caps. Bonus: Both "HIV," the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (that causes AIDS) and "AIDS" are abbreviations. However, AIDS is also an acronym, as the abbreviation creates a name that is read as a word. The alternative would be to refer to AIDS by its individual letters, as the disease ay-eye-dee-ess. Whether or not an abbreviation is used as an acronym is not always obvious. The initial letters of the World Health Organization (WHO) creates a readable word, but the agency does not go by "the WHO (hoo)," as it could create confusion with the band of the same name. Ergo, even though it could be an acronym, it isn't used as such. So, CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), IRS (Internal Revenue Service), BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) and IRA (Irish Republican Army) are abbreviations. NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and IRA (Individual Retirement Account) are abbreviations that are also acronyms. For vastly more on this topic, visit Wikipedia. 5/7/2012 1 Comment Completed Project: Brochure proofing/revisions...plus, associate updates website!We are intermittently called upon by our friends at Image Management to do various types of content development work for them. We were privileged recently to complete proofreading/revisions on a 12-page product brochure for one of their on-going client accounts. This particular brochure includes applying the client's "house" style, as well as checking for correct usage, spelling, punctuation and general formatting.
Bonus: Image Management has recently re-built their website. So, if you haven't visited it in a while...time to check it out again, and appreciate their fun, sharp new design! Insert commas between coordinate adjectives. That is, words that equally describe something. If unsure, ask yourself if you can change the order of the adjectives without changing the meaning of the sentence. If so, they are coordinate, and should have commas between them. Example № 1: The orchestra played a slow, beautiful, familiar tune. Note that if one augmented the statement, like so: The orchestra played a slow, beautiful, vaguely familiar tune -- "vaguely" is describing (modifying) "familiar," so those two words stay together, undivided by a comma. Example № 2, one of the best insults ever written: "What kind of spindly, ricket-ridden, milky, wizened, dim-eyed, gammy-handed, limpy line of things will you beget?" (The Lion in Winter, 1968 -- delivered by Katharine Hepburn as Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine to Peter O'Toole's King Henry II.) Each of those delightfully biting adjectives equally describe "line of things," and the order is relatively unimportant (when rattling it off as a quote, we rarely get them in their actual order, nor the same arrangement twice). According to the test, commas go in between. A blog post by Stan Carey, scientist/writer/editor/"swivel-chair linguist"* began to do the rounds today. "The problem with banning words" reflects on the propensity of pedants and snarks to plant the flag of their preferences on the language at large. It's a good article, and certainly worthy of the time of those of you interested in writing, language, and how and why we communicate (contextual motivation having a lot to do with the words and constructions we choose). Still, at the risk of being curmudgeonly ourselves, we, too, have nominated the odd word or phrase for banishment -- most recently, "reach out" when one means contact/speak to/communicate with. On the one hand, we recognize that language is ever-evolving in ways that are organic and, really, quite wonderful. There are, however, some evolutionary false-starts, dead-ends and downright bad seeds that will inevitably crop up along the way. Railing against some of these -- especially by those of us who care enough to get upset about them -- is also natural and, we think, quite appropriate. That said, use of the word "awesome," (which, incidentally, was the catalyst for Mr. Carey's post) makes us smile, tag the statement #NPH and #Legendary, and move along with our day! Even the overused has its little niche. * "swivel-chair linguist" -- great phrase, that! 4/23/2012 1 Comment Observing #TalkLikeShakespeare DayWe recalled this morning, upon perusing our Twitter feed, that today is the day we remember William Shakespeare's influence on our language -- Shakespeare having been born, and died, on or about April 23rd. ==================================== Manual of Style @ChicagoManual 'Tis #TalkLikeShakespeare Day! Partake in the celebration with Gary Logan's The Eloquent Shakespeare: http://bit.ly/J4Qijz ==================================== So, for your enjoyment and edification:
Thou talkest (modern: you talk) You talk He/She/It talketh (modern: he/she/it talks) They talk Note how few changes have been wrought in our pronouns and verb forms by four hundred years' evolution!
We see this all the time -- continuing to accumulate birthdays to those who have passed on. Though our fortieth President, Ronald Reagan, ceased to be in 2004, his "100th birthday" was observed last year. Werner von Braun expired in 1977, but still, last month, his "100th birthday" was noted. As predicted by Bill Murray's character in Stripes, Tito Puente is now dead. And though you may HAVE been listening to him for years, and he WAS (and through his recordings, still is) fabulous, he joined the choir -- er, in this case, the Latin jazz band -- invisible in 2000. Still, we encountered a reference to his birthday today. Only the living continue to age, as reflected by the increasing number of birthdays they have had. A far more correct and appropriate phraseology is, "in memory of Great-Aunt Eliza on the 100th anniversary of her birth...." Or, you may feel free to "reflect on the accomplishments of the late Ezekiel Helmsworth-Cummings on the 85th anniversary of his birth." Bonus: we dedicate things to the living using the phrase, "in honor of" and to the deceased with, "in memory of." Supplemental Bonus: enjoy the Monty Python "Dead Parrot" sketch here. Daniels Chiropractic Office recently engaged Write and Polish to undertake a complete edit/revision of its website content. Dr. John Daniels, one of the members of the practice's third generation of practitioners, built the website using tools provided by a company that specializes in sites for chiropractors. It looked great, but the text was held over from a previous iteration of the site, and needed both updating and to be tightened up. Conveying a lot of information with a degree of economy is always a challenge; we think this one turned out quite nicely. If you are in the Racine area, we can also recommend the care delivered by Daniels Chiropractic. We're not just their writers...we're their patients as well! Check for yourself at NonProfitList.org. If you're not there, see about submitting! Not only does the listing give the opportunity to tell anyone who looks at this list about your organization, the link to your website will serve as one more opportunity to drive it upwards in search results! That's win-win!
4/17/2012 0 Comments On-Going Project: PWC ServicesWe are happy to be doing some consulting for PWC Services about overall messaging for the company's water treatment/filtration products, coffee and beverage services and concrete/asphalt repair. Dave Meissner, the firm's principal, has more than 20 years' experience in these diverse fields, working all over the upper Midwest. PWC serves the Milwaukee metro area, covering all of southeastern Wisconsin, as well as northern Illinois. If you are located within the region, contact PWC to have your water tested (the test and discussion of results is always free). |
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