Angela Booth's Writing Blog

Giggle of the Day: Punctuate, damn you

I love John Scalzi's "Writing Tips for Non-Writers Who Don't Want to Work at Writing", especially:

1. Punctuate, damn you: For God's sake, is it really so hard to know where to put a comma? When people read, even in their brains, there's usually some part of them that is sounding out the words. Without appropriate punctuation, especially commas, that word-speaking part will eventually choke on the sentence. Having said that, there's a tendency to over-punctuate as well, particularly with exclamation points. Too little punctuation makes it seem you want to collapse someone's lung, too much makes it look like you're a 14-year-old girl writing an IM. You want to avoid both.

You know who you are. :-)

Regarding exclamation points, just stop using them. Put yourself on a diet of one exclamation point per day, or per 10,000 words.

My eyes are still bleeding from the 20 pages of a book I tried to read the other week. I stopped reading after 20 pages because I wanted scream. Loudly.

This amazing hardcover was stuffed with ten and more exclamation points per page - that's ten or more per 250 words. I have no idea what the author thought he was doing. The book was published by a major publisher too. It either had no editor, or the editor had lost the will to live from confronting all those exclamation points.

Technorati Tags: grammar

Writer's weirdness: why a backward slash?

File this under weirdness.

In email messages some "writers" are falling into the habit of using a backward slash in place of than an apostrophe in contractions and possessive forms.

As in: "couldn\t"; "i\ve" (these writers hate caps too); "it\s"; "kid\s" etc.

Perhaps it's the influence of SMS.

If you're an aspiring writer, please don't do this. Your aim is to communicate, not to obfuscate.

Technorati Tags: grammar

Giggle of the Day: Take this "McJob" and shove it (out of the OED)

According to "McDonald's Has Beef with the Oxford English Dictionary" McDonalds is trying to get "McJob" removed from the OED, but they might just be going about it the wrong way.

From the article:

As a result, the Illinois-based company is pumping out an advertising blitz with posters at over 1,200 restaurants that play up "the positive aspects of working for McDonald's," complete with the snappy catch-phrase, "Not bad for a McJob."

Since they're using the McJob word themselves, it only adds legitimacy to the term as being in common usage, and a word in common usage should, QED, be in the OED. :-)

A cheat sheet for English - pass it on

If you wince whenever you come across "alot" (it's two words "a lot" or as a single word, "allot" it means to apportion) help is at hand - here's a quick and easy grammar cheat sheet to send to people.

You can add to this list, and post it to your company's intranet.

Heaven knows what they're teaching in schools. I've noticed "compliment" emerging as a replacement for "complement" in major publishers' books. Apparently no one hires copyeditors any more.

Technorati Tags: grammar

The death of "actually"... Word Counter

One of my most-abused words is “actually”. I over-use it as a transition and as an adverb. Although I've put myself on an "actually" diet, I actually don't even realize that it's sneaking in.

See? :-)

Word Counter counts the most frequently used words in text you paste into it. Very useful, actually.

Technorati Tags: language/ grammar

Avast m'hearties - don't miss Talk like a Pirate Day

Aye... I missed Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19...

If it's still the 19th in yer neck o' th'woods, 'ave a scoggin o' grog fer me. Yo-ho-ho! Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Technorati Tags: humor

Pot-hole words: peak and pique; eek and eke

Here we go with more pot-hole words you can stumble into.

Peak and pique

"Peak" can be a noun, verb, or adjective. It's often misused in the verb form: "his interest was peaked [sic] when he heard she'd been seen topless in the local bar". As a verb, " to peak" means to reach the highest point of a value or time, viz: "The stock peaked at $46 a share,"' it doesn't mean to arouse interest, that's "pique".

"Pique" can be used as a noun or verb. As a noun, it means irritation or resentment: "when she dumped him, he threw the phone across the room in a fit of pique."

As a verb, to "pique" means to arose interest or curiosity: "the blood splatters piqued his curiosity". It can also mean to feel irritated: "she was piqued at his carelessness."

Eek and eke

I've seen "eek" and "eke" confused several times online, so it's a definite pot-hole. :-)

"Eek" is something you say when you're shocked: "Eek! I've just seen a mouse!"

"Eke" is a verb which indicates difficulty -- "he eked out a living on the farm".

Technorati Tags: grammar

Pot-hole words: lose and loose

Find yourself tripping over words? In this series I'm covering "pot-hole" words -- the words we stumble over; words that it's easy to confuse and misuse, and that are often confused by online writers.

Let's start with "lose" and "loose".

Lose is a verb. You lose stuff -- your keys or your ambition. It's also the opposite of "win" -- when you don't win, you lose. It's easy to lose your way in the mountains. Did you lose the CD?

Loose is an adjective; it means not firmly fixed or tied in place; relaxed. Your belt can be loose, or your stride. However, you can also use loose as a verb, when it means to undo, or to free, as in: She loosened the ribbon around her gift. She loosed the chickens.

Technorati Tags: grammar

Writing Nuisance of the Day: authorial throat-clearing with "so…"

"So", as a transitional tag is everywhere, even when there's nothing to transition from, as in the first word of a blog post or an article:

So, I was mowing the lawn today…

So, what are you…

So then I…

Of all the transitional tags in the world, why has SO become so popular? If you know the reason, keep it to yourself, please. I don't WANT to know why. Heaven help me, I've started using "so" myself. Slap me, please.

I know why writers do it. Transitions are difficult. You feel that you need to break the ice with your reader somehow. Trust me on this, you don't. Just write!

Addicted to "so?" So get over it. (See, I AM doing it.) SLAP!

Technorati Tags: grammer

Enough with the exclamation points, already!

Please don't use exclamation points in your work. Ever.

A friend who's judging a short story contest told me: "If there are more than two exclamation points on the first page, it's out."

That sounds like a harsh form of triage to me, but she's right. Exclamation points are a cheap way to try to add emotion to your work and are rarely necessary, especially in fiction. If you're writing a story, find a way to SHOW it. You don't need exclamation points.

If you're writing nonfiction and you're tempted to use an exclamation point, don't, unless you're quoting someone.

Technorati Tags: grammar