Continue reading »]]> Find the problem in this sentence: It was the summer of ‘69.

Look at the apostrophe. It’s facing the wrong way.

An apostrophe alerts a reader that a character (possibly two) has been left out of a word. In this case, the 19 has been omitted from the year 1969, because that’s what we do in casual conversation.

But the tail of the apostrophe must point to what is missing, as though it were saying, “Hey, something’s missing here, but I did this on purpose.” In the word something’s, the apostrophe is pointing to the missing “i” that was booted out of “something is” to make the contraction.

This is a technological problem. Your writing software has been told that when the apostrophe key is used after a character, put in an apostrophe. But if that key is typed after an open space, then it’s an open single quotation mark, and the tail points to the right where the quote will begin.

The solution to the technological problem is a human one: you have to fix this manually. It’s a little irritating for the writer, but it’s more irritating for the reader who thinks, “This writer doesn’t know the difference between an open single quote mark and an apostrophe.” When that happens, the reader loses the thread of what you’ve written, and your message gets watered down or lost because of an error.

A careful writer pays attention to what’s showing up on the screen to make sure it’s what should be there. So does a careful editor, and that’s why you want to hire me to edit your work.

Continue reading »]]> The word drastically is often misused when a writer means dramatically. Here’s an example from the venerable National Geographic, which got it wrong. The article is about photographing lightning and how difficult it is with a particular digital camera.

“He has installed an array of 12 computers to drastically reduce the Kahuna’s download time.”

Drastically is the adverbial form of drastic, which means something that is severe or violent, something that uses force to achieve its ends. Storm chaser Tim Samaras – the “he” in our example – has not used force or violence to speed up his camera’s download time. He has been methodical and careful with his equipment.

What Samaras has done is to dramatically reduce the download time. A dramatic change is one which is striking or amazing; it has a powerful effect.

Something which is done drastically can also have a dramatic effect, of course, and vice versa. But there are shades of meaning that are lost or distorted in using the wrong word. Another example:

“The boy studied for hours, and his performance on the test improved drastically.”

The boy’s performance did not improve savagely or with the use of great force. It improved powerfully, though, which means it improved dramatically.

Use drastically when something goes wrong: “The tornado drastically reshaped the city.”

Use dramatically when things improve: “The city has recovered dramatically from the tornado.”

Continue reading »]]> On the evening of a recent Election Day, I went to a government website to look for local returns. On the site’s home page was this announcement in large letters: BE SURE TO VOTE TOMMORROW.

Tomorrow is a difficult word for many people to spell. I, myself, lost a fifth-grade spelling bee with precisely this error. It would help if we remembered the word’s roots and that it used to have a hyphen. The word was once to-morrow, meaning on the morrow, or on the next day: “I will see you to-morrow.” The useful hyphen that separated the parts of the compound helped to prevent extra m’s. Now we just have to remember: one m, two r’s.

In addition to the spelling problem, by the time I saw the message it was a day late. It should have been updated at 12:01 a.m. that Tuesday: BE SURE TO VOTE TODAY. Further, it should have been removed from the site the day after the election, but it continued to blaze forth for the next five days.

A disclaimer at the bottom of the page told readers not to trust the accuracy and timeliness of the website. Someone gets points for honesty, but a notice such as this, in addition to rank errors, quickly teaches people that you and your organization cannot be relied upon for even the simplest of things.

Having a website is not a fix-it-and-forget-it proposition, especially if you post timely notices. These will not be timely after a certain hour, and you risk losing the public’s trust if you do not delete the old and update with the new. Just as you wouldn’t leave posters about last week’s sale in your store windows, so you cannot leave outdated information on your virtual storefront — whether you run a for-profit business or some other enterprise.

Cannon Words can help you avoid these problems. Contact me today at writer@cannonwords.com.

Continue reading »]]> A.M. (or a.m.) is the abbreviation for ante meridiem, or before midday. P.M. (or p.m.) is the abbreviation for post meridiem, or after midday.

When we say we wake up at 7 a.m., we are saying that we wake up at the seventh hour of the day before noon. When we say we leave work at 5 p.m., we are saying that we leave work at the fifth hour after noon.

A.M. means morning; p.m. means afternoon or evening. It is redundant to say, for example, “I wake up at 7 a.m. in the morning.” What you’ve said is, “I wake up at 7 in the morning in the morning.” Say succinctly, “I wake up at 7 a.m.” or “I wake up at 7 in the morning.” Choose whichever you like, but do not use both in the same sentence.

Continue reading »]]> “The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter — it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”
— Samuel Clemens, in a letter to George Bainton, 1888

So often we see the wrong word, lightening, when we should see lightning. Here’s a light primer on some easily confused words:

Lightning: That bright flash you see during a thunderstorm that precedes the thunder.* It can burn a hole through the roof of your home, send a surge through the power grid that will destroy every electrical appliance in your home,** or kill you outright. It’s beautiful, but it’s not to be trifled with.

Lightening: Lifting a weight, whether physical or emotional. You can lighten the load by removing a few bricks from the wheelbarrow or by comforting someone who’s feeling down.

Lighting: As a noun, it’s something that is meant to produce light, such as a light bulb and its fixture. As a verb, it’s causing something to be lit, such as a cigarette (which you shouldn’t do because those things will kill you), or to be illuminated: “The president is lighting the way to a brighter future” (or so we hope, whoever the president is).

* If you want to know how far away the lightning is, count the seconds between seeing it and hearing the thunder and divide by five. That will give you the distance in miles.

** Most surge protectors aren’t designed to guard your computer or plasma TV or coffee maker from lightning. Read the packaging and unplug anything you can’t afford to replace.

Continue reading »]]> But I’m not likely to. There are a great many things I could care less about than I do the misuse of the phrase “couldn’t care less.”

Properly used, couldn’t care less means, “I have utterly no interest in the matter at hand, and it is not possible for me to be less interested than I am.”

The corrupted version, “could care less,” actually means, “This has some importance to me because I could be less concerned about it than I am.”

Just remove “could care less” from your active vocabulary and all will be well.