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Join us in Chicago next week!
Do you write for a living? Are you responsible for marketing brochures? Annual reports? Proposals? If so, the IABC is an organization you should consider joining. The International Association of Business Communicators is all about making you a better, more connected, more prolific writer. Plus you get discounts at the IABC Writers Conferences we sponsor during the year! Check out www.IABC.com today! And join us in Chicago next week!
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Oil. It's on the Brain These Days.
The price of oil. The countries that have it. The companies that produce it. The people who buy it. Talk is everywhere. Try this slick vocab quiz and see how much your brain is worth per barrel.
1. hydrocarbon: (a) a residual product (as from the distillation of petroleum); (b) a chemical isolated or derived from petroleum or natural gas; (c) an organic compound (as acetylene or butane) containing only carbon and hydrogen and often occurring in petroleum, natural gas, coal, and bitumens; (d) carbon derived from seawater.
2. oil cake: (a) the solid residue after extracting the oil from seeds (as of cotton); (b) a cake whose ingredients include canola oil, peanut oil, molasses and ginger; (c) an oil (as linseed oil) that changes readily to a hard tough elastic substance when exposed in a thin film to air; (d) dipstick.
3. crack: (a) to disperse (as an oil) in an emulsion; (b) to break up (chemical compounds) into simpler compounds by means of heat; (c) an oil well with a copious natural flow; (d) a constriction in an outlet (as of an oil well) that restricts flow.
4. copra: (a) dried coconut meat yielding coconut oil; (b) a yellow fatty oil obtained from the germ of Indian corn kernels and used chiefly as salad oil, in soft soap, and in margarine; (c) a usually glass bottle used to hold a condiment (as oil or vinegar) for use at the table; (d) a fragrant essential oil (as from rose petals).
5. baba ghanoush: (a) thick slices of bread grilled, rubbed with garlic, drizzled with olive oil, often topped with tomatoes and herbs, and usually served as an appetizer; (b) bituminous material occurring in shale and yielding oil when heated; (c) an appetizer or spread made chiefly of eggplant, tahini, garlic, olive oil, and lemon; (d) (capped) the prime minister of oil-rich Oman.
6. holy oil: (a) petroleum oil produced in the Holy Land; (b) petroleum oil high in myrrh; (c) mineral spirits; (d) olive oil blessed by a bishop for use in a sacrament or sacramental.
7. sweet crude: (a) crude oil light in sulfur content; (b) crude oil light in hydrocarbon content; (c) crude oil light in sodium content; (d) crude oil heavy in sucrose content.
8. Brent crude: (a) crude oil produced in Brent County, Texas; (b) crude oil produced in a part of the North Sea; (c) petroleum oil traded for Krugerands in South Africa; (d) crude oil drilled by a guy named Brent.
9. cresset: (a) a usually glass bottle used to hold a condiment (as oil or vinegar) for use at the table; (b) consecrated oil used in Greek and Latin churches especially in baptism, chrismation, confirmation, and ordination; (c) a framework or tower over a deep drill hole (as of an oil well) for supporting boring tackle or for hoisting and lowering; (d) an iron vessel or basket used for holding an illuminant (as oil) and mounted as a torch or suspended as a lantern.
10. derrick: (a) a graduated rod for indicating depth (as of oil in a crankcase); (b) a framework or tower over a deep drill hole (as of an oil well) for supporting boring tackle or for hoisting and lowering; (c) a building and equipment for refining or processing (as oil or sugar); (d) the head domino.
If errors in printed publications have you bemoaning the high (and rising) price of quality these days, stop complaining and do something about it. Use ProofreadNOW for everything in print! We explore the possibility for error in every sentence you write. We drill down to the basic wording of your document and make sure it all fits. Put your crude document in our pipeline and we'll send it back to you richly refined and ready to use.
Answers: 1:c 2:a 3:b 4:a 5:c 6:d 7:a 8:b 9:d 10:b Rate Yourself: Customers burn your proposals for warmth.
3 to 5 correct: Not slick enough.
6 to 7 correct: You're floating to the top, so to speak.
8 to 9 correct: If brains were crude oil, your gray matter would sell for about $120 per barrel.
All 10 correct: You obviously consume a lot of fish oil!
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| Weekly Grammar Tip |
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FYI for your next press release.
Most newspapers adhere to "AP style" - that is, style components and conventions determined by smart people at the Associated Press. The New York Times has its own style book, and so does the Wall Street Journal. Here are some forms that might be new to you. Be sure to adhere to these forms in your next press release, in order to increase the likelihood of exposure.
Grand Slam. Capitalize when referring to the four major tournaments in golf (the Masters, the United States Open, the British Open and the P.G.A. Championship) and the four in tennis (the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the United States Open). (nyt)
Occident or Occidental. Capitalize when referring to Europe, the Western Hemisphere or an inhabitant of those regions. (ap)
Bible, biblical. Capitalize Bible (but not biblical) when referring to the Old and New Testaments. But: the style manual is their bible. (nyt)
dollars and cents. Sums of dollars and cents are usually given in figures: 5 cents; 25 cents; $10; $12.25; $10,629. But: $1 million; $3.6 million; $895 million; $1.53 billion. In the simple adjective form, do not use a hyphen: $2.5 million investment. But hyphens must be used in longer modifiers, like these: a $10-to-11-billion increase; a $2-million-a-year job. (nyt)
disc and disk. Use disc in references to phonograph records (disc jockey, discography), optical and laser-based devices (compact disc, laser disc, videodisc), farm implements (disc harrow) and brakes (disc brake). Use disk in references to the magnetic storage devices used with computers (floppy disk, hard disk) and to the fiber and cartilage between the vertebrae (slipped disk). (nyt)
follow up (verb) and follow-up (noun and adjective). When will you follow up with Matilda? Sassafras reluctantly scheduled the follow-up meeting for the second Tuesday of next week. (ap)
Election Day. When referring to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, capitalize both words. (ap)
congressional. Lowercase unless part of a proper name: exorbitant congressional salaries, the Congressional Quarterly, the Congressional Record.
Nascar. Not NASCAR, for the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing. (nyt)
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| Pet Peeves |
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Bottled Water v. Refined Jet Fuel
Jet fuel at the airport is about $4.09 per gallon. It was pumped from wells in the Middle East or the Gulf of Mexico or wherever; barged to a refinery; refined; trucked to the airport; and pumped into the jet...all with heavy regulation costs, cleanup costs, and equipment costs. Bottled drinking water at airports is costing about $18 per gallon. Most of it is simply osmotically filtered tap water from some local filtering plant.
Where is the outrage with 'Big Water'?
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| Word of the Week |
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exegete
Pronunciation: EK-sah-jeet
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek exegetes, from exegeisthai, to explain, interpret, from ex- + hegeisthai, to lead.
Date: c. 1736
Definition: A person skilled in critical explanation or analysis, especially of a text.
Example:
William F. Buckley: You say that the rights of lawyers and priests should extend to journalists.
Abrams: As a general matter, yes. There are some differences, but as a general matter, yes, I--
WFB: That's a sort of revolutionary accretion and yet, in asserting that point, you tend to do so as an exegete of the Constitution, rather than as somebody who wants to amend it. (From On the Firing Line: The Public Life of Our Public Figures, p. 198, Random House, 1989)
Definition source: The Right Word, by William F. Buckley.
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Copyright 2008 by ProofreadNOW.com, Inc., 447 Boston Street, Topsfield, MA 01983 USA. Published weekly (we try) by the editors at ProofreadNOW.com, Inc. and sent to customers of record and to opt-in guests. Many readers find it is best to read a portion, put it aside, then come back and read more.
Please rate this GrammarTip (10=high, 0=low):
10 - Like having all your picks win the bowl games.
8 - Like having half the day off after New Year's Day.
6 - Like finding a parking space at the mall.
4 - Like finding a parking space near the mall--across the street.
2 - Like working all day the day after New Year's Day.
0 - Like staying home and forgetting the office was open all day the day after New Year's Day...until they tracked you down.
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