ProofreadNOW_Blog (36)

Do you over-hyphenate?

Posted by Phil Jamieson Aug 7, 2013 6:30:00 AM

Don't ordinarily hyphenate adjectival combinations of adverb + adjective or adverb + participle unless the adverb does not end in ly and can be misread as an adjective.

Now--if that sounds like just a bunch of silly grammarese to you, let us put it simply: Don't hyphenate stuff like "fully involved" or "partially hidden treasure" -- if you do, people in the know who read your ad, proposal, white paper, cover letter, or contract will move it to the bottom of the stack and give preference to your competitors who make fewer mistakes. That's just a fact. Read on and find out if you're making other similar mistakes.

Topics: hyphenation

Scaling Back on Functional Shift

Posted by Phil Jamieson Jul 31, 2013 6:30:00 AM

turtle holding a gift box Have you gifted anything lately?

Topics: functional shift, verbs

Video: Adverb and Adjective Combinations

Posted by Phil Jamieson Jul 24, 2013 5:30:00 AM

Phil Jamieson (Founder/President of ProofreadNOW.com) discusses how to properly combine adjectives and adverbs in this GrammarTip video.

Topics: adverbs, adjectives, GrammarTip video, Video

Should You Cap Titles (of people)?

Posted by Phil Jamieson Jul 10, 2013 5:30:00 AM

Queen Elizabeth II One of the most troublesome rules concerns whether or not to capitalize titles when they follow a person's name or are used in place of the name. According to many authorities, only the titles of "high-ranking" officials and dignitaries should be capitalized when they follow or replace a person's name. But how high is high? Where does one draw the line?

Topics: capitalization

One of the Most Common Errors We See

Posted by Phil Jamieson Jun 26, 2013 5:30:00 AM

We proofread hundreds of documents every week, so you would expect that we'd come to know the most common mistakes made in English business writing.

One of them has to do with a particular form of "is." Yes, it seems the most common mistake in writing today is the false contraction "it's." For example, "The throng made it's way to the center of the field."

Think this mistake is beneath you? Think again! A surprising number of well-educated people make this mistake in writing. Perhaps they're just writing too quickly. Or perhaps they're among those who may have just slept through fifth-grade English or eleventh-grade composition.

The word "it" is a pronoun. The word means "that one" and is either a subject or an object in a sentence. But here's something interesting: did you know that "its" is not a pronoun, but an adjective? Yes, "its" is an adjective describing the noun that follows. Make sure you never confuse the adjective "its" with the pronoun-verb construct "it's."

Variations on this mistake surround the use of "is." The contractions "that's," "what's," and "it's" -- plus the contractions formed with a noun and "is" (e.g., "Gracie's here today" and "The coop's not quite finished yet") -- are often avoided in formal writing.

Topics: it's, its, it is, that is, that's

Video: Common words that people always confuse!

Posted by Phil Jamieson Jun 20, 2013 5:30:00 AM

Topics: misused words, Video

These Words Can Make You Look Smart...or Dumb.

Posted by Phil Jamieson Jun 5, 2013 5:30:00 AM

The right word can make you appear more authoritative and therefore more trustworthy. The wrong word will let people know that you are incompetent. Do your part to stop the dumbing down of English and make sure you are using the following words correctly in your writing.

disc. Spell it with a c except for computer-related references: laserdisc, videodisc, disc jockey, but hard disk.

discreet, discrete. Discreet means capable of preserving prudent silence: "I'm afraid Jen was not very discreet on Sunday," she wrote.

Discrete means constituting a separate entity, or individually distinct. There are four discrete calls made by a loon.

ice age. AP says this: Lowercase, because it denotes not a single period but any of a series of cold periods marked by glaciation alternating with periods of relative warmth. Capitalize the proper nouns in the names of individual ice ages, such as the Wisconsin ice age.

The most recent series of ice ages happened during the Pleistocene epoch, which began about 1.6 million years ago. During that time, glaciers sometimes covered much of North America and northwestern Europe. The present epoch, the Holocene or Recent, began about 10,000 years ago, when the continental glaciers had retreated to Antarctica and Greenland.

pore, pour. These are often confused. One pores over [reads or studies attentively] an intricate set of numbers, while one pours a bucket of water on a fire.

raised, reared. Humans are reared; all living things, including humans, may be raised.

take over, takeover. take over is a compound verb, We will take over the administration building next; takeover is a noun or an adjective, He was taken out and executed during the takeover; Their takeover plans were foiled.

Some interesting word origins. Stump your friends by asking if they know the etymologies (origins) of the following words:

radar. radio detecting and ranging

quasar. quasi stell ar

laser. light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation

snafu. situation normal, all fouled up [Note: fouled was originally another word that we will not print here.]

Kmart. The K is taken from the original name of this chain, S.S. Kresge Co.