Posts in category: Style on the Go archive

December 23, 2008: Issue 270

Dear Style on the Go:

     I’ll be having Christmas dinner with my extended family, none of whom have strong grammar skills. My uncle, for instance, has a habit of misusing “hopefully.” His wife does the same with “literally.” My cousins say “I feel so badly about that.” And my great-grandmother starts every other sentence with “just between you and I.” When I try, gently, to help them improve their language, these relatives act as if I’ve insulted them. My younger sister says holiday gatherings aren’t the time for English lessons. When is it proper to correct someone’s speech?

     Signed,
Rudimentary Grammar Matters to Me

Dear Rude:
It is proper to correct someone’s speech when he turns to you and asks “Did I say that right?” Otherwise, have a bite of figgy pudding and hold your tongue. Happy holidays.

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December 18, 2008: Issue 269

The word help, ironically, rarely helps your writing. More often, it weakens verbs and should be deleted.

acceptable: Frosted glass helps protect privacy.
preferred: Frosted glass protects privacy.

acceptable: A sugar substitute helps cut the calories in your morning coffee.
preferred: A sugar substitute cuts the calories in your morning coffee.

Hold onto help only when deleting it compromises accuracy.

correct: Jim helped plant the garden that was named best in the city in 2008.
incorrect: Jim planted the garden that was named best in the city in 2008.

Speaking of helping, check out a video from Free to Be You and Me.

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November 25, 2008: Issue 266

Thanksgiving owes its status as a national holiday in large part to the efforts of a magazine editor.

Sara Josepha Hale ran Godey’s Lady’s Book from 1837 to 1877, and in its pages she campaigned to make the last Thursday in November, already recognized by many individual states, “the grand Thanksgiving holiday of our nation.” In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln made it official.

“Let us consecrate the day to benevolence of action, by sending good gifts to the poor, and doing those deeds of charity that will, for one day, make every American home the place of plenty and of rejoicing,“ Hale wrote in an editor’s letter. “These seasons of refreshing are of inestimable advantage to the popular heart; and if rightly managed, will greatly aid and strengthen public harmony of feeling.”

National what day? If your team were to lead the push for a new holiday, what would it be? E-mail us, and we’ll share our favorite ideas.

Winners: As of last week, we have more than 100 users in the new production database. When we hit that milestone, we drew five users’ names at random. Billie Wade, Mary-Beth Rouse, Dan Bishop, Sharon Marturello, and Gene Rauch each win a free lunch in the cafeteria. Watch for new features in the database to make your job easier—and more chances to win prizes. If you need help logging in, talk to a CE.

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December 4, 2008: Issue 267

Use gold to describe something made of at least 14-karat gold. Otherwise say golden.

a gold necklace
a golden damask drapery

To gild something is to cover it with a thin layer of gold or something resembling gold. The preferred past participle is gilded (not gilt).
a gilded picture frame

Gilt is the material laid on an item to gild it.
lettered in 14-karat gilt

Gold leaf is an extremely thin sheet of gold, usually used for gilding.

Literature lesson: To gild the lily means to unnecessarily adorn something that is already beautiful. The metaphor has its roots in William Shakepeare’s King John, but it’s a condensation of the original. Here’s what Shakespeare wrote:

Therefore, to be possess’d with double pomp,
To guard a title that was rich before,
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

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October 23, 2008: Issue 261 

Be sure to congratulate your colleagues on two great finishes in last Sunday’s IMT Des Moines Marathon. Gary Thompson ran the full marathon in a personal best time of 4:22:09. New mom Megan Boettcher made an impressive return to running, completing the half marathon in 2:14:38.

But before you dash off those e-mails, check this list of properly spelled interjections:

hooray

woo-hoo

yahoo

yippee

Earn your own accolade: A prize goes to the first person who comes to my cubicle and sings me the “Interjections” song from Schoolhouse Rock.

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 November 6, 2008: Issue 263

When you use extra as an adverb meaning very, you usually don’t need a hyphen to join it to the word it modifies:
Make your holidays extra special.

You do need a hyphen, however, when extra is part of a compound modifier preceding the word it modifies:
We’re planning extra-special holidays this year.

Why the hyphen? Consider this example, where it’s crucial for clarity:
I ordered six extra-large sweatshirts, two large, and six medium.
Should I order four extra large shirts so we don’t run out?

When extra is a prefix meaning outside, join it to the base word with no hyphen:
extramural
extraterrestrial

Party: Make your Friday extra special with our kickoff party for CEs’ 62 Days of Holidays. Join us at 3 p.m. in LN-2C to celebrate Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds Day. Check our calendar to see what other special days we’re marking—and how many books and magazines we’re closing—in the next two months.

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November 13, 2008: Issue 264

Ever wonder why we say “She’s the smartest person in the room” but not “She’s the intelligentest”? Why we say “That’s the prettiest flower” but not “That’s the beautifullest”?

The key is syllable count. Most one-syllable adjectives in English take -er and -est to create their comparative and superlative forms:
cute, cuter, cutest
new, newer, newest

Adjectives of three or more syllables take the words more and most:
adorable, more adorable, most adorable
contemporary, more contemporary, most contemporary

And two-syllable adjectives … well, they fall into one of those great gray areas that make us love English so much. Our best advice is to go by what sounds right:
lively, livelier, liveliest
playful, more playful, most playful

Awwww: Speaking of cute, adorable, and playful, get a dose of puppies.

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Issue 259 October 9, 2008

Always use dummy type when you don’t have live text. Always.

Never copy text from another story as a template or placeholder. Never.

We apologize for repeating ourselves, but we can’t state this too strongly. Twice in recent months we’ve seen the wrong copy make it into print.

In one case, someone copied a layout from a previous issue, and one of the captions was never updated. The caption that ran made grammatical sense, and everything was spelled correctly, but it bore no relation to the photos on the page.

In the other case, someone copied a budget breakdown from another story in the same issue, and the proper numbers were never input. The values added up just fine, but they weren’t accurate prices for anything in that story.

The bottom line is that real text can slip through too easily. We simply can’t use it.

You have two choices for creating dummy copy:
•     Type nonsense—random letters or a combination of x’s and y’s.
•     Use lorem ipsum type. In InDesign, go to the Type menu and select Fill with Placeholder Text. (InDesign            will give you just enough type to fill your text box. You won’t get any overset text.)

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October 16, 2008: Issue 260

We’ve been accused lately of being anti-alliteration, and we’d like to set the record straight: We have nothing against it. We do, however, oppose empty words hiding behind repeated sounds. Take away the alliteration, and your hed, dek, or caption kicker still has to deliver a message.

An example we see frequently is “Style Statement.” Yes, it rolls off the tongue, but it means very little. It could apply to nearly every story, caption, and sidebar that has ever run in a home design magazine.

On the other hand, here are examples of alliterative heds that clearly tell the reader what she’s getting:

• “Garaging Your Gadgets” (Kitchen and Bath Ideas)

• “Pickets from the Past” (Country Gardens)

• “Fill Up on Fiber Facts” (Diabetic Living)

Alliteration is a lovely thing. It just can’t be the only thing.

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September 25, 2008: Issue 257 

Caramel is a candy or a creamy brown color. Carmel is a city in California.

Why do we get so easily confused on this one? The preferred pronunciation for the candy is two syllables; the a in the middle is silent. The vowel sounds are the same as in the word marble.

The city is also two syllables, but it’s pronounced with the accent on the second.

Usage note: In rare cases, any spelling and pronunciation you choose will be acceptable. For instance, there’s no wrong way to say “Hey, copy desk, would you like some fresh caramel apples to celebrate National Punctuation Day?”

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