Posts in category: Style on the Go archive

April 11, 2002: Issue 18

SIM STYLE: Should I capitalize words that Webster’s 11th notes as “often cap”?
Yes, almost always.* And lowercase words Web notes as “often not cap” or “not cap.” It’s important to read the definitions, however; capitalization rules often apply only in certain usages.
• Check out “Down East” and “Jacquard” for examples of “often cap words.
• Check out “Shetland” and “Spartan” for “often not cap” examples that depend on usage.

*Two notable exceptions: We do not cap “mecca” or “nirvana” when used generically.

For more information see Issue 48.

GRAMMAR: Didn’t James Brown mean to sing “I feel well”?
Nope. He meant “I feel good,” and rightly so. Saying that you feel well may seem grammatically correct, but it’s right only if you mean there’s nothing wrong with your sense of touch. If all is right in your world, you’re feeling good. If you’re sick or in a sour mood, you’re not feeling good (unless your fingertips are also numb, but let’s not muddy the waters).

Why? When you describe a state of being—not an action—the adjective (good), not the adverb (well), is correct. If that doesn’t quite make sense, try substituting another adjective for “good”: I feel sleepy (not sleepily); I feel happy (not happily).

Got it? Good, because this next part can be confusing. Applying the same logic, “I am good” works only if you mean to convey that you’re a good person. “I am well” is correct if you’re feeling good. Why? It’s the adjective/adverb thing again. An action is implied (“I am [doing] well”). If you get confused, just say everything is well and good and leave it at that.

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January 17, 2008: Issue 222

Avoid possessive forms where they’re not needed:

acceptable: the dining room’s ceiling
preferred: the dining room ceiling

acceptable: the living room’s white carpet
preferred: white carpet in the living room

Don’t let possessives stack up:

awkward: the butler’s pantry’s silver sink
preferred: the silver sink in the butler’s pantry

awkward: his mother’s garden’s prize-winning roses
preferred: prize-winning roses in his mother’s garden

And with proper names, avoid clumsy plural possessives when the name alone will do:

awkward: the Joneses’ home
preferred: the Jones home

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February 24, 2005: Issue 80

SIM Style: Use! With! Caution!
Contrary to popular belief, copy editors do not strike every exclamation point they see. We do, however, believe exclamation points are like fine perfumes: Used sparingly, they draw attention. But overused, they turn people off, and fast. Before you use an exclamation point, ask yourself, Is this statement worth yelling across the room? And never use more than one exclamation point at a time.

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March 8, 2007: Issue 180

Here are some important distinctions to keep in mind when you describe appliances:

Use commercial or restaurant to describe an appliance designed specifically for restaurant use. Commercial ranges are generally not appropriate for residential use and are rarely shown in our magazines. Refrigerators, such as the Traulsen brand, are more common.

Combine commercial or professional with grade, duty, quality, or caliber to describe a high-performance appliance designed specifically for residential use: a commercial-grade range, a professional-caliber refrigerator.

Use pro-look or pro-style to describe an appliance that is designed to look high-performance but isn’t. Many stainless-steel models fall in this category.

Get the picture? Speaking of appliances, flat-screen and flat-panel televisions are not the same. Flat-screen TVs can be big and bulky; they simply have flat screens for a crisp picture. Flat-panel TVs are only inches thick. If a television is hanging on a wall, it’s a flat-panel.

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July 2, 2009: Issue 296

He orders a beer and settles on a stool. He hears a voice beside him say “Nice tie.” The guy looks right and left, but he’s the only person at the bar. He takes a drink, and the voice says “Cool haircut.” The guy shakes his head, blinks his eyes, and takes another swig. The voice pipes up again: “You’re one handsome man.”

“Hey,” the guy says to the bartender. “I keep hearing this voice. What’s the deal?”

“It’s the peanuts,” the bartender says. “They’re complimentary.”

The word complimentary describes a bowl of peanuts—or anything else—that’s either flattering or free. When you want to say that something works well with something else, use the word complementary.

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March 2, 2005: Issue 81

SIM Style: French twist

This is a change in SIM style: To conform with standard design industry usage, we’ll refer to the style rooted in rural France as “country French” (no longer “French country”) beginning with fall 2005 issues.

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May 2, 2002: Issue 21

SIM STYLE: Why do noun-verb contractions often get written out by copy editors?
Because such a construction can be misread as a possessive, especially if it comes at the beginning of a sentence and the context is not yet clear. In most cases, ditch the contraction and write out both words.
incorrect: The coffee’s ready.
correct: The coffee is ready.

Like every good rule, however, this one has a time and a place to be broken. If a contraction is well-established and the reader won’t be confused, leave it. Changing “Soup’s on!” to “The soup is on!” is just plain silly.

GRAMMAR: What should I call the tall polelike objects at the corners of a bed?
They’re posts. The bed itself may be called a “four-poster,” “six-poster,” or perhaps even the oh-so-snappy “poster bed,” but the poles are always posts, never posters.

Consider a similar example: Your 8-year-old may be a “third-grader,” but the class level is a “grade.” It wouldn’t make sense to say, “Which grader is your child in?”

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December 11, 2008: Issue 268

You might have noticed Wal-Mart’s new logo, which has no hyphen and a lowercase m (along with a starburst at the end). But the company name remains Wal-Mart, and that’s how we’ll continue to treat it in text.

This follows our style of referring to companies by their corporate names, not their logos. The best resource to find a company’s name is the “About Us” or “Contact Us” section of its website.

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October 15, 2009: Issue 310

The f-word got plenty of press after an actress blurted it out on the season premiere of Saturday Night Live. But for our Web sites and publications, the word she was supposed to say wouldn’t have been much better.

We don’t use the f-word, and we don’t use its close cousins fricking, frigging, freaking, or flipping—not even in quotes. They’re all sound-alike stand-ins for the big vulgarity, and they have the potential to offend.

We’ll close with this exchange from a recent work session:
Garden editor—Did you know the f-word can be any part of speech?
Copy editor—It can’t be an article or a preposition.
Garden designer—Oh, you can get prepositioned with it!

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May 30, 2002: Issue 24

SIM STYLE: Are prefixes hyphenated?
In general, common prefixes are joined to words without hyphens. But add a hyphen if a prefix would create an ambiguous word or one that would make the reader hesitate.
correct: The designer created a semicircular arrangement in the living room.
correct: Walls of shelves hold their collection of nonfiction books.
correct: She recovered her grandmother’s wing chair from the storage room, then re-covered it in a floral chintz.
correct: He resides in a century-old home, which he re-sided.

For more information, see Prefixes section in the SIM Stylebook.

GRAMMAR: Idiom Soup
Do you know these idioms?
 correct: anchors aweigh (not “away”)
correct: bated breath (not “baited”)
correct: beck and call (not “beckon call”)
correct: for all intents and purposes (not “intensive purposes”)
correct: without further ado (not “adieu”)

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