Posts in category: Uncategorized

January 21, 2010: Issue 324

Discrete means separate or distinct:
Changes in elevation divide the great-room into discrete areas for dining, playing, and watching TV.

Discreet means unobtrusive:
When company comes, deep built-in cabinets provide discreet storage for the kids’ toys.

Here are more sound-alike words that frequently cause confusion:

auger: n, a tool for boring
augur: v, to foretell

palate: n, a sense of taste or the roof of the mouth
palette: n, a board for mixing paints or a range of colors
pallet: n, a portable platform

pore: v, to read carefully
pour: v, to rain or to flow

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January 28, 2010: Issue 325

Many happy returns

When you copy text from an e-mail into a Word document, you often get soft returns instead of hard returns at the ends of paragraphs. Soft returns don’t produce paragraph indents or before-paragraph spacing, and they won’t let you select a paragraph with a triple click.

To see the difference in Word, type apple-8. Hard returns show up as paragraph marks. Soft returns show up as left-pointing arrows.

You can change soft returns to hard returns with a Find and Replace. Find ^l (lowercase L) and replace it with ^p.

Give us a “no break”

While we’re on the subject of returns, please don’t use hard or soft returns to force line breaks in layouts. If you do, later edits might create awkward spacing or partial lines of type. To keep two words together on a line, use a nonbreaking space: apple-option-x. To keep a single word from breaking, use the “no break” command: Highlight the word, go to the pulldown menu at the far right side of your toolbar, and select “No Break.”

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February 4, 2010: Issue 326

Dear Style on the Go,

What do you have against beagles? You capitalize Labrador, Saint Bernard, and Jack Russell, but beagle gets a measly lowercase b. Is there some kind of breedism going on here?

Signed,
Spotty Dogs Rule

Dear Spotty,
We have nothing against beagles. An impossibly sweet beagle-pointer mix (a boingle, maybe?) rules our house. We’re following Webster’s Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary, and Web 11 is following a simple rule: Capitalize breed names or parts of breed names drawn from proper nouns.

The Labrador retriever is named for a region of Newfoundland. The Saint Bernard is named for a Swiss hospice. The Jack Russell terrier is named for an English clergyman and dog breeder. The beagle—now please don’t take this personally—seems to have gotten its name from an Old French term meaning loudmouth.

Of course, this rule has exceptions. Shiba Inu is capped, even though it comes from the Japanese words for brushwood and dog. By the way, if you haven’t seen the Shiba Inu puppy cam, check it out. You’ll forgive these little fur balls for their unearned capitalization.

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January 7, 2009: Issue 322

As we sort through our stacks of Christmas cards and presents from 2009, we’d like to remind you of a simple rule: Never use an apostrophe to form the plural of a proper name. It’s an error often committed in holiday letters and on personalized gifts.

Form the plural of a proper name with -s or -es. Sign your letter “Love from the Smiths.” Put “The Joneses” on that doormat or garden plaque.

To make a plural name possessive, form the plural first, then add the apostrophe: “Love from the Smiths’ home to yours.”

In a few cases where apostrophes clear up confusion, we use them to form the plurals of numbers, acronyms, or single or multiple letters used as words. Find examples.

Heh-heh, get it? We appreciate the readers who gently pointed out our errors in the CE Christmas letter. That was our attempt at some “holliday” humor. (And we’ll confess we’re often guilty of skimming those Christmas letters, too.) You’re in better hands, grammarwise, than that letter might have led you to believe. We promise.

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January 14, 2010: Issue 323

Writing a strong lede can be a daunting task.

That’s why we so often resort to the tired construction above. Even without the cliché “daunting task,” this lede is weak.

Any sentence that fits the pattern “<verb>ing an <adjective> <noun> can be a <noun phrase: synonym for challenge>” tells the reader something she already knows. Instead, tell her how you’re going to help.

Here’s an example (one of the 9 million—no joke—that turned up when we did a Google search on “can be a daunting task”):
Removing lingering odors from the home can be a daunting task, but many easy steps can be taken to insure that embarrassing odors are eliminated.

And here’s our suggested rewrite:
Does your house stink? Here are six easy tricks to eliminate lingering odors.

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December 17, 2009 : Issue 319

We’re making some changes to SIM style:
before and after (no caps)
cardstock (one word)
french fries (no caps)
perle cotton (not pearl)
vs. (OK to abbreviate in heds, but spell out versus in body copy)

You’ll find all these changes on bhgstylebook.com. Do you have a suggestion for a change or addition to the stylebook? E-mail us.

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December 31, 2009: Issue 321

Capitalize the names of specific holidays related to the calendar rollover:
We’re going to spend New Year’s Eve traipsing through the East Village.
We hope we’ll still be able to attend the New Year’s Day brunch at our neighbors’ house.

Also capitalize broader references to the year about to begin (or just begun):
I resolve to use better grammar in the New Year.

New Year’s is an acceptable synonym for New Year’s Day:
Whatever you plan for New Year’s, enjoy yourself!

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December 3, 2009: Issue 317

Lowercase the broadest references to birds and butterflies:
chickadee
swallowtail

Capitalize their specific names:
Black-Capped Chickadee
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

Our primary reference for birds is the Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America by Kenn Kaufman. Our primary reference for butterflies is the National Audubon Society Field Guide to Butterflies.

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December 10, 2009: Issue 318

Editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary have chosen unfriend as their word of the year for 2009.

If you’re scowling at the base word  friend used as a verb, know that Web 11 says it’s legit. So yes, grammatically, you can friend and unfriend someone. (Many grammarians blame Facebook for the decline of the traditional befriend, but that’s not really fair. The Facebook button says “Add as Friend.”)

An also-ran for word of the year was hashtag, meaning the # sign used to indicate a keyword in a tweet. We’ll treat it the same way Oxford does: one word, solid.

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November 12, 2009: Issue 314

A mantel is the shelf above a fireplace:
Lean three frames against the wall for an easy mantel display.

A mantle is a cloak, either literal or figurative:
An embroidered mantle tops off this holiday outfit.
The mantle of regret hangs over us when we don’t catch this misspelling.

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