Ascension Coastal

Category: Editing and proofreading

  • Agreement: singular, plural and gender

    Dr Seuss

    Agreement refers to the matching of words within a sentence in terms of their number (singular and plural), and in terms of gender or person. A traditional name for the concept in English and other languages is concord. 

    Verb-subject agreement 

    Matching pronouns with verbs is straightforward enough, until you come to cases like: 

    • Neither she nor I ?am/?is/?are inclined to go.
    • One or both of us ?is/?are wrong.

    None of the alternatives sits comfortably in those sentences. The best way out of the problem is to remake the sentence: 

    • Both she and I are disinclined to go.
    • One of us is wrong, or both of us.

    With indefinite pronouns (e.g. either, neither, nobody, no-one, something), those ending in -one, -body, -thing simply take a singular verb on all occasions. But with others, a plural verb is a possibility: 

    • Any of the books he wrote is/are worth reading.
    • None of their suggestions appeal(s) to us.

    A singular verb in such examples singles out one item, whereas the plural suggests that the writer has the whole set in mind. 

    Agreement between pronouns 

    • Everyone likes ?his/?her/?their own clothes.

    In strictest grammar, the pronoun should be either his or her in such cases. But the exclusiveness of opting for one gender on the other (and the clumsiness of saying ‘his or her’) makes many people use their. Because it is gender–free, their helps to maintain the generality of the statement, and in many contexts this is preferable. Their is certainly being used in this way very often in speech, and increasingly in writing. A newspaper cartoon not so long ago had the Prime Minister saying: 

    • Everyone has to pay their tax!

    The use of their in singular agreement with indefinite pronouns is accepted as ‘standard idiom’ by the Australian Government Style Manual. 

    Source: The Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage, 2007 

    Make sure that plural nouns have plural verbs, e.g. Kogalym today is one of the few Siberian oil towns which are [not is] almost habitable. What better evidence that snobbery and elitism still hold [not holds] back ordinary British people? 

    Source: The Economist Style Guide 

    The Plural of Mongoose – Mongooses or Mongeese

    The manager of a large city zoo was drafting a letter to order a pair of animals. He sat at his computer and typed the following sentence: “I would like to place an order for two mongooses, to be delivered at your earliest convenience.”
    He stared at the screen, focusing on that odd word mongooses. Then he deleted the word and added another, so that the sentence now read: “I would like to place an order for two mongeese, to be delivered at your earliest convenience.”
    Again he stared at the screen, this time focusing on the new word, which seemed just as odd as the original one. Finally, he deleted the whole sentence and started all over. “Everyone knows no full-stocked zoo should be without a mongoose,” he typed. “Please send us two of them.”
     
    (The word mongoose comes from mangus, a word from the Indic language Marathi; thus the plural is more widely understood to be “mongooses”.)

    Singular or plural agreement for organisations’ names? 

    While either singular or plural agreement is grammatically correct, the singular is recommended in Australian Commonwealth publications—both for consistency and to present a cohesive image in references to government bodies and activities. 

    For consistency, follow this recommendation. Thus: 

    • Virgin employs great people.
    • KPMG offers Development Centres for Partners.
    • The Bureau of Meteorology has been quick to respond.

    Source: Style Manual for Authors, Editors & Printers, 6th edn, Revised by Snooks & Co., 2006. 

    http://www.nataliedee.com/

    [Content of this post © Ascension Editing 2010]

  • Adjectives

    Adjectives provide colour, flavour and sparkle to our language. However, some words add nothing but length to your writing; particularly when it comes to formal prose. Use adjectives to make your meaning more precise and be cautious of those you find yourself using to make it more emphatic.The word very is a case in point. If it occurs in a sentence you have written, try leaving it out and see whether the meaning is changed. ‘The omens were good’ may have more force than ‘The omens were very good’.

    Source: The Economist Style Guide

    Strings of adjectives

    Adjectives have three types of role: evaluative, descriptive and definitive. In a string of adjectives preceding a noun, commas are generally required only between adjectives of the same type. For example:

    • The shrub has large, serrated, shiny, heart-shaped leaves. [all descriptive]
    • Success will depend on hard-working, committed local residents. [two descriptive, the third definitive]
    • He is a collector of fine old red wines. [evaluative, descriptive, then definitive]

     If an adjective is modifying another adjective, you do not separate them with a comma, e.g. ‘She wore a bright red shirt.’

    ‘Fewer’ and ‘less’

    The issue of choosing between fewer and less with plural nouns is readily resolved in the context of the intended register. In formal writing, fewer is used with a plural count noun, and less is reserved for the singular mass noun:

    fewer positions;  less unemployment

    This distinction … does not hold for the corresponding word more, which is used with both plural count nouns and singular mass nouns (‘more retrenchments’, ‘more unemployment’).

    Source: Style Manual for Authors, Editors & Printers, 6th edn, Revised by Snooks & Co., 2006.

    via Grammar Police: Less, Fewer: Both less and fewer mean not as much of something, but fewer should be used if you can count the number of the object. For example:

    • Fewer dollars or less money
    • Fewer calories means it’s less filling
    • Less cloudy because of fewer clouds
    • Fewer people make up less of a crowd
    • Fewer miles or less distance

    Quoted from learnhub.com:

    Absolute Adjectives and Adverbs

    Be aware that there are some adjectives and adverbs that should not be compared because of their meanings.

    One of the most frequently mis-compared adjectives is unique, meaning one of a kind. Something cannot be more unique or most unique. Something is either one of a kind or it isn’t. Adjectives like this (and their adverbial forms) are absolute; absolute itself is an absolute adjective.

    Among others to watch out for are essential, meaning absolutely necessary; universal, meaning present everywhere; and immortal, meaning living forever.

    With these adjectives and adverbs, something either is or it isn’t, and therefore comparative degrees are meaningless.

    What is an Absolute Adjective?
    An absolute adjective is an adjective which functions as a noun.

    This term absolute adjective is applicable, by extension, to other parts of speech which are used similarly, such as possessive pronouns or numerals.

    For example: The poor or The mystical in Blake’s poetry

    An absolute adjective describes a quality that has no degree. Absolute adjectives should not be used in comparisons and should only be modified by adverbs such as “nearly” or “almost.”

    Short and long term

    He is conscious of goals in the long term. (Not an adjective, thus no hyphen). He is conscious of long-term goals. (Long-term, as an adjective, takes a hyphen), e.g. ‘He has a much stronger tendency than most to focus on the long term’ (NOT ‘to focus on the long-term’).

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  • Abbreviations, acronyms and initialisms

    Many of us may have been introduced to a new company only to find that we don’t understand the language of its people; or of our new job… due to the many acronyms! And interestingly, long-standing employees often are not exactly sure what those acronyms mean….

    http://www.savagechickens.com

    Others, me included, find ourselves at times a little lost when faced with the evolving language of text and tech, in which case the acronym finder (which claims to be the world’s largest and most comprehensive dictionary of abbreviations and acronyms) can be handy.

    Here are some current rules of the road.

    • Abbreviations that are formed by using the first initials of separate words should not have any full stops after the letters: OPQ, US, UK, PJM
    • Acronym: this is a word, like radar or UNICEF, not a set of initials, like the ABC or FBI.
    • Write out years not yrs, even if part of a quote.
    • Make an acronym or abbreviation plural by adding an s (no apostrophe), for example OPQs, WSQs.
    • Spell out any unfamiliar abbreviations and acronyms at first mention, with the abbreviation immediately following in brackets, for example: Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ). When mentioning again later in the same document, use the abbreviation only.
    • Abbreviate the names of days as follows (note the full stops):

    Sun.      Mon.     Tues.    Wed.     Thurs.   Fri.        Sat.

    • Abbreviate the months as follows:

    Jan.      Feb.      Mar.      Apr.      Aug.      Sept.     Oct.      Nov.      Dec.

    May, June and July should not be shortened.

    Source:

    Nomenclature

    via Acronym and initialism – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    In 1943, David Davis of Bell Laboratories coined the term acronym as the name for a word created from the first letters of each word in a series of words (such as sonar, created from sound navigation and ranging).

    Although the term acronym is widely used to describe any abbreviation formed from initial letters, most dictionaries define acronym to mean “a word” in its original sense,  while some include a secondary indication of usage, attributing to acronym the same meaning as that of initialism. According to the primary definition found in most dictionaries, acronyms examples include, NATO, scuba , and radar, while examples of initialisms would include FBI and HTML.

    There is no agreement on what to call abbreviations whose pronunciation involves the combination of letter names and words, such as JPEG and MS-DOS.

    The term for the word-by-word reconstruction of an acronym or initialism is an expansion.

    …

    And finally some definitions…

    WWW: World Wide Wait

    DOS: Defective Operating System

    CD-ROM: Consumer Device – Rendered Obsolete in Months

    from Aaron’s Jokes …

    To: All EMS Personnel From: Chief of Operations Subject: Proper Narrative Descriptions

    It has come to our attention from several emergency rooms that many EMS narratives have taken a decidedly creative direction lately. Effective immediately, all members are to refrain from using slang and abbreviations to describe patients, such as the following:

    1) Cardiac patients should not be referred to as suffering from MUH (messed up heart), PBS (pretty bad shape), PCL (pre-code looking) or HIBGIA (had it before, got it again).

    2) Stroke patients are NOT “Charlie Carrots.”

    Nor are rescuers to use CCFCCP(Coo Coo for Cocoa Puffs) to describe their mental state.

    3) Trauma patients are not CATS (cut all to sh*t), FDGB (fall down, go boom), TBC (total body crunch) or “hamburger helper”.

    Similarly, descriptions of a car crash do not have to include phrases like “negative vehicle to vehicle interface” or “terminal deceleration syndrome.”

    4) HAZMAT teams are highly trained professionals, not “glow worms.”

    5) Persons with altered mental states as a result of drug use are not considered “pharmaceutically gifted.”

    6) Gunshot wounds to the head are not “trans-occipital implants.”

    7) The homeless are not “urban outdoors men”, nor is endotracheal intubation referred to as a “PVC Challenge”.

    8) And finally, do not refer to recently deceased persons as being “paws up”, ART (assuming room temperature), CC (Cancel Christmas), CTD (circling the drain), DRT (dead right there).

    [Content of this post © Ascension Editing 2010]I know you will all join me in respecting the cultural diversity of our patients to include their medical orientations in creating proper narratives and log entries.

  • Apostrophes

    I wonder if CTM in Brookvale, Sydney Australia, still has NO PICK UP’S ON SATURDAY’S.

    Misuse of the apostrophe is common and give a negative impression of an author’s writing skills…

    (from http://www.apostropheabuse.com/) – Richard writes: Here's some real exclusivity! A bookstore in Mt. Eden, Auckland, New Zealand is holding a festival for one writer and one reader. I wonder who the lucky pair were.

    Here are some rules that are not difficult to remember.

    Expressions of Time

    It was previously conventional to use an apostrophe in expressions of time involving a plural reference, such as:

    • Six weeks’ time
    • Three months’ wages

    The apostrophe is now often left out, i.e.:

    • Six weeks time
    • Three months wages

    The sense of these phrases tends to be more descriptive than possessive.

    When the time reference is in the singular, however, the apostrophe should be retained to help mark the noun as singular:

    A day’s journey, the year’s cycle

    – Source: Style Manual, 6th edition.

    It’s vs. its

    It’s not correct to leave the apostrophe out if it’s a matter of ‘it is’.

    http://www.savagechickens.com

    It’s the cat’s habit to chase its tale (this is a cat with character). It is: it’s. The nose belongs to it: its nose.

    1.         It’s = It is

    2.         Its = belonging to it

    Numbers and dates

    • Numbers and dates, such as in his 60s, fly 767s, during the 1980s—All the regional style manuals including the Chicago Manual (2003) agree on this [no apostrophe]. Apostrophes are usually there in the plural of single numbers, as in All the 2’s and 3’s were missing.
    • If there are two or more owners, add ‘s’ then an apostrophe.

    Ownership

    Acknowledgement of others’ views… (Plural ‘others’—the views belonging to others)

    The candidates’ views were not considered. (Plural of candidate)

    • If there’s one owner, add an apostrophe and then ‘s’.

    … initiatives or strategic ways in which the successful candidate’s learning could be leveraged.

    • The exception to this rule is:

    For words which form their plural by changing internal letters (instead of adding ‘s’), the apostrophe comes before the ‘s’.

    It was the children’s turn to wash up.

    Some other words which follow this rule are: men, women, people.

    Joint ownership or association is shown by placing the apostrophe -s on the second of the two owners;

    • His mother and father’s legacy
    • Rutherford and Bohr’s atom

    In contrast, where the ownership is not joint, each name takes and apostrophe;

    His mother’s and father’s voices

    Sibelius’s and Grieg’s works

    Sources:

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