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Trying to distinguish between the correct grammatical rules for hyphens and dashes can be mind-boggling. Two brief (and excellent) computer editing tips from Timothy McAdoo for the APA Style Blog have brought order again to my editing work . . . . (And thanks to Wilf Popoff to sending me links to McAdoo’s work).

The APA Style Guide says that hyphens are NOT dashes and shouldn’t be used interchangeably. There is a subtle distinction between them, McAdoo clarifies, and dashes can take various forms.

First, what is an “em dash?” Em dashes are “used to set off an element added to amplify or to digress from the main clause.” The em dash appears as a “longer dash” that creates a sense of physical separation between the phrases. It’s perfect to use for text “that you want to stand out.” It is not to be confused with hyphens or “en dashes.”

An “em dash” can be used to set off a phrase at the end of a sentence (“writing well—but not deeply. . . .”). Or they can set off a phrase, “midsentence—as a technique used for emphasis—“(adapting McAdoo’s examples). This use of an “em dash” allows for digression or interruption of thoughts.

But “overusing an em dash . . . weakens the flow of material” (Publication Manual of the APA). So inserting them infrequently is best.

To complicate things slightly, there is no keyboard button for an “em” dash. So on a PC, you must hold “Control” and “Alt” keys together and then type the minus sign on the far right side of the numeric keypad on your keyboard.

+++ Continue reading “Dash it Anyways! “Em” and “En Dashes” in Today’s Blog Posting . . . .”

In a recent blog posting, marketing guru Seth Godin shared the following comments:

The power of fear

Fear will push you to avert your eyes.

Fear will make you think you have nothing to say.

It will create a buzz that makes it impossible to meditate…

or it will create a fog that makes it so you can do nothing but meditate.

Fear seduces us into losing our temper.

and fear belittles us into accepting unfairness.

Fear doesn’t like strangers, people who don’t look or act like us, and most of all, the unknown.

It causes us to carelessly make typos, or obsessively look for them.

Fear pushes us to fit in, so we won’t be noticed, but it also pushes us to rebel and to not be trustworthy, so we won’t be on the hook to produce.

It is subtle enough to trick us into thinking it isn’t pulling the strings, that it doesn’t exist, that it’s not the cause of, “I don’t feel like it.”

When in doubt, look for the fear. (Godin, October 17, 2015 blog)

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Continue reading “Seth Godin and Elizabeth Gilbert on Fear and Creativity”

This week, I’m revisiting a posting from last February that addressed marketing guru Seth Godin’s own blog of February 18 (2015). With the world news so filled with tragedy and suffering, we may be tempted to think that what we do in communications and marketing (and business) doesn’t matter or can’t make a dent. I want to re-assert that we can and do.

Godin raises the crucial issue of politics in marketing and communications or in any kind of cultural work.

My comments will follow this long quotation from Godin, after the crosses, below:

“Kicking and screaming (vs. singing and dancing)

Unfair things happen. You might be . . . demoted for a mistake you didn’t make, convicted of a crime you didn’t commit. The ref might make a bad call, an agreement might be abrogated, a partner might let you down.

Our instinct is to fight these unfairnesses, to succumb if there’s no choice, but to go down kicking and screaming. We want to make it clear that we won’t accept injustice easily, we want to teach the system a lesson, we want them to know that we’re not a pushover.

But will it change the situation? Will the diagnosis be changed, the outcome of the call be any different?

What if, instead, we went at it singing and dancing? What if we walked into our four-year prison sentence determined to learn more, do more and contribute more than anyone had ever dreamed? What if we saw the derailment of one path as the opportunity to grow or to invent or to find another path?

This is incredibly difficult work, but it seems far better than the alternative” (Godin, February 18, 2015).

+++++ Continue reading “Revisiting Seth Godin on the Politics of Creative Work . . .”

As a child, I can remember loving to hear onomatopoeic words. I loved them long before I knew that term. “Splash,” “jumping,” “disaster,” were all close (or belonging to) the onomatopoeic. A favourite from undergrad days was “brouhaha,” although that particular example never came up in essay writing. A year or two after telling a friend that I liked the term and the phenomena, a friend reported that he’d witnessed a discussion with staff at Tim Horton’s. There, he said, a discussion on the concept of dairy-free pastries “resulted in a brouhaha.”

Today I want to discuss a similar theme that I recall noticing, as a child: “words that don’t mean what they’re supposed to.” By this, I mean words that evoke by sound a meaning that is contrary to their actual meaning. A case in point? “Nonplus.”

Imagine my delight when American etymologist Bryan Garner recently discussed the very term, in his daily blog! He writes that “nonplus” as a verb means “to baffle or confound unexpectedly.” The term appears (and is pronounced) alike in both American and British English. That is because with both ” ‘nonplussed’ and ‘nonplussing,’ . . . the second syllable is stressed.” Continue reading “Are you puzzled by “nonplus?” Read today’s blog posting . . . .”

Last Thursday’s blog posting was deferred until now, due to system changes with Canadian Web Hosting.  Thank you for your patience!

I’m often asked by clients of my editing services how to know when to correctly capitalize words that follow a colon. When I refer to the “rules,” I sometimes find those clients stop listening (lol)! So, from The Chicago Manual of Style (TCMS), here’s a more comprehensible reply:

TCMS says that “A colon introduces an element or a series of elements illustrating or amplifying what has preceded the colon . . . .” (E.g.: “George was faced with a difficult choice: Should he tell what he read in the letter and spoil the surprise? Or should he remain silent and risk that Natalie would leave town, before the time of the party?”)

In the example just given, the “S” in “should” and the “O” in “or” are capitalized, because the colon introduces two sentences. Logically, this makes sense, as the capitalization clarifies the beginning point of each of the two sentences that follow it.

In fact, the first word after a colon will be capitalized (i) if it is a proper name; (ii) when it introduces two or more sentences (as above); (iii) or when it introduces a speech in dialogue, or an extract. Continue reading “When do you use capitals after colons? Today’s punctuation bugbear . . .”