| Bette Frick
The Text Doctor®
|
|
|
| Join the Doctor's
Mailing List |
 |
| Please forward to a friend or colleague | | |
| Free grammar and punctuation training in 2012 |
Watch this space for these future lessons: - Punctuation placement
- Punctuation of vertical lists
- Parallelism
- Misplaced modifiers
|
| Quote of the Month |
"I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again."
Oscar Wilde
1854-1900
|
| Yes, I have my own editor | |
Special thanks to my faithful editor, Liz Willis, who improves my newsletter every month. As I write, I think, "What would Liz do here?" and that helps me improve my message.
|
|
Quiz on the use of the apostrophe for contractions
| |
|
|
|
| The Text Doctor's Diagnosis
January 2012
| | |
Greetings!
Happy New Year to my loyal readers, and especially to the anonymous reader who completed the apostrophe quiz on New Years' Eve. Your dedication inspires me!
In this New Year issue, I explore the benefits of learning a second language; report on results of the quiz on the apostrophe for possession and show you another use for the apostrophe; introduce a great new efficiency-boosting editing tool; and rant about another of my pet peeves. I also share some new links including a plain-language newsletter for businesses.
As always, stay in touch and let me know what topics you'd like me to cover in future issues.
|
Why I want to be bilingual
| |
In high school and college, I was fascinated with foreign languages and studied Latin, Spanish, Italian, and German. In graduate school, I fell in love with linguistics, the science of language, but I focused more on the study of English. As I continued through my career of helping others write better in American English, I lacked the time and motivation to return to second-language learning.
Now, I am gratefully relearning Spanish. Progress is slower than when I was younger, but I plug away for many reasons:
- Recent research suggests that learning another language protects against the effects of Alzheimer's, that the bilingual brain functions better and for longer (up to four years) after developing the disease. My father died of Alzheimer's, so any proven protection is worth my effort.
- Studying Spanish forces me to look linguistically at both Spanish and English to note their similarities and differences. I've dusted off my linguistic textbooks and placed them next to my Spanish texts for easy reference. It feels good to refresh my learning so many years after graduate school.
- There are many Spanish speakers in Colorado, and I enjoy trying to communicate with them. They do not seem to disparage my slow, broken sentences and poor accent. This has helped me develop compassion for bilingual learners in my classroom who struggle with the bizarre inconsistencies of English. See my last newsletter for a humorous look at my learning process.
- I'm modeling a learning lifestyle for my grandchildren, who study with my tutor as well. My grandkids and I quiz each other on vocabulary and count to a hundred in Spanish. The benefits of bilingualism for children are well known, and their young brains are more plastic than older brains, so they learn other languages without an accent.
Who knew that bilingualism, like laughter, exercise, and family interaction, is good for the young and old alike? Although I can barely order a meal in Spanish, I'm planning to travel to Spain to immerse myself in the language and culture. But don't worry: I probably won't be writing this newsletter en español anytime soon! Gracias por lectura.
|
Quiz results: the apostrophe for possessives
| |
Thank you to the 48 readers who participated in the quiz on the apostrophe for possessives. Here is the answer:
We need to separate our customers' responses to our new products by SKUs.
"Customers'" has an apostrophe after the "s" because it refers to the plural noun "customers" rather than the singular noun "customer." The clue is in the plural noun "responses," which suggests that multiple customers are involved. (You could argue with me about this, although I think the context of the sentence implies a plural noun).
"SKUs" is a plural acronym; form the plural of an acronym by adding an "s" with no apostrophe.
To learn the second use of the apostrophe (to form contractions), study the lesson below and take the quiz.
|
This month's lesson: Using the apostrophe to form contractions
| | |
 This lesson will show you how to correctly punctuate contractions by using apostrophes. A contraction in English is the omission of a letter or letters in a word:
- Joe's (Joe is) going fishing.
- It's (it is) probably going to rain.
The most common error people usually make is leaving the apostrophe out altogether and using an incorrect word, often a possessive form. The table below shows some examples:
More than any other item of punctuation, misusing apostrophes will mark you as
a non-skilled writer. Don't let confusion about apostrophes sabotage your otherwise clear and correct messages.
Ready for your quiz?
|
My favorite things: PerfectIt editing software from Intelligent Editing
|
 I'm always looking for ways to make my editing process more efficient, especially when I'm working with longer documents.
That's why I'm intrigued by PerfectIt, software that searches for possible errors in your text. As you run the software, you can decide whether to correct the error or not.PerfectIt checks for inconsistency in the following areas: - Hyphenation
- Capitalization in text and headings
- Use of words or figures for numbers
- Abbreviations and acronyms (spelling and definition)
- Bulleted lists
- Figures and tables
These particular editing inconsistencies drive me crazy, so having software to flag these issues is a gift. PerfectIt has many features that I don't use at this point (but you might). The 30-day free trial convinced me that I was missing errors and inconsistencies that could have been found by PerfectIt, so I bought a single license for $49. I run it as an add-on in Microsoft® Word and use it on my last pass through the document (after global searching, onscreen editing, printing out and proofing, and running a final spellcheck). It works better on longer documents than on shorter ones because a long document provides a bigger set of examples to help the software determine the dominant style in the document. As with any new software, I tested it on a few sample documents before launching it on a crucial project; on my first use, I managed to remove the first letter of every word. OOPS! It does take some self-training, which is enhanced by an excellent 4-page set of instructions. If you are an editor searching for another tool to help you edit mind-numbing larger documents, try PerfectIt! (I make no money by recommending this or other useful products and books.) |
|
|
|
|
