Paul Payack, the guru behind Global Language Monitor, a language consulting business, and owner of YourDictionary.com which features a vocabulary building service I use to deliver a vocabulary word a day to my e-mail box, says that there are now nearly 995,000 words in English and that the language is growing so fast that it will butt the million mark sometime this year. By contrast, Spanish has 275,000 words and French only about 100,000. That's because the French have been very busy keeping their language pure while English appears to relish its mongrel status. Of course, the internet has hurried the process along.
The story on this trend by Stevenson Swanson for the Chicago Tribune gives us a list of some of the newbies in a sidebar. They are:
Billary: Bill and Hillary Clinton
Godzone: A humorous name for New Zealand derived by combining the first two words of their motto "God's own country."
Locavore: Someone who eats only food produced or grown locally.
Blankie: Anyone who has children has known this word for a long time but it was just added to the Oxford English Dictionary.
English not only borrows words from other languages, our immigrants combine them for us. So, the article says, we have words like "Chinglish" from which we got phrases like "no noising" which means "quiet." Remember the indie movie in which the hispanic father dissed "Spanglish." He wanted to keep his Espanol pure but his kids who were raised American, didn't much care and mixed their two languages shamelessly to his chagrin.
It wasn't mentioned but poets, too, play with the language and sometimes it sticks. I often push words together to make one word and sometimes combine two words into one that sort of sound like what they are meant to describe. The other day I said in a casual e-mail something about "snoofing." Georgia Richardson, queen of humor and contributing editor for BoomerWoemenSpeak.com, demanded to know what it meant. I new what I meant by it but couldn't at first figure out how I had come up with it. Now I believe it is a combination of "sniff" and "Snoopy" of cartoon fame. This process is something I mention in my book, The Frugal Editor for it is something a good editor must contend with. Do we as editors or author-editors omit such words or do we encourage originality and the contribution such coinages make to the language? I lean toward the latter, but it is always a choice.
That something like like this should not be dictated by dictionaries often surprises the rule-oriented. As it happens, we may be the ones who tell the builders of dictionaries what to put in them as the other way around.
Now, I have to wonder if some of my typos may someday be included in the next edition of Webster's.
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Carolyn Howard-Johnson edits and consults on issues of publishing. Find her The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success on Amazon. Learn more about her other authors' aids at www.howtodoitfrugally.com.
Gremlins out there are determined to keep your work from being published, your book from being promoted. They are resolved to embarrass you before the gatekeepers who can turn the key of success for you. Whether you are a new or experienced author, you need the multi award-winning "The Frugal Editor." It won USA Book News Award, Reader Views Literary Award, and was a finalist in the New Generations Award.
Showing posts with label georgia richardson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label georgia richardson. Show all posts
Monday, May 26, 2008
Monday, November 26, 2007
Q&A a la Ann Landers: Let's Tidy Up Those Empty Spaces in Your Copy
QUESTION:
Carolyn, one of the most common editing mistakes I get from writers submitting work to {Dotsie Bregel's contests at National Association of Boomer Women, www.BoomerWomenSpeak.com] is the space after a sentence ending. Industry standards changed a few years ago and although it is an ongoing battle between the professors [academia] and publishing professionals, the standard is now ONE space before you begin the next sentence. I'm not referring to LINE spacing, but the space you put at the end of a sentence before you begin the next sentence. When we have many fine entries and time is of the essence, the lack of proper formatting like this can be a deciding factor against a particular entry.
Care to comment on that? Do you see a lot of this? I know I do.
Georgia Richardson, a.k.a. Queen JJ, humorist for NABBW, National Assoc. of Boomer Women, www.queenjawjaw.com
ANSWER:
Georgia, yes, these are formatting problems that editors, contest judges, and publishers struggle with. Unfortunately, many writers don't think that kind of editing and formatting is part of their business. Obviously, from what you say, it is.
The reason that the double space rule at the end of the sentence changed is because kerning is handled differently than it once was. This delicate spacing between letters and sentences used to be done by the linotype operators who set the type, and double spaces helped them make the type look nicer on the page. Now computers do all of that adjusting of letter sizes and spaces for us. To adjust to the new typing pattern is really tough for those of us who learned to type . . . mmmmm, a thousand years ago. I included information on this in the Frugal Editor for writers who can't adjust, don't want to or just want to double check their spacing before they submit.
Here's how to do it:
Use the find feature in your Word program to replace all double spaces with single ones. Here are step-by-step directions directly from sidebars in the Frugal Editor:
"You may not be able to see the extra spaces in your copy, but they can cause havoc when your manuscript is converted into a finished product. Here's how to get rid of them.
"Click on the Paragraph Icon () in your Word screen. It should be in the top row of your toolbar unless some computer-proficient type has fooled around with your options. It looks like a backward P with the little half circle colored in. Suddenly you'll be able to see all the directions you gave your copy as you typed. One little dot will appear in your manuscript for every time you used your spacebar. All you have to do is use your backspace key to delete the unnecessary ones.
OR
"Let your find function spot the dots.
"By now you know how to use your Find Function. Select the Replace tab. Place your cursor in the Find what window and tap your spacebar twice. It will appear you have typed nothing. In the Replace with window, you'll tap the spacebar only once. Now select the third button over from the left at the bottom of the window that reads Replace All and click. Voilà! Even with two apparently blank windows you will have sent a message to your computer's brain to replace all the double spacing in your document--whether between words or between sentences--with single spacing.
Caution: Before you tap your spacebar, be sure your cursor is as far to the left of the window as it can go. To do that, backspace until the little bar can go no farther left before entering your invisible spaces.
Carolyn, one of the most common editing mistakes I get from writers submitting work to {Dotsie Bregel's contests at National Association of Boomer Women, www.BoomerWomenSpeak.com] is the space after a sentence ending. Industry standards changed a few years ago and although it is an ongoing battle between the professors [academia] and publishing professionals, the standard is now ONE space before you begin the next sentence. I'm not referring to LINE spacing, but the space you put at the end of a sentence before you begin the next sentence. When we have many fine entries and time is of the essence, the lack of proper formatting like this can be a deciding factor against a particular entry.
Care to comment on that? Do you see a lot of this? I know I do.
Georgia Richardson, a.k.a. Queen JJ, humorist for NABBW, National Assoc. of Boomer Women, www.queenjawjaw.com
ANSWER:
Georgia, yes, these are formatting problems that editors, contest judges, and publishers struggle with. Unfortunately, many writers don't think that kind of editing and formatting is part of their business. Obviously, from what you say, it is.
The reason that the double space rule at the end of the sentence changed is because kerning is handled differently than it once was. This delicate spacing between letters and sentences used to be done by the linotype operators who set the type, and double spaces helped them make the type look nicer on the page. Now computers do all of that adjusting of letter sizes and spaces for us. To adjust to the new typing pattern is really tough for those of us who learned to type . . . mmmmm, a thousand years ago. I included information on this in the Frugal Editor for writers who can't adjust, don't want to or just want to double check their spacing before they submit.
Here's how to do it:
Use the find feature in your Word program to replace all double spaces with single ones. Here are step-by-step directions directly from sidebars in the Frugal Editor:
"You may not be able to see the extra spaces in your copy, but they can cause havoc when your manuscript is converted into a finished product. Here's how to get rid of them.
"Click on the Paragraph Icon () in your Word screen. It should be in the top row of your toolbar unless some computer-proficient type has fooled around with your options. It looks like a backward P with the little half circle colored in. Suddenly you'll be able to see all the directions you gave your copy as you typed. One little dot will appear in your manuscript for every time you used your spacebar. All you have to do is use your backspace key to delete the unnecessary ones.
OR
"Let your find function spot the dots.
"By now you know how to use your Find Function. Select the Replace tab. Place your cursor in the Find what window and tap your spacebar twice. It will appear you have typed nothing. In the Replace with window, you'll tap the spacebar only once. Now select the third button over from the left at the bottom of the window that reads Replace All and click. Voilà! Even with two apparently blank windows you will have sent a message to your computer's brain to replace all the double spacing in your document--whether between words or between sentences--with single spacing.
Caution: Before you tap your spacebar, be sure your cursor is as far to the left of the window as it can go. To do that, backspace until the little bar can go no farther left before entering your invisible spaces.
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