DailyWritingTip.com

In addition to some pretty bad writing,  this note contains one error in punctuation and one error in spelling.  Can you spot them?

What are the subjects of these sentences? Please remember that every sentence has two major parts: an action and a doer of that action. I am oversimplifying in order to keep this short, so just stick around if some of this is confusing. For now, identify the subject of each sentence, then click “continue reading” to see if your answers match up with mine!

Example: The quick, brown fox jumps over the lazy dogs. The subject of this sentence is fox. I would also accept The quick, brown fox as the subject.

1. Don’t leave.
2. Please return your chairs to the upright position.
3. Got milk?

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A fellow English teacher and I were wondering a few years ago about the origin of the practice of putting a colon after to and from, as on gift tags at Christmas time or on the envelopes of greeting cards.  It’s worth considering, because it is so totally wrong and we have all done it.

To and from, when followed by a person’s name or by a place, as in to Myrna, from William or to California from Hawaii or even to sir, with love never need punctuation right after them, and they certainly don’t need a colon.  Let’s save some printer ink and leave the colon out, shall we?

Please remember that the World-Wide Web is one medium; printed, professional documents are another. Standards for style on the Web are not the same as standards for style in printed form. I’m almost certain that you have received communication at work or in school that looked like this:

Microsoft Word automatically turns URLs and email addresses into links. I’m not sure how this is useful, since Word is a word-processor, but I guess we all send each other longer documents as attachments in email, so perhaps there is some need. All I know is that I have never needed text in a document to be a live link.

When you print your work, do you want the URLs to be blue and underlined? I don’t! I certainly do NOT want my email addresses to look like that, especially on my resume.

You could simply remove the underlining and change the color to black, but the text will still be a live link, which can be irritating if you’re editing your work later. In MS Word, in order to remove the link completely, highlight the text and in the INSERT menu, choose HYPERLINK (Apple-K is the keyboard shortcut on a Mac; I believe it’s CTRL-K on that other thing).

Click the Remove Link button, and hit OK. The text will be formatted plainly, just the way we like it.

To set Word so that it never turns your URLs and email addresses into hyperlinks, look in the TOOLS menu and choose AUTOCORRECT. You’ll have to make two changes in the panel that pops up. First, in the Autoformat As You Type view, uncheck “Internet paths with hyperlinks,” as shown below.

Then click the Autoformat button at the top of the panel and do exactly the same thing, as shown below.

Click OK and you are good to go! Please note that different versions of Word might have these options in different places, but they’re there somewhere, so if yours aren’t in the same place as mine, look around for them. I think you’ll agree that the results are totally worth it!

Yes, I’m sure you remember from elementary school that the principal is your pal, but principal has other uses, too. As a noun it can refer to an amount of money, as in Now that the interest is paid, we have begun to pay down the principal.

It can be the main person in a play or other endeavor, as in The supporting actors stayed home for tonight’s rehearsal, so the director could work with the principals.

As an adjective, it means “primary” or “main,” as in The principal reason I’m late is my own irresponsibility.

Principle is always a noun, and it just about always means a rule or standard, as in These are the principles upon which our company was founded.

To summarize: PRINCIPAL means “main” and stuff like it. PRINCIPLE means “rule” and stuff like it.

I thought I’d spring a little pop quiz on you, in case you were getting complacent.  What’s wrong with this license-plate frame?  Click “continue reading” and see if your answer matches up with mine!

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This weekend’s photos are only two examples of the goldmine that is New Diner’s Drive-In on Oahu. The menu-board has a couple of lulus, but I haven’t been able to get over there with my digital camera, and the camera phone has a hard time with those kinds of photos.

Have a great weekend!

This week’s Friday Quiz comes to us courtesy of Shokudo Restaurant in Honolulu. I have never dined there, but it’s totally my kind of place. I’m fond of tapas and izakaya restaurants, and Shokudo is a kind of upscale cafeteria where you try several small dishes rather than one large one. I totally have to try it.

Unfortunately, this commercial has a couple of errors. I have one problem with the CONTENT of the commercial and one with the GRAMMAR. Can you spot what I’ve spotted? Click “continue reading” below to compare your response with mine!

Get the Flash Player to see this movie.

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You’re not going to like this one, in all likelihood.  My students never do.  Most of them who receive this tip as advice don’t actually try it, but the ones who do come back and tell me it really helps.

It’s called the blind revision, and it’s not fun.

When you get sorta stuck on something you’re writing, such as a college essay, a report to a boss, a summary of your week’s activities, or even a speech you’ll be delivering for colleagues, put it away (and I mean AWAY, where you won’t look at it!) and start over.  Rewrite your stuff.  Don’t think about what you’ve already written; just start again.

Of course, some of your words and phrases will come back, and that’s okay, because those might be the ones worth keeping in your final draft.  What you will also find is that you thought of a new way to express a few ideas.  Compare your blind revision to your other draft, and you’ll often blow yourself away either with the new stuff or with the old stuff.  Either way the process will give you new ideas for finishing your project.

I know.  It’s a drag to do a blind revision.  I only recommend it when you’re writing something important and you get kind of stranded.  You have good stuff, but you don’t have enough of it, or you don’t know where to take it?  Blind revision.  Just try it.  Then let me know how it worked out for you!

This can be an awkward, puzzling construction if you aren’t sure of what you’re doing:

I gave a warm hug to Cindy and Jan’s mother.

I gave warm hugs to Laurie’s and Marsha’s mothers.

In the first sentence, Cindy and Jan have the same mother, so you give the apostrophe only to the second name. In the second sentence, Laurie and Marsha have different mothers, so you give the apostrophe to each one. Whether or not you pluralize the mother depends on your meaning. If it’s an either-or situation, you leave the mother singular, as in I can’t decide whether Laurie’s or Marsha’s mother is hotter. If it’s an and situation, pluralize the mother as in the example above.

This is really only part one of a tricky issue. Group possessives can be messy, sticky, and ugly. We will look at the rest of the weird constructions later.