This post is inspired by my cat. I have several vials of insulin in the fridge for him; they are currently of no use because he is now an ex-diabetic cat. (All fingers and toes crossed he stays that way!) But the long dead and decomposing bird he brought me to celebrate was vile.
Vial
Vile
My tip: a vial is a container.
I have a confession to make: I haven’t put together a style guide for posts I make on this blog. The consistency of style leaves a lot to be desired. It’s time to take my own advice and develop a style sheet.
And I would be very interested to receive your opinions on what you would like to see. Do you prefer a certain style? Do you find some style choices distract you or make the content harder to understand?
I’m going to start with punctuation and perhaps one of the most controversial of style differences – the serial comma. The serial comma is also referred to as the Oxford comma or the Harvard comma.
The serial comma is the comma that follows the penultimate item in a list of three or more things and comes before the and or or:
I like cake, biscuits, and ice cream.
I don’t think it is necessary there. It isn’t serving a meaningful purpose (in my opinion). The sentence could be punctuated as below and make perfect sense:
I like cake, biscuits and ice cream.
However, I would use a serial comma here:
The restaurant serves chocolate cake, cookies and ice cream, and mango sorbet.
My preference is to only use serial commas when they help to avoid ambiguity. But what do you think? Please vote in the poll below and/or leave a comment. Thank you!
This week marks a return to homophones. I find that male is occasionally used when mail would be appropriate. I have borrowed one of the definitions below because I don’t think I can explain it more succinctly.
Mail
Male
Mail is also sometimes used as a short form of email. Unfortunately, I don’t have a simple tip to help anyone who might struggle to use mail and male correctly; if you have a suggestion for a memory aid, please share it below!
Sources:
This week’s interesting word is porraceous. I will buy an imaginary drink for anyone who knows what it means without looking it up – and a bonus imaginary packet of crisps if you have used it in everyday conversation.
Porraceous means ‘resembling a leek’. It is typically used to mean that something is leek-green in colour. (In many cases the something is vomit.)
It is early 17th century in origin, and stems from the Latin word porrāceus (itself from porrum meaning ‘leek’ and āceus meaning ‘of the nature of’).
“Martians, according to general sci-fi ethnobotany, are always small, hydrocephalic, intelligent, and seem a sort of porraceous green.”
– Alexander Theroux, The Secondary Colors, 1996
Isn’t the English language brilliant?
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This post is a little different from my usual notes on commonly confused words. Some writers worry about whether they should use despatch or dispatch, but this is an easy dilemma to solve – just pick the spelling you prefer. Both forms are legitimate.
Despatch/dispatch
to send off to a destination; the sending of something or someone to a destinationDispatch is the older form and is often preferred for that reason. It is also the form that, according to Fowler’s, is regarded as ‘etymologically more correct’. Despatch is a variant that is usually traced back to Samuel Johnson; his dictionary of 1755 listed the des- form despite Johnson himself always using the dis- form. It is therefore thought that the spelling despatch was originally an error.
However, it is now completely acceptable to use either form – although the use of despatch is often associated with British English.
(But I prefer dispatch.)
Sources:
The living embodiment of obstreperousness?
Obstreperous is one of my mum’s favourite words (I am presuming this because of the frequency with which she uses it). She often, however, uses the humorous form obstropolous which most sources list as a regional variation, but its use seems fairly widespread.
Obstreperous means noisy, difficult to control, unruly, bad-tempered or argumentative. (It is often suggested that stroppy came into usage as a slightly altered abbreviation of obstreperous.)
It was first used in the late 16th century and stems from the Latin word obstreperus ‘clamorous’ which is itself from obstrepere ‘to make a noise against’ or ‘oppose noisily’.
You can use obstreperously as an adverb and obstreperousness as a noun.
“Thou abominable obstreperous Scoundrel, why dost thou clamour at us, that do thee no wrong?”
– Plutus: or, The world’s idol. A comedy, translated by Lewis Theobald, 1715
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New Hart’s Rules is on my list of recommended books, and it is recommended by the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (of which I am a member). The publisher describes New Hart’s as follows:
For over a hundred years, Hart’s Rules has been the authority on style, helping writers and editors prepare copy for publication. The latest edition of this guide has been updated for the twenty-first century using the resources of Oxford Dictionaries and with the advice of publishing experts. Twenty-one chapters give information on all aspects of writing and of preparing copy for publication, whether in print or electronically.
Source: New Hart’s Rules
I often use New Hart’s as a source for blog posts and for information that I give to clients. It’s compact but thorough and detailed. It’s easy to find the information you need and helpful examples are given. It may not directly address all possible scenarios (something The Chicago Manual of Style seems to have attempted) but the style guidance is easily applied in most circumstances.
Of course, it is important to point out that New Hart’s is a style guide and ‘correct’ style is often subjective. For example, Oxford style prefers -ize spellings for verbs but other styles may not agree. However, New Hart’s generally acknowledges areas where some style guides may give different advice.
When I started out as a proofreader, I found the chapters on how to style work titles, quotations and direct speech, and numbers and dates particularly helpful (as evidenced by the multitude of sticky notes all over my well-thumbed first copy). I think self-publishers would find it helpful as a guide to standards that would be acceptable in traditional British publishing and how to attain those standards in their own work.
The most recent edition of New Hart’s was (at the time of writing) released in 2014. The 2005 edition is, as far as I am aware, still perfectly serviceable, but the 2014 edition is updated and contains an extra chapter (on the differences between US and British English). It’s available in most bookshops and through online retailers, including Wordery and Amazon. You can also access it online for free if your library card gives you access to Oxford University Press resources – you can read more about that here.
If you have a copy or use the online version, please let me know what you think of it!
I sometimes see college used when the writer means colleague. I think this is usually due to a typing error or uncertainty about how to spell colleague. Unfortunately, this is a spelling error that a spellchecker won’t be able to help with.
Colleague
College
My tip: say the word out loud. You probably wouldn’t spell league as lege.
This week’s interesting word is anfractuous. It is rare to see it in use, but I think it has a good sound and is fairly evocative.
Anfractuous means winding, sinuous, circuitous or spiral. It can also mean rugged or craggy and fractious or irritable.
Its origin is thought to be late 16th century, from the Latin word anfractus which means ‘a bending’. The meaning of rugged or craggy stems from the French word anfractueux.
“Paint me the bold anfractuous rocks Faced by the snarled and yelping seas.”
– T. S. Eliot, Ara vos prec, 1920
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Two weeks ago I published a post on the homophones nigh and nye. A nye is a flock or brood of pheasants, which leads me to this week’s sometimes confused words: peasant and pheasant. I presume this is often a spelling error rather than real confusion on the part of the writer (especially as peasant and pheasant are not homophones).
Peasant:
Pheasant:
My tip: a peasant is a person.
Hannah McCall 