WITH Covid and staff shortages becoming the default excuse for poor service and faulty products it is sad to see the malaise spreading to the world of publishing. Errors there are so visible and so irritating to readers. For publishers they are so difficult and costly to correct. In specialist areas, editing shortfalls can bring…
THE prime reason we write is to communicate with others. This applies whether it be with one other person or with the masses devouring the latest scandal or disaster. Nowhere is this more true than in the print media. Newspapers need to be quickly and clearly understood by the widest possible audience. No going back…
WHAT is it about proofreading and editing that academics find so hard to understand? Yet again a university student has requested my help in preparing their thesis for submission. And yet again, and much as I would welcome the work, I have had to say no. There are several reasons for refusal, but the main…
The lexicographers are working overtime. New words are being coined, reviewed and added to dictionaries worldwide almost daily. It seems there’s nothing like disasters and pandemics to send the spin doctors into a frenzy of creativity as they try to find ways of cloaking and minimising what is actually happening. Plain speaking is avoided at…
It was only a few days ago that I suggested many of the words and phrases that have already become lingua franca during the recent global crisis were sure to be well in the running for selection as Word(s) of the Year. Place your bets … Since then we have heard (imagined) cries of “stop…
WHAT is it about apostrophes that is so difficult to understand? Yes, I am well aware it’s a question that has been asked hundreds of times before. But we remain none the wiser – certainly not those who scatter them hither and thither like seeds on the wind. Nor those who teach them, either, it…
You’ve gotta love what the Aussies can do to the English language. No time was wasted Down Under in adapting linguistically to the present crisis. A sample of the latest OzSpeak: “Me boss tested posi for the ’Rona so now I’m in iso. Popped down to Woollies for some sanny, but it’s been bloody magpie’d.”
Writing a blog used to be a simple, time-efficient task. That is, until WordPress decided to “improve” things. And, as so often happens when such decisions are made, things became intolerably worse. It used to be a case of type of the text, select a picture and insert it wherever appropriate. Simple. Now we have…
Now, I want to make myself perfectly clear … There must be no misunderstanding … Make no mistake about this … Blah, blah, blah. Such well-worn phrases. So overused. Every day, someone, somewhere is prefacing their remarks with such statements of clarity and precision. And they are usually people of great (self-)importance whose pronouncements are…
Another challenging editing job has reached its successful conclusion, and one of which I am especially proud. It was a long time in the overall process with much rejigging, rewriting and tightening of the text. Meticulous and determined research produced a voluminous amount of detailed information, much of it revealed here for the first time, that had…