Editorial Tip of the Week: Trading Long Division for Word Division

We've all probably encountered and conquered (hopefully) the white space caused by writer's block. That stark, blank page that makes writers cry, cringe, run, or take a swig of their favorite alcoholic beverage. We all know the hardships of that white space. But what about the other types? Say you're writing a great line, something truly inspired of course, and you
suddenly are forced to drop onto the next line because of space. (Like that visual example, folks? Thought you would.) Now, there's that horrible jolting white space. You know it can be remedied with a simple hyphen, but how? Often something that seems simple may become complicated by a word like knowledge or criticism. Words as "tricksy" as they come.

What was that? Pull out Chicago? Okay, we're getting there already!

I'll have you know that sometimes even Chicago does not have all the answers. Shocking right? Deep breaths. "For end-of-line breaks, as for spelling and plural forms, Webster should be the primary guide. The dots between syllables in Webster indicate where breaks may be made; in words of three syllables or more, there is usually a choice of breaks."

However, there are some hard and fast rules that you can stick to. For instance, single-syllable words should never be divided. Also, "one-letter divisions are not permissible." So, if you were planning on writing like that a-gain, don't.

Chicago does let us know it has an opinion, even if they aren't the foremost guide. The manual recommends "dividing according to punctuation." In doing so, our tricksy term knowledge becomes knowl-edge as opposed to know-ledge.

The Big Orange also suggests dividing after a vowel as long as it does not affect the pronunciation. Thus, criticism should be "criti-cism" not "crit-icism."

For compound words, prefixes, and suffixes, you are actually encouraged to just do what feels right and divide at the "natural breaks." Any displeasure with this freedom becomes "dis-pleasure" not "displea-sure."

Now if you come across a gerund (didn't you know that was what a form derived from a verb that functions as a noun is called? hmmm...), you may divide "before the ing." "Dab-ing, run-ing, fiz-ling." You get the picture.

That is that. For continued fun with hyphens, see 7.30 - 7.45 in your Chicago manual and say bye-bye to ugly white space!

Editorial Tip of the Week: Abbreviations

Blacklisted by some traditionalists alongside the dreaded end-of-sentence preposition, using abbreviations--especially in formal texts--is often dismissed as a sign of incompetent writing. On the contrary, the entirety of Chapter 15 in The Chicago Manual of Style is dedicated to the complexity and usefulness of abbreviations. Certainly, excessive use will bury the meaning and distract the reader but purposeful abbreviations (and the rules that govern them) offer an equally succinct and expedient means of communicating without compromising readability.

The nature of an abbreviation will indicate how to space, punctuate, write as plural forms and whether to spell out the first appearance. There are many types: the acronym, "terms based on the initial letters of their various elements and read as a single word" {NATO, AIDS}; the initialism, "terms read as a series of letters {BBC, ATM}; the contraction: "includes the first and last letters of the full word" {Mr., amt.}; symbols {$, &} and lower-case shortened forms,{Latin terminology such as ibid., and others like vol., prof.}.

Use abbreviations wisely; if strong whole words can be used, by all means do so but recognize that abbreviations give the lay-reader a handle on specialized material and provide more concise reading for the specialist.

For much more information, in addition to Chicago, consult The Copyeditor's Handbook. Despite Chicago's seemingly exhaustive list, the editors contend that "the abbreviations listed are unavoidably incomplete" and refer readers to the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Abbreviations Dictionary, and the Acronyms, Initialisms and Abbreviations Dictionary.

Editorial Tip of the Week: Ellipses

For casual communications, like email or short notes to friends, I am tempted to fill my writing with ellipses marks. Less committed than a period, more lingering than a comma, the little series of dots generously link one (often incomplete) idea to the next as I imagine a certain nuance filling the void. Beware: unless your book is an unearthed collection of ancient text preserved in disparate pieces of clay tablet, many of which may still be missing--the Epic of Gilgamesh, for instance--this willy-nilly application is not suitable for formal composition. The truth is, despite the whimsy I associate with them, ellipses have a fairly regimented function.

As end of sentence punctuation, ellipses do effectively convey a trailing-off in thought, particularly in dialogue. Primarily, though, ellipses represent an author's choice to eliminate words, phrases, lines, even whole paragraphs when quoting text in his or her writing. That said, a well-quoted passage will maintain the full meaning of the original text.

For those writers who are ellipses-happy, inserting four or even five dots in your ellipses, the Chicago Manual of Style thoroughly outlines three methods of employing this punctuation. Here's a preview:

(1) three-dot method: the most common in both general writing and scholarly work. Indicates an omission within or between sentences.
(2) three-or-four-dot method: for use in poetry and scholarly writing (not legal work or textual commentary). Three dots function as in #1. Four dots mark the omission of one or more sentences and the first dot is considered a true period. Other punctuation (than what was written in the original) may follow three dots but never four.
(3) the rigorous method: A variation of method #2 that "allows maximum fidelity to the original material", found in legal work, textual commentary, and frequent references. Refinements pertain to bracketing capitalized letters, placement of the first dot and placement of ellipses points.

In-house style sheets should indicate a preference for ellipses use, including spacing and number of points. The Copyeditor's Handbook reminds editors working onscreen to use the special ellipses character for proper formatting (as opposed to typing in a series of three or four periods).

For examples, and a lot more detail, see section 11.51-11.71 in the Chicago Manual of Style, online at www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html.

Editorial Tip of the Week: Compounds & Hyphens

Compound words are a particularly fascinating feature of language. They essentially represent how new words are created and enter common usage. It is a fairly democratic process: anybody might invent a more accurate word to keep pace with a nascent function or idea. It is up to the general populace to take the word and run with it, or leave it by the wayside.

Compound words are expressed in three different ways.
1) as an open compound = the compound is spelled as two words {science fiction}
2) as a closed compound = the compound is spelled as one word {bookstore}
3) as a hyphenated compound = a hyphen connects two words {editor-in-chief}

Generally speaking, a new word enters the scene as an open compound, transitions using a hyphen and is considered common usage as a closed compound. Our vocabulary for virtual technology is the most obvious arena where we see this phenomenon. Consider the tentative electronic mail to e-mail to the now common, email.

Not that it's always an easy evolution. The rules governing compound words and hyphenation are fickle and abundant -- writers and editors will want to keep a dictionary and a style guide handy. For this week's tip, here are a few basic rules to get you started.

Adverbs
Most of the time adverbs ending in -ly are explicit enough not to warrant a hyphen, neither before nor after the noun, but The Copyeditor's Handbook warns us about ambiguous combinations: "He too readily agreed. [Means He also agreed.] He too-readily agreed. [Means He agreed too readily.]"

Compound modifiers
Attributive Adjectives come before a noun and usually include a hyphen for clarity's sake {she is a short-fiction writer}
Predicate Adjectives follow a noun and it's usually clear which noun they describe, so hyphenation is not necessary but can be used if desired {she writes short fiction}

Numbers
Numbers twenty-one to ninety-nine are hyphenated

The Chicago Manual of Style has several comprehensive compound and hyphenation lists, sorted by Type (according to grammatical function), Formed with Specific Terms, and Formed with Prefixes. If you don't have the hard copy handy, see the website.

Editorial Tip of the Week: Subject-Verb Agreement

In the throes of a particularly gripping surge of creative genius, even the tidiest writer may glance over the basic principle of subject-verb agreement. That is, "The number of a verb must agree with the number of the noun or pronoun used with it" (The Chicago Manual of Style, 5.123) or as Amy Einsohn states, "A singular subject takes a singular verb, and a plural subject takes a plural verb" (The Copyeditor's Handbook, p. 339).

Singular: Her shoe is sparkly.

Plural: Her shoes are sparkly.

Easy enough? Of course, not quite. Einsohn lists no less than twenty-five subject-verb agreement hang-ups. For instance, number twenty-three: "Titles of works. Titles of works always take a singular verb. {Dickinson's Selected Poems is a fine introduction to her work.}"

In addition to Einsohn's litany, The Elements of Style (p.9-11) is a handy go-to for the most common difficulties. True to succinct Strunk and White style, the section gets right to straightening us out:

"Words that intervene between subject and verb do not affect the number of the verb. [Incorrect] The bittersweet flavor of youth--its trials, its joys, its adventures, its challenges--are not soon forgotten. [Correct] The bittersweet flavor of youth--its trials, its joys, its adventures, its challenges--is not soon forgotten."

While the native English speaker will find many of the principles governing subject-verb agreement to be intuitive, mastering subject-verb agreement does require memorizing some rules and familiarizing oneself with resources for the obscure configurations.

In addition to the sources listed above, check out Grammar Girl's typically humorous take (with help from another grammar guru, Bonnie Trenga) on subject-verb agreement, here.

Editorial Tip of the Week: Parentheses (the round bracket)

In comparison with its fellow interrupters, the comma and the em dash, a pair of parentheses is a rather polite punctuation. Consider the following sentences: (1) Forest Park, located in Portland, is the largest wooded park in the United States. (2) Forest Park--the largest wooded park in the United States!--is located in Portland. (3) Forest Park is the largest wooded city park in the United States (and one of my favorites in Portland). Commas slyly draw a reader in before they've had a chance to notice a break and em dashes demand attention but parentheses offer humble bits of extraneous information which the reader may include or gloss over.

In addition to presenting asides and referential material (acronyms, bibliographies, page numbers, translations), parentheses are a potentially bold stylistic tool. Scholar Duncan White dedicated an essay to the subject of parentheses in Nabokov's Lolita, observing at one point how "Parentheses elucidate the theme of imprisonment, reminding the reader of Humbert's incarcerated state."

As generally unobtrusive as a pair of parentheses may seem, it is possible to overuse them. To avoid this, use square brackets to set off information within parentheses; convert parenthetical afterthoughts made in rough drafts to more artful incorporation whenever possible.

Read the abstract to Duncan White's essay, "(I have camouflaged everything, my love)": Lolita's Pregnant Parentheses, here. View Videojug's clever video on the topic here. The Chicago Manual of Style and The Copyeditor's Handbook outline further details for using parentheses.

Editorial Tip of the Week: Give me a break!

Struggling to fit words like adrenocorticotropic on the page? For an ordinary end-of-line word break, consult a dictionary. Barring some forms, outlined in the Chicago Manual of Style, words may be divided where the dots indicate. There are two important restrictions on breaking up words. The first is that single-syllable words and their verb forms are indivisible and second, one should never introduce a break that leaves one letter hanging before or after the hyphen.

The hyphen used in word division is a "soft hyphen." While hard hyphens join compound words and are permanent fixtures in a text, the soft hyphen comes and goes as text is arranged.

Amy Einsohn, in The Copyeditor's Handbook, addresses the responsibilities of authors and copyeditors when it comes to editing for correct hyphenation related to word breaks. While editing or composing, the line breaks don't always transfer into the final copy. Therefore,

Copyeditors working on hard copy...rather than checking for the correct hyphenation of a word [should mark] all soft hyphens with a "close-up and delete" sign. Copyeditors working onscreen will not encounter soft hyphens in well-prepared manuscripts because authors are instructed not to use soft hyphens. If the author has used soft hyphens...turn off the hyphenation feature, which will delete the soft hyphens from the files.

For more guidelines concerning the nuances of end-of-line breaks, including how to negotiate URLs and e-mail addresses, see section 7.33-7.45 in the Chicago Manual of Style.

Editorial Tip of the Week: Who and Whom

When to use “who” and when to use “whom” is something I still have trouble with from time to time. Here are the traditional rules according to The Chicago Manual of Style: “Who” is a nominative pronoun used as the subject of a finite verb. For example, “it was Kathy who bough the bagels today.” “Who” is also used as a predicate nominative when it follows a linking verb, like with “that’s who.”

“Whom” is an objective pronoun that may appear as the object of a verb, like in “I learned nothing from the man whom I saw today.” I can also be used as the object of a preposition; “The woman to whom I owe my life.”

Today, the norm is to default to using “who” in most contexts. There are also those (myself included) who are insecure about their knowledge of the difference and tend to overuse “whom” when “who” would be correct. For more information, be sure to check out The Chicago Manual of Style online at www.chicagomanualofstyle.org.

Editorial Tip of the Week: Troublesome Expressions

In writing, it is always important to consult your handy Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary for any issues with word choice, but be sure to keep in mind that the presence of a word in the dictionary does not mean it is fir for your particular story. Some words, such as “archeology” are sometimes seen in some works as “archaeology” because that is the preference of the author belonging to that particular field. Be sure to take such preferences into consideration as well as closely read the definition of the questionable word. Sometimes the word you want is not the word you thought!

With that in mind, here are some words and their definitions that need a little clearing up as defined in The Chicago Manual of Style:

ability; capability; capacity. “Ability” refers to a person’s physical/mental skill in achieving something, like “the ability to ride a bicycle.” “Capability” refers more generally to power or ability, “she has the capability to play soccer professionally.” “Capacity” refers especially to a vessel’s ability to hold or contain something which, when used figuratively, can refer to a person’s power to learn, “an astounding capacity for mathematics.”

allude; elude; illude. To “allude” is to refer to something indirectly, “allude to a problem.” To “elude” is to avoid capture, “elude the police.” To “illude,” which is quite rare, is to deceive, “your imagination might illude you.”

lay; lie. “Lay” is a transitive verb—it demands a direct object, “lay your pencils down.” It is inflected “lay”-“laid”-“laid.” For example, “I laid the book there yesterday” and “these rumors have been laid to rest.” “Lie” is an intransitive verb—it never takes a direct object, “lie down and rest.” It is inflected “lie”-“lay”-“lain.” For example, “she lay down and rested” and “he hasn’t yet lain down.”

These are only a few of the hundreds that are mixed up all the time. Be sure to consult your dictionary and check out The Chicago Manual of Style at www.chicagomanualofstyle.org for more information on word usage.

Editorial Tip of the Week: Using Tenses and Pronouns for Harmonious Quotations

When using quotes as dialogue or citation, knowing how to properly punctuate those quotes within the sentence is very important. Tenses and pronouns however are crucial, especially when taking a quote or passage and applying it in a new context. The wrong tense or an awkward pronoun causes the whole quote sound confusing and can ruin an otherwise strong paragraph.

Always integrate tenses, especially if the original text is in present tense and the new sentence in past tense. The Chicago Manual of Style 15th ed uses the following example:

[Original] Mr. Moll took particular pains to say to you, gentlemen, that these eleven people here are guilty of murder; he calls this a cold-blooded, deliberate and premeditated murder.
[As quoted] According to Darrow, Moll had told the jury that the eleven defendants were “guilty of murder” and had described the murder as “cold-blooded, deliberate and premeditated.”

With pronoun changes, these should always be used as little as possible. They also need to be bracketed so the reader knows this is a change from the original text. Above all, make sure the quotes flow easily with the rest of the paragraph. If they sound awkward or forced, it might be time to reevaluate.

For more information on all things quotable, check out The Chicago Manual of Style, paying particular attention to chapter 11, “Quotations and Dialogue.”

Editorial Tip of the Week: Plurals

Pluralizing words is not as easy as it looks and can be a little confusing at times. Throw in nouns ending with vowels and foreign words, and things can suddenly become very complicated. S or es is added to form most plurals, but which do you use when? If the noun happens to end in a letter that is not pleasing with s alone, like with words already ending with s, or with sh, z, x, or a soft ch, use es, like with boxes and watches. If the ending letter of a word sounds like it can readily pluralize with only the s without sounding ridiculous, go ahead and place only the s at the end.

But what about nouns ending in f or fe? Ending in y? Or maybe o? Some ending in f or fe only use s when pluralizing, like with reefs and safes, while others change their f to v and add es like with wolves. With y things can get a little tricky. Nouns ending in y usually follow two rules: (1) if the word is common and the y is preceded by a consonant, change the y to and i and add es (berries, cherries, doilies, etc) or (2) if it is either a proper noun or the y is preceded by a vowel, simply add s for the plural form (Teddys, plays, etc).

Some nouns ending in o take the s while others take the es, like avocados vs. mangoes. If the ending letter o is preceded by a vowel or is a shortened word, only add s, like with portfolios and photos. When to add es is a little tricky. Since there is no definite rule to categorize all nouns, be sure to always consult your Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary and your Chicago Manual of Style.

Editorial Tip of the Week: The Dash

In her memorable book Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Lynne Truss accuses the dash of being “the enemy of grammar” these days due in large part to email and phone texts, the new age epitome of “disorganized thought.” The dash has now taken the place of all other forms of punctuation in these instances and its use is causing confusion as to when use of the dash is truly appropriate.

First off, it is important not to mistake the dash for its smaller alternative, the hyphen. The dash is used to connect or separate sentences and phrases while the hyphen is generally used to connect individual words. The dash is great for stream-of-consciousness writing (i.e. Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen) or, when sparingly used, can create a wonderful emphasis for “dramatic disjunction which can be exploited for humor, for bathos, for shock.” The dash is that little moment of dramatic pause before the rest is revealed and sets itself a part from the comma in that it is much easier to spot on a page and harder to ignore.

For more on the dash and other methods of emphasis, check out the chapter “Cutting a Dash” in Lynne Truss’s always entertaining guide on grammar, Eats, Shoots and Leaves. For more formal usage, The Chicago Manual of Style is perfectly clear on the different distinctions and usages of the dash.