Writing Craft Archives - Page 6 of 7

Saying what you mean

Sometimes, it's remarkably difficult to say what you mean And the consequences can be very realThis morning I heard some advice for a particular type of heart disease: the recommended treatment is 'fluid and salt reduction'Logic tells me that the suggestion is to increase fluid and decrease salt, but is that actually what the recommendation says It could just as easily be interpreted as the reduction of fluid and the reduction of saltI'm beginning to notice that writers (and speakers) get into...

Is it Daylight Saving or Daylight Savings?

Today is the day when Australians start their annual summer experience of time-zone madness Today we have five time-zones, while in winter we only have three As a Queenslander, it becomes oh so easy to dial in an hour late for teleconferences or arrive an hour late for interstate meetingsBut is this time shift an experience of 'daylight saving time' or of 'daylight savings time'I've always assumed that 'daylight saving' is correct and that people who use 'daylight savings' are making a...

More mangled modifiers

Yesterday I received a letter that made me laugh out loud It was a fundraising letter, so that probably wasn't the reaction that the author was after But the first sentence created a wonderful image for me Here's the sentence:When I was told I might have leukaemia in 2008 I was shatteredThe image I got was of Mark (the case study in the letter) sitting in a doctor's office some time in 2006 (or around then) being told that, in 2008, he might have leukaemia It's like looking into the futureIt's...

Mangled modifiers

I've been focusing a bit on modifiers recently - those bits of sentences that add extra detail or explanation I'm amazed at how often they're put in a spot that's awkward or confusingTake this sentence - which I heard on an ABC news report last week:'There had been very little awareness for a flood in the community'I'm pretty sure that they intended for the community to have the awareness, rather than the community to have the flood This means that the sentence would have been better written...

Pesky possessives part 2

I didn't expect to find more to say about the possessive apostrophe in Mothers' Day But then I received an email from Grammar Girl, letting me know that I should write Mother's Day - it's singular possessive because the day is about families honouring their individual mothers, rather than being a plural possessive honouring of all mothersI'm still not completely convinced I looked up that source of trustworthy information, Wikipedia, and learned that Mother's Day was trademarked by Anna Jarvis...

Pesky possessives

That day for mothers is fast approaching, and with it comes a possessive apostrophe question Should you wish your mother:Happy Mothers Day,Happy Mother's Day, orHappy Mothers' DayThe widespread consensus appears to be for Mother's Day That's what you'll find on cards, in ads, and on most of the signage in shops That makes it a day for motherMind you, last week I read about a restaurant chain that's offering a special Mother's Day breakfast, with a free kids banquet Maybe it doesn't make sense...

Those way wood sheep

Sometimes I come across a writing error that makes me laugh out loudLast week I was reading a magazine article, and encountered this sentence 'On January 1, 2009, I shuffled along a country road, keeping an eye out for the usual hazards - farm dogs, way wood sheep'I wonder whether those wayward, self-willed, and unpredictable sheep had any idea what was ahead of them as they went the way of the woodsI hesitate to call this sort of mistake a typo, because there's an assumption with a...

Learning about document structure

Last week, Radio National's Life Matters program featured an interview with Cyril Peupion, author of 'Work Smarter: Live Better' Cyril was talking about people's inefficiencies at work - particularly with tasks like email Cyril noted that most people start their working lives with little idea about how to work efficiently It's not something that's taught either at school or university Given the 1,131 email messages currently in my In Box, with 282 of them being unread, maybe I need to pay some...

Versus, verse, versing

I'm fascinated by the way that language changes And while it's often tempting to speak out against the 'incorrect' use of language, most often the force for change is so strong that we can do little more than take noteOver the past year or so, I've noticed that the words used by children to describe sporting competitions do not follow typical dictionary definitions They've taken the preposition 'versus' and turned it into a word with great flexibility During the sports report at our local...