I was asked to differentiate this one by a friend who sent me a lovely long list of troublesome pairs. But this is a simple one: either will do!
“Spelt” is the past tense / past participle of “spell”. So is “spelled”. Apparently, “spelt” is more usually found in British English.
So there you go!
For more troublesome pairs, click to the right in the category cloud or click here.
This is one that I see mixed up all the time. There’s quite a simple division between them, though.
A principal is the top person in a group. So the leader of a school is the Principal. Following on from this use, it also means first or main – “My principal interest is football but I don’t mind watching a bit of rugby”; “The firm’s principal area of operation is construction schools”. It’s also a noun used to describe a sum of money invested or lent on which interest is paid.
A principle is a belief or a rule which governs your personal behaviour, as well as a natural law or general scientific theorem.
“The school Principal works from principles of care, respect and the importance of good discipline. The principal principle is respect – that’s the most important one. Everything else matters, but that matters most.”
And a little bonus: “principality” – a state ruled by a prince
For more troublesome pairs, click on the category cloud over to the right, or click here.
This is an easy one with an interesting explanation.
Would have is correct.
Would of is not correct.
However, “would of” has crept into the language because when “would have” is abbreviated to “would’ve”, and spoken out loud, it sounds like “would of”.
“She would have gone out, but she didn’t have anything to wear.”
“She would’ve gone out, but she didn’t have anything to wear.”
This works throughout the range of words – “might have”, “would have”, “should have”, etc.
For more troublesome pairs, choose the category from the cloud over to your right, or click here.
When most people think of “proofreading”, they are actually thinking of copyediting, which I’ve discussed in a previous post.
Proof-reading is, officially, checking proofs of a publication just before they are published. So when I’m proofreading, I’m effectively looking for different things to when I’m copyediting. For a start, the document is often different – for example, when I’m working on a magazine or book, the text I copyedit is usually presented to me in a word processing programme like Word, whereas the proofs come in pdf format. That’s because that’s how, essentially, they will go to the printer, so they represent the final, finished form of the book or magazine.
All of the grammatical, punctuation and spelling stuff should have already been covered by the copyeditor, and the facts checked by the copyeditor, editor, author or fact-checker (whether or not I’m one of these people in the project too). What I’m now looking for is inconsistencies and errors in how the text and the surrounding “business” appears on the page. So I’ll check for …
for books and magazines:
– page numbers being sequential and starting at the right point
– pictures having captions and the captions describing the correct picture
– widows and orphans – individual words or lines which get left alone on either the previous page to the main text (e.g. if a paragraph starts at the bottom of the page or, worse, there’s a short phrase introducing a quotation or the beginning of a text box) or the page afterwards (the last few words of a paragraph or text box, for example)
– changes in font size that weren’t intentional
– the contents page or list matches what’s there in the publication
for books in particular:
– the running headers being correct, i.e. one has the publication name and the other has the chapter title (for the correct chapter)
– chapters all starting on a right-hand page as you hold the book open
– all extra material (bibliographies, index … ) included and in the right order
As it’s in pdf format at this point, I’ll use my software to annotate the pdf and then send it back to the client. Sometimes I’ll get a second look at it once these corrections have been made.
And that’s what a proofreader does.
This should be a popular one as it’s a very common set of mix-ups (and I know it’s not a pair, but a trio: think of it as a Bank Holiday Bonus)
There – regarding a place. “Have you been to Wales? Yes, I’ve been there.”
Their – possessive of “they” – belonging to them “Don’t take their wellies without asking!”
They’re – less formal, abbreviated form of “they are” “Are Linda and Freddie going to be at the party? Yes, they’re going to the party!”
So, if some people are visiting a female relation who lives on the other side of the valley: “They’re visiting their aunt, who lives over there”.
That’s it, really!
For why we don’t add an apostrophe to “theirs”, see my article on the apostrophe.
For more troublesome pairs, have a look at the category cloud to your lower right, or click here!
Another potentially troublesome word pair: “lead” and “led”.
Here, we’re only talking about the sense involved in taking someone or something from one place to another, not the soft metal that’s made into roofing, the thing that connects your computer to your printer, or the thing that connects your hand to your dog …
This is quite a simple one: lead is the present tense, and led is the past tense.
So, we can differentiate thus: “lead” is used in the present, including when we’re requesting something at this moment: “Lead us not into temptation” – “Every morning, I lead the cows into the field and I still do that now”.
Contrast this with use of the past tense: “Every morning last July, I led the cows into the field, but that was in my old job and I do something different now” – “He led me into temptation”.
“I’ll lead the horse today; you led him yesterday”.
If you want to see more pairs of words, click on the “Troublesome pairs” link in the category cloud to the right of this page …
I’ve noticed that people have been finding this website and blog by searching for “what does an editor do”? So I thought a quick example or two might be in order!
What a copyeditor actually does is make sure the text the author has written doesn’t have spelling, grammar, punctuation and factual errors. When I’m copyediting a piece, I work in several different ways (according to how my client wants me to work with them):
– a Word document and “track changes” – I turn Track Changes on in Word and it shows up exactly what I do, whether it’s deleting something, moving it, or adding a word here and there. I also use the “comments” facility to highlight a word or phrase and then ask a question or offer some alternatives. When the client receives the document from me, they choose “show final markup” in Track Changes (or similar, depending on what word processor they’re using) and then go through accepting or rejecting my changes with the click of a button. I always work like this with students, so they have to decide whether to accept each change, retaining ownership and authorship over the piece of work. But some other clients like me to do this too.
– a Word document with the changes already made. This is sometimes called a “clean copy”. I make the changes I think are needed, and the client trusts that I’m right and doesn’t need me to tell them what I’ve done. I work like this with some clients from the start; some move over to this format after we’ve worked together for a while. If a client isn’t a student, I offer them one of each of these two, then they can see what I’ve done but don’t have to go through accepting each change.
– an annotated PDF. I work this way with clients whose work is already in PDF format, or when I’m copyediting web pages. I print a copy of each web page to PDF or open the PDF document, and use a dedicated application that allows me to highlight parts of the text and add call-out boxes with comments in. Clients who use this method include anyone who has a set of web pages, and, for example, magazine publishers, who send me the pages as they will look in the final magazine (check back soon for information on when this constitutes “proofreading”).
So, for an example, I’ve made up a piece of text that’s riddled with errors, and then I present my corrected copy underneath. So I don’t inadvertently plagiarise someone, I’ve used my own text from another blog post.
———
From the author:
Now I’ve got more flexibility in my time-table, I suggested to my friend Laura who also works from home (and cafes, and her office…that we add in some “co-working” time to our regular lunches. The definition of coworking has extended from its original ‘working with colleauges’ idea to include working in paralell with other people, who are probably not your direct colleagues, in a space which is probably not both of your offices. That sounds a bit muddled – it’s basicly those set of people with laptop’s sitting around a big tables in your local cafe.
So, we decided to try doing this ata local cafe, and now we decided to start writing a irregular series of reviews of local venues with free wifi in which it’s possible (or possible) to work. We’re going to work our way around Queens Heath and then possibly venture farther a field.
My corrected version:
Now I’ve got more flexibility in my timetable, I suggested to my friend Laura, who also works from home (and cafes, and her office … ) that we add in some “co-working” time to our regular lunches. The definition of co-working has extended from its original “working with colleagues” idea to include working in parallel with other people, who are probably not your direct colleagues, in a space which is probably not either of your offices. That sounds a bit muddled – it’s basically those sets of people with laptops sitting around a big table in your local cafe.
So, we decided to try doing this at a local cafe, and then we decided to start writing an irregular series of reviews of local venues with free wifi in which it’s possible (or impossible) to work. We’re going to work our way around Kings Heath and then possibly venture further afield.
———-
There are some variants: a substantive copyedit, for example, will include all of the above work, plus I’ll be looking for inconsistencies in the text as a whole: for example, a character in a biography’s name changing, or the layout of a house being inconsistent in a novel – a bit like being a continuity person for a film.
In the next few weeks, I’ll talk about what a proofreader, copy writer and transcriber does (maybe even a copy typist, too!)
Welcome to the first of my weekly mini-posts on troublesome pairs of words. Keep on suggesting new pairs on the comments to my original post!
So, today it’s affect and effect.
Quite a simple one – if you AFFECT something, it means you have an EFFECT on it.
Well, not quite that simple …
Affect is (mainly) a verb, which means “to have an effect on”, or to “make a difference to.” Effect is used mainly as a noun, the difference that is created when something is affected. It’s an end result or consequence.
Although you can also “Effect a change in something”, this is a different verb used in a different way. And an affect is also used in other senses, such as to denote pretending or as a precise term in psychology, but we won’t worry too much about those uses, as they’re not the ones that tend to get mixed up.
Examples:
Bill’s injury affected his ability to play in the team, and had a bad effect on the team’s morale.
Bill affected the morale of the team when he got injured. The effect was to make them play less well.
I will affect the balance of this blog between grammar and opinions when I post all these mini-posts.
When used in combination with another drug, this drug can affect the side-effects in a positive way.
The effect of the water on the runner was marvellous; he perked up immediately.
Sarah effected a change in the way the meetings were structured.
Thanks as usual to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary and New Hart’s Rules for helping back me up!
I’m going to do a series of short posts, possibly daily, clarifying tricky pairs of words.
For example:
affect – effect
practise – practice
fewer – less
compliment – complement
I need loads of them – please comment with your favourite / least favourite / personally troublesome words and I’ll cover as many as I can and build up a nice resource for my readers!
A request has come in from a reader to write about distinguishing between “can”, “may” and “might” – so here goes. Again, my sources of reference have been the Oxford English Dictionary, New Hart’s Rules and the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors.
Can vs. May
Can implies the ability to do something. “Can she play the piano?” – is she able to, at any point in time, play the piano? Is she capable of it? Has she learnt to play it?
May implies permission to do something or the possibility of doing something. The latter is probably the easy one – “She may play the piano if she feels up to it” introduces the possibility of her doing so. “May she play the piano? ” is asking for permission to do so.
An amusing way to remember this – “May I play this piano?” – “Of course you may. But CAN you play the piano?” – “No, I never learnt to do so!”
You do also find this one in discussions with parents and teachers. “Can I leave the table?” – “You are certainly ABLE to leave the table, but whether you have permission is a different matter!”
May vs. Might
I admit here that I had to do some research on this one. Traditionally, may is used in the present/future tense, and might in the past tense. So: “I may have some coffee after dinner if I’m still thirsty” vs. “He might have known his attacker.”
All clear? Oh, and while we’re on cans and mays … “cannot” is preferably used as one word, rather than “can not”. The only exception is in constructions like “He can not only do this, but also the other.”
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