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.
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 …
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!
So, how is choosing a pony like choosing a freelancer?
I went horse-riding on Saturday (for the first time in years) and had asked for a “slow” pony. What I should have asked for, I realised, as my pony bucked a little and tried to bite her reflection in the arena mirror, all the while needing to be forced out of a v e r y slow walk, was a “slow and placid” pony. Never mind – I had fun and I could cope with the pony, and learned a lesson about asking for what I wanted as well as expecting what I’d asked for.
And then, I’ve just finished reading a book (look out for the review on my book blog) in which the heroine *twice* gets what she wanted, only to find out it’s not what she really wanted at all. Cue heartbreak and all sorts of lessons learned.
All this got me thinking about how, especially when we’re hiring people to do work for us, we need to think about what we (really) want before we specify the terms and conditions. If you’re using a proof-reader/copy-editor (yes, I know – I’ll explain the difference soon!), it’s useful to realise up front that you need to cut some word count, for example. This is something we can do, but it’s far easier for us (and cheaper for you in terms of time and money) to do it as we go along, rather than having to go back through the document, snipping away. If you’re concerned about a particular aspect of the project, tell us – ask away; if we’re any good, we’ll accept your questions, answer them and reassure you. I would much rather you, the client, were happy with the outcome and relaxed throughout the process, even if that means I do a shorter, smaller project for you or you don’t use me at all!
So, whether you’re choosing a pony, a life partner or a freelancer, think carefully about what you’re asking for, before you ask for it.
I had an exciting package of books arrive from Amazon yesterday – half for Libro’s reference section and half for ME (spending some of my vouchers I’d been saving up). I thought my clients, potential clients and Friends Of Libro might be interested in what Libro now has on its bookshelf…
I really need up to date reference materials to use for Libro, especially if I’m going to be blogging about usage, so now I’ve paid my tax for 2009-10 I have used some of my profit for these. Note: yes, there are online versions of many of these, but they cost as much as the hard copy to access PER YEAR, while the new editions don’t tend to come out yearly. So, for the time being, I am using printed copies, although this may change in the future.
Concise Oxford English Dictionary – 11th edition (luxury edition) – I realised my current Oxford Concise was bought with money I had for my 18th Birthday and is the 7th edition. Oh, and luxury means I get a bookmark and there are fingerholes in the text block so you can access each letter easily.
R.M. Ritter – New Hart’s Rules – this is the companion to the wonderful New Oxford Dictionary For Writers and Editors (which I actually adore as it has all those words you’re not sure how to spell or use!) and explains the rules of punctuation, etc. It comes highly recommended by my copy-editing peers.
Chicago Manual Of Style – 16th edition – this is the American be-all and end-all of rules on everything from typesetting to the most obscure parts of speech and uses of punctuation. I do have quite a few US customers (having worked for an American company, I am bi-lingual in American and British English, and really enjoy the differences and similarities), and this is really useful. As well as FASCINATING! I actually have two copies of this in the house at the moment, as I borrowed my library’s copy to check how useful it would be.
Norm Goldstein – The Associated Press Stylebook – another one for my US customers, this is a guide that a lot of PR agencies and other media people use.
What’s your favourite reference book, and why?
I had another learning experience last week. I offer a proofreading and copyediting service to students, but obviously I have to be really careful about authorship and plagiarism. Plagiarism is not just “copying”; it also encompasses “passing off someone else’s work as your own”. Now, I’m sure none of my clients would intend to do this. Usually, I’m tweaking spellings, word usage, the occasional sentence re-write – I do everything in “track changes” in Word so the client can see what I suggest and make their own decision about what to change and whether to change it or not. That means they retain their own authorship. People in the know with whom I’ve discussed it are fine with this approach and it just gently helps the meaning come through.
But just sometimes, there’s a piece of work where I feel uncomfortable with the amount I’m suggesting and working on. For “working on”, read “re-writing”. I did always wonder where the line was drawn; well, it turns out that with this one, I *should* go for gut reaction (unlike in my previous post, where I thought I couldn’t do the work, but it turned out I could). If my gut reaction says that I’m crossing the line where your work is concerned, I will – politely – turn it down and return your work to you without corrections. There are probably people who wouldn’t act like that, but I very firmly believe in doing what is right, above doing what is profitable. Work on which someone is given a grade should be their own work.
Of course, if you’re not a student and you want me to re-write your mangled metaphors, your tortured text, your slippery sentences, then bring it on!
So I’m a professional proofreader and I enjoy my work and take a pride in it… but sometimes it’s good to expand your horizons.
I’ve taken on a job sorting out the formatting of someone’s thesis this week. Page numbering, chapter headings forming a contents page, figures and tables; all of that stuff. At first I wasn’t convinced I could do it. But I persevered, took out the stuff at the front that had been copied and pasted, reminded myself of the theory (Word 2007 can be quite different from previous versions) and off I went.
Next time, I’ll know how to create separate figures and tables contents lists (ask me if you need to know how), I’ll know that Microsoft online help is a bit better than the help embedded in Word, and I’ll be confident I can do that little bit more to help my clients present the best possible version of their work.
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