Avoiding Random Apostrophes

So many apostrophes swinging in the wind, floating randomly at the end of things, unable to latch on to anything coherent.

Before you attach one of these random waifs to any part of your memo, email, announcement, or article, hold back. Pause. Think it through. Only attach it if it makes sense.

Before:

Team Members: The stock rooms  at both the Jackson and Whitehall campus’ will be closed on Monday.

After:

Team Members: The stock rooms at both the Jackson and Whitehall campuses will be closed on Monday.

To make something plural, you generally do not add an apostrophe. The plural of campus is campuses. If in doubt, Google it. 

(c)2014 Suzann Kale

Tags: punctuation, grammar, apostrophes, plural, business writing, technical writing

Discarding Excess Verbage

It started with technical writing, then became the standard for business writing: a slimmed-down style, with absolutely no baggage. 

Two things are needed when writing memos, emails, procedures, instructions, web content:

1. Precision

2. Extreme editing.

Take the following copy:

Well, it's easy. All you have to do is just find the arrow button - either direction will do - and push it until the three-digit identification number appears on the screen.

And transform it into:

Push the arrow button until you see the 3-digit number.

What a relief not to have to slog through a huge conversation, right?

Here's another "before":

Team Members: It has come to my attention that we are still putting items on top of the toaster oven. Please remember that this is a fire hazard, and put your stuff in your desk, or even in the bottom file drawer which is usually empty. Thank you.

And its "after":

Team Members: Anything placed on top of the toaster oven will be annihilated immediately.

How to do it: Write your copy just as you normally would, complete with excess commas, emotional rants, and run-on sentences. Then go through it like we've done here, and take out anything that is not absolutely necessary. Keep in mind what you want to tell people, and save everything else for your novel-in-progress.

(c)2014 Suzann Kale

Tags: business writing, technical writing, grammar, syntax, editing, proofreading, verbage, precision 

Who's versus Whose

The easiest way to remember which one to use, is to take the one with the apostrophe and extend it out so it's not contracted, and see if it makes sense.

Who's = who is

So if your sentence reads: "[Who's / Whose] toast burned in the microwave?", we see that "whose" is the one we have to use. Why? Because "Who is toast burned in the microwave?" doesn't make sense.

"[Who's / Whose] that handsome firefighter?" would have to be "Who is that handsome firefighter?" because that's the only one of the two that makes sense.

(c)2014 Suzann Kale

Tags: syntax, grammar, who's versus whose, apostrophe

Trending: Random Caps

"Just because everyone jumps off the Empire State Building doesn't mean you have to," my

mother often said.

What she meant was, just because the advertising agencies capitalize letters in the middle of sentences for no apparent reason, doesn't mean we should copy them.

I wrote a letter to an ad agency complaining about random capitalizations. They wrote back and said they do that on purpose, to emphasize certain words.

But people have simply copied that idea, capitalizing things that the writer deems important. For example, I saw this the other day:

Team Members: If you use the Microwave, be sure to clean it after making Popcorn.

Do not capitalize random nouns, even if you think they're important. 

(c)2014 Suzann Kale

Tags: grammar, capital letters

Inter-office Emails and the Run-On Sentence

It's a matter of being understood. We rush through our email compositions so fast that sometimes the results are incoherent. Here is an email I saw recently:

Team Members When providing transportation for clients the office to call is 555-7395 on weekends 555-2488 if no answer on Tuesdays 555-3850. Extension 322.

This could mean anything, and your team members will have no idea what they're supposed to do. Be clear in your mind what you are trying to say, and place punctuation accordingly. 

Team Members: When providing transportation for clients, call the main number at 555-7395. On weekends, call 555-2488. On Tuesdays, if there is no answer at the main number, call 555-3850, extension 322.

Just this little bit of thought will help the team members get to the right place.

Tags: grammar, punctuation, run-on sentences, commas, business emails

Commas - Grammar's Intuitive Fashion Star

I was co-authoring a piece with another writer. It turned out we had two different comma styles.

Neither one was right or wrong, they were just different.

Some parts of English grammar are untouchable. Commas are not. They are fluid. They change with the times. They are almost artistic in the way that we indulge them. It is less "where must this comma go?" than "where do I feel this comma?". 

When we baby boomers were in grade school, we were taught that in a list of three things, the comma was left off the third thing. So for instance:

If the bomb hits, children should run to the hallway, the bathroom or the closet.

Legalese followed this no-comma-on-the-third-thing rule.

As we grew older, we realized it didn't make sense. So we wrote:

If the bomb hits, children should run to the hallway, the bathroom, or the closet.

Now that felt better, and I know I felt more comfortable about the whole thing.

No one will call you on a wrong comma. Commas are artistic. You put them where you need them for breathing, for emphasis, or for logic. 

Which means - take care when placing your commas. Give it some thought. Make it make sense.

In the olden days (baby boomer time), people put commas all over the place, willy nilly. Now, in modern times, the comma style is generally more sparse. We take fewer breaths when we speak (or read), and we like things streamlined. 

What is your commas style?


(c) 2014 Suzann Kale

Tags: Commas, punctuation