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Yesterday, someone asked me why publishers only put quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph when the speech goes on for more than one. I’ve been researching this today. According to Bernard C Lamb in his book The Queen’s English, he explains that “in quoted speech lasting more than one paragraph, there is an … Continue reading
Your CV (curriculam vitae) or resume is the first impression that employers get before they make a decision about who to interview. Even if you are more qualified or skilled than the person they select, you won’t stand a chance if they don’t get the right feel from your CV in the first five to ten seconds … Continue reading
There are many words of Latin or Greek origin which end in ‘-us’, however it is not always clear what the plural form is. Do words like ‘hippopotamus’ and ‘octopus’ end in -es or -i? The website About.com explains that it is best to go with hippopotamuses http://homeworktips.about.com/od/plurals/f/hippopotamus.htm, whereas with the word octopus you apparently cannot go wrong if you guess the plural as octopuses, octopodes or octopi … Continue reading
According to Richard C Lamb in his book The Queen’s English, “heterophones are words with different meanings which are spelt the same (homographs), but pronounced differently” e.g. row, rhyming with ‘go’ as in ‘I row my boat at weekends’ and row, rhyming with ‘cow’ as in ‘They had a row, and he walked out’. Here are some examples: Read … Continue reading
Yesterday I blogged about homographs which are “words with the same spelling but different meanings” and they can sometimes sound different (according to Bernard C Lamb in his book The Queen’s English) e.g. ‘row’ which can rhyme with ‘go’ and also ‘cow’. Homophones are words which have the same sound but different meanings, e.g. led/lead, so/sew, read/red and row/row (as … Continue reading
“Homographs are words with the same spelling but different meanings” and they can sometimes sound different too (according to Bernard C Lamb in his book The Queen’s English). ‘Homo’ means the same and ‘graph’ means picture or drawing – to remember this, imagine the same picture or drawing. Examples: think about the word ‘row’ – it can rhyme … Continue reading
According to Graham King in his book Collins Improve your Punctuation, it is clearer to write dimensions and measurements in figures as follows: The tablecloth is 15 by 25cm 4 metres of material is required The Christmas trees range from 4ft 6in to 7ft 5in tall 4oz butter, 4oz caster sugar, 4oz self-raising flour and … Continue reading
“The study of how words change their forms according to use is referred to as morphology” writes John Seely in his book the Oxford A-Z if Grammar & Punctuation. To help explain this, I’ve created a few examples: Example A Please relax when you get home She always relaxes when she gets home. I feel … Continue reading
According to Watts publishing Group http://wattspublishinggroup.com/launching-a-career-in-writing/, in an article called ‘Launching a career in writing’, “fear has no place in the industry of writing”. Don’t worry that people aren’t going to see things the same way as you and certainly don’t stop writing because you have got stung by negative comments/criticism. You may be stopping your natural talent taking you to where … Continue reading
A colloquialsm is an informal word or phrase which is used instead of a more appropriate or formal one. Some examples are below: Informal: Pros and cons Formal: Advantages and disadvantages Informal: You’re skating on thin ice (something I admit to saying to my daughters!) Formal: You’re taking a risk There is a great website called ‘About.com: English as a Second Language’: http://esl.about.com/library/quiz/bl_pairphrases1.htm. … Continue reading
My Writing Notebook 