Good thing I watered the garden this morning. In the past 12 hours we've gotten .03 inches of rain.
That's three hundredths of an inch. Not helpful in any way.
(English is so weird. ".03 inches" but "three hundredths of an inch." I don't make the rules, kids.)
#AmReading therefore #AmEditing in my head . . .
It's not a rule, but a nicety: Place the longest item in a series at the end of the list. This is especially helpful if that item is a prepositional phrase and the others are not. Putting that last keeps readers from incorrectly parsing the list and having to back up to reread.
". . . reams of wallpapers, carpets, paint pots, and scaffolding"
"Reams" applies only to the wallpapers, but at the head of a list it's easy to want it to apply to everything. When that doesn't work, we start over to reach the correct sense.
". . . carpets, paint pots, scaffolding, and reams of wallpapers."
One could go whole hog and make every item parallel by turning each into a noun followed by a prepositional phrase, but it's not needed, IMO. It's already a list of nouns. In fiction there's far more leeway for ignoring guidelines and bending and breaking rules.
One of the important ones, though, is "Don't make the reader work harder than necessary." You want them immersed, not constantly backing up to reread.
Because semicolons have been a topic of interest on my feed of late, here's a blog post about them from 2021.
Semicolons Make Connections – Grammargeddon!
https://grammargeddon.com/2021/07/24/semicolons-make-connections/
The importance of punctuation: What, was she diagnosed as a pathological liar? 😂
(There should be a comma after "hard".)
(Also, #SavedYouAClick: She was diagnosed with osteoporosis (she's 66), OCD, and ADHD.)
Imma give you some hashtags I use in my editing posts, so you'll know what to expect.
#GUMmyStuff is Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics (spelling, punctuation, capitalization).
#AmEditing is the standard thing. I use that one when I'm actively working on a project. Sometimes. Maybe.
#SpellcheckCannotSaveYou is my creation from years ago, because it's true. Do not depend on any kind of "check" program. They're wonderful safety nets. They are not infallible. Why "cannot?" Because it's incapable of saving you. There's no volition, no "will" involved. It isn't that it will not; it straight up cannot. Can't. Not happening.
There are others I use for non-editing posts, like #LowCarb and #HarrisWalz2024. Self-explanatory.
And sometimes I make them on on the fly, for one-time use. #AmARebel
I'm just a copy editor, standing in front of the Fediverse, begging people to stop separating subject from predicate with a comma, e.g.:
My friend from upstairs, visited me.
Just. Stop.
Please.
WHINY: characterized by whining (a whiny coworker)
WHINNY: a high-pitched sound made by a horse
TENET: A cornerstone of a system, often of belief or government
TENANT: One who pays rent to a landlord
(My off-the-cuff definitions. You want dictionary definitions, look 'em up.)
#AmEditing #GUMmyStuff
If you're using ellipses to indicate someone's speech trailing off, you don't need to add a tag to that effect. No need to say "Her voice trailed off." We see that with the ellipsis. (One ellipsis, two ellipses.)
You can, however, insert a beat like "took a slow, measured breath" or "traced a circle on his arm" or what have you. Some small business to occupy the space the words would have, had they been spoken.
https://grammargeddon.com/2014/10/30/mechanics-of-dialogue-part-2-tags-and-beats/
TIL that the noun form of "far-fetched" is
FARFETCHEDNESS
Don't take my word for it. Look it up in Merriam-Webster, the free online version.
GODS BLESS CMOS for finally saying we should capitalize the first word following a colon when it begins a sentence (as opposed to a list). I despised the previous guidance, which left far too much to judgment and left many a MS looking as if the editor was flip-flopping.
Remember that the subjunctive mood is used to indicate something that is not true/factual.
"If I were you . . ." I'm not, nor can I ever be.
This also includes "wishes, ... conjectures, ... demands, ... and suggestions" (Garner, The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation, p. 92-3).
https://grammargeddon.com/2015/03/10/wishin-and-hopin-and-prayin-the-subjunctive-mood-in-english/
https://grammargeddon.com/2018/12/17/it-aint-necessarily-so-the-subjunctive-mood/
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In case you wondered, "home fries" is so styled. Open, no hyphen. Not a closed compound.
A general note on my method:
When I post about a grammatical thing, or a mechanical thing, I keep my focus on the specific issue at hand rather than making a larger-in-scope statement covering any related items.
Part of that is because I'm working, and I don't have time to type a lot of information. I keep it as brief/useful as possible.
Another part is because I've learned over time that infodumping doesn't help teach. Small bites, easily digested.
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Remember: I'm an AmE user. I edit primarily in AmE. I am not qualified to speak to other Englishes' usage points.
(And if you question the existence of "other Englishes" aside from British, Canadian, and Australian, I implore you to educate yourself.)
"Insure" always involves money. You insure your car, your home, your life for a certain amount of money to be paid under specific circumstances.
"Ensure" involves making certain something happens, whether that's attaining a level of quality or graduating from high school or college. You do your best to ensure the safety of your family by taking appropriate steps to protect them.
I see these confused quite often, usually with "insure" where "ensure" is meant.
You know you're an editor when
you get excited about preordering the 18th Edition of Chicago Manual of Style, the "most extensive revision" to the venerable guide in the last 20 years
NO, Word, one does not hyphenate compound adjectives formed with adverbs ending in -ly.
It's "fully formed." NO hyphen.
(Note that "family-style," however, is hyphenated because "family" isn't an adverb. Neither is "scholarly," as in "scholarly-looking.")
This guidance is true for all major style guides. That's a good thing, innit.
Just added "fugued" to my project dictionary. As in, to fugue out, to dissociate, to lose time.
The incautious reader might well think that all of those things went into the bag with the pork. But let's say (because I know what I mean to say, here) that those are served with the pork.
"Ingredients include a cup of rice, a handful of beans and a marinated pork roast that's sat for at least 24 hours in a plastic bag with orange juice."
The only things in that bag are the pork and the juice. (That's a very sad marinade indeed.)
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