memoir
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Editing cutbacks unfair to writers and readers

WITH Covid and staff shortages becoming the default excuse for poor service and faulty products it is sad to see the malaise spreading to the world of publishing. Errors there are so visible and so irritating to readers. For publishers they are so difficult and costly  to correct.  In specialist areas, editing shortfalls can bring…

Lets eat Grandma and to hell with punctuation
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Lets eat Grandma and to hell with punctuation

WAR has been declared.  It has long been simmering with spasmodic outbreaks of invective hurled across the Great Grammatical Divide separating the two sides. But now it is out in the open. Apostrophe or no apostrophe, that is the question (as the greatest source of precise English would likely have defined it). It is no…

plymouth-hoe-tower (from Historic UK)
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Dealing with the nitty gritty on hoes and dykes

PERHAPS this blog post should come with an advisory caution; like those that precede some of the raunchier dramas screened on post-watershed TV. A warning about bad language or offensive dialogue. Displaying an awareness of some readers’ fragile sensibilities.  Guarding against young minds being led down sinful paths; the elderly shocked into losing a grip…

Some things academia will never learn
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Some things academia will never learn

WHAT is it about proofreading and editing that academics find so hard to understand? Yet again a university student has requested my help in preparing their thesis for submission. And yet again, and much as I would welcome the work, I have had to say no. There are several reasons for refusal, but the main…

When a virus spreads, the dictionary swells
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When a virus spreads, the dictionary swells

It was only a few days ago that I suggested  many of the words and phrases that have already become lingua franca during the recent global crisis were sure to be well in the running for selection as Word(s) of the Year. Place your bets … Since then we have heard (imagined)  cries of “stop…

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Let’s be clear about this …

Now, I want to make myself perfectly clear  … There must be no misunderstanding … Make no mistake about this … Blah, blah, blah.  Such well-worn phrases. So overused. Every day, someone, somewhere is prefacing their remarks with such statements of clarity and precision. And they are usually people of great (self-)importance whose pronouncements are…

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Words … but what do they mean?

The following extract is from a manuscript I was recently asked to assess for publication: ‘All right, I’ll see to changing that, might take a while.’ Eleanor continued with her agenda. ‘Now, what about Security? Personnel? Industrial Relations? Safety?’ ‘Hey, we need those.’ Arthur made a note. ‘Security and Safety have been the contractor’s problem…