10/11
There are a lot of words that I confuse, even as a grammar enthusiast. Here are some of the ones that come up the most and make me think twice when writing:
Adverse vs Averse:
Adverse means "unfavorable, hostile” and a verse means "repulsed or repelled.”
Allude vs Ellude:
Allude means "to suggest indirectly” and elude means "to dodge or escape.”
Amiable vs Amicable:
Amiable refers to a person who is friendly, good-natured, and pleasant and amicable means "friendly and peaceable", and is used to describe agreements or relationships between groups or people.
Straight vs Strait
Straight is an adjective that means having "no bends or curve”s and a strait is a narrow channel connecting two bodies of water.
Wary vs Weary
Wary means "leery and cautious” and weary means "tired and worn.”
Complement vs Compliment
Complement means "to supplement" or "make complete” and compliment means "to praise or congratulate": She received a compliment on her sense of fashion.
Tenant vs Tenet
A tenant is someone who rents property and a tenet is a principle.
Tortuous vs Torturous
Tortuous means "winding, crooked, with many twists and turns” and torturous means "very painful, like torture.”
Hoard vs Horde
Hoard means "to collect and keep for oneself” and a horde is a large group.
This weeks grammar issue that I found was at an apartment complex in Denver. I could not believe that this was professionally printed without anyone correcting it. “Find” should be “fined.”
10/18
I can't lie, AP is a totally different beast than any other writing style I have dealt with. It isn't easy and at times, it isn't fun! That being said, here are some of my favorite and valuable things I learned from taking a deep-dive into the AP Stylebook:
The Internet- AP finally gave in to peer pressure by lowercasing and making "website" into one word, but they're still adamant that the Internet and the Web always be uppercase. Doesn't make sense to me but I will go with it.
State Abbreviations: Luckily, Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, Texas and Utah are never abbreviated. That's easy enough to remember... I guess. However, the rest of the 50 not only don't get the same treatment, but they don't even use the standard Postal Service abbreviations. Instead of "CA," it's "Calif." and "WY" is "Wyo." Memorizing these may be difficult but it is difficult enough for me to remember to check the stylebook.
OK. OK?- None of this "okay" business. It's OK, OK'd, OK'ing and OKs. And.. Yeah, it's going to look like you're shouting. It's OK.
More than vs Over- There are probably more than the average number of people getting this one wrong. "More than" refers to numbers. For example: "More than 80,000 people showed up to Coachella this year." "Over" refers to spatial relationships like, "Many hipsters flew from the East Coast over the Rockies to get to the music festival in Indio, Calif."
Toward and Anyway- Add an "s" to the end of these words and prepare for the wrath of every American copy editor's red pen. This is a personal pet peeve of mine, so it was exciting for me to see the rule in writing.
Champagne- This one made little sense to me but grab the bottle and check the label. If it's from the Champagne region of France, always capitalize. If made elsewhere, call it "sparkling wine." Yeah, because we all know the many regions of France so well.
10/26
In a review of the new movie, “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay- Part 2, the author, Andrew Lapin of NPR, demonstrates a variance in sentence length as discussed in chapter ten. He is describing a scene about one of the characters that is an actor who has since passed away. He variates between long sentences and really short ones. This isn’t typical for this type of review, but it really sets the tone for the topic. Here is what he said: One of the first images we see in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2 is that of Philip Seymour Hoffman. This is a welcome seance. We have said many farewells to Hoffman — one of our generation's finest actors, here playing Panem resistance mastermind Plutarch Heavensbee — since his death in February 2014, almost two years ago. This is not another goodbye. His breezy role here is more like meeting an old friend in town for a quick drink just before he leaves again for good. Sad to see you go, sir, but at least we did see you once more. Safe travels. I like this style of writing because it isn’t redundant and sets a cadence for the entire reading.
11/1 (week 9)
This one is a personal pet peeve of mine because I experience some of these on a regular basis in my professional life, mostly sexism. Being that I am the only woman on an all male sales team, I always hear things like, “Sales Guys,” when they are discussing our team. I let it slide but it bothers me that it doesn’t even occur to them that it is insulting. This happens a lot with jobs that have common old fashioned gender role ideals. There is a new radio station that has advertisements about the type of music they play on the station. Within the advertisement, they refer to the age group that it should appeal to and use negative connotations about them being “old school” and not “hip”. There was a sign in front of a parking stall that was meant for a handicap sign. This sign had been added to by the store owners (I assume) and added a paragraph that said, “Parking for Disabled Persons… Not fat people.” Although this is negative target at people who are overweight, it also negatively groups them with people who are unable to walk far from a parking spot. Racism is one of the most common these days, and it is sickening. I saw signs up in a building the other day that was pointed at police and saying that they are racist. In the language, it was actually more racist toward white people than the other way around. All of these things are types of language we should all avoid.
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