Hated Expressions

Everybody has them. Expressions or phrases that drive you around the twist. According to Grammar girl, Stephen King’s most hated expressions are, ‘many believe’ and ‘some people say’.  I hate ‘they say’. Who are ‘they?’ I ask when someone says this to me, and get a blank stare cause they don’t know who the fuck ‘they are’ either? My partner hates, ‘at the end of the day’ because I say it frequently and in truth I don’t know why I do. I picked it up, just like ‘absolutely’.  My mum hated, ‘you can’t help bad luck’ which my Uncle says a lot. Dad despises, ‘that’s exactly right’…which I must confess, I hear fall out of my mouth more often than it should possibly. ‘I guess’…well do you know or don’t you? To me, ‘I guess’ is a fence sitter who uses it as a response to anything maudlin, it’s not definitive, it’s namby-pamby. It’s a dude wearing long white socks and sandals.

Since the launch of Facebook, (the social media we love to hate and hate to love), the phrase, ‘said no one ever’ and ‘that moment when...’ (you realise Ellen DeGeneres has a hotter wife than you [because why wouldn’t she? Obviously posted by bogan straight guy]), for example, have been favoured posts by many! Unfortunately these have crept into real life. Having a chat with a friend the other day I said, ‘sometimes blue cheese and pepperoni can be too much’ and she said, ‘said no one ever’.  She in turn hates, ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it too’…which of course you can…

’I’m not going to lie to you’…what? So now you’re not going to lie to me but every single thing you’ve said since we met has been lies? Is that what we’re saying here?

What about ‘we’re pregnant’? No, no, you’re not both pregnant, unless you’re both girlfriends and both pregnant. I CANNOT stand that. One of you is pregnant, that does not take the baby away from the other one but ‘we’re not pregnant’. Just no.  No, you’re really fucking not both pregnant.

‘Not a happy camper’, that’s said by a dad wearing those pulled up white socks and sandals isn’t it? Probably wearing a skivvy too.

‘I can tell you but then I’d have to kill you’. Fuck off. Really? Pops humour, not funny and way overused, just like ‘it’s not rocket science’…how would most people even know what rocket science is…it could, in fact be rocket science.  And people! ‘of’ shouldn’t really be used as often as it is.  ‘I should of taken the train’, instead of ‘should have’. ‘I Jumped off of the bed’…it’s simply ‘I jumped off the bed’. Work on that!

I predict the next hated phrase will be (and soon), ‘aint nobody got time for dat’. But my most hated two expressions of all time, king and Queen of hated phrases in fact are, of an evening’ and ‘my bad’. End of message. Just saying! www.kirstieanders.com

Are you’s, Ewes?

You’s comin’ up for tea? There are a few phrases and words that drive me mad. In fact, they do more than get on my nerves. It’s like ‘hearing’ rage. I hear it and I want to punch someone, generally the culprit because it would be unfair to hit anyone else. I’m sure I would get away with justifiable homicide if I worked someone over enough about it. But using 'you's' or 'youse' is referring to female sheep to me (different spelling of course), and I'm no Dolly. 

I get that there are so many ways to say something; Australia in particular is full of slang and short cuts, it makes us Aussies. Some of it is historical, some is hysterical and some is horrific. We Australians all know what it means when someone says, ‘what’s your ankle biter having for its tucker? Tell him to bog in and stop his yabbering’.  We would probably not say it anymore or because many of us feel that’s best left with the cockys, bushys and some old timers but stuff like ‘yous’ instead of ‘you all’ and when someone says, ‘I seen that myself’ rather than ‘I saw’ or ‘I done that yesterday’ as an alternative of ‘I did’, is simply off beam. There’s no room for it, none.  It’s inexcusable. 

I understand nowadays that there are fairly strict societal rules about being politically correct and thank God. I know that sometimes people just don’t know what the hell to say particularly because governments upgrade language to acceptable standards so that minority groups in particular are not discriminated against, offended or that the speaker doesn’t come across sounding like a red necked imbecile. But this is incredibly misguided.  You see seen is a past participle so use it by all means, but when using it put stuff before it like ‘I have seen it’, this is an auxiliary verb and you can use have, had, was, were, am, is and so on or use saw…it’s not hard, it just isn’t. It’s past, present and future. The difference is akin with done and did. People will want to physically harm you if you say ‘I done it like that’, instead of ‘I did it like that’. Work out if it’s past or present. People will love you for it. http://www.kirstieanders.com/

Ask me

Not Noah’s boat that housed millions of coupled animals, no. This is a language disaster. Try though I may I just can’t get past it. When someone says to me ‘Arks your friend if I can borrow her pen’ or ‘I'm arksking you to come over here', I could die...well almost. I will never, ever be ready for 'arks'...unless of course it’s God sending a message about it raining for 40 days and 40 nights to drown us right out.
Ark ɑːk/ noun 1. (in the Bible) the ship built by Noah to save his family and two of every kind of animal from the flood; Noah's ark. o archaic a ship or boat. plural noun: arks

People!!!! - get it right. It’s ASK. Arse-K. Always has been (well since the 1600’s), always will be. ‘Ask me a question’, or ‘Ask me what my favourite colour is’...I don't care, just don't arks me...it’s wrong, it's frigging lazy and it's a boat built cubit by cubit. My thoughts are, if it’s cultural, that’s okay. If it’s a speech impediment, that's okay...if not...don’t use it. It discredit’s you. Most of you are not gangsters, rappers or from the Caribbean. Back in Chaucer’s day he used ‘I ax’...Chaucer wrote between 1374 to 1386. The olden days. Even Shakespeare used ‘Ask’. Stop it...it’s ARRRSSSKKKK...Ask. It’s just ask.

Why is a real person best?

People! Don’t trust your spell check only. Well not to capture more than misspelled words anyway and sometimes it finds it hard to distinguish between US spelling and Australian spelling so may still get it wrong.

Don’t rely on tools for digital accuracy either; they may pick up spelling but not always grammar mistakes and if they do pick up some grammatical errors they sometimes replace them with incorrect suggestions. You just can’t beat the eye of a human proofreader. Digital will cost you in more ways than one and will get you 50% but not 100%. A real proofreader/editor will cost you too but you can often negotiate and your work will be dead right.

There are a number of online programs you c

an use such as Ginger, Whitesmoke, Text to speed, After the deadline, Microsoft word, Online correction, Grammar check, Reverso, Spellcheck plus, Paper rater, turnitin…just to name a few and then there’s me. Try them yourself. On their landing page they give you an opportunity to trial a passage. I tried with all of the above and not once did it pick up all the errors. Truthfully they often managed 80% of the spelling errors, sometimes more but missed the grammatical errors nearly 100% of the time. I looked into these programs to be a backup for my editing and proofreading work but was disappointed with the results. Certainly for spelling but then just go with Microsoft word which is free and more accurate than the other programs I trialled. If you're keen to get it right first time check out my website and contact me for a quote via my website www.kirstieanders.com

Tautologies and Feedback

When writing a paper, using a trillion purposeless words are a waste of time. They’re unnecessarily filling. It’s like pouring custard on a custard tart. Why would you do it? It is an obvious striving to reach that word count that looms ahead of you and you have run out of references or things to say. Thing is, your lecturer knows this.  You’re probably better off being under the word count than adding verbose jargon.  Reading papers like this as an editor and proofreader is like listening to a wordy little tune by Paul Simon about a bat faced girl.  No-one really enjoys that. My red pen comes out and slashes at these words with teeth bared and great resolve and gladness.  Superfluous words like tautologies of; in  addition or worse - in addition to that, furthermore, also, still, moreover, henceforth (personal disgust), hereafter, nonetheless, nevertheless. Then there is the over use of ‘the’ and ‘so’.  You don’t need to use ‘the’ all the time. ‘The best practice’ for example is okay, in fact superior being called ‘best practice’.  I can often see thesaurus suggestions jump out at me in paragraphs that have required paraphrasing. Phrases like ‘a large proportion’ instead of the word, ‘many’. ‘By virtue of the fact that’, actually just ‘because’ would do. What about ‘sum total’ isn’t that the same thing? Or ‘unexpected surprise?’  However, (there just did it myself, but sometimes it is necessary, you can’t always just leap into a room without knocking first) reading page after page where an author has consistently and persistently used the same phrase at every paragraph without pause, like ‘in addition’ rather than mixing it up just a bit really does my head in. 

It’s funny, or maybe not that funny, that authors have asked me after proofreading and/or editing many works, what I thought of the paper as a whole. I do understand this but find it immaterial too. My role is to correct it, make it better, they want the feedback. I feel that it’s a bit like when a defendant asks his/her lawyer, ‘do you think I'm innocent?’ and the lawyer says, ‘it’s not what I think, it’s what I can prove’. It doesn't matter what I think, it’s what I can do to make it the best it can be. But I understand that feedback is important and I'm the one reading their work so it makes sense. What I have noticed is that when I give feedback, the client develops more of a trust with me and I feel more supportive. It alters our relationship just that little bit and in a positive way because I have gone from just some entity making red and blue marks on their papers to someone who has some feeling and opinion about what they have written. I think they deserve feedback and make a point now to give some encouraging comments as well as suggestions of what they might need to change to make it great. Proofreader and editor? http://kirstieanders16.wix.com/editingproofreading

Facts about editing and proofreading

Use of 'single' and "double" quotations

I grew up always using “double” quotation marks but Australia generally follows England’s lead rather than America’s when it comes to grammar and spelling. So these days, there is a partiality for ‘single’ quotation marks. Universities can vary with this however so it’s worth checking but I would air on the side of caution and go with single quotes. Using a quote within a quote though, calls for “double” quotation marks. For example, ‘Frank told me he didn't want to come by, he said he was “too busy” to hang out doing nothing with me’. I also feel that many double quotes can change the readability of something, making it too busy and dense. Other rules around quotation marks are where to place punctuation…before or after the quote mark? It depends whether the punctuation is part of the sentence within the quote, for instance, using a question mark, ‘Is it today you fly to Adelaide?’ demonstrates that the punctuation is part of the question, rather than ‘I asked you if you would be flying to Adelaide today’?

Capitalisation

Capital letters are also on the decline, making reading less full on and top heavy. The main rules apply naturally in terms of proper nouns, the first word in a sentence but in a heading for example, it is no longer imperative to capitalise every first letter of every word and we certainly don’t capitalise conjunctions like and, in, the, of, or others. For example, a heading is just fine being, ‘Proofreading and editing service’ rather than ‘Proofreading and Editing Service’. Only the first word and proper nouns need to be capitalised, such as ‘Proofreading and editing service in Brisbane’. Always make ‘I’ a capital no matter what. It is also a proper noun so the rule applies. Historical events like World War One, and in acronyms even if there are no capitals when spelled out like PTO, (please turn over). Mum and Dad can be tricky but when I'm talking about my dad I use a lower case d. When I say ‘Hi Dad, come over for dinner’ it’s a capital D.

Fonts

There are a plethora of fonts available now and it is so tempting to try many of them. Trust me, this looks ridiculous and unprofessional on any page and comic sans should be banned. Over used and made for comics…nothing else. The truth is some fonts work better for hard copies and some for reading on a screen although web fonts have certainly moved away from the web-safe Verdana, San Serif, Arial and Georgia fonts. Some fonts look pretty but are incredibly difficult to read, and some you would simply get tired of . I think if you are scribing something that was supposed to be brief and written by a child then this would be fun and for blogs perhaps and they can give a web page a real personality but they need to be assessed properly, fitting browsers, the style of page and platform used. A serious website about a legal practice for example would look ludicrous and unprofessional being done up in a preposterous font. Keep in mind that many institutions have strict rules about fonts such as Times New Roman 12 point, 1.5 space in between. There is no deviating. 

The power of proofreading

Proofreading is a system of scanning a document and correcting errors. This can happen electronically or on hard copy using proofreading marks (paper). Self-proofreading is fine and do-able, however, it can be quite difficult to step back far enough from your work to see errors within. Any last faults often occur just when stress levels are uppermost and time shortest, readers' minds resist recognising them as errors. Under these circumstances, proof-readers are inclined to see only what they want to see.

As a proofreader I find the best way to go about proofing work from someone is to initially print off a copy and read it out loud. I always mark as I go, in case I miss something on my second go over. I read aloud so I can hear a run on sentence or any other problems that you tend to pick up more than reading quietly. I often use another piece of paper to block the lines below where I am reading because I have a habit of reading ahead. This ensures that I am focused on the line I am on only. After I read it twice I put it down for 15 minutes and then come back to it. Just that small distance from it allows me often to pick up more errors. I don't rely simply on spell check when proofing online because it won't deal well with homonyms (e.g., 'they're,' 'their,' 'there') or certain typos (like 'he' for 'the'). Once I feel the document is complete and that the standard of presentation is suitable for publication, I again scrutinise each word, punctuation mark and graphic element for discrepancies before sending back. I also check that the layout and type stipulations have been precisely followed, and that the line breaks, and table and illustration placements are appropriate.

Good presentation to any piece of work of any sort can make a huge difference. Whether it's a website, newsletter, essay, brochure, or corporate document; errors tell me and the general public that it is not good enough, not professional enough. They ask, 'If they make mistakes like this, will their service be any good?' A simple proofread can make all the difference in getting good and numerous customers, good grades and establishing a good reputation for producing quality work. Proofreading is vital to creating completed pieces of quality work. Typos and inconsistencies happen to the best of writers. A spell-checker can only fix spelling errors, but do not take into account substituting 'is' or 'it' or using the incorrect forms of other words.

Contact me for an opportunity to get fast editing and proofreading completed on your masterpiece. http://kirstieanders.com

http://kirstieanders16.wix.com/editingproofreading