Every writer makes the occasional absent-minded spelling mistake or typo – that’s what proofreaders are here for, after all! But any proofreader will tell you that it’s not these little blips that take up the most of their time. The…
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Yearly Archives: 2015
10 Common Errors Writers Make
Tagged with: capitalise, clause, common, error, house style, proofread, spell check, subordinate, tips, verb agreement, writer, writing
Posted in Uncategorized
Posted in Uncategorized
Literally redefining the English language
English is one of the most dynamic and adaptable languages in the world. While near neighbours such as France have committees in place to approve new and changing facets of their language, English is effectively “open source”; it is possibly…
Tagged with: definition, dictionary, English, figuratively, language, literally, usage
Posted in Proofreading/copy-editing, Vocabulary
Posted in Proofreading/copy-editing, Vocabulary
The En Rule
A previous post on this blog covered when to use a hyphen (-) and when to use a en dash (–). Under ‘En Dash’, point 2 stated that an en dash is used to show relationships and connections between two words.…
Tagged with: compound, copy-editing, en dash, en rule, equal, hyphen, partnership, proofreading, relationship, rule
Posted in Punctuation
Posted in Punctuation
How not to confuse e.g. and i.e.
The abbreviations e.g. and i.e. are confused with each other all the time, but they needn’t be. Often one is used in place of the other simply because the author doesn’t know the difference between the two – or even…
Tagged with: abbreviation, confusion, e.g., exempli gratia, for example, grammar, i.e., id est, Latin, that is
Posted in Grammar, Proofreading/copy-editing, Vocabulary
Posted in Grammar, Proofreading/copy-editing, Vocabulary
ICT Terminology – KB or kB?
Since I have a background in physics, errors in units are always slightly more likely to catch my eye during proofreading. It occurred to me while proofreading an ICT document that the unit of memory ‘kilobyte’ is more or less…