Remembrance of Dings Past

If you’re in the type of business in which you work with clients, you know there’s nothing more self-flagellation-inducing than getting dinged for dumb mistakes in a document that should have been caught. Oy vey. Over and over I see the same five errors – on their own each is minor – but clients take notice and even when the rest of your work is stellar, it’s often these (and other) tiny things that get attention (and dinged). So, in no particular order: Companies, organizations and associations are single entities – each is an “it,” not a “they” – Blah-Blah Inc. announced its third-quarter earnings today. Mixing up “you’re” and “your” is surprisingly common, due more, I suspect, to carelessness than anything else. Use “you’re” when you mean “you are.” Otherwise, use “your.” Ditto “it’s” and “its.” Use an apostrophe for the contraction of “it is” only; remember, the possessive of “it” does not possess an apostrophe. “ly” words do not take hyphens because the “ly” acts as a clue telling us that the word it’s attached to will modify the word that follows  – Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s beautifully filmed movie, “The Lives of Others,” won an  Academy Award (not “beautifully-filmed"). Professional titles only are capitalized when they appear immediately before a person’s name – Senior Vice President Pia Wong said today…. but Pia Wong, senior vice president of Ring-A-Ding-Ding Corp., said today… What sort of errors do you make or see when editing others?

Note: Everyone makes mistakes, so don't beat yourself up over them - learn from them. If you see (or it's pointed out to you) that you're prone to one of these errors or some other error, make a mental note of it. Or an actual note. I have a little piece of paper pinned to my bulletin board that has two reminders: the difference between effect and affect (I can never remember and I've stopped trying) and the difference between i.e. and e.g. (ditto, can't remember). I've trained myself to look at the note each time I need to use one of those words. (Okay, I also have pinned up quotes from Milton Berle and Abraham Lincoln and my mother's phone number because even though I've been calling her at the same number since forever, now that I only have to press "mother" on my cell, I've completely forgotten her number. Sometimes I call her from work and I actually have to dial it.)

Comments

[Cindy Dashnaw]

Like most writers, I learned the hard way to always double-check dates in someone else's copy (and in my own!). If someone says an event is Tuesday, May 2, go right to the calendar and see if that's plausible. If May 2 actually is a Wednesday, don't assume that the writer simply got the weekday wrong. Go back to the source to verify.

[Matt B]

Speaking of companies, organizations, clients, etc: be sure to always spell their names correctly. Nothing burns a client more than seeing their (or is it "its") name misspelled or mixed up. For instance, is there a comma before "Inc," or a period after?

As for your "affect vs effect" problem, try this: (A)ffect is the (A)ction. (E)ffect is the (E)nd result. This will cover you in most cases.

[Dan]

I think number 1 very much depends on whether you're using US English, or British English. We don't refer to companies in the singular (or at least, we're not supposed to...)

[Mark Baker]

What else? Jive instead of jibe. Tact instead of tack. Chomping, rather than champing, at the bit. Everyday instead of every day (depending on the situation). "X, Y, Z and I" when "X, Y, Z and me" would be proper. And trooper instead of trouper.

[Donna Papacosta]

How about "comprised of"? Grrrrr.

[Jake]

Here is an error I often see: "She is the one that..." instead of "she is the one who...." People deserve a "who."

[Ragdoll]

I always notice when people break thoughts with space-hyphen-space instead of using an em dash. (Was that a low blow?)

Also, writing "of" instead of "have" always looks foolish ("He should of been there").

"For all intensive purposes," limits your phrasing of "for all intents and purposes" to only the most extreme circumstances, which really contradicts the writer's true intent.