Never rely on spell-check.
My excuse is that the magazine’s news section is huge, 8,600 words, assembled from more than 100 contributions.
My error was that I rushed this project, putting too much faith in the spell-checker. Yes, the red squiggles in Word alerted me to ones spelled wrong. But no alarm sounded when a wrong, correctly spelled word was used.
English has dozen of words … Continue reading
How do you remember which word is right?
This past week, an author questioned if I’d used the right word. Should the sentence refer to the decision to add or to ad an accessory to his car?
As I responded to his email, my brain invented a memory trick to distinguish the two. “We want the word related to ADDitional,” I wrote, “not ADvertising.”
And other reasons you may need an editor.
“I hope I don’t catch flack from my wife,” the author wrote me, “for having to write on Mother’s Day.”
I understood what he meant, even if he didn’t type flak.
What’s the difference? The first means a publicity agent. The second is a burst of anti-aircraft fire. I know which one I’d rather catch.
How can you … Continue reading