----------------------------------------------------------------- THE BETTER WRITING SKILLS NEWSLETTER, June 2012 By Tim North of Scribe Consulting www.scribe.com.au ----------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to the Better Writing Skills newsletter. IN THIS ISSUE 1. Four reasons why you should care about punctuation 2. What's the past tense of "cc"? 3. A free chapter from "Report Writing: Reports and Letters Made Easy" 4. Just for fun Your comments and questions are always welcome. Just send email to: info@scribe.com.au Cheers, Tim North (Perth, Western Australia) ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Four reasons why you should care about punctuation ----------------------------------------------------------------- Many of us lack the skills to punctuate correctly. Not having received training, we punctuate via a mix of intuition and good intentions. While this is often sufficient to get by, incorrect punctuation can cause our writing to be unclear to our readers. This can cause problems that range from the embarrassing to the expensive. Let's look at four examples that demonstrate this clearly. EXAMPLE #1 Imagine that you use SMS to send the following message to a loved one: You know I'm sorry I still love you Being the hip, young thing that you are, you don't punctuate your SMS. After all, who punctuates anything they type on their phone? Unfortunately, without punctuation the meaning is unclear. It could be an apology: You know I'm sorry. I still love you. Or it could be a bitter statement of regret: You know, I'm sorry I still love you. It's to avoid (disastrous!) confusion like this that we need to know how to punctuate. EXAMPLE #2 In the following pair, the change in meaning is more subtle: The house which Jack built is over here. The house, which Jack built, is over here. The first sentence implies that Jack has built only one house. (It means "The ONE house which Jack built is over here.") In the second sentence, the number of houses built by Jack is not stated. (It means "The house is over here. Jack built it".) The number of houses built is unclear. Can you imagine a situation in which accidentally leaving the quantity ambiguous like this could cause problems? Of course. Consider contracts, technical specification or patient-care instructions to name just a few. Subtle differences of punctuation can change the meaning of what we write. EXAMPLE #3 Just in case you think that this is all a bit theoretical, consider this rather worrying media report from 2006: A contract dispute in Canada centers on what's being called a million dollar comma. Canada's telecommunications regulator has decided that a misplaced comma in a contract concerning telephone poles will allow a company to save an estimated $2 million (Canadian). www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6383383 EXAMPLE #4 Still not convinced that punctuation can change the meaning of what you write? Compare these two sentences: Let's eat, Grandma. Let's eat Grandma. One is an invitation to eat with family; the other an invitation to eat family. Oh dear! -- This article was adapted from my writing course "Editing and Proofreading: A Practical Guide to Good Writing". A full table of contents of the downloadable training manual is available here: http://www.scribe.com.au/editing-proofreading-2.html -- (c) 2012 Tim North: http://www.scribe.com.au ----------------------------------------------------------------- 2. What's the past tense of "cc"? ----------------------------------------------------------------- My first correspondent this month, Luke, wrote in with the following question: How should we write the past tense of CC, as in writing an email and "CCing" someone. I've seen "CC'd" and "CCed", but would appreciate your insight into this. "cc" (or less commonly "c.c.") stands for "carbon copy". Before the days of photocopiers or email, carbon paper was used to make a duplicate of a printed message. Today, although carbon paper is long gone, we still use "cc" to mean "send a copy to". Luke is correct to point out that there are several ways of writing the past tense of "cc". These include cc'd, ccd, cc-ed and cced. My own preference is not to use any of them as I feel that they're all equally unattractive. I'd suggest just writing "copied". For example, instead of "I cc'd the memo to John", you could write: I copied the memo to John. I sent a copy of the memo to John. Hope this helps. -- (c) 2012 Tim North: http://www.scribe.com.au ----------------------------------------------------------------- Do you know someone who'd like this newsletter? ----------------------------------------------------------------- Do you have a friend or colleague who'd find the Better Writing Skills newsletter interesting? If so, please feel free to send a copy of this issue to them. Alternatively, please tell them they can browse back issues here: http://www.scribe.com.au/newsletter.html Thanks for helping to make this newsletter so successful! ----------------------------------------------------------------- 3. A free chapter from "Report Writing: Reports and Letters Made Easy" ----------------------------------------------------------------- During the month, I updated my popular report-writing ebook to include two new chapters on letter writing in addition to the existing material on report writing. The first chapter, "Writing for your readers" is available in full here: http://www.scribe.com.au/report-writing.html The full table of contents can be found here: http://www.scribe.com.au/report-writing-2.html Your feedback on the content is very welcome. Enjoy. -- (c) 2012 Tim North: http://www.scribe.com.au ----------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Just for fun ---------------------------------------------------------------- Regular correspondent, Denise, sent in a wonderful list entitled "The things we owe our parents". You can find it here: http://goo.gl/pcXNF [AlLowe.com] It includes such gems as: My Parents taught me about the science of OSMOSIS: "Shut your mouth and eat your dinner." My Parents taught me about CONTORTIONISM: "Will you look at that dirt on the back of your neck!" Enjoy. Cheers, Tim. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Would you like more help with your writing? ----------------------------------------------------------------- On my web site, you'll find my range of jargon-free, downloadable e-books that will help you to become a better writer. These e-books will help you with business proposals, report writing, term papers, technical writing, grant writing, creative writing and more: http://www.scribe.com.au/ebooks.html I also run in-house training courses for government and industry: http://www.scribe.com.au/writing-training.html ---------------------------------------------------------------- REPRODUCING THIS MATERIAL You're welcome to reproduce the articles from this newsletter that are copyrighted by Tim North, but please don't modify or sell them. Also, please provide a clickable link back to: http://www.scribe.com.au FUTURE MAILINGS You can prevent (or receive) future mailings by visiting this page: http://www.scribe.com.au/newsletter.html This is a GENUINE service, and you will not receive any unsolicited email as a result. You have my word on it. -----------------------------------------------------------------