Itchypencil 5: Distracting signs
Part 5: Grammar: beyond the basics
Chat 32: Voice: active or passive?
Chat 33: Case: from Latin to modern English
Chat 35: Please allow my fancying possessives before gerunds
Itchypencil 6: Watch out! A roadside warning
Part 6: Punctuation: marks that matter
Chat 44: How much punctuation is necessary?
Chat 46:The powerful ’postrophe
Chat 47: Apostrophe do’s and don’ts
Itchypencil 7: ‘Norf’k’ – and the geese and cows
Chat 50: A reflection on ‘style’ from 1804
Chat 51: Plain English is the style
Chat 52: Strong, plain sentences
Chat 55: Ambiguity, vagueness and other traps
Chat 56: Sentence structure snares
Chat 57: 1 or 2 words about numbers
Chat 58:Say what you mean – in actual fact
Chat 59: Colloqualisms – colourful but clunky
Itchypencil 8: Only in Melbourne!
Part 8: The future of working words
Chat 60: Inclusiveness: who is ‘s/he’?
Chat 61: International English
Chat 63: Whither grammar and plain English?
Preface to the first edition
A lot has been written about English grammar, editing, plain English, effective writing, the business aspects of working from home as a freelance editor, writer and mentor, and so on. There are formal reference works on all of these topics, and this book does not seek to compete with any of them. Rather, it is a companion to all of them, to be picked up and dipped into at random for a somewhat lighter approach to these topics. It is dedicated to everyone who loves the English language and wants to make words work in their own writing and wants to help other writers to present their words to best effect.
I am a descriptive linguist – not a prescriptive grammarian. I have been editing as well as teaching, coaching and mentoring students of business English, academic writing and linguistics from a variety of cultures and language backgrounds since the 1970s. My work has included editing government, business and academic writing during this time. This has taught me that, while there are some conventions we need to follow in order to be understood, there are also new ideas, new technologies and changing fashions, all of which cause changes in those conventions and in the English language as a whole. I have, therefore, a flexible approach to the application of the ‘rules’ of English grammar in the workplace and in academic and other forms of writing. I tend to ‘go with the flow’. The words have to work. If they don’t, the whole document fails. Despite a grammar book’s insistence on a certain preposition with a certain adjective, for instance, it is clear that our living language will make today’s usage look ‘old hat’ in a few years, so it is often better to go for readability than to stick rigidly to a rule that was drawn up by prescriptive grammarians fifty or a hundred years ago.
Working words is based on the articles I wrote for the newsletter of the Canberra Society of Editors over a period of ten years. It is divided into eight parts, and the individual ‘chats’ (my word for chapters written in a chatty style) are grouped according to subject matter. The book first looks at what makes an editor and the craft of editing; and then some legal and ethical considerations. These are followed by the business side of working from home as an editor or writer. Several parts are devoted to aspects of English grammar, including some of the confusions that need demystifying, and punctuation. There’s a word or two about style in writing, and finally a look at what the future holds for communication in English. And there are some little surprise packages in between the parts which look at some of the oddities I have observed in the use of English