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‘It’s’ or ‘Its’?
These two are commonly confused. Here are the rules: ‘It’s’ is short for ‘it is’ or ‘it has’. ‘It’s been a long time coming.’ ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’ ‘It’s a massive hot air balloon shaped like Darth...
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‘Who’s’ or ‘Whose’?
These two words are often confused. We’re used to using apostrophes for possessives and this is not the case here, so this mistake is easily made. It is a similar issue to ‘it’s’ and ‘its’ and is very...
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Praise from the Magnificent Buzz Malone
Once upon a time on the Internet, I became acquainted with a brilliant author named Buzz Malone. After seeing my work on Chaunce Stanton’s The Blank Slate Boarding House for Creatives, to my delight he...
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Ngrams: A Magnificent Editing Tool
Basically, Google Ngrams searches all of the 5.2 million books digitized by Google for whatever word(s) or phrase(s) you want to look for or compare. It then plots them on a graph. This is extremely...
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Thirteen Thoughts On Dialogue
Readers love dialogue, or so I’ve read; apparently the white space is less daunting than solid paragraphs. In your novel make sure dialogue is achieving something – plot or character development. The...
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A Chat with DIY Author
A little while ago I was called upon to share some editing knowledge in vocalised format with the Interweb. Click here to listen to my pearls of relative wisdom. Everybody loves a podcast. Have some...
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‘Stationary’ or ‘Stationery’?
Back to school time: a time when proprietors try to cash in on young ones’ collective desire for decorative protractors, pens and paraphernalia. It is also a time when signage misspelling abounds. The...
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“I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.”
I’ve had an interesting, fun and varied year of proofreading and editing, as well as starting a new job working in libraries, and another writing for a publisher. I’ve been busy, but having a...
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‘Mother’s Day’, ‘Mothers’ Day’ or ‘Mothers Day’?
Another holiday, another apostrophe-based conundrum. The day on which we celebrate our mothers is almost upon us here in the UK, so what should we write on our card? Indeed, which card should we buy?...
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‘Peak’, ‘Peek’ or ‘Pique’ one’s interest?
I think peek can be taken out of the confusion equation most easily. It simply means ‘a secret look’, and one cannot ‘secret look one’s interest’ and claim grammatical wherewithal. However, errors...
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