Hyphens

“Any Occassion Top”

Common English Blunders, Hyphens, Misspellings, Nouns

I saw this last evening on television.

Problems:
1. A word is misspelled.
2. A hyphen is missing.

Explanation:
Fashion designer Tim Gunn has a program on the Bravo television channel called “Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style”.

I saw in the episode last evening on this program a list of what he calls his “10 Essential Elements”; one of the elements was listed as “Any Occassion Top” — with no hyphen and with a second “s” in the second word.

Spelling the noun “Occasion” with a second “s” is a common English blunder.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

  • “occasion” — spelled correctly as O-C-C-A-S-I-O-N — 218,000,000 matches
  • “occassion” — spelled incorrectly as O-C-C-A-S-S-I-O-N — 3,340,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have favored the correct spelling over the incorrect spelling by a ratio of 65.3-to-1, which is very good but not excellent, given the more than three million incorrect spellings.

Correctly spelling the noun “Occasion” fixes only the first problem. When an adjective plus a noun modify another noun, the adjective and first noun must be joined with a hyphen to form the modifier of the second noun.

So the adjective “Any” plus the first noun “Occasion” must be joined with a hyphen to form the modifier of the second noun “Top”.

Solution:
“Any-Occasion Top”

How to keep working in a worsening economy

Apostrophes, Commas, Common English Blunders, Hyphens, Misspellings, Prepositions, Versus

As I write this, the Dow-Jones Industrial Average has dropped from a record high one year ago to a five-year low.

Insanity is often defined as expecting your personal situation to improve while you continue to do what you always have done.

Protecting your working life from a worsening economy requires standing out — in a good way — from the crowd.

I believe that communicating better makes this possible.

Here are ten tips to keep working in a worsening economy, all with a focus on communicating better — doing something different, so that you’ll get different results.

Tip 1. Watch your spelling.

Here are some of the misspellings that I have documented in this blog:

  • misspelling “extraordinary” as E-X-T-R-A-HYPHEN-O-R-D-I-N-A-R-Y
  • misspelling “pronunciation” as P-R-O-N-O-U-N-C-I-A-T-I-O-N
  • misspelling “likelihood” as L-I-K-E-L-Y-SPACE-H-O-O-D
  • misspelling “accessible” as A-C-C-E-S-S-A-B-L-E
  • misspelling “supersede” as S-U-P-E-R-C-E-D-E

You can throw off half your audience and embarrass yourself by misspelling a word in the title of one of your PowerPoint slides, in an important email message to your boss or customer, or on the front page of a white paper that you have written.

If you know that you are not a good speller, then take action, starting today, to change this.

Tip 2. Watch your punctuation.

Here are some of the punctuation problems that I have discussed in my blog:

You can improve your punctuation skills. Start today by buying a good book or two about punctuation.

Tip 3. Watch your words.

Picking the wrong word is another way to look bad in front of your fellow employees, your boss, or your customer or prospect.

Here are some pairs of words that give people trouble:

Some might argue that many Americans do not know the difference in each of the above word pairs, so you should not worry about knowing the differences.

I disagree. Knowing the differences in these and other commonly confused word pairs can set you apart from the crowd with someone who cares — someone who can give you a raise, someone who can recommend you for a promotion, or someone who can give you new or more business.

Tip 4. Watch your grammar.

While text messaging and instant messaging have encouraged people to write in sentence fragments, not knowing how to write complete, grammatically correct sentences in other written forms — email messages, white papers, etc. — can hurt your reputation with the people who have the most influence over your finances.

Here are some common mistakes with grammar:

I could list many other types of mistakes with grammar, but you get the point.

If you have a basic discomfort with your grammar skills, then read some books about English grammar.

If you are generally confident about these skills but wonder on occasion whether something is correct, then research your question — here or elsewhere online. That nagging feeling is usually there for a good reason; pay attention to it!

Tip 5. Watch your slang.

Although slang can be fun to use, and although the origins of various slang expressions can be fascinating, using slang in your work life can hobble your career.

Here are some types of slang:

  • regional slang, as in “y’all” or “you guys” in place of “you”;
  • ethnic slang, as in “Where you at?” or “Git ‘er done.”;
  • corporate slang, as in “open architecture” or “on the bubble”.

Now, you might know what all of the above examples mean, but this does not guarantee that your boss, your fellow employees, or your customers do, too.

A problem with regional slang is that people will use it against you by taking a “You are not from around here.” attitude.

A problem with ethnic slang is that people will use it against you by taking a “You are not one of us.” attitude.

And a problem with corporate slang is that it can seem intelligent when first read or heard but will later cause the reader or listener to wonder what you meant.

Tips 6-10.

I must postpone these for my next post.

Please think about these first five tips, take a break, and then return tomorrow for the remaining tips!

“These extra-ordinary times called for extra-ordinary actions.”

Adjectives, Hyphens, Misspellings

I saw this in a corporate message.

Problem:
The adjective is misspelled.

Explanation:
The correct spelling of the twice-used adjective in the sentence should have no hyphen.

I believe that the insertion of the hyphen reflects the writer’s discomfort with the presence of adjacent vowels that are parts of separate syllables.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following spellings (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

  • “extraordinary” — spelled E-X-T-R-A-O-R-D-I-N-A-R-Y — 65,500,000 matches
  • “extra-ordinary” — spelled E-X-T-R-A-HYPHEN-O-R-D-I-N-A-R-Y — 1,470,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have spelled this adjective correctly versus incorrectly by a ratio of 44.6-to-1, which is good but not great, especially given the nearly 1.5 million misspellings.

Solution:
“These extraordinary times called for extraordinary actions.”