So possessive!

Forming possessives and plurals can be confusing. This may be because both involve the letter “s.”

The most common possessive form is apostrophe + s: Bill’s nonsense. This rule applies even if the possessor’s name ends in “s”: Bowers’s issues.

Then there’s the plural possessive, s + apostrophe: the editors’ rules.

For forming plurals, drop any thought of apostrophes. You don’t need them. In most cases, just add an “s,” or in some cases, “es”: cats, homes, lenses, ranches. What about decades and numbers, you ask? Add an “s”: 1970s, 1990s. People in their 60s (or sixties).

And of course some words have unusual plural forms: people, men, women. And some plurals are the same as the singular: deer, elk, moose, trout.

Here are the answers to the bloopers in the last post:

5. Most fly line companies have their own propriety combinations of these ingredients to produce the line qualities they are looking for.

Propriety is a noun meaning proper demeanor or decorum. What’s needed here is the adjective proprietary, meaning an exclusive or unique technology belonging to a company.

4. How scandalous and utterly unprecedented in the anals of American politics.

Add an n: in the annals of politics. We’ve spent too much time in the other place of politics already.

3. Finally we were able to stalk close enough to take that beautiful buck with my .300 magnum rifle, shooting a 180-grain Nosler petition.

A petition is an appeal, often widely circulated, to redress grievances. This should be Nosler Partition, the brand name for a famous, specially designed hunting bullet from Nosler Bullet Company.

2. And you too may begin picking rocks off the stream bottom and identifying the insects there—maybe even taking some samples home in viles.

Wrong word. Vile is an adjective meaning horrid or disgusting. Should be vials, small containers for holding scientific or medical samples.

1. The Caney Fork tailwater was borne in the late 1950s from the deep waters of Center Hill Lake.

Borne means carried or supported. Should be born the late 1950s . . .

Here are some new editorial funnies with which to test yourself:

5. The ability to obtain healthcare is an important goal for middle class wager earners and their families.

4. Unsafe working conditions include a work area covered in a “thick film of drilling mud,” supposedly watertight equipment that actually leaked and safety equipment that was passed its inspection date.

3. With their gargantuan appetites and predisposition to feed on baitfish, the Great Lakes provide the ideal habitat for these beastly predators.

2. Although often misunderstood, Tom Gresham demonstrates that shooting from a bench is actually quite simple.

1. My old-time Republican friends say they have pretty much had it and their disdain for John McCain is palatable.

That’s foreign to me

Like many writers, you might be tempted to use foreign words to lend your prose a certain air of worldly sophistication. This can have the desired effect—if the foreign words are spelled and used correctly.

If not, the effect is exactly the opposite: You can end up looking like a poser or a wannabe. To avoid this, use foreign words sparingly and with care. Make sure the word is appropriate to the context and the audience.

Most important: Look it up, in a printed or online dictionary, to make sure you’re spelling it correctly. In my editing work, I’ve seen all the following words, all misspelled: gourmét, coup de gras, chow, je ne say quoi, schadenfreud, sunomi.

The correct versions are gourmet, coup de grace (French for killing shot administered to put a wounded animal out of its misery), ciao (Italian for either hello or good-bye, depending on the context), je ne sais quoi (French for I-don’t-know-what, meaning a certain indescribable something), schadenfreude (German for pleasure at the misfortune of others) and tsunami (the English version of the Japanese word for tidal wave).

Used properly, foreign words can be powerful, giving your writing a real flair, a certain elegance or je ne sais quoi. But foreign words are also like firearms—if you’re not careful, you might shoot yourself in the foot.

Here are the answers to the bloopers in the last post:

5. I must admit my thoughts did go to Ruark’s “Death in the Tall Grass” due to the present bush conditions.

Wrong author, wrong book. Robert Ruark (1915-1965) wrote two classic, famous books about big game hunting in Africa: Horn of the Hunter (1953) and Use Enough Gun (1966). Peter Hathaway Capstick (1940-1996) wrote several hunting books, of which Death in the Long Grass (1977) is the most famous. Rewritten thus: . . . did go to Hathaway Capstick’s Death in the Long Grass due to the . . .

4. After having some cool beverages, our luggage and rifle cases were loaded into the hunt vehicles and we departed for camp.

Dangling modifier. This states that the luggage and rifle cases had some cool beverages. Rewritten thus: After we enjoyed some cool beverages, our luggage . . .

3. Thousands of curiosity seekers diverged on the small town to see what possessions of Eddie’s would be auctioned.

Wrong word. To diverge means to move apart. Should be converged.

2. Using a router with a 3/8” rabbit bit, cut a grove along the outer edge of the plaque.

Wrong words. A rabbit is, well, you know. S/b rabbet, meaning a channel, groove or recess. A grove is a group of trees. S/b groove.

1. Nonpsychotic major depression during pregnancy and the postpartum are a widespread health threat to mother, infants, and families.

Lack of agreement between subject and verb. Depression is singular; therefore the verb must be singular as well. Nonpsychotic major depression is a widespread health threat.

Here are some new editorial funnies with which to test yourself:

5. Most fly line companies have their own propriety combinations of these ingredients to produce the line qualities they are looking for.

4. How scandalous and utterly unprecedented in the anals of American politics.

3. Finally we were able to stalk close enough to take that beautiful buck with my .300 magnum rifle, shooting a 180-grain Nosler petition.

2. And you too may begin picking rocks off the stream bottom and identifying the insects there—maybe even taking some samples home in viles.

1. The Caney Fork tailwater was borne in the late 1950s from the deep waters of Center Hill Lake.

Comparatively superlative

Editors often see errors like this:

The Watson River is the smallest of the two, and is known for its rainbow trout fishing.

If you recognized that smallest is incorrect and should be smaller, you know about comparatives and superlatives, whether you realize it or not.

Comparatives and superlatives are special forms of adjectives that are used in comparing two or more things. In the example above, the writer incorrectly used the superlative form (smallest) when he should have used the comparative form (smaller).

How do you tell? Simple: Use the comparative when you’re comparing only two things, and the superlative for more than two.

Comparative: Choose the lesser of two evils.

Superlative: Murphy’s Law states that if anything can go wrong, it will, at the worst possible time.

Adjective      Comparative      Superlative

good                  better                        best

less                   lesser                        least

bad                     worse                       worst

Here are the answers to the bloopers in the last post:

5. David W. Johnson is described as Gov. David A. Paterson’s closest confidante, despite arrests in the aide’s past and disputes with women that drew the police.

Wrong noun form. A confidante (with an e) is a woman in whom one confides. For a man, it should be confidant.

4. And, no, Lloyd Blankfein getting a bonus of “only” $9 million this year won’t diffuse the populist outrage.

Wrong verb. Diffuse means to spread. Should be defuse, meaning to disarm or render harmless.

3. Anyone who thinks famous pro athletes are monogamous (even married ones) are delusional.

Lack of agreement between subject and verb. Anyone is singular, so its verb must be is: Anyone who thinks . . . is delusional.

2. After realizing he could build a better bullet, the Nosler Partition came into being.

Dangling modifier. This says that the Nosler Partition (a bullet brand) realized it could build a better bullet . . . or something. Rewritten thus: After John Nosler realized he could build a better bullet, the Nosler Partition came into being.

1. Being a small country of only 5.5 million people, I was surprised to learn that it is home to more than 40,000 red deer, as well as a host of other game animals.

Another dangling modifier. This says that the writer (I) is a small country of 5.5 million people. Rewritten thus: Because it’s a small country of only 5.5 million people, I was surprised to learn that it is home to . . .

Here are some new editorial funnies with which to test yourself:

5. I must admit my thoughts did go to Ruark’s “Death in the Tall Grass” due to the present bush conditions.

4. After having some cool beverages, our luggage and rifle cases were loaded into the hunt vehicles and we departed for camp.

3. Thousands of curiosity seekers diverged on the small town to see what possessions of Eddie’s would be auctioned.

2. Using a router with a 3/8” rabbit bit, cut a grove along the outer edge of the plaque.

1. Nonpsychotic major depression during pregnancy and the postpartum are a widespread health threat to mother, infants, and families.

Engraved in stone . . . er, skin

Jay Leno’s guest one night was actor Johnny Depp, who told the following story. Mr. Depp was once in a romantic relationship with actress Winona Ryder. During this time, he had the words “Winona forever” tattooed on his body.

Alas, the relationship with Ms. Ryder turned out not to be forever. The bad news is that tattoos are pretty much permanent. The good news is that skilled tattoo artists can often alter existing tattoos.

Mr. Depp has a sense of humor, and his tattoo artist had some conveniently ordered letters to work with and artfully covered a couple of them with some new ink. The tattoo apparently now reads: “Wino forever.”

I don’t have any tattoos. (My lovely wife, Eileen, has a delicate dragonfly tattoo, placed carefully where she can display it or cover it, as she chooses.) Anyone who decides to have words tattooed had better make sure the tattoo artist has a dictionary handy.

Here are some new editorial funnies with which to test yourself.

5. David W. Johnson is described as David A. Paterson’s closest confidante, despite arrests in the aide’s past and disputes with women that drew the police.

4. And, no, Lloyd Blankfein getting a bonus of “only” $9 million this year won’t diffuse the populist outrage.

3. Anyone who thinks famous pro athletes are monogamous (even married ones) are delusional.

2. After realizing he could build a better bullet, the Nosler Partition came into being.

1. Being a small country of 5.5 million people, I was surprised to learn that it is home to more than 40,000 red deer, as well as a host of other game animals.

Here are the answers to the bloopers in the last post:

5. It’s hard holding off on such a big buck, but for TV, everything has to be just right, or all the effort is for not.

Wrong word; should be naught, which is synonymous with nothing.

4. We are a custom components manufacture for the shooting industry. We specialize in manufacturing custom parts for archery, black power, firearms, reloading equipment and more.

Should be manufacturer. Hmm, shades of Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton–I’m dating myself here. In the 1960s, the leftist Black Panther Party agitated for black power. Here, this should be blackpowder. (Many outdoor books and magazines spell this as one word.)

3. Bernanke, needlessly appointed by Obama to a second term, has become the lightening rod for popular frustration at the Wall Street bias of this administration.

Wrong word; should be lightning. Lightening means making lighter.

2. Intended to be a straight acting role, four musical numbers were added to further take advantage of Elvis’s popularity as a singer.

Excuse me, but your modifier is dangling. This says that the musical numbers were intended to be a straight acting role. (Huh?) Rewritten thus: Though the part was intended to be a straight acting role, . . .

1. The guide’s calls drew a response, and when we moved a bit our binoculars saw a big stutter in the field, fanned out in the sun in all his glory.

Should be strutter, as in a tom turkey strutting his stuff, trying to impress the hens.

The principal principle

If anything drives writers, editors and (according to my dad, who worked as one for decades) English teachers around the bend, it’s the homonyms principal and principle.

The correct choice depends on whether the word is a noun or an adjective, but unfortunately there are exceptions. Let’s impose some method on this madness.

1. Most of the time, when the word is a noun, you want principle, meaning a general or fundamental truth, or a governing code of conduct.

Noun examples:

Newton’s three laws of motion are the guiding principles of physics.

Unscrupulous people have few moral principles.

NRA instructors teach the principles of gun safety.

2. Most of the time, when the word is an adjective, you want principal, meaning main or chief. (Principal derives from the same word root as prince.)

Adjective examples:

Chicken is the principal ingredient of chicken stew.

Professional networking and friendship are the principal benefits of WOMA membership.

Now for the exceptions. As previously stated, principle is almost always a noun. Sometimes, principal can also be a noun (rather than an adjective), meaning a chief or leader, or the main actor in an organization or event.

Examples:

The principal is the school’s chief administrator.

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer were the principals who founded Microsoft.

Vice President Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton were the principals in the famous duel of July 11, 1804, in which Hamilton was mortally wounded.

To sum up:  Most of the time, use principal when you need an adjective and principle when you need a noun. But principal can sometimes be a noun when it means a leader. (“The school principal is your pal.”)

Say what?

Here are some new editorial funnies to test yourself. See how many errors you can spot. Each example contains at least one.

5. It’s hard holding off on such a big buck, but for TV, everything has to be just right, or all the effort is for not.

4. We are a custom components manufacture for the shooting industry. We specialize in manufacturing custom parts for archery, black power, firearms, reloading equipment and more.

3. Bernanke, needlessly appointed by Obama to a second term, has become the lightening rod for popular frustration at the Wall Street bias of this administration.

2. Intended to be a straight acting role, four musical numbers were added to further take advantage of Elvis’s popularity as a singer.

1. The guide’s calls drew a response, and when we moved a bit our binoculars saw a big stutter in the field, fanned out in the sun in all his glory.

Here are the answers to the bloopers in the last post:

5. Like many fly fishers, my first brook trout fell for an earthworm clawed from a muddy streambank.

The dreaded dangling modifier rears its ugly head. This says that the brook trout was like many fly fishers. Rewritten thus: Like many fly fishers, I caught my first brook trout with an earthworm clawed from a muddy streambank.

4. Remember how you feel after Christmas dinner? Well, the trout also have to loosen a belt before desert, and often take a day or two off before they actively start feeding again.

Should be dessert, a sweet treat enjoyed after dinner. A desert is a hot, arid landscape, such as the Sahara Desert. (Interestingly, Sahara is the English version of sahrā, Arabic for desert.)

3. The Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDOW) has several field locations where DOW personnel strips the eggs and artificially inseminates the row.

Wrong verb tense: Personnel is plural, so this verb should be strip. Wrong word: Should be roe, meaning fish eggs.

2. Both the fore-end and stock are crafted from a durable, weatherproof synthetic material to compliment the non-reflective matte metal finish.

(“You look really nice today,” the stock told the metal finish.) Wrong word: Should be complement, meaning to augment or enhance. Compliment means to praise or flatter. Bonus points if you spotted “fore-end” and “non-reflective.” Nowadays this part of a gunstock is often spelled forend; and words with the prefix “non” are often closed: nonreflective.

1. Sitting down to write about Montana fly-fishing guide Stacy Jennings, wracking my brain for a slightly edgy hook, I realized that the editor of the Missoula Independent had already written it for me, in giving Stacy the paper’s 2007 award for Best Fishing Guide.

(This was one of my own errors, and our astute WOMA President Barb Baird caught it, saving my red-faced editorial butt, not for the first time.) Wrong word: Should be racked, meaning tormented or tortured. Wracked is a synonym for wrecked or destroyed.

Fewer pitch

Writers are sometimes confused about when to use less and when to use fewer.  And editors commonly see (and correct) erroneous constructions such as less people.

I’m happy to report that this is one of the few situations in our endlessly quirky, riddled-with-exceptions English language with a simple, hard-and-fast rule to guide you.

Here’s the rule: When describing something you can count, use fewer; when describing something you can’t count, use less.

Things you can count include people, bass, deer, rocks, trees, hunting trips, mountains, rivers, continents and oceans. (Use fewer.)

Things you can’t count include time, water, trouble, happiness, air, love, space, soil and meat. (Use less.)

Here are some examples:

• Less venison; fewer roasts
• Less happiness; fewer moments of joy
• Less love; fewer affectionate gestures
• Less grass; fewer blades of grass
• Less water; fewer rivers
• Less time; fewer hours
• Less space; fewer parking spaces
• Less trouble; fewer problems

Here are some new editorial funnies to test yourself. See how many errors you can spot. Each example contains at least one.

5. Like many fly fishers, my first brook trout fell for an earthworm clawed from a muddy streambank.

4. Remember how you feel after Christmas dinner? Well, the trout also have to loosen a belt before desert, and often take a day or two off before they actively start feeding again.

3. The Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDOW) has several field locations where DOW personnel strips the eggs and artificially inseminates the row.

2. Both the fore-end and stock are crafted from a durable, weatherproof synthetic material to compliment the non-reflective matte metal finish.

1. Sitting down to write about Montana fly-fishing guide Stacy Jennings, wracking my brain for a slightly edgy hook, I realized that the editor of the Missoula Independent had already written it for me, in giving Stacy the paper’s 2007 award for Best Fishing Guide.

Here are the answers to the bloopers in the last post:

5. At the height of the Great Depression, the unemployment rate in the United States stood at 25%.

It makes more sense to substitute depth or nadir when writing about a depression. For the same reason, you wouldn’t write “depth of the mountain” either.

4. He grew up in Detroit and his love for the city and its people are palpable, as is his grief for the horrors the city has endured.

The plural verb doesn’t agree with its singular subject, which here is love. His love is palpable.

3. We have a serious problem in this country—our champagne financing. TV covers candidates directly commiserate with their ability to sell ads, so an attractive candidate gets more coverage that someone not so photogenic.

Wrong word; should be campaign financing. (Champagne is the famous sparkling wine from the Champagne region of France. It’s expensive, so lots of people have a problem financing it.) Wrong word; should be commensurate, meaning corresponding in amount. (Commiserate is a verb meaning to sympathize.) Wrong word; should be than.

2. The tragic news did not phase Jonathon as much as Melinda had expected.

Wrong word; a phase is a particular step or stage in a process. Should be faze, a verb meaning to disturb.

1. After rounding the corner near the entryway, Wilson’s paranoia began to ease a little.

Here, rounding is a dangling modifier. (Currently this says that Wilson’s paranoia rounded the corner. But emotions don’t walk around inside buildings.) Rewritten thus: After rounding the corner near the entryway, Wilson felt his paranoia begin to ease a little.

Capital offense

Overuse of capital letters is a common spelling error. Everyone knows that some nouns (names of persons, places, things or concepts) need initial capital letters, and others don’t. The trick is figuring out when to use them.

There are two kinds of nouns: common nouns and proper nouns. Common nouns are not capitalized (unless they begin a sentence); proper nouns are always capitalized. Here’s one way to look at it: Common nouns are informal, while proper nouns are formal.

Proper nouns are the formal names of persons, or the official names of specific places or things: Bob, Sue, Chicago, Arizona, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Golden Gate Bridge, Smith & Wesson, United States.

Common nouns are informal or generic names: man, woman, city, state, hotel, bridge, firearm, nation. Most names of animals, fish, birds and plants are common nouns, not capitalized (even though they are names of specific entities): grizzly bear, rainbow trout, osprey, red oak.

What about the exceptions? (I knew it!) Some common nouns have proper-noun elements. Examples are animals, birds, plants or fish named for a specific, formal person, place, group, etc.: Stone sheep (named for Mr. Stone); Merriam’s turkey (named for Mr. Merriam); Kentucky coffee tree (named for the state); Apache trout (named for the tribe).

Here are this week’s editorial funnies to test yourself. See how many errors you can spot. Each example contains at least one.

5. At the height of the Great Depression, the unemployment rate in the United States stood at 25%.

4. He grew up in Detroit and his love for the city and its people are palpable, as is his grief for the horrors the city has endured.

3. We have a serious problem in this country—our champagne financing. TV covers candidates directly commiserate with their ability to sell ads, so an attractive candidate gets more coverage that someone not so photogenic.

2. The tragic news did not phase Jonathon as much as Melinda had expected.

1. After rounding the corner near the entryway, Wilson’s paranoia began to ease a little.

Here are the answers to the bloopers in the last post:

5. After we had conquered the mountain, we got off the horses and lead them down a steep tallow slope.

The past participle of to lead is led. Tallow is the purified fat of cattle or sheep; the correct word here is talus, for a pile of rocky debris.

4. She was a gorgeous, elegant lady and reminded him of a movie star, like Marilyn Monrow swan eye in a platinum mink stole.

The actress’s name was Marilyn Monroe. The author who wrote swan eye aimed high and missed; the correct word is soignée (pronounced SWEN-yay), French for stylishly well-groomed. (Pat yourself twice on the back if you got this one—it’s a fairly uncommon word. You might see it in Vogue or another high-end magazine.)

3. Every week, the Spotlight shits on a different member and highlights their professional accompaniments.

(Such treatment can’t make the members too happy!) Should be shifts onto. Wrong word; should be accomplishments.

2. Navigating the river and knowing which stretches the fish prefer along with knowledge of subtle nuisances in drift and presentation really make a guide on the Cumberland one of the best investments you can ever make.

Wrong word; should be nuances, meaning fine distinctions.

1. During the First World War, troops from the Royal Norfolk Regiment were fighting the Turks in Dardanelles, France, when witnesses reported seeing several strange clouds hovering above the battlefield, unaffected by the day’s strong winds.

(Two pats on the back if you got this one, too.) This sentence needs rethinking, not just rewriting. Because Dardanelles looks like a French word, and British troops fought in France in World War I, the author assumed that Dardanelles must be a French town. But it’s not a town, and it’s not in France—and the British in France were fighting Germans, not Turks.

The Dardanelles (aka the Hellespont) is an ocean strait in Turkey that connects the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The described incident was part of the 1915–1916 Gallipoli Campaign, in which British troops invaded Turkey in an unsuccessful attempt to capture the straits and open a sea route from Europe to Asia.

Rewritten thus: During the Gallipoli Campaign in the First World War, troops from the Royal Norfolk Regiment were fighting Turkish forces at the Dardanelles, when witnesses reported . . .

The devil truly is in the details.

Passive restraint

Want to make your writing more interesting, and draw your readers into the action? Avoid the passive voice, at least most of the time. Use the active voice instead.

Which sentence would you rather read?

Passive voice: A long pass was launched toward the end zone by quarterback Tom Brady.

Active voice: Quarterback Tom Brady launched a long pass toward the end zone.

I chose the football example deliberately. Sportswriters almost never use the passive voice, which usually makes for pretty dull prose. No sportswriter can afford to be dull. Publisher, author and editor Nick Lyons would sometimes tell me jokingly: “The passive voice is liked by this author a lot.” If I was editing the book in question, he would invariably instruct me to extirpate the passive voice almost everywhere it reared its ugly head.

Is the passive voice always bad? No. If the subject is more important than the action, or if the performer of the action is unstated, the passive voice is fine—especially in a brief sentence:

The treasure ship was discovered in 1985.

But if you’re going to specify who discovered the ship, or include other details, it’s better to use the active voice:

Salvage diver Mel Fisher discovered the treasure ship off Key West in 1985.

Strictly speaking, the passive voice isn’t exactly wrong, but it’s not very interesting, either. In a long sentence, the passive voice can sound ridiculously dull and convoluted. The longer and more detailed the sentence, the worse it gets:

An enthusiastic group of NRA leaders in Phoenix was spoken before by personal development expert Marsha Petrie Sue.

Naturally, a good editor (or better yet, a conscious writer) will choose to go active:

Personal development expert Marsha Petrie Sue spoke before an enthusiastic group of NRA leaders in Phoenix.

Keep your writing as active as your lifestyle. Use passive restraint. When the passive voice is used too much by this writer, his readers get put to sleep by him.

Here are this week’s editorial funnies to test yourself. See how many errors you can spot. Each example contains at least one.

5. After we had conquered the mountain, we got off the horses and lead them down a steep tallow slope.

4. She was a gorgeous, elegant lady and reminded him of a movie star, like Marilyn Monrow swan eye in a platinum mink stole.

3. Every week, the Spotlight shits on a different member and highlights their professional accompaniments.

2. Navigating the river and knowing which stretches the fish prefer along with knowledge of subtle nuisances in drift and presentation really make a guide on the Cumberland one of the best investments you can ever make.

1. During the First World War, troops from the Royal Norfolk Regiment were fighting the Turks in Dardanelles, France, when witnesses reported seeing several strange clouds hovering above the battlefield, unaffected by the day’s strong winds.

Here are the answers to last week’s editing follies:

5. The sun began its slow but steady ascent into the cloudless, azure blue sky.

Redundant; azure means sky blue, so one of these adjectives should be deleted. I’d remove blue.

4. It is the slight of hand that the left does with rediculous name reversals (like “family planning”) that implies something that in fact does just not happen.

Wrong word; slight is an adjective meaning minor. This should be sleight (from the same word root as sly), meaning crafty deception. Misspelling; should be ridiculous. Transposed words; should be: . . . just does not happen.

3. The last undimmed major steelhead river in California, the Smith and its tributaries, the Middle and South Forks, offer 300 river miles officially designated Wild and Scenic.

Wrong word; should be undammed.

2. This doesn’t have to be about a hero who actually saved people’s lives, like that boy in Holland who stuck his finger in the dyke–it could be just ordinary people and there day-to-day heroism.

Wrong word; dyke is an unflattering slang term for a lesbian, especially one considered to have a masculine appearance. Should be dike, synonymous with dam. Wrong word; should be their.

1. Even when hatched from the incubator, Gordon said that out of a hundred eggs he would be lucky to get one bird that passed his inspection.

(Yikes! Sounds like something from a Star Trek movie.) Dangling modifier; this says that Gordon was hatched from the incubator. Rewritten thus: Gordon said that, even with roosters hatched from the incubator, out of a hundred eggs he would be lucky to get one bird that passed his inspection.

What’s the etymology of entomology?

The headline on last week’s post “I hate to say I tolled you sew” evokes two homonyms (in this case told and so), words that sound like other words but mean something different. Homonyms can cause trouble for writers by requiring them to decide which version of a word to use. The best known homonyms might be to, two and too. But less well-known homonyms can be quite tricky:

Actress Jennifer Garner once portrayed the superheroine Elektra, who battles the forces of evil with her signature sighs.

Sighing may not be an effective way to fight evil. The correct word is sai, the Japanese word for a traditional, ancient short stabbing sword from the island of Okinawa.

Sigh and sai are true homonyms, in that they are pronounced exactly alike. Even more troublesome for writers can be false homonyms, words that sound somewhat (but not exactly) alike but are spelled differently:

Aquatic etymologists still debate the classification of the countless different species of mayflies and caddisflies that inhabit the American West.

An etymologist is one who studies word origins, and might tell you that the English word petty comes from the French petit, meaning little or small. The correct word here is entomologists, for scientists who study insects.

Unfortunately, there’s no “rule” or quick fix for dealing with homonyms (except perhaps to, two and too), since there are so many possibilities. It’s best to be aware of the words you’re using and choose wisely. But we should all do that anyway.

Here are this week’s editorial funnies to test yourself. See how many errors you can spot. Each example contains at least one.

5. The sun began its slow but steady ascent into the cloudless, azure blue sky.

4. It is the slight of hand that the left does with rediculous name reversals (like “family planning”) that implies something that in fact does just not happen.

3. The last undimmed major steelhead river in California, the Smith and its tributaries, the Middle and South Forks, offer 300 river miles officially designated Wild and Scenic.

2. This doesn’t have to be about a hero who actually saved people’s lives, like that boy in Holland who stuck his finger in the dyke–it could be just ordinary people and there day-to-day heroism.

1. Even when hatched from the incubator, Gordon said that out of a hundred eggs he would be lucky to get one bird that passed his inspection.

Here are the answers to last week’s editing follies:

5. The bad thing about a horse is they have a mind of their own, and no matter how hard you pull on those reigns a horse is a horse of coarse.

When making a general statement, it often makes sense to use the plural, in this case horses. Wrong word. A reign is the period of time a monarch is in power. Those leather strips for steering horses are reins. Wrong word. Coarse is an adjective meaning rough or unrefined. The correct word here is course. Rewritten thus: The bad thing about horses is they have minds of their own, and no matter how hard you pull on those reins, a horse is a horse, of course.

4. The executive offices housed on the fifth floor proudly display the many celebrities and superstars that have walked its halls.

(Are the living celebrities imprisoned in cages for display? Are the deceased ones mounted like hunting trophies?) Missing word. Presumably the executive offices don’t display the actual celebrities and superstars, but images of them. Wrong pronoun. That is a pronoun for things. For people, the correct pronoun is who. Rewritten thus: . . . proudly display photos of the many celebrities and superstars who have walked its halls.

3. Many sniper rifles are equipped with muzzle breaks and/or flash suppressors as well as high-quality optics.

Wrong word. Should be brake. A muzzle brake, aka a recoil compensator, is a device fitted to the muzzle of a gun with ports, or holes, drilled perpendicular to the bore. These allow some of the gases from the exploding cartridge to escape the barrel sideways as the bullet exits the muzzle, thereby braking (slowing) the muzzle. That released gas pressure would otherwise be felt as recoil in the shooter’s shoulder.

2. There will be a private internment by invitation, with a public memorial service at the Whittington Center at a date to be announced. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family.

Wrong word. Internment is prison confinement. Should be interment (literally “putting into the earth”), synonymous with burial.

1. After pulling off two consecutive quarterly profits, spiraling consumer losses overwhelmed Citigroup’s strong trading results in the third quarter.

Dangling modifier. This says that the losses pulled off profits . . . which would be quite a trick. Rewritten thus: After Citigroup pulled off two two consecutive quarterly profits, spiraling consumer losses . . .

Hate to say I tolled you sew . . .

“English is a totally illogical language.”

So said a longtime friend of the family, who is from Japan and now lives in New York City. I couldn’t very well dispute her statement. First of all, she’s fluent in English as well as Japanese (and a few other languages to boot), and I don’t know Japanese, or the others. And second, she’s right–English is illogical.

Here are a couple of examples our friend Sonoko (don’t pronounce it like the name of the oil company–accent on the first syllable–SO-no-ko; her name means flower garden) cited.

Why is the plural of mouse mice, but the plural of house is houses? Why isn’t it mouses, or hice?

Why is “o-u-g-h” pronounced in five different ways? Bough rhymes with how. Rough rhymes with buff. Though rhymes with throw. Bought rhymes with not. Through rhymes with threw.

Modern English is a rich, simmering stew (why isn’t that spelled stough?) of the varied languages of the peoples who lived in Britain over the last few thousand years, plus what’s come from people in places that were once part of the British Empire: North America, Australia, India, swaths of Africa and the Middle East, and more.

Ancient Celtic peoples lived in Britain for thousands of years. The Romans came (and saw, and conquered) around the time of Christ, brought Latin, and ruled until about A.D. 450. Saxons came from mainland Europe starting in the 5th century. Later came Vikings from present-day Denmark, Sweden and Norway. William the Conqueror invaded from France in October 1066. (About half the words in English are either French words or derivatives thereof–justice, hospital, privilege, law, medicine, catastrophe, disaster, petty and restaurant are just a few examples.)

English is an alphabet soup of infinite complexity. Every day I thank my lucky stars that I grew up with it, unlike Sonoko, who started learning English as a teenager.

Here are this week’s editorial funnies to test yourself. See how many errors you can spot. Each example contains at least one.

5. The bad thing about a horse is they have a mind of their own, and no matter how hard you pull on those reigns a horse is a horse of coarse.

4. The executive offices housed on the fifth floor proudly display the many celebrities and superstars that have walked its halls.

3. Many sniper rifles are equipped with muzzle breaks and/or flash suppressors as well as high-quality optics.

2. There will be a private internment by invitation, with a public memorial service at the Whittington Center at a date to be announced. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family.

1. After pulling off two consecutive quarterly profits, spiraling consumer losses overwhelmed Citigroup’s strong trading results in the third quarter.

Here are the answers to last week’s editing follies:

5. Nuclear proliferation in the Middle East is a danger, and the Iranian regime’s foreign policy—which has involved support for militias and terrorist groups—make it a destabilizing force in the region.

Lack of agreement between subject and verb. The subject (that which performs the action of the verb) is “foreign policy,” which is singular, so the verb must also be singular, makes instead of make: The regime’s foreign policy makes it a destabilizing force.

4. Targets of this type were developed many years ago for the U.S. Army. While bulky at the time, the miniaturized electronic components of today make it possible to greatly reduce this mechanism in size.

Bulky is a dangling modifier. It modifies a word the writer did not intend, and in fact didn’t even write down: older electronic components, as opposed to the modern ones. As written, the sentence states that today’s electronic components were bulky in the past. (But that’s impossible–they didn’t exist in the past.) Rewritten thus: “While the electronic components of the time were bulky, their miniaturized modern counterparts make it possible . . .”

3. The Nielsen report said upscale retailers should consider stocking practical items because affluent households may forego jewelry and designer bags for the likes of generators, fireplace accessories, kitchen gadgets and family games.

Wrong word. Forego means to precede (literally go before), which in this context makes no sense. The correct verb is forgo, meaning to give up or to do without. Affluent households may pass up luxury items and choose more down-to-earth Christmas gifts instead.

2. In January 2005, via a simulcast meeting of the outdoor media attending the SHOT Show and SCI Convention, elected a panel of 10 outdoor journalists to serve as a steering committee to determine the viability of a communications organization focused wholly on the traditional outdoor sports.

The verb elected has no subject. (Who, exactly, elected the panel of outdoor journalists?) The writer doesn’t tell us. Rewritten thus: “. . . SCI Convention, the writers and broadcasters elected a panel . . .”

1. “Structure” is part of the typography of a lake, reservoir or river, and includes drop-offs, ledges and humps.

Wrong word. Typography is the arrangement of words on the printed page. The correct word is topography, the three-dimensional configuration of the landscape.

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