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Compose or Comprise?

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This one even makes me think.

Collections either comprise a list of their parts or are composed of their parts.

Compose comes from the Old French word composer, which meant “to arrange or put together.” Think of a conductor bringing together all the instruments to compose a symphony.

Comprisecomes from a French word that means “include.” In English, it can mean…

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Matriculate Does Not Mean Graduate

Photo by Vasily Koloda on Unsplash

June is for graduates. If you did graduate from somewhere, I hope that you learned that you graduated from high school or university and didn’t matriculate from either of those places.

Matriculate actually means to enroll in or be admitted to a group such as a university or a program.

Matriculate is most commonly used as a verb followed by a preposition like at,…

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Foreword or Forward?

Photo by Florencia Viadana on Unsplash

This should be easy, especially for authors, but you would just not believe how many authors I work with who get this one wrong.

Books have a foreword. Things or people move forward (to the front), are forward (bold or brash), or are forward-thinking (progressive).

Foreword is actually a combination of the word fore,as in before or in front of, and the suffix

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Try And or Try To?

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Oh, this is a pet peeve of mine, though it kind of shouldn’t be.

Try and has been used in speech and informal writing for hundreds of years. Usage guides of old recommended against using it, and radio announcers (like myself) rail against it. Modern experts, however, say try and is merely informal, not incorrect. (See me grousing here.)

Actually, try andis…

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Riffle or Rifle?

Both riffle and rifle mean nearly the same thing. Both mean to go through something but there is a subtle difference.

To riffle (rhymes with sniffle) through something means you’re hastily flipping through something or shuffling cards by interlacing them. There’s actually something called a riffle shuffle. I’ve read where riffle is thought to be a combination of ripple and ruffle. Don’t know if…

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Hanger or Hangar?

Hanger and hangar are homonyms. They sound exactly alike. They cannot, however, be used interchangeably.

If you are a person who hangs things, you are a hanger, much like if you paint things you are a painter. A writer writes. A singer sings.

A hanger is also a thing that hangs clothes.

A hangaris the name of a place where you can park your plane (or spaceship as the case may be). The word comes…

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Where's Waldo, Part Deux

Where’s Waldo, Part Deux

It’s been three or four months since I last set eyes on my dad. He was in a wheelchair surrounded by people just outside of my local grocery store. One of his calves was bloody and raw from where he continually picks at his leg. I overheard one of the women ask if he had fallen. I didn’t stay around to hear his answer. I breezed quickly passed and didn’t say a thing.

I don’t feel bad about it. I…

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Hang, Hanged & Hung

Photo by Mae Mu on Unsplash

I came across a newer Western the other day where someone talked about someone getting hanged. I had to rewind to make sure I heard that right. Yep, the cowpoke said, “hanged.”

The reason I rewound was that “hanged” was the wrong word to use in that instance.

People are hung. Everything else is hanged.

There are two past tense forms of to hang–hanged and hung. The…

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Where's Waldo?

Where’s Waldo?

It’s an odd feeling not knowing where my dad is. It’s been six months since I’ve seen him, four months since I’ve heard from him. The last I knew for certain, he was in Lake City, Florida. The last I heard from my brother, he could very well be up in Wisconsin with this friend, Big Jim.

Truth be told, I actually don’t feel anything. I rarely think of my dad, which as I say, it’s odd. I’d been…

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Whether or Whether or Not?

As an editor, one of my duties is to tighten someone’s writing, to get rid of extraneous fluff that adds nothing more than word count.

Though I could make an extensive list…I’ll confine myself to just this one pet peeve: Whether or not.

Do you really need the or not after whether? In most instances, no. The or not is just fluff begging to be edited out.

Take a look at this:

I didn’t know whether…

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#Whether #Whether or Not

Gray or Grey?

I was teaching an ESL* class not too long ago, and we came upon a word that confused people. The word was “gray.”

Some folks, especially those who liked to drink Earl Grey tea, insisted that grey was the correct spelling. And in some countries, it is. In fact, grey is the preferred spelling for our cousins across the pond (and north of the border).

But, as I tactfully told everyone, we’re in…

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Double That

Nothing takes me out of the flow of a story faster than an ill-constructed sentence. When I was reading the other evening, I came across a sentence with a double that in it. Now, even though double thats often are correct, especially when spoken, they are usually very awkward when read. I have had more than one English teacher in my past pound into my head that writing a sentence with a double th…

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Stationary vs. Stationery

English can be such a tricky language to learn as I discovered when I was teaching an ESL (English as a Second Language) course not too long ago. We have so many words that sound exactly alike but are spelled differently and mean entirely different things.

One word that tripped up people in my ESL class was stationary. The majority of the class knew about the one with the –aryending but not about…

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Dad's Future in the Balance

Dad’s Future in the Balance

Now that Dad is “safely” ensconced back in the unlicensed “facility” back in Lake City, Florida, I have a decision to make. Do I heed Dad’s wishes to let him stay there knowing that he leaves the house every day to drink all day, but comes back every evening, or do I proceed with guardianship here in Florida and place Dad in a licensed facility where I know he will dry out, get help with his…

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#caretaker #elder care #Guardianship #sandwich generation #Uncertainty

Double "Is"

Double “Is”

I had an interesting debate with my better half the other day. He seems to think that a double “is” is correct when used with phrases such as, “The reason is is…” or “The problem is is…” or “The question is is…“.

Is that what you think, too?

Well, hate to be the one to break it to you, but the rarified time a double “is” is correct is when you’re using it like I just did or when the second “is”…

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#Double Is #Is Is

Who vs. Whom

I had a couple of great English teachers in high school, one of whom was Miss Latham. Miss Alfrava Latham. She was a character. She hand-made her clothes, wore black patent leather shoes with a square silver buckle that looked like something a Pilgrim would wear and loved to read cookbooks. She was also a tough, tough teacher.

Tough, but clear. She always had little tricks for us to remember…

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#who #Who vs. Whom #Whom

New Contacts & Update

Never in my life did I ever think I would have specific detectives in my directory, but I do–more than just one and they’re from different counties. Seems I need to keep in contact with both if I want any kind of update as to what’s being done to find my dad. It’s been sixteen days since he disappeared, and I’m getting a distinct impression that since my dad has no fixed address, not much is…

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#Baker Act #Contacts #Elder Abuse #Found #Fraud #Marchman Act #Police

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