I recently found out that the email system at my web host has failed. Emails and messages sent to copyeditor.se were supposed to be forwarded to another of my email accounts. This has worked well in the past, but for several months no forwarding has taken place. I was travelling abroad from June to the middle of September and was not aware of this problem until now.
With the help of my web host I have now been able to locate and read the missing emails and messages. I’m happy to see that so many are interested in my book and asked where they can get it. I have referred them to this page.
I apologize for not having replied to emails and messages.
No contact
I have also had problems with my newsletter campaign provider and have not been able to send any newsletters for quite some time. I have now changed to another platform and hope to send newsletters again soon.
The apostrophe is a punctuation mark in the Latin and some other alphabets. It is used to indicate quotations, to show that one or more letters are left out (contractions), to show the possessive form (genitive) of names and nouns, and to mark the plural of single letters.
QUOTATION
In UK English, single quotation marks are commonly used (even if the US English system is also accepted), while US English prefers double quotation marks.
UK English: ’Welcome to London’, he said.
US English: A man appeared in the doorway asking, ”Is there a restroom somewhere here?”
When a quote appears inside another quote, the opposite style of quotation marks is used:
UK English: The woman looked at the policeman and said, ’All I heard was ”I can’t find my keyes”’.
US English: The woman looked at the officer and said, ”All I heard was ’I can’t find my keyes.’”
In a contraction, an apostrophe represents one or more letters that have been omitted.
I’ve I have I’d I had or I would He’s He is They’re They are She can’t She cannot You mustn’t You must not Singin’ in the rain Singing in the rain O’Leary [descendant] of Leary Rock’n’roll Rock and roll
An apostrophe can represent thousand:
15’ = 15 000
An apostrophe can replace the first two numbers in a year:
This was popular in the ’80s = in the 1980s
POSSESSIVE
An apostrophe is used with an s after names or nouns to show ownership or close connection.
This is the boy’s room Let me introduce my wife’s best friend
In the plural, there is no s after the apostrophe:
This is the boys’ room
Especially in spoken language, the plural is expressed using of: This is the room of the boys.
Not quite right…
PLURAL OF LETTERS
An apostrophe is used to mark the plural of single letters:
It’s hard to distinguish between your g’s and q’s.
Mind your p’s and q’s (be careful about what you say or do).
Don’t confuse an apostrophe with an accent! Read more here.
How to use comprise and consist is a problem to many writers.
COMPRISE
Comprise means to include, contain, constitute, make up.
Asian students comprise a fairly large part of the university’s student union. It’s a small book, comprising just about 60 pages. The management group comprises economists and lawyers.
Since comprised means composed of, comprised of, which many authors write, is not considered good language. It is better to write composed of.
The committee is composed of experts from several fields.
Composed can also refer to a sense of mind, calm, free from agitation.
He remained composed in spite of all the turmoil.
A small book, comprising just about 60 pages
CONSIST
Consist means to be composed of.
A continental breakfast consists of fruit juice, toast, butter and jam, and coffee. A molecule of water consists of one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom. The team consisted of seven players.
Unlike comprise, consist is usually followed by of, but the word can also mean to be consistent, and then it is used without of.
His evidence consisted with that of the police officer.
When I worked at the university, one day a visiting professor came by my room and asked, ’Is there a restroom somewhere here?’ I knew there was a small room where staff could lie down if taken ill or just to relax, so I told him that there was a restroom at the end of the corridor.
I was surprised when he looked into my office after only a couple of minutes and said, ’Thank you!’ ’Didn’t you find the restroom?’, I asked. ’Oh, yes’, he said and disappeared.
’That was a short rest’, I reflected, and it wasn’t until later that I realised what a restroom is in American English.
There are many euphemisms for the word toilet in English, which I mention in my book It’s not the farts that kill–it’s the smell!, available at Amazon. Among them are bathroom, gents’, ladies’, washroom, lavatory, john, privy, powder room, etc.
With many euphemisms
Phrases are also used as euphemisms for going to the toilet. A guest in a British home might be told, ’I’ll show you where you can wash your hands’ and may think that the host thinks that he is dirty.
A British friend of mine told me that she had said, ’I think I need to powder my nose’ when visiting a family in Sweden (another way of implying that you are heading for the smallest room in the house), and her hostess had taken a close look at her and then said, ’No, you don’t. It’s perfectly fine.’
To return to the restroom, there is a story about an American who was picking up his Swedish friend at an airport. When they got into the car, the American said, ’Perhaps you need to got to the restroom?’, and without hesitating, the Swede answered, ’No, I can do that in the car.’
These two phrasal verbs are interchangeable, but fill out seems to be more common in American English and fill in in British English.
If there is a difference, some speakers maintain that you fill out a form or document and fill in the blanks. In other words, when you complete a form, you fillit out, and when you add information to empty fields, you fill it in.
Fill in is also used to mean to give somebody missing information. My boss filled me in about the latest development.
Fill out also refers to gaining weight. You’ve filled out since we last met.
False friends are words in two languages that look and/or sound alike but whose meanings are completely or partially different. The two words may have—and often do have—the same origin (If they do not have the same origin, they are called false cognates).
It is clear that false friends may give rise to amusing and sometimes embarrassing mistakes, but they can also cause potentially disastrous misunderstandings with serious consequences.
Here are some examples of English false friends in other languages (The first letter in German nouns is upper-case):
English–French
car
coach, bus, van
cave
cellar, basement, nightclub
figure
face
journal
newspaper, magazine
lecture
reading, reading matter
location
renting, hiring; lease, reservation
radio
X-ray
route
road
sensible
sensitive
smoking
dinner-jacket, tuxedo
English–German
also
so, thus
blank
shiny, bright
chef
leader, boss
chips
potato crisps
fatal
awkward, embarrassing
gift
poison, venom
hall
sound, echo
kind
child
lack
varnish, lacquer
list
cunning, trick
mode
fashion
plump
awkward; crude; obvious
smoking
dinner-jacket, tuxedo
still
quiet, silent
taste
key (on a keyboard)
English–Italian
brace
embers, charcoal
cute
skin
due
two
fame
hunger, starvation
fare
do, make
media
average
replica
repetition; reply
smoking
dinner-jacket, tuxedo
stile
stylus
turbine
whirlwind, swirl
English–Spanish
actual
current, topical, fashionable
cabaret
nightclub
editor
publisher
eventual
possible; temporary
particular
private, personal
sensible
sensitive; responsive; emotional
villa
small town, municipality
virtual
potential, possible
English–Swedish
art
species
barn
child
bra
good, well
fart
speed
faster
aunt
frisk
healthy; fresh
from
pious
glass
ice cream
kiss
pee
semester
vacation
slut
end
smoking
dinner-jacket, tuxedo
You can read about my book on English–Swedish false friends and other treacherous words here.
It may be difficult to understand the difference between critic and critique.
A critic in English refers to a person. It is someone who criticizes something, in other words, expresses criticism.
A critic is also someone who gives an opinion about books, films, music, etc., usually professionally in a paper or magazine or on radio or television. A critic writes a review.
Future critic?
A critique is a detailed analysis and assessment, usually of a literary, philosophical, or political theory.
The problem for Swedish speakers of English is that both criticism and critique correspond to the same word in Swedish, kritik, and that critic can be mistakenly taken to mean kritik.
The words technique and technology are related to each other, but it is important to understand the difference between them.
TECHNIQUE
Technique refers to how you carry out a particular task, an efficient way of achieving something or the skill needed to do so. In order to swim fast, for example, you need a good technique. The corresponding adjective is technical.
Technique
TECHNOLOGY
Technology is applied science, the use of scientific knowledge and methods to accomplish a task. Technology is used to improve products and services. The corresponding adjective is technological.
Technology
To sum up, technology gives us the tools and technique determines how the tools are used.
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