Tag: Language

Hands Off My Tittle!

It’s not as dirty as you think.

Some words just sound naughty, even if they aren’t. Take “jot” and “tittle”. They always make me think of someone snickering, “Yeah, I’d like to jot her tittle . . . .”

But no, they’re not only squeaky clean (well, mostly, there’s a naughty definition of “jot” you’ll have to look up yourself), they’re also quite interesting.

Anyway, let’s look at the old-school definition. In Matthew 5:18, Jesus said, “For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”

So what is a “jot”? It means the smallest part of the alphabet, the least letter, the smallest bit of writing. So if you say you’re jotting something down, you ain’t writing a dissertation, honey. If you want to insult someone and leave them confused at the same time, just say, “That don’t make a jot of sense.” It is related to the word “iota”, which we’re all familiar with.

A “tittle” is a dot, stroke or point in writing, like the dot over an i or a j, or the cross (no pun intended) over a t.

So there ya go.

Comments? Questions? Leave ‘em below.

I’ve Decided That I Will No Longer Run Farther Than 5k at a Time

“Further and “farther”; what’s the diff?

Photo of Roslyn running a marathon relay
On the home stretch

Furthermore, I’m not running more than once a week.

Like hell.  Anything less than 5K is for wusses, and I’d die if I could only run once a week. But let’s talk about FARther vs FURther. It’s really easy.

FARther refers to physical distance, a space you can literally travel across. As in, “How much farther do we have to go?”

FURther refers to theoretical ground, usually applied to concepts, conversations, arguments, etc. For example, “Nothing could be further from the truth.” Since the truth is not a physical entity, and can’t exist in literal space, you can’t actually measure how far anything is from it.

Need I take this any further?

That’s my two cents. What’s yours? Leave a comment.

Hi, Mom!

When free-range capital letters should come home to roost.

Funny enough, one of the most common errors I come across when I’m editing is one of the simplest, and one that we all learn very early in primary school. It has to do with the capitalisation of proper nouns vs common nouns.

There are a lot of instances in which people make mistakes, but the one I want to deal with today has to do with family relationships, and how we refer to our parents, aunties, uncles, etc.

There’s a tendency to capitalise the word Mom, for example, regardless of the context. But remember that if we’re using the word generically, there’s no need to capitalise. If it’s a form of address, we do. Meaning you say: “Is that your mom over there?” (No capital M as you are referring to the person, not addressing them, and there are a dozen moms in the room.)

But we say, “You make the best shepherd’s pie in the world, Mom!” (Because you’re talking to the person. And yes, I do make the best shepherd’s pie in the world.)

You can also be talking about the person but using their title, as in, “Did you ask Mummy if you can sleep over this weekend?”

The same goes for other relationships. You say, “Your auntie is on the phone,” but you also say, “Auntie Aggie is on the phone”.

We cool now? Good.

Join the conversation. Please leave a comment.

The Longest Word

Cartoon of Mary Poppins floating through the air with her parasol.

I’m going to stick an earworm into your ear, and once it’s in, it will be the devil to get out. Here goes: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. You can hear the music in your head now, can’t you? Dum-dee-dee-doo-dah . . . . You can thank me later.

While it is one of the longest words in the English language, it certainly isn’t the longest. There are a lot of contenders for that, such as pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, which is a type of lung disease caused by inhaling ash and dust. And that, my friends, is why I decided not to go into medicine.

(Info sourced from grammerly.com)

What’s your view? Leave me a comment.

Don’t Call me Rosalyn

Nothing more irritating than seeing your name misspelled in print.

One of the most common errors I meet when editing is the misspelling of names. Even seasoned writers do it, and it drives me nuts. I frequently receive stories in which the subject of the interview is spelled wrong. Honey, with name spelling trends being what they are, I’m not ashamed to ask you even if your name is Jane . . . just in case you spell it J’ain.

The problem is so common that whenever a story comes across my desk for editing I Google all the names in it—even brand names. And my hit rate is shocking.

Why, people? It’s such an easy problem to solve. Just Google it! Or check Facebook. They’ve got 1.7 billion users; don’t you think there’s a good chance you’ll find your subject there? Check things like punctuation and unusual variation, too. Is it Williams Auto or William’s Auto? Shops or Shoppes? 

It only takes about 30 seconds to avoid embarrassment that will haunt you in print for months . . . or in cyberspace for a lifetime.

I’ve done my part. Now it’s your turn. Leave a comment below.

raNDom cApitALisaTION should be a Criminal Offence.

Too many capital letters spoil the alphabet soup.

When I’m editing, this makes my top 5 search and destroy list. And Trinis love capitals. We use them to make things sound exciting. “He had a Heart Attack!” “Our Furniture is Half-Off!” Arbitrary capitals hurt my eyes!


We use them as a gesture of respect: “My Mom is a Doctor.” No, honey, your mom is a doctor. It’s just a profession. No capital needed. You can, however, say, “Doctor Bennet is my mother.” Because then you’re using her professional designation as a title.

Also, did ya see how I didn’t use a capital letter on ‘mom’? When you’re referring to someone in the third person, you don’t say “my Mom”. You use lower case letters. “My mom” or “my dad”.

When you’re speaking to them, however, it’s all good. Say, “Mom, did you make dinner yet?” or, even better, “Mom, we made dinner!”

What do you think? Leave a comment and let’s talk.

Wild Herds of Punctuation Marks on the Loose

We’ve lost control of our keyboards. Punctuation marks have taken over!

Cartoon of snakes shaped like a question mark and an exclamation mark.
They’re on the loose!

Perhaps it’s due to global warming, or maybe overpopulation, but have you noticed that punctuation marks which once roamed the wild like lone wolves have taken to grazing in herds? Multiple question marks terrorise the neighbourhood. Why????

And those exclamation points!!! Oh my God!!!! They’re everywhere!!!!

Call me old-fashioned (but don’t call me old), but I kinda think your writing should be strong enough that just one punctuation mark should suffice. Instead of saying OMG!!! I love you!!!, how about finding a fresh, endearing and memorable way to do it instead?

Excited to hear your point of view. Leave a comment below.

Never, Never, Never Start a Sentence With ‘And’

Time to toss out the old “rules” we never should have had in the first place.

Or ‘but’. Or ‘so’. Or any number of co-ordinating conjunctions that join two sentences. You know what else I want to start a sentence with? ‘Bite me’. Well, to be honest, that’s a complete sentence, but you get my drift.

There is nothing wrong with starting a sentence with any of these words, including or,
nor, for, so, and yet. It used to drive me batshit when editors went at my novels with hammer and tongs and started shredding my story, all to satisfy some mythical ‘rule’ that doesn’t exist.

When we were in primary school the teachers taught us that these words could only join sentences, for example: “You’re ugly, but I totally like you anyway,” or “Roslyn Carrington is the greatest writer of her generation, and damned if she isn’t horrendously underpaid.”

That was their way of teaching you to write complete sentences, and helping you stop writing phrases thinking they were full sentences. In other words, it was like rubbing aloes on your fingertips to stop you from biting your nails.

But, now that we’re all grown up, let’s recognise that we don’t need these training wheels for our sentences anymore. Your sentence will trot happily along if you start it with a conjunction, and the grammar police won’t put you in shackles.

And to quote Forrest Gump, that’s all I got to say about that.

Comments? Questions? Leave ‘em below.

I’m a Total Whore for the Oxford Comma

A comma before “and”? Call the police!

Also called the serial comma, it’s the comma at the end of a list that comes before the word “and” (and sometimes “or”). A comma before “and”? Good God, is the world coming to an end?

We’ve all been taught that putting a comma before “and” will make your hand fall off. My Common Entrance lessons teacher used to say, “You can’t put a comma before ‘and’ because ‘and’ is a comma.” I’ve even had clients call me up, gagging, “Miss! You put a comma before ‘and’!”

Which is why I can’t control a naughty giggle when I use one–which is often. Makes me feel like a rebel.

But the serial comma is very useful for clarifying items in a list. If the items in a list are clear, you don’t need it: “I bought new towels, sheets and pillowcases.” But when it gets confusing, when it is hard to know if the last two items are separate entities or go together, you use it. “The only people who came to my party were my brothers, Machel and Keith Rowley.” Sooo, are Machel and Keith my brothers? Maybe if I said “my brothers, Machel, and Keith Rowley” it would be clearer.

Anyhow you slice it, love ‘em or hate ‘em, be consistent. Use serial commas throughout your piece where applicable, or don’t use them at all.

That’s my two cents. What’s yours? Leave a comment.

Pubic Relations

The best way to proofread is in print. That way the eye isn’t fooled. Better yet, let me proofread for you!

You’d be shocked if you knew how frequently I have to deal with careless, sloppy work delivered by full-time, professional writers. Apart from the frustration I feel, there is a sense of disbelief . . . if you make your living writing, shouldn’t you at least take pride in your work, and do whatever it takes to make sure it reaches the editor with as few errors as possible?


Everyone makes mistakes, myself included. This is why even editors need to be edited. But at the very least, whether you are a professional or an amateur, or simply have a paper to hand in or a memo to send out, please, proofread your work.

And the best way to do this is to print it out and read it with a red-ink pen in your hand. Why? Because the computer screen is a liar. It causes your brain to fill in the blanks, to see what you expect to see, not what is really there.

Paper, however, is brutally honest. It shows up flaws like litmus. We grew up reading on paper, not screens, so our brains aren’t fooled. So if what you’re writing is important, please print it out and read it before you publish it. That way you won’t get caught writing about “pubic relations” when you meant to say “public relations”.

Join the conversation. Please leave a comment.