Sorry, yes this is a rant. And no,
despite the title, my rant isn't really about spelling. Not exactly.
Maybe I'm super-sensitive to the issue.
I was, after all, raised by an English teacher or two. I'm not
perfect either. I'm sure if you dredge the waters of my blog you
might find a spelling or grammar mistake here and there that I
haven't found and corrected yet.
But hey, this is a blog. In a published
novel on the other hand...argh!
Most word processing programs come with
an automatic spell check. These days, most email programs do too.
Guess what? If you don't have spell check on, then you probably had
to go to the trouble of figuring out how to turn it off! What's with
that? When you see those nasty little red lines under your word, it's
probably not spelled right. Take a moment to correct it.
Editors and agents are busy people. If
they see a query letter or manuscript that's full of glaring errors,
they'll think you're a sloppy writer and may even reject you out of
hand. No matter how beautiful your writing might be otherwise.
As Janet Reid says on her excellent
blog, the Query Shark, "when it's clear
you didn't run spell check on your query, you contribute to global
warming because it makes sharks weep hot salty tears."
Spell Czech Can't Do it All
But spelling isn't the one that really
gets me. And here's where spell check fails. What makes me crazy as a
reader, is where the writer obviously doesn't have enough command of
the English language to know when they're using the wrong word.
As writers, words are our tools. If we
don't know how to use them correctly and with power, then we're like
a carpenter trying to hammer a screw.
Someday they'll invent a program that
checks word usage. Until then:
Those Nasty Homophones
The English language is so (not sew or
sow) full of homophones that they trip folks up on a regular basis.
Homophones are words that sound the same but mean different things. Below are some of the ones I come across far too often. How they came
about would make an interesting history lesson. My guess would be
cultural clash. Maybe the Angles had one word and the Saxons another
and the Celts a third.
There/They're/Their
There is a place. They're means, "they
are". Their means, "belonging to them".
Your/You're
Your means it's something you own.
You're means, "you are".
When you see an apostrophe in the
middle of the word (and yes, sometimes at the beginning or end of a
word) it often means that two words have been squashed together. So
if you come across an apostrophe, the rule of thumb is to ask
yourself what two words have been stuck together. (Unless we're
talking about a person's (or group/item's) name, in which case you're looking at a
possessive. For example "Sheila’s" means, "belonging
to Sheila.")
Just for fun, I should mention that
contractions often come from the days of yore when folks spoke, it
seems, in longer sentences.
To/Too
And I won't mention two. (Oops, too
late!)
In front of a noun, to is a direction. "I'm going to the
store." It's called an "preposition" in that case.
(Which is one of those words you learn in third grade and then
promptly forget the meaning of. I had to look it up. Basically a
preposition is about spatial or temporal relationships. One item
might be on, under, or inside another, for instance. On the temporal
side, we might say that, "SINCE you're reading this you might
have had questions about what the heck a preposition was BEFORE you
found my rant.")
In front of a verb, to denotes an
"infinitive". That one is so complex I won't even try to
define it. I'll let someone else do so.
Here's the short version for our needs. If you're using it in front
of a verb, such as, "is there anything to eat in the fridge?"
you want "to" with just one O.
Too means either "also" or
"an excess." Do grammar mistakes drive you batty too? I saw
too many in the last book I was reading, which is why I'm writing
this rant.
Rain/Reign/Rein
Rain falls from the sky. A queen
reigns. You guide a horse with reins.
Aisle/Isle
You walk down the aisle, and get
deserted on an isle.
Bare/Bear
You bare your soul or your body. You
bear a burden. And if you run into a bear in the woods, you probably
won't be worrying about where it poops.
Brake/Break
You brake a car. You break your arm or
a vow.
Buy/By/Bye
You buy things at the store. You pass
by the roses and hopefully stop to gather them (while ye may). You
say, "bye" to your friend when you leave. (Incidentally,
"bye" is a further reduced contraction of good bye -
without an apostrophe, dang it! - for "God be with ye.")
Hole/Whole
If something has a hole in it, then
it's not whole.
Stair/Stare
If you fall down the stair because you
were staring at a book you were reading, you might break your arm. Or
at least your concentration.
Steal/Steel
You steal glances. Or hearts. Hopefully
not the silverware. Swords are made of steel. (Though bronze is also
an option, but not nearly as strong. Which is why the faeries (Celts)
who only had bronze swords don't like cold iron.)
Waist/Waste
If your hero is admiring your
protagonist's narrow waste, then he's not looking at her sexy body.
She may have more problems in regard to him than just their
tumultuous relationship. And you might have a challenge selling your
novel, since coprophilia
http://voices.yahoo.com/what-coprophilia-1370871.html?cat=72
isn't something the average reader wants to read about.
Boarders/Borders
If you think YOU don't want to confuse
these, you really don't want your large dogs to. Boarders are the
people who pay for "room and board (food)" at your home.
Borders are the boundaries of something. If you want your dogs to
patrol the borders of your land and they instead attack your
boarders, you might be looking at the end of your income, not to
mention a lawsuit.
Through/Threw
Threw is the past tense of "throw"
as in pitching a ball. Or a hammer. Or tossing a book across the room
because the author doesn't understand simple English. Through means
to pass into and beyond something. "I went through the
wormhole," or "I made it through algebra."
We pass through the looking glass, and
if Alice had a lick of sense she might have threw (though here the
verb tense should be "have thrown") a croquet mallet at the
Queen of Hearts' head.
"Through someone for a loop,"
is not only incorrect English, it's a cliché, and should be avoided
at "all costs."
Past/Passed
I have no clue why, but I've come
across this mistake in all but one of the romance novels I've read in
the past few months, and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to rant
about it.
Past means "before now."
Passed means to move by something. So your heroine doesn't cogitate
on passed memories, nor can she past one door and choose another.
Just to confuse things, she could walk past someone in the ballroom.
Time passes, not pasts. If she's thinking of her dead uncle, he's
passed, not past. Unless, of course he was married to her aunt and
they got a divorce. In which case, try "former uncle" for
the sake of clarity. (Ack! It's a mess, I know!) Here's an excellent article on the correct usage of past/passed.
Now you have the right to write however
you desire. But if your words don't soar across the page without
tripping the agent or editor's eye with incorrect usage, don't get
sore when they send you a form rejection. After all, they have other
books to read, and don't have time to waste (not waist).
There's more to my rant, but for now I
need a break, so I'll put on the brakes and resume later.
