Bloody Well Write

Perhaps it’s not that odd or freakish, but the word blog is one of those words that sounds funnier each time you say it, say, five times fast.

Blog blog blog blog blog.

Blog.

What is it? Webster’s New World College dictionary defines the noun:

A journal or diary written for public viewing on a website and consisting typically of personal reflections, commentary on current events, etc. arranged chronologically

Where’d it come from? It’s an amalgamation of “Web” (as in World Wide Web) and “log” (as in diary). Now, say that five times fast.

Web log Web log Web log Web log Web log.

Blog. Aha!

Bloody Well Write is my little language blog. It’s all my opinion, yes. It’s mostly based on research and underscores just about everything in the AP Stylebook (just about, not all, mind you). And it’s a fun, creative outlet that’s mine, all mine.

All You Create is my little “me” blog that’s recently morphed into my little new-house blog, so feel free to meander over there if you’re at all interested in watching the process of a new home being built. I’m going to attempt to chronicle the shenanigans and high-stepping acrobatics that take place in order to get it built according to our crazy ideas. Should be interesting — hopefully, not in a train wreck sort of way. The deeper you dig into this site, you’ll find repeats of Bloody Well Write posts, as well as some of my articles from Examiner (I’m their Wichita Healthy Living writer) and some other sites I’ve written for.

Happy trails!

SAK

I was working the other day on a project that mentioned a visa (as in a document, not a credit card) and I didn’t know whether it deserved an uppercase V.

To my surprise, the AP Stylebook didn’t mention it. Perhaps I’m the only person who doesn’t know the answer (doubtful) or the only one who cares (possible), but I had to do just a little digging to find the answer.

Where to next? (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hjl/101443399/)

No — the document (or more often the stamp in a passport) that shows the authorization for a person to enter a particular territory is a basic noun, so it does not call for an uppercase ‘V’ unless it begins a sentence. The visa, by the way, got its name from the modern Latin charta visa, meaning “verified paper.” This is according to the Online Etymology Dictionary.

If you’re writing about the Visa credit card, however, you better use that uppercase ‘V,’ no matter where in the sentence the word falls.

Happy trails!

SAK

I decided that today’s entry should come directly from my trusty AP Stylebook (2011 edition), so I started thumbing through the pages, looking for something that would catch my eye and teach me something new.

Found it.

Trampoline! How fun is that? Well, it used to be a trademark but is now a generic term. Thanks, AP.

What else? I found out through minimal research that an early form of trampolining was performed by the Inuit up in the northern regions of Canada, Denmark, Russia and the United States (think boo-coldies). They would use a walrus skin to hoist the  person high into the air, ensuring that the person would feel the cool wind rush through his or her hair. Ah, a great feeling for those living in the north. Yeah.

Later, circus performers passed around a story that the name trampoline came from du Trampolin, an artist who (according to Wikipedia, so take this with a proverbial grain of salt) “saw the possibility of using the trapeze safety net as a form of propulsion and landing device and experimented with different systems of suspension, eventually reducing the net to a practical size for separate performance.” No real evidence exists to prove this statement true, but it makes for a reasonable-sounding story, at least.

How fun is this bungee trampoline? Super-fun! (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sercasey/2883732081/)

Nowadays, several companies make trampolines. They can be a great form of exercise, but they can be dangerous, as well. Take me, for example.

When I was maybe 7 years old, I went with my family to visit another family who owned a cabin and a lovely plot of land in Minnesota (mosquito-ridden Minnesota in the summer — that’s another story). They had a trampoline. Imagine my excitement seeing it, and then seeing my two big sisters and all the other kids jumping on that sucker. Super-fun times ahead, yes?

I got on, got used to jumping, then learned how to do some flips. Yes, super-fun times, indeed. I did flip after flip. Super-duper fun. Then I did another. Except instead of landing on my feet — I must’ve been getting tired — I landed on my eye. On the springs.

Yeah. Super-fun experience.

That was my first (and I think only) black eye.

But you know what? I do remember flinging my body upward through the air and how completely fun and freeing it was.

So be careful out there, bouncing around. Watch your landings. And have fun learning to fly, if only for a few seconds at a time.

Happy trails!

SAK

Ah, the AP Stylebook.

As a slightly OCD writer-editor-proofreader-blogger, I love it. Though some of its rules drive the masses wild — especially when I’m the messenger — I love it still.

The journalist’s bible provides the grammatical and editorial guidelines that allow creativity to flow between, to bounce off of, to knock over said rules as need be. How else could all of those ruffian writers out there prove that they’re outside of the establishment if there were no establishment to rail against? Editors know of these ruffians. And editors and writers often have a love-hate relationship. (OK, hate is a strong word. Sometimes.) Lots of AP haters are out there, though, let me tell you.

I fight the good fight daily and trust that my 2011 AP Stylebook will not steer me wrong — even as it insists on my putting a period at the end of every bulleted sentence or phrase, no matter how brief it may be — crazy.

So what else came out of the last round of changes to the AP Stylebook? Here are a few changes, short and sweet:

One-word changes:

• Cellphone
• Checkout
• Email (only an uppercase “E” if it starts a sentence)
• Filmgoer
• Firsthand
• Geolocation
• Handheld (noun)
• Nonprofit
• Postgame
• Pregame
• Serviceman, servicewoman (but still service member)
  
• Smartphone
• Soundstage
• Tipoff
• Unfollow
• Videotape
  

If you’re a wordsmith at all, you’re probably already aware that the hyphenated “e-mail” fought hard but bit the dust. That one change alone made a gajillion people very, very happy. The others, such as cellphone and postgame — going from two words or hyphenated words to one word — didn’t cause as much of a ruckus. But there they are.

Happy trails!

SAK

This one should be easy enough, right? Oh, I don’t know; perhaps I can complicate things sufficiently. Let’s see what happens.

Let’s say a writer (a male in this instance, not that it matters) writes a book. He chooses particular words and phrases in a particular order — in order to get across a particular meaning. By trying to get across his meaning, the writer is implying. The writer writes and implies meaning.The same could be said of a speaker (this time, a woman). She implies meaning by the words she chooses to say.

In these same two scenarios, an audience is either reading or hearing the words. The audience is, thus, inferring something from those words — interpreting, if you will.

• To imply is to mean something with the words chosen.
• To infer is to evaluate the meaning of the words chosen.

Another way to look at it is that the act of implying is more active, while the act of inferring is more reactive (the one doing the inferring is actively doing something, too — inferring — but doing so in reaction to something that has come before — the words). One could argue that the person who wrote or spoke the words with implication did so in reaction to some previous stimulus, and to that I say, “Yes, that is probably correct, and that angle is for another day.”

The AP Stylebook states it in a simpler fashion, so if that’s your thing (and why the heck wouldn’t it be, because my ramblings can be a bit hard to follow), here it is:

Writers or speakers imply in the words they use. A listener or reader infers something from the words.

See? Simple and easy.

Happy trails!

SAK

Oh, my. This is what I’m talkin’ ’bout — writing and editing information about recipes and food! How’d a girl get so lucky?

The newest incarnation of the AP Stylebook has a section dubbed Food Guidelines. It’s not long at barely two pages, but it’s a great addition to the guide. The majority consists of rules to follow for recipe writers and editors. So I’ll mention a few of these rules now and throw in a summertime (really, anytime) recipe for your eating pleasure:

• Recipes are to start with a title in all caps.
• Follow the title with a start-to-finish timeline (as in how long is it going to take before you can actually eat the thing you’re preparing).
• How many servings your dish makes is next.
• List your ingredients in the order used (makes sense) and spell out all measurements (e.g., teaspoon (not tsp.), cup (not c.)).
• If you have an atypical ingredient, you can add clarification (e.g., ghee (clarified butter).
• Use numerals in all cases (i.e., measurements, times, temperatures) except for two numbers that are next to each other. In that case, spell out the first number and use a numeral for the second number (e.g., two 14.5-ounce cans).
• Write the recipe instructions in short, clear sentences.
• If your recipe calls for an oven, add something like “Heat the oven to 400 F” at the beginning of the recipe unless the recipe takes more than half an hour to complete. If that’s the case, either add that instruction in at an appropriate time or find a shorter recipe!
• Write sentences with equipment or technique at the beginning, followed by the ingredients (e.g., “With the hand mixer on medium, whisk the cake mix, egg and oil together for two minutes”). That seems a bit picky for my liking, but whatever.
• Any nutrition information that you’d like to add to the recipe, such as fat (!), calorie or sodium content, goes at the bottom.

Isn’t that fun? Now, for the really fun part: This recipe is something I created from memory. I had gone to a Kansas City Mexican restaurant that doesn’t exist anymore and tasted the most wonderful, flavorful, sweet guac imaginable. And the following recipe is what I came up with. The “secret” ingredient? Orange juice — it adds a hint of sweetness to this otherwise zesty appetizer. Please keep in mind that people who have sworn up and down that they are not guacamole people have tried this and loved it. They weren’t just being polite, either, so you should give it a whirl. I don’t have any nutritional information, but I do know that it’s a pretty healthy dish with healthy fats. Just as with everything, eat it in moderation — if you can.

Guacamole served in a traditional molcajete Credit: (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bionicteaching/3099666450/)

9-INGREDIENT GUACAMOLE

Start to finish: 10 minutes

Servings: 3–5

• 3 ripe avocados, seeded and skinned
  
• 1/3 white or red onion, diced
  
• 1 hefty tablespoon minced garlic
  
• 1 handful fresh cilantro, chopped
  
• 1 jalapeño, diced (to taste)
  
• 3 squirts lime juice (bottled or fresh)
  
• 3 tablespoons orange juice
  
• Several shakes Lawry’s seasoned salt
  
• Ground black pepper (to taste)
  

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mash till slightly chunky. If too spicy due to jalapeño, add another avocado. Serve with tortilla chips, as an accompaniment to any Mexican meal or as a topper for grilled white fish, such as tilapia or halibut or orange roughy.

Now that’s a nice-lookin’ recipe.

Hungry for more information about this guac? Check this article out.

Happy trails!

SAK

One of my favorite quotes from the comedic genius otherwise known as “Wayne’s World” is Garth’s exclamation: “Live in the now!” OK, who am I kidding? That movie has about 180 quotes that keep me rolling almost 20 years (!) later. But I digress.

“Live in the now” is an appropriate concept to apply, I suppose, to captions and cutlines (which, coincidentally, are the same thing). The little line of copy that typically resides just below a photograph within an article is called a caption or cutline; the AP Stylebook folks prefer the term caption. No matter what you call that line, though, the cutline tells the photo’s story of who, what, when, where, why and how. If you think about it, cutlines are the most-read copy, aside from headlines; people tend to read the headlines and cutlines to determine whether to spend precious time reading the entire article. (Gasp — an entire article? The horror.) Although the second sentence is acceptable in either the present or past tense, the first sentence should almost always be written in the present tense.

Two questions arise:

1. Why the present tense? My best guess is that the photo captures a moment in time, and the present tense gives more oomph to the image — a feeling of immediacy that makes what happened in the photo seem more relevant than if it happened, let’s say, three days ago. Three days ago? That’s in the past, man. We want to know what just happened, man! We want to feel like we’re in the loop, man. Using past tense just may encourage the feeling of old news. And who wants old news? Not me, man.
2. What are the rare situations that would require a cutline to employ the past tense? Nuts if you’re thinking this, because I don’t have the answer to that one. I’ve checked out the AP Stylebook website and style guide and can’t find a reference to the past tense. Again, my best guess is that the AP Stylebook folks are not talking about the first sentence in a cutline, but the second. It’s apparently OK to write the second sentence in either present tense or past tense, depending on the publication’s or client’s preference. Wacky! So — if you have documented proof of a reason to use the past tense in a caption or cutline in the first sentence of a caption or cutline, please send it my way.

An avocado tree produces fruit in St. Luis Obispo, Calif., on Aug. 17, 2005. The tree provided several ripe fruits for the owner's salad. (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/emdot/39454927/)

Perhaps this isn’t the most exciting example of a cutline, but it is accurate. And how cool would it be to have an avocado tree growing in your backyard? Sh’yeah!

Happy trails!

SAK

Happy Friday to all the women out there who have ever visited an OBGYN.

Or would that be Obgyn? OB-GYN? OB/GYN? Or obgyn? or ob-gyn?

Ah, the waiting room (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29233640@N07/5368501799/)

Well, according the AP Stylebook, it should be ob-gyn.

I know — not what I was expecting, either. But there it is.

And that, my friends, is it for this entry. Makes you wish your ob-gyn visit were as short as this post, yes?

Happy trails!

SAK

The simple, AP Stylebook-approved answer is this:

Do not encase (or embrace, as your mood strikes you) the title of a newsletter in quotation marks.

The title should have initial caps on first and major words (e.g., HGTV Ideas, Dine Without Whine™, Skinsights, Yoga Tree), but that’s the extent of the homage to the name of the newsletter.

Happy trails!

SAK

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it more: It’s all in the details.

While recently writing a press release (er, make that a news release) for a client, I found out that the preferred term for a press conference is not press conference, but rather news conference.

Interesting.

Why news over press?

Because, as my agency’s director of marketing and public relations told me, a press (as in a printing press) is almost never at the conference. People waiting for news are at the conference. Whoever is holding the conference is delivering news. And in deference to electronic and other types of media, the term press is simply too exclusive. To top it all off, the AP Stylebook validates news conference as the preferred term. Thus, it should be news conference.

Makes sense, yes?

Wait for it — wait for it — news conference! (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/3726614425/)

Then what about news release vs. press release?

For that, I turned to my AP Stylebook again. Blast it! Nothing — no mention of press releases, nor news releases, that I can find. (If you can, please send it to me.) But I dug a little deeper and discovered on the AP Stylebook website a little gem: It has a page dedicated to past press releases. YES — press releases! It almost leaps off the screen, it’s so clear and unabashedly straightforward: Press Releases heads the page in a lovely sans font. Granted, I would’ve lowercased the “R” in Releases, but the site’s editors didn’t ask me.

Anyway, there it is. News conference and press release. Long live the quirky English language!

Happy trails!

SAK