Orange peel as art (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shazbot/3180939672/)

Peel = a verb meaning to cut or strip off the outer layer of something, such as the skin of an orange, a heavy sweater, the bark of a tree or the top layer of paint; it’s also a slang term meaning to undress: He peeled off his wet swim trunks and jumped in the shower to wash off the chlorine. It often refers to keeping a lookout for something: Keep your eyes peeled for a bright red VW Beetle. (Slug bug! Whack!)

Peel = a noun meaning the rind or skin of a fruit, such as a grapefruit, banana or apple.

Peal = a noun meaning the loud ringing of a bell or set of bells; it also means any loud, prolonged sound, such as gunfire, thunder or laughter.

Thanks, A.M., for the idea.

Happy trails!

SAK

First problem: The title was split on two lines and the word ax was at the end of the first line, with to grind at the beginning of the second line. Ech. It’s no fun to read a typical phrase such as this one that’s been split in two as if it’s a banana flippin’ split.  Ruins the flow for the reader. Not to mention that the last word on the first line is a mere two letters long.

But I digress once again.

Second and, for the purpose of this entry, main problem: Ax was spelled ax. Two letters. It just looked wrong.

So what did I do?

(Wait for it.)

Someone ought to have an ax to grind with the room designer (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mccready/3069366812/)

OK, don’t wait for it. You know the drill; I looked it up on Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary and — what the?! — ax is the preferred spelling! The dictionary gods must be crazy, but apparently they have deemed axe (three letters and the spelling that I grew up with, unless my memory is playing tricks on me) as the secondary spelling. The variant. The sub-par. Egads.

There you have it. I might not like ax right now, but I will after a few days of stewing. I hope that you will, too.

Happy trails!

SAK

And that doesn’t even include all the weird mistakes we find in said books. They’re real gems, those mistakes.

Tonight’s story was P.D. Eastman’s “Go, Dog. Go!” It’s especially fun for a word nerd like me because I get to point out three types of punctuation in the title alone, and I get such a thrill when my 4-year-old exclaims, “Explanation point, Mom! I found one!”

She makes me so proud.

But something always bugged me about the wording inside. There are two dogs, one male and one female, who periodically meet throughout the book. Both dogs wear various hats. The girl dog asks the boy dog if he likes her hat, and he always says some version of “No, I don’t like that hat.” So they part, the girl dog looking miffed and the boy dog looking oblivious. The last meeting ends amicably because the girl dog has gone all out — and I mean all out — in designing her hat; the boy dog finally agrees that her hat is pretty cool.

Do you like my hat? (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/table4five/4067671771/)

What got me, though, was how Eastman spelled good-by (without an ending “e”). It just doesn’t look right to me. And when that happens, that not-quite-right feeling, it’s best if I just look it up. And of course I did, but it took more than a year to do it (sort of like how I go into the kitchen with the intention of getting a glass of water but find dirty dishes in the sink, so I wash them and then realize that I need some bleach to clean up and go downstairs to get it but see an unfolded blanket in the living room, so I go ahead and fold it first, but then … you get the picture).

So I looked it up via Merriam-Webster. And I found good-bye (with a final “e”) to be the first (and thus most prominent) spelling. While good-by made the dictionary’s second spelling, it is still considered a variant.

And then I checked it out in the brand-spanking-new 2010 AP Stylebook (feel free to envy me) and, within those magical pages, goodbye exists, sans hyphen! Now that, my friends, made my day.

So goodbye it is, arrivederci,  auf wiedersehen and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Happy trails!

SAK

Good grief. My mind must be slipping.

So I looked it up, as I always — and often — do when I’m not 100 percent sure of the spelling or definition. Good ol’ Merriam-Webster to the rescue! Dating back to the 14th century, this adverb means “in a due manner of time,” and properly, at that.

Dudley Do-Right always duly notes the evil doings of Snidely Whiplash

Another way to look at it is that the matter at hand will be receiving the attention and consideration it has due (although this sounds slightly you-OWE-me demanding to me, which doesn’t often sit well with some folks).

And its correct spelling? Duly.

Duly noted.

Happy trails!

SAK

OK, maybe that’s an assumption. Maybe you’re knowledgeable in all things computer but don’t know this little gem. Or perhaps you barely know how to turn your PC on but know the exact meaning and spelling of this topic. Either way, you probably have run across this big boy at some point.

And I digress yet again. Here it is:

Captcha. Or more correctly, CAPTCHA.

What the … ?! Um-hmm. It’s a real word. Really, it’s a loose acronym for Competely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (or so says Wikipedia).

It sounds like capture. It frustrates many an Internet scammer and frequent Web surfer alike. And it’s brilliant. So what is it?

Some CAPTCHAs are discernible, some not so much (photo: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/KCAPTCHA_with_crowded_symbols.gif)

It’s that box with the warped letters and numbers, the one that you’re supposed to look at and figure out what those twisted letters and numbers are and then type them into another box, with the hope that you’ve got them right. If so, you move on to the next screen, you pass go. If not, you try again or get blocked from further attempts.

Granted, there are a lot of technical details that go along with the CAPTCHA, but this isn’t the forum for those details. Just know that I learned something today and I hope that I have been able to share a little somethin’-somethin’ with a Bloody Well Write reader or two.

Now, go and try to decipher one of those suckers.

Happy trails!

SAK

Take Julia Louis-Dreyfus, for example. On Tuesday, May 4, CNN senior producer David Daniel walked by the newly embedded pink marble star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame honoring Louis-Dreyfus and noticed that the actor’s name had two mistakes in it:
• The “o” in Louis was missing.
• The hyphen between Louis and Dreyfus was missing.

Daniel reported the gaffe to the Walk of Fame press rep.

Four hours later, Louis-Dreyfus arrived to receive her star — the 2,407th — and found a temporary chiseled fix of her name on the star.

The Hollywood Walk of Fame (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/christianhaugen/3556803658/)

Her response?

“Right when you think you’ve made it, you get knocked down,” she joked. “It’s an ideal metaphor for how this business works.”

’Atta girl, JLD. Take it in stride.

The misspelled Hollywood star will be replaced with a corrected (and triple-proofread) version soon. Louis-Dreyfus asked for the botched star as a keepsake.

This isn’t the first time an actor’s name has been misspelled on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1993, Dick Van Dyke’s star had to be remade.

The upshot of this spelling blunder? David Daniel can now add Hollywood proofreader to his already-impressive résumé.

Happy trails!

SAK

No one could hear the announcement over the roar of the crowd.

According to Slate Magazine, the broadcast wing of the AP raised a hullabaloo fierce enough to cause AP to reverse that decision.

Hey, Mike: Is this thing on? (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/snackerdesigns/4221001947/)

I’m torn.

To me, the abbreviation should, indeed, have fewer of the same letters as the original word, but not different letters (such as mike — ain’t no no k in microphone). But the three-letter mic looks like it should sound like mick (or Mick). Beside the fact that mike with a lowercase m is slightly weird, I was going to be OK with the change; after all, other words that are proper nouns are also regular ol’ nouns — think of Pat/pat, Bob/bob, Art/art and Bill/bill. I even know a few elementary school jokes that say as much.

Then again, if you’re riding around your neighborhood on a bicycle (sans the letter k), you’re on your bike and not your  bic. (What? You are on a bic? Now that would be something to see. Or not.)

This is why I defer to the AP Stylebook on most cases.

So for the record, it’s currently mic for microphone.

Happy trails!

SAK

This particular point revolves around state names in print. Should they be abbreviated when in conjunction with cities? Or should they be spelled out, creating havoc for newspapers and any other organization that deals with skinny columns or persnickety designers?

The AP Stylebook editors had recently stated that the new rule was to spell out state names. But according to its Twitter account (who would’ve thought that Twitter would be a viable news source?), the Associated Press editors are now “postponing plans to change its style on state abbreviations, pending further review.”

Check out the misspelling that runs across the bottom of this political ad — ouchie!

I, along with many, many, many other editors and writers, am happy that they are rethinking that change. Living in Kansas, I don’t have as many opportunities to write about Mississippi or Massachusetts, but spelling out those extra letters seems like overkill.

Any thoughts out there about this change (or this non-change)?

Happy trails!

SAK

This just in (OK, about an hour ago, so sue me), directly from the Twitter page of @APStylebook:

Responding to reader input, we are changing Web site to website.

Make note, news and grammar buffs, because the AP Stylebook folks have finally caved to overwhelming public pressure. It happens less frequently than a blue moon, but it just happened. It’s a good thing, but I’m going to have to wrap my brain around this (or perhaps rap my brain). You know how hard old habits die.

Happy trails!

SAK

When something (or someone) is being bad-mouthed or talked about in a not-very-nice way, is it (or he or she) getting a bad rap or a bad wrap?

I recently penned an article about onions (with a yummy recipe for Veggie French Onion Soup) and wrote, “Onions get a bad wrap.” It just didn’t feel right, so I looked it up.

Now this is a bad wrap (photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kerryvaughan/2748524622)

Lesson No. 1: When it comes to research and writing (and, of course, editing), follow your gut and look the blasted thing up.

Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary describes a bad rap as “an unjust accusation, verdict or punishment” or “an adverse opinion or judgment considered undeserved or unjust.”

It does not (ahem) mention bad wrap.

There ’tis.

Happy trails!

SAK