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Confusing Words of the Week

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I’m going to start a new feature called “Confusing Words of the Week” where I take a set of two or three words that get confused and give you definitions and try to give you a memory trick to help you remember when to use which word. If you have words that confuse you, let me know and they may appear here soon!

 

Words of the WeekThis week’s confusing words are accept and except:

 

accept is to take or receive. He was ready to accept his new job duties. (He was ready to receive his new job duties.)

except is to exclude. He was ready for the new job duties except typing daily reports. (He was ready for all of his job duties excluding typing daily reports.)

The easiest way to remember which one to use is the EXcept is to EXclude. So if you want to EXclude something, you would say EXcept as in the following example:

I like all flavors of Life Savers EXCEPT lime.

That means if you take all of the flavors of Life Savers and exclude the lime ones, those are what I like.

If you are not going to EXclude something, you will accept it.

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Do You Know the Mark?

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Do you know the markWhen people edit a hard copy of a document (and, yes, some people still do that), there are certain proofreading marks that have been used throughout time. There is a great resource for these marks that I found online at http://www.marquette.edu/omc/documents/proofreaders.pdf. It includes not only the symbol, but what the corrected language would look like. I’ve added a link to this document on the Files page for printing it out and keeping it at your desk.

Proofreading Symbols Marquette

A few comments:

  • The word “stet” is one that I didn’t know when I started in the legal field and I have had others ask me about. It basically means “I marked that out by accident so please leave it the way it was.” Make sure to look for that before you spend time making edits that are unnecessary.
  • Ellipsis should have spaces between the periods according to The Gregg Reference Manual, 11th ed., ¶ 291. The Chicago Manual of Style agrees with Gregg on this one, but the AP Stylebook does not. Microsoft prefers the three periods with no spacing. The most important thing is to choose a style and be consistent. I’ve addressed this issue before at https://proofthatblog.com/2012/11/05/ellipsis-marks-spaced-or-not-that-is-the-question/.
  • If the author doesn’t use these proofreading marks on a hard copy of their document, they will edit it online and you will still be expected to proofread it and make the necessary edits. You should do that in redline so the author can see your suggested edits. Just making edits could change the meaning of the sentence (or a whole document), so you need to have the author approve the changes. I briefly addressed this at https://proofthatblog.com/2012/11/18/time-for-a-quickie/.
  • It is nice that there is a chart with the “standard” proofreading marks, but some authors develop their own marks. If you really don’t know what they’re trying to do, ASK. Then keep track of those marks so that someone you may have helping you will have a cheat sheet with the authors special marks defined.

Learning the proofreading marks is helpful so you can make the author’s edits appropriately and so that you can use them correctly when you are the author editing your work. What is the most creative proofreading mark you’ve seen?

 

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Lay or Lie?

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The words lie or lay seem to cause problems for people. How do you know when to use which one? Let’s see if we can clear it up a little bit.

Lie or Lay

Lay (lay, laid, laying) means “to put” or “to place.” Because it’s a verb (action word) it requires an object to complete the meaning:

  • Please lay the groceries on the counter.
  • She laid her resignation letter on the boss’s desk.
  • He is always laying his schoolbooks on the kitchen table.

Lie (lie, lay, lain, lying) means “to recline, rest, or stay” or “to take a position of rest.” Unlike lay, which requires it, lie cannot take an object.

  • She said she was going to lie on the bed to test the mattress.
  • The pleading was lying on his desk for him to sign.

A way to remember the difference is that if you can replace the questionable lie or lay with place (or the correct version of it), then you need to use the correct version of lay. If it doesn’t, use the correct version of lie.

  • She wanted to (lay or lie) down for a nap. Would you say “She wanted to place down for a nap.”? No! So the proper word would be lie.
  • He (laid or lay) the coffee on his secretary’s desk. Is it “He placed the coffee on his secretary’s desk.”? Yes! Then laid is correct.

Another reminder hint might be if you are going to plAce something, then you are going to lAy it, but if you are going to rEst, you are going to liE.

 

 

 

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