Make sure you check ALL parts of an email before you send it. And make sure your autosignature is correct! This was in an email I received from local counsel’s office–more than once. I finally told this person so we’ll see if it is changed in the next email or if I just offended them.
Copyright: alexmillos / 123RF Stock Photo
There is some confusion over when to capitalize personal titles. Here are the “rules”:
To determine whether it is an official title as opposed to an occupational title, decide if you can use the title with just the last name. You would not say “Lawyer Jones,” “Director of Marketing Smith,” etc. Do not use a title before a person’s name unless it is short and you would actually say the title when you address that person. For instance, you might say Professor Allen, but you would not say Professor of Literary Arts Allen. Instead, that sentence would start “Sue Allen, professor of literary arts, . . .”
However, when that title is for a high-ranking national, state, or international official and follows or replaces the personal name, it is capitalized:
Modern usage is even changing parts of this rule. Some sources now recommend that these titles not be capitalized when they follow or replace a proper name of a high-ranking official as in “The queen will visit the prime minister of Australia during her visit there.” If you will use this style, remember to give both officials the same treatment so that “queen” and “prime minister” are both not capitalized. The same rule applies when using two high-ranking officials with their position and name, i.e. “Queen Elizabeth will meet with President Obama in Washington, D.C.” NOT “Queen Elizabeth will meet with the president.” Just use equal treatment.
HOWEVER, because of the special position of the President of the United States, that title is always capitalized even when used as a general term of classification
In a letter’s inside address, writer’s signature block, envelope, and on business cards, the titles are ALWAYS capitalized whether they are before or after the proper name.
I hope this helps clear up some confusion in using personal titles correctly.
I rarely watch commercials–either I’m watching TV from a DVR or I am doing something else while commercials are on, but I caught this local bedding store ad yesterday during the news and had to use it here. I’ve heard of “Clearance Priced” but not “Clearanced Priced.” I’m sure they paid a lot of money for this advertisement to air multiple times, including on the local news program, so these kinds of errors are just plain embarrassing!
There’s a time for placeholders in a draft document–but there’s also a time to remove placeholders and add the final language. This newspaper apparently missed that lesson.
Copyright: alexmillos / 123RF Stock Photo
As we’ve learned before, a verb must always agree in number and person with the subject. See Singular Verb, Plural Subject, Both . . . and, It’s All About the Agreement. But what if the “person” is an entity? Do you then use a singular or plural verb?
Typically, if you are talking about the entity as a unit, you use singular verb:
If the entity is a company, it is usually treated as a unit. Just be sure that you carry the treatment as singular or plural every time you are talking about that entity. For instance:
If you are want to emphasize that the members of the entity are acting independently, then a plural verb is correct:
To help figure it out, replace the entity with “it” and replace members of the entity with “they” to make sure you are using the right verb. Using the examples above, replace the entity with the word in parenthesis to see how it works:
Hopefully that was useful to you. If it was, please share this post so others can be as smart as you are!
It is disappointing enough when students don’t know which version of “there/their/they’re” to use on their Facebook posts, but when school instructors don’t know the difference, it does not bode well for improvement in Facebook statuses in the future.
Copyright: pixelsaway / 123RF Stock Photo
When your son’s baseball team scores a run, what do you say? Yeah, yea, or yay?
Hopefully yay is the correct answer to the first question. Is the opposite also true?
Any of these are correct informal replacements for no but none of them is as fun as yay! Let’s make it a point to notice something worthy of a big “YAY!” today!
This one is interesting because at first glance, it’s hard to tell what’s wrong, but when you really look, that’s some pretty fancy wheels for a vehicle that takes a 7″. That Barbie Corvette must be decked out!
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