Sophie Ross
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HUNG PARLIAMENT

9/6/2017

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Picture: hung parliament
There we have it.

A hung parliament.

​And so your proofreader’s mind turns to 
hung and hanged, and how to avoid this linguistic noose.​
​

​​​In almost all situations, the past tense of hang is hung.

. She hung a poster of Churchill on her wall.
. He hung out with his friends on election night.
. We hung our heads in sorrow.

​Hanged is reserved for people who have been condemned to death or who are already dead.

. She was sentenced to be hanged from the neck until dead.

If, however, there is no intention to kill, we use hung.

. They hung him by chains.

If we are referring to an inanimate object, the correct word is hung.

. He hung an effigy of the condemned man.

How did this distinction come about? There were two verbs in Old English for hang: hangian and hon. Add to the mix the Old Norse word hengjan and you can see why we have two past-tense forms for the same word.

Hanged and hung were used interchangeably for centuries, with hung gradually taking over. It’s thought that the tendency of old forms to remain in the legal language of the courts has kept the form hanged alive, as it were.

By using these two words correctly, you will avoid the wrath of the pedants. But don’t get too hung up about it.
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#WORDCRIMES

2/1/2017

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Start the New Year with some professional YouTube-ing. Come worship at the shrine of the brilliant and hilarious "Weird Al" Yankovic. No proofreader's website would be complete without it.
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ACCURATE SPELLING MATTERS IN BUSINESS

4/11/2016

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So says the BBC's hit The Apprentice, and I'm with them there.
Screenshot of The Apprentice's tweet
A gillet is an obsolete word meaning "a mare" or "a flighty young woman", according to Collins Dictionary.  The intended word was gilet, which is a sleeveless jacket. 

​This is yet another example of a misspelling that your sketchy spell check will miss.
Screenshot of The Apprentice's tweet
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THE HOWLING LIMITATIONS OF SPELL CHECK

26/9/2016

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Picture: Please contact support
​I’m revisiting that old chestnut: the howling limitations of spell check.
 
In the course of my work I complement my beady eye with two ancillary proofreading tools: pre-installed spell check and Intelligent Editing’s excellent editorial package PerfectIt. They enable me to increase my productivity, which is good for me and good for my clients. However, they should not be used in place of a proofreader.
​
​​​​Here are some errors from content I’ve worked on recently that the software missed.
​
​Spell check fails to:
Correct simple typos:
. Apple clearly thought it could improve upon in.
. Churchill favoured a boiler suit with amble pockets and escape hatches.
. I’m not afraid of aging.
. I thought it best to give him a wide birth.
 Spot a missing letter:
. Give one of our consultant a call.
Spot a missing word:
. It about being flexible.
Spot when a plural is required:
. I believe it’s time to rein thing in.
Spot when two words should be one:
. He was scare mongering.
Put the full stop in the correct place in direct speech:
. He said, “That’s it! I’m leaving”.
Put the full stop in the correct place:
. No fly posting offenders will be prosecuted.
Use upper and lowercase correctly:
. Julio Cesar called it a “Supermarket ball”.
Spot troublesome compounds:
. We are already to leave.
 
Checkers don’t know when to hyphenate a phrase that is used to qualify another noun:
. … in a business focused environment.
Checkers don’t know that adverbs used in compound words in front of a noun should be hyphenated:
. …much needed haircut.
 
Checkers have a rudimentary grasp of grammar:
. The duck and me went for a walk.
. The pudding needed less apples and fewer sugar.
 
Spell check is often foxed by UK vs US spelling variants:
. On the whole, US spelling shortens and simplifies: color, harbor, honor.
. However, there are exceptions: US fulfill, instill : UK fulfil, instil.
 
Checkers don’t reliably correct numbers written in letters and numerals:
. You should use letters when writing 1 to 9, and numerals from ten onwards.
 
Proofreaders and copy-editors need a decent grasp of general knowledge, which checkers don’t have:
. “…elephants in The Gambia”. This West African country doesn’t have elephants. The author meant to say Uganda.
. “…the Magna Carta”. Magna Carta does not take the definite article.
. “European High Court of Justice”. It is the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
 
So I thought I’d test my grammar/spell checkers:
. i thort i saw a pussy cat their on the stare
became
. I thought I saw a pussy cat they’re on the state.
Hopeless.

And finally… “proofreader”
Spell check says this form is incorrect. The Society for Editors and Proofreaders, the industry body that upholds standards in the publishing industry, disagrees!
​​​It’ll be a while before Artificial Intelligence whips away my job.
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SMELL CHECKER

5/5/2016

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​When Microsoft bought predictive text creators SwiftKey for a reported £170m, it was the clairvoyant artificial intelligence it wanted not the monumentally unpredictable keyboard tool. Thus the vagaries of spell check sprang to my mind once again, if only because spell check is still one barn I’d like to torch.
 
So when I stumbled upon this gem in my village magazine I felt I had to share it. Composed by architect David Wilson, and originally published in Horsley’s Over the Wall, it illustrates quite beautifully and hilariously why you can’t rely on the smell checker. It is reproduced here with the kind permission of the author.​​
​
Sophie Ross: freelance proofreader
​SMELL CHECKER
​David Wilson

Of all the truly marvelous technological innovations that nowadays enrich our lives, the spell-checker is surely one of the most beneficial. After all, what could be more heart-breaking than to see a perfectly sound piece of writing utterly devalued, purely on account of poor spelling.
 
As is now widely accepted, difficulties with spelling should not be taken to indicate impaired intelligence or creativity. It is not widely known, but both Agatha Christie and Gustave Flaubert couldn’t spell for toffee. Fortunately they had amanuenses to help them out. Nowadays, thanks to the smell-checker, we can all enjoy a similar degree of literary confident.
 
All the same, as is soften the case with radical innovations, there are people who, out of ignorant, fear or predicate, would have us turn our backs on this wonderful boom. One school of thought is happy to accept smell-checking but draws the lime at auto-collection, arguing that the latter risks robbing us, not only of our swords, but of the very ideas that under spin them. It is one thing to be averted to the fact that you have made a smelling mistake; it is quite another to have some completely random word hoisted upon you. People can become so valiant on spell checkers – so these alarmists claim – that they no longer have the fastest clue as to whether the worms appearing on the scream are the ones they meant to write – all they know is that they are spelled corrects.
 
Another common objection is that we are increase and singly wallowing electron technocracy to take control of what we communicate to otters – with truly tightening embrocations. Identity heft is usual mistaken as the risk that our personal details might be stolen by hacketts, coincidence tricksters and other criminals. On the contrary – so the unguent goes – it will be our own increasingly clever computers and mobile homes that will empty our bank amounts and cause us to be falsely abused of all sorts of unspeakable chimes.
 
At the extreme end, there are those who put about the paranoid fear that, despise our best tuffets, the words we writhe will soon no longer make any sense a tall and that – like streetwalkers – we risk slithering inexorably back into a nude dark cage.
 
Personal I consider all such backward-smoking worries unruly pepsi-mystic and uttermost without foundations.
​
David Wilson
omnivorist.blogspot.co.uk

@omnivorist

​​
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BULLITThd: THE BEAUTIFUL FUTURE OF DIGITAL PUBLISHING

14/4/2016

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This is the beautiful, brilliant future of digital publishing... and, as the detail detective, I'm proud to be a part of it.

BULLITThd is a groundbreaking, provocative, fully-immersive web quarterly for the curious and critically intelligent, whose stories and opinions are told via words, video, images, animation, music and debate. And, by the way, the advertising is gorgeous: art and commerce in perfect harmony via narrative short films.
Picture: Bullitthd - Grey
Picture: Bullitthd - Revolution
Picture: Bullitthd - Heroes and Villains
Picture: Bullitthd - Tomorrow's World
If you’ve got an opinion, join the debate.
 
The world is fascinating... discuss. ​​
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FUMBLERULES

12/2/2016

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Picture: policeman and punk rocker
A fumblerule is a self-contradictory rule of language or linguistic style, delightfully and perversely written so that it breaks its own rule.

The term fumblerule was coined by William Safire, presidential speechwriter, author and columnist. In 1979, Safire published Fumblerules of Grammar in his popular column On Language in the New York Times.
​
These are some of my favourites:​
​
  • Reserve the apostrophe for it's proper use and omit it when its not needed.
  • The passive voice should never be used.
  • Don't overuse exclamation marks!!!
  • Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read.
  • Don't use no double negatives.
  • Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
  • Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate; and never where it isn't.
  • Do not put statements in the negative form.
  • Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
  • Avoid commas, that are not necessary.
  • If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
  • Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
  • Write all adverbial forms correct.
  • It is incumbent on us to avoid archaisms.
  • Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
  • Never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
  • Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
  • One should never generalise.
  • Be more or less specific.
  • Remember to never split an infinitive.
  • capitalise every sentence and remember always end it with a point
  • Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives.

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WHY DO I NEED A PROOFREADER WHEN I'VE GOT SMELL CHECK?

27/11/2015

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I'm righting this news peace to show you why you can’t rely on smell check.
 
The principle reason four taking exercise is to improve your health. It’s really important to get in to the habit of exercising and practise makes perfect. People that ignore their heath maybe risking their live. Anyone not getting out of breath at last once a day, weather old or young, is at risk. So decide now to change Your lifestyle, but if your seriously unfit you may find you’re all ready to late. A twenty-minute walk 5 time a day usually gives your hart enough exercise to insure its getting enough activity. Yes, awe inspiring parkour involves exercise but your likely to break bones a few witch therefore is a good idea.
Now pop that bit of nonsense above into your spell check. I can guarantee that most of the errors will pass undetected.

Here are the corrections. (You probably haven't seen this much red ink since you left school.)
Picture
Shocking really, isn't it?
Picture: Welcome to perfection. Enjoy the journey.
You can't beat the eyes of a human proofreader, so I'm not out of a job yet.​​​
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WHAT ON EARTH IS COPY-EDITING?

8/9/2015

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Picture: typing on a laptop
This month, your copy-editor was asked to do some ironing. Not fine silk pillowcases (more's the pity), but some rough-hewn website text. Here's an extract before I set to:
​
  • A fun wallpaper for your little dudes and dudet the new age wallpaper is the new world we will all be living in soon. With its fantastic colours it will light up any kids face. From pink buildings to for the girls to have spaceships in the city for boys. This would add that finishing touch to any kid’s room. With a funky new age design, it will make anyone look twice! 
I found that a slightly bewildering vision, so I turned what the author wrote into what he thought he wrote:

  • With its fun and futuristic design, this colourful wallpaper will light up your child’s face and add a funky, new-age touch to their room.
I removed the fluff and ironed out the wrinkles, leaving the text shorter, tighter and infinitely more readable. By employing the light touch of a copy-editor, my client will almost certainly sell more rolls of wallpaper.

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CLICK HEAR [sic] FOR PRICES

5/7/2015

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Picture of a septic tank
I'm not buying a septic tank from these jokers. Poor spelling is bad for business. 

William Dutton, Professor of Internet Studies at Oxford University, says: "On the commercial internet, errors raise concerns over trust and credibility. In those instances, when a consumer might be wary of spam or phishing efforts, a misspelt word could be a killer issue."
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO SIR TIM BERNERS-LEE

8/6/2015

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The beneficent Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the magnificent world wide web, is 60 years old today. Happy birthday, Sir Tim, and thank you.

The pedants amongst you can debate whether we write:
World Wide Web
or 
world wide web
or
worldwide web.
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SET IN STONE: YOUR WEBSITE WORDS ARE THE LAW

8/5/2015

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Any claim you make on your website about your business, or the service you provide, will form part of the contract between you and the consumer unless you expressly say otherwise.

On 1st October this year consumer rights law is changing to give even more protection for consumers. Among the changes is one that looks simple enough at first sight, but in fact it's likely to have a profound effect on anyone who provides services to consumers, and has a website.

This means that if you make a statement about your service on your website, that statement becomes part of the contract with the consumer and the consumer can make a claim against you if the statement is incorrect. 

So for example if you say you are the best value hairdresser this side of London that has to be true, or you'll be refunding the consumer much of the price she has paid. Or if you say your new air source heat pumps can both heat and provide hot water for a family house and save you money, then the facts had better stack up. 

In effect, the terms and conditions of your business won't be just the rather boring set of "ts and cs” at the bottom of your webpage but every word on your webpages as well.
Picture of keyboard
With these changes on the way it makes sense to check your website for potential legal banana skins.
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MOBILEGEDDON: IS YOUR WEBSITE READY?

21/4/2015

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Picture of digital devices
If there’s one thing you do to improve your website this year, making it mobile-friendly has to be up near the top. (Together with having it proofread, obviously.)

Most of you will have mobile-friendly sites. Or do you? When did you last check your website on a smartphone? 

Studies have shown that 60% of internet searches in 2015 come from a mobile device, and to reflect this Google made a massive change to their algorithm. This update happened overnight and you may have been asleep.

It now means that Google will start penalising websites that aren't mobile-friendly.

This is great news for consumers, but it means businesses have to get ahead to be in the game.

We hear the words 'responsive' and 'optimised' flung around repeatedly. And if your website is less than four years old, the chances are it will be responsive and optimised. However, there are still issues that could force your visitors to X off, and that’s if they can find you in the first place.

1. LOAD TIMES
Sites with videos that don’t play, or images that take time to load will be handicapped in searches.

2. RESPONSIVE DESIGN ELEMENTS
Text must be readable without zooming. Content should fit the screen so that scrolling and zooming aren’t necessary. And a fat fist should be able to tap on a link easily.

3. A FLASH INTRO OR SPLASH PAGE
It may have wow factor, but Flash isn’t commonly supported on mobile devices and Google will penalise sites that use it. Furthermore, there aren’t any tags so your crucial SEO keywords don’t get prominence.

In short, if your site doesn’t load fast or look good on a mobile your ranking could take a major hit. Some experts say your SEO ranking could drop by as much as 50%. Imagine: one day your website is on page one in the listings, and the next day it has slipped into the cellars and is on page five.

Having a site that adapts easily to a mobile environment is crucial, and usability testing is key.

Want to check? You can test your site by going to Google's Mobile-Friendly Testing Tool.

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THE BENEFITS OF USABILITY TESTING

27/2/2015

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Picture of hands with superimposed cogs
A lot of time and money is spent developing websites and producing online content, and usability testing is a pivotal part of the process. If your website doesn't work properly it will reflect badly on your business and raise questions of trust and reliability.

Usability testing means checking and evaluating the functionality and responsiveness of your website on all the main devices, operating systems and browsers that your customers use. This is not necessarily something your web designer will do and, honestly, my experience bears this out.

There’s no substitute for a skilled usability tester: someone who comes to the material fresh with no previous expectations. If you step back and let someone removed from the development process check your site, you can guarantee a genuine and effective user experience test.

Here’s why you should test:

1. LOWER COSTS
Ideally, testing should be conducted early on in the design process, and at various stages throughout the development, not once the site is live. It’s easier and cheaper to fix the faults early on.

For example, do your images load, even with a sleepy rural download speed of 2Mbps? Visual and aural checks should be conducted on multimedia files, and on all platforms, during the build. If you launch a well-tested, flawless website, you won’t have to go back to the developer and incur further costs.

2. POSITIVE BRAND IMAGE
The smallest error, such as a broken link or a registration form that requires a house number (not everyone lives in a house with a number), can be off-putting to a potential customer. The chances are they’ll leave your site and find your rival instead. It’s likely they won’t complain, but they won’t buy either, and your brand is tarnished.

Imagine a website with 72 case studies, one of which has a broken link. Does one broken link out of 72 really matter? Yes, because Sod’s law dictates that the one link your potential customer clicks on will be the one that doesn’t work.

3. FEWER COMPLAINTS
It’s vital that your web pages work seamlessly across all the main browsers. You cannot expect to build customer loyalty if your site is defective on one browser, even if it performs well on all the others.

4. EASIER TO NAVIGATE
Forget the bells and whistles; no one has time to negotiate a cluttered and confusing website. People want a logical, intuitive site that provides information and answers immediately. Pared, clean simplicity is what’s expected.

You and your developer may understand your site, but will your customers? The fresh eyes of a usability tester can tell you whether your site is a pleasure to navigate, or one to X off.

5. REDUCED SHOPPING CART ABANDONMENT
No one hangs around an e-commerce website that’s confusing or doesn’t work properly. Ask yourself the following:
  • Can your customers buy quickly, and leave? 
  • Can they escape from the buying process? 
  • Can they go back to a previous page without losing what they’ve written on a form? 
  • Is your e-commerce security reassuring? 
Usability tests will point out the pitfalls that need addressing and, following improvements to the design, will boost sales.

6. KEEP THEM COMING BACK
If your site has pop-up ads, or can only be accessed using Flash, or is riddled with typos, your website will sink on its launch.

However, if your site works perfectly on all platforms and delivers on its promises, your customers will return. Furthermore, they’ll probably recommend you to their friends.

Flawed content or functionality gives the impression that you may not care about how you conduct your business, or yourself. Testing your website for usability will save time and money in the long run, and will enhance the reputation of your business. To misquote Benjamin Franklin, “A gram of prevention is worth a kilo of cure”.

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THE BUSINESS THAT HAS A PROFESSIONAL WEBSITE IS THE ONE YOU'RE GOING TO CALL

14/1/2015

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Speaking at the Institute of Directors Annual Convention 2014, Dido Harding, CEO of TalkTalk, said: “The digital economy is going to change all businesses in Britain, and driving growth in the UK over the next 5-10 years. It’s only just beginning. Only half of Britain’s small businesses have actually got websites. A third of Britain’s SMEs say they don’t have basic digital skills. If you have a plumbing emergency late at night, you’re going to google an emergency plumber, and the plumber that has a professional website is the one you’re going to call. In every walk of life, businesses, charities and individuals, the digital revolution is only just beginning.”

She summarised by saying: “Half of the UK’s small businesses don’t have a website. Those that do are growing three times faster.”

"Embrace the digital world" by listening to Dido Harding's speech on YouTube.
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A SINGLE SPELLING MISTAKE CAN CUT ONLINE SALES IN HALF

15/12/2014

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Online entrepreneur Charles Duncombe, of the Just Say Please group, told BBC News that errors in spelling and grammar are costing internet businesses in the UK millions of pounds in lost revenue. Mr Duncombe said that an analysis of website figures shows a single spelling mistake can cut online sales in half. “Spelling is important to the credibility of a website. When there are underlying concerns about fraud and safety, then getting the basics right is essential.”

The Society for Editors and Proofreaders, of which I am a Professional Member, reacted to Charles Duncombe’s comments saying: “Businesses concerned about damaging their credibility – and their revenue – through website errors should be taking sensible precautions. The SfEP is urging companies to protect their online reputation by having all their web material checked thoroughly by trained proofreaders before it goes live.”
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IT'S ALL IN THE DETAIL

10/11/2014

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Advertising image for M&M's
Whilst writing my new website, I was reminded of a rock ’n’ roll tour story. Taken from Think Like a Freak by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt, this tale illustrates the importance of checking the fine detail.

“When the American rock band Van Halen insisted that all the brown M&M’s be removed from the sweets bowl before they arrived in their dressing room, they were not behaving like spoilt brats. They were insisting on perfection, and for a good reason. The group had a complicated set-up that was unsafe if assembled incorrectly. So they needed to be sure that the venue had read and carried out their instructions carefully. If the brown M&M’s had been removed they could be sure that care was being taken elsewhere too.”
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Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP)
+44 (0)7973 838117
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​
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