The Punctuation Ogre and the Letter Lapper

Remember Thermostat Jeannie, the one who moves my home thermostat up to Hubby’s comfort level? Well, her two best friends, Punctuation Ogre and Letter Lapper, live inside the grammar and spell check feature in my Word program.

When I write anything, be it a blog or article, as soon as I hit “Save,” the two of them get to work. Punctuation Ogre moves commas, or even worse, inserts them in places they don’t belong. I know the proper use of commas—I taught that skill for 35 years. Then she turns quotation marks, especially the end quotes, in the wrong direction. Her other tricks are switching commas and periods, sprinkling quotation marks around words, and misuse of the parenthesis.

Letter Lapper devours letters from words, leaving them grossly misspelled. Sometimes she only nibbles part of a letter, thus changing an “e” to a “c” or an “m” to and “n.” The other day, I typed the word FUNdraiser on a flyer, a word one of the charity organizations in my Seniorville uses. The next day, I received an email saying I omitted the “d.” I know the letter was there when I hit “Save,” but alas, it wasn’t when my friend received the flyer to proof read.

Errors in print mortify me. One reader asked if I ever heard of the grammar and spell check feature. He didn’t believe me when I told him about Punctuation Ogre and Letter Lapper.

I recently received the layout of the manuscript for my book via email. I opened it up to see and voila—each page contained proof Punctuation Ogre and Letter Lapper performed their destruction once again. Since I know the errors were not there when I hit “Send,” the damage had to be done in cyberspace while the book made its way to the publisher. With tears in my eyes, I realized I could no longer fight this war by myself. I sent out a call for the Punctuation and Spelling Warriors.

The Four Star General of Punctuation and Sensible Sounds responded—perhaps because his wife loves my blog and knows how the Ogre and Lapper have frustrated me since I’ve started to write. He carefully fixed the wounds in my manuscript, making him eligible for the Proof Reader’s Medal of Honor. Now if only he would develop a foolproof grammar and spell check program to be installed in all computers, he could be richer than Mark Zuckerberg, My number one fan deserves such a reward!

DASHING THROUGH THE MANUSCRIPT

Up until last week I thought there were only two horizontal punctuation marks: dashes and hyphens—I’m not sure what category underscores come under, and right now don’t care. The uses of dashes and hyphens are clearly explained in my three punctuation “bibles” for standards in writing and/or editing—and I looked in the obviously outdated manuals again before I started to write this blog. Since my computer has no key for a long dash, I use the hyphen symbol instead with the hope my readers understand my intent. Sometimes when I hit the hyphen, and I clearly want the dash, the genie inside my computer puts in a dash for me.

Last week, when I sent the manuscript for my book, Retired, Not Expired, to the editor, I asked her if the person who sets the font can help me out with the dash/hyphen error. She told me that I needed to do that edit myself, and explained how to get the dash, but alas, her next instruction through me a curve ball. “Remember, you want the ‘em’ dash, not the ‘en.’” I had no clue what she was referring to, but am proud to say, thanks to her directions, I set up a command key not just for the “em” dash, but also the “ellipse.” (…) I have one for the “en” dash in case someone is kind enough to explain to me when to use it and if I should or should not leave a space before and after the symbol.

Fixing, the ellipse was easy. I just had to use the “find” and “replace” feature—not so with my incorrectly used hyphen. If I use find/replace for that, then all of my correctly hyphenated words would have an “em” dash in lieu of the hyphen. As you can imagine, I am now correcting the old-fashioned dash, one dash at a time. GRRR

If the name of the “inventor” of all the new punctuation rules now that computers set the type had a phone I would call him. I can understand why he ditched the two spaces between sentences, but how “—“ is more cost effective than “-“ is beyond my …scope of reasoning!