Punctuation

Following up on this guest post I wanted to say that although grammar and spelling are of course important aspects of writing to master punctuation is—also—critical!

How you punctuate your sentences; whether you use commas or dashes or parentheses is so important, knowing when (to use a) comma or semicolon or “period” impacts the readability of “your” words.

When you’re revising make sure you’re using the right punctuation—does a dash or a comma or a parenthesis better fit grammatically. Does that semicolon really belong there or would the sentence read better split into two. Think about which punctuation mark gets your idea across in the clearest way possible…for the reader.

Punctuation also can change the meaning of your words?

I’ll say it again,

Punctuation also can change the meaning of your words!

See.

(For a great lesson on proper punctuation usage, read Grammar Girl’s posts.)

Safe Haven

There are certain words that should not be used together. (No I’m not talking about “we’re out of bread pudding,” though those words most definitely should not be used together.)

I’m talking about words that don’t make sense if you speak English. Which I do.

When I was in journalism school, I took a copyediting class that changed the way I wrote. And it also changed how I edited, which I think made me a more thorough yet less likeable editor.

Anyhow. Two words were nails on the chalkboard to my professor and are now nails on the chalkboard to me: safe haven.

I cringe at the mention of a safe haven. I want to scribble all over the word safe whenever I read the phrase. I want to scream, “A HAVEN IS A SAFE PLACE!” at the top of my lungs.

Sure, this sounds ah-mazing: It was her safe haven.

But what you’re really saying is this: It was her safe safe place.

Even Word, which never fails to underline grammatically correct phrases with its annoying squiggles, knows this is wrong.

So for the love of everything haven-like, drop the safe. Or change it to safe place.

The final end.