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The next time you need to write or edit web content or check the health of your website, ask Shire Web Writer to do it for you. So you can relax and get on with running your business.

Some of the most abused words in the English language

The abuse of these words exasperates many a pedantic lover of English.

Affect, effect

Affect is usually a verb and effect is usually a noun.

The teacher hoped to affect the students’ results.
The teacher affected a look of disbelief when the school published the results. (Here, it means to pretend or imitate.)
Psychologists say that affect is the conscious experience or emotion. (Here, it is a noun that refers to feeling.)
The teacher had a profound effect on the results.
The new teacher effected many changes in the curriculum.

Alternate, alternative

Alternate is every other one or succeeding by turns and alternative means one of two choices or a substitute. The usage is becoming blurred, but it is worth sticking to the rules.

The nurse comes on alternate days.
The alternative is to shut it down.

Complement, compliment

Complement means to complete a whole and can be a verb or a noun. Compliment means to praise and can also be a verb or a noun.

Her presence complements that of the family.
A complement of 20 fire fighters attended the scene.
He compliments her on the report she has written.
His compliment was sincere.

Comprise

Comprise means made up of or to include; however, it is often confused with compose or used as synonym for constitute.
NOTE: Never say “comprised of”.

The organisation comprises three divisions. (Here, the three divisions are the whole organisation.)

But:

The organisation includes the Capital Growth Division. (Here, the Capital Growth Division is part of the organisation, but not all parts are mentioned.)

Fewer, less

Fewer modifies a plural noun and refers to units that can be expressed as a specific number. Less modifies a singular noun and refers to quantity or bulk and to comparisons that cannot be expressed numerically.

Eat less meat and you will consume less fat.
I have fewer dollars in my pocket than you have.

But:

I have less than twenty dollars in my pocket.

Stationary, stationery

Stationary is an adjective that means fixed in place. Stationery is a noun that means writing materials, pens, envelopes.

The train was stationary for 30 minutes.
Let’s buy the stationery at the supermarket.

Correct usage of bi and semi

You can dispel the confusion caused by bi and semi by remembering that bi means two and semi means half. 
Here’s what H.W. Fowler, the outraged pedant of abused English, says about bi:

“If it were not for bicentenary, which lacks a vernacular equivalent, there would be no reason why all the bi- hybrids should not be allowed to perish.” —H.W. Fowler, Fowler's Modern English Usage

However, if you must use bi and semi, here's the correct usage:

• semiweekly = twice a week
• biweekly = every two weeks 
• semimonthly = twice a month 
• bimonthly = every two months 
• semiannual = twice each year 
• biennial = every two years

Proper use of the apostrophe makes you look clever

Do you look stupid in print? Consider a class action against your old school. Or sue your English teacher. Better yet, sue your department of education. Sue them all.

What is it with apostrophe abuse?

I found the following plea for advice on the Internet. The writer wants to know what is ailing her, but quite honestly, I would have to add some apostrophes before I tell her. Then I would have to rewrite the whole thing.

Sinceearly in the school year, i've been having severe nonstop headaches that dont go away, no matter what i take. i have stomach aches that feel neither like cramps, like im going to throw up, or anything ive ever felt. i get dizzy frequently, the room will spin, i black out, and feel like im going to pass out. this is daily. it always feels like theres so much pressure in my head that its going to explode.

Why apostrophe abuse hurts so much

I don’t care how much you jump up and down screaming, “I hate bloody apostrophes”, seeing them omitted or used improperly makes me get out my pen and start editing. The truth is, you can write how you like to your friends via private SMS and emails, but when it comes to writing for the public, standard grammar still applies. So, if you want your readers to take notice, write proper English.
The apostrophe has two jobs: to indicate a possessive and to indicate omitted letters. That’s all.
To indicate the possessive

The DVD’s cover is missing (singular). The DVDs’ covers are missing (plural).

The TV’s remote control is broken (singular). The TVs’ remote controls are missing (plural).

The girl’s hat blew away (singular). The girls’ hats blew away (plural).

But, if you can’t say “it is”, ditch the apostrophe.

Its cover is broken. (It does not make sense to say: It is cover is broken.)

To replace omitted letters and form one word

I have eaten my lunch already. I’ve eaten my lunch already. (The apostrophe takes the place of ha.)

We have seen the light. We’ve seen the light. (The apostrophe takes the place of ha.)

Let us see how far we can go. Let’s see how far we can go. (The apostrophe takes the place of u.)

It's raining again. (It is raining again.)

Here’s the above paragraph with corrections:

Sincerely, in the school year, I've been having severe nonstop headaches that don’t go away, no matter what I take. I have stomach aches that feel neither like cramps, like I’m going to throw up, or anything I’ve ever felt. I get dizzy frequently, the room will spin, I black out, and feel like I’m going to pass out. This is daily. It always feels like there’s so much pressure in my head that it’s going to explode.

Now, isn’t that better? The other grammatical errors are for another blog.
See the Shire Web Writer website for writing help.

Can a ghost cause a road accident?

Australia’s highways are littered with the ghosts of road-accident victims.

Early one morning in the 1980s, 19 cars were involved in a pileup on the Mornington Peninsula Freeway in Victoria, Australia. The motorists claimed that they had swerved to avoid hitting a misty, floating human shape that then disappeared. Could it be that they had seen the ghost of someone who had died on that highway?

It is easy to dismiss the wraith that haunts the Mornington Peninsula Freeway as a trick of the light, fog or morning mist. But it is difficult to explain it away when hundreds of people declare they have seen the phantom, which some say had been around for 10 years prior to the 19-car pileup. One woman recalled, “I was driving with my husband when the grey misty shape of a woman suddenly hurled itself in front of the car. I was so frightened I almost swerved off the road.”

Despite the many witness accounts of encounters with ghosts, there are no experts on the subject, only theories. One common theory is that ghosts are imprints in a dimension close to our own of people who have died but do not know it. In other words, they are earthbound. Apparently, this happens in the case of sudden death, such as a road accident. According to psychic and author, Sylvia Browne, time is meaningless in the immediate, after-death dimension. A traumatised road-accident victim, therefore, can remain in those first few minutes after death and re-enact the trauma over and over again, which in our dimension could last for years, even centuries.

So, could it be that the phantom set of headlights flying down King George Avenue in Tamworth, New South Wales, late at night is a re-enacting of a drag car race gone wrong? King George Avenue used to be a popular drag car racing strip where many people crashed and died.

It is doubtful that highway ghosts set out deliberately to kill people. These hapless ghosts are probably not even aware of us. It is more likely that the sight of them spooks drivers, who then swerve to avoid hitting them. But who knows? Certainly, no one in our dimension ever will. If we accept that ghosts exist, the idea that a person can hang around after death and scare people half out of their wits adds a tantalising element to our ponderings about life and death.

References
John Pinkney, Haunted: The Book of Australia’s Ghosts, The Five Mile Press, Victoria, 2005.
Sylvia Browne, The Other Side and Back, Signet, USA, 2000.

How to enliven dull writing

Three practical ways to transform bland into gripping.
Dull writing is wordy, passive, vague and listless. It has no rhythm, is hard to understand, and abuses language. Some of the culprits are easy to identify. To fix them is a matter of technique.
It may seem that a good writer has more talent than the rest of us, but like any skill, developing a good writing style is a matter of mastering specific techniques. You can transform any piece of dreary writing by identifying and eliminating three culprits of tedium: overused prepositions, lacklustre verbs, and meaningless nominalisations.
Slash the prepositions
There are about 150 prepositions in the English language. While they are essential to writing, their overuse results in wordiness and passive-voice sentences. Examples are above, against, by, of, with. Some prepositional phrases are at the beach, under the chair, on the bridge. Compound prepositional phrases are with respect to, in reference to, for the purposes of.
The following "before" examples are from real websites that offer writing services. The "after" examples demonstrate how the clutter produced by prepositions can be eliminated.

• Before: Our writers work in close proximity with the clients to understand their needs and then improvise their content as per these requirements.
  After: Our writers work closely with clients in order to understand their needs and write content that meets those needs.
• Before: We boast of writers who have great command over the language and can write for any given industry or sector.
  After: Our writers have a great command of the language and can write for any industry.

Power up those verbs
Verbs are action words. A powerful verb conveys feelings and stimulates the imagination. The best way to transform hollow verbs such as go, walk, come, run, think, know and get is to use a Thesaurus or dictionary of synonyms. You can even use the synonym finder in Microsoft Word. For example, type the word “walk”, right click on it, and select Synonyms to see the alternatives: saunter, stroll, amble, march, stride, pace, hike and toddle.
Ditch the nominalisation
A nominalisation is a verb that has been turned into an abstract noun, for example, movement, excitement, and failure. Because they are intangible and cannot be seen, touched, heard or tasted, nominalisations are excellent for creating fluffy, abstract writing that sounds important but is meaningless, serving no more than to bewilder the reader. The only way to gain movement and meaning is to turn the nominalisation back into a verb or adjective and make it a process.
Before: My reaction to the report was a negative one.
After: I reacted negatively to the report.
Before: The girl has not had the benefit of representation by counsel.
After: Counsel has not represented the girl.
Then there is the double nominalisation, a favourite of politicians, business and academia. It sounds impressive but is so open to interpretation that it overloads and numbs the mind. For example:

• Learning disability (who is not learning? how are they disabled?)
• Knowledge management (who knows what about what and how is it managed and by whom?)
• Informational relations (who is informing whom? who is relating?)

To conclude
Using these techniques will de-clutter your writing, add interest, and remove ambiguities.
References
EnglishClub.com
Painless Writing by Jeffrey Strausser