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- Title
Writer's Notebook: Slips that Pass in the Night.
- Authors
Erb, Lyle L.
- Abstract
In the summer issue of the journal "Public Relations Quarterly," referred to a "widely-known newsletter" and to "tightly-spaced pages." Engineer Leonard J. Busen of the U.S. Corps of Engineers, St. Louis District, Missouri, correctly points out that "widely" is an adverb modifying 'known' and should not be tied physically to it as two adjectives might be in certain situations." He adds "et tu" marginally beside "tightly-spaced." What is here is a violation of a rule of hyphenation. The rule is that adjective phrases comprising an adverb and verb are usually hyphenated, except when the adverb ends in "-ly." The foregoing errors appeared in the same column excoriated by one writer Jeff Roach. Busen, who added to his calm note of correction, "It's a beautiful article, though", applied some balm for this wound to the author's ego. In examples given by the author, the solecisms cited are not the words of the newspaper but the words of others. Which raises a question of journalistic practice: Should errors of usage, grammar, and syntax be quoted or corrected? Perhaps it is not the greatest ethical problem but a continuing one. The author votes for correction, unless the quotation lends color to a feature.
- Subjects
ERRORS; GRAMMAR; ADJECTIVES (Grammar); COMPARATIVE grammar; ADVERBS (Grammar); ENGLISH language; VERBS; SYNTAX (Grammar); PUBLIC Relations Quarterly (Periodical)
- Publication
Public Relations Quarterly, 1984, Vol 29, Issue 1, p32
- ISSN
0033-3700
- Publication type
Article