Neither "born" nor "borne" is a word I see used much in the material I edit, but it came up recently:
However, this hypothesis remains untested, and the value of the [thing being discussed] will be born out as [these other things happen in the future].
The author didn't mean born, though. Born is an adjective (e.g., "she is a born sailor," meaning that she has a natural talent for sailing) or part of the verb phrase to be born (e.g., "he was born on December 8). The author was looking for borne, which is the past participle of to bear (e.g., "its value will be borne out," "she has borne two sons," or "the disease was airborne but not foodborne").
One of the things I learned when I started my current job—one that I cannot believe that I didn't know before that—is that there is this thing called an en dash.
I knew about the hyphen. Everybody knows about the hyphen. Hyphens are great for lots of things, such as connecting a phrase that's meant to be read as a single adjective or modifier (a phrasal adjective or unit modifier), such as "difficult-to-engage demographic."
But what happens when you have words that aren't all playing the same role in the phrasal adjective? Here's a phrase from a recent edit:
Another randomized controlled trial that evaluated a similar text message based intervention found X.
The phrase "text message based" modifies "intervention." The intervention uses text messages (if you're curious, to remind teens with diabetes to take their meds and do their testing). So the text messages are at the core of the intervention. But "based" isn't performing the same function as "text message" in the phrase "text message based." "Text message" is one part—the concept—and "based" is the part that describes the concept's relationship to the word "intervention," the word that all three words are modifying.
This is one use (of many) of the en dash. The en dash is a little longer than a hyphen and a little shorter than an em dash (en and em dashes are named for the letters whose length they more or less match when used in a proportional typeface: the letter n is narrower than the letter m in such typefaces). In this case, an en dash is used to separate a compound noun or phrase from the rest of the phrasal adjective:
Another randomized controlled trial that evaluated a similar text message–based intervention found X.
This tells the reader that "based" pairs up not just with "message" (which would just use a hyphen) but with the whole phrase "text message."
The en dash can also serve other purposes: It can replace "to" when indicating a range of numbers or letters (e.g., "This row serves people with last names A–B," "Mortality Rates, 1970–2000" [but "Mortality Rates from 1970 to 2000"]); it can be used as a subtraction (minus) sign when typing mathematical expressions (e.g., "2 – 1 = 1") (note that we put a space on either side of the mathematical operator, which helps, among other things, distinguish this from a range "2–1"); and it can indicate a negative with a numeral (e.g., "1 – 2 = –1").
On my keyboard (I work on a Mac), I form the en dash by pressing option-hyphen.
The em dash serves a totally different (yet also awesome) function. It's what we call a "fence." Fences separate things in real life, and they do the same thing in text. I used a fence of em dashes at the beginning of this post:
One of the things I learned when I started my current job—one that I cannot believe that I didn't know before that—is that there is this thing called an en dash.
The interjection is enclosed between the em dashes. Note that the rest of the sentence works perfectly fine without the text between the em dashes:
One of the things I learned when I started my current job is that there is this thing called an en dash.
There are other types of fences, including commas and parentheses, and each can indicate different things to the reader. But that's a post for a different day.
(is it "calling out" if i don't mention the name?) anyway, i came across this during my editing today. the company name has been removed because it's just not important to this analysis:
Company X understands the creative firm. Not that we walk around the office without our shoes on kind of understanding.
i had to read that FOUR TIMES to understand what that second sentence meant. i kept reading it as "it isn't that we walk around the office with our shoes on" and then trying to figure out how the last three words related to the first part. could not understand what they meant. "it isn't that we walk around the office with our shoes on, kind of understanding." they kind of understand? what the hell kind of selling point is that?
no, they mean this:
Company X understands the creative firm. Not that "we walk around the office without our shoes on" kind of understanding. [but a different kind of understanding that we're going to explain now.]
punctuation is important. it shows the reader—without requiring him or her to reread a sentence multiple times (in which case, most of readers just give up and click elsewhere)—clearly how the words in the sentence relate to one another. stop resisting. punctuation is your friend.
i've been thinking for a while about starting to blog some of the stuff that occupies my brain more than anything else: words. specifically, sentences, paragraphs, punctuation, spelling, usage, all those editorial things that influence how i hear, read, and process information. i haven't thus far because i think that it's probably boring to most folks. but it really is a huge part of my brain, and i can't stop myself :)
here's a sentence from a paper i'm editing (cut off because it's longer than i need for the example):
Incentives are offered in a variety of forms, like cash, gift cards, merchanise....
probably you read this and you understand that the variety of forms in which incentives can come includes cash, gift cards, merchandise, and whatever comes after that in the list.
but if you're writing (or, as in my case, editing) for a formal publication, it would be better to be precise (and correct) in your wording. because the way this *actually* reads is that, like cash, gift cards, merchandise, and whatever comes after that in the list, incentives are offered in a variety of forms. and that's not what we mean. correctly written, the sentence would be
Incentives are offered in a variety of forms, such as cash, gift cards, merchandise....
isn't that better?
there's also a variation on this theme that comes up a lot in my work. "such as" is like "which" in that it's a nonrestrictive modifier. what does that mean? it means that the phrase "such as cash, gift cards, merchandise..." doesn't restrict the noun it's modifying ("forms"). it amplifies it. but sometimes people like to use "such as" in a different way. they might say,
These rewards may be provided in forms such as x, y, or z.
the author doesn't mean "provided in forms, such as x, y, and z." he means that x, y, and z are examples of the forms in which rewards can come. so here, i changed it to this:
These rewards may be provided in such forms as x, y, or z.
it's saying something similar to the first example ("a variety of forms, such as x, y, and z") but uses a different sentence structure and thus requires different punctuation.
another variation is a correct usage of "like" (other than its verb form, e.g., "i like to edit"). i might write,
Like any incentive, these benefits are intended to influence behavior.
or
These incentives, like most incentives, are intended to influence behavior.
most words have a place. they just aren't always the places people like to put them :)
finally, let's just close this post with some love for miss teen usa 2007 contestant from south carolina. i love this bit of tape and hope that she doesn't mind my posting it. you don't see ME competing in pageants and having to answer questions on national television, so i am definitely not one to judge. i just think it's a moment of hilarity.
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