Digital Marketing

Editorial differences

  • Having so much access to American television here in Australia means that we grow up seeing words spelled the way they are spelled in the United States. Different for us and mostly not acceptable for Australians to use in school, university or business. Even our spell checkers often use the US spelling. It drives me crazy when my seven year old daughter says candy instead of popsicles, flashlight instead of torch, pharmacy instead of pharmacy, sidewalk instead of path and says she’s taking a shower instead of having one. One thing that is easy to remember is that Americans use ‘z’ in many words, where we use ‘s’ and even pronounce ‘Z’ in the opposite way. Usage examples of ‘Z’; antagonize versus antagonize, analyze and analyze, appetizer and appetizer and so on. Americans also often shorten words by removing a letter such as anesthetic and anesthetic, archeology and archeology, mold vs. mold, favor as opposed to favor, and behavior and behavior. There are word alterations like center against center, color against color, tire and tire, plow and plow and so on. So who do we have to blame or thank for all this American drama? 19th century American lexicographer, Mr. Noah Webster, of dictionary fame. He surmised that making the changes outside of the British language would make the United States more superior and cast them aside. He has certainly put them aside.
  • The Oxford comma, the Harvard comma or the serial comma. There are supporters for and against its use. It’s also known as the pretentious comma and, at the end of the day, it’s optional and up to the author unless they follow a particular style. In Australia we don’t use it as often as Americans do, although there are arguments that it clarifies meanings within sentences that might otherwise be confusing. What is? It is the comma placed directly before the coordinating conjunction like: and, or, or nor in a sequence of three terms or more. An example using the Oxford as is: I have a recipe, a pot and an oven. Not using the comma would look like this: I have a recipe, a pot and an oven.
  • The exclamation point has been called the cheap whore of punctuation. My thoughts are, there’s a place for that, but professionally it doesn’t belong. The more the better shouldn’t apply either, and as F. Scott Fitzgerald said, ‘Eliminate all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke. It’s a useful way to convey emotion, irony, annoyance, or sympathy when used in sixes, for example, as a text message, Facebook, email, or any other electronic medium. Also, this sets the stage for others to respond in a similar way with 17! or ???????, like “I just jumped out of a plane and my parachute opened!!!!!!!” In fact?????? Cool!!!!!!’ Ridiculous.
  • I love the ampersand logogram (&) which personifies ‘and’ but when used correctly. Not for use in any way or in any random way. It doesn’t save on your word count students. An ampersand originated from the Latin, of course, as Y What does it mean Y. An example of good use might be a business title such as Anders and Wallace edition or in scholarly references like (Anders and Judd, 2007). It would not be appropriate to use to write something like “They put the bricks and mortar against the wall.”
  • The use of fonts seems fun. But there is a place for countless typographical practices, like in a circus banner or comic book. That’s right, comic sans people as whimsical as it is, should be used in a comic, and nowhere else. Certain fonts work better on paper (times new roman, courier, or footed/serif fonts) and others better on screen (sans-serif, Helvetica, century gothic, Verdana, Arial, or footless/sans serif fonts). Although pixel resolution has changed, you still have to consider small devices. I think using a particular font or fonts can really affect readability, so my advice is to not “mix” them. That’s fine when making a mixed tape, but not for a letter or other document. Keep your readers. Don’t use impact for a full page, or ruin it with pages from Bradley’s hand and papyrus…well, pffftt. I have no idea what the wingdings are for.

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