Kansas City Freelance Writer Liz Craig

But boy, sometimes I wish there were!

Have you noticed that these days, everyone from “Fresh Air” host Teri Gross to the third-grader next door is starting sentences with “So…?”

Several years ago, when I first heard a biology grad student do it, I thought it was cute and kind of funny. I mean, it sounded as if she were continuing a conversation, rather than answering a question. The first few times you heard it, it jolted you awake. Wakefulness is always a desirable state to be in, unless you’re an insomniac. But then it became annoying. In my mind, “so” belongs in a sentence where it means one thing is a consequence of another. For instance, “His home blew away, SO he was homeless.”

But as the first word in a conversation? “So…” has gone viral, or become a meme, or *something*, and I tried to figure out why. Perhaps people don’t want to be interrupted or thought dumb, so instead of “Well” or “Uh,” they say, “So…” to alert you that they’re about to say something.

Also, how many times lately have you heard a politician or interviewee on TV or radio say, in non-answer to a question, “That’s a great question?” Every day people at City Council meetings are even using it. Good grief, if all the questions people asked before someone said that actually *were* great, fine. But the phrase, repeated several times during an interview or conversation, is not a reflection of the quality of the question. It’s just a speed bump, a breather, a two-second “think of plausible response” tic. “Let me think a second” would sound as if you didn’t know the answer. “Hmm” or the formerly popular “Y’know…” are out of fashion. It seems everyone’s doing the “great question” dodge these days.

As long as I’m griping about grammar here, the most recent thing that I dislike, even more than anchovies (ugh), is “change up” or “change out,” when “change” alone will do. A person says they’re going to “change up” their workout routine. Or they’re going to “change out” one light bulb for another. My solution: Out with the “out” and the “up.”

Finally of course, there’s the ubiquitous “snuck” instead of the perfectly good “sneaked.” Recently I heard someone use “sneaked” as the past tense of “sneak,” and I wanted to hug that person. But the trend is toward “snuck.” Even the OED people have no problem with “snuck.” I question their standards. Question: If your sneakers are worn out, is it okay to say they are “snuckered?” Oh, well, maybe I’m stuck in the 19th century, but I cannot make myself say “snuck,” especially since it’s an ugly, blunt word. Yes, words do have shapes, and some sound lovelier than others.

What other words annoy me? Say, that’s a great question! So… What words or usages drive you up a wall? Let me know, so I can start using them on people who say “snuck!”

“There is no excellent beauty, that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”
-Francis Bacon

That’s a tweet I posted this morning. It’s a strange one that I didn’t quite “grok” right away. But when I thought of a project that required screening beautiful women for work as a principal in a TV commercial, I got it.

Casting for a TV commercial usually begins with looking at lots and lots of photo “head shots” of models and actors. Out of those, you choose the ones you think have potential to fit your need, and if they’re local, you invite them in, so you can see them in person. Heck, they might be photoshopped to look beautiful. You’d want to know that before hiring them.

We selected three or four women to come in for personal interviews, all of whom were beautiful in their pictures. But in person, what a surprise! Were these the same women we’d selected?

One model’s face actually looked a bit misshapen. The two sides didn’t match. Another one’s nose seemed a size too large for her face. The third looked just plain homely.

These models didn’t come in without makeup, looking as if they had just fallen out of bed. They were made up to look as pretty as they could — in person. And they certainly didn’t look like candidates for Miss America. But soon, I was to learn something valuable.

When we did video auditions with our candidates, these women revealed their true beauty. In a magical way, it is true that the camera loves some faces. These rather ordinary-looking (or even peculiar-looking) women became lovely and engaging, even fascinating, in the eye of the camera.

So I understand what Bacon meant in that quote. Now I try to look at every person through the eye of a transforming camera. You’d be amazed how much more beautiful they all look!

Recently, I joined a writers’ meetup. It’s fun hearing other people’s writing and offering words of wisdom to newbies.

A newbie writer is like a new puppy, all bounce and go and eagerness. Arf! And like a puppy, the newbie writer doesn’t know any rules yet. He or she is just chasing after every butterfly of an idea, wild with the feeling of being FREE!

I love freedom. I love new ideas. Nothing wrong with being excited about your work, and eager to share it. Most experienced writers are gentle with newbies, as anyone would be with a new puppy. But there comes a time…

Unbounded enthusiasm and rules-free writing can be exciting for a new writer, but the grim truth is, if you’re going to write things people actually want to read, you’ll need to follow some rules.

One thing the aspiring writer must know how to use is contractions. To a sensitive reader, every misplaced apostrophe or misused word is a mild shock. It disturbs, it frustrates, it just plain makes some readers mad. So here are a few contractions any writer worth his or her salt ought to know.

Your/you’re

• “Your” is possessive. Proper usage: “Here is your coat.” The coat belongs to “you.” It’s “yours.” No apostrophes in sight.

• “You’re” is a contraction for “you are.” Think of that apostrophe as a miniscule “a.” “You’re a sweetie.” That means, “You are a sweetie.”

They’re/their/there

Oh boy, these three words trip up a lot of people. But an artist of words must master these. Let’s take the easy one first.

• “They’re” means “they are.” Remember the bit about seeing the tiny “a” in “you’re?” Same thing here. “They are leaving.”

• “Their” means “belongs to them.” Like “our” or “your.” “Their toys were rusted.” “The toys that belong to them were rusted.”

• I don’t know how “there” even got into this mix. It’s a completely different kind of word. Its mate is “here.” Use it to indicate where something is. “It’s over there.” “There is my hat.”

The final one for today is…

It’s and its

• The apostrophe in “it’s” also stands for a tiny letter, but in this case, it’s “i.” So “it’s” means “it is.” “It’s your turn.” “It’s easy to learn this.”

• “Its” is a possessive. Example: “The cat licked its fur.” “The cat licked the fur that belonged to it.” “The Foundation named its 2013 grantees.” Well, the grantees don’t actually belong to the Foundation, but it’s not a he or a she, so when “it” does things, you’d use “its.” I know, a cat is either a he or a she, but sometimes, we don’t know or care which. How did I get into this mire? Lemme out!

There are some non-existent contractions people use, like “her’s,” but of course, you know that “her” is already a possessive (as in “her coat,” “her hair,” and so on), and if you want to refer to something that belongs to her, you would say, “That shoe is hers.” You wouldn’t put an apostrophe in “his,” would you? So don’t do it to “hers.”

All this stuff is easy, right? Right! And yes, you do have to memorize the correct usages if you’re going to write something others will read, whether it’s a Post-It note, an e-mail, or a novel. Okay, then. Go and write it right!

P.S. I know I should have said, “Write it ‘correctly,’ but “right” just sounded, well, right!

When I’m stuck for hours at the computer, I set a timer for 30 minutes. When it dings, I get up and jog 500 or so steps around the apartment. I probably look crazy, bouncing around waving my arms and moving my head from side to side. But it’s vital to my mind and body that I take those breaks. Here’s another piece of “take a break” advice in infographic form:

Attribution: OnlineBusinessDegree.org

Did you know you can do a Google search using an image?

All you have to do is:
• Navigate to google.com.
• Click on the images link.
• Simply drag and drop the image into the search bar, and Google will show you similar or related images and also other relevant results from the web.

Pretty cool, huh?

When an older style comes back into fashion, it’s generally made new by some twist or touch that makes it fresh and welcome. Hats are back in now, perhaps for the first time since everyone sent their hats to Goodwill when Kennedy made them “old hat,” so to speak. But the new twist this time is that people don’t know when to wear or not wear hats.

Hats for men and hats for women are in, and even more so these searing days of late June, when the sun can bake your brain and leave you standing, zombiefied, at a Price Chopper cart corral, fit only to be carted away like a burned sacrifice.

It’s nice to see hats on men again, and the selection of styles is improving. Still, though, men have a hard time choosing a proper chapeau.

A guy wearing a flap-cap in this weather is plainly nuts. I don’t care if they are the height of fashion at the Art Institute.

A guy who wears a cowboy hat should also wear some other Western acccoutrements. You can’t just jam a Stetson on your head when you’re wearing cutoff shorts and a Tommy Hilfiger shirt. Commit! Go whole-hog or not at all, or look like a tourist in town for the rodeo.

Caps are the tofu of the hat world. Like tofu, they have no real taste, but they absorb whatever flavor their emblem has. Be careful which cap you choose to wear where, guys. Don’t wear a CAT hat to a cocktail party. Don’t wear a Ralph Lauren cap to a pig roast, unless it’s at a country club.

But here’s the the important rule about hats, and it applies to women, as well as men:

Take off your gol-danged hat indoors. Especially when you’re in a movie theater or at a public event, where people have either paid or pushed and shoved to see a play, a world-famous pianist, or a renowned speaker who is saying something important.

In the silent-movie days, you would see “Ladies, please remove your hats” projected on the screen. Today, since people have forgotten the hat rules, I vote that custom be resurrected and applied to men as well as women.

As a certified Short Person, I fear sitting behind the World’s Tallest Man, Big-Haired Woman. Tall men and big-haired women can’t be blamed. But hat wearers at indoor events are just plain inconsiderate.

Now, to ask people to doff their hats indoors is nothing prissy and old-fashioned like, “A gentlemen must doff his hat when meeting a lady.” No, I don’t ask that, though a return to the respectful gestures of yesteryear (or respect in general) would be most refreshing. I simply ask that people remove their hats indoors. Let’s recall the main purpose of a hat or cap: to protect the head from the elements. It seldom rains, snows or hails indoors. Nor does cruel Mr. Sun beat down upon our pates.

So take it from one who has seen everything from flap caps to cowboy hats to seed caps to bowlers, Easter bonnets, and Russian fur hats (Yes!) worn indoors: Take ‘em off, or you look like a goofball, especially in a dark movie theater, where nobody can see you anyhow. And the Certified Short Person behind you can’t see at all. If you decide to ignore the hat rule when sitting in front of a Certified Short Person, don’t be surprised if Drastic Measures are taken to relieve you of your sightline-blocking headgear.

You have been warned.

When you say, “Rover, roll over!” if he’s trained to do so, he’ll roll his body over. Simple enough. But there is a heck of a lot of confusion among humans over “roll over,” “rollover,” and even “Rollover,” and how to use those words in regard to finances. I’ll admit it is a little tricky, but here’s a quick primer (pronounced “primmer,” not “prymer,” as some national announcers, who shall remain nameless, have begun saying).

1. There’s “roll over” as when you turn on your side to avoid snoring.
2. Then there’s “roll over,” which is what you do to money when you cleverly extract your 401(k) money and magically transfer it into a different 401(k) or an IRA without it going into your hands, thus avoiding paying taxes on it.

3. Then there’s “rollover,” which is what you’ve done. You can even have a Rollover IRA.

To sum it all up:

Need a financial adviser? Don't pick this guy.

• “Roll over” is a verb form used to request a physical action, as in “Roll over, sweetie, you’re snoring.”
• “Roll over” is also a verb form meaning, “Hey, Herb [your financial adviser]. Take money from my old 401(k) from that crazy sweatshop where I worked until they mercifully canned me, and put it into an IRA.”
• Rollover is a noun that can be used in a sentence like, “I asked Herb to do a rollover of my 401(k) money into an IRA.”
• After Herb fulfilled your request, you could say, “I have a Rollover IRA.”

So don’t ask your dog to do a rollover, or Herb to roll over for you. They just might take it the wrong way.

A young woman who’s about to graduate with a degree in English writes to me: “Do you think it would help my chances of getting a job if I took a class in graphic design?” My answer: “YES!”

These days, with company budgets being what they are (small and getting smaller), creatives are expected to do the jobs of two or three people. I saw an ad for a Creative Director that required the applicant to be able to write, do graphic design, create websites, manage a department budget, and interact with clients.

In the old days (as little as five years ago), those would have been the jobs of at least five people. Today, it could be the job of one employee, depending on the size of the creative department and the agency or company. Oh, and did I mention that Creative Director-of-all-Trades job was paying $30,000 per year?

Jobs for copywriters at companies are all but non-existent, which makes it a bull market for freelancers. But though I hate to disillusion this young woman about the value of an English degree, in my experience, with only that degree, your competition is everyone who can type on a computer. Everyone thinks s/he can write. But everyone knows they need a graphic designer to make Web or printed materials look good.

So I will reply to this budding copywriter that yes, she probably should take a class in Graphic Design, if not two or three, so that she can meet the current need for multi-skilled creatives in a company or agency.

The more you can do, the better your chances of getting one of the few available jobs for college grads. Write? Great. Write and create designs? Better. Write, create designs, and build websites? Better still. Write, create designs, build websites and know SEO? BEST! Then, if you have Emotional Intelligence to go with all that know-how, you may have it made. It’s a lot to ask, but most companies don’t train employees anymore. They expect you to come in the door loaded for bear, with all the talents they need already in place. So go get loaded. I mean, for bear, creatively. Of course!

Here’s a note from a client whose Web articles I’ve been proofreading and editing for a couple of years—a nice gentleman out in California who sells large tracts of land in the western U.S.

Liz, I find your corrections amazing, very detailed, and so critical to me presenting an intelligent article. I like your side notes also as it makes me rethink any assumptions I might have written late at night. Thanks again for all your help!

It’s always nice to be appreciated.

Once, I worked for an ad agency that had a regional KFC organization as a client. We did all kinds of collateral for them, including window signs. The production manager, Wanda, put one that had just been printed in quantity (500 or so) up on the glass wall separating her office from the front lobby. As I was walking by it, I stopped in my tracks. It read:

Chicken and Bisuits
$5.99

Nobody had proofed the copy. There was so little of it, the production manager probably didn’t think it was necessary.

I asked her, “Wanda, what are ‘bisuits?’” She looked up and asked, “What?” I said, “Well, I wondered what a ‘bisuit’ is. ‘Cause they’re selling them at KFC for $5.99.” I pointed at the sign. It took a few seconds for the penny to drop, and then, Wanda gasped and nearly fainted. A very cost-conscious person (a skinflint, actually) she was, and now she realized the agency would have to eat the cost of re-printing 500 window posters, this time touting Chicken and “biscuits,” not “bisuits.”

Not proofreading can cost you money! Far more than hiring me to do it for you.

Hire a professional to make sure your print or Web text is okay before you publish it. Ads, brochures and Web articles need to be grammatically correct, easy to read, and properly punctuated. If they are, you’ll look professional. If not, well… it could mark you as very unprofessional, and even unintelligent. Is it worth it to hire a proofreader/editor? You be the judge.

If you’re gonna use slang terms like “gonna,” you gotta learn to spell them properly, or you could get yourself into a whole lotta trouble with the police.

Here’s a case in point, reported in today’s Kansas City Star. A student at Lanier Technical College (in Georgia) sent a text message he meant to say, “Gunna be at West Hall this afternoon,” but the auto-correct feature changed “Gunna” to “Gunman.” On top of that, the text message was sent to the wrong number.

Whoever received the messaged called the police, and panic ensued. A north Georgia high school and middle school were locked down yesterday for fear the “Gunman” might be at large in the area. But finally, the texter was located and let off the hook when the lawmen realized he wasn’t a Gunman, just a lousy speller and a sloppy texter.

These tragic spelling mishaps needn’t happen. Watch what the heck you’re texting, how you’re spelling words, and how your “auto-correct” is messing with them. And for heavens’ sake, get the phone number right. Technology—ain’t it great?