the canberra editor april 2009

8/8/2019 The Canberra Editor April 2009

1/8

Presidents report

Canberra Society of Editors NewsletterVolume 18 | Number 3 | April 2009

How to influence peopleand not lose friendspresented byBrian ODonnell

This participative presentation will consider

how differences (and similarities) in

Psychological Type can have an impact on ourrelationships with those with whom we live and

work.

It will outline the essentials of the theory of

Psychological Type, as developed by Carl Jung

and expanded by Katherine Briggs and Isabel

Myers, and then look at how to apply those

ideas to everyday life and in particular to the

work of editors.

The presenter, Brian ODonnell is a CSE

member, Editor and Technical Writer, Director

of First Rate Solutions Pty Ltd and an

accredited Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

practitioner. Brian regularly presents on Type

related issues at events run by the AustralianAssociation for Psychological Type (AusAPT)

and seeks to apply his special interest in Type

to his life and work.

Even experienced editors need all the help

they can find in working with the wide range

of people involved directly and indirectly with

our profession. Considering the tit le of this

presentation, it should prove very valuable in

this regard.

Come prepared to participate actively and

enjoy the results.

Where: Friends Lounge,

National Library of Australia

When: Wednesday 29 April

Time: Meeting starts at 6:30pm; networking

and nibbles from 6pm

Next meeting,

6pm,

Wednesday29 April

Hello all and welcome to the April newsletter.As usual it has been a busy month since my lastreport, although it hasnt always been me who hasbeen busy.

Our indefatigable training coordinator Martine Taylor has beenworking hard to firm up the workshop program for the rest of the year,following a highly successful workshop in March. I d like to thank ourmembers Sue Wales, Dave Kingwell and Cathy Nicoll for getting us off tosuch a great start.

Elsewhere in this newsletter you will see that the April workshopThe Dont Panic Workshop on managing annual reports withoutheadaches, heartburn and hysteriahas been deferred for a couple ofweeks to allow us more time to promote it. Can I ask for your help inpromoting this very worthwhile workshop? If you know anyone who isresponsible for publishing annual reports, can you let them know about it?Or if you work in a government agency, could you pass the informationon to the area responsible?

Other things the committee has been looking at include the website

review which we promised to undertake this year. A small subcommitteehas met to work out how to approach this and we will let you know soonwhat our thoughts are.

We are also finalising plans for the Annual General Meeting, whichis scheduled for 22 Augustnot that far away. We hope to use a similarformat to last year, which I think worked really well. More information inthe next newsletter.

I will be overseas for the next couple of weeks, so unfortunately Illmiss Brian ODonnells session on how to influence people and not losefriends. But I hope youll all be thereyoull be amazed at what youlllearn about yourself and your fellow editors.

See you all in June.


2/8

Calling allmembers!This is yournewsletter, andemailing in yourcontributionscan make the

differencebetween whether you receive aneight page, or a 12 page newsletter.Four pages is a lot of text to fill inthe publishing world but often thereisnt quite the mix of longer andshorter stories to reach the 12 pagetarget.

So, do consider putting fingersto keyboard. Do you have a funnyplay on words to share? A discourseon a lengthy debate with a colleagueon the appropriate use of the en

versus the em dash? Your fellowmembers would love to hear aboutit because, chances are, weve allbeen there. So tell us somethingabout yourself and your adventuresin the world of the written word.Any member organisation is only as

dynamic as the shared experience ofits members, so now is your time toshare.

Please send any contributions to theNewsletter Editor, Virginia Cooke,at [email protected] Longor short, I will endeavour to publishyour contribution in an upcomingedition of TheCanberra Editor.

The Canberra Editor Canberra Society of Editors Inc. 2009

ISSN 1039-3358

Published byCanberra Society of EditorsABN 77 022 481 553PO Box 3222Manuka ACT 2603www.editorscanberra.org

Opinions in signed art icles are theresponsibility of the authors.

Newsletter scheduleThe next newsletter will appear in late May2009.

The deadline for submissions to the nextissue is Wednesday 13 May. The editorwelcomes contributions by email to using a .docfile format.

Committee members 200809PresidentTed Briggs6161 4924; 0407 018 [email protected]

Vice-PresidentSharon [email protected]

Immediate past PresidentVirginia Wilton0417 691 [email protected]

SecretaryBrian ODonnell0419 620 [email protected]

TreasurerMargaret Mil lard6288 6754 (h); 0402 029 552margaret.mi [email protected]

Web minder, membership filesPeter Judge6296 6211 (w/ h/ fax)[email protected]

Membership SecretaryDallas Stow6247 3111 (h)[email protected]

Training CoordinatorMart ine Taylor6260 7104 (ah)mart [email protected]

Newsletter editorVirginia [email protected]

Catering coordinatorTina [email protected]

General Meeting coordinatorKevin Maguire0417 244 [email protected] membersGil [email protected]

Kerie Newell0412 042 [email protected]

Damaris Wilson6247 3111 (h)[email protected]

Elena [email protected]

Public OfficerHelen Topor6207 3414 (w)[email protected]

IPEd delegateVirginia Wilton0417 691 [email protected]

IPEd Accreditation Board delegateLarissa Joseph

6161 [email protected]

The action reported this monthis mostly covert: about groupsworking quietly behind the scenes toadvance Institute activities.

The Communication Committee,convened by Rowena Austin (SA),has prepared and distributed a mediarelease, Editors adopt nationalquality standards, reporting onthe first accreditation exam andits outcome, and announcing thenext exam, which is scheduledfor September this year. Thedistribution list includes nationaland state newspapers, and specialist

journals and newsletters. As well asthe main release, which can be readon the IPEd website, each societyhas been provided with a customisedversion (noting its AE complement)for its own promotional activities.

The Accreditation Boardmeantime has been busily buildingthe team to realise and run the nextexam. Meryl Potter (NSW) will

again be the Lead Writer/ Developerfor the exam, and Anna Kassulke(Qld) and Janet Mackenzie (Vic)have been appointed as Co-Writers/Developers. The Board is alsopleased to announce that Alan Ernstwill again be Exam Coordinator.

Keep an eye on the Upcomingevents list on the IPEd websitefor notices about training coursesand workshops in the wider worldthat may benefit your career in theediting and communication business.Indeed, Getting the message acrossis the theme of the 2009 nationalconference to be held in Adelaideon 810 October. Through a linkat the IPEd website you can keepabreast of an increasingly excitingconference program. This is anevent you should try hard to get to.

Ed HighleySecretary

www.iped-editors.org

IPEd notesNews from the Institute of Professional Editors

2

The Canberra Editor | Volume 18 | Number 3 | April 2009

Call for contributions


3/8

3

(Continued on page 5)

Us chaps (alrightwe fellows) are well-accustomedto the heart-cry from the kitchen, At20 minutes to the pound, how long do I roast 1.7 kg,and what does 360 degrees mean on my oven? Thearithmetic is quickly resolved (an hour and fifteenminutes at 180, assuming your oven speaks Celsius andthe recipe was in Fahrenheit), but how often do wethink about the language of these terms: time, weightand temperature, all in the same question.

Something akin to our hour began with the ancientEgyptians, who for no very obvious reason thought aday should be divided into 24 parts. This was difficult,because you then probably divided the daylight and thenight into 12 parts each, differing from one day to thenext. It wasnt until clocks appeared in church towersto call worshippers to prayer (around the 13th century)that hours automatically became the same lengthevenif the accuracy may have been only to about half anhour a day. The word hourcomes to us from the Greekora (season, time of day), through Latin horaandFrench heure. Its length, the 24th part of a mean solarday, can now be defined with prodigious exactness interms of radiation emitted from atoms of the elementCaesium.

The first division of the hour is the minute(fromlate Latin prima pars minuta, the first small part), andthe second division is, well, the second. The ancientBabylonians liked counting in 60s, and it is probablydue to their influence that our clock counts that waytoo. Scientists prefer to measure time in seconds, whoselength is calculated from the Caesium clock. However,there is a complication: the Earth doesnt rotate at aconstant speed and every few years a second has to

be added to the clocks to keep them in time with theseasons.Since it was adopted internationally in 1960,

Australia has standardised on the SI system (SystmeI nternational dunits), which is regulated by theInternational Bureau of Weights and Measures (Bureauinternat ional des poids et msures, B I PM, housed in thePavillon de Breteuil, near Svres on the outskirts ofParis). However, many cookbooks seem to be eitherfrom an earlier era or ignore this standard. Or areterribly precise in translation: take 113 grams of sugar,454 grams of flour . . . As a schoolboy, long beforethe SI system came into vogue, I was drilled in miles,

furlongs, rods, poles, perches, yards, feet and inches,

and had to learn my 16-times table to convert poundsto ounces. Then there were 112 lbs to the cwt, and20 cwt to the ton. The metric system has destroyed theneed for such mental exercises for the young, and theubiquitous hand calculator has also long since doneaway with the need to memorise tables.

Why gram? And is it really related to grammar? Yesit is, but it was some early copyists a mistake. In Latin,ascripulum(a scruple, long used as an apothecariesweight) was the 24th part of an uncia, an ounce, usedmore generally for any small weight. But in error, theword scripulumwas thought related to scribere(scripsi,scriptum), to write, therefore they thought gramma(actually Greek for letter) must also be a small weight,hence the entirely spurious connection with grammar.Late Latin grammagave the term gramme, used by theFrench in the 18th century as the basis for their newlydevised metric system. It was borrowed by the English,but there theM etr ic W eights and M easures A ct(1864) gavethe official spelling gram. A hundred and fifty yearslater the new spelling is still not universally adopted,although it has long been used in most scientificapplications. You may come across both spellings whenediting, but the shorter is preferred (just as in program/me). You may also meet Gram-positive bacteria, butthese are named for a method of staining developed bythe Danish physician Hans Christian Gram in 1884.

A universal measure of length to replace the highlyvariable foot was first proposed in 1668 by an Englishclergyman, John Wilkins, the founder and first secretaryof the Royal Society. It was an Italian, Burattini, whoa few years later called it il metro cattolico(universalmeasure), from the Greek metron, measure. Wilkins,

curiously, wanted to base a decimal system of units on38 Prussian inches (making 99.37 cm), but Burattinisuggested the length of a pendulum whose half -swingwas one second (99.39 cm). The word mtrecame veryquickly into French from Burattinismetro, but it wasanother 120 years before metrewas first recorded inEnglish. There were two approaches to defining thisunit more precisely. The pendulum couldnt work,because it varied from place to place depending on thelocal force of gravity. The other definition, accepted bythe French Academy of Sciences in 1791, was to be theten-millionth part of a quarter of the earths meridian,from pole to equator, passing through Paris.

But how to measure that? It took seven years,

Thinking about words grams, grammar and other

measures



4/8

4

Prepositions are wordsthat show the relationshipbetween things. They arealways followed by a noun orpronoun, and sometimes bytwo nouns or pronouns (or a

mixture) joined by a conjunction. The pronouns thatfollow prepositions are always in the objective case(that is: me, you, him, her, us, them):

The books areonthe table.There are booksonthe tableandthe chair.Comewith meto the party.Comewith D avid and meto the party.

The group of words headed by the preposition iscalled aprepositi onal phraseon the table, with me. InThe books are on the table the preposit ion onshowsthe relationship between book sand table. If you are notsure whether to write with David and I or withDavid and me, try leaving David out of itwould youwrite with I or with me?

There are many prepositionsusually small words,but not always: on, in, under, through, up, with etc.Some words are always followed by specificprepositions and prepositional phrases:

adjacent to(not with)M yhouse is adjacent to the woods.

responsible toor forI am responsible tomy boss.I am responsible for the conference arrangements.

This is called preposit ional idiom, meaning thatit is the accepted usage at the moment, dependingon meaning. Idiom changes with timewhat was

unacceptable fifty years ago might be perfectlyacceptable today. Fifty years ago, the acceptable use ofdif ferent + preposit ionwasdifferent from. Usage has madedifferent toacceptable in both speech and writing, evenformal writing. D if ferent thanseems to be acceptable inspeech now but not yet in formal writing:

Speech Writing

This photo is different fromthat one. ! !

This photo is different tothat one. ! !

This photo is different thanthat one. ! X

The purists have no doubt got hairs posit ively

bristling on their necks by now! Why am I notinsisting on different from? I am not a prescriptivegrammarianI am a descriptive linguist. English isa living language and usage changes all the time. Igo with theflow, so long as meaning and structuralintegrity are maintained. Personally, I usually optfor different from, but that is because it was the onlyacceptable form when I was at school and growingup. However, I acknowledge that there are plenty ofways to express meaning, and I have no objection toreading newer, more fashionable ways of saying thesame thing.

Some other prepositional idioms that were the onlycorrect forms fif ty years ago, but which could now bedebated, are:

opposite to affli cted with simi lar to

and some which seem to be solidly stuck in their oldform:

emigrate fr om accede to aptitude for

Having said all that, there are always situationswhen you need to show different meanings by alteringthe preposition you use. For example, you:

agreewitha personagree tosell your house, but agree onselling

agreeona priceagreebetween the two of you.

agree inpart (if you dont like the whole deal)

Likewise:

I am a teacher of, at, inor for, depending on whatfollows.

Variation of prepositions for meaning is verycommon. So also isvariation of word ordernotethe difference in meaning when the preposit ion

Nuts and bolts preposit ions


(Continued on page 6)


5/8

5

from 1792 to 1799. Two expeditions measured thedistance between Dunkirk and Barcelona (just overten degrees of latitude apart and both almost exactlyon the meridian of Paris), starting at each end,

meeting in the middle and then extrapolating forthe 90 degrees. If you actually wanted to measure ametre of something, this was all a bit beyond mostpeoples grasp, so based on the expeditions earlyresults a brass bar inscribed with two marks becamethe standard metre. Unfortunately the expeditionssurveying instruments werent accurate enough, andone of the leaders fudged his figures to agree withhis position according to the stars. In consequence,the first prototype metre was short by a fif th of amillimetre, due partly to this scientific fraud andpartly to a miscalculation of the flattening of theEarth. These errors were discovered and correctedin 1806, and the measurement was improved overtime until 1885, when the BIPM was set up andestablished the International Prototype Metre: thedistance between two lines on a standard alloy barmeasured at the melting point of ice.

Since then the metre has been further refined,based on wavelengths of light and most recently onthe length of the path travelled by light in a vacuumin a tiny fraction of a second. And is it metre ormeter? The Americans write meter, but all otherEnglish-speaking nations use metre for the length,and save meter for a measuring device, such as yourelectricity meter or a parking meter.

The history of the l i treisnt nearly as dramatic.Once again it began in France. In the beginning wasthe litron, a rather vague measure serving for bothliquid and dry goods, and liable to vary depending onwhere you were, what you were measuring and thehonesty of the merchant. It was sorted out in 1795,

just after the French Revolution, by introducing thel i treas one of the new Republican Measures, definedas one cubic decimetre. And essentially there it hasstayed, ever since the standard metre became anaccomplished fact.

And finally: temperature. That Fahrenheit

temperature scale in the old cookbook was inventedby an eponymous German physicist in the middleof the 18th century, round about the same time asthe SwedeA nders Celsiusthought up his competingscale. Degrees C have won out for general use inmost of the world and for most scientific purposes,although the Americans cling to degrees F for generaluse. Celsius(often referred to asCentigrade) seemsthe more logical: water freezes at 0 and boils at 100.The F scale began with 0 at the freezing point of anequal ice-salt mixture to 90 (why 90?) for the humanbody temperature, so that water froze at 30, but thesefigures have since been corrected to 96 and

32 degrees respectively. If thats not enough, back in1730 a French naturalist called Raumurdevised yet

another temperature scale going from 0 to 80, butthat fizzled out in the 19th century after a very briefperiod of use. And if youre into big numbers youfollow L ord Kelvin, whose degrees K are the same size

as degrees C but whose scale starts at absolute zero(where even Hell freezes) and has already climbed to273.15 by the time ice melts.

On which chilly note, my warmest wishes to youall!

Peter Judge

Sources: T he Ox ford E ngli sh D ictionary, second editionon CD-ROM v.3.0. , E ncyclopaedia Br it annica2007 UltimateReference Suite, Trsor de la L angue Franaise informati sat ,,,

English as She is TaughtHere is a list of kids genuine answers to school

exam questions. The list comes from a much largercollection by Caroline B Le Row in the book E ngli shas She is Taught (1887).

Every sentence ... must begin with a caterpillar.

A verb is something to eat.

Adverbs should always be used as adjectives andadjectives as adverbs.

The horses run fastly. This is an adverb.

All sentences are either simple or confound.

Germany has very litt le clubbable land.

When we read we come across words that whenwe hear them spoken of we are entirely ignorant ofthem.

Your the same as dead when your asleep andthings that are making you pleasant now will one daymake you sorry.

The only form of government in Greece was alimited monkey.

Vowel sounds are made by keeping the mouthwide open and consonant sounds by keeping it shut.

Emphasis is putting more distress on one wordthan another.


(T hink ing about words...conti nued from page 3)


6/8

6


through is placed differently in these sentences:

I can seethroughyour plan.I can see your plan through.

When is a preposit ion not a preposit ion? When itis an adverb.

Just to confuse things, prepositions can also be usedas adverbsan adverb always tells you more about theverb in the sentence:

My friend came in. (adverb)The cat climbed up. (adverb)butThe cat climbed upthe tree. (preposition)

The easiest way to identify preposit ions is toremember that they are always followed by a nounor pronoun. This is not so for adverbs. The pre- ofpreposition is a Latin prefix meaning before.

And are their post-positions? Yes, there are, buthappily for us, not in English!

References

Gee, Robyn and Watson, Carol (1983) Better E ngli sh,Usborne Publishing, London

Hewings, Martin (1999) A dvanced grammar in use, CUP,Cambridge

Murphy, Elizabeth M (1989) E ffecti ve wri ti ng: plain E ngli shat work , Pitman, Melbourne

E li zabeth M anning M urphy, [email protected]

Successful Science Writing andEditing

Tuesday 12 May9.30am4.30pmBruce

Would you like to be able to communicate complexinformation clearly and accurately?

Would you li ke to be able to use edit ing ski lls toimprove your own and others work?

Biotext , a leader in the!eld of science writ ing andedit ing, runs a highly acclaimed t raining course foranyone who writes or edit s material dealing wit hscience and t echnology, for any audience.

Places are limited, so register now athttp://biotext.eventbrite.com/

See Services offered at www.biotext.com.au for acourse outl ine, or emailhi [email protected] if you have anyquest ions.

What participants say:

Best wr it ing course I have ever at tended.Scott, Br isbane.

Has helped immensely by providing a clearoutline of what to be aware of when writ ing andedit ing. Katherine, Br isbane

(Prepositions...continued from page 4)


7/8

7


Tuesday 5 May 9:00am4:30pm

University HouseANU

Is your annual report causingheadaches, heartburn andhysteria?

Do you want to improve yourproduction process and yourproduct, but are not sure how?

Through a series of workshop sessions you will cover:

scoping and planning large publications developing a workable project plan establishing a sound report structure managing the publishing process

The skills gained from this workshop will be useful forany publishing project and participants will have theopportunity to plan their own project during some ofthe workshop sessions.

Presenter: Helen Lewis, BA

Helen describes herself as a wordsmith and has worked

in the communication industry for over 25 years. Herwork includes media liaison materials, articles, brochures,booklets, newsletters, annual reports, short stories andradio/ film scripts. She also has considerable experiencein project management and has researched, developedand implemented information campaigns for a widevariety of target audiences. She is co-author of theD ont Panic Guideto annual report productionfirst publishedby AGPS Press in 1992; fully revised, updated andrepublished by IF Imprint, 2008.

Bookings: Martine Taylor (02) 6260 [email protected]

Members $150, Non-members $250

Coming up in June Small Business Essentialsworkshop withDavid Grantham and Jean McIntyre

We have been busy planning the June training session,Small Business E ssenti alswith David Grantham andJean McIntyre. This workshop will be an importantopportunity for participants to network and to sharetheir experiences. The major topic segments to becovered during this 19 June workshop include: getting started business planning finances marketing resources rewards pitfalls.

Stay tuned for more information in the next edition ofour newsletter.

M artine TaylorT raini ng Coordinator

The Dont Panic Workshop

Training News


8/8

Contents

1 Next general meeting Wednesday 29 April1 Presidents report2 IPEd Notes3,5 Thinking about words the end of finance4,6 Nuts and bolts prepositions

5 English as she is taught6 Successful Science Writing and Editing course

7 Training news the Dont Panic Workshop

POSTAGEPAID

AUSTRALIA

SURFACE

MAIL

Ifundeliverable,pleasereturnto

CanberraSocietyofEditorsPOBox3222,ManukaACT2603

the canberra editor april 2009

Documents