There are few challenges that cannot be surmounted with the aid of a dark chocolate Hob Nob.

I corrected him, suggesting that HobNob was one word, camel case. My source: Wikipedia. (Topical.) Discussion ensued, and I think it was settled that that the current standard is actually Hobnob—one word, no camel-casing.

The reason for the confusion was that the McVitie’s branding is inconsistent. It seems that it’s changed over the years, switching from HobNob to Hobnob. The current standard is certainly Hobnob.

As such, I’ve spent part of my Friday evening updating the Hobnob Wikipedia page to reflect the revised branding.

FML.

If you’re unsure whether to use affect or effect (or indeed effect), then it’s easy to find out on the internet. Is it yours or your’s? (Ouch, that hurt.) Again, the internet is your friend. Google will tell you.

But the issue is twofold. People don’t know what needs checking. And even if they did, many wouldn’t have the wherewithal to check it.

One day, proofreading will become a true commodity. Upload a document and download it in perfect English. (If the document itself is a crock of shit, this attribute will remain.) In the meantime, you know where I am.

Asda and Tesco are singular. There is never a need to saying you’re going to Asdas, unless you’re going to Asdas up and down the country in search for the last remaining Pokemon on Christmas Eve. If you need to pluralise Tesco in such a way, it’s Tescos.

McDonald’s and Sainsbury’s should both be written and said such. I went to McDonald’s. While this is a lie, it’s at least grammatically correct. In writing, avoid at all costs using these with a possessive apostrophe, as this is how wormholes are created. Talk of the profits that McDonald’s made, not of McDonald’s’ profits, or however it might be written.

Marks and Spencer doesn’t have an S at the end. Feel free to abbreviate to Markses, but only if you want to go to Hell.

That is all.

• Two-time and three-time (instead of double and triple), from D. Rochelle in Bath. My understanding is that this relates to concurrency. “Double–silver medallist” suggests two in one competition, whereas two-time silver medallist suggests two silver medals won in their career
• 24/7 instead of 24 hours, 7 days a week, from Simon Ball in Worcester. If we’re being pedantic, the longhand should have read “24 hours a day, seven days a week”, with seven written as a word. And should we use per instead of a? But let’s not go there, Simon. If you can’t handle such an obvious abbreviation, then you don’t belong in 2011. Or should I say AD 2011. Get over yourself
• The word “gotten” makes Julie Marrs in Warrington shudder, despite it being an 11th century English word
• Chris Capewell from Queens [sic] Park should concentrate more on his apostrophes and not let his teeth be set on edge at the use of the term “train station”
• Ami Grewal, a Brit in New York, does not like the term bi-weekly, preferring fortnightly. But the latter is not common parlance in the US, so it’s understandable that they use the former. The confusion that the British seem to have over the use of the prefixes bi and semi should really be of greater concern to you, Ami
• Michael Zealey in London berates “You do the Math”. Maybe we Brits should abbreviate to Math’s, to indicate the removal of some letters
• James in Somerset berates the use of Scotch-Irish. Me too, James, but only because you’ve used a hyphen instead of an en dash. Scotch, while in declining usage, is a 16th century adjective meaning “of or relating to Scotland”
• Tabitha in London despairs at the phrase “that’ll learn you”. Me too, but I’ve found it far more prevalent in the UK than the US
• Period or full stop, Stuart Oliver in Sunderland? Well Aristophanes of Byzantium (257 BC – c. 185–180 BC) preferred periodos, from which the former has evolved
• D. Henderson in Edinburgh detests the use of the word season in relation to TV series. Quite literally, (s)he should get out more
• John in Leicester doesn’t like people having issues, preferring them to have problems. There’s one right there
• And for Helen, in Martock, Somerset, medalling, as a verb in competition, “sets [her] teeth on edge with a vengeance”. I find your turn of phrase far more grating, Helen

You see, I was taught at school that there should be much space in between sentences. Indeed my teacher at the time, in the days of yore before computers were standard issue, literally applied a rule of thumb: there should be a full thumb’s width between a full stop and the subsequent sentence. Even with my rather petite thumbs, this amounted to quite a hefty gap.

On the second day, God invented computers—PCs in the morning; Macs and handheld devices in the afternoon, I believe. To allow me to move beyond my first typed sentence, I subconsciously—if I don’t remember correctly—converted the SI unit of space measurement in the handwritten world (the thumb) into two spaces in the space age, for want of a better phrase. (I’m laughing at that one, even if you’re not.) And ever since the mid-1980s, sentences emanating from my fingers have been succeeded by a double-tap of my right thumb.

(I later discovered that my mum has ever used three spaces, a behaviour that I can only describe as deranged (in the loving sense, of course), similarly deranged to the way in which sticklers will no doubt describe my own double-space habit.)

I always thought it was a style thing, a view likely encouraged by my mum’s quirky behaviour on this front. But my behaviour has drawn an increasing number of frowns of late. Those in the world of publishing—both online and offline—have reliably informed me that such behaviour is not to be accepted, and that one space is the standard.

This is a revelation that I’m happy, nay eager, to embrace. But I expect it will be my equivalent of giving up smoking. Or putting your socks on in the opposite order to which you generally do it (my modus operandi is left, right, btw). It sounds easy. But it’s not. For the split second for which my right foot is besocked and my left one is bare, my world is in utter turmoil.

I will need a support mechanism to help me through the months ahead, to unlearn something that has been a subconscious action for well over half my life.

If you catch me using two spaces, please take me to one side and slap me gently across the face. I expect it will be a rough ride, but I’m hoping you can help me reach the other side a stronger and better person.

Yet it’s frightening how many people have emailed me recently asking for work in this very area—my business specialises in document editing—only for their covering emails to be littered with errors.  Admittedly, if I’d received the emails from people outside the field, people not looking for related work, I would have let the mistakes pass me by.  But their context has meant that I’ve either responded with some heartfelt, cotton wool-lined guidance, or responded with a pleasantry only to confine the email to the Never hire folder.  (Actually, the latter step is a given.)

Paragraphs have lacked closing periods, proofreader has been written as two words (yet as a single word within the same email), the Oxford comma has been used whimsically, appearing in some places but not in others, hyphens have appeared instead of em dashes, and quotation marks have been used in instances where one might not even expect someone to sign them in a bar with their hands.

Some (all?) of these points might sound pedantic.  And they are.  But then proofreading is all about pedantry, and if you can’t get your covering email right, what hope do I have that you’ll fare any better with a client’s document?

Before publishing a post, I’ll preview it, allowing me to assess the prose before it is exposed to its audience, however small that audience may be. This gives me the opportunity to correct any issues with flow, and any howlers I may have made along the way.

And some time after I’ve hit the Publish button, the post will pop up in Google Reader. And invariably, I’ll read it in its entirety. Occasionally, I’ll spot a mistake that slipped through the net—I find my own work the most difficult to proofread, as I’m too close to it—but more importantly, I’ll read it as an audience member, given the delay since having read it.

And I like little better than stumbling upon old posts from years back to see what I had to say. I’m happy to say that my writing has improved over the last five years, as has by my grammar. Notwithstanding, I enjoy the things I had to say back then.

I’d be interested as to whether others out there read their own work.

While in America, I did as the Americans.  Shorthand was 12/6 (or “twelve six” when voiced).  Longhand, it was December 6, 2008.  When combined with the year, it always struck me as slightly odd that the specificity was inconsistent from left to right: first came the month, which was then made more specific with the day.  Yet at this stage, the reader doesn’t yet know the year.  In the UK’s DD/MM/YYYY format, specificity decreases from left to right.  Although arguably, what use is the day without first knowing the month?

The comma in the American longhand version was necessary to separate the two numbers.  At first, I was uncomfortable with the proximity of these two numbers.  But over time, I came to regard it as an attribute rather than a hindrance.  And I came to adore the longhand variant.

(The shorthand version continued to confuse me throughout my two years there, and mentally I had to deconstruct the two numbers bleated out to figure out what they represented, particularly for days in the first twelve of the month.  Not ideal, being a project manager.)

Now back in the UK, I’ve recently settled on a format that I’m comfortable with.  In Excel, we’d say d mmmm, yyyy.  In English: 6 December, 2008.  Where the year is redundant, I simply opt for 6 December.  Never should either be preceded with a jarring the.  (My word do I hate that?)  When talking of a month, I use December 2008, without the intervening comma—it’s too short to warrant one.

For the full variation, I like its simplicity.  I’ve never been a big fan of the superscripts that come into play with ordinal numbers—when I do use ordinals, I always reject MS Word’s auto-formatting, leaving them in standard font—6th.  And I feel that the comma is necessary to give some rhythm to the construct.  As for the months, I feel that our Gregorian legacy is sufficiently poetic and inspiring for the months not to be abbreviated.  Let’s save that crime for data files.

And the interface does not allow for spell-checking.

The dreadfully constrained interface and the lack of a spell-checker make for out-of-office emails littered with typos and grammatical heathenry, an email that is sent to way more people than any other.  I would estimate that over half of those I receive contain at least one error.

Today’s examples:

• I am out of the office until Friday 22nd May and will limited access my emails during this time
• I am out of the office at a and will be back at work on the 26th May 2009

Please.  Copy your email into Word.  Read it, check it and double-check it before turning your out of office on.  Thank you.

The double-hyphen looks hideous, but it’s as if I should give them credit for trying.  How about trying a bit harder and typing ALT+0151 (on the number keypad, not the top row).  Or if you’re in WordPress (I am, don’t you know), hit the Insert Custom Character button sporting a Ω symbol, having hit the Show/Hide Kitchen Sink button).  The em dash can be found on the second row, fifth symbol from the right.

Here you’ll find more on the correct use of hyphens, en dashes and em dashes.