Language Editing Cheat Sheet, Study notes of Linguistics

Download Language Editing Cheat Sheet and more Study notes Linguistics in PDF only on Docsity! QUESTION 5 LANGUAGE EDITING CHEAT SHEET Concord Error When the subject of a sentence and the verb of a sentence agree. If the subject of the sentence is singular, the verb must be singular. If the subject of a sentence is plural, the verb must be plural. Ex. The pages (subject) is/ARE (verb) held together by a staple. Malapropism The humourous misuse of a word by confusing it with a similar sounding word. Ex. He's a wolf in cheap clothing. He’s a wolf in SHEEP clothing. Ex. The doctor gave me a subscription for my allergies. The doctor gave me a PRESCRIPTION for my allergies. Active & Passive Voice Rules to change from active to passive: I bake a cake. • Identify the verb: bake • Change the verb into past tense: baked • Ask the question which refers to the subject as the answer: Who baked a cake? Me. • Rewrite the into passive form: A cake is baked by me. Apostrophe Omission (Contraction) Where letters are missing because of omitting. you’re = you + are Possession a person owns an object/it belongs to them. e.g.: Jason’s school bag Reported – Speech Identify the tense that needs to change Identify the place/time that needs to change Identify the subject and add ‘said that’ John: “I’m going to be back tomorrow.” John said that he was going to be back the next day. Punctuation Functions Split Infinitive An adverb is placed between ‘to’ and the verb makes a split infinitive. Ex. We were told to carefully view each star. Correction: We were told to view each star carefully. Tautology/Redundancy If all of us cooperate together, then we will succeed. Both have similar meaning. Remove the redundancy: If all of us cooperate, then we will succeed. / If all of us work together, then we will succeed. Truncation/Clipping To shorten by cutting off a part of a word. Expo – Exposition Flu – Influenza Varsity – University Uni – University Cell – Cell phone Tech – Technical/Technology Burger – Hamburger Ad – Advertisement Memo – Memorandum Blending It refers to joining the beginning of one word and the end of another to make a new word with a new meaning. Breakfast + lunch = brunch Smoke + fog = smog Motor + hotel = motel Spoon + fork = spork Spanish + English = Spanglish Cybernetic + organism = cyborg Emotion + icon = emoticon Picture + element = pixel Picture + dictionary = Pictionary Prefixes Changes the meaning of the word. Re- again = review De- reverse = destruction Co- together = construct Dis- separate/not = disinterest Pre- before = prehistoric Mis- wrong = mistaken Im- not/opposite of = impolite Non- not = nonsense Un- not = unkind Anti- against = antisocial Bi- two = bicycle Sub- under = subway Suffixes Often changes the part of speech, changes into past tense or past participle, changes word into plural form, changes degree of comparison. -ed (verb/in the past) = walked -ing (verb/doing something) = walking -ly (adverb/how) = slowly -fully (adverb) = beautifully -sion (noun/quality/action) = tension -ment (noun) = government -er (adjective) = taller -al (adjective) = political -s (plural) = girls comma parenthesis hyphen dash ellipsis period exclamation mark question mark semi-colon colon quotation marks ampersand apostrophe , () - – … . ! ? ; : “” / ‘’ & ’ List/pauses Extra info Join info Split info Omits Stops Exclaims Asks Joins ideas Lists Quotes and Possession /omission