It's always fun to take a look at the minutiae involved in getting a manuscript into tip top shape. And, alas, I often realize some of the mistakes I make over and over again. Sheesh.
You can see some past Lessons from Dead Matter HERE.
I just got my dead matter back for Wish and thought I'd share some of the mistakes I made - almost always involving hyphens and compound words. Minutiae, minutiae.
Redheaded is one word, not hyphenated.
Bread-and-butter pickles IS hyphenated.
Ta-da is hyphenated. (I know, I know....I'm questioning that one, too)
Meat loaf is two words. (But, hey, meatloaf still looks right to me)
Lunch box is two words but tailpipe is one word.
Hot dog is two words but bottlecap is one word.
Popsicle is capitalized.
Jibber-jabber is hyphenated.
Now, according to Yankee copy editors, barbecue is spelled with a "c". I don't care what they say, in North Carolina, we spell it barbeque.
And after 26 years, I STILL don't get the correct spacing for ellipses.
So there you have it.
Dead matter..
3 comments:
You mean it's not Bar-B-Q? Ha! Q, C, and Hyphenated seem to be equally distributed in Kansas City (which, does of course, have the best Bar-B-Q, Barbeque, and Barbecue in the nation!)
Am I the only person who thinks this is interesting? Like, where do they decide this stuff? is there a style guide for kid's books like there is for magazine writing? What's it called? Thanks for sharing!
Ha ha! And why is it that word puts a green squiggly line under things like tea cup in my manuscript but when I Google it it's two words? I can ever remember these things. Thanks for a fun post.
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