Sleepy greetings from a silently stormy Kraków - the sky lies dark and heavy, ponderous, rain-stuffed clouds ready to explode at any moment. Today was the Smallest Proofreader's chrzest (christening), and I've been juggling anglik family and Polish relatives with copious amounts of food and drink. Finally though, the dust has settled and I have five seconds to spare before I plug on with an all-night quest to complete a bevy of interesting articles on various things. Ask no more.
Nothing much actually happened this week, interesting-things-to-comment-on-here-wise, although Wednesday did see an old friend drop by for an unwelcome visit:
1a. Entries should be sent until September 12th 2012.
1b. Entries should be sent by September 12th 2012.
He's often around, begging for attention and making a nuisance of himself, so let's bolt the door on this bugger once and for all. Now, send is a versatile girl. You can send on, send up, send for, send away, send away for, send in, send off, send down and send by - but crucially, ye cannae send until, captain. So when you’re talking competition regulations, bidding rules, or any kind of job tender that requires envelopes full of boring papers to be delivered to a boring government office somewhere, then sent by is exactly the funky action hipster chic you need. Send until is to be consigned to the waste bin – remember that!
Wednesday we also had the answers and discussion to last week's quiz; see here and here respectively for all that jazz.
Thursday saw one of my own itches scratched by Adam from WaWa and Weronika down here in K-Town. A Spanish client had given me earache about not having an EU VAT number, something which had only occured once before in my whole history of proofreading. I had assumed that since I dealt primarily with Brits, Russians, Poles and Koreans, I wouldn't have to bother, but - well, it's a big old issue, and you get the skinny on it from our colleagues over on our Facebook page.
Also on our Facebook wall, I said to you, "6,3 millions of people", and asked how many mistakes and what were they? Sabina from Nowy Targ nailed it down to 3, and for general edification I'm now going to reveal what those 3 mistakes are (so stop reading if you want to do it yourself...). Okay, the mistakes are:
1) Polish comma retained as decimal point (angliks prefer full-stops),
2) Improper plural use (millions) - million preceded by a figure becomes uncountable,
3) Bad Preposition - of wandered in and stopped for a casual smoke; ask the firing squad to put a bullet in his brain before he finishes...
Finally, Friday brought this to the table: "Changes expected in the next decades are aimed at improving the situation."
in the next decades ain't no good. The correct phrasing for this all too-common mistake is in coming decades. Any time you want to say in the next years/days/months/etc, don't do it. This is because (most of the time) you can't directly follow in the next with a plural noun. There are exceptions, but they are so very, very context-sensitive and specific that it's not worth muddying the waters of clarity with them. So repeat this to yourself:
I can not follow in the next with a plural time noun - no in the next decades.I can follow in the next with a plural time noun IF I put few (but NOT several).
Dlatego:
BAD - in the next decades
BAD - in the next several decades
GOOD - in the next few decades
Wow, total improv and it doesn't look too too bad. Well, I'm going to stop there whilst I'm still making sense (yes I am, Aga ;). Dishes to wash and all that, and finally ten more pages of academia and a nice cold beer. Cheers!
Jim. :)
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