An 'effect' defect

Greetings, gentle readers. Mr. Rewrite is trying to emerge from his end-o'-semester, holiday-exacerbated fog by pointing out this boo-boo in today's paper.

In general, "affect" is going to be the verb and "effect" the noun. But not always. He'll let Paul Brians take it from here, as Mr. Rewrite remains a tad foggy.

No compliments for this mess

How does one compliment free checking? "Nice checkbook" would do, Mr. Rewrite supposes.

A music player accompanying free checking, however, is a complement.

Here's Paul Brians' explanation from Common Errors in English Usage. Mr. Rewrite must return to keeping Rewrite Jr. away from the tree.

Don't send Mr. Rewrite 'hand-written' notes

Mr. Rewrite had occasion to confirm today that a note, grocery list, etc., is handwritten, not hand-written. The AP Stylebook offers no help, but Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition, where AP turns for matters not covered by the stylebook, goes with handwritten.

It's the same story with handwriting. But the AP Stylebook goes with hand-washing, and the New World goes with hand-wringing.

Nice! Another 'everyday' error -- every week

Well, Mr. Rewrite doesn't find it nice (Nice!) when a store pays money for a sign misusing everyday vs. every day. For the record, whatever nice (Nice!) is happening here is nice every day (adv.).

Mr. Rewrite ignores 'socioeconomic' data

Mr. Rewrite always learns though editing. Today's lesson: The AP Stylebook calls for socio-economic (with the hyphen) rather than socioeconomic. 

There's no stylebook entry on socio-economic, but a search of the electronic version yielded a reference in the hyphen (-) entry.

This differs from the Websters New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition, which calls for socioeconomic. Mr. Rewrite wonders whether AP made a mistake in this entry. He'll tweet it to AP. 

Once upon a 'matress'?

Oh, for crying out loud. It's mattress, of course.

An 'everyday' error every week

Mr. Rewrite's hair stood on end when he saw this. For the record, Eli's Barber Shop is open every day (adv.).

A liberal dose of advice on 'ultraconservative'

Back during Mr. Rewrite's days as an undergrad -- that is, when dinosaurs roamed the land -- William F. Buckley gave a speech at the University of Arizona. It was a big deal, occurring back when Buckley's "Firing Line" was on the air and he was a leading voice in American conservatism. Mr. Rewrite had to cover it for a journalism class, along with thousands of other students assigned to attend the speech, for which Mr. Buckley reportedly received five figures.

It turned out to be the most confusing thing Mr. Rewrite has tried to distill into a news article. All Mr. Buckley did was read from a spy thriller he'd recently completed and make a couple of comments connecting the lead character to the U.S. intelligence apparatus.

Anyway, Mr. Rewrite thought about this odd evening because an edit made him dig up whether one is ultra-conservative or ultraconservative -- or the noun derived from the term.

Mr. Rewrite's ruling: ultraconservative. His basis combines the AP Stylebook and Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition. The stylebook says words with ultra- generally don't take a hyphen. Its examples include ultramodern and ultraviolet. It gets a little confusing because the AP Stylebook calls for ultra-rightist and ultra-leftist.

But the New World, where AP turns for matters not covered by its stylebook, calls for ultraconservative as a noun and adjective. In in true bipartisan fashion it calls for ultraliberal as well. That's good enough for Mr. Rewrite.

Hmm. Do you think less of Mr. Rewrite?

Mr. Rewrite is embarrassed to admit that if you search this site for the term hmmm you'll find at least three uses in that format. When it finally came up in an edit recently, he finally thought to look it up.

Alert the media: Mr. Rewrite was wrong. It happens occasionally and sometimes spectacularly, as in this case. It involves one of Mr. Rewrite's favorite snarky terms.

Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition, where The Associated Press turn for matters not covered by its stylebook, has an entry calling or hmm.

Hmm. Mr. Rewrite wonders how many times he's botched this term over the years. Too many to count, he thinks.

Gone are the days of locating one's maps

Oh, the wonders of modern technology. Mr. Rewrite truly loves knowing exactly where he is in relation to restaurants, bookstores, transit stops, houses of worship, etc. -- all without having to unfold a paper map (yes, kids, those once existed).

To be honest, Mr. Rewrite doesn't really care about such things. And he misses paper maps. But he had to set up a cheap post noting that AP style calls for geolocation and geotagging rather than geo-location and geo-tagging. This came up in an edit recently, and Mr. Rewrite was beyond relieved that the AP Stylebook has new entries on each.