Confusing headline? Just echoing the sign I saw in an allergist’s office. Has a few problems, doesn’t it? Apologies for the bad looking photo — “shot” with a camera phone with not so hot functionality.

Writing White Papers has put together an impressive list of the top ten books for writers. A list of finalists (for anything in general) often contain a couple of weak choices, but not this list. Stelzner asked readers to submit ONE favorite book, which created a strong list of finalists. I have some of these books and others are on my list of books to buy.

A writer who has some or all of these books will do fine with them and nothing else. One other book writers would benefit from having in their writing toolbox: The Street Smart Writer: Self Defense Against Sharks and Scams in the Writing World. Unfortunately, it’s common for writers — even the smart ones with good common sense — to run into bad agents, publishers and contests. The book makes a good starting place for getting help.

My vote went to On Writing Well simply because I picked up a few tips and applied them. Still do. A successful nonfiction book is one that encourages you to take action and continue doing it long after you’ve read it.

This past entry addresses the dying art of letter writing (by hand and snail mail!). Cursive writing becoming a thing of the past looks at cursive writing’s decline in the classroom. Students typically learn cursive writing in third grade and I believe this should continue — but not with a heavy focus on getting it perfect.

Rather, the kids should remember how to do it and legibly. Just like learning new spelling words, they need to learn to read and write cursive. Neatness, like art, is subjective. Some people are good at it and some people aren’t.

Kids today have to learn more than kids did 10 years ago. They have computers and keyboarding added to their list of things to learn plus 10 more years of history. Remember memorizing the American presidents and the years they served? I clearly remember that from 9th grade, but I’ve forgotten the order and years. Is there any point memorizing this? Well, perhaps, it gives us an idea about when the president was in office. For instance, we know Lyndon B. Johnson didn’t serve anywhere near Lincoln or Adams — but somewhere around Kennedy and Carter.

My parents took me to Washington, DC for the first time when I was about 10 years old. We visited the Smithsonian museums where I bought presidential flash cards (OK, I was a nerd … sometimes). I learned them on my own, but promptly forgot them by the time I had to learn them again in 9th grade.

We also memorized poems. I still recall the ones I had to say over and over:

* Shel Silverstein’s Captain Hook from Where the Sidewalk Ends in 2nd grade.

* The Highwayman in 7th grade.

* Edgar Allan Poe’s Eldorado in 7th grade

* Kipling’s If

* Mark Anthony’s Caesar speech in 10th grade

* Shakespeare’s All the World’s a Stage

I hated memorizing poems at the time. But you know what? Some of these have become my favorites. I can still recite Eldorado without help. There was a time when I was into finding poems like The Highwayman and discovered The Shooting of Dan McGrew by Robert Service. It turned out my grandmother was also a fan of his work and we spent a little time discussing his poems. As a result of this interest, I started writing epic style poems. Wish I had them (That’s why I try to pick some of my kids’ work and kept them in a safe place.).

In middle school today, kids learn about one poem per six weeks — depending on the class. The poems are tied to the curriculum.

Pronunciation: ‘tsIt-”gIst, ‘zIt

So that’s “zight” “guise+t” like geyser only stop at the “s” and add a “t” on the end. Right?

Dallas Columnist Steve Blow [may require free registration] brought “Zeitgeist” to my attention. While reading his column, I realized I had seen this word appear often especially thanks to Google Zeitgeist, which searches for trends and patterns.

The dictionary (and Google’s Zeitgeist page) define the noun: “The general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era.” The definition also says the word is often capitalized. Why? The word comes from two German words that mean “time” and “spirit.”

Steve Blow had a conversation that referred to a Dallas Morning News article that said, “…and NBC has a winner with its zeitgeist series Heroes.” Does that make sense to you? Not to me.

I did a search for zeitgeist on the newspaper’s web site and surprisingly found many articles using the word. A sampling:

“YouTube is the latest Web site to emerge as the symbol and focal point of a zeitgeist.”

“First, a follow-up from last week’s rant about Wikipedia. Must have been something in the Zeitgeist last week.”

” The group’s million-selling 1994 debut, Rubberneck, captured the post-grunge zeitgeist with seething tunes…”

After reading these articles, I still can’t figure out how I would use it in a sentence. Are these even used correctly?

The word is a nice one with its interesting spelling and pronunciation. But it isn’t one we can use everyday. Blow thinks it’s one of those words people use to impress others. Whether people used it right or wrong, Google gets it with its Zeigeist tool.

I started the tradition of sending a holiday letter in 1997 or maybe before, but I have no proof. Originally, I sent cards and write a short note. Since I enjoyed reading letters from others, I thought I’d do the same and the annual letter began.

Took the lazy way out this year and didn’t bother with handwritten notes and printed address labels instead of printing addresses directly on the envelopes. I’ve got to address 200 invitations by the end of the year for a big family event coming in ’07. At least, a non-handwritten letter is better than no letter, right?

After I printed 25 copies of the letter, I found a typo in the first sentence! I just mailed my letters yesterday. I wrote, “In spit of …” instead of “In spite of…” Awful! Instead of wasting paper and ink, I just added the “e.” Hey, I did do a little handwriting after all.

The media has been reporting on annual letters and newsletters whether people like them or get annoyed with the brag-fest. I like receiving them because they tell me what’s going on in my friends’ lives. I try to stick to honesty when writing the letter and make sure the letter doesn’t sound like the showing off or bragging. But I do include photos of the kids in every letter. That won’t go away. So holiday letters… good or bad?

Reading about business schools take aim at bad writing didn’t surprise me. When I was a MBA graduate student for one semester, we had to pass a writing and presentation section. The university conducted seminars followed by students giving presentations and writing a paper.

Students who didn’t pass received tutoring and presented again. Those who did received a notation on their student reports they passed the writing and presentation requirements.

As an assistant to an online graduate program, I read theses and Microsoft Word highlights many typos that the student overlooked. The red or green squiggly line shouldn’t be present at all when they submit the paper unless there’s a valid reason. Word isn’t perfect.

We have many students where English is their second or even third language. I admire them because they know it well enough to take graduate courses. I didn’t learn Spanish and French well enough to use it daily. Had I kept up with Spanish after completing three years of it in high school, I might’ve done more but not as much as these students.

Obviously, these students don’t write well in English and we understand. The professor recommends they get writing help and the school provides writing resources. Furthermore, they can have someone else proofread their paper.

I saved my English papers and a handful of other work from college. When I review them, I cringe at the stiff and formal writing. That’s the kind of writing the professors encouraged plus I improved on some elements with practice. If universities are going to help students improve their writing skills, they need to move away from the stiff and formal writing and save those for special research papers and theses. Taking this approach ensure students enter the real world with the writing skills they need.

Then again, should theses writing be stiff? Formal makes sense, but not stiff and dry. The titles alone can easily make a person’s eyes glaze over and even require re-reading. Look at white papers. Those tend to have a similar reaction, but it doesn’t have to be dry and boring as white paper pro Michael Stelzner explains in Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged and articles.

Every university has its own rules for writing theses and research papers. There are also standard research paper practices. Don’t expect these papers to turn into interesting reads anytime soon. But should educational institutions change their practices? Maybe, just maybe, we’ll experience less jargon in the business world.

While earning my degree in education, I learned about the Fog Index, Flesch-Kincade, and other ways to measure comprehensibility. This helped us understand how to measure content to determine its reading level.

Along the same lines, Denny Hatch [Link from Cincom Expert Access] introduces colleague Bob Scott. Scott uses Robert Gunning’s Fog formula to make writing clearer and more comprehensible. He explains how to use the formula, which is based on two qualities that Gunning believed important in determining readability:

* Average number of words in a sentence.

* Percentage of “hard” words.

Microsoft Word comes with a feature that calculates readability scores based on Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. To use it, click “Tools,” “Spelling & Grammar” and ensure there’s a check in the checkbox next to “Show Readbility Statistics.” Run the spellchecker and after it goes through your document, a pop up box appears with the Counts, Averages, and Readability.

I admit I don’t think about this when I write articles. But I would use Word’s tool more often if we could get the readability scores without running the spellchecker. I’d love to have the tool sit on the toolbar next to the word count.

For non-Word documents, Flesh is a freeware Java-based application that calculates Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level. Juicy Studio has an online tool to check a Web site’s readability.

This entry’s Flesch Reading Ease: 50 (easily understood by 6th and 7th graders)

This entry’s Flesch-Kincade Grade Level: 9.8 (probably doesn’t help that I need to use words like “comprehensibility” and “readability.”

University of Texas has a nice table adapted from Flesch’s The Art of Readable Writing. showing what the scores mean.

The Microsoft Office Team reports that Microsoft has added 58,000 words to the US English dictionary including the following:

* Possessives, i.e. the possessive form of words that already were in the lexicon
* The most frequent male, female and last names from the 2000 Census data and other sources. Examples: Brianne, Britta, Carissa, Carolyn, Carmela
* Company names, such as Verizon, WorldCom
* Names of autonomous Native American governmental units
* Names of the official UN countries, as well as most languages in our market areas, e.g. Indic language names
* Place names, such as all world capitals and other major cities, e.g. Wuppertal
* Miscellaneous words that were missing from the lexicon: e.g. Camus, Wyeth, Woolf

Office 2007 also comes with a new feature Microsoft refers to as contextual spelling. It watches for correctly spelled words that aren’t the right word based on the sentence. We all do this. I know the difference between your and you’re; too, to, and two; and their and there — it I’ve caught myself typing the wrong word many times. Why does this happen? I guess we get a word in our heads and our fingers spew out the wrong word.

If you write, “You’re shoe is untied,” Office 2007 will mark “you’re” as an error. Nice feature to have! Even us grammar geeks make mistakes and sometimes we don’t see it when proofing.

Roy Peter Clark talks about neologisms — new words. In the article, he tells a story about a child who referred to something as “ginormous” because “It was bigger than gigantic. It was huger than enormous.” The child didn’t create the word as Clark points to the Urban Dictionary — so it’s not impossible for multiple people to come up with the same word.

Want to create a new word? Try blending multiple words, which are easy for others to figure out after determining words on which they’re based. Clark references Wanted Words, books that list words suggested by listeners and includes tidbits and letters. The book’s web site held contests that gave readers a chance to create new words based on a brief description. Here’s the last contest. Just click Previous to see more.

Protologism also means creating a new word… but unlike neologism, the creator wants to make it an accepted word in the language as it’s based on “prototype” and “neologism.”

WordSpy collects new terms that have appeared in multiple resources — they’re not sniglets.

Other ways to create words:

* daffynitions: Ex: “alarms — What an octopus is. (all arms)”

* sniglets: Ex: cheedle — “The orange residue left on fingers after eating Cheetos or some other cheesy snack.”

* goofinitions: Ex: “balderdash — rapid hair loss.”

I can’t find a clear definition of “stunt words” as referenced in Word Spy. All the searches refer to Word Spy’s description except for one that points to Wordlustitude, a blog that’s “a growing dictionary of ephemeral words — also known as nonce or stunt words. All readers are strongly encouraged to use these terms in their blogs, poems, prophesies, and recipes.” So “stunt words” are word fads, words with a short life.

Collins Word Exchange How to Make a Dictionary is a good read [Link from Language Log]. Still stuck? Try the Random Word Generator.

Or take an existing word and give it a new twist. “Shut up” isn’t always an insult. It can also be a surprise or a shocker that translates to “No way!” Grey’s Anatomy got my friends and me on a “seriously” kick — to mean “Yeah” or “telling the truth.”

If you get an email with the above in the Subject without looking to see who sent it — what do you think? Considering I was swamped during that time, I jumped out of my seat. I always make an effort to beat my deadlines and probably because of all the things going on at work and at home — it made me more sensitive to my workload and schedule.

This was in an email mailing between newsletters from The Publicity Hound. Joan Stewart sends stuff between newsletters from time to time. So I emailed her about it thinking maybe it would’ve hurt more than helped to have such a headline.

But she provided a different perspective I had not considered. She said, “That subject line was intended for people who need a ‘heads up’ about deadlines. Had I not put that in the subject line, I would have heard, ‘Why didn’t you tell us we had to order by 5 p.m. Friday? Had I known that, I would have opened the email immediately. Now I’ve missed out on the discount!’”

Fair enough. Those who weren’t interested were more likely to hit the Delete key and move on. I guess being a newsletter editor made me want to respond and it reinforced the lesson of the importance of knowing your audience. She knew her audience well enough to know that it would work for most. So I’m the odd gal out in that audience.