You've Got "E-mail" or You've Got "Email"?

Last week, the editors of the Associated Press Stylebook created a stir by announcing a change in their recommended spelling: "e-mail" is now "email."


The social media website Mashable implied that the change is long overdue, running the story with the headline "AP Stylebook finally changes 'e-mail' to 'email.'"


On the other hand, the New York Times announced that they'll stick with "e-mail." What this shows is that using a hyphen in "e-mail" is a style choice, and Mashable is more permissive than the Associated Press, which is more permissive than the New York Times when it comes to language change.


When the AP Stylebook editors were asked why they made the change, they said most of their writers already turn in articles with the "email" spelling, and copy editors found "e-mail" increasingly difficult to police. They emphasized that they don't consider themselves to be on the leading edge of language change; instead, they "bow to common usage."


This creates yet another "writer/author preference" as to which version to use. Just remember to be consistent!



Source: GrammarGirl

HAPPY Spring...and
Have a HAPPY Day!

Thoroughness Challenge

The Thoroughness Challenge is a post consisting of paragraphs that contain spelling and/or grammatical errors. The paragraphs with the errors corrected and highlighted in red can be found at the end of the post.

Note: The purpose of the Challenge is thoroughness. You're only looking for errors in spelling and/or grammar. Names and places will NOT be misspelled, nor will there by any changes to punctuation or sentence structure.


Your Challenge today is about the early days of search engine optimization and contains 37 errors.

Good Luck!
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Webmasters and content providers began optimzing sites for search engines in the mid 1990s. Initially, all webmasters needed to do was submit the address of a page, or URL, to the varous engines which would send a "spider" to "crawl" that page, extract links to other pages from it, and return infomation found on the page to be indexed. The prosess involves a search engine spider downloading a page and storing it on the search engine's own server, where a second progam, known as an indexer, extracts varous information about the page, such as the words it contains and where these are located, as well as any weight for specfic words, and all links the page contains, which are then placed into a schedular for crawling at a latter date.

Site owners started to recogize the value of having there sites highly ranked and visable in search engine results, and the phrase "search engine optimazation" probably came into use in 1997.

Early versions of search algorithyms relied on webmaster-provided infomation such as the keyword meta tag, or index files in engines. Meta tags provide a guide to each page's content. Using meta data to index pages was found to be less than reliable, however, because the webmaster's choice of keywords in the meta tag could potentally be an innacurate representaton of the site's actual content. Inacurate, inconplete, and inconsistant data in meta tags could and did cause pages to rank for irrelavant searches. Web content providers also maniplated a number of atributes within the HTML source of a page in an attempt to rank well in search engines.

By relying so much on factors such as keyword density, which were exclusivley within a webmaster's control, early search engines suffered from abuse and ranking maniplation. To provide better results to their users, search engines had to adept to ensure their results pages showed the most relavant search results, rather than unrelated pages stuffed with numrous keywords by unscrupulus webmasters. Since the sucess and popularity of a search engine is determned by its ability to produce the most relavant results to any given search, allowing those results to be false would turn users to find other search sources. Search engines responded by develping more complex ranking algorythms, taking into account addtional factors that were more diffcult for webmasters to munipulate.

Now, let's see how thorough you are!

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Webmasters and content providers began optimizing sites for search engines in the mid 1990s. Initially, all webmasters needed to do was submit the address of a page, or URL, to the various engines which would send a "spider" to "crawl" that page, extract links to other pages from it, and return information found on the page to be indexed. The process involves a search engine spider downloading a page and storing it on the search engine's own server, where a second program, known as an indexer, extracts various information about the page, such as the words it contains and where these are located, as well as any weight for specific words, and all links the page contains, which are then placed into a scheduler for crawling at a later date.

Site owners started to recognize the value of having their sites highly ranked and visible in search engine results, and the phrase "search engine optimization" probably came into use in 1997.

Early versions of search algorithms relied on webmaster-provided information such as the keyword meta tag, or index files in engines. Meta tags provide a guide to each page's content. Using meta data to index pages was found to be less than reliable, however, because the webmaster's choice of keywords in the meta tag could potentially be an inaccurate representation of the site's actual content. Inaccurate, incomplete, and inconsistent data in meta tags could and did cause pages to rank for irrelevant searches. Web content providers also manipulated a number of attributes within the HTML source of a page in an attempt to rank well in search engines.

By relying so much on factors such as keyword density, which were exclusively within a webmaster's control, early search engines suffered from abuse and ranking manipulation. To provide better results to their users, search engines had to adapt to ensure their results pages showed the most relevant search results, rather than unrelated pages stuffed with numerous keywords by unscrupulous webmasters. Since the success and popularity of a search engine is determined by its ability to produce the most relevant results to any given search, allowing those results to be false would turn users to find other search sources. Search engines responded by developing more complex ranking algorithms, taking into account additional factors that were more difficult for webmasters to manipulate.





Wishing all you Cool Cats a totally Cool and HAPPY day!

Thoroughness Challenge

Thorough Thursday is a post consisting of paragraphs that contain spelling and/or grammatical errors. The paragraphs with the errors corrected and highlighted in red can be found at the end of the post.

Note: The purpose of the Challenge is thoroughness. You're only looking for errors in spelling and/or grammar. Names and places will NOT be misspelled, nor will there by any changes to punctuation or sentence structure. In addition, if there is a word that may have more than one accepted spelling, those also will not be changed.


Your Challenge today takes a look at how to pronounce "2010," and contains 6 errors. Good Luck!


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How do you say the current year? Now that we've reached double digits at the end of "2000," I'm sure you have heard people refer to the year differently. The to main contenders are "twenty-ten" and "two thousand ten." So which is correct?

Before the turn of the century, most people pronounced the years by combining the first too numbers and the last too numbers. So we had "nineteen fifty," nineteen eighty-five," and so on. After the turn of the century, we started commonly pronouncing the years the long way; "two thousand one," "two thousand two," and so on.

Now it seems that some people feel more comfortable continuing the trend--going from "two thousand nine" to "two thousand ten" --while the majority of people are eager to return to the old convention, happily moving on from "two thousand nine" to the snappyer sounding "twenty-ten."

The Associated Press has concluded that "twenty-ten" is the preferred choice. However, with all the decisions made when writing (or speaking), the pronounciation question is a style choice; making either pronounciation correct.


Now, let's see how thorough you are!


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How do you say the current year? Now that we've reached double digits at the end of "2000," I'm sure you have heard people refer to the year differently. The two main contenders are "twenty-ten" and "two thousand ten." So which is correct?

Before the turn of the century, most people pronounced the years by combining the first two numbers and the last two numbers. So we had "nineteen fifty," nineteen eighty-five," and so on. After the turn of the century, we started commonly pronouncing the years the long way; "two thousand one," "two thousand two," and so on.

Now it seems that some people feel more comfortable continuing the trend--going from "two thousand nine" to "two thousand ten" --while the majority of people are eager to return to the old convention, happily moving on from "two thousand nine" to the snappier sounding "twenty-ten."

The Associated Press has concluded that "twenty-ten" is the preferred choice. However, with all the decisions made when writing (or speaking), the pronunciation question is a style choice; making either pronunciation correct.

Sources: AP Stylebook, Grammar Girl

Thoroughness Challenge

Thorough Thursday is a post consisting of paragraphs that contain spelling and/or grammatical errors. The paragraphs with the errors corrected and highlighted in red can be found at the end of the post.

Note: The purpose of the Challenge is thoroughness. You're only looking for errors in spelling and/or grammar. Names and places will NOT be misspelled, nor will there by any changes to punctuation or sentence structure. In addition, if there is a word that may have more than one accepted spelling, those also will not be changed.


Your Challenge paragraphs concludes our look at the history of blogs and blogging with the creation of Blogger - and beyond. This week you're looking for 9 errors. Good Luck!

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BLOGGER and Beyond

In late Janaury of 2001, in the depths of the dot-com crash, a San Francisco startup called Pyra Labs ran out of money. Its staff departed. The co-founder of the company, a young Nebraskan named Evan Williams, decided to make a go of it alone. He scraped together $40,000 in new funding and moved Pyra's servers into his apartment. This permited the company's 100,000 registered customers (and counting) to keep using Pyra's service, Blogger, to publish their online journels, or blogs.

A year later, Blogger had 700,000 subscribers. Whether sharing cookie recipes or commenting on weapons reports from Iraq, those writers were constructing a significent new form of grassroots media. Blogging turned tradtional publishing on its head, allowing anyone with a computer and modem (or even a smartphone) to gain a global voice for free. By 2003, Williams was able to sell his business to Google for a lucritive pile of pre-IPO stock. Three years later he and his partners launched yet another tool for global publishing, the micro-blogging phenomonon, Twitter.

At this point it's hard for some to remember that even in the late '90s most people still regarded web pages as things to read, not places to post and publish. It's an important phenomenen, one that leads not only to YouTube, Facebook, and Wikipedia but also to the transfomation of corporate and government communications.

*******************************************************************************



Now, let's see how thorough you are!

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BLOGGER and Beyond

In late January of 2001, in the depths of the dot-com crash, a San Francisco startup called Pyra Labs ran out of money. Its staff departed. The co-founder of the company, a young Nebraskan named Evan Williams, decided to make a go of it alone. He scraped together $40,000 in new funding and moved Pyra's servers into his apartment. This permitted the company's 100,000 registered customers (and counting) to keep using Pyra's service, Blogger, to publish their online journals, or blogs.

A year later, Blogger had 700,000 subscribers. Whether sharing cookie recipes or commenting on weapons reports from Iraq, those writers were constructing a significant new form of grassroots media. Blogging turned traditional publishing on its head, allowing anyone with a computer and modem (or even a smartphone) to gain a global voice for free. By 2003, Williams was able to sell his business to Google for a lucrative pile of pre-IPO stock. Three years later he and his partners launched yet another tool for global publishing, the micro-blogging phenomenon, Twitter.

At this point it's hard for some to remember that even in the late '90s most people still regarded web pages as things to read, not places to post and publish. It's an important phenomenon, one that leads not only to YouTube, Facebook, and Wikipedia but also to the transformation of corporate and government communications.

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Spelling Challenge

Hey! What's the Spelling Challenge doing here on Monday? I decided to test your spelling skills at the beginning of the week rather than at the end! So let's get those brain cells all fired up and see how you do! Get your sticky note and pen, and write down the correct spelling for the ten words below.


NO PEEKING!

(Still loving this little peeking furry!)

1. falascious
2. drunkeness
3. subpeona
4. peurile
5. irrascible
6. deterance
7. viscious
8. afficianado
9. rhythym
10. tarrif


If you spell all ten words correctly, you get the beautiful sparkling gold glitter star! Good Luck!



Whether or not you get your star, everyone gets this spray of PURPLE glitter stars for your efforts! It just wouldn't be right not to have purple stars as part of the Spelling Challenge, now would it?


ANSWERS:

1. fallacious
2. drunkenness
3. subpoena
4. puerile
5. irascible
6. deterrence
7. vicious
8. aficionado
9. rhythm
10. tariff



Keep a smile on your face, spread some HAPPY, and

Spelling Challenge

It's Fun Friday's Spelling Challenge! Also, at the very end of this post is yesterdays Thorough Thursday Challenge, with the misspelled words highlighted in red.

Okay! Write down the correct spelling for today's words, and as usual the answers are listed below.

NO PEEKING!

(I just love this little peeking furry!)

1. temprament
2. boundry
3. seargant
4. acheivement
5. promissary
6. disasterous
7. surreptitous
8. absense
9. superintendant
10. exorbitant

BONUS WORD
sacriligeous

Time to see which if you get to add to that collection of virtual stars!
Spelling all 10 words correctly
gets you get a sparkling GOLD star!



Spell the bonus word correctly,
and you get the prized, very special, much coveted and very beautiful
Crystal Clear Proofing PURPLE star! It's a great star, isn't it?


Spell all 10 AND the bonus word correctly
will get a GOLD AND a PURPLE star!
(I know, the excitement is overwhelming!)



ANSWERS:

1. temperament
2. boundary
3. sergeant
4. achievement
5. promissory
6. disastrous
7. surreptitious
8. absence
9. superintendent
10. exorbitant

BONUS WORD:
sacrilegious


Yup, I did slip one in on you this week. "Exorbitant" was spelled correctly. Did I stump you? At least cause you to wonder about it?

So how many more stars did you get to add to your ever-growing collection this week? In place of having your name in lights, I had to keep with the whole star theme, and offer everyone a fun fireworks star! Tah-Dah!

Now, here is yesterday's Thorough Thursday post in its entirety, with the errors corrected and highlighted in red.

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Original weblogs had to be manually updated through multiple sections of a common website. The creation of the majority of tools that allow authoring and maintenance of articles posted in a reverse chronological order, initiated a much easier publishing process, for a less technical, expansive population. The result was the forming of a direct class for what is known as online publishing, which has given us the blogs we see today. Obtaining blog software like WordPress, Blogger and LiveJournal are available through a number of web hosting services. This provides blinding speed and instant reaction to any concern or topic on the "global podium."

Since 2002 blogs have gained notoriety and credibility for their part in breaking, shaping and spinning news stories. It has become a way of throwing important information into the public limelight. It now, for all intent and purposes, drives mainstream media by forcing them to follow their lead. Blogging has become a priceless tool for quality communication and a way for intelligent people to provide intelligent and valuable insight, opinions and information.

In 1999 new software services like Blogger and LiveJournal were launched, making blogs much simpler to create.

Today, more than one blog is created every second and there are currently over 100,000 million blogs worldwide.

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Every one of you deserves recognition, and that's why we must continue the tradition of spreading the now famous Crystal Clear Proofing HAPPY! This week you all get to put a smile on your face with this happy DANCING STAR!





Remember to live each moment, count your lucky stars, feel some HAPPY, and then spread it around!

Thoroughness Challenge

Thoroughly Thursday is a weekly post consisting of paragraphs that contain spelling and/or grammatical errors, and your job is to find them. Please do not list the errors you find within the post. The same post is repeated at the end of Fun Friday's Spelling Challenge, with the errors corrected and highlighted in red.

Note: Names and places will NOT be misspelled, nor will there by any changes to punctuation. In addition, if there is a word that may have more than one accepted form or there is more than one accepted spelling, those also will not be changed. That would not be fair...the purpose of the Challenge is thoroughness, not technicalities.


This week your Challenge paragraphs continue with the history of blogs and blogging as they evolve and begin to immerge as the blogs we're familiar with today. This week you're looking for 11 errors. Good Luck!




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Original weblogs had to be manually updated threw multiple sections of a common website. The creation of the majority of tools that allow authoring and maintainance of articals posted in a reverse chronilogical order, initiated a much easier publishing process, for a less technical, expansive population. The result was the forming of a direct class for what is known as online publishing, which has given us the blogs we see today. Obtaining blog software like WordPress, Blogger and LiveJournal are availible through a number of web hosting services. This provides blinding speed and instant reaction to any concern or topic on the "global podium."

Since 2002 blogs have gained notoriaty and credability for there part in braking, shaping and spinning news stories. It has become a way of throwing important infomation into the public limelight. It now, for all intents and purposes, drives mainstream media by forcing them to follow there lead. Blogging has become a priceless tool for quality communication and a way for intelligent people to provide intelligent and valuable insight, opinions and information.

In 1999 new software services like Blogger and LiveJournal were launched, making blogs much simpler to create.

Today, more than one blog is created every second and there are currently over 100,000 million blogs worldwide.

*******************************************************************************




Be sure to check back tomorrow to see how thorough you are!

Thoroughness Challenge

Thoroughly Thursday is a weekly post consisting of a couple of paragraphs that contain spelling and/or grammatical errors, and your job is to find them. Please do not list the errors you find within the post. The same post is repeated at the end of Fun Friday's Spelling Challenge, with the errors corrected and highlighted in red.

Note: Names and places will NOT be misspelled, nor will there by any changes to punctuation or capitalization. In addition, if there is a word that may have more than one accepted form or there is more than one accepted spelling, those also will not be changed. That would not be fair...the purpose of the Challenge is thoroughness, not technicalities.



This week your Challenge takes a look at the history of the blogs and blogging, and contains 9 errors.
Good Luck!



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Blogging has become a hole separate world from the internet. Blogging actually surfaced back in 1983, when it was referred to as "Usenet." It was considered a primary medium for moderated newsgroups which provided an area for posting discussions on virtually any topic, but was moderated by individuals or small groups. It wasn't until 1994, just a few years after the world wide web was created, that blogs evolved into what is more commonly referred to as an online diary.

Blogging, while starting out slow, has rapidly gained popularity as a tool for many individuals, organizations and corporations, as a medium to stay in touch with and provide a means of creating an infomation system. On the individual platform, it is a way for average citizens to have a venue to communicate, reach out and provide feedback on practicaly any subject humanly concievable.

The term blog was derived form what most knew as web-logs. The term weblog meaning a regularly updated collection of links to other sites and comments, was originally coined by Jorn Barger in 1997, though what is commonly understood as blogging began as early as 1996. In May of 1999, Peter Merholz coined the term blog in a posting on his personal blog sight, by mischieviously braking down the word weblog to we blog. The we was eventually dropped, resulting in the term we are all familar with: blog.

In broad terms, a blog is commonly thought of as an online journal, though they can range from intimate personal diaries to more journalistic newsletters. Some blogs focus on a narrow selection of topics of interest to the author, while other blogs cover a much wider range of topics.

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Be sure to check back tomorrow to see how thorough you are!

Levels of Editing

Yesterday you were given a general look at proofreading and copyediting. Today I'll offer more detail regarding the differences between the two, and also provide you with a synopsis of the various levels of editing.


There is clearly an overlap in the type of work expected of proofreaders and copyeditors.

Proofreaders don't see things the way other people do. They scrutinize. When something is awry, their warning buzzer goes off, and they pore over every last letter and shred of punctuation to hammer the copy into error-free perfection.

Copyeditors step deeper into the intricacies of voice, language and plot, and they maintain grammatical and tonal consistency. A copyeditor will analyze, process and transform copy into intelligible, easy-to-understand prose.

An interesting fact about the word copy is that as an English word, it's related to "copious." Both are from the same Latin root that means plenty or abundance. Copy is the message that comes across.


LEVELS OF EDITING

Standard proofreading involves making sure writing is free of mechanical errors - in spelling, punctuation, consistency, and some elements of formatting - and is grammatically correct.

Editorial proofreading encompasses all the tasks involved in standard proofreading, plus a few minor tweaks to ensure clarity and correct word choice.

Copyediting involves all proofreading tasks and also improves phrasing and organization to make the writing more effective.

Substantive editing calls for a greater level of rewriting and reorganization and even the suggestion of new approaches and ideas.


With standard proofreading the goal is to ensure clarity through correctness and consistency, and by watching to be sure the discussion generally makes sense. If it doesn't, a query of the client is needed. At this level pointing out a which that should be a that or noting that a word has been used three times in two sentences is about all the writing reconstruction the job description covers.

Editorial proofreading opens more doors for change. It's expected that more be done, but still nothing extreme. At this level, rather than simply offering suggestions, changes - again, nothing major - can and should be changed.

At the level of copyediting, language is shaped a bit more. Sentences are evaluated: Is it wordy? Ambiguous? Repetitious? Appropriate for its audience? Logical? Does the main point stand out? The work is considered as a whole: Are the topics presented in an effective order, or would another order make the information clearer? Copyediting involves questioning the manuscript constantly; however, the level at which this is done depends on whether a client is looking for light, medium or heavy copyediting.

Substantive editing is the most hands-on level of editing. It's also called content editing. It addresses not just how something is said, but what is being said. License is given to simply rewrite portions of text or reorganize the work to present content more effectively.


Ideally, editorial changes are made first, followed by proofreading to catch small items that may have been overlooked along the way. The line between proofreading and copyediting is very often blurred, and in reality, a little - or a lot - of both are done when editing a manuscript.

Copyediting is done early in the process to solve larger problems that could have a big effect later in the process. To copyedit is to check consistency and accuracy. Although part of copyediting may be to proofread to remove common errors, a copyeditor must also maintain the structure and tone of the project.

Proofreading is done to look for typos, misspellings, and other on-the-surface errors. Proofreading is usually done toward the end of the process; the book has already been designed and all the material is present.

Very often both are performed simultaneously, with more emphasis on copyediting initially, and thorough proofreading being performed to "polish" the project - unless of course the editor is asked specifically to find only the errors that fall under the category of standard proofreading.


No matter what level of editing is performed, the message being conveyed by the writer must be crystal clear!







Partial Source: McGraw-Hill Desk Reference for Editors, Writers and Proofreaders

A Look Into "Proofreading"

The following is taken from the first post I wrote when I entered the blogosphere. I'm featuring it today as an introduction of tomorrow's post, where I'll provide a more in-depth look at the subject.

There's More to Proofreading Than Just Reading!

Part of the job of a good proofreader is to not only find the errors, but also having the ability to find the right words to get the writer's message across to the reader in a clear and concise manner.

Proofreading itself involves pretty much the obvious: misspelled words, incorrect punctuation and grammatical errors.

Copyediting is another aspect and is a bit more involved. When editing written material, a copyeditor looks for proper structure and "flow." The last thing a reader wants is to have to "work" at reading. The written words should be as readable as if they were being spoken aloud. Of course this goes without saying that the speaker be well-versed in the proper use of the English language.

So, you have proofreading for spelling, punctuation and grammar; copyediting for structure and proper content. What other element or skill is essential in the process of polishing a manuscript?

Writing. In order to be of value to a client, a "proofreader" should definitely possess excellent writing abilities. If something is written without proper format or composition, how could that possibly be remedied unless your editor has the ability to find the right words and use them in the correct order, so that what you are writing is understandable and reads with ease?

What is most commonly referred to as proofreading obviously involves more than merely finding a misplaced comma or a misspelled word. Please be sure to read tomorrow's post, where I'll provide a more detailed look into the differences between proofreading and copyediting - and the various levels of editing.

Spelling Challenge

It's Fun Friday's Spelling Challenge! And, at the very end of this post are the words that were misspelled in yesterday's Thorough Thursday challenge.

Do you have your sticky note and pen ready? Great! Let's get started! Write down the correct spelling for this week's words. As usual the answers are listed below.

NO PEEKING!


1. athiest
2. bellweather
3. concensus
4. dumbell
5. exhilerate
6. hierachy
7. innoculate
8. liason
9. occurrance
10. pronounciation

BONUS WORD
perogative

Now lets see if you can add to that collection of virtual stars you have!
As you know, If you spell all 10 words correctly
you get a sparkling GOLD star! (Isn't it pretty?)



If you spell the bonus word correctly
you get the prized, very special, much coveted and very beautiful
Crystal Clear Proofing PURPLE star!


For spelling all the words, including the bonus word correctly
you get a GOLD AND a PURPLE star!
(And you ROCK!)



ANSWERS:

1. atheist
2. bellwether
3. consensus
4. dumbbell
5. exhilarate
6. hierarchy
7. inoculate
8. liaison
9. occurrence
10. pronunciation

BONUS WORD:
prerogative



So? How'd you do this week? How many of those stunning stars do you get to add to your collection? To those of you who earned stars...

Here is yesterday's Thorough Thursday post in its entirety, with the errors corrected and highlighted in red.

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Early History

The practice of making extra copies of manuscripts goes back to ancient times; in Rome there were booksellers—Horace mentions the Sosii, who were apparently brothers—and the copying of books by trained slaves reached considerable proportions. With the introduction of printing into Europe in the middle of the 15th century, book publishing sprang into lively existence. The author, the printer, and the publisher of a work were sometimes all the same person, as in the case of members of the Estienne family in France in the 16th cent. The differentiation of printer, publisher, and bookseller appeared early, however, as patrons of literature had books printed for distribution and booksellers had their printing done by others to meet the growing demand.

The Emergence of Publishing Houses

The first important publishing house (1583–1791) was that of the Elzevir family in Holland. The Elzevirs were businessmen rather than scholars, and the business of bookselling grew as literacy increased. Concurrently, printing, publishing, and bookselling spread learning across the West. Religious controversy bred polemics, and arguments printed in broadsides, pamphlets, and books were handed out zealously and bought eagerly by partisans. An interest in knowing the future also increased the amount of literature issued by bookseller-publishers, and almanacs and the like were issued for the wider public.


*******************************************************************************Between the Spelling Challenge and the Thorougness Challenge, you all deserve a little recognition! So let's spread some of that famous Crystal Clear Proofing HAPPY and award everyone for their efforts with the fun, new SMILEY STAR!






And wishing you all a very

Thoroughness Challenge

Thoroughly Thursday is a weekly post consisting of a couple of paragraphs that contain spelling and/or grammatical errors, and your job is to find them. Please do not list the errors you find within the post. The same post will be repeated at the end of Fun Friday's Spelling Challenge, with the errors corrected and highlighted in red.

Note: Names and places will NOT be misspelled, nor will there by any changes to punctuation. In addition, if there is a word that may have more than one accepted form or there is more than one accepted spelling, those also will not be changed. That would not be fair...the purpose of the Challenge is thoroughness, not technicalities.



This week's paragraphs feature a little history on the first books published and the coming of age of the modern-day publishing houses. This excerpt is taken from Fun Trivia, and it contains 14 errors. Good Luck!




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Early History

The practice of making extra copies of manuscripts goes back to ancient times; in Rome there were booksellers—Horace mentions the Sosii, who were apparantly brothers—and the copying of books by trained slaves reached considerable preportions. With the introduction of printing into Europe in the middle of the 15th century, book publshing sprang into lively existance. The author, the printer, and the publisher of a work were sometimes all the same person, as in the case of members of the Estienne family in France in the 16th century. The differentation of printer, publisher, and bookseller appeared early, however, as patrons of litrature had books printed for distribution and booksellers had their printing done by others to meet the growing demand.

The Emergance of Publishing Houses

The first importent publishing house (1583–1791) was that of the Elzevir family in Holland. The Elzevirs were businessmen rather than scholars, and the business of bookselling grew as literacy increased. Concurrantly, printing, publishing, and bookselling spred learning across the West. Religious contraversy bred polemics, and arguments printed in broadsides, pamphlets, and books were handed out zelously and bought eagerly by partesans. An interest in knowing the future also increased the amount of literature issued by bookseller-publishers, and almenacs and the like were issued for the wider public.


*******************************************************************************

Be sure to check back tomorrow to see how thorough you are!

Spelling Challenge

Not only is it Friday and time to test your spelling skills, it's the LAST Friday of the month, and the day before Halloween!

This week I'm beginning a new way of challenging your spelling skills. Rather than give you three choices, I'm going to list, as usual, 10 words and a bonus word...what's different is that YOU have to provide the correct spelling. So just grab a little sticky note and a pen, write down the words, spelled correctly, and as usual the answers are listed below.

Also, at the very end of this post are the words that were misspelled in yesterday's Thorough Thursday challenge.

Of course you know...


NO PEEKING!

1. begger
2. changable
3. commitment
4. dominent
5. tempramental
6. tangable
7. prevelant
8. quarantine
9. susseptible
10. vengance

BONUS WORD
conscientous

If you spell all 10 words correctly
you get a GOLD star!



If you spell the bonus word correctly
you get the prized, very special, and much coveted
Crystal Clear Proofing PURPLE star!


For spelling all the words, including the bonus word correctly
you get a GOLD and a PURPLE star!
(Hooray!)
I know! It's exciting, right?!

ANSWERS:

1. beggar
2. changeable
3. commitment
4. dominant
5. temperamental
6. tangible
7. prevalent
8. quarantine
9. susceptible
10. vengeance

BONUS WORD:
conscientious


So, how'd you do? Now I didn't say all the words would be misspelled, only that your challenge was to provide the correct spelling. Numbers 3 and 8 were spelled correctly in the first part of the challenge. Did I "catch" any of you?


CONGRATULATIONS
to those of you who earned stars!

Now, here's yesterday's Thorough Thursday post in its entirety, with the errors corrected and highlighted in red.

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The American tradition of "trick-or-treating" probably dates back to the early All Souls' Day parades in England. During the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pastries called "soul cakes" in return for their promise to pray for the family's dead relatives.

The distribution of soul cakes was encouraged by the church as a way to replace the ancient practice of leaving food and wine for roaming spirits. The practice, which was referred to as "going a-souling" was eventually taken up by children who would visit the houses in their neighborhood and be given ale, food, and money.

The tradition of dressing in costume for Halloween has both European and Celtic roots. Hundreds of years ago, winter was an uncertain and frightening time. Food supplies often ran low and, for the many people afraid of the dark, the short days of winter were full of constant worry. On Halloween, when it was believed that ghosts came back to the earthly world, people thought that they would encounter ghosts if they left their homes. To avoid being recognized by these ghosts, people would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits. On Halloween, to keep ghosts away from their houses, people would place bowls of food outside their homes to appease the ghosts and prevent them from attempting to enter.

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My wishes to all of you for a fantastic, fun, safe weekend - and

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!





I'd like to add a note here at the end of this post to genuinely thank Karen for having honored me by passing on the Kreativ Blogger award to me today! If you haven't done so already, visit her blog! Karen is a wonderful lady whose posts are interesting and heartfelt! I'm so happy we found each other! Thank you Karen!

Thoroughness Challenge

Thoroughly Thursday is a weekly post where I type a couple of paragraphs that contain spelling and/or grammatical errors, and your job is to find them. The same post is repeated at the end of Fun Friday's Spelling Challenge, with the errors corrected and highlighted in red.

This is on the honor system! No spending all day, printing it out, looking up words...you have to complete the challenge here.
Also, please keep the errors you find to yourself, rather than list them here within the post...we don't want to "help" anyone else inadvertently!

Last week your your Thoroughly Thursday paragraphs were about the origins of Halloween and its coming the America. The following is part two, again an exerpt from History.com on some of the traditions of Halloween and why we have them. This week's Challenge contains 7 errors. Good Luck!


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The American tradition of "trick-or-treating" probably dates back to the early All Souls' Day parades in England. During the festivties, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pasteries called "soul cakes" in return for their promise to pray for the family's dead relatives.

The distrbution of soul cakes was encouraged by the church as a way to replace the ancient practice of leaving food and wine for roaming spirits. The practice, witch was referred to as "going a-souling" was eventually taken up by children who would visit the houses in their neighborhood and be given ale, food, and money.

The tradition of dressing in costume for Halloween has both European and Celtic roots. Hundreds of years ago, winter was an uncertain and frightning time. Food supplies often ran low and, for the many people afraid of the dark, the short days of winter were full of constent worry. On Halloween, when it was believed that ghosts came back to the earthly world, people thought that they would encounter ghosts if they left their homes. To avoid being recognized by these ghosts, people would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits. On Halloween, to keep ghosts away from their houses, people would place bowls of food outside their homes to apease the ghosts and prevent them from attempting to enter.


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Be sure to check back tomorrow to see how you did!

Spelling Challenge

Happy Friday Everyone! I'd like to invite you all sto stop by CC-Chronicles blog to read a little about yours truly. I'm very honored to have been interviewed for her first new Friday feature, "Welcome to the Weekend With..."
An opportunity for you to get to know a little more about the Crystal behind Crystal Clear Proofing!


Now, back to our end-of-the-week challenge! It's time to test those spelling skills again! Here are this week's words, followed by the answers.

Also, at the very end of this post are the words that were misspelled in yesterday's Thorough Thursday challenge.

Now remember...


NO PEEKING!

1. acquaitence, aquaintance, acquaintance

2. cematery, cemetery, cemetary

3. dillemma, dilemma, dillemma

4. equivalent, equivelent, equivelant

5. hienous, hieneous, heinous

6. minuscule, miniscule, minescule

7. ocurrance, occurrence, occurance

8. permmisible, permisible, permissible

9. pavilion, pavileon, pavillion

10. rememberance, remembrance, rememberence


BONUS WORD

symeterical, symmetrical, symetrical

As usual, for spelling all the words correctly
you get a GOLD star!



And, if you spelled the bonus word correctly
you get the prized, very special, and much coveted
Crystal Clear Proofing PURPLE star!


For spelling all the words, including the bonus word correctly
you get a GOLD and a PURPLE star!
(Hooray!)

ANSWERS:

1. acquaintance
2. cemetery
3. dilemma
4. equivalent
5. heinous
6. minuscule
7. occurrence
8. permissible
9. pavilion
10. remembrance


BONUS WORD:

symmetrical





CONGRATULATIONS
to those of you who earned stars!

Now, here's yesterday's Thorough Thursday post in its entirety, with the errors corrected and highlighted in red.

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The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

Over the years traditions changed, and in America, people began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today's "trick-or-treat" tradition. In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers, than about ghosts, pranks, and witchcraft. Because of their efforts, Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones by the beginning of the twentieth century.

Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old practice of trick-or-treating was revived. Trick-or-treating was a relatively inexpensive way for an entire community to share the Halloween celebration. In theory, families could also prevent tricks being played on them by providing the neighborhood children with small treats. A new American tradition was born, and it has continued to grow. Today, Americans spend an estimated $6.9 billion annually on Halloween, making it the country's second largest commercial holiday.


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So, how'd you do? Be sure to check back next week for our Halloween traditions, and why we have them. As usual, I hope that you all have a very...

HAPPY WEEKEND!