Forgoing or foregoing?

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Angelina and Brad are suing the British newspaper News of the World for alleging that they plan to separate.

Look at this related quote spotted, among other places, on the wtop.com website:

“I have had no contact from … Angelina Jolie and/or Brad Pitt,” Trope wrote, according to a letter sent to the couple’s lawyers and partially quoted in Schillings’ statement. “I have never met … your clients or had any involvement with either of them. The forgoing is true with respect to all other members of this firm.”

Yep – that ‘forgoing’ should be ‘foregoing’. This is because ‘foregoing’ means ’previously mentioned’ or ‘preceding’. See AskOxford.

The way to remember the spelling of ‘foregoing’  is to think of  ‘as mentioned before‘.

 So how did the separation rumours start? Sorry, I meant to say, so is ‘forgoing’ a word?

Yes it is – and it means ‘going without’, for example:

She is forgoing dessert to ensure she gets home on time. 

A slight complication …

I hate to tell you this, but  ’forgo’, meaning ‘to go without’, can also be spelt ‘forego’. See AskOxford. 

However, ‘forego’, meaning ‘previously mentioned’ cannot be spelt ‘forgo’. (As I was explaining before.)

Commonly confused and just plain wrong

Spelling tips

With thanks to Michael Farrell.

Technical stuff – part 10: interjections

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These are simply words or phrases used on their own such as:

• Oops!
• Ouch!
• Ah!
• Oh dear!
• Fantastic!
• Damn!

These words and phrases are also ‘exclamations’ and so correctly take an exclamation mark.

Find out more about verbs, nouns and adjectives etc.

‘My friends and I’ or ‘me and my friends’?

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Both of these can be correct.

There is an easy test to apply when deciding if you should use ‘I’ or ‘me’ in a sentence.

Me and my friends

Look at these two sentences:

My father is taking me and my friends out to dinner.

My father is taking my friends and I out to dinner.

In this case, the first sentence is correct. The test is to shorten the sentences:

Clothes cupboard

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A number of googlers have been landing here over the past day or so trying to find out if there is a possessive apostrophe in ‘clothes cupboard’. Interesting!

Well, I’d say no. I think it’s safe to see ‘clothes cupboard’ as a compound noun.  A compound noun is a noun made up of more than one word. There are related compound nouns such as ‘clothes peg’, ‘clothes line’ and ‘clothes horse’. Possessive apostrophes are not needed in compound nouns.

However, I don’t think you will be shot at dawn for writing ’clothes’ cupboard’ with the possessive apostrophe. (As in, the cupboard ‘belonging’ to the clothes.)

Spelling tips – desert and dessert

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So, here we’re talking about ‘dessert’ (as in apple crumble) or desert (as in Sahara – or cultural).

 Here’s how to remember the difference:

The double s in ‘dessert’ stands for ‘Sweet Stuff’.

Share your spelling tips. All suggestions welcome!

Find more spelling tips.

Humour, humor, and humorous

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Here’s a tricky spelling conundrum that trips up quite a few people:

‘Humour’ is the UK spelling.

‘Humor’ is the American spelling.

So far so good. However, ‘humorous’ is the correct spelling in both countries. (Not ‘humourous’ in the UK – which would seem to be a logical extension of ‘humour’.)

With apologies to American Wordwatchers, one way for Brits to remember how to spell ‘humorous’ is to think of the ‘humorous’ way that Americans spell ‘humor’. (Geddit?)

Another similar word is ‘glamour’:

‘Glamour’ – UK spelling.

‘Glamor’ – an alternative US spelling (‘glamour’ is more usual).

‘Glamorous’ – UK and US spelling. (It may help if you think of the ‘glamorous’ way that Americans sometimes spell ‘glamor’?)

Post updated with thanks to Michael Farrell.

Find more spelling tips.

The colon#3

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Use a colon if you want the second part of your sentence to explain, illustrate, or elaborate on the first part of your sentence. For example:

There are 5,000 books in the library: half of them are in need of repair.

He is determined to overcome his greatest fear: public speaking.

The result was inevitable: nobody survived.

The colon can also be used to throw new light on what you have already said, sometimes in an unexpected or comical way. For example:

Life’s a beach: wet, gritty and cold.

When using a colon in this way, the first part of your sentence will usually be able to stand alone. In other words, it would still make sense if you deleted everything after the colon and replaced the colon with a full stop.

Using the colon for lists

When not to use the colon for lists

User-friendly info about punctuation

The colon#2

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The colon is an excellent punctuation mark to use when writing lists.

However, sometimes you shouldn’t call upon its services when writing lists.  This is when a particular word takes the place of the colon in your sentence. Examples of such words are:

• include
• any form of the verb ‘to be’ (‘are’, ’is’, ‘was’, or ‘were’).

For example, the following sentence uses the colon incorrectly:

I have eaten several meals today, including: breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper. ×

You can see that the word ‘including’ does the work of the colon and so the colon isn’t needed.

Ambient sausage rolls

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Ambient sausage rolls are off the menu at the Co-op supermarket, I’m afraid.

As reported in the Telegraph, this culinary neologism has already died a death, apparently thanks to the Plain English Campaign.

Ambient? Wouldn’t you have loved to have been at the meeting where that decision was made? What did they say, we want our sausage rolls to be kind of atmospheric and perhaps suggestive of a certain type of mood-inducing music? (See AskOxford’s definition of ‘ambient’).

More neologisms (newly coined words or phrases). 

Female suicide bomber

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If a suicide bomber is male, he is called a ’suicide bomber’. If she is female, she is called a ‘female suicide bomber’ – a prime example can be found in the Guardian (and most other news outlets, including BBC radio) today:

Female suicide bomber kills dozens of Shia pilgrims in Iraq

Under the guise of objective reporting we are, of course, being asked to view her differently from her male counterparts. The unspoken question is: How could a woman do such a thing? And if you think that question is OK, ask this one: Would it have been more acceptable if a man had done it?

The modifier ‘female’ could have been justified had this been the first time a woman had carried out such an act, or if it were an unusual occurrence, but this is very far from the truth.

Read more on the gratuitous modifier.

Am I allowed to say that?