Consider the following:

One of the boys jump over the fence.

One of the boys jumps over the fence.

Which one is correct?

Let’s dissect them and see:

The subject in the two sentences is the same. It’s “One”. “Of the boys” is modifying the subject.

So the actual sentence using just the simple subject would be:

One jump over the fence.

One jumps over the fence.

Take out the prepositional phrase and you get:

One jump.

One jumps.

You subject is singular so you use “jumps”. The second one is obviously correct when it’s broken down to this level.

If the sentence changed to:

The boys jump over the fence.

Your subject would be plural and it would be appropriate to use “jump.”

Consider a longer sentence where things aren’t quite as obvious:

Coming home from the race, every one of the track team members want to get an ice cream cone.

For the record, Microsoft Word didn’t flag that sentence as being written incorrectly. There is no green squiggly line underneath it, but it is most certainly wrong.

Take the sentence down the subject and verb: “One want” or if it’s easier “Every one want.”

Wrong!

It should be “One wants.”

If the problem is complicated enough to fool Microsoft Word (which we all know we shouldn’t and can’t rely on, but so many still do), it’s no wonder mistakes get past writers who aren’t proofreading or who aren’t as strong in the language.

Speaking very generally, a multiple subject gets a singular verb. (Boys jump.) A singular subject has what appears to be a plural verb. (Boy jumps.)

This isn’t always true, of course, since like so many things in the English language, the rules are always changing.

Bottom line: Check every sentence you write to ensure that your subject and verb are in agreement. If you can’t tell easily, take that sentence down to the simple subject and verb and compare. Soon you’ll be comfortable with even the most convoluted sentences!

WAHM Baggage

Okay, here’s the scoop. If you don’t already know, work-at-home moms, or WAHM as we are often labeled, aren’t taken very seriously as business people. We’re considered flakes who raise kids full-time and play around making money during naps or whatever. There, I said it.

If you don’t believe me, check out some of the meatier webmaster forums that are almost entirely populated by men or “professional” women. When other members go looking for cheap content or services, members tend to recommend that others “ go find a WAHM looking to make a few bucks” on other forums. There are even e-books created and sold as a “special offer” that outline how to exploit WAHMs.

The general impression from the more “serious” website owners is that moms – especially those who write – are just sitting around watching their stories and eating bon-bons most of the time, but when they decide it’s time to make a few bucks to buy some new scrap booking supplies, they wait patiently for the webmasters to hand them a few quick articles to write for any amount the client is willing to offer.

It makes you shake your head, of course, and presumably you realize that this isn’t true for most of the serious writing moms out there regardless of where they choose to work. But even sadder than the general perception is the fact that there are some out there who encourage the stereotype be being exactly the type of WAHM the rest of us hate to be classified as.

It creates a nasty contradiction within the moms-who-work community.

The Mom Community

Anyone who is a mom knows that there are tiers and levels in the mothering community. Any woman who has given birth is given a free pass into the motherhood club. From there things get a little trickier. You have to earn your stripes if you’re going to be in the ‘exclusively breastfed’ club or if you want to be part of the ‘stay-at-home mom’ niche. You get another notch on your belt if you’re a ‘homeschooling’ mom or if you’re a serious ‘PTA’ or ‘Soccer’ mom. The categorization of the moms is endless, and it’s almost exclusively done by other moms.

Fortunately, while we may pick at each other over formula feeding and soccer leagues, moms tend to unite and support each other when things get a bit hairier. We can forget labels as quickly as we create them. As far as I’m concerned the WAHM title is just one of those that should probably be swept away or reclassified as non-combative.

Embrace WAHM-isms

Do I like being called a WAHM? Eh. I honestly don’t really care. I can fall into virtually any category of motherhood depending on the time of the year and the mood I’m in. But I know that it bothers others and I’ll hazard a guess that it’s the stereotype that is getting under their skin.

I don’t like being labeled anything I find offensive. I would hate to be called dumb or lazy. I would hate to be called a bad mother. I would hate for someone to slap me in a category where I don’t feel I belong, and that applies to all of our sensibilities. Otherwise why would so many professional-level writers feel the need to explain our business model and why we are different than the cheap writers? Why do we get offended when we see newspaper articles claiming that writing articles online is an easy way to earn money for those looking for new career options?

But in the grand scheme of things, this is just another layer of a very complex cake. There are some WAHMs out there grateful to pick up a few bucks while baby naps. These are essentially the same as the hobby writers or the college kids who want a little beer or Christmas money. Big deal. Leave them be.

Then there are the WAHMs who run full-scale businesses that enable them to provide fully for their families. I’ve been fortunate to know a nutritionist with her doctoral degree who choses to work from home as well as a full-time professional employee of Microsoft who also works from home. I know working moms who write part-time (like me) and those who write full-time (like others here.) I know moms who are full-time CPAs and award-winning professional photographers who travel to clients and need only a home office.

Professional or not, Tupperware or corporate accounts, we are all moms and we all happen to be that dreaded term: WAHM. Like so many others, this is a stereotype that holds no water.

Or does it?

“All hell breaks loose.” It’s not very hell-like if everyone is doing it. I’ve seen “all hell break loose” countless times in everything from children’s fiction to adult romance to spy and mystery novels. Enough already! If I have to read it one more time, all hell’s gonna break loose! For the record, when “all hell breaks loose” it means things are about to get really bad, really fast.

“Batten down the hatches.” The only time I ever want to read this again is if you’re writing a story about a ship lost at sea, because that’s the only place this particular expression belongs. To “batten down the hatches” means you’re fastening things on a ship that may fly around during a storm. Normally, however, you see the expression used to indicate something bad is going to happen and one person is warning another to prepare for a jealous wife or an angry boss or something equally cliché.

“Between a rock and a hard place.” You have a tough decision to make and you’re being pressed from both sides. If you’re being squeezed between a rock and a hard place, you have two unfavorable decisions to choose between and usually you’re under pressure to pick the lesser of two evils. (Which means you’re supposed to pick the one that hurts the least.)

“Think outside of the box.” Once upon a time we were all boring, non-creative people who colored in the lines and didn’t have an original thought in our pretty heads. Then we were told to get creative and start “thinking outside of the box.” Apparently this was where all of the good ideas had gone while we weren’t thinking of them. Now that we’re all “thinking outside of the box”, which means getting away from the normal though pattern or way of doing business, we’re bringing back creativity every day. Unfortunately, all of this “out of the box thinking” has me wishing a few of us could just crawl back into the box again and get away from tired idioms for a while at least.

This is by no means an exhaustive list – just a few idioms that we’ve seen too often of late. What idioms make you want to crawl back into your box?

And just what is the difference? If you don’t know, you’re certainly not alone. Even Spell Check doesn’t know the difference. It’s a trivial thing, and most people don’t care. But I do.

Let’s review:

“Yeah” – Yeah, it’s, like, teenager talk. “Yeah” is pronounced yah-uh. This is not a celebration word. This isn’t something you’d say when a friend has a new grandbaby born on her birthday (as the email I received told me). It’s slang. It means “yes” or “whatever.” Sometimes we even use it with “so” to make it even more casual (or obnoxious), “Yeah, so, I was bored.” Big freakin’ deal.

“Yea” – Hey, everyone, let’s vote. Do you vote yea or nay? “Yea” sounds like may, hay or even yay (which we’ll get to in a minute), but it means an old-fashioned “yes.” It is the oldest of the collection and was the root of all versions of yes words today. “Yeah”, which means yes, definitely derived from “yea”, which also means a more formal yes, but then so did an exclamation of excitement that is almost never used correctly.

“Yay” – Yay! We’re finally using “yay” correctly! Ironically as I type this, Microsoft Word is trying to correct me. It doesn’t think that “yay” is a word. Apparently I should use “yap” instead, but I won’t. I think we all know Word isn’t right all the time. If you’re excited, “yay” is the word to correctly use according to what we consider “proper” English. “Yea” gives you a vote and “yeah” is just agreeing – only “Yay!” can really convey true enthusiasm.

My challenge to you: Pay attention to just how often these words are mixed up, flipped around and blatantly misused. At the same time, you might try to avoid misusing them yourself.

Yay! Yeah and yea are finally sorted out!

Markets aside, the way you write does make a difference in how you relate to your client and to your audience. In short – spelling counts, but it doesn’t always count against you.

Purposeful Misspellings

Most of us would look at a sales page and immediately critique the writing. Any misspelled words would jump out at us and bother us just a bit. But then, if it’s very possible that the wrong “your” or the missing comma are intentional rather than oversights. It really just boils down to the target market that sales page is trying to reach.

I would hazard a guess that most of you reading this are well-educated. You likely read on a post-graduate level. Sadly the average buyer does not. Newspapers are written somewhere between a fourth and sixth grade reading level, and that might be aiming a bit high for the majority of internet buyers who can’t be troubled to read the paper (or even real news) at all.

Savvy sellers who are marketing to this demographic know this, and they do their best to make the sales letter or landing page approachable. A casual grammatical or spelling error might just be the thing that makes the reader think, “Hey! I can never figure out how to spell that either – this must be a real story from a real person!” Does it happen? Sure. How often does it happen? That’s more debatable.

Typos and Misspellings

Go back through my posts and you’ll see that I make plenty of typos and have more than a few spelling mistakes that I haven’t caught despite by best efforts. I’m not perfect and I fully realize that I would benefit strongly from a live-in editor. Like most of us, I can find your mistakes much better than I can find mine.

I work hard to catch my mistakes, however, because I know that there are implications to poor grammar choices and bad punctuation. I usually go back and correct things I’ve overlooked if I find them later, because there’s always something I can improve. Usually I just hope it’s not silly typos I’ve overlooked more than once.

The “average” reader might not care if I use the wrong word or forget a semi-colon, but the educated reader will care a great deal, and they will lose faith with the material as a whole. This is true not just with copywriting materials, but with articles, blogs and even simple forum posts as well.

Writer Standards

When you advertise yourself as a writer or editor, you’re opening yourself up to constant criticism and observation. Every sentence you write that carries your signature or your byline is subject to scrutiny – as much as we wish that wasn’t the case. If you’ve been around for any length of time on a forum, you’ve probably seen writers called out on bad spelling or bad punctuation – not by other writers, but by would-be clients.

Sadly I had a fun typo on in one of my very first sales posts and was immediately called out on it by a potential client. Fortunately I was able to use a bit of professionalism and humor to dig my way out of the mess quickly and still land plenty of new gigs with that post, but that moment of embarrassment has stayed with me. As writers, we’re supposed to be at the top of the word game. Does that mean we can’t make a mistake? Of course not. You might even join the throng of copywriters who make mistakes on purpose.

But it’s always important to remember that intentional or not, the quality of your writing is always sending a message. If you’re going to goof – be sure you know you’re goofing up and always be sure to own any mistakes or revisions gracefully.

 It’s and Its

Yes, English is a confusing language. Yes, we have endless exceptions to the rules. But this is one exception that should be straight forward – its. When you make a contraction or a possessive, you add an apostrophe. “Should not” becomes “Shouldn’t.” “The chair of the girl” becomes “Girl’s chair.”

But, when it comes to the word “it” however, the rules change, and it’s actually supposed to make it easier to understand the word when you use the apostrophe correctly. “It is” rightly becomes “it’s.” That’s easy enough. Something that belongs to “it”, however, is not “it’s.” The proper usage would be “its”, as in “The cat licked its tail.”  That’s right – no apostrophe to show possession. Please stop adding one. It’s annoying.

 Advice and Advise

I’m not sure why these are mixed up so often, but then I’m an English teacher, so what do I know? “Advice” is a noun – it’s something you’re offering to other people. “Let me give you some advice.” You can give it away. The process of giving away that advice, however, is to “advise.”

“Advise” is a verb – it’s an action word. You can’t give anyone “advise”, but you can “advise” them, much like a resident advisor would in the old college dorm. When you ADVISE you’re offering ADVICE. Simple. It’s probably just a pet peeve, but these words drive me bonkers when I see them misused.

 Effect and Affect

Finally, the words that seem to boggle the mind of the average bear. And I’ll readily admit I have to think about them each time I use them, too. Shhhh…don’t tell, it will spoil my rep around here.

Effect is like a special effect. It’s something happening – you can see it, hear it, smell it the gunpowder when it goes off.

Affect is the response to something happening around you. How does it affect you?

This is very tricky since the two are similar in meaning as well as spelling, much like advice and advise, but there you go. Special EFFECTS may AFFECT you adversely. If you don’t like my memory tool, feel free to make up one of your own, assuming you don’t have one already!

Scenario 1: The Email for Past and Passed

I was asked via email about the words “past” and “passed.” The writer wanted to know if you “get passed” something or if you “get past” it. For example, I might complain that I was so irritated last week, but I got “passed/past” it and moved on.

It goes without saying English is a tricky language and this was not a casual question – it had been driving this writer nuts for some time and she thought I might know the answer. I put on my English teacher hat and gave her the best possible answer I had.

“Getting past” something is an idiom – it’s an expression that doesn’t make much sense outside of our casual language in America. So it doesn’t really have to follow the most specific grammatical rules. In this case, the best check is a substitution. You’re trying to be ahead of something when you “move past it,” so “past” is the correct usage.

You can make a great case for “passed” though since to “move passed” something would be in the act of physically passing it, like you passed a slow car in the fast lane, but thanks to the random idiom nature of this particular beast, we’re going to have to go with “past.” So let’s move past it now to the next scenario.

Scenario 2: The Handout for Accept or Except

I was in a training to work with kids at a church program next week. I have worked this particular camp a total of four years so far – this will be my fifth. So the trainings that are required every year are a bit repetitive. To try and stay engaged (this was a small group and I didn’t want to be rude) I read every line of the handout.

One of the lines was this: “All children must be signed in and out each day by an adult. (Do not except children from another crew unless [Name] personally instruct you to do so.)”

I’ll be honest with you – I struggled for a minute to decipher that line. Of course, I was still wearing my English teacher hat from the email earlier in the day (see above), and now I was supposed to “except” children from other groups once I had permission? Wasn’t that illegal in 48 states?

As it was explained, the crew leaders (of which I am one), are not supposed to ACCEPT children from other groups unless we’re given permission.  Accept, not except.

Accept – to welcome with open arms.

Except – to exclude, i.e. I want everyone at my party except you. Ouch.

That’s one hell of a typo, and nobody even mentioned it or laughed about it – and that training needed a laugh. I had to laugh alone in my head, but then I’m used to that. I spend a lot of time laughing at my own typos when I find them – usually after running 40 copies at school.

Any other inane or humorous grammar mistakes out there this week?

Preface: I Have Three Stressful Jobs

You have to understand that I’m not just idly whining here. I take full responsibility for my three stressful jobs. I chose this lifestyle.  I have two boys – one six and one almost four. We’ll be spending the summer together starting….today. I have a job teaching some seriously needy at-risk teenagers. Most days I feel like I’m really good at what I do here and I like to think, with a bit of encouragement from my students, that I do a reasonably good job with it, so I enjoy it enough to keep teaching. Then, on top of that I have a writing career that I can’t seem to fit very well into the evening or into the morning right now. So I’m tired – a lot. And I’m stressed – a lot.

But I deal with it, and if you’re ripping your hair out, you can, too.

Running Full Speed into a Wall

I find that giving myself a small break means I give myself permission to be lazy over a period of time and I lose money, so I don’t take breaks in that way. I just push myself until I hit a wall. Then I go to bed, drink some more Diet Dr. Pepper and keep going. Usually this takes about four or five months at a stretch, but there are times that it really starts to get tricky for me.

One tricky time is this part of year when school is winding down. Summers were created for teachers to regain their sanity. That means that the normal teacher is crazy right now. Teachers with their own kids are crazier and those of us in my boat are positively insane. I have body aches and twitches that weren’t there in March, I promise you. That means that I have to just expect the insanity, warn my family ahead of time and then just power through it aided by Hot Tamales, yearbooks and $1 drinks from McDonalds. I’ve done it six years now, and twitches aside, there hasn’t been any lasting damage.

I’m not sure this is a good method for everyone to try – some people don’t go pedal to the metal very well and live to tell the tale, but if you haven’t ever tried to just barrel through something – a marathon, an intense work schedule, an all-nighter – maybe you should try. You actually feel pretty amazing on the other side, even if you’re more tired than a human should ever be. You might also be amazed at just how much you can really do.

Pacing: Hourly, Weekly, Annually

Ask any marathoner and you’ll probably hear a lot about pacing. I wouldn’t actually know since I run only when chased by something bigger than me (and that’s saying something). But pacing yourself during a marathon is a lot like what those of us with the insane schedules have to do, I’d imagine. I go into my days knowing I’ll crash by the end of it, but that I can’t crash too early. I go into my weeks and my school years knowing the same thing.

On a daily basis I can physically feel myself holding back reserves of strength. I might skip a trip to the mall with my kids on a Saturday because it will deplete my reserves. I might push for an earlier kid bedtime since I know I’m running out of steam and I have to preserve some energy for work that night. Most parents do this already by the nature of parenting, but I do it so often that I often feel a bit guilty. How much more could I do if I wasn’t saving myself to get some work done later?

I pace myself on a weekly basis as well by staggering assignments to fit my mood throughout the week. Monday gets the easy warm-up, routine work, Tuesday through Thursday are the hard assignments and Friday is the wind-down day. Sunday is my own stuff and Saturday is my day off – which I definitely need by then. Most amusingly of all, I do this same sort of pacing on an annual basis – I don’t take on new projects or anything too hard around the beginning or the end of the school year because those times of year are so crazy already.

Pacing might be something natural or it might be a learned skill – I’m not sure anymore at this point since I’ve been doing it so long, but it does bring with it a sense of guilt. Could I be growing my business? Could I be doing more for my family? Probably – but I’m almost afraid to upset the already delicate balance in my life right now that I’ve worked hard to achieve, and I guess there is some guilt, but definitely no shame in that.

Every parent has bedtime woes with kids, but as a mom who works in the evenings (Yes, I was doing mornings, but I keep switching between morning and evening schedules), I can’t seem to be soothing and patient while my kids take their time falling asleep. I love to watch them sleep, of course, and I love the quiet time together with my little ones – it’s about the only time they are still – but in the background I can hear those precious minutes ticking away between their bedtime and mine.

So far tonight I’ve scouted for monsters. I’ve read plenty of stories. I’ve sang, I’ve fussed and now I’m running out of patience. I’ve been sitting here for almost forty-five minutes and finally I’ve broken down and started emailing myself this post through my phone just to feel productive. This is a great idea, by the way, grammar and spelling of my thumb typing notwithstanding. Maybe I’ll at least get some ideas sketched out while I wait for the little one to fall asleep and the house to become still enough for real creative work.

Like so many things about raising children, this ever-lengthening bedtime drama is going to be a temporary problem since my kids won’t need me to feel their wiggly tooth for the fourth time or check all of the closets for monsters once they reach a certain age, but in the meantime I’m allowing myself a good gripe.

I wish this big boy of mine would just fall asleep! He just peeked over to see what I was doing while I was trying to patiently wait for him to close his eyes. Grrrrrrr! For the record, I learned long ago that I can’t just sit or lie down peacefully beside him – I fall asleep before he does, hence the phone’s heavy use.

Surely I’m not the only parent who loses billable hours to upset tummies, loose teeth and fidgeting kindergarteners. Help me out here!

Sent from my iPhone

If you’re not a part-time writing parent and you have to find ways to balance your time this summer, you have a few options.

Scale Back

There is no rule saying you have to work full-time all the time. Perhaps working part-time over the summer is the perfect solution, especially if your household budget can handle it. You might convert to my insane hours of working 4 to 6 am or the more common hours of 8 to 10 or 11 pm when the kids are asleep. If you’re lucky you might be able to squeeze in some work during the day while the kids destroy the upstairs or watch television.

Simply removing the pressure to work full-time or for a set period during the day allows you more time with your kids and more time doing fun activities now that everyone is home together. You might also find that working very part-time boosts your productivity as well. I work two hours a day, five or six days a week and I make almost as much writing as I do teaching – it’s a matter of billing yourself appropriately and managing that time like a slave driver.

Send the Kids Away

There are so many good camps and programs during the summer months if you need quiet time away from the kids. If your kids are out of school, but need an activity to keep you all productive and sane, look to local universities, museums and community centers for opportunities. Don’t over schedule your children, of course, and if you plan to keep them busy every week during the summer, try and use the same location or childcare provider to give the kids some consistency. A benefit of the summer childcare is that it is often fewer hours than regular school hours, so you have time to work and plenty of time to spend with your kids.

Invite Help Over

If you have younger elementary school kids, invite over a reliable teenager and let him or her handle the requests of your kids for a few hours. Bring over your babysitter and then melt away into your office or take the laptop to the coffee shop down the street and get your work done. This may be less expensive than the camps over the summer, especially if you have multiple children, and your kids will likely think having a “big kid” over to play is very exciting – a total win/win.

Tough It Out

If your kids are old enough, they may be trained well enough to leave you alone during the day while you work. I’ve found that trying to schedule work this way leaves me feeling stressed, but my kids are still young. One thing that does help is working in the morning. You don’t have to get up insanely early to work mornings. If you wake up at 7 and write until 11 or 12, your older kids may only be up for part of those hours and then spend those hours watching cartoons or playing quietly. Mornings and fresh, non-grouchy kids seem to be the best combination for writing during the day if you have to write with kids underfoot.