PUGS Pointers #5

Ready for more tips on Punctuation, Usage, Grammar, and Spelling … based on the industry-standard references used by commercial book publishers in the United States? Plus another reason it’s important to polish those “PUGS”?

WHY POLISH YOUR PUGS?

PUGS errors can be embarrassing.
A friend of mine once picked up a book at a bookstore and noticed a PUGS error on the back cover. When she reported it to our critique group, she didn’t say she’d found a mistake on a book published by “XYZ Publishers.” She said she found the mistake on a “Jane Doe” novel. She didn’t connect the error to the publishing house, but to the author.

Many readers, especially avid ones, are familiar with the rules of punctuation, usage, grammar, and spelling. If your reader knows the rules, and you don’t, that’s going to make you look bad.

PUNCTUATION TIP:

Terms of Endearment
Terms of affection (honey, dear, sweetheart) are lowercased.

USAGE TIP:

every day/everyday

every day is a combination of an adjective and a noun, synonymous with “each day.”
“Daisy wrote 2000 words every day.”

everyday is an adjective, which means it describes a noun.
“For Debbie, writing was an everyday activity.”

GRAMMAR TIP:

that vs. who

That refers to animals and things.
      “The dog that bit me chased the Frisbee that I threw.”

Who refers to people.
“The man who bought Yvonne flowers was handsome.” 

SPELLING TIP:

grown-up (with a hyphen, both noun and adjective)