A to Z Challenge, 2014: Freshly Squeezed Adverbs

Oh Heck! Another Quirky Writing Error

I recently went to a street fair in Summerville, South Carolina, and amused myself by taking pictures of people and signs.

I was a bit hungry and drooled over the deep-fried Oreos, the deep-fried mushrooms, and the hand-dipped corn dogs, but I resisted their high-calorie goodness. (Note the correct hyphen use on these popular street-fair snacks. I wrote about hyphens in “Deep-Fried Hyphens.”)

Street-fair snacks: hand-dipped fried mushrooms and hand-dipped corn dogs, among other things.

I considered having a cool drink to quench my thirst.  I checked the signs and found that I could have

Fresh Squeezed Lemonade

 

Freshly Squeezed Lemonade

Fresh Brewed Iced Tea or Fresh Squeezed Lemonade

Hmmm. It got me wondering about hyphen use again. Which of these drinks is listed correctly? Should it be fresh squeezed lemonade or should it be freshly squeezed lemonade? And do either of these need a hyphen? The answers to these questions have to do with adjectives and adverbs.

Adjectives modify or describe nouns. Multiple-word descriptors before a noun require a hyphen to clarify meaning.

deep-fried Oreos
deep-fried mushrooms
deep-fried artichokes
hand-dipped corndogs

Adverbs with -ly endings modify verbs and do not get hyphens.

But now, here come the adverbs. Adverbs do not follow the same add-a-hyphen rule, primarily because the adverb makes the meaning of the phrase clear without any help from a hyphen, thank you very much.

• Freshly squeezed orange juice.

The juice has recently been squeezed from the oranges. Freshly modifies squeezed (past participle), telling us when the juice was squeezed.

But wait, in this next example, fresh modifies orange juice, a noun, making its use okay as well.

• Fresh, squeezed orange juice.

In this case, fresh modifies orange juice (fresh orange juice) making its use without a hyphen okay. It is fresh juice, and it is squeezed juice. A comma makes it clearer.

Here are examples of -ly adverbs correctly written without a hyphen.

**  recently discovered secret
**  freshly baked bread
**  freshly brewed tea
**  freshly pieced quilts
**  newly discovered ores
**  freshly picked veggies
**  brightly lit sign
**  highly paid officer

Now, just to confuse things, you use hyphens with some adverbs, (much-deserved vacation, well-known author), but I’ll write more about this in another post.

If you want to read more about orange juice, you can read this article: Freshly Squeezed: The Truth about Orange Juice in Boxes.

And you might want to try this recipe for Fresh Squeezed Lemonade.

Space invaders would probably get all of these hyphens mixed up, but wait, they can try the Alien Sippers: fresh lemonade that happens to be from squeezed lemons.

But who worries about hyphens on a hot day at a street fair while drinking cool lemonade or orange juice. Well, me. Obviously.

Your turn: What quirky errors do you find in writing? Which ones annoy you the most?

**
Janice Hall Heck is a retired educator, blogger, wannabe photographer, and now nitpicky editor of On the Horizon, a bi-monthly community newsletter for Horizons at Woods Landing, Mays Landing, NJ.

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A to Z Challenge, 2014: D is for Deep-fried Hyphens

Oh Heck! Another Quirky Writing Error

Hyphens can be troublesome little pipsqueaks. You see them used incorrectly just about as often as you see them used correctly.

Today I went down to the 42^nd Annual Flowertown Festival in Summerville, South Carolina, a street fair that covered many blocks on Main Street and much of downtown Azalea Park. The gorgeous azaleas, already in full bloom, filled the park with pinks, lavenders, and whites. Showy dogwoods displayed their white flowers. Beautiful flowers and beautiful weather. Perfect for the festival.

Street vendors lined the streets and park pathways: arts and crafts, ornamental garden décor and wooden outdoor furniture, flowers and veggies, jellies and sauces, doggie leashes and outfits, gourmet foods and hand-made soaps, and much more. Food vendors claimed their share of the festival real estate, too.

And among the usual hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken-on-a-stick food vendors, I found the following items for sale: deep fried Oreos, deep fried Twinkies, deep fried Snickers, deep fried peaches, and deep fried apple fries (all minus a required hyphen).

Being a picky editor, I cringed about the spelling/usage, but I still ate a deep-fried Oreo, snickering all the while about the lack of hyphen.

Here’s the rule.

In a multi-word adjective (phrasal adjectives), when each word by itself does not describe the noun, you must use a hyphen.

These high-calorie yummies are neither “deep Oreos” nor “fried Oreos,” but “deep-fried Oreos” (Oreo cookies that have been submersed in hot oil and fried). Therefore the multi-word adjective should have a hyphen: you need both deep and fried together to describe this yucky incredible treat.

Obviously, rules for hyphens do not apply at street festivals, county fairs, zoos, and other food-filled outdoor activities!

Here’s the corrected, but definitely unhealthy menu:

deep-fried Oreos
deep-fried Twinkies
deep-fried Snickers
deep-fried peaches
deep-fried apple fries..

Here’s to your health!

Your turn:  What quirky errors do you find in writing? Which ones annoy you the most?
Janice Hall Heck is a retired educator and now nitpicky editor of On the Horizon, a bi-monthly community newsletter for Horizons at Woods Landing, Mays Landing, NJ.

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A to Z Challenge, 2014. B is for BBQ and Buffalo Chips

Oh Heck! Another Quirky Writing Error

On Monday night, we celebrated (okay, we didn’t celebrate, we mourned) the end of our second snowbird stay in Florida by having dinner at Hogbody’s Bar and Grill in North Fort Myers, Florida.

As you might guess, Hogbody’s is not an elegant restaurant. Rather, it has, shall we say, a somewhat western look with red and white siding, a weathered-white porch, white wooden benches and red folding chairs for waiting guests, and rails for tying up your horses. And for more fun, right next door is the Horsin’ Around Deli.

Of course, we all know that a fancy setting is not necessary for eating good barbecue. Some of the best barbecue joints are tin shacks down in the deep South or smoky pavilions alongside a country road.

All the tomfoolery at Hogbody’s got me thinking about all the variations in spelling of barbecue: BarBQue, Bar-B-Q, Barbeque, bar-be-cue, barbeque, Barbq, or just Barbie. And don’t forget the abbreviations of barbecue: BBQ, B-B-Q, bbg, and Bbq. It probably has a many spelling variations as Albuquerque!

Despite all these differences in spelling, the official, correct spelling is barbecue. But who cares? Regardless of whether you use the most popular variation (BBQ) or the official correct spelling, barbecue is just finger-lickin’ good.

Just for fun, I had to try the buffalo chips and the fried dill pickles. Buffalo chips? Yes. Deep-fried slices of baked potatoes smothered in melted cheese. Oh my, the calories, but oh, so good. Of course you could also try sweet corn fritters, fried okra, and fried green tomatoes along with your rack of ribs. A veritable country feast!

By the way, if you want to have some good country fun, check out Hogbody’s Annual Wing Eating Contest and Lawnmower Tug-o-war Contest in mid-September. What could be more fun than that?

And remember to get your Hogbody’s T-shirt. My husband loves his. It’s real uptown.

Oh, and don’t forget the correct spelling of barbecue. Hogbody’s knows both how to spell it and how to cook up some mean barbecue ribs.

Your turn:  What quirky errors do you find in writing? Which ones annoy you the most?

=<^;^>=
Janice Hall Heck is a retired educator and now nitpicky editor of On the Horizon, a bi-monthly community newsletter for Horizons at Woods Landing, Mays Landing, NJ.

A to Z Challenge, 2014: Oh, Heck! Another Quirky Writing Error

April has been called the “cruellest month,” (T.S.Eliot) but I can’t agree with that. First of all, it is my birthday month (30 days of presents!), the month where spring actually warms up my home state (NJ), and the month where crocuses and daffodils fight the dregs of the cold winter by pushing up through the crusty ground.   And every April a new A to Z Challenge comes along. Being a person who can never pass up a good challenge, I have awakened my blog from its winter doldrums to announce my participation in the 2014 A to Z Challenge. The A to Z Challenge asks participants to write 26 posts in the month of April, one for each day of the week, Sundays off. The fun is in reading all the other great blog posts written by more than 1600 bloggers in this challenge.

My Theme for A to Z 2014:    Oh, Heck! Another Quirky Writing Error (WR)

I edit a bi-monthly community newsletter entitled On the Horizon, the official newsletter of Horizons at Woods Landing, Mays Landing, New Jersey, a 55+ community. While On the Horizon is just a little community rag, the newsletter committee endeavors to produce an error-free publication. Errors, however, being as devilish as they are, occasionally creep into our pages while we are not looking. Even so, we manage to trash the most egregious ones before the newsletter goes to press. I will pick on some of these quirky errors for this blog challenge.

My first blog post for the 2014 A to Z will be “A is for Ampersands. Right or Wrong?”

Can these cute little guys cause problems in writing? You betcha.

Ampersands? Yes. Ampersands can be used correctly, but they also can be used incorrectly. Read my first post on April 1 to see the difference. The Last Meow As always, my kitties will sometimes fuss about me always stealing the show, so they may demand to write a post now and then. I like to humor them, so I give in once in a while. Spoiled brats! Right now they are negotiating for the letter C. I can’t imagine what they want to write about. (See a CatFurDay Commentary here for a sample of their wit.)

NO, the blog-fame does not go to my head. It’s just sunny out. Okay? And I am NOT a spoiled brat, so there, Missy Jan!

Meow for now. =<^&^>= Sign up for 2014 A to Z Challenge here: http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/a-to-z-challenge-sign-uplist-2014.html

See more info on A to Z 2014 at: http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/a-to-z-challenge-sign-uplist-2014.html#sthash.vJ462t2y.dpuf