Month: March 2019

Idioms

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When you say one thing, but everyone knows you really mean something else, that’s an idiom. It’s an expression peculiar to itself that cannot be understood from the definitions of its individual words. For example, in the sentence “Fred kicked the bucket”, we know we aren’t talking about someone kicking an actual, physical bucket—the phrase can’t be understood compositionally. It doesn’t say that Fred died, but that’s exactly what it conveys. If your editor says, “We’re on the same page” you would know that he probably isn’t talking about your book, rather that the two of you have come to an understanding.

A native English-speaker knows thousands of idioms and uses many every day. They are in the very air that we breathe, and we assimilate them effortlessly, but idioms don’t translate well—when translated directly word-for-word, either the concept is changed or it becomes entirely absurd. Idioms can also be regional—one that makes sense in some regions might not be understood in others. Or they can be generational—something that works for your grandparents could make you scratch your head and stare.

What do idioms mean?

Idioms often use words in a manner that differs from the norm. Consider make over, make up, make out, give over, give up, give out, give way, and give in. You’ll notice each phrase has nothing to do with the usual idea of over, up, out, way, and in, so how do you figure out their meaning? You probably didn’t study them in school—unless you were in a linguistics class.

Fortunately, some idioms have backstories that help.

  • Axe to Grind—having a hidden agenda or motive
    • There’s a story about a passing stranger who admires a youth’s grindstone and dupes him into sharpening his axe. Once the axe is sharp, the man walks away, laughing, having used his appreciation of the grindstone to cover up his real agenda—getting his axe sharpened.
  • A little bird told me—refusing to name the source of information
    • This one traces its written origins to Ecclesiastes 10:20: “…curse not the rich…for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.”
  • Brass tacks—details of immediate practical importance
    • Instead of holding out a piece of cloth along an arm’s length, cloth was measured between brass tacks set into a shop’s counter. “There was a little square counter, heaped with calicoes and other gear, except a small space clear for measuring, with the yards tacked off with brass tacks.”

Unfortunately, some have changed to suggest the opposite of the original.

  • Lead foot—motorist driving at high speeds
    • Originally a lead-footed person moved slowly due to lead being a heavy metal.
  • Put Out to Pasture—force someone to leave a job because of old age
    • Originally it referred to bringing the animals out to feed for the day.

Why do we care?

Using idioms in dialogue can help establish the character’s background, but be careful—using idioms incorrectly will only confuse the reader.

Paper Sizes

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In anticipation of discussing the various sizes of books (Trim Sizes), we are going to first take a look at how paper sizes differ throughout the world. As is typical of many things, two main standards exist in the English-speaking world: The US and everyone else. We’ll go over both and touch on the advantages and disadvantages of each. The size of a piece of paper is directly related to how easy it is to print and bind books, and that’s what our goal is.

US Paper Sizes

The origins of the sizes used in the US (and a few nearby countries) are lost to history, though there abounds quite a few different explanations, including the length of a vatman’s arms. (The vatman was the person in the papermaking process who collected the pulp onto frames before stacking and pressing, requiring very skilled labour.)

The sizes of papers in the US include Letter (8.5×11), Legal (8.5×14), and Ledger (11×17 or two Letter sizes together), producing at least two trim sizes: 8.5×11 (Letter) and 5.5×8.5 (Half-Letter). Typical use of the larger one is text books or tech manuals, often with a spiral binding, so they will stay flat when in use. The smaller one, also called Digest size, is close to typical paperback size, so it is one of the more popular used for shorter novels.

One of the big criticisms from other countries is that the Aspect Ratio isn’t constant with US paper. (Aspect Ratio is the mathematical comparison of the height to the width.) Letter has an AR of 1.29, Legal is 1.65, and Ledger is 1.55. Half-Letter has the same AR as Ledger because it is half and Ledger is double letter. (That’s just the way the maths works out.)

International Paper Sizes

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO, short for Greek isos meaning equal) has a set standard for paper sizes (ISO 216) based on an idea presented in 1786 by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. He proposed using a constant Aspect Ratio, which mathematically works out to be the square root of 2 (√2=1.414…). The advantage there is that cutting a sheet in half or doubling it gives another with the same AR—very useful for enlarging or reducing prints.

Series A paper starts with A0, a sheet a full metre square, and each succeeding size smaller is exactly half the previous. Corresponding B sheets runs a bit larger, but each one is half way between adjacent A series sheets. The A series of paper is more common, and some manufacturers print books on A5 paper, only slightly wider and less tall than US Digest size (making them a bit stouter). You can often find books printed at the B5 size, only slightly larger than the US Trade paperback size (but again stouter).

That pretty much covers all the main differences between paper sizes. We’ll see how that affects book sizes later.

How do I make and use dashes?

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I don’t think dashes are used nearly enough in writing today. Many a comma, semicolon, or even period could be replaced by a dash, rendering the statement much stronger…but what kind of dash? And how do you type it? That’s what we are going to cover this time.

There’s a key on the keyboard that looks like a dash (actually, two of them), but you can’t type a real dash using it by itself. What looks to be a dash is actually a hyphen…shorter and smaller…but not the same as a dash at all. A hyphen is used to connect words or break words—read more about Hyphens. Dashes on the other hand are much more impressive—they add class!

Two Dashes

Two kinds of dashes exist that differ in size as well as use. The larger one is an em-dash, and the smaller an en-dash. The names were originally based on the size of each font’s letters ‘M’ and ‘n’, though this is no longer true. The em-dash is now defined as the same width as the point size of the font—which is often the same as the width of an upper-case ‘M’ but not always—so in a 9-point font, the em-dash is 9 points wide. In a 24-point font, it is 24 points wide.

The en-dash is half the width of an em-dash, which again may or may not be the width of a lower-case ‘n’. In a 9-point font, it is 4.5 points wide. In a 24-point font, 12 points wide. The problem is that many fonts don’t follow these definitions, so there are varying sizes depending on what font you are using. (For more details on this issue, consult the Wikipedia page.)

How to use them

Besides their size difference, they differ in use as well. The en-dash (the smaller one) is used to indicate a range, such as a set of pages in a book (see pp 135–140) or a time period (open Sep–Dec) or scores in a game (they won 3–1). That’s about all the en-dash does. (Some folks do use a spaced en-dash in place of an em-dash as a style decision.)

The em-dash…now there’s a fellow. Used to interrupt—and add a side comment like this—the em-dash adds flair to your writing. Besides interrupting yourself, you can interrupt dialogue to show that someone else spoke up:

  • Bill jumped up and said, “I did not—”
    But Amy was quicker. “Yes, you did.”

You can use it to show that the speaker interrupted himself, too.

  • Bill tapped a finger on the desk. “I believe I shall—no, I am going to do it.”

A rather useful punctuation mark—the em-dash—one that deserves more recognition and use, so do what you can to encourage its use.

Now that you know how to use these punctuation marks, the only thing left is how to type them: The en-dash is Ctrl-Minus on the numeric pad, and the em-dash is Ctrl-Alt-Minus on numeric pad.

Go forth and dash to it!

Printing Terms authors should know

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Instead of presenting an alphabetical list of terms, we’re going to discuss the process of getting ink on paper and what’s involved, defining the words as we go. I’ll underline each new term and define it in parens right after. (If you really want a list, there are plenty of websites out there, but I find reading a dictionary rather disconnected from reality.)

After you’ve finished writing your ms (manuscript), you can start laying out (the process of making your text look like a book) your book. The first step is to decide what physical size book you want, how tall, how wide, how thick. There are a variety of trim sizes (physical size of book in reader’s hand) available, but most paperback books intended for entertainment come in three sizes: 6 x 9 trade (paperback version of previously released hardback book), 5 ½ x 8 ½ digest (magazine sized book), or 4 ¼ x 7 mass market (cheaper version, often sold in racks at airports and drugstores).

Pages

Once you’ve set the size of the page, you need to address the margins (white space surrounding your text on the page) and gutters (extra space on the spine side of the page to account for the binding). Set your word processor to Facing Pages or Book Fold, then adjust the margins and gutters to about ½ inch all around with an extra ½ to ¾ added into the gutter, even more if it’s a thick book.

Check your running headers and footers (text at the top and bottom of each page outside the content, often has author name and title of book, or chapter and section name). See that they are in the right places. Now is a good time to review the page numbers, too.

Verify that your justification (alignment of text lines on the right and left sides), indentation (alignment of first line of a pgph), and pgph spacing (extra space added between pgphs) is correct. Typically fiction uses left justification, small indents, and no spacing between pgphs, whereas non-fiction uses full justification, block indent (all lines even with each other), and a small space between pgphs. Make certain to not mix the two styles in the same ms.

Keep line spacing (aka leading, pronounced “ledd-ing” because it used to refer to adding strips of lead between the physical lines of type) between 1.15 and 1.25 for ease of readability. (For a ms to be edited, use 1.5 or 2, so there’s enough room for the editor to write comments.)

Zoom back

Now you can zoom back and take a long distance view of your page. Inspect every page for widows (last line of a pgph at the top of a page) and orphans (first line of a pgph at the bottom of a page or last few words of a pgph on a line by themselves). Clean those up by tweaking the line or character spacing in earlier pgphs.

That should take care of most issues found in poorly produced books…at least the appearance. We can address the actual content later.