English Meridian and Academies

Textual Editing
KNOW THESE VERY WELL

• Apostrophe (contraction / possession)

• Semi-colon
• Ellipsis
• Hyphen / dash
• Spelling errors (often related to malapropism)
• Active and passive voice (changes the focus of the subject / formal and informal register [passive
voice usually more formal]
• Reported (direct) and Indirect speech
• Concord errors (The crowd of people is noisy.)
• Misrelated participle (Driving like a maniac, the cat was killed)
• Comma splice (The clouds were dark, I thought it would not rain) [Sentences or independent
clauses are improperly connected by a comma alone.]

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KNOW THESE VERY WELL

• Compound nouns and compound adjectives

• Abbreviations
• Acronyms
• Contractions
• Synonyms
• Antonyms
• Explain and expression

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REDUNCANCY - examples

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HOMOPHONES - examples

Accept Except Past Passed

Its It’s Discreet Discrete
Affect Effect Capital Capitol
Elicit Illicit Led Lead
Principal Principle Council Counsel
Stationary Stationery Cue Queue
Then Than Apart A part
Threw Through Tea Tee

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MALAPROPISM - examples

A WORD USED INCORRECTLY IN THE WRONG CONTEXT

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 MALAPROPISM - examples
•Mrs. Du Pont said, "Illiterate him quite from your memory" (obliterate) and "She's as headstrong as an allegory"
(alligator)
•Officer Berry said, "Our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two auspicious persons" (apprehended two
suspicious persons)
•Rainy weather can be hard on the sciences. (sinuses)
•I have no delusions to the past. (allusions)
•You could have knocked me over with a fender. (feather)
•You lead the way and we'll precede. (proceed)
•Unfortunately, my affluence over my niece is very small. (influence)
•A rolling stone gathers no moths. (moss)
•Good punctuation means not to be late. (punctuality)
•Having one wife is called monotony. (monogamy)
•The flood damage was so bad they had to evaporate the city. (evacuate)
•Dad says the monster is just a pigment of my imagination. (figment)
•Everybody in the company has their own cuticle. (cubicle)
•Tom is the very pineapple of politeness. (pinnacle)
•I remember because I have photogenic memory. (photographic)lying saucers are just an optical conclusion. (illusion)

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PUN - examples
• I meant to look for my missing watch, but I could never find the time.
• Did you hear about that great new shovel? It’s ground breaking.
• This whiteboard is remarkable.
• Inspecting mirrors is a job I could really see myself doing.
• Two antennas got married last Saturday. The reception was fantastic
• Writing with a dull pencil is pointless.
• No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.
• The golfer brought an extra pair of pants in case he got a hole in one.
• I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.
• I did a performance about puns. Really it was just a play on words.
• What do you call an alligator in a vest? An investigator.
• I used to have a fear of hurdles, but I got over it.
• I wanted to buy a camouflage shirt, but I didn’t see one.
• Broken puppets for sale. No strings attached.
• Once you’ve seen one shopping center you’ve seen a mall.
• Never lie to an x-ray technician. They can see right through you.
• Jill broke her finger today. On the other hand she was completely fine.
• You’re becoming a vegetarian? I think that’s a big missed steak
• Yesterday I swallowed some food coloring. I feel like I’ve dyed a little inside.

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SPOONERISM - examples

• arty panimal (party animal) • brunday sunch (Sunday brunch) • tapter chest (chapter test)
• bad salad (sad ballad) • cakeing bookies (baking cookies) • tars and crucks (cars and
• blarm wanket (warm blanket) • chide fricken (fried chicken) trucks)
• belly jeans (jelly beans) • chork pops (pork chops) • tot he (hot tea)
• bunch luffet (lunch buffet) • dakeing minner (making dinner) • treach bip (beach trip)
• birty dirds (dirty birds) • doggy fay (foggy day) • welling spurds (spelling words)
• Frest bend (best friend) • wise prinning (prize winning
•pit nicking (nit picking)
• plaster man (master plan) • bot hog duns (hot dog buns)
• praiser linter (laser printer) • cakeing a bake (baking a cake)
• sark died (dark side) • chewing the doors (doing the
• sennis thoos (tennis shoes) chores)
• cake the tase (take the case)
• cogs and dats (dogs and cats)
• deeding the fog (feeding the dog)
• doe on a gate (go on a date)

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QUESTIONS OVER THE LAST FOUR YEARS

2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

Punctuation – dash / colon Punctuation – dash / hyphen Idiom Homophone Synonym

Concord Misrelated participle Concord Passive voice Hyphen

Malapropism Active / Passive voice Difference between sentences Redundancy Passive voice

Tautology Redundant word Incorrect word Write out in full Redundancy

Complex sentence Parts of speech Noun form Adjectives Punctuation

Parts of speech Adverb / preposition Sentences Root word Verbs

Ambiguity Pronoun Provide a suitable word for Tenses Homophone

Direct and reported speech Synonym Formal English Hyphen Correct form of the word

Formal English Formal English Tenses Concord Sentence types

Apostrophe
Tenses
Formal English

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KNOW THE FOLLOWING

Malapropism
The mistaken use of a word in the place of a similar sounding one – often with amusing effect

Neologism
A newly developed or coined word or expression that has started to fall into mainstream usage.
(fomosapien, flexcation, hangry, live-tweet, mini-moon, flexitarian, FOMO, bitcoin, glamping, Covid-19,
anti-vaxer, JOMO, phablet, sittervising, chilax, staycation)

Tautology
Saying the same thing twice over in different words, generally considered to be a fault of style

Concord
The relationship between the subject and the verb.
The flock of sheep is grazing - The flocks of sheep are grazing.

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THE HYPHEN

• At the end of the line to divide a word if there is not enough space
• To form a compound noun or compound adjective (president-elect, up-to-date, gold-coated ring)
• To indicate a word spelled out letter by letter (c-r-a-z-y)
• To avoid awkward doubling of vowels (re-elect, re-imagine, pre-eminent)
• To prevent misreading of certain words (re-creation)
• To join a prefix to a capitalized word (pre-Christmas)
• Always use a hyphen with the prefixes all-, ex-, and self- (all-inclusive, ex-boyfriend, self-inflicted)
• Always use a hyphen with the suffix –elect (president-elect)
• Use a hyphen with all compound numbers between twenty-one through ninety-nine
• When writing fractions as words (eighty-five, three-quarters)
• To indicate stammering or sobbing (It-t w-w-w-asn’t m-m-m-e)

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 Colon is used to …

• introduce a list

(I bought a few items: pens, books, apples, jam and Coke.)

• introduce a quote

(Nelson Mandela said: “Education is the most powerful weapon to change the world.”)

• introduce the direct words of a person

She said: “It is not possible.”

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THE APOSTROPHE

Contraction Possession
(Singular and plural)
• to shorten words (haven’t / can’t, should’ve)
An apostrophe is added when
• When letters or numbers have been omitted - the plural ends on an –s
(can’t, It’s, ’23)
the hats of the girls – the girls’ hats

- the word sounds as if it ends on and –s

For conscience’ sake

- nouns that are plural in form but

singular in meaning
the girls’ dresses

The rest gets an apostrophe + the –s (‘s)

The wife’s husband

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