One premise, or premises?

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When you talk about a building or some other fixed enclosed space, it is “the premises”. It is never “the premise” or “a premise”.
e.g. “She entered the premises.”
A railway compartment is never “premises”. A building or a hut is “premises”. 🙂
That’s all.
There is a singular “premise” but it refers to something that is a given, to support a point of view.
e.g. “She based her argument on the premise that the incident occurred before the law was changed.”
 

Coats or Quotes?

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There is a good reason a “quote” is spelt differently from “Coat”.
Simple. They are pronounced differently.
“Quote” is pronounced “kwote” (क्वोट).
“Coat” is pronounced “koat” (कोट)

Coding Australian 13 and 1300 “tel:” numbers – 404 errors

Error in iOS Safari
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Australia has six- and ten-digit local numbers that begin with 13 and 1300 respectively. The 13 xx xx numbers connect you to a local number in your city so it is a local call. The 1300 xxx xxx number is similar but is usually a single destination for the price of a local call. A problem arises with mobile browsers and link validation of such pages, by a crawler tool of your choice, or Google Search Console.

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How I removed a FinFisher FinSpy malware infection

Reading Time: 7 minutes

I don’t like catching a virus or malware (in my Windows 7 PC) and neither do most people. I wasn’t thinking about an infection issue with my PC when I read about a new, free, open-source malware detection tool called Detekt. It is far more effective at detecting malware than my copy of Norton Internet Security. I downloaded it and let it run in Administrator mode after disconnecting from the internet. After two hours or longer, what it reported was scary.

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Has search marketing been devalued?

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Several observations over the past year have led me to conclude that search marketing as a profession is in decline. Of course, some people will say that it’s never been better before – good luck to them.

Duane Forrester laid off at Bing

Duane ForresterDuane Forrester was a Senior Product Manager for Webmaster Outreach at Bing until 30 October 2014. His position was restructured out of existence, along with many other layoffs that day. I met him just once at Pubcon, when I confused him with Derrick Wheeler, an in-house SEO at Microsoft. 🙂 I have since had the occasional interaction with him on Facebook and noted his birthplace as Nova Scotia, Canada (which I hope to explore in the next year or two for family genealogy purposes). Continue reading

Plural's don't have apostrophe's

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Very often one sees an apostrophe (followed by an “s”) used to denote a plural, e.g. pizza’s. Here is a tip for those who don’t want to learn the rules:
Don’t use an apostrophe again and you will be correct more often than not.

Don’t

I worked with style guides that recommend not using apostrophes for plurals and am very comfortable not to waste an extra keystroke.

Acronyms and All Caps

Many good schools actually teach the rule that acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations and contractions should use an apostrophe before the “s”. So you will see examples such as ICBM’s, QANGO’s, etc. This is a style issue and if you work in such a company, you may have to abide by those rules.
When a block of text is in ALL CAPS and includes an acronym, there is a temptation to put an apostrophe to “clarify” that the S is not another letter in the acronym.

Misuse

The misused apostrophe is often called the Grocer’s apostrophe perhaps because greengrocers in the west may have come from non-English-speaking countries and have poor language skills. Many languages don’t have a plural form for nouns, hence we see signs such as “POTATOE’S”, “CHIP’S”, “PIZZA’S” etc.
Sometimes the writer thinks that “foreign” words should be given the apostrophe treatment, so you might see a menu with headings such as PIZZA’S and DRINKS.
 

When the Apostrophe is Correct

Acronyms ending in S may get away with an Apostrophe S. e.g. “The sinking ship sent many SOS’s” is clearer than “The sinking ship sent many SOSs” but more so if there was a plaque caption in all caps, e.g. “THIS MORSE KEY WAS USED TO SEND HUNDREDS OF SOS’S BEFORE THE SHIP SANK.
 

English pronunciation is "chaos"

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Dr. Gerard Nolst TrenitĂ© (1870 – 1946), was a Dutch observer of English and wrote a poem The Chaos to illustrate how it is so frustrating to a non-English native speaker.
Here is an extract from the poem, which has been expanded since its first publication. You can see the full version here: http://ncf.idallen.com/english.html.
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is: give it up!
Here is a Canadian rendition of the above, but it’s been criticised for certain words that are pronounced differently in the UK. You can compare his pronunciation of “chalice” with this tool HowJsay, which you should bookmark for later reference.

Here is a UK English version:

Enjoy the chaos of English.

Vends

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I saw a concocted, unnecessary word – “vends”, used only in North India. It probably means “vendors”, which is the word to be used if communicating with educated people outside India.
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What is your good name?

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I still hear Indians saying, “What is your good name, sir?” (Sometimes, it is “sirji”.)
Stop translating from your Indian language, such as Hindi – “aap ka shubh naam kya hain?”
Although you were brought up to be polite in India, you are going to confuse foreigners, who don’t have good or bad names.
If you don’t want to say, “What’s your name?”, just shake hands and say “Hi, my name is Monnanda Appaiah Deviah” and they will respond with their name, or their jaw will drop and say “I beg your pardon?”.

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