I have worked as an in-house and freelance proofreader and editor for decades now (yes, I am old … and wise 😊) Much has changed in that time. I do not have to transcribe phoned-in copy anymore. Nor do I have to sub-edit it with one of those red/green/blue/black all-in-one biros that started life as editors’ tools and ended up in my children’s school pencil cases. Yes, lots has changed in the editorial world.
However, some misunderstandings and oversights have persisted across the years. A few elements of UK English still trip up even the best writers and perhaps always will. Making these errors does not make anyone a bad writer – far from it. But for anybody inclined to make life a touch easier for their editor and proofreader, and to minimise the red ink on their copy, here are some examples.
Please note: all of the following refer to UK English. Other versions of English have very different rules. Also, I assume that no style guide is being applied in each case here. If there is a style guide involved, I am going to apply it regardless!
Practice/practise and licence/license
In UK English, the verb is to practise and all verb forms are spelled that way, with the s. The word practice, with a c, is only ever correct as a noun.
In a similar way, to license is the verb (thus, all verb forms take the s) but the noun form is licence, with a second c. So, the following are correct:
I practised the piano for two hours a day last week. Fourteen hours of practice in total.
The doctor practises medicine from a general practice in London.
I passed my driving test, so now I am licensed to drive. I have a driving licence.
This means that:
In the UK, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A DRIVING LICENSE. And yes, I am writing that in angry capitals because the continual mis-spelling of that word, particularly in formal communications, annoys me greatly. If you are in the UK you do not have a driving license, you have a driving licence. Using license when you mean licence is not a quirky alternative or a subtle sign of international awareness and sophistication, it means you are spelling it incorrectly and I am going to red ink it, sorry 😊.
Ditto ‘I’m off to practice football’. No, you are not. You are off to football practice. When you get there, you will practise football.
Interestingly, the distinction of advice/advise works in exactly the same way, but for some reason people do not seem to have trouble with that and I hardly ever have to mark it up!
Curb/kerb
This is much more straightforward. In UK English, to curb is a verb meaning to hold back or restrain. It is reflected in some nouns, for example there’s a type of bit used in horse riding that is distinctive for using leverage to control the horse (one for the trivia fans there).
The thing that marks the edge of a pavement is a kerb. Yes, a kerb does to some extent curb a pavement. But it is still a kerb. At a push I will give you kerbstone or even kerb stone. But not curb, because that is a flat-out error in British English.
Use of -ise vs. -ize/Oxford vs. Standard UK English
Some people believe that a key difference between UK and US English lies in the Americans’ use of -ize and the British preference for -ise. This is an over-simplification.
There are multiple versions of UK English. Standard UK English, which is used for most modern British English communications, does indeed favour -ise. However, standard UK English is not the only UK English in town. No; there is a formal version of English called Oxford English, which is not particularly uncommon. And Oxford English mandates -ize – but only for words of Greek origin. Words of Latin, French and other origins continue to take -ise or -yse, which is not always the case in, for example, American English.
Consequently, if I am editing copy in UK English that uses -ize, I must ensure the entire work is in Oxford English. Because Oxford English is not the same as American English, even though lots of people seem to think it is. And while a written work can be deemed correct when it is all in Oxford English, standard English or American English, it cannot be correct when it is a hotch-potch of two or all three of these.
I edit plenty of Oxford English, but I am not a big fan. Rather amusingly, Wikipedia claims that even staff at the University of Oxford prefer to avoid using it amongst themselves, and I cannot say I blame them. Standard English looks more consistent, I think.
Spelt/spelled, burnt/burned, etc.
If you are writing in UK English it is fine to use either the -lt or the -lled endings. Yes, even in Oxford English. However, you must be consistent throughout the work and have a solid reason for retaining any use of the alternative version.
For example, if most of your copy says ‘burnt’ but you use ‘burned’ for the continuous past (e.g., ‘love burned in his eyes as he gazed upon the beauty of Olive Rudge’) that makes sense and can stay. But if you say ‘my skin was burnt by the sun’ on page 10 and ‘he burnt the meat’ on page 300, I am marking it up. Ditto if you use ‘burnt’ on page 10 and ‘smelled’ rather than ‘smelt’ on page 12.
Handy hint: using the -lled suffix makes life a lot easier. However, you may decide that it does not fit with your style.
Inconsistent upper/lower case for honorifics
There is no absolute rule for this. However, UK English tends to use lower case for standard, informal honorifics (sir, madam, my lady, my lord) even in direct address. For example:
‘I do not know what you mean, sir,’ I told my manager.
This is fine because sir is a polite honorific and therefore lower case in body copy and direct address. It gets slightly more complicated if a person being addressed has sir as part of their name, but even then it is common to use lower case unless more of that character’s name is used with the sir. So, both of the following are acceptable:
‘I do not know what you mean, sir,’ I told Sir Toby.
‘I do not know what you mean, Sir Toby,’ I told him.
In contrast, official titles (doctor, captain, admiral, lieutenant, etc.) are lower case in most of the copy, but may begin with a capital when the character is being addressed directly and, crucially, the honorific is part of their formal title. Thus, the following are correct:
Our captain was Captain Smith. One day, I asked the captain what he wanted for dinner. I said, ‘Dinner is at eight, Captain. What do you want to eat?’
I went to the doctor’s surgery. ‘I am here for my appointment, Doctor,’ I said.
Lord Luton came into the room and I said, ‘Hello sir. How are you and how is my lady Elizabeth this morning?’
However, some editors argue that honorifics should always be lower case because there is simply no need to distinguish them in direct address and it looks untidy. I find this pretty convincing – until I have a character say ‘your majesty’ which I think has much less impact than it needs, in lower case. But I suppose the jury is still out on that one.
Whichever form you choose, above all things be consistent. As a freelance proofreader and editor, I am going to query anything that veers from the consistent pattern.
Use of dialogue/speech tags
A dialogue tag, sometimes called a speech tag, is text that signals a character is speaking. Thus, ‘I said’ and ‘she replied’ are both dialogue tags. So are ‘he exclaimed’, ‘I shouted’, ‘she said quickly’ and ‘they yelled’. The latter tags explain not only that the character has spoken, but also how they have delivered their words.
Some phrases are not speech tags, but lots of people seem to think they are. For example, ‘he laughed’, ‘she wept’ and ‘they pressed’ are not speech tags. Why? Because you cannot laugh a sentence out. You can say the sentence and then laugh, but these two things are not the same. Similarly, you can weep and then speak, or speak and then weep, but you cannot speak while weeping. Although I might give some leeway if the weeper in question is an alien or other alternative life form. Because when you have a non-human speech anatomy, all bets are off.
Why does this matter? Because you always put a comma before of after speech tag, depending on where it sits in the dialogue. A thing that looks like a speech tag but is not a speech tag should be preceded or followed by a full stop. This really affects the reading of the sentence.
Thus:
She laughed. ‘I suppose you want your diamond necklace back.’ CORRECT
She laughed, ‘I suppose you want your diamond necklace back.’ WRONG.
‘I suppose you want your diamond necklace back,’ she laughed. ALSO WRONG.
Handy tip from this freelance proofreader and editor
You probably know that when editing, consistency is key. There are relatively few absolutes, but consistency is one of them. Make a choice and stick with it, and/or be able to explain any divergence.
You probably also know that editing and proofreading for consistency is very time-consuming. Software can be invaluable for this, in particular specialist AI tools like PerfectIt. However, experience has taught me never to rely on AI alone. I rate Google’s inbuilt editor as one of the best free tools around and would not be without it, but I am always aware that it does not seem fluent in UK English and I frequently ignore suggestions that only apply in the US.
However, if you have a book of between 80,000 and 200,000 words I do think AI checks are an important safety net, ideally at multiple stages of your edit. They cannot replace your human freelance editor and proofreader (see my FAQs about being a freelance editor for more on that) but they definitely have a place in the process.
I hope you found this interesting. I know it only scratches the surface of this subject and I will probably write more about it soon. In the meantime, if you have any comments or questions, please contact me directly.
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