Thanks for stopping by. If I understand your question correctly, you want to refer to a copywriter and copy-editor and are wondering if you can just use ‘-editor’ since the ‘copy’ part has already been used?

Well, as you’ll see from what I’ve written already, I don’t use the compound for ‘copy-editor’ anyway. You don’t often see it written as a compound word and the hyphenated form is most common in the UK, where I’m based. If you’re based in the US, the two-word version is probably what you should go for.

However, even if you didn’t run with that advice, you shouldn’t use a hyphen in the way you suggest. Hyphens are there to link words, so if you take one of those words out it throws the entire function. They can’t be used with just one word, effectively implying the presence of another.

So, you’d write “copywriter and copy-editor” or “copywriter and copy editor”.

Hope that’s helpful!

Thanks for stopping by. Good luck explaining what you do to your mother! A lot of people are generally mystified by the profession, as I write about in You’re a Copywriter? Isn’t it Cheating to Copy?

I think I’d have to pass on the collaboration angle, but if I come across any clients needing copy work in Italian I’ll certainly pass them your details.

I would advise the second, non-hyphenated option.

You would use hyphens if the phrase were being used as an adjective: “This oh-so-merry family is thinking of you!” In your version above, however, you are simply intensifying ‘merry’.

You can see this if you used some different words to do the same thing:

“Just thinking of you makes us so very merry!”

Clearly we wouldn’t think of hyphenating that, but doubt creeps into the mind because of ‘oh’, which is a form of exclamation and consequently makes us feel the need for a pause. To overcome that you naturally wonder if hyphenating the whole phrase would solve it but that shouldn’t really be necessary.

I would have to say the use of ‘oh’ in this way is unusual, so I think it may read a little awkwardly for some people. The adjectival use of this type of construct is more common (e.g. “She was wearing her oh-so-sensible shoes.”) and consequently more straightforward. However, in my opinion the unhyphenated version is the one to go for.

Have a great Christmas!

Just thinking of you makes us oh-so-merry!
OR
Just thinking of you makes us oh so merry!

Please advice which is preferble.

Thanks.

Thanks for stopping by! I’m afraid I don’t know about the success of that process for Mac users. It’s a shame that Serif doesn’t produce software for native Mac use and whilst I know of users who run PagePlus on their Mac, performance isn’t as good.

As for pricing, it’s cheaper because it isn’t as sophisticated. The Serif range is pitched squarely at the mid-market – you want more than the basics but you’re not a professional in the area. The programs allow you to produce highly professional results but you are ultimately more limited in potential compared with the high-end programs.

If you’re looking to create a website, however, you need to look at WebPlus. Before long I’ll be writing a review of the latest release, WebPlusX5, but my own website was created with this program and I was very happy with the results. That said, it was the first thing I did and before long I’ll be completely re-designing it.

Sorry I couldn’t be of more help and good luck!

That’s certainly an unusual problem and I’m afraid I’m at a loss as to how to resolve it. Following the advice given by your supervisor it all works fine for me and the word moves as a whole to the next line complete with normal hyphen. I have no idea why it isn’t working for you.

Of course simply hitting the return key will also do the trick but that leaves a ‘hidden’ return which would throw the transcription out if the formatting, font, etc. were changed, so they probably wouldn’t find that acceptable either.

All I can do is suggest you email support at Microsoft and see what they can suggest. If you get a helpful answer I’d love to hear about it!

I’ll just note in passing that ‘X-ray’ needs a capital ‘X’, but I’m sure that was only different here because of the more casual conventions of boards and blogs!

Good luck getting it sorted!