SJC-style-and-production-guide-2012

Ppantomime watch the m occurring twice.palate, palette and pallet sound the same but have different meanings. The palate is the roof ofthe mouth, which can sometimes be congenitally malformed, in which case it is described asa ‘cleft palate’. Wine tasters often refer to the palate as the characteristic flavour of a wine;at the same time it is the place in the wine taster’s mouth where the flavour is most intenselyexperienced. Artists, on the other hand, use a flat board with thumbhole, known as a palette, tomix paints before applying them to a painting. The spatula used to mix or apply the paints iscalled a palette knife. Finally, a pallet is a wooden rack used to store and carry bulk items forsale or warehousing, and designed to be lifted and carried to trucks by a forklift.paralympics Not Para-Olympics. Participants include those who are paraplegic and quadriplegic(note the ‘i’).parsimonious and profligate are sometimes confused. The first is extreme thrift, frugality;the second nearly its opposite – recklessly immoral, extravagant. But simpler words arepreferable, such as those providing the definitions.part, portion Do not use ‘portion’ for ‘part’. A ‘portion’ is an allotted share.partner is not a verb.participles Look carefully at how participles relate to nouns. Misplaced participles usuallyrequire complete rewriting of a sentence. Note the difficulties with the following: ‘Standing 12metres high, the wind blows through the tower’s chimes’, ‘Being stolen, the police returnedthe money’, ‘Walking to church, a dog bit Billy’.pastime one word with one t.peal of bells. But the peel (n,v) of fruit.peloton a huddle of road race cyclists designed to break the wind.perquisite unearned gifts, benefits or bonuses accompanying an obligation. Origin of ‘perks’.prerequisite that which is required as qualification for the next stage of a qualifying or otherprocess.per This Latin preposition should be used very sparingly. Replace ‘per annum’ with ‘a year’,‘per person’ with ‘a person’ or ‘each’, ‘per hour’ with ‘an hour’, etc.per capita Do not use this Latin phrase for ‘each’, ‘a head’ or ‘a person’: it means none of these(Fowler, 1965: 428) and is an unnecessary elaboration.per cent The style is to use ‘per cent’, not ‘percent’ or ‘%’.’Percentage’ is one word. Unless atthe start of a sentence, percentage is always written as a figure: 2 per cent, 34 per cent.Do not use ‘per cent’ in police reports of blood alcohol breath tests: the readings are in mg ofalcohol/100ml of blood. Milligrams of alcohol cannot be a percentage of millilitres of bloodany more than kilograms of apples can be a percentage of litres of water. Charges have beendismissed in which the police certificate tendered in court included ‘per cent’. If a reading isgiven as .08, then leave it as that.person ‘Person’ is usually the singular, ‘people’ the plural: not ‘persons’ as in American usage.personnel Note the double ‘n’, as in personnel officer. Personal of interest, relevance to anPAGE 51 – 2012UQ SJC STYLEBOOK