Do you? Or don't you?
The do's and don'ts of... well... the do's and don'ts. An email in which I write do and don't as many times as possible.
As I think many of us are suffering from overload right now - working from home, perhaps with children around, unable to socialise as much as we’d like, and trying to keep it all together - I am going to keep it easy on the grammar front this month.
Do’s and don’t’s…? Dos and don’ts…? Or do’s and don’ts?
Okay, I admit, when I said I was going to keep it easy, that might not have been true. Because the problem with this one is that it is, to some extent, a style issue.
Dos and don’ts is preferred by The Chicago Manual of Style, but I would say that you need that apostrophe in the word do to avoid reading it like the Spanish word for two.
That leaves us with either do’s and don’t’s (favoured by Lynne Truss in Eats, Shoots & Leaves) or the inconsistent do’s and don’ts (recommended by the mighty Associated Press).
Despite its inconsistency, I would lean towards do’s and don’ts, simply because the double apostrophe in don’t’s is so jarring when reading.
What I’ve read and enjoyed recently
Not really something I’ve read, but definitely something I have enjoyed: this video of a guy rapping Dr Seuss to Dr Dre is an utter joy.
As someone who signed up for three free months of Peloton classes online when all of this started (#teamJessSims), I found this article about the future of fitness an intriguing read. There are many aspects to gym-going that just seem quite unpalatable now and I wonder if home training and smaller, boutique fitness centres will be the way forward. (Side note: I wrote about Stockholm’s growing boutique fitness trend last year.)
I’ve been “attending” most of the online talks held by HON (Her Online Network) for the past few months on a range of topics - everything from personal branding to wellness and feminine power. One of the best things is the short breakout sessions at the start of each talk, where you get to “meet” and chat to amazing women.
I’ve been helping out a Berlin-based startup, wellyou, proofreading articles for their app. Adam and Amelia are passionate about wellbeing, especially in these tough times, and the app gives you fun daily challenges, shares positive news, and helps you check in with how you are feeling.
I’ve also been ransacking the library, as usual, for books. In the past month, I’ve finished Matt Haig’s How To Stop Time (plot holes) and Tommy Orange’s There There (similar structure as Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other, which was better executed). As well as these, I’ve also read The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore (frustrating, could have been so much better).
It’s not all be negative, however. I am loving Aiding and Abetting, by Muriel Spark, which I have almost finished, and I’ve nearly finished listening to Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror & The Light, concluding her Wolf Hall/Thomas Cromwell trilogy. I don’t want it to end. The amount of research that has gone into this book (and the other two) is simply staggering.
As there isn’t much to pitch or write about on the travel front, I’ve been looking into new topics. And I ended up writing about the Swedish pension system (yes, really), which is largely a mystery to many.
After writing that for Little Bear Abroad, Jill and I recorded a podcast episode about pensions in Sweden, how you are probably entitled to some form of state pension, even if you are not working, and how to get passionate about pensions. Episode out soon!
I was also invited onto Nicole’s Content Rookie podcast as a guest to discuss freelance writing. We touched on the subject of pivoting into new niches there and discussed whether niching down is really even something you should do.
My learning curve over the past 14 months of freelancing has been like that first steep climb of the rollercoaster but it keeps on going up. Being on not one, but two podcasts really felt like stepping out of my comfort zone, but I ended up enjoying the whole process immensely.
And one thing I learned is that you can take the girl out of the Home Counties, but you cannot take the Home Counties out of the girl’s voice.
So, take care, stay well, and be good to yourself.
