winwon won
windwound wound
writewrote written
Is. The
third-person singular
present tense of
be: “He/she/it is important Also see
agreement, auxiliary, conjugation, number, and
tense.It. The
third-person singular
pronoun is it in both the subjective case and
objectivecase. See
its.Italics. Slanted type is called italic as distinguished from the normal upright forms called
“Roman”: Most printing is in Roman, but
some words are italic Italicized words are emphasized for
various purposes to indicate titles or names of various things, to distinguish non-English words from English ones, and to draw attention to the words for any other purpose The teacher was reading
War and Peace out loud,
but mispronounced the Russian word for ‘war’—
voina—and got
very angry
The example is a bit forced, but it shows the title of a work of literature, a non-English word, and a word italicized for
emphasis (very. The use of italics for the last kind of emphasis (or of underlining or
quotation marks to do the same thing) is one of those overused devices that should be resorted to only occasionally if at all. Create force and point in your writing in other ways than through typographical enhancement.
When words, letters, or numbers need to be emphasized so that it is clear they are being talked about as words in the grammatical sense rather than being used directly in a sentence,
underlining, quotation marks, or italics can be used Grammatical terms like
verb or
noun can be misunderstood In this book, words that have entries explaining or defining them are set in italic type. See
names, titles, and
typeface.It’s. See
its.Its, it’s. Don’t confuse its the
third-person singular
possessive pronoun, with its a
contraction of it is the rst term is used to indicate something that belongs to something (That
is its den, while the second word only stands in place of it is”
(“It’s very clear that we are not welcome here. See
pronoun. JJapanese. One of the main
Asian languages, Japanese has a well-established system of transliteration into English. Inmost everyday writing, the
accents that appear in some Japanese words are not used. Consult relevant reference works for details.
Jargon. A specialized
vocabulary that is used mainly by a limited group of people in the same work or profession is called jargon. Since the meaning of jargon is known only to a restricted
audience, its use limits the number of people who can understand what you are saying or writing. Such a limitation is not a problem if you
are addressing only colleagues, professional associates, or peers indeed, it can be a bene t since jargon is often shorthand that lets someone in the know quickly understand what you are trying to say. Jargon conveys information quickly about one’s knowledge, status, and membership in groups. But for more general audiences or those who might not be among the initiated in special
usages of words, stick to more commonly recognized terminology.
Jargon: How many megabytes in your box Translated Does your computer have
lots of memory Even the second, translated example might be too obscure for those who are not computer literate. Abetter, but longer, question for them might be Does your computer have a large additional storage device to permanently record files?”
Jargon need not be technical. Many people speak in special ways among friends,
neighbors, or others with whom they can identify by some means or other. Such language is also called argot lingo or
“slang.” As it becomes more commonly recognized, it merges with
colloquial, or everyday, speech and sometimes passes into accepted usage.
Jr. The
abbreviation of junior used very often with a
comma after appropriate names (Adam Arkin, Jr, but it’s never acceptable as an independent element in a
sentence.