What are your writing and grammar pet peeves?

Have you ever started to read a book, article or blog post only to sigh in disgust? Quite likely the author has struck a writing pet peeve of yours.

For example, I have an aversion to adverbs. …she said quietly …he walked quickly …she waited anxiously. ..

You get the picture, those dreaded ly words. Instead of talking quietly, why can’t she whisper? Why can’t he jog instead of walking quickly? Instead of waiting anxiously, why can’t she show her anxiety by tapping her toes? Yes, I understand adjectives have their place and time, however an overuse of them makes for passive writing.

Some other examples of potential writing pet peeves include redundancies.

For example, shrugged her shoulders, blinked her eyes, waved his hand. The question is…what else would they have shrugged, blinked or waved?

Of course grammar is a huge source of peeves for many. The fun and entertaining Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss is full of funny anecdotes and the correct way to use grammar to get your point across.

When writing content, we want to engage our reader, not tick them off by triggering a pet peeve, right? It’s important to be concise and learn what we can about the craft of writing and grammar to convey our message.

So…what are your pet peeves?

Uploading With cPanel

The very first time I encountered cPanel was in 1998. After working 10 years on it, it is so easy to forget that for others it is a challenge. Recently, it came to my attention, some of my friends were having a really tough time understanding how to upload a file on cPanel and then find the URL for this file. This usually happens when they are publishing a new image or PDF book they want to offer for sale or free download.

As such, here’s is a quick tutorial on this matter. Just so you know, the process is the same be it images, PDF’s or even an MP3.

Log in to your cPanel, find File Manager, click to open.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the new window, click public_html.
This is your web folder. Anything you put in here is viewable on the Internet. Anything outside of this folder is not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Decide where you want to upload the file to.
You can create a new folder and upload it in there or upload directly into the public_html folder itself. For simplicity’s sake, we’re uploading into the public_html folder.
Click Upload file(s).

 

 

 

 

 

Click Browse [1], select the file you want to upload [2], OK [3], then upload [4]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You’ll be returned to the file list screen. From here there are two ways you can determine the URL of the file you just uploaded.

1. Anything that is inside your web folder (public_html) is accessible by typing your domain name in the browser, followed by a slash followed by the file name. In this case, the file name I just uploaded is inside002.gif so I would enter this in my browser http://websitename.com/inside002.gif

That’s it. Easy. But what happens if you uploaded it into a folder you named ‘pictures’? Then, you simply add the name of the folder into your URL like this.
http://websitename.com/pictures/inside002.gif

2. Get cPanel to tell you. When you are back in your file list screen, find the file you just uploaded. Then click on the name.

 

 

 

 

Look to the right side of the window, you will see the information about that file and the file URL. Simply copy and paste that URL.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Problems?

I see strange characters in the URL.
That’s normal when you upload files with dashes in them. Modern browsers and web servers put that in there so the image or file will load even with the special characters but as a rule, it’s best not to upload files with spaces in them. Either remove them or use dashes and underscores for easier reading. Keep in mind though that dashes and especially underscores can be really difficult for people to remember or type in.

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