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 Quibbles over Quarantine

3/3/2021

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I recently had to quarantine for 14 days having returned from Luxembourg. It was quite a lonely experience but strangely therapeutic at the same time.

Being a word nerd, I got to thinking about how to describe my experience – a clear sign of too much time alone - but aren't we all thinking about our quarantine memoirs?!

Here’s an A-Z smattering - not too uplifting:

❌Acedia: Listless, uncertain, anxious
❌Agromania: Intense desire to be in open spaces
❌Clinomania: Excessive desire to stay in bed
❌Crassulent: Obese
❌Deliration: Madness
❌Eleutheromania: Manic desire for freedom
❌Encraty: Self control
❌Hesternopothia: Yearning for earlier times
❌Hyperphagia: Eating too much (hence the crassulent state!)
❌Incabinated: Confined
🆘Loimography: A study of epidemics
❌Quarantine: From the Italian ‘quaranta’ (40). In 1377, the Great Council established a 40-day isolation period to avoid the spread of plague
❌Tristifical: Sad
❌Xanthippe: Ill-tempered woman
❌Yapness: Hunger
✅Virucide: Killing of viruses
❌Vizard: Mask
❌Woolage: Untidy hair
❌Zaftig: Full, rounded figure
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Confused with ... numbers?

3/2/2021

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Here’s a quick guide:

Write one to ten in words and then use numerals, except if in the same sentence:
❌ My LI post was liked by nine but viewed by 56
✔️ My LI post was liked by nine but viewed by fifty-six (don't forget the hyphen between tens and units)

If writing about ages, always write in numerals but don’t forget to hyphenate:
❌ The oldest person in the world is 117 years old
✔️ The 117-year-old man is the oldest person in the world

Temperatures should be written as an abbreviation with the degree symbol and no space:
❌ 46 degrees C
✔️ 46˚C

Years should be elided using the en (long) dash:
❌ 1921-1922
✔️ 1921–1922

Page numbers should be elided using the en dash:
❌ pp. 345-6
✔️ pp. 345–6

It’s always better to write decades in full unless the century is very clear:
❌ The ‘40s and ‘50s
✔️ The 1940s and ‘50s
And no apostrophe before or after the s!
❌ Life in the 40’s …
❌ Life in the 40s’ …
✔️ Life in the 1940s …

When writing about ‘centuries’, remember when to hyphenate. Compounds used as adjectives should be written with a hyphen:
❌ The eighteenth-century was a time of revolution
✔️ The eighteenth-century revolutions ...
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    Melanie @ Take it as read

    ​A writer, editor and proofreader taking time out to write about things she loves

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