An addendum is something that is added to a document. Your rental lease might have an addendum attached to it. If a firm’s Bid Documents had a change after the fact, it was an addendum that added additional information to the documents.

Addendum is the singular form. Addenda is the plural form.

With reference to our industry, Bid Documents contain the plans, specifications, and estimates that are sent out to Bidders. If, for example, the Bidders then have questions or bring up a situation that might prompt a change to the Bid Documents, an addendum would be issued. After the bidding process, if there were any changes, the Owner might issue a set of Conformed Documents that would include that one addendum, or if Bidders prompted a number of different changes, then all of the addenda would be incorporated into the Conformed Documents.

It's easy to confuse the singular and plural forms; just remember that if there’s more than one addendum to the document, it’s considered plural, so addenda is the correct word to use.

Special thanks to our authors - Judy Beebe, FSDA and Carol Wanda Spradlin, CDFA - both with the SDA Pacific Northwest (formerly Seattle) chapter.

A quick and friendly reminder about lose and loose.

They are two different words with two different pronunciations.

·      Lose is pronounced with the same “oo” sound as in the word choose. And there’s a “z” sound in there as well.

·      Loose is pronounced the same way you’d say goose. (A definite “s” sound; no “z” sound.)

They have different meanings. Simply:

·      Lose means you no longer (or will no longer) have something, or you didn’t (or will not) win something.

·      Loose means something isn’t secured, or it’s not restrained or restricted.

Putting the words into practice: If you’re trying to make it as a social media influencer in the fashion field of skintight clothing, you probably should think twice about posting pics of yourself wearing loose clothing; you don’t want to lose followers, do you?

Special thanks to Carol Wanda Spradlin, CDFA and Judy Beebe, FSDA, both of the Seattle Chapter,

for providing our current Word Nerd feature.

Do you know Cherie Tucker? She’s a grammarian whose claim to fame (one of them, at least) is getting Seattle’s Nordstrom stores to correct all of their signs from “Childrens shoes” to “Childrens’ shoes.”

The Seattle Chapter has hosted Cherie as a speaker a few times, and she’s also presented for SDA National (we love the grammar/writing knowledge she shares!).

One of the things that Cherie helped me remember was the use of commas in independent clauses. An independent clause is one that can stand on its own. Like this: This sentence is an independent clause, and you should insert a comma after clause. That’s a two-part sentence that contains the conjunction “and.” The second part of the sentence (you should insert a comma after clause) is a full sentence on its own. If both parts of the clause — joined by a conjunction — can stand on its own . . . it’s an independent clause.

What a lot of people do though, is not insert a comma before the conjunction in their independent clauses. Did you know that you should add a comma before each conjunction in that case?* (Note: It depends on the context; you might consider a semicolon instead.)

Here’s where Cherie came in and helped me remember all of the conjunctions, and thus the use of commas in my independent clauses. She calls the conjunctions “FANBOYS.”

For

And

Nor

But

Or

Yes

So

If I have a FANBOY in a sentence, I know to stop and test whether I have any independent clauses. If I do, I know to insert a comma (or a semicolon) before the FANBOY. Will you?

*Tons of sites that back this up. For example:

https://depts.washington.edu/engl/askbetty/sentence_structure.php

 https://www.grammarly.com/blog/comma-before-and/

http://guidetogrammar.org/grammar/commas.htm

https://getitwriteonline.com/articles/when-to-use-comma-before-and/

Judy Beebe, FSDA is our resident Word Nerd.

She currently serves as the SDA Seattle Chapter President