Conjugate Visits

"A display of the collection will be on site in the main pavilion"

Changed to ...

"The collection will be on display in the main pavilion."


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What's more -- aside from a specialized curriculum -- private schools are notoriously known for their smaller classrooms.

Changed to:

Private schools are known for their smaller class sizes.

(Other bad choices aside, I can't BELIEVE the writer used "notoriously known" -- and for something positive, no less. That's the kind of thing I might make up as a ridiculous example of a bad adverb/flabby writing.)


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The road leads you through flourishing rainforests, flowing waterfalls,
plunging pools and dramatic seascapes.

Changed to:

The road leads you through flourishing rainforests AND PAST flowing
waterfalls, plunging pools and dramatic seascapes.

Any road that leads you through pools isn't much of a road. (I'm still thinking on "flourishing" and "plunging." I'm not too keen on those, either.)

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I wasn't even reading this AP story about a derailed chair lift at a Maine ski resort. I was just skimming it when this sentence jumped out at me:

"Jay Marshall, hunkered down in a cold wind while on a lift next to the broken one, said that his lift was moving but that the broken one was not."

Um, if he's on a lift next to a broken one, do you have to tell us that the broken one wasn't working? For that matter, do you have to tell us that one that's not the broken one was working?

And isn't "hunkered down in a cold wind while on a lift next to" a little inelegant? Letting go of "hunkered down in" might have helped:

" ... enduring the cold wind as he rode a lift next to the broken one."

Then again, maybe not. It might be best to just cut the whole sentence. After all, who cares if a guy on a moving chair lift noticed that a broken chair lift wasn't moving?

But then you get to the next sentence and see you've been led down the wrong path.

"Jay Marshall, hunkered down in a cold wind while on a lift next to the broken one, said that his lift was moving but that the broken one was not. There was a 'loud snapping noise' after the lift restarted, he said, then screams."

Aha. So the we see that Marshall was talking about something that happened earlier. But the verb "was," written in the same tense as "hunkered," made it sound as though Marshall's lift was motionless as he was hunkered down and talking to the reporter. Shifting from simple past tense ("was") to past perfect (i.e. "had been") would have saved us the confusion: Hunkered down in a cold wind, Marshall said that the lift next to his had stopped working (at some point prior).

Skimming the rest of the article, I see it's quite well written. (Even good writers let a clunker slip in now and then. That's why they have editors.) But its lone bad sentence just reached out and grabbed me. I hope this isn't the start of a trend. I'd hate to think what would happen if bad sentences starting banding together and coming after editors.

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I've been hearing from a lot of people interested in analyzing Larsson's prose, so I thought I'd share links to some blog posts I did a while back examining his writing.

This one inventories verbs on one page of a Larsson book and compares his verb choices to those of Cormac McCarthy and Stephen King.

This one looks at his characters' dialogue and throws in for good measure some sample dialogue from two writers who I believe do it better.

This one, actually my first blog post on the subject, contains a sample rewrite of a short Larsson passage.


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A real sentence (slightly disguised) that I edited yesterday:

"With the idea that instead of shopping all around New York, the attendees could have the city's best shops brought to them, retail outlets were set up with unique offerings of fashions, home decor, toys and cookware."

Even more than the two unnecessary passives that follow, it's the introductory phrase that floors me: "With the idea that instead of ..."

There was no coming back from that. I overhauled the whole sentence, making it something like:

"New York's top retailers set up boutiques at the festival, creating a one-stop shop for some of the city's finest fashions, home decor, toys and cookware."

Amazing how that tangible subject + verb formula can save a bad sentence.

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Today I edited an article that contained the word “after-party.” The writer’s choice to form a noun from the words “after” and “party” by attaching them with a hyphen seemed logical. But I wasn’t sure it was the best choice.

I checked our designated dictionary, “Webster’s New World.” It does not contain the word “afterparty” (or “after-party,” for that matter). But I still wasn’t satisfied. My thinking: Who says that “after,” in this context, is a word? Can’t it be a prefix?

In the online version of Webster’s, I couldn’t figure out how to find the prefix “after-,” so I checked the hard copy of the dictionary. There it was, the “after-,” which Webster’s said was a “combining form,” (meaning you just splice it right on to the front of whatever word you’re pairing it with).

I was pleased with that answer and made the change, even writing a note in the text to explain it to the section editor. An hour later, the section editor came up to my desk. Long before I edited the piece, she had checked the archives of the publication that I work for and seen that house style demonstrates a clear house preference for the hyphenated form: after-party.

Had I worked just a little bit harder, I'd have gotten it right. Had I been lazier, I'd have gotten it right. But my half-baked efforts were just enough to assure I got it wrong.


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sybaritic pleasures

changed to ...

pleasures

Sybaritic was a new one on me. So I looked it up. It means "devoted to or marked by pleasure and luxury." Good word. I like it. Still, I couldn't justify keeping verbiage that means "marked-by-pleasure pleasures."


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A day after I posted about an error in the Los Angeles Times, my friend Carolyn Howard-Johnson blogged about another error in the Times — a mix up of "descent" and "decent."

And that reminds me: A Times business story I was reading last weekend had "fun" in place of "fund."

The L.A. Times has laid off a lot of people in the last few years — partly out of necessity, partly to compensate for some bad business moves. The paper's downtown office, once bustling and exciting, now seems a prime location for tumbleweeds.

The inevitable result: typos.


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It's surprising how seldom I notice faulty parallels in print. But here's one from today's L.A. Times:

In animal studies, they have been shown to cause cancer, liver toxicity and
interfere with growth and development.

The list is set up as parallel items that attach to "cause": "... cause cancer, (cause) liver toxicity ..." But the third item in the list has its own verb, meaning it doesn't attach right: "... to cause cancer, (cause) liver toxicity and (cause) interfere with growth ..."

Oops.

Best solution is to break up the list form:

In animal studies, they have been shown to cause cancer and liver toxicity and
to interfere with growth and development.

(Side note: Sorry I've been absent lately. Crazy, crazy schedule stuff.)

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While both Jane Doe and John Public grew up in South Florida, their love story
began in Los Angeles.

This writer managed to use two of my biggest peeves in the first two words of an article!

For one, I hate loose uses of "while." As a synonym for "though" or "although," it can be sloppy and confusing. As for "both," that's more a personal prejudice. Often it's just wasted ink. In the cases in which "both" is useful, like this sentence, writers often put it in a less-than-ideal location. Here's what I did to the passage.

Though Jane Doe and John Public both grew up in South Florida, their love story
began in Los Angeles.

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Some proofreading catches send a chill down my spine -- usually because I almost didn't catch them at all. Only on a second reading did I notice the error in this passage. Even then it felt like a fluke that I caught it. Here's the sentence:

Guests sipped signature cocktails and nibbled hors d'oeuvres into the wee
hours until the evening winded down and they went home with gift baskets teeming
with treats from local merchants.

The catch ....





















I changed "winded" to "wound."


"Winded," 99% of the time, means out of breath. The proper past tense of the verb "to wind" is "wound." Webster's New World does allow "winded" as a past tense, but calls it "rare." And in copy editing, we never opt for secondary dictionary choices, much less "rare" ones.

That was almost the one that got away.



























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From an article I'm editing:

Santa Cruz also offers year-round golf, riding the dunes in a four-wheel ATV, horseback riding, surfing, body boarding or fishing from its 1,100-foot pier.

There's an issue here that's cropping up so much lately I'm starting to wonder: Is it happening more? Or did I fail to notice it before?

The issue I'm talking about: "or."

The town doesn't offer surfing, body boarding or fishing. It offers surfing, body boarding and fishing. I wonder whether this happens because the list got so long that the writer forgot how the sentence was structured.

Just an interesting little mental blip is all. I changed "or" to "and."

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I came across this sentence (which I slightly disguised here) in an article I'm editing.

The popularity of fashion eyeglass frames began to spread, becoming so popular
in the late 1920s that the Sears catalogue dedicated an entire page to them.

I'm still noodling over it. Does popularity spread? Or is it more idiomatic to say it grows or perhaps increases? And I almost overlooked that dangling participle, which seems to suggest "popularity became so popular."

Here are some alternatives I'm toying with.

The popularity of fashion eyeglass frames grew. By the 1920s, the Sears
catalogue dedicated an entire page to them.

The popularity of fashion eyeglass frames grew so much that in the late 1920s
the Sears catalogue dedicated an entire page to them.

Fashion eyeglass frames started to get popular. By the late 1920s the Sears
catalogue dedicated an entire page to them.

Fashion eyeglass frames became so popular that by the late 1920s the the Sears catalogue dedicated an entire page to them.

Hmmm. I think I'll go with that last one.



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Yesterday I showed a writer friend this passage* from an article I was copy editing about a young couple's courtship:

Supporting each other through their education and in their career dreams has been a vein running through their 10-year relationship that continues today as Jones pursues her dreams of becoming a licensed psychiatrist.

After graduating from the New York-based Cornell University where Wilson earned a degree in chemistry and Jones earning multiple degrees in accounting, mathematics and psychology, Wilson realized that he did not want to pursue a career in chemistry. He enrolled in NYU to earn another bachelor degree in civil engineering. During this period, Jones decided that she wanted to enter medical school and thus began taking pre-med courses at Princeton.

My friend was shocked. "You really have your work cut out for you," she said. On the contrary, I said. Fixing troubled prose like this usually means just 1. looking for ways to break up unwieldy sentences, 2. looking for unnecessary information that can be cut, and 3. cleaning up wrong verb tenses and awkward constructions. Here's how it looked when I was done.

Throughout their 10-year relationship, the two have supported each other’s education and career goals. Both graduated from Cornell University, Cosby with a degree in chemistry and Jones with multiple degrees in accounting, mathematics and psychology. Soon after, Wilson realized that he did not want to pursue a career in chemistry. He enrolled in NYU to earn another bachelor’s degree, this one in civil engineering. Jones decided that she wanted to enter medical school and began taking pre-med courses at Princeton.

Here, bit by bit, is what I did and why.

Supporting each other through their education and in their career dreams has been a vein running through their 10-year relationship that continues today as Jones pursues her dreams of becoming a licensed psychiatrist.

The main clause of this sentence says "supporting each other has been a vein." Gerund subject, bland verb, abstract complement. I liked what the writer was trying to say here, but she failed to pull it off. So, rather than structure the whole sentence in service to the "vein" idea, I figured it was better to make "supporting" an action instead of a subject: "They have supported each other."

The clause "... that continues today as Jones pursues her dreams of becoming a licensed psychiatrist" contains some worthwhile information -- Jones is working toward a new goal and Wilson's still supporting her. But all that will become clear in the sentences that follow. And in an already unwieldy sentence, the clause was doing more harm than good. So I cut it and let the facts speak for themselves.

The next sentence was a mess:

After graduating from the New York-based Cornell University where Wilson earned a degree in chemistry and Jones earning multiple degrees in accounting, mathematics and psychology, Wilson realized that he did not want to pursue a career in chemistry.

The tense shift is the most glaring problem: "where Wilson earned and Jones earning." But the structure here is bad, too. There's a ton of info crammed into that subordinate clause "After graduating ..." The sentence is supposed to be about Wilson, but writer also used this "after" clause as a place to cram in some info about Jones. It's just too much. So I broke it up into two sentences, one about their education (Both graduated from Cornell University, Wilson with a degree in chemistry and Jones with multiple degrees in accounting, mathematics and psychology) and the other sentence about Wilson's decision (Soon after, Wilson realized that he did not want to pursue a career in chemistry).

The next sentence was almost fine:

He enrolled in NYU to earn another bachelor degree in civil engineering.

I changed bachelor degree to "bachelor's" -- mainly because that's our style. But there was a logic problem, too. "Another bachelor's degree in civil engineering" suggests he already held a civil engineering degree. That wasn't what the writer meant, so I inserted "this one in" for clarity, ending up with: He enrolled in NYU to earn another bachelor's degree, this one in civil engineering.

The final sentence was structured okay, but contained some lard:

During this period, Jones decided that she wanted to enter medical school and thus began taking pre-med courses at Princeton.

"During this period" is unnecessary -- not worth the extra words. And "thus," in my humble opinion, has no business in a feature article. Out it went.

Little fixes aside, this passage mostly needed its sentences broken up. And when you see how making a gerund like "supporting" into a real verb like "support," and when you see how information in an "after" clause can be made into a separate sentence, breaking sentences up is very easy to do.

* I disguised the passage by changing some details.

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Below is the first page of Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.” Below that is the same page with the copyedits and queries I would have made had it been my job to do so. Below that is a sample rewrite.

The edits are similar to what I do to some of the feature articles I work on. The difference is that, with a full-length novel, no one really has the time to do the detailed, extensive line-editing Larsson’s work requires. (I base that on the first two books in the Larsson’s “Milennium” series, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and “The Girl Who Played with Fire,” which I recently finished reading.) In the book world, most editors would simply reject the manuscript with a note like, “Good story. But the writing’s not quite there.”

Yet an editor acquired Larsson's three manuscripts, and the series became one of the biggest blockbusters in years. (This is where my explanation would go if I had one.) Here’s the page, the edited page, and the sample rewrite.

****************************************************************
Friday, April 8

Dr. Jonasson was woken by a nurse five minutes before the helicopter was expected to land. It was just before 1:30 in the morning.

“What? he said, confused.

“Rescue Service helicopter coming in. Two patients. An injured man and a younger woman. The woman has gunshot wounds.”

“All right,” Jonasson said wearily.

Although he had slept for only half an hour, he felt groggy. He was on the night shift in the ER at Sahlgrenska hospital in Gotegborg. It had been a strenuous evening.

By 12:30 the steady flow of emergency cases had eased off. He had made a round to check on the state of his patients and then gone back to the staff bedroom to try to rest for a while. He was on duty until 6:00, and seldom got the chance to sleep even if no emergency patients came in. But this time he had fallen asleep almost as soon as he turned out the light.

Jonasson saw lightning over the sea. He knew that the helicopter was coming in the nick of time. All of a sudden a heavy downpour lashed at the window. The storm had moved in over Goteborg.

He heard the sound of the chopper and watched as it banked through the storm squalls down towards the helipad. For a second he held his breath when the pilot seemed to have difficulty controlling the aircraft. Then it vanished from his field of vision and he heard the engine slowing to a land. He took a hasty swallow of tea and set down his cup.

Jonasson met the emergency team in the admissions area. The other doctor on duty took on the first patient who was wheeled in -- an elderly man with ….

***********************************************************************
Friday, April 8

Dr. Jonasson was woken by a nurse five minutes before the helicopter was expected to land. (PROBABLY NOT A GOOD IDEA TO START WITH TWO PASSIVES IN THE VERY FIRST SENTENCE. PLS REVISE.) It was just before 1:30 in the morning.

“What? he said (ASKED?), confused. (IS THERE SOME SIMPLE WAY TO SHOW HIS CONFUSION?)

“Rescue Service helicopter coming in. Two patients. An injured man and a younger woman. The woman has gunshot wounds.”

“All right,” Jonasson said wearily. (HAVING HIM SAY “ALL RIGHT” SEEMS UNNECESSARY. WOULD IT BE MORE INTERESTING TO SAY WHAT HE DID RATHER THAN WHAT HE SAID AND HOW HE SAID IT?)

Although he had slept for only half an hour, he felt groggy. (ALTHOUGH? SEEMS TO ME THAT SLEEPING FOR JUST A HALF HOUR COULD BE WHAT MADE HIM GROGGY.) He was on the night shift in the ER at Sahlgrenska hospital in Gotegborg. It had been a strenuous evening. (VAGUE. SHOULD WE THROW IN A DETAIL OR TWO ABOUT THE EVENING AND PERHAPS ABOUT THE HOSPITAL, TOO?)

By 12:30 the steady flow of emergency cases (SEE NOTE ABOVE) had eased off. He had made a round to check on the state of his patients (DELETE “THE STATE OF”) and then gone back to the staff bedroom to try to (DELETE “TRY TO”) rest for a while. (I’VE NEVER HEARD OF A “STAFF BEDROOM.” ANY WAY TO MAKE THIS MORE VISUAL?) He was on duty until 6:00, (DELETE COMMA) and seldom got the chance to sleep even if no emergency patients came in. (WHY NOT? WHAT OTHER WORK WOULD KEEP HIM SO BUSY ON THE GRAVEYARD EMERGENCY ROOM SHIFT?) But this time he had fallen asleep almost as soon as he turned out the light. (“BUT THIS TIME” DOESN’T MAKE SENSE HERE. YOU’RE CONTRASTING A SENTENCE ABOUT NEVER HAVING THE CHANCE TO LIE DOWN WITH ANOTHER THAT SEEMS TO SUGGEST THAT LYING DOWN AND TURNING OUT THE LIGHT IS COMMON AND THE ONLY THING DIFFERENT IS HOW FAST HE FELL ASLEEP. PLS. FIX.)

Jonasson saw lightning over the sea. (YOU HAVEN’T GIVEN THE READER ANY SENSE OF PLACE – MUCH LESS ONE THAT INVOLVES A STAFF BEDROOM IN A HOSPITAL WITH AN OCEAN-VIEW WINDOW. ONCE YOU’VE EXPLAINED THE PHYSICAL LAYOUT THAT MAKES THIS POSSIBLE, PLEASE PLACE HIM AT THE WINDOW BEFORE SAYING WHAT HE SAW THROUGH IT.) He knew that (DELETE “HE KNEW THAT.”) the helicopter was coming in the nick of time. All of a sudden a heavy downpour lashed at the window. (1. SO MAYBE THE HELICOPTER ISN’T COMING IN THE NICK OF TIME? 2. “DOWNPOUR” USUALLY REFERS TO A WHOLE STORM AND NOT JUST A WAVE OF RAINDROPS HITTING A WINDOW. 3. “LASHED AT” SEEMS LIKE THE RAINDROPS CAME NEAR THE WINDOW BUT DIDN’T ACTUALLY TOUCH IT.) The storm had moved in over Goteborg.(DELETE WHOLE SENTENCE.)

He heard the sound of the chopper and watched as it banked (WHERE IS HE? SEEMS AWFULLY CONVENIENT THAT HE CAN SEE BOTH THE STORM ROLLING IN AND THE HELIPAD.) through the storm squalls(THAT WAS FAST) down towards the helipad. For a second he held his breath when the pilot seemed to have difficulty controlling the aircraft.(WHAT HAPPENED? WHAT DID HE SEE?) Then it vanished(UNCLEAR. EXPLAIN.) from his field of vision and he heard the engine slowing to a land. He took a hasty swallow of tea (KIND OF WEIRD THAT A JUST-SLEEPING MAN HAD SOME TEA HANDY. ALSO, SHOULDN’T HE BE SCRUBBING UP OR SOMETHING?) and set down his cup (ON WHAT?)

Jonasson met the emergency team in the admissions area.(DETAILS?) The other doctor on duty(DETAILS?) took on the first patient who was wheeled in(MIGHT BE BETTER IF WE DID THIS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER: FIRST THE PATIENT WAS WHEELED IN, THEN THE DOCTOR “TOOK ON” THE PATIENT, BUT FIND A MORE SPECIFIC ALTERNATIVE TO “TOOK ON”—an elderly man with ….

*************************************************************************

Here is a rough sketch of how I suspect other authors might have approached the page:
************************************************************************

April 8

Nurse Helga Olsson placed a firm hand on the sleeping doctor’s shoulder and shook him gently.

“Chopper coming in,” she said. “Two patients. An injured man and a woman with gunshot wounds. They’ll be here in five minutes.”

Dr. Sven Jonasson sat up and looked at the digital clock on the steel surgical tray that served as a nightstand. It was 1:28 a.m.

He felt groggy. He had only slept for half an hour on a cot in the small room next to the doctors’ lounge. It had been a rough night. Sahlgrenska Hospital’s ER had treated two stabbing victims, a couple of broken bones, and a peanut allergy reaction so severe Dr. Jonasson had to insert a breathing tube in the patient’s bloated neck to save her life.

By 12:30 a.m. the emergency cases had eased off. Dr. Jonasson made a round to check on his patients then went into the small room and lay down. He had fallen asleep almost as soon as he turned out the light.

He stood and watched nurse Olsson leave, then he walked to the window and looked out over Dorn Bay. A flash of lightning illuminated the water and he could see the torrents moving in. Within seconds, rain was lashing the window.

He heard a chopper and watched as it slowly came into view over the water. It banked through the storm squalls toward the helipad at the north end of the hospital grounds. Suddenly, the copter dropped about thirty feet, then it wobbled back and forth. Dr. Jonasson gasped and then held his breath as the chopper leveled and headed toward the helipad, where it landed safely.

He reached for the cup of tea he’d left on the makeshift nightstand and took a sip. It was cold and milky. He grimaced and set down the cup.

He arrived at the emergency room the same time as Dr. William Sorli, a skinny, wide-eyed intern who had been working the ER for about six months. They watched as a breathless EMT wheeled in the first patient—a crumpled old man who …


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It's tough to admit that I had no idea how to spell a word I've used all my life, but there I was sitting at my desk this morning wondering why my spell-checker wasn't questioning the word "temperamental."

I was also patting myself on the back for my eagle-eyed spotting of that little A before "mental," messing up a word that should of course be spelled "tempermental." Then I looked it up.

Ouch.

temperAmental

tempermental

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At present, the university has 15 schools and 52 departments.

... changed to ...

The university has 15 schools and 52 departments.

Feels so good to do that ...

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I'm still not sure what to make of this sentence I came across in my copy-editing work today:

Guests are given glowsticks to guide their way through the already freaky figures and dioramas—a gauntlet that’s pretty scary to run even with the lights on.

It's weird enough that it seems to be based on a metaphor mixing "run the gamut" (range, scale) and "throw down the gauntlet" (glove). But "a gauntlet that's scary to run"?

I changed it to "a course that's pretty scary to run." But it'll be a while before I'm confident about it ...

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Two major aspects of the infrastructure revitalization will include revamping education and healthcare systems.

Changed to:

The education and healthcare systems will be revamped.

In the last couple years, I've come to despise structures that say an "aspect" of something is something else: "One fun aspect of the day camp is getting to catch your own fish."

Why not just make the main clause a simple human subject+real action structure? "Kids get to catch their own fish."

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