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![]() Every writer who has been edited knows the feeling: shock and overwhelm. No matter that English was your favorite subject, and you always got As, and you’ve even taught English; or maybe you were rubbish at English, but you always wanted to write, so now you’ve read and memorized three popular books on grammar, and then you made sure you got some beta readers for your manuscript who are great at English; and your neighbor, who published a book last year, looked over your writing and caught some typos; and everyone agreed the draft was pretty much perfect, and you knew it would need few changes. Or maybe no changes at all. And now you’ve opened the edited document, and your heart is racing, and you feel sick. What happened? Whose writing is this? It’s obviously a mistake. So you close the program, and you walk away, and maybe you have a cold beverage. Then you steel yourself, open Word again, and try to choke back (choose one) tears or profanity. Or (why choose?) both. As you slowly pick your way through a sea of colored deletions and additions, comments, and queries, you recognize the original words as yours. And you realize your editor has taken grammar, vocabulary, syntax, and style to a whole new level. You see comments about consistency, concision, repetition, and clarity. You start to understand why editing is a profession unto itself, filled with people who study not just grammar but also style, language usage, etymology, publishing standards, fact-checking, and the craft of writing. It’s Not about Rules Eventually, the paradoxical truth of Ann Handley’s writing rule number 11 begins to make sense: “Editing is not just about fixing the grammar, it’s about fixing the clarity for your reader.” Ensuring flow. Avoiding bumps. Enforcing logic. Would a trained editor change the comma splice and sentence fragments in the previous paragraph? Not without considering voice, audience, and place of publication. Would a strict grammarian understand and respect distinctions in tone and register when making those kinds of editing decisions? Doubtful. Still, in helping you give readers the clarity, concision, and flow they need, editors do tend to repeatedly note three words that act like hiccups on the page. These words are short and ubiquitous; but if you know what to look for, you can handle the blips before they have a chance to unsettle any editor or reader. Unfortunately, they’re also terms that can’t be unseen once they’re seen, which means you’ll now notice them not only in your own writing but in every text you come across, including movie subtitles. I apologize for giving you both a blessing and a curse. Word One: That That is an important word. In general, you can’t construct English sentences without it. It’s also an overused word; and in specific cases, you can frequently construct English sentences without it. I could natter on about relative pronouns, adjective clauses, noun modifiers, subjects, and objects. Instead, let’s look at an example of how easily you can add flow and polish just by deleting the pronoun that:
Which version rolls off the ear more smoothly? Yes, we’re talking about one small word. But as often as writers use that, it adds up. In fact, you might marvel when consciously paying attention to the number of times that appears in a small chunk of any piece of writing. You’ll be even more surprised if you mentally remove superfluous thats and discover how often the prose sounds more concise and reads better without it—while retaining complete clarity. Naturally, if a missing that causes loss of meaning or ambiguity, you can trust your good writing sense to know this is one of those instances where it’s needed—whether or not you know its grammatical function in a sentence. Word Two: Of By this point, you’re getting the idea: unnecessary words don’t convey writing voice. Instead, they communicate amateurish, immature writing. And as David Foster Wallace wrote in ”Twenty-Four Word Notes” for the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus, “an excess of ofs is one of the surest signs of flabby or maladroit writing, and . . . the usage is often wrong.” Where do you need to trim this particular fat?
not all of the track changes
not all of my hard work (but keep of when it falls between all and a nonpossessive pronoun: all of us working together)
not all of that hard work The “of” entry for section 5.250 in The Chicago Manual of Style (17th ed.) further explains, “Avoid using this word needlessly after all, off, inside, and outside. . . . To improve your style, try removing every of phrase that you reasonably can.” (I can’t help but wonder: would this sound better as “every of phrase you reasonably can”?) Not surprisingly, the manual’s next entry after “of” is “off,” and the guideline is emphatic: “never put of after this word {we got off the bus}.” You may have noticed couple is missing from the list of words that shouldn’t be followed by of. Although writers have started using it as an adjective, this change hasn’t yet reached the completely accepted category. At this point, couple is still a noun that needs of:
Pronouns are the culprits in much unclear and inelegant writing. Here, though, deletion may or may not be advised. As I mentioned when previously discussing the pronoun that, words are important when actually needed. And the pronouns I’ve listed above are useful in avoiding the stilted language that would result from an inability to use pronouns as noun substitutes. The problem, and it’s a common one, occurs when writers know exactly what she, they, or it refers to, but readers don’t. If your editor’s comments mention “vague,” “ambiguous,” or “antecedent” in connection with “pronoun,” you can be sure you’re using a pronoun that will make readers stop, back up, reread, and then skim ahead in an effort to understand which which, who, or those you mean. And editors know: readers don’t always continue after a forced pause. To prevent numerous editing corrections, you must be the reader who stops at every pronoun you’ve written. Don’t breeze over a single one just because you already know what noun(s) it’s substituting for. These are the questions I’d ask about each of your pronouns:
Here are examples of confusing pronouns and their easy fixes:
As the writer, you might think it’s obvious we refers to my editor and I. But my editor and I are separated from we by the publisher, so the reader can’t be sure which nouns are the antecedent for we. Was the publisher also part of the decision? The following version is less vague, because it keeps my editor and I as the subject for the verb decided: My editor and I asked the publisher for advice and then decided to use the song title but no lyrics.
What felt good? The editor’s thought? The worthy writing? The numerous suggested changes? Trust me; what seems evident to you can be perceived through a variety of reading lenses. This brief addition prevents readers from needing to read your mind, rather than your words: The editor thought my writing was worth suggesting many changes. That level of care felt good. Polished-Pronoun Bonus Points While you’re looking at your pronouns, here are a couple of other editing issues to consider:
not As writers, we must look at our words and ask whether you’re using language clearly, concisely, and consistently.
not Below, please share your comments about polished writing with my other readers and I. and definitely not Below, please share your comments about polished writing with me and my other readers.
8 Comments
7/31/2019 05:45:23 pm
Hi, Ranee,
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8/1/2019 06:04:13 pm
Thanks for your nice comment, Liz! The simple fact you're looking at "that" and "of" probably means you're cutting down on a lot of the unnecessary instances. I keep a cheat sheet for "of" next to my desk and refer to it often. And "that" isn't a hard-and-fast rule; but the more I work with this one, the better my eye for when it's needed and when it's extra baggage.
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8/3/2019 06:42:11 am
Thank you! The little things tend to get me wound around my own axle. Sequence of tenses is another one. 8/3/2019 05:32:03 pm
Yes, tenses get tricky. Maybe they would make a good topic for a future post! But at least you know enough to realize these things are easy to miss—and make a difference. Such awareness is a strong indication of your own maturity as a writer.
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8/3/2019 07:06:35 pm
Thanks for your kind words, Ranee! I would welcome a post on sequence of tenses. (Did I really just say that?)
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Lisa Dailey
8/11/2019 08:28:59 am
Ranee,
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8/11/2019 04:42:35 pm
Lisa, it's lovely to hear from you! Thanks for taking the time to let me know you've again shared in my learning journey.
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Lisa
8/12/2019 08:42:24 am
Thank you, Ranee! I do still have that book. I sold all of my copyediting references to a budding editor when I started on another path. I'm happy to say I kept this book, and The Copyeditor's Handbook. I will definitely look this up! I still dabble in words. Leave a Reply. |
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