![]() ![]() I would add “-ity,” to Pinker’s list of nominalizing suffixes and note that you can nominalize adjectives as well as nouns. A process called nominalization takes a perfectly spry verb and embalms it into a lifeless noun by adding a suffix like -ance, -ment, or -ation.” Harvard professor and linguist Steven Pinker explains in a 2014 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education titled “ Why Academics Stink at Writing - and How to Fix It: “English grammar is an enabler of the bad habit of writing in unnecessary abstractions because it includes a dangerous tool for creating abstract terms. Most editors I know are not familiar with this term, but they don’t need to be. Aim to be as succinct as possible while telling readers what they need to know.”Īlso, “regularity” is a nominalization. Here’s a line from that company’s own editing guide: “Always edit for tight writing. As puts it, “Great writing is conversational.” Know who shares this belief? The very organization that employs that editor. Feature articles are supposed to meet the reader on her own turf. Why? Because, as puts it, “unnecessary words waste your audience’s time.” The prepositional phrase “with regularity” contains more words and syllables than you need: “a lot,” “often” or “regularly” would be more efficient.Īnother problem with “with regularity”: People don’t talk that way. Every word that can be cut, should be cut. “If some grammar books say you can’t do something and others say you can, it means you can,” writes June Casagrande, but she disagrees with Merriam-Webster’s on one rule in particular.įor starters, skilled editors know that, in publishing, conciseness is a virtue. Opinion A Word, Please: Does a trio include? Not if a writer follows the rule So what’s so bad about “with regularity”? A number of things. “With regularity” may be the worst assault against my prose yet. And in that role, I am, from time to time, the victim of editorial malpractice. ![]() And it produces a lot of useful examples for anyone who wants to write better or just understand good writing.īut sometimes I wear the other hat, the writer’s hat. In that role, I have a bird’s-eye view of many common writing problems and how to spot and fix them. In this column, I usually share experiences from my work as an editor. I know this because I’m the chagrined writer. ![]() If you had this reaction, congratulations: You have a better sense of language and communication than the real-life editor who changed “a lot” to “with regularity” - much to the writer’s chagrin. It’s vaguely reminiscent of a laxative commercial. I suspect your inner editor cringed at “with regularity.” It’s stuffy. See if you can tell which phrasing for a light feature article was penned by the writer and which is the edited version. Here’s a before-and-after, but not necessarily in that order, from the world of editing. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |