March 29, 2021

7 tips to take on bad writing

There are a million ways to write badly, from corny dialogue to illogical juxtapositions of facts. But at the sentence level, some problems crop up again and again. And a lot of them are easy to fix, or at least improve.

Here are seven tips for fixing some of the most common writing problems I encounter.

1. Make sure the main clause of your sentence contains the information you most want to highlight. Compare these two passages. “After shooting his business partner in the face, John felt tired.” “John shot his business partner in the face. He collapsed, exhausted.” Your main clause is the marquee position in any sentence. Readers automatically know this is the main point. A subordinating conjunction like “after” suggests the stuff that follows is not the main point. So give your best information the billing it deserves by making it your main clause.

2. Break up long sentences. Compare: “I fired him even though I didn’t want to because he gave me no choice.” “I fired him. I didn’t want to. He gave me no choice.” Shorter sentences pack a punch. Longer sentences use connectives like “because,” which create a hierarchy among the ideas, subordinating some information in a way similar to what we saw in our first tip.

Five more, which are explored in full here in my recent column, are:

3. Choose the most specific and tangible nouns and verbs.

4. Delete adverbs that don’t add information.

5. Fix unclear antecedents.

6. Dispense with state-of-mind verbs.

7. Ditch connective words and phrases.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

March 22, 2021

A test to decide whether to delete adverbs and adjectives

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”

“When you catch an adjective, kill it.”

“Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs.”

These three bits of writing advice, from experts Stephen King, Ben Yagoda and the team of Strunk and White, aren’t just their authors’. They’re pervasive in writing and teaching circles.

The idea behind them is that “A totally scary and extremely mean-looking person hurriedly moved toward me” is a poor substitute for “Freddy Krueger lunged at me.”  Some people rely too much on adjectives and adverbs to convince readers of whatever point they’re trying to make. But it’s usually better to give readers solid, efficient, information-packed nouns and verbs and let them draw their own conclusions.

A lot of writing experts take issue with this advice. Just telling students and writers to avoid adjectives and adverbs is stupid, and often hypocritical, these folks say. As an example, linguist Geoffrey Pullum points out the Strunk and White dictate: “The adjective hasn’t been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place,” and Pullum notes that Strunk and White themselves needed three adjectives to say it: weak, inaccurate, and tight.

So what’s a writer to do?

Well, in my editing work, I scrutinize a lot of adjectives and hack out a lot of adverbs. In the process, I’ve noticed something that could help struggling writers: The adjectives and manner adverbs that are worth keeping are often the ones that add new information. The ones that should go are usually the ones that contain value judgments. They tell readers how to feel about something rather than giving them the facts and letting them decide for themselves.

Compare:

a totally awesome and cool car

and

a sleek, high-performance sportscar

“Sleek” and “high-performance” are a lot more substantive than “totally awesome” and "cool." They contain at least some solid information. That’s why the second sentence is much more like one you’d find in a professionally written and edited article.

Some adjectives are even more information-packed: A red Italian sportscar.

Manner adverbs like uniquely, exquisitely, totally, and my personal least-favorite truly often do more harm then good. However, manner adverbs like slowly, quickly, eventually, drily, solemnly, and rarely usually contain information above and beyond what the verbs and nouns can offer. When they do, they're justifying their own existence.

“Dave quickly moved toward the door” tells us more than just “Dave moved toward the door.” But “Frank angrily punched his boss in the back of the head” doesn’t measure up as well against “Frank punched his boss in the back of the head.”

So when you’re wondering whether your adjectives and especially your adverbs measure up, ask yourself whether they contain any solid new information. If the answer’s no, it may be time for them to go.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

March 15, 2021

Login or log in? Water-ski or water ski? Tackling tricky hyphenation issues

Do you ever login to your email? Or do you log in? Either way, do you use your log-in? During the holiday season, do you use gift wrap to gift-wrap gifts? Do you use your pickup to pick up the kids as they hang out at their favorite hangout?

If you find these matters intimidating, don’t. Even people with excellent language and punctuation skills can be stumped when it’s time to decide whether a term should be one word, two words or hyphenated.

Really, how could you guess that a water-skier water skis on water skis? And even if you did suss out that water-skiing takes a hyphen, your sussing skills would betray you if you had to write about skeet shooting, which is not hyphenated.

If you don’t want to stress over these matters, good news: You don’t have to. No one is expected to know them all. Not even copy editors commit all these terms to memory.

But if you would like to approach these hyphenation situations with greater confidence, you need to know where to look them up and how. Here's my recent column on how to tackle even the trickiest hyphenation questions.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

March 8, 2021

'Baited breath' and other commonly confused expressions

We modern English speakers don’t use “bate” as a verb. So it’s logical to assume the term is “baited breath.” But in fact, “bated” derives from the verb “abated,” and “bated breath” gets credited to Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice”: “Or shall I bend low and in a bondsman’s key, with bated breath and whisp’ring humbleness, say this …” So to wait with bated breath means you’re holding your breath, literally or figuratively, in anticipation. “Baited breath” is, as Garner’s Modern American Usage puts it, “a bungle.”

Everyone has their own misheard expressions, like "toe-headed" instead of the proper "towheaded" and "baited breath" instead of the correct "bated breath."

Spit and image/spitting image. Whet your appetite. All intents and purposes. Bald-faced lie. Here's a closer look in my recent column.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

March 1, 2021

Should you put a question mark after 'who knows?'

A while back, Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez spent the night in a tent in front of City Hall to get the pulse of the local incarnation of the Occupy Wall Street protests.

He learned a lot, he said, but the experience still left some questions unanswered: “Will it grow into a cohesive movement? Who knows.”

I don’t know, either. But what I do know is that I stopped reading there. The period after “knows” got my attention. Lopez or his editors could have just as logically opted for a question mark. Yet the period won them over.

“Who knows” is a question, not a statement. So why no question mark?

There are two ways to look at this, both acceptable in professional publishing.

One way, as stated above, is summed up thusly: A question is a question is a question, and it takes a question mark. The other way to look at it is: Lopez wasn’t really asking. Thus, you could argue, it was a rhetorical question.  And since he wasn’t asking anything, the question mark isn’t necessary.

Both interpretations are fine. But, personally, I prefer the former.  A sentence structured as an interrogative – even if it doesn’t seek an answer -- has a different quality than does a declarative. Instead of “who knows,” Lopez could have said “no one knows” or “I doubt anyone knows,” both of which are structured as declaratives. But his choice of “who knows” conveys something different – a mystery, a riddle, a thing to be pondered. In other words, it has a questioning quality. And, after all, structurally it is a question.

Another question that’s often meant as a statement: “Why not?” I often see this written “Why not.” And why not? The writer isn't really seeking an answer, right? Well, I wasn’t seeking an answer to that “right,” either. Yet that clearly requires the question mark.

In fiction, many questions meant as statements end in periods.

Bad guy: “Get in the car.”

Hero: “And if I don’t.”

Bartender: “Here’s your drink, sir.”

Customer: “You call this a martini.”

Neither the Chicago Manual of Style nor the AP Stylebook addresses this matter directly.  But Chicago includes an interesting note about “courtesy questions.” “A request courteously disguised as a question does not require a question mark.” An example: “Will the audience please rise.”

But the wording “does not require a question mark” suggests that the question mark may nonetheless apply.

Me, I’d put a question mark after all those – the hero’s, the customer’s, the request to rise, and even “who knows?”

But you don’t have to do it my way. Whenever you’re certain the question seeks no answer, you can choose for yourself. The question mark suggests that, if the sentence were spoken the speaker's voice would lilt up at some point to intone a question. The period suggest a flatter sound, which can help a fiction writer keep their tough guys from sounding like Valley girls.

Whatever you do, watch out for “Guess what.” This is not a question. It’s a command -- an imperative. And a question mark after “guess what” makes no sense at all.

I can only think of one example of a rhetorical question that I would not end with a question mark. It comes from an old Simpsons episode in which Homer is trying to guess how many roads a man must walk down before you can call him a man. “Seven!” he guesses.

Lisa: “No, Dad. It’s a rhetorical question.”

Homer, thinks about it a moment, then blurts out, “Eight!”

Lisa: “Dad, do you even know what rhetorical means?”

Homer: “Do I know what rhetorical means!”

Click player above to listen to the podcast

February 22, 2021

Cache for cachet, an apostrophe without an S to form a possessive and other issues from the week in editing

A week in the life of a copy editor wouldn’t make for a good movie — a lot of sitting, staring and tapping at the comma key on a computer. But for language nerds and people who’d like to improve their grammar skills, an ultra-condensed week in the life of a copy editor could make for an entertaining way to spend five minutes. So here are a few of the more interesting language issues this copy editor came across last week.

“Living at this address carries a certain cache.” Sentences like this justify my paycheck. As a copy editor, I specialize in knowing about commonly confused words like “cache” and “cachet.” For whatever reason, it seems very few non-editors know that “cache” is pronounced “cash” and if you want the two-syllable word that means prestige, it gets a T on the end.

“Yesterday, Popov’ mother drove her to the store.” Possessives can be hard. Possessives of words that end in S are harder. But possessives of words that end in Ch, X or Z shouldn’t be. And that goes double for words that end in V. There are no special rules for forming possessives of words that in end in one of these letters. Just add an apostrophe and an S: Popov’s mother, just like Smith’s mother or Lurch’s mother or Chavez’s mother.

I also encountered:

Wellbeing

Where Everyday Is the Weekend

Under the auspice of the charitable foundation

Thank you to whomever sent me these beautiful flowers

You can read about how I handled them all in my recent column here.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

February 15, 2021

Why you should choose till over 'til

I don’t see the contraction ’til much anymore. I used to see it a lot, but I suspect that ever-more-advance spell-checkers on our computers, phones and social media platforms have learned to flag or correct ’til.

Don’t see a problem with ’til? Technically, there isn’t one. In general usage, ’til is not an error. But in professionally edited writing and other formal situations, the correct single-syllable alternative to “until” has no apostrophe and takes two Ls: till.

Here’s the widely influential Associated Press Stylebook: “till. Or until. But not ’til.”

And here’s the equally influential Chicago Manual of Style: “till. This is a perfectly good preposition and conjunction (open till 10 p.m.). It is not a contraction of until and should not be written ’til.”

That bit about contractions is key. One might naturally assume that someone is just using a shortened form of “until” when he says “till.” But till doesn’t come from until at all. Here, in my recent column, is the full story.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

February 8, 2021

Why passive voice is great for dishonest writers — and everyone else, too

Does the passive voice lend itself to biased, manipulative writing? A reader named Richard wanted to know after witnessing a discussion about a news article.

“Someone criticized an article on politics, implying it was slanted, saying, ‘It was full of passive-voice statements,’” he said. “I have a rudimentary understanding of the passive voice and I don’t understand what he meant.”

I do, all too well. So I can answer Richard’s question with an emphatic “yes.” Passive voice is a fantastic tool for sneaks and manipulators to slither around the truth. More often, though, it allows bad writers to write badly. And just as often, it’s used by good writers to write well.

To spot the difference, you have to know what passive voice is. Let’s start with a quiz. Is this sentence in the passive or active voice? “Bob had been planning on doing some serious thinking about becoming more accepting and being more forgiving.” Here's the answer.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

February 1, 2021

Harsh writing advice

"Harsh writing advice" was trending on Twitter the other day, with users offering their thoughts on the craft — everything from the tried-and-true "just write, dammit" mantra to tips on how to create characters. My contributions, naturally, had to do with grammar. And they were based on years of experience reading and fixing bad writing.

• Tangible subjects, action-oriented verbs whenever possible. Enough of this "Those who are known to frequent restaurants are considered risk-takers" bullshit. "Diners take risks."
• Any adverb that does not add new information makes your sentence weaker, not stronger. He was violently gunned down in the street —> He was gunned down in the street.
• Stop with the damn danglers, already.

The bottom line: If your ideas are great and your characters are great and your insights are great and your action is great and your information is great but you can't communicate them well, you're not writing well. Scrutinize each sentence to make sure it's as clear and efficient as possible.

Click player above to listen to the podcast

January 25, 2021

There's a lot of students or there are a lot of students?

What do you think of the sentence “There’s multiple opportunities for youngsters”? How about “There’s many people who wish to travel”? How about “There’s a lot of students who wish to travel”?

If you’re like most English speakers, you’re fine with it. Chances are, you use these forms yourself. Nothing wrong with that. But if you’re like me or reader Elaine in Long Beach, you’re not a fan. And there’s nothing wrong with that, either.

Don’t see the issue? Compare the above sentences to these slightly modified versions: “There are multiple opportunities for youngsters.” “There are many people who wish to travel.” “There are a lot of students who wish to travel.”

In our first examples, the singular verb “is” pairs with a plural subject — “opportunities,” “people” or “students” — creating a subject-verb agreement error.

Most subject-verb agreement problems are easy to avoid. You’d never say “Opportunities is plentiful” or “Many people is wishing to travel.” But start a sentence with “there’s” and agreement gets more complicated. Here's what you need to know.

Click player above to listen to the podcast