Several rough spots jumped out at me when I read Friday’s newspaper. What would you have caught as copy editor?
1. From an entertainment column: The other reason I’m fond of the jacket is because KSU was one of the places in the late 1960s and early ’70s that symbolized the anti-war movement.
If you read last week’s post, you probably caught the redundancy in “reason … because.” Also, you might have found it odd that “1960s” and “’70s” don’t match. Shouldn’t each decade be expressed the same way? So, with editing, we might end up with this: I’m also fond of the jacket because KSU was one of the places in the late ’60s and early ’70s that symbolized the anti-war movement.
2. From a movie review: Based solely on the genre and my past experience, I really should have hated “Green Room.”
Another common redundancy is “past experience.” (Haven’t you found that most of your experience occurred in the past?) In addition, “solely” works better when introducing one factor, not two. Let’s delete “solely” and “experience,” leaving us with this: Based on the genre and my past, I really should have hated “Green Room.”
3. From a different movie review: All the people in this movie are beautiful, wealthy and have gorgeous homes.
We’ve tackled this kind of clumsy construction before. The writer says three things about the characters in the movie, but the first and third are set up by verbs, and the middle one seems to be sharing the verb “are.” We can fix this lack of parallelism by giving the middle element a verb or establishing a single verb for all three:
All the people in this movie are beautiful, enjoy wealth and have gorgeous homes. OR All the people in this movie possess beauty, wealth and gorgeous homes.
Extra credit
From a sports article: The Cavaliers made themselves very difficult to guard in their four-game sweep of the Pistons, including Kevin Love taking (and making) wide-open 3s, often off of passes from LeBron James.
By now you know I get annoyed by the common error of needlessly using “of” after other prepositions, such as “off.” That’s one glitch, but it may be harder to spot that the word “including” doesn’t really work as the link between the two sections of the sentence. See what I mean? And, while we’re putting the sentence under the microscope, we might question if “very difficult” is so different from just “difficult.” See if this is better:
The Cavaliers made themselves difficult to guard in their four-game sweep of the Pistons – especially when Kevin Love was taking (and making) wide-open 3s, often off passes from LeBron James.
In addition to presenting workshops on writing in the workplace, Norm is a writer, editor, and writing coach. His 100+ Instant Writing Tips is a brief “non-textbook” to help individuals overcome common writing errors and write with more finesse and impact. Learn more at http://www.normfriedman.com/index.shtml.