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The love of money is not only the root of all evil; it is also the root of ghastly copy.

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WASTED WORDS: Squandering Words on Money

Wednesday October 9, 2013

The love of money is not only the root of all evil; it is also the root of ghastly copy. I find it particularly ironic that word economy has only a fleeting acquaintance with commerce. Consider the grating and ubiquitous tautology, expensive price, as in, “The house with a river view comes at a more […]

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editing redundancies redundancy tautologies tautology Wasted Words wordiness

bowl of sugar

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Victoria Neufeldt

Shy Words

Tuesday December 17, 2013

When I took on the commitment, a year ago, of contributing blog postings about language, I began bravely by tossing out a little ditty that came into my mind, inspired by Dr. Seuss: “New words, old words, shy words, bold words.” Well, I’ve talked about old words and new words, but shy words? What was […]

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etymology language lexicon shy words vocabulary

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editor_definition

dictionary definition of an editor

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fedora

The Editor’s Fedora

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pen_dictionary

As an editor Karen Virag never seemed to flinch when she spotted a gaffe. Why should she? She had the smarts to identify the problem and the skill to correct it. She also recognized that without bad writing she wouldn’t have a job.

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watch_schedule

If you’re just starting out as a freelancer, whether you’re a writer or an editor, keep in mind that the only way to survive is to be brutally efficient .

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An open dictionary shows the letter A on the left page and the letter B on the right page.

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Wasted Words: Careless Pirates

Tuesday May 27, 2014

To create a great language simply plunder other tongues of their attractive words, assimilate them and profess longstanding ownership. English proves this. Oxford has half a million distinct words. Add technical and slang and you’ve topped one million, says the Global Language Monitor. Most are swag. Unfortunately, piracy can be thoughtless. We are all accomplices, […]

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language tautology usage Wasted Words word choice

journey towards the sun

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An Editor in a Three-Day Writer’s Boot Camp, Part 3

Tuesday September 16, 2014

Later that afternoon, I arrived home and plunked myself down in front of a blank screen. It felt like I’d joined the ranks of such writers as Hemingway and Faulkner, Ludlum and Michener, and many others who’d lost manuscripts and had to start over from scratch. Of course, in this day and age, you don’t […]

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authors critique editing feedback manuscript review workshops writing

Golden trophy

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Wasted Words: A Compulsion to Exaggerate

Tuesday February 24, 2015

Frank McKenna, a San Diego photographer, complains that all photos displayed on the web are described as stunning. “What’s going on here?” he asks. “When did every picture become stunning?” McKenna sees this as word inflation. I agree to a point. Certainly it’s almost insulting nowadays to simply say something is delightful or charming; we […]

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adjectives language superlatives usage Wasted Words word choice writing

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The Editor’s Companion

The Editor’s Companion

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