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2107363 (burning house)

Veteran editor Wilf Popoff writes the second column in his series for The Editors’ Weekly on “Wasted Words,” in which he explains his “hit list”: which words he would remove from the English language and why. The house engulfed in flames is an example of the redundancy, “completely demolished” (Wilf would ban “completely”).

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Colour portrait of Dr. Edwin Battistella, dressed in a shirt and sports jacket with arms open, likely delivering a lecture.

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GETTABLE GRAMMAR: Learning to like “like”

Tuesday April 9, 2013

One often hears complaints about how some people litter their sentences with the word like—not as a noun, verb, preposition or conjunction, but as, like, an interjection. Like that. Now I know that Canadians like to blame Americans for all the world’s ills, but we can’t really lay this verbal tic at the feet of […]

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editing editor Edwin Batistella Gettable Grammar grammar Grammar Gals R.W. Burchfield usage

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Larousse

The Larousse Dictionary is the standard for French language and a staple for any French editor.

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WASTED WORDS: A World Without Problems

Tuesday June 11, 2013

“Houston we have a challenge!” “This is Houston Apollo. What do you mean by challenge?” “A power drop in one of the two main electrical circuits.” “That’s a problem Apollo. Can’t copy challenge.” I’ve altered parts of this celebrated exchange from 43 years ago to support my case. At the time challenge was a word […]

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copy editing editing problem useage word choice

A business man sits at a desk, among other business men, talking into a mic with a sheet of paper in front of him.

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WASTED WORDS: Stalking Verbosity

Tuesday July 30, 2013

Verbosity is the technical term for Wasted Words and it reflects the ongoing motif of this blog series. Verbosity noun the fact or quality of using more words than needed; wordiness. (Oxford Online Dictionary) Not much here to make a writer proud. I admit to being verbosity-obsessed: while writing I’m terrorized by the possibility I’ll […]

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editing grammar redundancies redundancy usage verbosity

When does consistency trump everything else in writing? Or does it ever? Virginia Durksen’s new mini-series explores the myth of consistency in writing. EAC Blog, Sept 5, 2013.

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Virginia Durksen

Myth: Consistency matters consistently

Tuesday September 10, 2013

And so begins a mini-series, a sub-set of The Inner Editor by Virginia Durksen. Each “mythbuster” explores an assumption commonly made about editors or editing and offers a new perspective on that assumption. Consistency matters when you’re adding a column of numbers. Consistency also matters when you’re training your dog (or your kids, for that […]

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consistency editing editor editorial

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dezuniga_Sherlock_Holmes

Literally is not the only word in this crazy language of ours that has opposing definitions. But it’s the topic of this blog post, “English Can Be So Two-faced,” by Karen Virag. The Editors’ Weekly, EAC, Sept. 17, 2013.

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shy_words_sugar

Who ever thinks about the word sugar? Yet this little word has an interestingly convoluted history, reflecting centuries of trade and commerce. It can be traced back to the ancient language of India called Sanskrit.

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man_and_Labrador

English is normally a subject-verb-object kind of language, but there are some interesting exceptions: Poodles, we walk them. Labradors, they walk us.

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chameleon

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Invisible Writing

Tuesday May 6, 2014

Thirty years ago, in his film Zelig, Woody Allen portrayed a “human chameleon” — a man who took on the personalities of people around him. A ghostwriter must be something like that: a “chameleon” who can write in the voice of any client. As a ghostwriter, you must convey your client’s message to the public. […]

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authors ghostwriting language word choice writing