Watch your Modifiers

Sometimes you can make your writing clearer by adding one or more modifiers. But be sure your added detail is necessary and meaningful. Saying you have a red car distinguishes it meaningfully from different cars (for example, of other colors) but often the word “different” by itself doesn’t carry a lot of content. The world being what it is, if you have another of something, it’s almost always a different one, so you’re not adding a lot of content to say “different.” I mentioned this in the past, so go there.

You have probably heard the tongue-in-cheek comment that someone is “a little bit pregnant.” Pregnancy is one of those things that either is or isn’t; you don’t have much choice of degree.

I just ran into another example of a not-very-meaningful modifier (emphasis mine):

It wasn’t however until Nov 1985 after a workshop that the first media report (in the NY Times) showed the NASA results (publishing another Oct 1983 map for a slightly different day).

They’re not talking about the weather, so I’m not sure that “slightly” means much. I mean, either its the same day or it’s a different day, right? Like being pregnant. Maybe they could be more explicit, saying something like “another day in the same week.”

Anyway, here’s the warning: Pay attention to your writing. And a tip: if you at all can, reread your work the next day. You’ll be able to give it a fresh look.

PS—Since I thought of it, I’ll add that Greek has an interesting way of handling “different.” They have two words, heteros, which means “another of a different kind.” Apples are heteros from horses, if you will. The other is allos, which means “another of the same kind.” My car is allos from your car.

Okay, back to work.