A horror story in a British newspaper
The crown princess of Sweden just got married, and I wish them the best. Her hubby cleaned up real nice, as they say. The event was well reported on in the European press, including England, and therein lies my horror story.
Normally you would expect, if anybody would get their English right, it would be a British newspaper. I quote from one, who shall remain nameless.
“As the ceremony got under way the church bells peeled and Stockholm’s streets thronged with well-wishers.”
AAK! Bells don’t peel! (Scullery maids peel. Strippers peel.) But bells PEAL!
And in a British publication, spread all over the internet.
The horror!
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More extra words (aka fluff)
Here are some examples I gleaned from some recent writing I edited. The unnecessary words are in curly brackets.
“{This letter is to inform you that} it is time for your annual review.” Any time you say that you are going to say something, you probably don’t need to say it. This goes for the too-common phrase “I’d like to…”
“Do it {all over} again.”
“Give directions {on a} daily {basis}.”
“…contains material {of a proprietary nature}.” Should be “…proprietary material.”
“…enter {into} a confined space.”
“{any} employees who…” “{all} persons who…”
Here’s the rule: If removing a word (or phrase) doesn’t change the meaning, remove it.
“The estimator {accurately} determines the cost of jobs.” Would he do it any other way? Determining the cost implies accuracy.
Got any favorites you love to hate? Share.
Extra words—the flip side of leaving words out
Lots of folks put in words they don’t need. I think they like to see that they have written a lot. Be careful not to encumber your reader with unnecessary verbiage.
“This added insulation value raises the overall system value to an impressive R-20.” Take a look at that first instance of “value.” It’s wrong. The insulation itself raises the value of the system. Get rid of that extra “value.” It decreases the value of the writing.
What does “beg the question” mean?
I found this horrible misuse in an article in The New York Times of all places. What is this world coming to? Harrumpf!
The context is a beautiful, detailed photograph of a spiral galaxy.
This gorgeous island universe just begs the question: “are we alone?”
No! No! (For one thing, it’s the picture, not the actual island universe itself; see my last post)
To understand begging the question, you have to review (or learn) a bit of older English:
Beg—to present a statement as the conclusion to a logical argument.
Question—the statement that you want to prove by logical argument.
You can see that these are at the opposite ends of the argument. Begging the question is an error of logic in which you present your assertion as your conclusion. I also hear this fallacy called “circular reasoning.” This error is usually obvious in a simple argument, so it happens most frequently in long, convoluted arguments (unless, perhaps when the person is deceiving himself), so I can’t give you a reasonable example, but this statement from the NYT isn’t begging the question. What the writer means is that the beautiful picture begs us to ask ourselves whether we are alone.
If I find a good example of begging the question, I’ll post it. Maybe you have one to share. I beg of you, share it.
Saying what you mean—the hard part of writing 3
We writers tend to assume our readers can fix our own sloppy writing by supplying the words we leave out. Leaving out critical words can cause us to create some preposterous sentences. These examples aren’t exactly preposterous, but they should make the point.
“Being able to use longer, lighter ducts reduces the hangers you need.” What you mean is “…reduces the number of hangers…” Construction workers use fewer hangers, they don’t use reduced hangers. Whatever reduced hangers are.
“Both organizations begin with ‘M.’ ” Actually, their names begin with “M.”
“The traffic here is as bad as New York City.” Nope. You mean “…as bad as the traffic in NYC.”
Your reader’s brain supplies the missing word after a moment, but only after a little hiccup in the reading process. You don’t want the hiccups. You have to think about your writing to catch these, but it’s worth the effort.
Keep your eyes open for these and send us the next one you find.
