Introduction

What I Do 

1. Mechanical editing, which covers grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization and so forth 

2. Substantive editing, which addresses content, organization, effectiveness, style, unity, appropriateness to audience, and the like 

3. Developmental editing, which guides the author through the planning and writing of a manuscript 

4. Seminars on grammar, composition, technical writing, business writing, and fiction 

I accept fiction, nonfiction, articles, and technical, academic, and commercial documents. 

What I Don't Do 

1. Documents on a level of technicality that requires an editor from the field 

2. Manuscripts I consider hateful, libelous, or pornographic  

Merry Christmas! Happy 2017! 

In a year of unusually plentiful opportunity to travel, I spent an inordinate amount of time at airports, and although people-watching can be fun, people-hearing is a mixed blessing. At LAX, for instance, I was a painfully silent witness to an altercation between a few people who found it entertaining to proclaim the intimate details of a failed relationship at top volume, and one of the parties could think of no better response than “Whatever,” repeated twenty-seven times. I counted. It was as though she wanted to advertise the fact that this constituted the width and breadth of her vocabulary and reasoning capacity. 

Endless repetition of a meaningless comeback stifles communication with friend or foe, be it through whatevers or more eloquent nonsense. It is intended to shut them up—not to have a conversation. Language gives us all kinds of choices. 

Isn’t it a beautiful thing?

 Questions

The old saw about prepositions at the end of a sentence keeps right on cutting up lines and gluing them back together in the oddest configurations. At one time—long, long ago—grammarians concocted a rule: no prepositions at the end of a sentence. It was carved in stone. 

But even stone crumbles in the end. All kinds of people—grammarians, style experts, orators, teachers—rebelled against the rigidity of rules based on ancient Latin, which made little sense in modern English. Winston Churchill is said to have proclaimed that this was “a rule up with which I will not put.” E. B. White tells the (apocryphal) story of a young father who went to get a book to read to his son at bedtime, and was greeted with, “Why did you bring that book I don’t want to be read to out of up for?” 

The point is, break the rule if you must. Go ahead and split infinitives and end sentences with a preposition —if you have a good reason. If your sentence gets twisted and unmanageable, or even inaccurate, and it requires a contortionist to place that preposition somewhere else, you have a good reason. But don’t do it gratuitously. Don’t do it because you are too lazy to write a better sentence. In some cases, a preposition at the end of a sentence is by far preferable to any alternative. Consider: 

What are they up to?

This is a man I can rely on.

What is he aiming at?

Nobody knows what this is about.          

I wonder what this tool is for?

You will have me to deal with. 

Even if it is possible to rephrase sentences such as these without a preposition at the end, the result would be forced, unnatural, and at times preposterous. On the other hand, the end of the sentence is a position of impact. A sentence that peters out with an unnecessary preposition can be awkward and ineffective, so be sure there is no better way to phrase your thought. 

 Grammar Gripes and Style Stumblers

Grammatical agreement comes in several forms. For today, let’s talk about verbs and subjects. We often see sentences like ”What I see are kids, lots of kids.” 

The verb, in this case are, should agree with the subject (What I see), and therefore, the sentence should read: “What I see is kids, lots of kids.” 

The subjects in the following examples are all singular, and the verbs accompanying them are singular also:

 So figure out what your subject is, and you will know what verb form to use. 

If finding the subject gives you trouble, take a sentence like “Joe reads a book.”

Find the verb (reads).

Ask, Who reads? Answer: Joe. Joe is the subject.

Ask, Joe reads what? Answer: a book. A book is the direct object.

 Terrible Twos

Oral and verbal are often mixed up. Oral refers to the spoken word; verbal refers to either the spoken or the written word.

                Oral exams are administered by a state licensing committee.

                Verbal communication is more comprehensive than sign language.

 Media Turkeys

Advertisements and commercials are full of assurances of knowledgeable and well-trained experts. It’s another case of overkill. An expert had better be knowledgeable as well as trained, or he/she is no expert. 

“She received a broken leg,” according to a news article about an accident. Makes you wonder why she didn’t return it to sender. Her leg was broken, she sustained a broken leg, or she broke her leg, would make a little more sense.

Potholes

Heard on the stump:

Nobody has ever denied that we couldn’t avoid the inevitability of war. 

Sound like a ballot proposition? One of those sneaky questions where you add up the negatives to see if you are voting for or against something (and what the something is)? Even numbers: a positive outcome; uneven numbers: thumbs down.

 So, simplifying, this depressing statement says that everyone agrees that war is coming.

 Everybody Does It

A commercial about “final expenses” proclaims that the cost (of the casket) is the most expensive. Costs are high or low, reasonable or extravagant. You do not buy cost, you buy merchandise, which is then considered either expensive or inexpensive. Maybe downright cheap. This is a common goof, similar to cold and warm temperatures (they are also high or low), and young and old age. Old age, by the way, has been misused for so long that it has by now reached idiom stage, which excuses it from all reasonable grammatical expectations. But at a young age is still better rendered as at an early age. 

Another frequent flyer is “The reason is because.” Because means for the reason that. The reason is never because—the reason is that: 

                The game was canceled. This was because rains had washed out access roads.

                The game was canceled. The reason was that heavy rain had washed out access roads. 

The easiest way to remember this is to just memorize “The reason is that.”