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   

Introduction

Hooray! Chicago’s 17^th is on self-respecting booksellers’ shelves. The 17^th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, that is. So far, no great shocks. Because computerized communication and research has increasingly become the norm, it was to be expected that some more instruction would emerge on acceptable online usage and formats. We now have formal guidelines for in-text as well as bibliographical references to social media quotations and such. And we may officially lowercase internet and drop the hyphen in email! The latter has gone from the preferred spellings of E-mail to e-mail to email in the past few editions of Chicago, which effectively demonstrates the progression of many, many compounds over time. Words that start out hyphenated rarely remain hyphenated, but a few do. For now.  

Next time, more about the changes and/or additions in the bible of the publishing industry.

 Questions

Sentence fragments are phrases, incomplete sentences. What they lack is a conjugated verb, and they are easily identified when you try to change the tense and find that cannot be done:

I am breaking the speed limit? Not on your life.
I was breaking the speed limit? Not on your life.

Note that the first part is a (rhetorical) question, a sentence complete with a verb that can be put in any tense (am, was). The second part, however, does not change in these examples, because it has no verb that can change tense. That makes it a sentence fragment.

Sentence fragments were frowned upon—no, spat upon—in the now fairly distant past by grammarians and stylists, but as in many usage issues, the “rules”(which should never have been absolute), have been relaxed in favor of effectiveness and style.

In technical and formal writing, fragments are generally best avoided, although exceptions may be allowed. Their usefulness, though, lies mostly in enhancing creative writing—fiction, humor, informal articles and so forth. They create atmosphere, suspense, rhythm, variety of sentence structure, style—qualities not often associated with scientific and formal documents.

Sentence fragments in technical or scientific contexts are often awkward and unnecessary:
Semantics represent what value we give to the literal definitions of words. Or sentences.

Better: Semantics represent what value we give to the literal definitions of words or sentences.

Sentence fragments in fiction or other nontechnical or less formal context may be effective:

Did Trisha really live all by herself in this dilapidated neighborhood with its endless rows of run-down apartment buildings and piled-up garbage? Was this why she never went anywhere after dark? Of course. Was anyone watching from those dark entryways? I shivered as I stared at the street sign one more time. This was it all right. Dingy, dreary. Maybe even dangerous.

 Grammar Gripes and Style Stumblers

Much too common is our confusion about who and whom, and although much of it is bound to disappear before long—the word whom is rapidly falling out of favor—some uses will most likely survive, and it behooves us to get them right. The problem often pops up in dependent clauses:

Wrong: I received a letter from a nephew whom I never knew existed.

Right:   I got a letter from a nephew whom I didn’t know.

             I got a letter from a nephew who I never knew existed.

Wrong: Give the package to whomever opens the door.

Right:   Give the package to whomever you want.

             Give the package to whoever opens the door.

 Terrible Twos

In American English, we still use got and gotten. The best way to figure out if you’ve chosen the right one is to remember that got indicates possession, and can be replaced by has, or have. Gotten may be used everywhere else, and can be replaced by acquired, obtained.

I haven’t got a penny. (I am poor.)
He’s got a great throwing arm. (He has a good arm.)
We’ve got the idea. (We have it, we understand.)
We’d gotten the idea from Jack. (We just caught on to that notion through Jack.)
I’ve got a car. (I have a car.)
I’ve gotten a car. (Just bought one.)

 Media Turkeys

A TV interview produced a triple whammy when the interviewee stated that “both of these share two things in common.” The words both, share, and in common all convey the concept of sharing, which implies two or more doing the sharing. Better use they have in common, or they share, and even something like both have (list qualities). In other words, pick one, and leave the two others home.

Potholes

They had to decide to hold the meeting the next day or not.

Did they have to decide or not decide, or was this about holding or not holding a meeting?

 Everybody Does It

It always amazes me how often we do battle with prepositions. Time and again we hear that people forbid someone from doing something. You prevent someone from doing something, and you forbid them to do it.

Gaining in popularity is the odd This is based off the assumption . . . , and its even more ludicrous cousin, This is based off of the assumption . . . Things are based on other things. Of course, off is an otherwise perfectly good word in itself, but off of borders on illiteracy.

And then there is one of my pet peeves: overexaggerate. To exaggerate is to overstate, and adding another over does not help comprehension. Attempts to reinforce an already strong word have the opposite effect: they water down the meaning of the word that is being qualified and suggest that it needs propping up (total annihilation, extremely unique, very intimidating). Let the full impact of a strong word be felt by not implying that it does not really mean what it says. Annihilation is already complete, unique is one of a kind, and very intimidating suggests that something can also be just a tiny bit intimidating (which doesn’t seem intimidating at all). Sometimes, more is less.