Hidden Redundancies

When we’re writing, we’re in creative mode. There are some things we just aren’t aware of, which is why we have beta readers, a professional proofreader, or a copy editor review our material when we‘re finished. One thing you want to look for in our writing is redundant terms. Here are some examples:

10 AM in the morning: 10 AM says it all, folks, unless there is a parallel universe where we have 10 AM in the evening. I’ve yet to go there.

The reason why: The reason is good enough. You don’t need the word why.

The end result: The result is sufficient. No need for “and” or “final.” As opposed to what? The semifinal result? The final, final, final result? Something that occurred after the end result? No, you are good with, “The result was great.”

My past experience: All experience has taken place in the past. I don’t even like the term “lived experience,” although I recognize it has ideological connotations and is frequently used for emphasis. But if you’re writing generally, without emphasis, you can simply say, “my experience.”

Close proximity: Merriam-Webster dictionary defines proximity as closeness. So, you are saying the same thing twice. You could easily say, “He lived in proximity to the grocery store.” Most people clarify with close, but it’s really unnecessary.

 

 

It Was a Little Bit Heartbreaking

 I always cringe when I see a sentence like that: “I was slightly devastated. It was sort of horrible. It was a little bit heartbreaking.” No, no, no.

As writers, one of our main goals is to be clear. Those are confusing sentences. Let’s take the subject title about heartbreaking. If something is truly heartbreaking, you feel emotionally ruined. Usually, we are talking about a death or a serious loss when we talk about something heartbreaking. But by putting the phrase “a little bit” in front of heartbreaking, we diminish it completely. The reader has no idea what you are saying. If you were a little bit heartbroken, does that mean that you were simply sad for a couple of hours? Or were you indeed devastated? If that was the case, just say devastated. You don’t need a phrase before it that will diminish its meaning.

Likewise, if you only felt a bit sad, there’s no reason to use a strong term like devastating, heartbreaking, or horrible. Just say sad. “I felt sad. I felt upset.” You can say, “I felt a bit upset,” but once again, be careful using diminutives. Be clear. The solution to this confusion is to write those sentences in one of two ways, depending on what you’re trying to say:

“I was devastated” or “I was sad.” It’s an easy fix.

This also happens with terms like sort out and kind of. They seem to be very popular now on public radio, NPR, or even in progressive circles. It’s the same thing if you say, “I was kind of a wreck.” No, either you were a wreck, or you were slightly off balance. Choose one, and make sure that your writing clearly expresses the emotion that you want to convey.

I Had Got

 

I know you’re going to read that title and say, no way. That can’t be

correct, BUT it is perfectly correct grammatically if you’re British. 

In North America, we say, “ I got” or “I had gotten,” but in the UK, they may

say, “I had got,” and it’s perfectly right. No need to change it.

What else do the British do differently in terms of grammar or expressions?

One, they used a plural verb for a collective noun, e.g., “the team are hungry,” whereas in North America we prefer “the team is hungry.”

Two, they spell Mr. and Mrs. and Dr. without the periods, e.g., Mr, Mrs, Dr are all correctly spelled in British English.

Three, they often use the present perfect tense with the auxiliary verb to have. An example of this would be "I have just returned from the store," whereas your average North American will say, “I just returned from the store.”

Four, they might use prepositions differently. A North American could say “on the weekend,” but the Brit might say “at the weekend.”

Five, they will use a term like “I was wanting” instead of “I wanted.” I see this a lot in literature from India as well because I love reading Indian fiction.

So if you see these constructions, they’re not wrong if the author is British.

Tips for Canadian Writers

I was born to Canadian parents and retained Canadian citizenship even though I grew up in New Jersey (New Joisey!) and lived there for 30 years. My parents took us back and forth to Canada at least once a year, and both my brother and I attended graduate school there.

I always knew that there was a distinction between US spelling, Canadian spelling, and the spelling used in the UK and Australia. What I didn't realize until I became an editor was how Americans generally write using US spelling. They are highly unlikely to spell something the way the British do or the Canadians. But the opposite is true for the typical Canadian writer, regardless of how clever or well-written he or she is. That person is most likely to mix Canadian and US spelling together in their manuscripts, short stories, or poetry.

If you are Canadian, be aware of this. Before we delve into common mistakes Canadian writers make, let’s begin by outlining the complex differences between these regional spelling variations.

American spelling: honor, favor, neighbor, center, theater, meter, practice, fantasize, license, defense, analyze, agonize, capitalize, counselor, gray, tire, program, inquire, advisor, cozy 

Canadian spelling:  honour, favour, neighbour, centre, metre, theatre, practise (as a verb), practice (as a noun), licence, defence, analyze, agonize, capitalize, counsellor (notice the two LL’s), grey, tire (i.e., for the car), program, inquire and enquire are acceptable, adviser, cozy (cosy is acceptable but cozy is preferred)

British spelling: honour, favour, neighbour, centre, metre, theatre, practise (as a verb), practice (as a noun). You will note that it is almost identical to Canadian, except for words like “fantasize,” which the British will spell with “ise.” That is, analyse, fantasise, agonise, capitalise, counsellor, AND programme (for a TV show), program (for computer-related stuff), grey, tyre, adviser, cosy

Australian spelling: honour, favour, neighbour, centre, metre, theatre, like Canadians and the British. However, practice (as a verb and a noun), license (the noun), licence (the verb ), defense, fantasize, agonize, capitalize, program, and inquire like the Americans. More like British: counsellor, grey, tyre, adviser, cosy

Now, here's the deal with Canadian writers. They are pretty likely to have a mixture of all three spellings. Usually, they will remember to put the U in neighbor or honor, but they are pretty likely to forget that there are two ways to spell practice, and they often use the British form for fantasise instead of fantasize, which is correct for Canadian English.

Americans will never spell honor with a U. It wouldn’t occur to them. Canadians read a great deal of text in US English. They see the words they learned in school spelled differently in books or online, and this can make them forget traditional Canadian spelling. So, if this is you, notice which words tend to be a problem for you, and when you are finished writing your essay, short story, or manuscript, do a keyword search to see if any US or British terms pop up by accident. Set your spell check to Canadian English as the default, but double-check it. Don’t forget that if the word is a proper noun like the Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, even if you’re using British, Canadian, or Australian spelling, you must spell that proper noun the way the Americans do with the “ER.”

There is a fantastic software program called PerfectIt, which checks for inconsistencies in documents as large as 150,000 words. I use it routinely, but you can also do this manually just fine.

How Great Is Grammarly?

Grammarly has always been one of my favorite programs. I believe I've been a subscriber for at least ten years, maybe more. For those who are unfamiliar, I would like to begin by stating that I have no affiliation with the company. I don't work for them, and I don't receive any compensation for promoting their program. Believe me, that would be nice, but it's not the case. Second, Grammarly is a type of software program. It is not AI, but rather a system similar to the grammar and spell check in Word, albeit infinitely more sophisticated.

I'm an editor, and I would never deliver a project without running it through Grammarly at least once, and sometimes twice, depending on its length. I have many people who write projects exceeding 100,000 words, so I'll use Grammarly once, carefully. It will point out all kinds of typos, missing words, grammatically incorrect structures, and errors in punctuation, and it will stylize your text according to the Chicago Manual of Style if you so choose. I edit a lot of fiction, and since Chicago is the gold standard for fiction, I usually accept most, if not all, of Grammarly's suggestions for punctuation.

It will also tell you if you are using straight quotes in some parts of your manuscript and curly quotes in others, and with one click, you can make them all conform. It will let you know if you have two spaces in front of 250 sentences and one space in front of 700 sentences. It will establish conformity with your numbers, i.e., did you spell out numbers as words from 1 to 100, but then you inserted digits such as 27, 72, and 84? Grammarly can also find missing words; it's very good at finding missing prepositions. Then, just click, click, click, and Grammarly fixes everything for you. It's truly amazing.

You can use the simplified version of the program to check for correctness, or you can expand it to look for clarity, engagement, formality,  delivery, and style guide recommendations. It's up to you.

Don't get me wrong. Grammarly can make incorrect suggestions. It's not perfect all the time, but if you are new to writing and want to catch ten times more spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors than you would with Word, I would give Grammarly a try. They have a free trial, but it's worth subscribing to the annual program. You can also reject their recommendations and tell them to stop looking for something if you want to format it or spell it differently. Again, I don't work for the company! I could never survive without this tool.

 

We Had Went

I think most of my regular subscribers know that I am hooked on the TV show “Judge Judy.” I am always astonished by how many family members sue each other, how many pit bulls end up hurting smaller dogs at dog parks, and how some people take each other to court and go hundreds of miles away to be on TV to sue for $280. But I think what surprises me the most is the language. So many people cannot conjugate sentences. I don’t know who their English teachers were. How many teachers must have had the students year after year and just passed them when they couldn’t possibly have been passing their quizzes, tests, or essays?

Here’s my latest pet peeve: had went. No, no, no, this is never going to work as any kind of a construction anywhere. If you want to use the past tense of go, with a helping verb like have, the proper way to say that you went someplace is to say, “I had gone. We had gone. She had gone. Mario had gone.” Now if you want to use the word went, that’s just fine. Then you don’t use an auxiliary term like have. You just go directly to went. “I went, he went, she went, they went.” Simple! The Macdonalds went to the Bahamas and had a fabulous time. Why not? The only way to ruin the sentence would be "The Macdonalds had went to the Bahamas."  Wrong, wrong, wrong. It’s very easy to remember, though, if you think that went stands on its own, and every time you want to use the word had, you want to use gone instead of went.

You can always make a cheat sheet for yourself if you find it hard to memorize these. Put into like this in your phone. I do that all the time with a wide variety of things. Just add a contact and you can call it “The past Tense of Go.” Or if you want to remember this writing tip, call it “I Had Went!”

Her and I Were Talking

 As I mentioned in my last post, I am hooked on two reality dating shows, and frequently, the participants confuse pronouns. “Her and I were talking” is not correct. What you want to say is, “She and I were talking.” Why? What’s the difference?

Her can indicate possession, e.g., “her attitude, her accent, her suitcase.” It can also be used as a direct object. “Jackson was talking to her.” We would never think to say, “Jackson was talking to she.” It’s rare to see that kind of error, but it’s common to see “Her and I were at the movies. Him and I are good friends.” No, no, no. “HE and I are good friends.”

The rule for this is that the words he or she are used when the person is the subject of the sentence, and him or her are used when they are the object. If you want an easy way to get around this, you can simply substitute the person’s name, and instead of saying, “Her and I were talking,” you can say, “Maria Angelica and I were talking” or “We were talking.” Never hurts to have a cheat card in your back pocket!