Newsletter and Grammar Coach
APRIL 2024 | Vol. 28, No. 4
Monthly information digest for EditPros clients and friends
EditPros LLC is commemorating 30 years in business.
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CONTENTS
FEATURE: Learn to discern these often useless words to weed from your writing
GRAMMAR COACH: Fielding our readers’ questions
REFERRAL REWARD: Recommend a friend — and earn up to $500
 
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the adjective “single” isPeople who cultivate vegetable or flower gardens learn to recognize weeds that need to be removed.
Likewise, editors become skilled in identifying and deleting “weed words” that can unintentionally clutter written passages.
We think of superfluous terms and phrases as “weed words.” They contribute no useful information to a statement. Even though they’re unnecessary and distracting, they frequently evade detection.
Think of how many times you have heard, for example, an automated telephone message announcing “we currently are experiencing high caller volume resulting in unusually long wait times.” As if incessant repetition of the message weren’t sufficiently annoying, the word “currently” adds to the irritation when you realize that it’s superfluous, because the present participle “are experiencing” indicates current activity. “We are experiencing high caller volume” conveys that the delay is occurring now.
Use of the adverb “now” often is similarly unwarranted. A news reporter announced that “the four cross-country skiers who disappeared last Thursday have now been found safe.” Broadcast journalists are fond of the word “now” because they believe it lends a sense of immediacy, but its use in that statement is cosmetic; it serves no functional role. Deleting it results in a leaner sentence with no change in meaning: “the four cross-country skiers who disappeared last Thursday have been found safe.”
A biographical account intoned, “Originally born in Detroit, Michigan, Tom Selleck moved to a suburb of Los Angeles when he was a child.” Other than in the figurative spiritual sense, a person is born only once. Writing that Tom Selleck originally lived in Detroit before relocating is fine, but the fact that he was born in Detroit requires no further qualification — no “originally” adverbial enhancement is needed.
Superfluous wording often results from people being unaware of when to stop talking or typing.
Economy in word choice is essential in broadcast and print advertising, in which time and space are at a premium. That memo didn’t reach the radio advertiser who announced, “One call will generate proposals from four to five different companies.” The word “different” is a three-syllable placebo that does nothing but take up space in that statement. “One call will generate proposals from four to five companies” conveys the same information with one less word.
A statement describing an event that took place “in the early morning hours” is one word too long. The word “hours” in that context is just filler material. “In the early morning” would have been sufficient.
“We didn’t physically ask people about that,” said a spokesperson — whose nonsensical use of “physically” was an apparent attempt to distract attention from failure to question people.
Desire to appear cerebral may influence reliance on superfluous words and fixed phrases. One such frequently invoked phrase is “for his part,” as in “For his part, the governor has turned away inquiries about his former wife's book, which is being published by the A & M Publishing Company of suburban Detroit.” A film reviewer wrote, “Daniel Brühl, for his part, directs proceedings with enough sleek, nippy aplomb to make you wonder what he could do with a less self-oriented, bigger-picture script.” A sentence in a news article read, “For his part, Dr. Harp has said very little about his departure from the Michigan-based veterinary clinic.” The faddish phrase “for his part” serves no useful part in any of those sentences. Deleting it in no way alters meaning.
Sometime superfluous words are not only unnecessary, but also silly, as demonstrated by a reporter who announced, “The suspect is dead at this point.” Because that status was unlikely to change, the reporter could have left “at this point” unsaid.
Our rogues’ gallery of superfluous word usage (shown in italics) includes:
- “first begin” (as in “I want to first begin by”)
- “anytime soon” (as in “this is not going to end anytime soon”)
- “back in” (as in “was elected back in 2008)
- “to the extent that” (excess baggage in almost every use)
- “fires in nine separate states” (every state is separate from the others)
- “I’m well aware” (you’re either aware of something or you’re not)
- “the single largest railroad yard in the country” (the adjective “single” is pointless in combination with the superlative adjective “largest”)
- “having said that…” (unnecessarily wordy in almost every use in which “but” or “however” would suffice)
- “not to mention” (the uselessness of which is self-evident)
- “needless to say” (ditto)
- “the end result” (by definition, the result is the conclusion)
- “the final destination” (anything else along the way is a waypoint, not a destination)
- “May very well…” (“very well” in contexts such as “the answer may very well be yes” is pretentious as well as useless)
- “this particular agenda item” (delete “particular” without any loss of meaning)
- “I personally believe…” (anything you believe is a personal choice)
- “it is located in” (simply “is in” usually suffices)
- “I read with interest” (commenting about it makes your interest obvious)
- “just beautiful” or “just miles from here” or “just such an important message” (or any other vacuous use of “just”)
Other than in colloquial speech or correspondence, each word should serve a distinct functional and grammatical purpose. Using your “delete” key as a weed whacker can help make written text cleaner and more succinct.
Over the course of a 40-year career, workers spend about four years at lunch. When earthquake insurance claims expert Dan Dyce made that calculation early in his career, he decided to reclaim much of that time — to his advantage. As a husband and father with an active home life, he had very little time after hours to concentrate on his career progression. But he recognized his weekday lunch hour as a block of time during which he could expand his knowledge to make him more valuable to employers. Dan systematically began using his lunch hours to nurture his career as well as his digestive system. He devoted time constructively to strategize and prepare for his career advancement.
During his career and following his retirement, he has presented numerous talks throughout the country and overseas about earthquake preparedness, insurance and claims adjusting. After his talks, audience members who were in the early and middle stages of their careers routinely asked him about how he achieved his impressive career progression. Anticipating those questions, he began compiling and organizing notes.
In response to friends and colleagues who encouraged Dan to convey his insights to a wider audience, he set about writing Turbocharge Your Career on Your Lunch Hour: Maximizing Personal Development in Minimal Time. Offering “10 simple things you can do on your lunch hour that will turbocharge your career,” the book is a masterful mentoring and self-discipline guide for anyone in a lower or mid-level position not only in the insurance field, but in any career.
Dan Dyce worked in the insurance industry throughout his entire career, with positions in underwriting, insurance operations and claims. He is a CPCU (Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter) who earned RPA (Registered Professional Adjuster) designation, and was president of the Sacramento Valley Chapter of CPCU. He earned Competent Toastmaster (CTM) certification from Toastmasters International.
After working as a claims manager for CIGNA insurance company, where he supervised commercial and residential property claims in seven Western states, he became claims manager in 2001 for the California Earthquake Authority (CEA), the largest residential earthquake insurance company in the United States. In that capacity, he oversaw the earthquake claims handling of 21 insurance companies that were responsible to take and process CEA earthquake claims.
If you have been writing a book and you’re ready to publish it, as Dan was, EditPros’ BookPrep service can help you achieve your goal. As part of the BookPrep package, EditPros professionally designed and formatted the cover and interior pages of Turbocharge Your Career on Your Lunch Hour: Maximizing Personal Development in Minimal Time, and prepared the contents for print publication. The print edition is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other sellers. We also reformatted it for its e-book edition, which can be downloaded from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books and Rakuten Kobo.
This is the 57th book that BookPrep has produced for authors during the past eight years. With BookPrep, authors retain all rights to their books, and collect 100% of sales royalties.
We invite you to LEARN MORE about the EditPros BookPrep service.
Carole S. wrote:
“I am a hot-air ballooning enthusiast. For my club’s newsletter I wrote an article that included this sentence: ‘1900 was the only year when hot-air ballooning was part of the Olympic Games, at the Paris Exposition.’ The newsletter editor changed that to ‘Hot-air ballooning was an Olympic sport in only one year, at the 1900 Paris Exposition.’ I disliked that change because I wanted to place emphasis on 1900 to draw attention to how long ago that was, but moving the year to the end of the sentence detracted from the point I was trying to make. I can’t think of another way to structure that sentence that draws as much attention to the year as the original sentence. Can you suggest anything that both the editor and I can live with?”
The grammar coach replies:
Carole, we realize why your editor made the change. Most editorial style guides, including the Chicago Manual of Style and the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, discourage beginning a sentence with a numeral or set or numerals, including a year.
But we understand what you’re trying to accomplish. We’ll first tell you what won’t work: beginning with “The year 1900” — because you invariably would have to repeat the word “year” (The year 1900 was the only year in which…). That’s undesirable, but we can suggest three alternative approaches:
1. In 1900, hot-air ballooning became an Olympic sport, but it didn’t endure beyond that year.
2. The 1900 Paris Exposition was the only venue in which hot-air ballooning existed as an Olympic sport.
3. In only one year, 1900, hot-air ballooning arose as an Olympic sport, at the Paris Exposition.
Perhaps one of those ideas will take flight.
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