Comments for Writing, Clear and Simple

Comment on Homophonophobia by Segways, and Other Homophonic Legal-Writing Blunders

Segways, and Other Homophonic Legal-Writing Blunders — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 16:42:33 +0000

[...] I recently talked to a former chief judge of a Minnesota district court and I asked him about the quality of the briefs being submitted by the lawyers who were appearing before him. He said that it wasn’t good, and was only getting worse. His diagnosis: The lawyers were putting their writing through their spell-checkers and then filing their briefs. Like many legal-writing blunders, homophones escape a lawyer’s spell-check-only review. [...]

Comment on Hyphenating compound words by KS

KS — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 23:18:17 +0000

Some grammar wizards argue that phrasal adjectives should be hyphenated when following the infinitive “to be”. For example, “This story is gut-wrenching.” Any opinion?

Comment on Ask an editor: Contractions in a novel manuscript by Erica

Erica — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 01:47:28 +0000

Whew.
I was worried because I just read a blog by an author I enjoy who says you can only use contractions in dialog and direct thoughts, unless writing in first person (where the whole story is in deep thought). He says deep third doesn’t count, because it’s “fake” internal dialog, not genuine.

I’m using a lot of deep third in my novel, and to me, not using contractions in my narrative would feel as strange and out of character as using a simile like “his heart revved like a jet engine” in a fictional setting that hasn’t invented jet engines yet.

I’ve read plenty of writer and editor blogs that say it is now acceptable to use contractions in business and technical correspondence/articles, so it seemed really strange to me that there would still be a “rule” about using them in fictional narrative, which is generally ahead of the curvewhen it comes to changing the old rules.

Comment on No such thing as “very imperative” by Ravi Bedi

Ravi Bedi — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 06:10:15 +0000

He’s childish
He’s very childish
He’s annoyingly childish
He’s atrociously childish
He’s unbelievably childish

He’s . . . well, childish, but the degree of his childishness cannot be expressed appropriately without using intensifiers. I wouldn’t hesitate using it if the situation so demands. Why do we have this word ‘very’, if it’s use is restricted. Oh, I forgot; it is English after all!

Comment on Contractions and How Not to Abuse ‘Em by Ravi Bedi

Ravi Bedi — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 05:53:48 +0000

I’d hate to see a book that doesn’t have natural contractions, but not one with ‘doesn’t've’. That would be stretching it a bit too far, except in dialogue. I think there should be a good balance between the two schools of thought in your writing. At the same time, overuse of contractions wouldn’t look good in print.

Comment on Never underestimate the power of sitting down and doing it by C.A.Margonper

C.A.Margonper — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 18:46:21 +0000

If I am to be honest, I’ve been doing a lot of “thinking about it” lately. Too much, by the number of words I’ve been writing in my novel.

Comment on Nasty neologisms: “incent” and “incentivize” by Joule

Joule — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:57:03 +0000

Incentivizing happens prior to the action that might be rewarding.

“We want to encourage customers, with an incentive, to buy soap,” would be the redundant and wordy way to say the above statement “correctly.”

We are telling the customers, before they buy the soap, that if they buy it, they will be rewarded. We are not pre-rewarding the customers, nor are we waiting for the action to take place before offering the reward. We are incentivizing – the promise of reward, IF…

PS – spellcheck (another neologism) does not question incentivizing, yet it does question spellcheck.

Comment on Stephen King: Writing as “mental telepathy” by Lady Teleri

Lady Teleri — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 07:07:24 +0000

It’s important that we do research and stick to our guns as far as personal style goes. I have a few people in critique groups that virtually demand telepathic communication must be written one way, i.e., with quotes and italics, even though the concept does not even exist to us. We have yet to evolve as telepathic creatures, so who has the right to force a rule upon how it should be written? Ann McCaffrey’s the Rowan series are one example, and I do believe Voldermort yelled at everyone using telepathy without quotes.

Comment on No such thing as “very imperative” by patrickrobotham

patrickrobotham — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 05:10:47 +0000

While “very imperative” is inexcusable, there is such a thing as “very symmetrical”. A symmetry of an object is a transformation that leaves the object looking exactly the same. The symmetries of a square include rotation by 90 degrees, vertical reflection, horizontal reflection and reflection across the diagonals. A very symmetrical object is one which possesses many symmetries (like a circle).

Comment on No such thing as “very imperative” by Patrick Robotham

Patrick Robotham — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 05:06:56 +0000

While “very imperative” is inexcusable, I think “very symmetrical” is fine. A circle is more symmetrical than a octagon, which is more symmetrical than a triangle. An object may have more than one symmetry, so a very symmetrical object is one with many symmetries.