Final words on concision
Dear editors,
Thank you for participating in the first-ever Copy-Editing Theme Week. Any lingering questions or feedback about how the week went? Let me know!
Here are the highlights from our concision challenges.
Day 1 was all about tightening sentences. I grabbed a few examples from our sites, made them a little less concise, then asked people in the #curbed-copy-edit and #eater-copy-edit Slack rooms to revise them. A couple results:
First draft:
It’s not yet clear if they’re renting or have bought the place, according to the New York Times, which first broke the news of the move.
Revised version:
It’s unclear if they’ve rented the place or bought it, according to the New York Times. (Revised by Tom Acitelli of Curbed Boston)
First draft:
After two and a half years of waiting, the city of Minneapolis launched its anticipated bike-share program, Nice Ride MN, earlier today. Nice Ride MN announced the city will have 15 stations and 115 bikes across the city, ready for use starting today.
Revised version:
Today, the city of Minneapolis launched its long-anticipated bike-share program. Nice Ride MN will have 15 stations and 115 bikes across Minneapolis. (Revised by Monica Burton of Eater dot com)
On Day 2, I asked editors which word they always find themselves deleting or shortening. Some highlights:
- $12 dollars (Whitney Filloon, Eater dot com)
- residential home — could just be residence or home (Dana Hatic, Eater Boston)
- time period — could just be period (Ellie Krupnik, Eater)
- is comprised of — could just be comprises (Amy Plitt, Curbed NY)
- adverbs in general (Brock Keeling, Curbed SF)
- using “and more” or “among others” at the end of a sentence with the word “include,” like “amenities include a swimming pool, roof deck, a pet spa, and more” (Amy Plitt and Ameena Walker, Curbed NY)
On Day 3, editors brought a first-draft sentence to Slack to revise, and on Day 4, a lightning round, I challenged editors to spot the word that’s shorter in AP Style. It got competitive! Here are the words we covered:
amid, not amidst
drive-thru, not drive-through
toward, not towards
nonprofit, not non-profit
benefited, not benefitted
ax, not axe
catalog, not catalogues
judgment, not judgement
omelet, not omelette
despite, not in spite of
cellphone, not cell phone
Stay tuned for info about the next Theme Week!
Copy News
I’m out of office from Wednesday, July 4, to Monday, July 16. Please let me know if you have questions or concerns about that. And here are all our resources!
#eater-copy-edit
#curbed-copy-edit
Some new words for our word lists: crab Rangoon, middle class (noun), middle-class (adjective), boys’ club, laulau, bread and butter, thumbs-up, thumbs-down, kouign amann, deep fryer, deep-fry (verb), sunbed, off-ramp, off-road, off-roading, and bed sheets. And a reminder: our style is Fourth of July.
The fraught history of the rule that sentences must not end with a preposition (the man behind it “does not seem to have been particularly well-liked”). After 50 years, the New York state Senate agreed to correct the spelling of this bridge. Sex and the City contains a grammatical error in its opening credits. And metaphors of sight tell us about our culture’s relationship with disability.
Happy Fourth!
Emma