Here is a paragraph of the ad copy I wrote for my new job, with an independent film distributor looking for holiday titles:
[QUOTE]
Seattle independent film distributor . . . is seeking new independent films, of any length or format, with a holiday theme. A family drama around a Christmas tree, a documentary about Kwanzaa, a comedy about Hanukkah,[li] a cartoon about the Winter solstice–anything you can come up with that has a link to the Winter holiday season. [/li][/QUOTE]
Here’s how a coworker corrected it before forwarding it to our boss:
[QUOTE]
Seattle independent film distributor . . . is seeking new independent films for the holidays of any length or format. A family drama around a Christmas tree, a documentary about Kwanzaa, [li] a cartoon about the winter solstice - anything you could think of that has to do with the Winter holiday season. It could even be a very Zombie Christmas special, if that’s what you’re in to![/li][/QUOTE]
Where’s she coming from? Does she have any reason to make these changes? Although I acknowledge the possibility that I may be wrong, I’m a pretty experienced copy editor, and her changes strike me as, at best, unnecessary, and at worst, incorrect.
For me the biggest issues are her “could” instead of “can,” and her “in to.” I don’t like the sentence she added about zombies, but I’m not gonna fight over it. However, the “in to” is wrong, isn’t it? And shouldn’t “Very” be capitalized, if it’s part of the imagined title? And the title in quotes? Also I think her version of the first sentence is clumsier than mine. I just want to be sure of my footing before I end my second day on a new job by correcting someone I work under. Oh and I’m not sure why she excised the reference to Hanukkah; my boss specifically said to mention Hanukkah. So I’ll check on that myself.
I’m far from an expert on grammar, but I will say her first sentence conveys a different meaning than yours does. Your sentence seems to indicate the producer is looking for a holiday movie for an unspecified reason not necessarily connected to the holidays; hers (in conjunction with the following sentence) looks like a holiday movie is being sought for the holiday season. I think you should go with whichever construction more accurately conveys what it is you’re trying to do.
“Into” should definitely be one word. I’d drop the “very” and de-cap the Zombie for the zombie Christmas special. Winter should be de-capped in both occurrences. (Or if you are really committed to having it capitalized, cap it both times for consistency.) Most of her other changes seem arbitrary to me. She didn’t introduce new errors, but she didn’t correct old ones, either. For the first sentence, I like your phrasing better than hers. Hers feels awkward to me.
Also, your double hyphen is the correct way to indicate an em dash in a font lacking an actual em dash, as opposed to her hyphen separated by spaces.
Yeah, it is probably a bit equivocal, in that her prose isn’t flawless either, but I can see where she is coming from in three places.
Your first sentence is slightly more jumpy in feel, since it contains a comma separated parenthetic phrase, whereas the hers flows easier. I write comma delimited phrases like yours all the time, but I mostly write technical and academic prose, where the style demands are different. As noted above, she has also changed the meaning of your prose, in two places really. It is clear from the changes that the films need to be for the holiday season, and must already exist. Your prose implies that the films need only be about the holiday season, and that they might not be complete (or indeed may even only exist as a proposal.) However an ad that needs to depend upon such subtleties to get such critical requirements across is in trouble already.
The introduction of inconsistent capitalisation is odd. The V on very, and W on winter are sloppy.
See, I happen to like the comma-separated parenthetical, as it’s easier to read out loud. I know quite a few people who mumble when they read so to me a big part of readability is “how will it flow better if you’re reading out loud?”
The “into” definitely should be a single word. And I don’t like that she took out the Hannuka reference while leaving Kwanzaa in: it’s not that she wants the movie to be “about the Christian Christmas”… so what is it ?
Agreed. (The zombie bit at the end might be okay, if cheesy. “Very” and “Special” should be capitalized though, IMO.)
But you said in the OP that you “work under” this coworker, so you may just have to suck it up unfortunately. When she passes it on to the boss, who gets the credit? Will he think this is what you wrote? Will he think she wrote it? Or will he just think “here’s what’s in front of me on the desk” without attaching any particular face to it?
Also, what did you mean by the asterisks in the two texts you gave?
I’m with panache. All the suggested changes are bad:
[quote]
Seattle independent film distributor . . . is seeking new independent films for the holidays of any length or format. A family drama around a Christmas tree, a documentary about Kwanzaa, [li] a cartoon about the winter solstice - anything you could think of that has to do with the Winter holiday season. It could even be a very Zombie Christmas special, if that’s what you’re in to![/li][/QUOTE]
The problem with Change 1 is that it seems to attach the modifying phrase “…of any length or format” to “holidays,” not not “independent films,” and completely removes the sense that the films are supposed to be about the holidays. That’s still conveyed later, but the sentence is confusing as all hell. I agree that your sentence is not especially well written but hers is terrible. I would recast as simply “…is seeking new holiday-themed independent films of any length or format.” This retains YOUR meaning, but makes the sentence flow better.
“Anything you could think of” is simply the wrong tense, and think of is much less accurate than come up with. You actually want the films to be created, e.g. “to come up with,” not just suggested or conceived, e.g. “think of.”
And the zombie reference is just fucking lame. Zombies are ridiculously overdone and cliche. I mean, come on.
I think it was Oscar Wilde who said [paraphrasing] that the urge to edit is a primal human drive, like food and sex. So, people make edits that just reflect their taste (e.g., the zombies in your situation) and without any real reason other than taste.
When I was editing reports written by others, I always had a REASON for any change I made, not just “I like it better this way.” Reasons include eliminating confusion, being more specific, better grammar, etc.
I think that her phrase “holidays of any length and format” is a bit confusing. Sort of implies that Christmas is only one day but Kwanzaa is seven? I think she means "new independent films, of any length and format, for the holidays."And agreed, “for the holidays” is different from “with a holiday theme.” Yours version asks for thematic works, hers asks for them within a time-frame.
Dropping Hanukkah is pretty nasty and going to get negative reaction from any Jews reading the ad.
(1) reordered the adjuncts in and slightly rephrased “new independent films, of any length or format, with a holiday theme” to “independent films for the holidays of any length or format”
I think she made it worse. I liked your version better.
(2) uncapitalized “Winter”
I think that’s a reasonable edit.
(3) replaced “can come up with” to “could think of”
I don’t like “could”. “can think of” would be okay, though.
(4) removed “a comedy about Hannukah”
(5) added an extra sentence at the end
Whatever the reason for these last two changes, it’s outside the realm of grammar, punctuation, and style.
According to Wikipedia’s style guideline, it would be “Winter Solstice”. But I think the “Winter holiday season” part should be all lowercase, since winter is functioning as an adjective there.
Frankly, I don’t think any of her edits are better than what you had originally. ETA: as in, all of them made the copy worse.
The grammar has been pretty well covered; now it might be time to cover yourself.
Since it is unanimous that your copy was better and since you are new on the job and don’t yet know the political situation in the office, I think you should probably be prepared for something along the line of:
“I’m not happy with this ad copy at all. I wanted a mention of Hanukkah … and it reads very awkwardly overall.”
“I’ll check lissener’s work more closely until he gets the hang of things.”
“How about we go back to the copy as I wrote it before Ms Coworker’s edits … here it is.”
The ‘original’ copy, of course, would be the version you have reworked according to some of the excellent advice from this thread.
It’s not a question of grammat (except for the “very” modifying a noun), but of style and, to some extent of content. But the original is better in every way.
The revised first sentence was superior to lissener’s choppy one. That edit should stand. For the second, I would include all four holidays as in the original (using either Winter Solstice or Yule as the name of the pagan celebration). This will then allow you to formulate the part following the dash as “anything with a winter holiday theme.” Doing so has the advantage of obviating entirely the debate over whether it should be “anything you can come up with” or “anything you could think of,” which in either case, is a pretty clunky turn of phrase. Moreover, it accomplishes that grammar school instruction to show, not tell, the smorgasbord of films solicited. Lastly, this whole Zombies! LOL! thing is totes played.
I think she was attempting to change the emphasis of your first sentence. That makes sense to me given the primary criteria for the films, but I don’t find her change to be better than yours. I think a better solution would have been,
“Seattle independent film distributor . . . is seeking new, holiday-themed independent films of any length or format. …”
I like your “can” better than “could”, but much of the rest is just personal preference.
Thanks guys. One point: as noted in the OP, the example is just the first paragraph; dates and deadlines are included further down. So getting the timeframe into the first sentence is not as crucial as getting the type of submissions being sought.
All told some very, very good feedback. I’ll synthesize it all into a coherent form that I can take credit for, and pass it on to the boss on Monday.
After feeling out the personal politics, the protocol for a new employee to go over the head of the marketing chick who made the changes. I get the feeling she feels like my invented position is stepping on her toes a bit, and further that she has no experience as a copyeditor and has simply filled that role by default. I think I’ll need to make her my friend, and not my enemy, so that will take some finessing. I might just sacrifice this first battle on the altar of ass kissing, and establish my place on the field a little better before I take up arms.
However, I do definitely have to check on the Hanukkah change with the boss, so maybe I’ll slip a couple of the other items into the same packet.
I disagree with Wikipedia’s guidelines, so too do Encyclopædia Britannica, Merriam-Webster’s, virtually all journals, and Wikipedia’s own article. Winter solstice is a scientific common noun, which should be denoted in lower case.
I think in an astronomical context you’re correct. But in the context of the ad, where it’s being referred to as a quasi-religious holiday, capitalizing it consistently with the other holidays mentioned is indicated.
?