# Writers, Editors, Nit-Pickers, Lend Me Your Beefs **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 27, 2006, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115 "2006-03-27T17:39:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![633squadron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/ee59a6/32.png) [@633squadron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/633squadron)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115/41 "2006-03-28T06:55:48Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > As for the sentence ending with a preposition–you know that’s a crock, right? [etc] whether he or she says, “This is wrong,” well, I don’t believe that is a good approach. Yeah! And splitting an infinitive, while “wrong”, makes more sense sometimes than doing it the “proper” way. All these tanj-ing rules come from the Renaissance obsession with making English “equal” to Latin in “quality”. Ugh. Grammar rules are good to know, and fun to play with if you know them, but I read many technical books that have their grammar fine and everything _else_ screwed up. Go for _clarity_ and _accuracy_. We desperately need technical books that we can understand and that give us the right information. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115/42 "2006-03-28T07:28:20Z")
Just thought of something else that I used to torture my students with. (And there’s that preposition ending a sentence again. Perhaps I should say _something with which I used to torture my students_.) 🙂 Anyway, I’d give them a worksheet with 20 lines on it. The exercise was to punctuate each line correctly. Everything counted: capitalization, commas, quotation marks, italics and so on. Additionally, some lines were sentences; some were two sentences. A few examples: sally brown is an fbi agent based in cincinnati ohio toms latest book is called industrial design in the twentieth century sue said jenny lets go to the movies today jenny said good idea sue janice test drove the ford taurus the chevy cavalier and the toyota corolla john elway was a quarterback for the nfls denver broncos attach the gizmo to the widget as shown in figure d it has been said that george lucas greatest film was star wars youll need the smith file the jones file and the williams file And so on. See how you can crosscheck for consistency as well as for standard editing requirements? (For example, book and movie titles are typically italicized.) You can crosscheck for serial comma use, capitalization consistency (is it FBI or F.B.I.? If the latter, watch for N.F.L. instead of NFL), and possessives. In your case, I’d recommend forty or fifty such lines. My students hated this exercise. But I loved it. It really demonstrated what they did (or did not) know. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115/43 "2006-03-28T11:59:03Z")
**633squadron** – nope, not for a tech writer; for a magazine editor. He or she will need to know how to deal with not only spelling and punctucation, but also what to do with a badly written piece of prose – which this is. (I’m beginning to see how people get obsessed with the Bulwer-Lytton contest.) **Spoons** – fun idea – but since I already have a couple of hours invested in the other strategy, I’m gonna stick with that. I wish I could share the finished product with y’all, because I’m damn proud of how awful it is, but I don’t want a version of this available on the internet, even anonymously. You guys rawk – I really appreciate all the helpful ideas you’ve been coming up with. ---
**Author:** ![Madd\_Maxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Madd\_Maxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Madd_Maxx)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115/44 "2006-03-28T12:11:14Z")
Since it is a gardening magazine, why don’t you throw in a tomato/tomatoe or a potato/potatoe misspelling? As an homage to Dan Quayle/Quail. Also what about ensuring that he/she is familiar with the correct way to add the scientific (latin) names for plants? ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115/45 "2006-03-28T12:38:43Z")
Flout and flaunt. Bothers the hell out of me. Someone already mentioned the correct usage of comprise. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115/46 "2006-03-28T14:22:34Z")
> [@Sternvogel](#): > > Female posters to this forum, _e.g._ **twickster** (there are many others, she’s just one example) > > The poster who started this thread, _i.e._ **twickster** (only one person fits the description) Female posters to this forum, e.g. **,** twickster… The poster who started this thread, i.e. **,** twickster Commas belong on both sides of the “e.g.” or “i.e.”. Some folks seem to just throw them in there with no delineation at all. And please don’t start a sentence with either one. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115/47 "2006-03-28T18:34:55Z")
Get them to punctuate the old classic: John while Jane had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher (You could also use “affect” to really fuck with 'em.) ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115/48 "2006-03-28T23:49:10Z")
The one that’s been bugging me lately (because I’ve been seeing it in a lot of places where people should know better) is “rein” vs. “reign.” It’s not “reign in,” dammit! You rein in a horse (or an overexuberant friend). You reign in a country where they have a monarchy (or somebody does, anyway). You could also have them punctuate the following so it makes sense (I believe it came from “Charly,” the movie based on “Flowers for Algernon”): **That that is is that that is not is not is it it is** ---
**Author:** ![Salem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8c91f0/32.png) [@Salem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salem)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115/49 "2006-03-29T06:20:54Z")
Congrat on the new job, **Twickter**! How about a quote within a quote? ---
**Author:** ![Salem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8c91f0/32.png) [@Salem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salem)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115/50 "2006-03-29T06:25:32Z")
> [@Salem](#): > > … **Twickter**!.. Or yu culd purpsefuly misspel sumwones nam. :o ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115/51 "2006-03-29T06:44:52Z")
> [@ladybug](#): > > I just thought of this: add something that requires the applicant to check some basic math. For example, “The poll shows that 46 percent of respondents are strongly against the proposed law, 38 percent are strongly in favor of it and 22 percent don’t care.” I remember taking an editing test where it talked about something that was true in, say, 44 states – but the table listing the states where it wasn’t true only listed four states. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115/52 "2006-03-29T06:54:30Z")
**twickster** , allow me one suggestion. Once the sample is prepared you should have a current employee doing a similar job description review and edit it. It’d be worthwhile knowing what a realistic performance would be. You perception of it’s difficulty may be different than a fresh set of eyes. It’s be a shame for you to create a sample that’s deceptively tricky and filter out an otherwise suitable candidate. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115/53 "2006-03-29T12:56:38Z")
Excellent point, **omniscient** – but there _is_ no current employee. I’m their first hire, and, strictly speaking, I haven’t started yet. The test we use at the current job is set up differently, since it’s a different job – but the idea of that test is that no one does perfectly on it, it’s a chance to see what kinds of mistakes people make, whether they have the aptitude for the job or not. Plus we grade it with the candidate watching, and it’s very revealing how they respond to the mistakes they made. So, no, I’m not going into this with an idea that X, Y, or Z is the right answer – I want to see what kinds of things the candidate sees, and how he or she deals with them. For instance, I start a sentence “Once [this happened],…” then blah blah, then I start two sentences in a row “Once [blah blah]…” Will the person notice this? If so, yay, it’s bad writing and I’d prefer a person who does and rewrites that section. If not – well, it’s not _wrong_ … (And **Salem** honey – long time no see! How the heck are you?) ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115/54 "2006-03-29T13:34:34Z")
Twix–My top 8 list of persistent problems my students manage to work into their papers are 1. singular/plural confusions: "One thing that can define a person’s personality is their name. " 2. over-reliance on “to be” verbs (as in the sentence above .) 3. Wordiness–as in the overreliance on the word “thing.” 4. Redundancy–“person’s personality.” I’d want that sentence, if given to an editor for revision, to read “Our names help to define our personalities,” or some such. This was literally the first sentence of the first student’s paper that I opened up to find you some examples of amateur prose. 5. clueless punctuation: “he grew up, in Paterson New Jersey.” (Periods inside quotation marks, generally, aren’t a judgment call in the US, which is the market this person will be editing for. I would definitely ask an editor to flag all such misuses.) Comma splices abound and need to be caught. Stalking wild apostrophe’s (or sometimes apostrophes’) is needed in a good editor as well. 6. inconsistent diction levels : inappropriate slang or direct address in an otherwise formal piece, and absurdly stilted diction in otherwise casual essays. 7)Needless negatives: “is not permanent” instead of “is temporary.”’ 1. failure to subordinate: writing that lacks style because every sentence is either a simple sentence or a simple sentence joined to other simple sentences with conjunctions. An editor should be able to figure out which sentences need to be subordinate clauses (or sometimes eliminated entirely.) ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115/55 "2006-03-29T13:47:26Z")
Alright vs All Right It’s vs its ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115/56 "2006-03-29T14:39:41Z")
> [@pseudotriton ruber ruber](#): > > 7)Needless negatives: “is not permanent” instead of “is temporary.”’ Yeah, doesn’t that annoy the hell out of you? Excellent list – thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115/57 "2006-03-29T14:52:47Z")
I think you could make a huge _impact_ on the exam by adding things like CD’s, DVD’s, and maybe even banana’s. ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115/58 "2006-03-29T16:16:35Z")
Out of curiosity, **twickster** , are you going to be supplying candidates with a copy of the AP Stylebook (assuming that’s the style of choice)? ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115/59 "2006-03-29T16:42:57Z")
No. For a variety of reasons: Haven’t purchased a stylebook yet; haven’t decided which one to get (I’m leaning toward Chicago, just because it’s what I’m used to – but want to thumb through a copy of AP, which I haven’t looked at in years); and I’m not giving him a dictionary, either (which I also haven’t picked yet). Basically, I want to see what he can do with this just based on his own knowlege and instincts. (FTR, I consider “I’d need to look this up” an acceptable – no, actually, an excellent – response.) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115/60 "2006-03-29T18:49:08Z")
> [@pseudotriton ruber ruber](#): > > 7)Needless negatives: “is not permanent” instead of “is temporary.”’ But the two phrases have different connotations. “Temporary” means short term. “Not permanent” means it is expected to change at one point, but will be that way indefinitely. “Permanent” means it is not expected to change at all. For instance, the powers the President has claimed to assumed due to the war in Iraq are not permanent – eventually, when certain conditions are met, he expects to give them up. However, since they don’t expire, they aren’t temporary. Likewise, there’s a difference between the phrase “not unusual” and “usual,” despite the fact “usual” and “unusual” are antonyms. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/writers-editors-nit-pickers-lend-me-your-beefs/350115.md?page=4)