Connections: Fighting Words

From time to time, when someone asks why, given my age, I haven’t retired, I explain that I really enjoy editing what others write. The truth, though, is that the pleasure waxes and wanes. If a story is good enough to require very little editing, my work is easy but not much fun. If a narrative is jammed full of extraneous words and ideas — or if the most compelling information is left for the bitter end  — editing can be tough. On those rare occasions, however, when a writer and I work together to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, the job I do is very gratifying. (One of those occasions occurred last week, but I’m not going to tell you which story it was.) 

A nice result of having been an editor for a long time is that I’ve learned a lot about language from experience and others. Staff members have offered helpful tips. One, for example, is how to know when to spell stationery with an “e” rather than an “a.” All you need to remember is that envelopes are stationery.

Not long ago, one of our writers sent along a clipping about the difference between “bring” and “take.” Not everyone goes around mulling over such things, but the editorial “we” enjoys doing so. “Bring” denotes motion toward something while take refers to motion away from something.

Someone also set me straight on the difference between further and farther by simply pointing out that East Hampton’s Further Lane was incorrect. Farther is correctly used for physical distance; further for occurrences or thought.

Language is always in flux, of course, which makes writing and editing a challenge whether or not the task at hand is fun. Everyday speech will sometimes just take over the grammar books. At The Star we hold to many of the recommendations in Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style.” Some may think this old hat, although the fourth edition of the book was published as recently as 2000. Like The New York Times, The Star follows Strunk and White in forming the possessive singular of a noun by adding an apostrophe and an S. The Times ignores at least one other rule, about the serial comma (a.k.a., the Oxford comma), that we adhere to.

I am not sure whatever happened to parallel tenses, i.e., using “has” when it should be “had.” Jack Graves, our sports editor for lo, these many years, used to try his best to get everyone here to use parallel tenses, but I’m afraid he gave up. And don’t get Irene Silverman, another longtime Star editor, started on the importance of using active rather than passive voice.

Then there are some recent changes in usage that befuddle us; when matters are in transition, rather than settled one way or the other, all bets are off. For example, younger writers often drop the word “the” where I think it is necessary. The subject of a story this week “was on unpaid leave of absence from her job at Springs School.” I would have stuck in “the” before the school’s name. Quicker and snappier is perennially the trend.

Paul Friese, our advertising production manager, whose linguistic skills cannot be faulted, recently sent me a poetic treatise on disparate English spelling and pronunciation, but that is a topic for another day. Meanwhile, you might enjoy looking up “The Chaos” by Dr. Gerard Nolst Trenite. Be forewarned: It runs to more than 3,000 words.