Grammar Moses: Things that make editors groan

Editing, unlike eye surgery, is not an exact science.

We all come at things with our own processes, our own perspectives.

Some of us run the spell-checker first, others tinker with ledes first, but many of us give a story a good copy edit first and only then go back to look for holes, imbalance, telegraphed quotes, issues of context, extraneous words, logical flaws, jargon, bias, lack of fairness, lack of appropriateness, poor pronoun usage, lack of continuity, unparallel construction, lack of specificity, disjointedness, embarrassing turns of a phrase, too many long sentences (such as this one) and more.

I could go on for the remainder of this column listing the things we look for that have a tendency to muck up a perfectly good story.

Once we're done looking for the bad stuff, we focus on the good stuff in a story. No wonder people think we're Negative Nancys.

We all have different approaches, and we all have different things that absolutely drive us nuts.

So, in the interest of taking the pressure off me to come up with an interesting column today, I turned to some of my fellow editors for an explanation of what makes them grind their teeth.

Here is what they had to say:

• My biggest peeve as an editor of news is jargon. It comes in many forms. Police and fire departments say a person was "transported to a local hospital"; that becomes "taken to the hospital." Police also say someone was traveling at "a high rate of speed." Speed is already a rate (miles per hour), so "high speed" or even "driving fast" will do it.

- Neil Holdway, Deputy Managing Editor/Late News

• Many people have difficulty with properly pluralizing names and often insert an apostrophe; an apostrophe is used to denote possession, not pluralization. If the name ends with an "S," that only further complicates matters, even though a common saying uses one: You aren't "keeping up with the Jones's," you're "keeping up with the Joneses."

And then there's the problem of where to put the apostrophe when you actually need one. If we were talking about the house where the Stanglands live, for example, it would be "the Stanglands' house," not "the Stangland's house."

- Sean Stangland, Assistant News Editor

• "Impact" as a verb.

An asteroid can be 10 seconds from impact. (noun)

A wisdom tooth can be "impacted." (adjective)

But I shudder when I read something like "neighbors fear the plan would negatively impact their property values." Just say "harm" or "hurt." Conversely, instead of "positively impact," say "help" or "boost."

- Michelle Holdway, News Editor

• Nothing sets my teeth on edge more than the misuse of "its" vs. "it's." Quick tip to remember which is correct: "It's" is always a contraction of "it is" or "it has," while "its" describes something that belongs to "it."

- Kathleen Danes, Sports Editor

• One style point retired Editor John Lampinen brought up many years ago was the misuse of the word "incident." News stories often refer to someone getting killed during an "incident."

John reminded us that a tragedy or death should never be called an "incident." Something "incidental" is unimportant. I think about that every time I see the word in an article.

- Robert Sanchez, City Editor

• It's a truth universally acknowledged in writing circles that ending sentences with prepositions is poor use of grammar. It may not be incorrect, especially in the age of news media and contemporary authors' adopting more conversational speech. Yet, for a grammarian, there is no getting around the fact that prepositions indicate relationships between words in a sentence. To end with one leaves the reader hanging because the expectation is more words are to follow. This now widely accepted practice drives some of us sticklers of proper grammar up the wall. A good writer always can find a way around.

- Madhu Krishnamurthy, Diversity Editor/Assistant City Editor

• As an editor, here are a few things (ha!) I can't stand:

"Thing" or "stuff": Please do not use either of these. Be specific.

"Complement" means to complete or something that makes complete; "compliment" is an expression of praise.

"Your" is the possessive pronoun; "you're" is the contraction for "you are."

"Their" is a plural possessive pronoun; "there" is an adverb indicating direction, a pronoun meaning that place and a noun meaning state or condition; and "they're" is the contraction for "they are."

- Caroline Linden, Director of Community and Entertainment News

There, there, there, Caroline. I'm glad you were able to get this off your chest.

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/executive editor of the Daily Herald. You can buy Jim's book, "Grammar Moses: A humorous guide to grammar and usage," at grammarmosesthebook.com. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com and put "Grammar Moses" in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.