Express Editing Writing and Research

Anson Cameron’s piece on the difference between the reaction of cannibals to their witch doctors’ demands for sex and the Australian response to pederast priests (The Age, 10th November 2012) is one of the best bits of writing I’ve seen for some time.

Last week I heard an academic refer to the ‘Werribee Sewerage Treatment Farm’ during a story about the birdlife attracted to the huge lagoons at the facility that treats just over half of Melbourne’s human effluent. In fact, the stuff that arrives at the Werribee plant is sewage: it flows to Werribee through sewers, and indeed through the sewerage system, and after treatment is recycled or discharged into Port Philip Bay. The sewerage, on the other hand, stays where it is.

Many people confuse these words. It’s not really difficult though – practice is a noun and practise is a verb. For example:

• My father retired from legal practice in August 2008.
• Do I have to go to netball practice tonight?
• Making model aeroplanes is a somewhat nerdy practice.*

Contrast the above uses of practice with the following:

•  My father practised law for over 45 years.
• I want you girls to practise shooting baskets.
• Practising making model aeroplanes is nerdy too.

A few other word pairs operate the same way, such as licence and license, and advice and advise.

* I know – I still have most of the plastic planes I made in the 70s.

I don’t really know why I look at the motoring section in the Saturday big paper but I’m glad I did on the 11^th of August 2012. An article by Tony Davis alerted me to the joys of the Conservapedia, the ultra-conservative online counterpart designed to combat the erroneous teachings of that well-known leftist organ Wikipedia; it offers gems such as the following explanation of the true origin of fossil fuels.

Mineral oils, such as petroleum, are obtained from geological sources. The latter is not formed by decayed matter, as that contradicts the Creationist worldview, but instead during a theobaric* process. This oil existed in pristine state before the Flood, and moved during the Flood into the reservoirs where Noah emerged from the Ark, and where we now find it. Consequently much of the oil is found in the Middle East, in addition to massive deposits in Canada and Venezuela.

I am in awe of the massive and unwavering mental strength required to take this sort of stuff seriously – and interestingly, its producers are well aware that some cognitive gymnastics are necessary. John D. Mathew, coiner of ‘theobaric’, writes:

The real problem for most readers will be the mental ascent needed to reject a naturalistic explanation for the origin of oil and replacing it with a biblical one, when for so long we have only heard about naturalistic models. (‘The Origin of Oil – A Creationist Answer’, Answers Research Journal, Dec 2008)

It’s certainly hard to argue with Mathews’ contention that many people will find it difficult to reject an explanation based on hard scientific evidence in favour of one teased out of a story whose origins are lost in time. Nevertheless, the very existence of the Answers Research Journal suggests that some people are willing to give it a go; let’s hope they don’t plan on becoming geologists.

*made by God

More great writing tips (this time from Good Advice on Writing: Writers Past and Present on How to Write Well, compiled and edited by William Safire and Leonard Safir (Simon & Schuster, 1992), and found at http://grammar.about.com/od/writersonwriting/a/safirerules.htm).

1. Avoid run-on sentences that are hard to read.

2. No sentence fragments.

3. It behooves us to avoid archaisms.

4. Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration.

5. Don’t use no double negatives.

6. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, “Resist hyperbole.”

7. Avoid commas, that are not necessary.

8. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.

9. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.

10. Writing carefully, dangling participles should not be used.

11. Kill all exclamation points!!!

12. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.

13. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

14. Take the bull by the hand, and don’t mix metaphors.

15. Don’t verb nouns.

16. Never, ever use repetitive redundancies.

17. Last but not least, avoid clichés like the plague.

Apostrophes are simple creatures with multiple uses. They can indicate possession:

• the criminal’s intentions …

as well as the number of subjects with possession. The example above referred to one criminal, whereas the next refers to more than one:

• the criminals’ intentions …

Indicating possession with an apostrophe can get tricky when the noun ends in an s. Some writers are happy to simply add an apostrophe and another s, as in:

• Icarus’s wings

I prefer the neater:

• Icarus’ wings

Although I would still pronounce the extra s.

Apostrophes are often used to create contractions (single and less formal words) from pairs of words, such as:

• it is = it’s
• we are = we’re
• they had = they’d
• you have = you’re

It’s, which I’ve blogged about previously, is commonly but mistakenly used to denote possession by something of non-specific gender such as a bicycle (it’s tyre is flat); the correct word is its – no apostrophe!

Apostrophes are also very frequently wrongly used to create plurals – we’ve all seen advertisements containing things like:

• used car’s for sale
• mens’ haircut’s $15
• record’s, DVD’s, everything must go

Note that mens’ is also wrong, as ‘men’ is already plural so the apostrophe comes before the s.

‘Not only … but also’ is not only the title of a classic English comedy show starring the legendary Peter Cook and Dudley Moore (sadly, both deceased), but also a word combination much loved by many but better avoided (as I just failed to do – on purpose, of course). The ‘also’ is redundant; remove it from the sentence above and the sense is unaltered, because the ‘not only’ implies that something else is coming up. In fact, it’s often possible to remove or replace ‘but also’ and ‘not only’ and arrive at a much simpler and equally effective sentence. See the following examples.

• The hepatitis C virus is not only a major cause of liver cancer, but also produces symptoms very like chronic fatigue syndrome in some sufferers.
• The hepatitis C virus is not only a major cause of liver cancer, it produces symptoms very like chronic fatigue syndrome in some sufferers.

• Peter Cook was not only the funniest man who ever drew breath but also outrageously intelligent.
• Peter Cook was not only the funniest man who ever drew breath, he was outrageously intelligent.
• Peter Cook was the funniest man who ever drew breath, and outrageously intelligent.

As I blogged earlier this week, I’m a devotee of George Orwell’s five principles of simplicity in writing, one of which is:

• If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out

‘Not only … but also’ fails this criterion! Give it a miss.

George Orwell was one of the greatest writers in English, as famous for his beautifully economical style as for his searing social and political commentary. In his essay ‘Politics and the English Language’ (Horizon, April 1946), Orwell gave the following rules for clear writing:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

These are rules to live (write?) by, especially for academics (I think I’ll get them tattooed somewhere …) Orwell’s essay included examples of the absurd writing that becomes possible when his rules aren’t followed; a recent ‘favourite’ of mine can be read here.

Know the website White Whine (A Collection of First-World Problems)? It’s an occasionally hilarious collection of rich-kid whinges about all sorts of topics – things like being really annoyed that your sister hogged your iPad for twenty minutes, or reporting boredom while on holiday in Rome. My kids and their cousins are great at this sort of thing, as demonstrated by the following choice items recorded over recent months.

• I’m really sick of flying! (Response: let’s drive the 650 km from Melbourne to Canberra next time)
• Why do we have to go on so many holidays? (Response: we need them to assuage the pain of going to work and looking after you lot)
• Why does this house have only one toilet? (Response: believe it or not, once upon a time the vast majority of houses had one toilet. And one television)
• What, there’s really no dishwasher in the holiday house!? (Response: yes, but it comes complete with adult slaves – aka parents)

No doubt this is a generational thing: I’m sure my brothers and I whinged about being the last family in Warrnambool without a colour television, occasionally having to wash our hair with soap instead of shampoo, etc. What will my (currently theoretical) grandchildren whinge about?

Colons (:) and semicolons (;) have distinct uses. A colon should be used when a statement is made and then explained or expanded upon – particularly if a list is involved. For example:

• Campbell edited three theses last month: one on the semiotics of Google, another on the molecular physics of cheese, and a third on the psychology of birds.
• Writers often mistakenly use a colon instead of a semicolon: they do this because they don’t understand their separate purposes.

A colon is ‘stronger’ than a semicolon: it separates two parts of a sentence more distinctly. Semicolons are used to separate independent clauses (parts of sentences) that could almost be sentences in themselves; they correspond to a pause in speech. For example:

•  Colin mostly eats cheese after school: in contrast, Brian usually eats a sandwich.
• There’s no way to stop me eating chocolate; if I feel like eating chocolate, I go right ahead.