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Grammar SOS > Gena's Pet Peeves
You may have these "words" scrawled on your papers: Arg! Urg. Awk. This means that you have stumbled onto one of my Pet Peeves, or just created confusing sentence that needs a serious operation.
Common reasons:
- You have misspelled a name that you should have looked up, if you didn't recognize it in the first place:
- She said speakers such as Col Pal would not have come to IU if Union Board hadn't organized the talk. (How about Colin Powell?)
- Perhaps you have used superlatives or other "sensational" words that don't belong in journalism unless they are written in a designated column (opinion or review), part of a quote or other attribution.
- Or, maybe you used a cliche ("cautiously optimistic," "noted expert") or some other tired phrase when your readers deserve better.
- You may have described something or someone in a subjective way (amazing, fantastic, traumatizing, or person is an "expert" or "world-reknowned"). If things truly are amazing or the person is an expert, describe that so that the reader can make this assessment:
- "In the last six seconds, the team rallied from a 20-point deficit to win the national championship." (Amazing)
- "Joe Blow, Pulitzer-winning columnist, discussed his interview techniques at the conference." (Pulitzer = authority)
- You have created a sentence that drives all the way around the block to arrive at one specific house; that is, you have used lots of words and phrases to say one thing. If you see "awk," try to break your paragraph or sentence apart into its bare bones, then start over. We always are seeking clarity; "awk" is a blanket of fog in our way.
- Avoid "etc." We are writers. Why would we need to use this? Instead, tell me what "etc." is.
- Avoid wordiness such as "held a meeting to discuss" How about met to discuss?
- Avoid "that" when you really mean "who" (people are "who")
- Do not use !!!!! No need for exclamation marks in good writing. If something is that exciting or alarming, use words to tell me about it.
- Like/Such as. Though it has taken over daily verbal usage, LIKE is not grammatically correct. Use SUCH AS, or AS, in some cases.
- Use strong verbs and adjectives. Weak verbs are forms of "do" and "to be." Weak adjectives include "very." Why waste your word count on these?
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