I apologize for all those trekkies who got here believing this was a discussion on or a recipe for Klingon food. The fact that I know this should tell you a lot about me.
All editors have things that annoy them. I finally broke down and decided to list some of the latest irks. I’ll avoid the jargon–going forward (ho!)–that plagues us unless it is something so egregious–talent (gaak)–that I can’t help myself.
Number 1: Is Comprised of
Why do people turn a great verb into something like the passive voice but isn’t? From the publisher’s introduction to Stephen Shore’s book, “American Surfaces”, comes “The book is comprised of a
chronological sequence of photographs…” Hey, it’s just “the bookcomprises”. This prompted the post.
Number 2: On a (weekly, daily, monthly, hourly) basis
Why add three useless words? Do people think it sounds more important? Of course they do. That’s why people write and talk like that. Puff up your chest and adjust your chin wattles then roll it out of your
gob. Adverbs are lovely. Adverbs are a bane, though, so when you need one, just use it and get it done, unless you are a sadist who enjoys slowly ripping a bandage off of someone, making sure to pull every hair out by the follicle and stretch the skin to the tearing point.
Number 3: people thinking that business is the bringer of Doom and Destruction
Pah! Try reading blurbs about art. Since becoming hooked on Google Reader and subscribing to scads of art and photo sites, I now look at the stuff I get handed more fondly, even gratefully. Yes, using “synergize” three times in two sentences is terrible, but stating that a photo of a rock “speaks of the endless dichotomy between the ethereal realm of ideas, the Platonic sphere, merely glimpsed as shadows upon that cave wall, and the physical world, whose concrete monoliths crowd the sky and threaten us with their looming blackness in the night” is an enema of ground glass. Business English can mere look wistfully up through an overpriced telescope at the lofty peaks of pretension that art criticism reaches.
