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>Great post! Any time I see "armamentarium" I know I'm gonna like it, though
>I might have opted for "quiver" myself ;-)
Depends if you're hunting 'possum or girding for battle, I guess.
>And .. I sympathize, and even understand your quandary. While I'm a decent
>writer, I don't think I could deconstruct a sentence and correctly label all
>its various types of clauses. Not that I never knew, just that I couldn't do
>it now. Maybe with a good grammar reference at hand.
Yeah, John, I know. You forget that I've edited your work <seg>
>
>But ... does an editor have to know what it's called? Or do they really just
>need to spot something amiss and be able to get the writer to then recognize
>and change it?
That's not a totally unreasonable position, but I see it as being both time-consuming and non-reproducible. If what I am aiming for is continuous improvement (in the sense that I want each of my clients to get better with time and reduce the editing burden as a result), then I want my editors to have the vocabulary--and be able to teach the vocabulary--to talk about the written language with those clients.
It isn't just about getting the prose right. It's also about getting the writer to write right.
>I guess what I'm getting at is that (god I'm starting to
>sound more like Andrew!) the results of their editing may count more than
>their ability to explicate what they do and how they do it. I re-read this
>and see myself arguing for intuitive editing, and hearing voices of long ago
>when I was "discussing" comments with my editor and asking "But WHY is that
>bad? It SOUNDS right to me!"
>
>Ah, the problem of seeing an argument from both sides ...
>
>
Oh, were you one of those pimply geeks in Debate Club, too?
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