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Politeness in editing (was: When the thesaurus attacks...)
Subject:Politeness in editing (was: When the thesaurus attacks...) From:Edwyn Kumar <bastion -at- telus -dot- net> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 10 Dec 2001 22:54:40 -0800
on 12/10/01 2:56 PM, Jo Baer at jbaer -at- mailbox1 -dot- tcfbank -dot- com eloquently
stated:
> I would indeed suggest the shorter words, along with a comment starting with
> "In my
> experience..." or "I've found..." and ending with something about why short
> words
> are better.
To answer the original question, I would suggest that "invoke" is
inappropriate. I would hate to read my car manual and discover that it
advises to "propel the vehicle in a forward manner by putting the pedal to
the metal!".
The original use of "invoke" is not standard and also has the negative
effect of alluding to religious/magical/esoteric type of terminology which
should be avoided unless writing in that genre or subject. Unless the writer
has some inside information on the software provider embedding magical
effects in the program, I suggest "run", "start", "open" or other
terminology.
"Relocate" seems to be an attempt at using a word other than "move" or
"hide", and is indeed a case of "thesaurusitis"! Careful, it's contagious.
:)
However, in dealing with edits, Jo Baer suggested starting with or ending
with a phrase or clause (I would guess to save the writer's ego and
feelings).
While I applaud this gesture of etiquette, in a massive edit of several
thousand words it gets weighty and unnecessary.
I have edited manuscripts well over 80,000 words, and there is no way I
would use "A better way to do this. . ." or "Just in case you were
wondering. . ." as a precursor to the meat of the edit commentary.
In this instance, I would use the following edit: "W/C=Invoke"
W/C means "Word Choice" followed by the word in question.
In a first draft, I would leave it at that, maybe with a suggestion in
brackets, such as "W/C=Invoke (Run, Open)".
The purpose of an edit is to give the writer solid information on how to
increase the quality of their manuscript. Often, these suggestions can be
blunt, harsh, straight-forward and very hurtful from a personal standpoint,
but highly effective from a technical, grammatical and contextual
perspective.
I'd rather have a brutal edit, a stellar manuscript and positive reviews, as
opposed to a kind edit, mediocre manuscript and brutal reviews!
Hope some of that helps.
Cheers,
--
Edwyn Kumar
Endymion and Icarus Design mailto:bastion -at- telus -dot- net
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