It was the best of Sentences, it was the worst of sentences.

by June Casagrande

  If you disagree, you're in good company. Some writers love parentheses and use them to the delight of their Readers. David Foster Wallace was king of the envelope-pushing parentheses:

  The CNN sound tech (Mark A., 29, from Atlanta, and after Jay the tallest person on the Trail, vertiginous to talk to, able to get a stick's boom mike directly over McCain's head from the back of even the thickest scrum) has brought out from a complexly padded case a Sony SX-Series Portable Digital Editor ($32,000 retail) and connected it to some headphones and to Jonathan Karl's Dell Latitudes laptop and cell phone, and the three of them are running the CNN videotape of this morning's South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy address, trying to find a certain place where Jonathan Karl's notes

  indicate that McCain said something like "Regardless of how Governor Bush and his surrogates have distorted my position on the death penalty . . ."

  (And if you think a 38-word parenthetical insertion plus a 2-word parenthetical insertion in a 126-word sentence is astounding, you should see the guy's footnotes. But I parenthetically digress. . .)

  This goes to show you how stupid prejudices are. Wallace was a prizewinning and critically acclaimed writer. So clearly, my small-minded view of parentheses doesn't apply. Still. . . how it burns in me.

  Wallace used parentheses to create a maze of ideas—a place where Readers can meander and explore. His parentheticals were devices used for the benefit of the Reader and not for the convenience of the writer. Many loved them. Me, I can appreciate what Wallace was doing, but I'm not a fan of these parentheticals and footnotes. I like my information served linear—one bite at a time.

  Parentheses can also be used as a sort of voice device—slipping in wry observations, ironies, exclamations, and other little bits of commentary:

  George told me he was going out for a pack of cigarettes (yeah, right) and that I shouldn't wait up.

  I have no problem with these parentheses. In fact, I like them. They create a nod or a wink or a whisper of "look out." They can add a layer of meaning or a caveat or humor. The difference to me is that, unlike the info-cramming parentheses that serve the writer, parentheses as a voice device serve the Reader.

  You can form your own opinions about parentheses and semicolons. Just remember who they're for.

  I edit a writer who does this a lot:

  "The menu is all new," Jones enthused.

  "Schools in the area are improving," Principal Wilson enthused.

  "I'm enthused," I enthused.

  Okay, maybe not that last one. But for all this writer's love of enthused for quotation attributions, guess how many times I've left it alone. Zero. Zippo. I change every single one. My justification is that, technically, this is an incorrect use of the verb. Look it up in a dictionary and you'll see that you can be enthused, you can even enthuse over something, but you can't enthuse something. It's not a transitive verb, at least not the way this writer uses it.

  But that's just my excuse. The real reason is that I find enthused annoying. In journalism circles, said is a virtue—simple, precise, and unadorned—and alternatives to it are considered frilly and silly. You don't have to agree, but be aware that lots of editors hold this view. Choose your alternatives to said with great care.

  Fiction gives you a little more creative elbow room, but not carte blanche. He hissed sometimes works. Screamed, hollered, moaned, explained, and replied all work well in some attributions. A lot of editors don't mind laughed for quotation attribution. I leave that one alone, but others change it. I change he extolled, and I consider echoed the sentiment a red flag telling me that the writer is just stringing together quotations, which doesn't qualify as writing.

  An attribution should tell the Reader who was speaking. If possible, it can also convey a bit more information, like emotion. But said shouldn't be thrown out just because the writer is hell-bent on flaunting her uniqueness or creativity.

  Here's another problem that crops up a lot in descriptive quotation attributions:

  "Our redesigned casino will be better than ever," general manager and CEO Michael Roberts said, suggesting visitors try out the new higher-paying slot machines and the redesigned poker room while visiting the property and adding that the restaurant is now open 24 hours as well.

  This goes back to our lesson on participles as modifiers. Adding, suggesting, noting, implying, referring to, and similar terms can all modify said, but some writers depend too much on this device. A quotation attribution is not an ideal place to squeeze in tons of extra information. When the result feels artificial, just make a new sentence or two.

  If you like to get creative with quotation attributions, do. But do so because it works, not because you want to show off or be different. When in doubt, remember that said is an old friend you can always fall back on.

  In Reading Like a Writer, Francine Prose excerpts the first sentence of Samuel Johnson's The Life of Savage. The sentence is 134 words long. But Prose, a veteran writing teacher, doesn't criticize Johnson's monster sentence. She praises it. Her reason: The sentence, Prose says, is "economical."

  The term economy of words crops up a lot in newspaper editing. When you're cranking out a hundred thousand copies a day on none-too-cheap newsprint, you're no fan of wasted ink. So, for as long as papers are printed on paper, there will continue to be a startling correlation between "all the news that's fit to print" and "all the news that fits." But economy of words is no less a virtue in an online article or an eight-hundred-page saga about hobbits or alien overlords. Why, you ask? I'll give you a moment to answer your own question. That's right. Because of the Reader. His time is valuable, his attention span may be short, his opportunities for diversions are infinite, and his willingness to read your writing is a blessing for which you should be grateful.

  Don't waste his time. Learn to root out flabby writing and to streamline sentences to make every word count.

  There's a difference between fatty sentences and long sentences. Yes, they're often one and the same. But not always. A 134-word sentence can be tight and economical, while an 8-word sentence can contain 7 words of lard—or even 8.

  Keeping the blubber out of your sentences is no easy feat. Fatty prose sneaks into writing in many ways. It can take the form of an unnecessary adverb, a ridiculous redundancy, a self-conscious over-explaining, a cliche, or jargon. You should develop the habit of always considering whether your sentence would be better if you chopped out or swapped out a word, phrase, or clause. Develop the habit of considering whether each sentence is itself an asset or a liability.

  In this chapter, we'll look at the fatty sentence problems that are easiest to fix—the unnecessary words and verbose little insertions that so often plague writers. We'll also look at the scary-sounding but really quite simple concepts of run-on sentences and comma splices. We'll save the deeper structural problems for the next chapter.

  Adjectives can contribute to fatty prose. Considering how indispensable they are, that's surprising. Yet, often, they're dead weight.

  Take, for example, this much-maligned first sentence of The Da Vinci Code:

  Renowned curator Jacques Sauniere staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum's Grand Gallery.

  There are two adjectives in this sentence, not counting Grand, which is part of a proper name. One of our two adjectives is fine. The other is—I'm not the first to say it—terrible.

  Vaulted is serviceable. Not good, not bad. It may help some Readers make a mental picture. To others it may add nothing to archway. But it's justified.

  Renowned, however, stinks. And that's not just my opinion. Linguist Geoffrey Pullum has made the same observation: this Da Vinci Code sentence contains a classic example of an adjective trying to stand in for real information. Remember, this is the first sentence of the book, and already the author is telling us what to think about one of his characters and shirking his due diligence to show us why this character is renowned.

  So what's the alternative to The Da Vinci Code's ap
proach? Let's look at some other writers' choices:

  In the late summer of 1922, my grandmother Desdemona Stephanides wasn't predicting births but deaths, specifically, her own.

  In this passage from Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides doesn't say my eccentric grandmother, my hypochondriac grandmother, or my neurotic grandmother. Within a few sentences, it will become clear that she is all those things: "Desdemona became what she'd remain for the rest of her life: a sick person imprisoned in a healthy body." Eugenides didn't need to slap an adjective in front of grandmother to make his point.

  Let's look at another example of an adjective that never was:

  It's somewhere above Nebraska I remember I left my fish behind.

  Chuck Palahniuk could have written my beloved fish or even my beloved butterscotch-colored fish. He didn't. He started chapter 39 of Survivor with that simple sentence, then waited awhile to add, "It's crazy, but you invest all your emotion in just this one tiny goldfish, even after six hundred and forty goldfish, and you can't just let the little thing starve to death." That's how we know that it's beloved and that it's gold.

  In other words, perhaps the best way to fix our Da Vinci Code sentence is to get rid of the adjective renowned altogether—maybe even get rid of the modifying noun curator and the adjective vaulted—and wait for a better opportunity to convey the information. No doubt, that's what some more critically acclaimed writers would have done:

  Jacques Sauniere staggered through the archway of the museum's Grand Gallery.

  Adjectives aren't bad. They can be wonderful, and as predicates they can work perfectly: Frau Helga was tall.

  But adjectives are no substitute for solid information. Often they have that less-is-more thing working against them: The big, terrifying, homicidal, totally out-of-control escaped convict ran toward me does not achieve its desired effect. Better to just say, The escaped convict ran toward me and leave it at that.

  If it helps, divide adjectives into two categories: facts and value judgments. Adjectives that express fact can be fine. But adjectives that impose value judgments on your Reader are trouble. Bloodied and limping curator Jacques Sauniere, though awkward, is still better than Awesome and brilliant curator Jacques Sauniere.

  Worse, sometimes adjectives are meaningless. The exact same means the same. The only difference is that in the exact same, it's clear the writer is trying to pound home her point. As we know, this can backfire, weakening the point.

  If all this talk about adjectives reminds you of our adverbs chapter, there's a good reason for that. Adjectives and adverbs carry the same risks. Here's an example:

  The freshly rejuvenated $70-million Sands Resort & Spa hearkens to Vegas's glory days.

  Unless you're actively trying to root out wasteful words, you might not notice that the word freshly modifying rejuvenated is about as meaningful as freshly refreshed. Pure redundancy.

  Look at the sentence without the goldbricking adverb:

  The rejuvenated $70-million Sands Resort & Spa hearkens to Vegas's glory days.

  The freshly had a brain-numbing effect, as if the writer used it just to meet a word count minimum. The streamlined version, though just one word shorter, emphasizes substance. It has more power to command the Reader's attention.

  As we saw in chapter 7, manner adverbs can backfire, making an idea seem weak even as it struggles to make it strong. But adverbs can also create redundancies: already existing, previously done, first begin, currently working.

  Of course, adverbs need not be redundant to be flabby:

  Sarah quickly grabbed a knife. Sarah grabbed a knife.

  Does quickly really add anything to the sentence? Or does the less-is-more principle render the second sentence better? Some may disagree, and there may be times when quickly adds a crucial bit of information. But to me this sentence better conveys immediacy without the word quickly.

  Watch out for manner adverbs that add no solid information: extremely, very, really, incredibly, unbelievably, astonishingly, totally, truly, currently, presently, formerly, previously.

  Also watch out for ones that try too hard to add impact to actions: cruelly, happily, wantonly, angrily, sexily, alluringly, menacingly, blissfully.

  All these words have their place. They appear in the best writing, but more often they're found in the worst writing. So consider them red flags and weigh their use carefully.

  Adverbs and adjectives aren't the only flabby accessories that show up in writing. Here's an example modeled after a real sentence I came across in my copyediting work:

  In addition to on-the-clock volunteer opportunities, ABC Co. also offers standard healthcare benefits, adoption assistance and flexible scheduling to help employees cultivate work/life balance.

  I hate in addition to. Don't get me wrong, I write it all the time. And only about half the time do I remember that Writer June is doing something Reader June can't stand. But just because I'm guilty of this one doesn't mean I have much sympathy for the writer who throws an unnecessary in addition to my way.

  Not every in addition to is bad. Sometimes it's a valid choice. But usually, in addition to refers to something that's already been discussed at length. In our sample sentence, it's clear that the reader already knows something about the on-the-clock volunteer opportunities being discussed. Chances are that the writer just finished discussing them and was looking for a segue to the next topic. In other words, she was saying, "In addition to the stuff I just told you about, here's another thing."

  You can achieve the same effect by saying, Here's another thing. Or better yet, just get to the other thing.

  This brings us to another problem with our original sentence: The in addition to phrase introduces a clause that contains the word also. This is a redundancy. It renders the entire in addition to phrase a complete waste. The writer should have simply said,

  ABC Co. also offers standard healthcare benefits, adoption assistance and flexible scheduling to help employees cultivate work/life balance.

  We could also ask, Do we need to say to help employees cultivate work/life balance? The answer is more subjective, but it's worth considering whether we should chop it out.

  There are a lot of other little phrases that, like in addition to, can be pure fat. In the original Elements of Style, William Strunk Jr. told his Cornell students, "Omit needless words," then went on to list examples. "The question as to whether," Strunk wrote, can be just "whether." "Used for fuel purposes" can be "used for fuel." "This is a subject which" can be just "this subject."

  Strunk was especially emphatic with his students about the fact (hat: "The expression the fact that should be revised out of every sen-tence in which it occurs."

  The Elements of Style was not written as a book of universal writing laws. It was a classroom style guide for Strunk's Cornell students. So you can discard any advice in it you don't agree with. But there's some wisdom you can use here. Consider whether these expressions are indeed needless, and if so, delete them.

  I'm more liberal on the fact that. Sometimes it's the best way to show that an abstract concept is functioning as a noun:

  That Robbie steals means he's a thief.

  The fact that Robbie steals means he's a thief.

  Because the fact is a noun phrase, it's more easily recognized as a subject than the subordinate clause that Robbie steals. Still, there's wisdom in the traditional caveat. The fact that is often pure lard. Use it as a measure of last resort after you've considered recasting the sentence:

  Because Robbie steals, he's a thief.

  I'm more conservative on due to the fact that. That's just a tedious way of saying because.

  Other flabby figures of speech to watch out for include in terms of for his part, he is a man who, the exact same, taking into account, as if this weren't enough, considering all that—the list goes on.

  He is a man who and other terms with this structure are especially troubling: It is a place that, dancing is an activity that, John's is a house that
, cooking is a thing that. They all follow the form

  noun/pronoun + to be + noun/pronoun that refers to the

  same thing as first + relative pronoun

  This structure shifts the focus away from the important stuff by dedicating the main clause to ridiculously obvious information:

  He is a man who works very hard.

  Paris is a place that gets snow.

  Dancing is an activity that amounts to good exercise.

  John's (house) is a house that was built in the 1800s.

  In all these sentences, the new information is trapped in the relative clause—those clauses that begin with that, which, who, or whom and that we learned about in chapter 8. The main clause is devoid of new information. It has the same problem as the upside-down subordination we covered in chapter 2 because the most interesting information isn't getting top billing in the sentence.

  To fix a sentence with this structure, just make the new information your main clause:

  Keep your eyes peeled for this construction and be prepared to correct it.

  Here's another term that is often a waste of ink: for his part. You'd think it would be rare. But I've seen it quite a few times in my copy-editing work. This is a slight alteration of a real sentence I copyedited:

  For Brady's part, as the director of the Center for Computer Security at the Information Institute at the university, emphasis is on training students for the programming path.

  This sentence has a number of problems, but none so glaring or so easily fixed as for Brady's part. For Brady says the same thing with fewer words. In fact, I can't think of a situation in which for so-and-so's part is better than just for so-and-so.

  And here's an oddball little construction that crops up a lot in feature writing: from blank to blank. There's nothing wrong with from . . . to constructions, so it astounds me that they're so often the culprit in bad sentences. Here are some examples I've run across in my copyediting work:

  Everything from what software will be needed to how someone will book a trip and pay needs to be developed for the business.