Judy Hagey Editor
Write Justified
Repetition is a great learning device and a useful literary tool, when used judiciously. Redundancy, on the other hand, is essential in situations where a backup system prevents complete failure, but it should be avoided in your writing.
Parallel structure is as essential for good writing as it is for railroad tracks. Just as railroad tracks must be level and equally spaced to insure a safe ride, elements within a sentence that are alike in function should also be alike in construction. Failure to do so results in faulty parallelism.
I don’t remember the erroneous sentence, but I well remember my embarrassment when it was pointed out to me that I had written illicit when I should have used elicit. To spare you a similar embarrassment, allow me to explain the difference between the two.
“My son,” wrote the proud mother, “was excepted…” Her Facebook post went on to share her joy that her child was chosen to participate in an event for children like her son who have lost a limb. No doubt, her son is exceptional. But the correct term to describe her son’s selection, is accepted. Accept is always a verb meaning “to receive” (as a gift or promotion), agree to or believe (accept the decision of the judge), or to take responsibility (accept the duties of office).
With no apologies to Stephen Pastis, creator of Pearls Before Swine, I offer this week’s Word of the Week --- a post that was written weeks before this strip appeared:
As if two-word homophones aren’t confusing enough, today we tackle the to-too-two dilemma. Too much for you? Not if you keep a few definitions in mind.
Last weekend we made the 1600-mile trip for my family’s annual reunion. As usual, it was a whirlwind trip as we attempted to see as many relatives and friends as possible in three days. And as usual, it’s left me feeling discombobulated.
Engaging prose makes good use of modifiers. Descriptive words---adjectives, adverbs, and phrases---add the kind of detail that draws the reader into a
story or clarifies a piece of nonfiction. But beware the misplaced modifier. Confusion or unintended humor can result when the descriptive word or phrase is placed too far from the word it modifies.
Hearing this line in a recent news report got me thinking about oxymorons.
Niggle is an onomatopoetic word—one of several in the English language that sound like their meaning. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the original British meaning of niggle referred to small, cramped handwriting. I suppose trying to read such writing could be niggling.
