Ask Me a Question

If you have a writing, grammar, style or punctuation question, send an e-mail message to curiouscase at sign hotmail dot com.

Add Your Own Criminal Sentence!

If you find a particularly terrible sentence somewhere, post it for all to see (go here and put it in the Comments section).

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Criminal Sentence 670: This Time, a Criminal Editor

From today's newspaper, in a column explaining the jet stream:

"They are created by temperature contrasts which create pressure difference. Those contrasts create pressure differences and those pressure differences create winds."

Sounds a bit repetitive, huh? Well, it's clear that the writer's original sentence was the first one and then the copyeditor fixed it to be the second sentence (changing passive voice to active voice, and removing the "which"). However, the editor forgot to delete the original sentence. Oops!

As an editor, I edit original sentences like this one all the time. It's an editor's job to improve the text, not introduce errors, however. I try my best to reread what I've just edited, especially in a heavily edited piece.

This Criminal Sentence is a good reminder for me to do just that, and non-editors should reread their work, too!

Thursday, June 4, 2015