EDITING FOR GRAMMAR

Although most writers and editors have received extensive training in written English, we still make mistakes—all the time.

The Careful Writer, Words into Type, The Elements of Style and other sources offer voluminous instruction and examples for writers and editors. This article will address some problems that editors commonly encounter.

PARTS OF SPEECH

Distinguishing Nouns and Verbs from Adjectives, Adverbs and Other Modifiers

Some writers confuse adjectives with verb phrases. Pickup is an adjective, as in “a pickup game of softball,” or a noun, as in “driving a pickup.” Pick up is a verb phrase, or a verb actually made up of two words—a verb and an adverb. Typically, the noun and adjective forms are one word, whereas the verbs are phrases of two or more words. For example:

WRONG: “Pickup the paper off the floor.”

RIGHT: “Pick up the paper off the floor.”

In these cases, pay attention to pronunciation and word usage to determine whether it is an adjective or verb phrase. When in doubt, check the dictionary.

Change of Person in Pronouns

Take a look at this quotation from The First Salute. “He slips in an interesting admission when he wonders if such action might make ‘the enemy’s thirst for peace be equal to our own,’” Barbara Tuchman wrote. Here, a quotation is being used to complete a thought within a sentence. He is third person, but our is first person.

If the first person is used