Try your hand at catching errors or making other refinements in these recent news stories.
1. Gov. John Kasich has spent 130 days of the last 10 months on the road outside of Ohio as he campaigns for president.
2. With the Pelicans (18-32) hovering around, Irving and James made the right amount of plays in the final quarter to extend the Cavaliers’ lead to 12 midway through.
3. Prior, he had missed his last 18 3-pointers.
4. Beth and Barb’s mutual love of wellness activities sparked their decision to start their own health program for women their age.
The answers
1. Gov. John Kasich has spent 130 days of the last 10 months on the road outside of Ohio as he campaigns for president.
Regular readers will note one of my pet peeves: using “of” when it’s superfluous. So we want “outside Ohio,” not “outside of Ohio.” Another refinement I’d make is not presenting related stats in two ways (“130 days of the last 10 months”). Why not just simplify with “130 of the past 300 days”?
2. With the Pelicans (18-32) hovering around, Irving and James made the right amount of plays in the final quarter to extend the Cavaliers’ lead to 12 midway through.
“Hovering” is a fresh verb for the sports pages, but do we need “around”? Isn’t that implied in “hovering”? And then we have “amount of plays” when we want “number of plays.” (Whenever we can count items, we want “number.” So it’s “number of eggs” but “amount of milk.”)
Two other comments:
A) Even corrected, “made the right number of plays” is awkward and vague. What is the right number? And what kind of plays? Unselfish plays? Defensive plays?
B) Using the preposition “through” at the end might seem like an error, but we are allowed to end sentences with prepositions, and here that works because we know the writer is referring to the final quarter.
3. Prior, he had missed his last 18 3-pointers.
Two points about “prior,” an adjective:
A) It is frowned upon by many experts if “before” will do the job. So for those of us into plain English, “before the party” is the choice over “prior to the party,” and “prior” gets trotted out only as an adjective (e.g., “prior project” or “prior engagement”).
B) Here, “prior” is dead wrong because it’s standing alone to introduce the rest of the sentence. An adverb like “previously” would be correct and not distract the reader.
4. Beth and Barb’s mutual love of wellness activities sparked their decision to start a health program for women their age.
This is how a TV feature started, and the first five words, I thought, were introducing a story about a same-sex couple. Maybe they recently got married? But no. It was a story about a business founded by two friends. The problem was the misuse of “mutual.” A mutual love is reciprocal. But if you and I both love chocolate or snorkeling, we have a shared or common love.
In addition to presenting workshops on writing in the workplace, Norm is a writer, editor, and writing coach. His 100+ Instant Writing Tips is a brief “non-textbook” to help individuals overcome common writing errors and write with more finesse and impact. Learn more at http://www.normfriedman.com/index.shtml.