1) Loathsome:
Saturday, 14 May 2011
Costly Mistakes
The Australian Financial Review is quite a pricey paper, which is why we expect it to have higher standards than the rest - except it doesn't:
1) Loathsome:
2) Comma, apostrophe, whatever comes to hand:
3) When you've only got one pilot to deal with, consensus is easier to achieve:
4) Can anyone else make sense of the sentence beginning, 'The SME sector ...':
5) Singular verbs and plural subjects don't go:
6) Neither ... nor seems to get people muddled; this is wrong:
1) Loathsome:
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None of these writers should have been let loose on a typewriter or word-processing program before reading Jacques Barzun and Henry Graff _The Modern Researcher_. The chapter on good writing style would do for a start. Here's some words I warned my students not to use in their essays.
ReplyDeletebasic, concept, context, emphasise, essential, initial (=first)
however, in terms of, while.
apparently (ironic), curious(ly), devastating, dimension (figurative), formulate (= say), insight,
literally (figurative), precisely, state (= say).
accent, angle, climax, highlight, pinpoint, reroute, slant.
approach (noun), background, bitter, crucial, drastic, emphasise, factors, forte.
key (adjective), picture, situation, stimulating.
connive (= conspire), consensus of opinion, disinterested (= uninterested).
overly, presently (= now), too [I don’t feel too well.”], end product, free gift.
HOWEVER, I use an awful lot of them in my blog these days, just because I can! :)
In item 4, transposing "are various" to "various are" yields sense if not grace.
ReplyDeleteThat's true, George, but you've still got the unmatched verbs
ReplyDeleteDenis, that's gone straight to the pool room