What Goes On In My Head When I Edit
Just for the hell of it I thought I’d do a mental inventory of all the thoughts that flow through my head when I’m editing a piece. The writer of the piece I edited isn’t exactly one of the stronger writers in the stable. Most times I have to frown to make sense of his linguistic ability.
So…let’s begin.
You know editing a piece will hurt when the first typo happens in the title and it’s ‘invesing’. (investing)
There is no such word as ‘noteworthily’.
‘Demand of index funds’ is not the same as ‘demand for index funds’.
The ‘need for direct ownership’ should never be confused with the ‘need of direct ownership’. One is the desire to own, the other is what a pet desires. In fact, you don’t ‘need direct ownership’ when simple ‘direct ownership’ will do. Wordy prick.
Capture the sectorial index movement? Capture the sector’s movement instead!
When someone says ‘because 2008 was a bear market, we’re not surprised to see long-only funds post losses’, someone deserves an award for head-slappingly-obvious statements.
You bloody well define your terms for the end-reader who may or may not posses the specialist knowledge to understand your so-called writing. And if you make your editor trawl the Internet in search of some technical term, don’t be surprised if you piss him off. You might think the universe revolves around you and that writing for the common folk is beneath your 200-point IQ (and that such menial tasks are left to editors and that they should just do their job and no complain, my response to which is to keep reading), but let me assure you that your IQ and your universe revolves a lot faster when both meet my fist.
So that’s roughly the thoughts that go through my head. I’m very thankful that this was a short article, otherwise I’d be screaming bloody murder. To every editor that regularly deals with unhealthy senses of entitlement, I salute you.
