Monday, February 18, 2008

Smothering you with style

These are new style mistakes that were recently caught by copy editors.

Example one:
Raw copy, wrong--"approve a plan to boost by ten-fold"
It should be--"approve a plan to boost by tenfold"
AP Stylebook says: No hyphen.

Example two:
Raw copy, wrong--"potentially cutting air fares"
It should be--"potentially cutting airfares"
AP Stylebook says: One word.

Example three:
Raw copy, wrong--"investigator who posed on-line"
It should be--"investigator who posed online"

Example four:
Raw copy, wrong--"to pay for damages to the school"
It should be--"to pay for damage to the school"
AP Stylebook says: Damage is destruction: Authorities said damage from the storm would total more than $1 billion. Damages are awarded by a court as compensation for injury, loss, etc.: The Woman received $25,000 in damages.

Example five:
Raw copy, wrong--"cause of the blaze that completely destroyed the structure"
It should be--"cause of the blaze that destroyed the structure"
AP Stylebook says: Demolish and destroy mean to do away with something completely. Something cannot be partially demolished or destroyed. It is redundant to say totally demolished or totally destroyed.
Or in this case, completely destroyed.

Example six:
Raw copy, wrong--"smothering her to death with a pillow"
It should be--"smothering her with a pillow"
It's redundant to write smother to death. The definition for smother in Webster's is: a) to keep from getting enough air to breathe; stifle. b) to kill in this way; suffocate.

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