ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

victim waves goodbye to anonymity

throw anonymity in the air
and wave it like you you just don't care

omg the picture of the week: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00482/POTW_06_02_09_05_482219d.jpg

lol trying to think of a humorous circumstance under which that sentence would make sense but no, it's just rong

The first delivery on board a new generation Q-Flex tanker, with a capacity of 211,885 cu metres of LNG, is currently on route to the South Hook terminal in Wales.

So, initially I was just going to change it to en route, but can you actually use that expression like that? ie prepositionally? Dictionary just lists it as an adverb.

Easy to change the sentence to "on the way", but out of interest ...

"I admired the mountain, from which five corries have been ripped out of its east-facing slopes."

This construction seems wrong to me. The "its" is where it jars. I've come across this problem before, but am not very articulate when it comes to syntax. Am I right to think there's something wrong?

It's also that you've got "from which" but then "ripped out" - first you're careful to put the preposition up front, then not.

"I admired the mountain, from whose east-facing slopes five corries had been ripped"?

"Five corries had been ripped out of the mountain's east-facing slopes."

I would ditch the whole admire part or put it in another sentence

Yeah.

also "have" and "admired" are different tenses

"I admired the mountain, from whose east-facing slopes five corries had been ripped"

i like this but it's a bit much

"I admired the mountain, whose east-facing slopes had been badly brutalized by having five corries ripped unceremoniously from their rocky shoulders"

I admired the mountain, whose east-facing slopes had been brutalized when five corries were ripped unceremoniously from their rocky shoulders.

OK YES YES FINE

wtf is a corrie

i still think the admired part should go

xpost exactly. that's the real question

Hahaha I have to find out if I'm alone in this: any time someone on this thread is like "you should just remove that part," I wind up feeling like someone has an exaggerated sense of the power/importance of copyeditors in the universe -- is this just me? Do you UK broadsheet folks really have that level of leeway? Even doing jobs where I've felt like I have some of that power, it's like ... the "re-write it entirely" or "leave that part out" suggestions are always funny, like: well, if I were writing this I'd probably be getting paid more.

hmmm i hear ya nabisco but i think the admired part should go in another sentence, since the most important part of the sentence seems to be about these mysterious corries.

Sorry, I wasn't looking for a rewrite. I can recast the sentence - I was just trying to pinpoint the root of the problem. As hinted at by Tracer, I think it's that the sentence has the corries being ripped from both the mountain and its east-facing slopes.

"I admired the mountain, from whose east-facing slopes"

I am never sure about whether "whose" is OK for non-humans.

Nabisco - I think the job of the UK subeditor and the US copy editor are rather different, not least when it comes to power. Yes, you can rewrite things. If you work a tabloid, subbing wire copy, then it all has to be rewritten to a tight house style anyway.

A lot of the time you're cutting stuff right back to fit anyway, so just chopping out unclear sections kills two birds with one stone.

We often check major changes/cuts with the desk editor concerned, or the writer.

so what's a corrie

It's this thing.

"I admired the mountain, from which five corries had been ripped out of its east-facing slopes."

This is the only edit I would make.

(at least without knowing context)

no actually I lied:

"I admired the mountain; five corries had been ripped out of its eastern slopes."

The fact that the mountain was able to withstand having five corries ripped out of its east-facing slops made me admire it all the more.

(btw this is a corrie)

"I admired the mountain; five corries had been ripped out of its eastern slopes."

Is that not implying too heavily that the corrie-ripping was why you admired the mountain?

"I admired the mountain, from the east-facing slopes of which five corries had been ripped out"

(replacing 'whose')

Is that not implying too heavily that the corrie-ripping was why you admired the mountain?

Possibly. I mean, the assumption is that the corrie-ripping is part of the reason why you're admiring the mountain in the first place, otherwise why mention it?

I am with Que; put the corries in another sentence.

That's interesting. I reguarly leave such asides in sentences, rather than make them into new ones.

if you're going to leave an "aside" like that in the sentence, it's probably not a good idea to begin the sentence with it.

"I admired the mountain, pockmarked with five corries on its eastern slopes."

Alba I have the same queasiness over using "who" for non-humans too.

Who the fuck admires a mountain is what I want to know.

LOL I was just about to post that! I mean, what the hell did the mountain ever do that's so admirable? Give up some corries? Well, la-di-fucking-da!

admired visually, guys

MF admirer "to marvel at"

Admirable Mountain:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y95/pauldoyle/Mountain-TheBestOfMountain-1973.jpg

Admiration! The mountain! Five corries — GONE!

The sentence I posted wasn't the actual one I was dealing with. I changed some words and truncated it, to protect the innocent.

"I admired Alfie, from which five barely pubescent sperm have been ripped out of his just-dropping nuts."

Please leave the classroom.

yeah I deserve a lot of scorn for that one

Ok, this one always seemed clear to me, but apparently some others in my area disagree. Paraphrasing:

- Your cancer risk will be half that of your father.
- Your cancer risk will be half that of your father's.

It seemed obvious to me that the first one was right. "That of" is possessive. "Your cancer risk will be half (the cancer risk of) your father."

The second statement seems to me to have a double possessive -- making it say, non-sensically, that you're half as likely to get cancer as your father's chance of getting cancer is of getting cancer.

Some people seem to have the opposite preference -- am I missing something here? Can you detect the reasoning behind the second way?

Your cancer risk will be half that of your father's (cancer risk.)

??

hahaha maybe i shouldn't post on this thread but they both read equally clumsy and horrible to me?

I'm with PP here; the assumption you're making re: the first instance doesn't scan for me.

I'm with Nabisco -- although the first one may sound odd, it doesn't make sense any other way.